FOREST AND STREAM 
123 
in the Seven Mountains as late as 1908. 
The range of the small brown wolf was 
limited to a narrow strip of territory that 
ran from the Ohio line down the West 
Branch Valley, thence across to the Blue 
Mountains, which marked the far eastern 
limit. Old settlers who killed many of 
these brown wolves declare that they were 
almost identical with the coyote, or prairie 
wolf, of the west. These small wolves 
were exterminated about 1840 in the West 
Branch Valley, but a few lingered in 
Clearfield County and in the Blue Moun¬ 
tains until Civil War times. The grey 
wolves, except a few stragglers, were ex¬ 
terminated about 1830, poisoning being 
responsible for their extinction. 
Though classed as predatory animals for 
many years bears did not deserve that ap¬ 
pellation, as they are purely herbaceous and 
insect-eating animals. Their chief diet has 
always been roots, berries, fruit, corn, 
honey, and ants. They keep down the in¬ 
crease of insect pests, and when, in winter, 
insects are not found, they enter their 
caves and become semi-conscious, or hi¬ 
bernate. Two kinds of bears were found 
in Pennsylvania—the black bear and the 
red bear. 
The red bear, the hide of which resem¬ 
bled the Canadian red fox, occupied a nar¬ 
row range which embraced parts of Sulli¬ 
van, Lycoming, Clinton and Union Coun¬ 
ties. The last of these handsome animals 
was killed on the Bufifalo Path in Novem¬ 
ber, 1912, by Edgar Austin Schwenck, and 
the mounted hide is on exhibition in Ma- 
zeppa, Union County. Some of the old 
hunters declared that there were two kinds 
of black bears—dog bears and hog bears. 
The dog bear had a narrow, pointed snout, 
and longer legs than the snub-nosed, short¬ 
legged hog bear. The hog bear was much 
the best eating, the old trappers averred. 
There were three kinds of foxes in 
Pennsylvania. The black fox was the most 
valuable and most quickly killed off. John 
Hoar saw a black fox cross the Lewiston 
Pike in 1912, and a hunter named William 
Mumaw shot at one in Tioga County dur¬ 
ing the last deer season. The grey fox 
was numerous in all parts of the State and 
is fairly so today, despite poisoners, trap¬ 
pers and other kinds of unscrupulous hunt¬ 
ers. 
A LL foxes deserve protection, as they 
feed principally on rats, field mice, 
grubs, bugs, worms and other ver¬ 
min. If we had no foxes we could have 
no grouse or quail, as the fox devours the 
rats which eat the game birds’ eggs in the 
nests. There is no proof that the red fox 
is native to Pennsylvania. This handsome 
creature was introduced from Ireland and 
England in Colonial days, as the grey fox 
did not afford a good chase for the hounds. 
It had gotten so far west as the Juniata 
in 1789 when the first red fox was slain 
in Perry County. There is also a cross¬ 
fox, prettily marked, a mixture between 
the red and grey varieties. It is very nu¬ 
merous in the Blue Mountains in Berks 
and Schuylkill 'Counties. 
The Wolverene was never very preva¬ 
lent in Pennsylvania. It was a fierce, fur¬ 
bearing creature; the last was killed in 
Potter County in 1863 by Seth I. Nelson. 
The pecan, or fisher fox, a valuable fur¬ 
bearing animal, was more abundant, being 
killed by the hundreds in the first third of 
the last century on Peter’s and Jack’s 
Mountains. Otters were once plentiful on 
all our streams. These valuable fur-bear¬ 
ers were never protected. They made a 
determined stand along the Karroondinha, 
or John Penn’s Creek, until about five years 
ago, and on White Deer Creek, but the last 
was killed last month in Cameron County, 
by a hunter named Mike Parker. 
Of smaller mammals in Pennsylvania 
were the pine martens, which once abound¬ 
ed in the Black Forest, in Potter County 
and in the North Mountain Country; the 
beavers, which build the dams in which 
trout breed; skunks, arch-foes of the army 
worm; raccoons, minks, opossums, weas¬ 
els, hares, rabbits, groundhogs, various 
kinds of squirrels, muskrats, and so on, 
Jim Jacobs, Seneca Indian, Who Claimed 
to Have Shot the . L as t Pennsylvania 
Elk. Others Dispute This, Saying that 
the Honor Belongs to Capt. John D. 
