MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 4! 



vania was taken in 1867 on Bennett's Branch." See Hist. Elk Co. (Chicago), 

 1890, pp. 573 and 578. "Colonel Cecil Clay informs me that an Indian 

 whom he knew killed one in Pennsylvania in 1869." Theodore Roosevelt, 

 in Forum, Aug., 1893. "The last Elk that I know about was killed on 

 Crooked Creek in this [Elk] county about 33 years ago [1866] by Corn- 

 planter Indians from the N. York reservation." " These Indians killed one 

 elk and took out the other alive (a buck) in the winter of 1866 or early in 

 the spring of 1867. They captured the elk with muzzled dogs and by use of 

 snow shoes. Crooked Creek rises at the foot of the ridge in Elk Co. that 

 divides the waters of the Susquehanna and Clarion Rivers." Cap. Clay* 

 " Mr. Seth Nelson stated to me that one of the last elk known to have been 

 killed in that region was secured on Bennett's Branch, Elk county, by a party 

 of Cornplanter Indians about 1865. A hunter, Wilson Morrison, brought the 

 carcass of an elk about that time to Lock Haven [in a boat] claiming that he 

 killed it, but it was afterward understood that he paid $25 to the Indians for 

 it." See Rhoads Proc. A. N. Sci., 1897, p. 208. In regard to the Utica 

 Globe article (see foot-note, supra cit.), Nelson has since informed me that 

 the dates are very misleading. His father and Parmenter did not hunt this 

 elk in 1867 as there stated but about 1835 or '36. The story of how the 

 Indian, Jim Jacobs, outwitted them is correct. The elk was killed upon or 

 near the site of the town of St. Mary's, then on "West," now Elk, Creek. 

 When the railroad was graded through this region Flag Pond and Swamp 

 were drained off. It consisted of " one acre of water surrounded widely by 

 flags and willows." Possibly it was a salt or licking pond. This is almost cer- 

 tainly the same locality mentioned as being at the head of Bennett's Branch 

 in the History of Elk Co., its waters flowing on one side into Trout Run of 

 that Branch of the Susquehanna and on the other into Elk Creek, a tributary 

 of the Clarion River. Nelson states this 1835 elk was started in Potter Co. 

 and that it was by no means the " Last Elk of the Sinnemahoning," as stated 

 in the newspaper, for while tracking it his father saw signs of several others, 

 "The last elk supposed to have been killed in Penna. was killed by Geo. 

 Gaylord of Tioga Co., I think about 30 years ago." W. C. Babcock, Oct., 

 1899. " I do not know the exact time that brother George [Gaylord] 

 killed the elk, but it was soon after the Civil war. He sent the horns to a 

 man in Philadelphia. He said that the horns had five prongs." Mrs. J. H, 

 Harmon, W'ellsboro, Pa., Oct., 1899. A five-prong buck elk was killed by 

 Geo. W. Gaylord of Farrandsville and James David of Beech Creek on Hick's 

 Run of Bennett's Branch of the Sinnemahoning River, 25 miles from Drift- 

 wood, near the line between Elk and Cameron counties. It was boated down 

 to Farrandsville, Clinton Co. Weight over 500 Ibs. This was in the year 

 1862. C. C. Pfoutz (in his first letter). In a later letter giving more exact 

 information, Mr. Pfoutz reiterates the identity of the men, Gaylord and 



