THE VANISHING MOOSE. 



349 



A deer when started by a hunter or driven by 

 hounds usually returns in a few days to the same 

 hill or mountain-side where he was first found ; 

 but a moose, when once thoroughly alarmed, 

 will start on a long swinging walk, and, taking 

 with him his entire family, leave for good. 

 It is one of the greatest difficulties — and there 

 are many — in still-hunting this animal, to avoid 

 getting him under way, for then the hunter 

 may as well break camp and try other fields, 

 since not a moose will be found within miles. 

 They scent a moccasin track or the smoke 

 of a fire at an incredible distance. A fresh 

 trail may be found one day, and arrangements 

 made to follow it at daybreak on the mor- 

 row. During the night the moose, returning 

 to his old haunts, detects the danger-signs, and 

 all the hunters find in the morning is a trail 

 six or eight hours old leading for parts unknown 

 in an almost perfectly straight line. The moose 

 is at that moment, perhaps, twenty miles off, 

 and still going. 



Although moose cannot be driven to water 

 by hounds like a deer, but will turn savagely 

 to bay, still they will not remain in a locality 

 where dogs are running; so that when the 

 white hunters became numerous in the North 

 •Woods, and especially when they introduced 

 hounding, the moose simply left the country, 

 and passed either eastward to Maine or north- 

 ward to Canada. 



It is a well-authenticated but little-known 

 fact that they practically left in one season. 

 They were numerous in the Adirondacks, es- 

 pecially in Brown's Tract, — a large district in 

 what is now the southwestern part of the wil- 

 derness — until the period between 1850 and 

 1855 (probably near the latter year), when they 

 suddenly disappeared. Before this several had 

 been killed yearly. Scattered ones were shot 

 later, but 1855 marked their exit from the an- 

 nals of New York game. Years later, four or 

 five were brought back to Saranac, but would 

 not stay. 



An account of the localities in which moose 

 were killed during the last few years of their 

 existence in the Adirondacks will be interest- 

 ing, and in time prove of great historical value. 

 The data have been collected with great care. 



From the following facts 1861 appears to be 

 the year of their final disappearance, although 

 so high an authority as Mr. Verplanck Colvin 

 asserts that the year 1863 is more correct, and 

 that for several seasons after the latter date 

 their browsings and tracks were seen. 



John Constable, a well-known s]3ortsman 

 and hunter, killed two moose near Indepen- 

 dence Creek, Herkimer County, in 1851, and 

 in the winter of 1852-53 shot his last one west 

 of Charley Pond. That same season Alonzo 

 Wood and Edward Arnold shot two moose, 



and found another dead, in the forest back of 

 Seventh Lake Mountain in Hamilton County. 

 In the summer of 1855 the last moose cap- 

 tured alive was taken by Charles L. Phelps, 

 who killed a cow moose in Brown's Tract and 

 brought her calf out of the woods with him. It 

 died the following year. A moose was killed 

 at Mud Lake in 1856, and Edward Arnold at 

 Nick's Lake in the same year killed another. 

 The next year a man named Baker shot one 

 in the same vicinity. 



It was long thought that Governor Horatio 

 Seymour had killed the last moose in the Adi- 

 rondacks, but several others have better claims 

 to that honor, if honor it be. Governor Sey- 

 mour did shoot a fine bull in 1859, just north 

 of Jock's Lake, not far from West Canada 

 Creek, Herkimer County. The horns were 

 kept for years at his farm at Deerfield, near 

 Utica. 



In i860, however, Alva Dunning killed sev- 

 eral on West Canada Creek, and Reuben How- 

 ard, an old moose-hunter, killed his last the 

 same year. Howard states that he heard of 

 two being shot a little later, which may refer 

 to the two that Chauncey Hawthorne claims to 

 have killed about this time. The year 186 r 

 saw at Raquette Lake the destruction of the 

 last family of moose, and, in all probability, of 

 the last individual in the State. In July a Mr. 

 Blossom killed a cow moose on the south in- 

 let of Raquette Lake, and later in the same 

 month his companion, Mr. Tait, while jacking 

 on Marion River, wounded a young moose, 

 but lost him in the dark. Early in August a 

 bull calf was killed near the same place by a 

 guide named William Wood. It had been 

 wounded, and was unquestionably the one hit 

 by Mr. Tait. Marks of a bull were seen in the 

 neighborhood. 



But the last positively authentic moose killed 

 in the Adirondacks was in the autumn of the 

 same year, on the east inlet of Raquette Lake. 

 A party of sportsmen, guided by Palmer of 

 Long Lake, was canoeing down Marion River 

 toward the lake. On turning a bend in the 

 river they were surprised to see a huge crea- 

 ture start up among the lily- pads and plunge 

 wildly toward the shore. Several charges of 

 shot were fired with no visible effect, when 

 Palmer took deliberate aim with his rifle, and 

 killed the animal on the spot. It proved to be 

 a cow moose, the last known native of its race 

 in New York State. Most fitting was it that 

 the final death-scene should be at Raquette 

 Lake, which for centuries had been their fa- 

 vorite haunt — a worthy subject for a painter 

 to match with the " Last Buffalo." 



Tales like the following are rife in the North 

 Woods, and show how strong a hold this great 

 animal has on the popular imagination : 