Decker, Who Shot a Pennsylvania Elk 
September 1, 187 7. 
all of them useful, either for their furs 
or by destroying vermin, and none of them 
deserving the cruel warfare waged against 
them by mankind. 
A pair of beavers started to build a dam 
on Lick Run, a branch of White Deer 
Creek, in Union County in 1913. Shortly 
afterwards one of the beavers was killed 
by a fisherman, and the survivor left the 
country. 
O F so-called game animals, noblest of 
all was the moose. One of the last of 
these gigantic animals, which, by the 
way, were the largest members of the deer 
family that ever lived, larger than even the 
extinct Irish elk, was killed after crossing 
the Juniata near the present town of Mc- 
Veytown, about 1790. Another was killed 
on Moose Run, near Bellefonte, about the 
same year. The Moose-hanne, or Moose 
Stream, in Centre County, where the giant 
brutes came to bathe in the warm months, 
is now called Moshannon. 
Captain John Logan, an Indian chief, 
and oldest son of Shikellemus, vice-regent 
of the Iroquois, killed a moose at Chicka- 
lacamoose (Clearfield) about 1778, and 
hung its huge palmated antlers above his 
cabin door. Chickalacamoose means “the 
meeting place of the moose.” 
Elk were numerous in all parts of Penn¬ 
sylvania until comparatively recent times. 
A stray elk was killed in Decker Valley, 
Centre County, in 1877, by Captain John 
Decker. This elk had been driven south 
by forest fires in McKean and Potter 
Counties. Another elk, also a refugee from 
the north, was killed by John Engle, in 
1878, in the Black Gap, Clinton County. 
The first settlers called elks “horses,” as 
when they shed their horns they closely 
resembled our equine friends. 
Elk hunting is alluded to by Bishop 
Spangenberg and other early chroniclers 
as “horse hunting.” Horse Valley, in Per¬ 
ry County and Horse Valley in Franklin 
County attest to the presence of these su¬ 
perb animals, although Elk Creeks, Elk 
Licks, Elk Mountains, Elk Valleys, and Elk 
Mills are innumerable throughout the com¬ 
monwealth. The elk did not enjoy the pro¬ 
tection of game laws, consequently they 
followed their congeners, the moose, into 
extinction. 
S CORES of Buffalo Creeks, Buffalo 
Runs, Buffalo Valleys, Buffalo Moun¬ 
tains and so on, perpetuate the exist¬ 
ence of the bison in Central Pennsylvania. 
Jacob Weikert, the founder of Weikert, 
Union County, drove the last buffalo out 
of Buffalo, in the direction of Lewistown, 
in 1803. The last herd of bison in Pennsyl¬ 
vania, over three hundred head, were 
“crusted” in the deep snow and slaughtered 
to the last animal by pioneers who found 
them at this disadvantage in the “Sink” in 
the White Mountains between Snyder and 
Union Counties, in December, 1799. 
Colonel John Kelly, of Union County, 
one of the heroes of the Battle of Prince¬ 
ton, killed a buffalo when on his way to 
mill in January, 1801. The spot where the 
monster fell has ever since been known 
as Buffalo Crossroads. In the depths of 
the forest, on Buffalo Path Run, a tribu¬ 
tary of White Deer Creek, the hoofprints 
of “the vanished millions” can still be 
seen, and are pointed out to interested par¬ 
ties by J. W. Zimmerman, famous guide and 
hunter of Zimmerman’s, Clinton County. 
Until thirty years ago a hemlock tree 
stood by the path that showed where it 
had been rubbed by the mighty beasts as 
they passed it on their spring and fall mi¬ 
grations. These buffaloes, before the ad¬ 
vent of the white man, wintered in Georgia 
and summered along Lake Erie. Hence the 
name Buffalo, or Buffalo City. They mi¬ 
grated by a well-defined path, north and 
south, that even a century’s storms cannot 
obliterate. They had a “wallow” in Whar¬ 
ton Township, Potter County, which is no¬ 
ticeable to this day. A famous buffalo 
“lick” was located near Bellefonte. 
Reckless, wasteful, wanton hunting by 
the white men wiped out the moose, the 
elk, the bison. The same spirit, coupled 
with the foolish elimination of the mis¬ 
called predatory animals, is reducing the 
number of deer in our commonwealth. Al¬ 
ready one variety, the largest or northern 
(Continued on page 136.) 
