ELK: “Most are aware of the elk which roam neighboring Elk County, thus the following may be of interest,” wrote an Era reader. According to a 1998 booklet, originally printed in 1915, A Pennsylvania Bison Hunt, (about) 12,000 bison inhabited an area which ranged from west of the Susquehanna River, Harrisburg, Sunbury, Emporium even Bradford.
“Clearfield is mentioned as an area where large tracts of undergrowth were grazed clear, therefore the name Clearfield,” the reader wrote. “The last herd, size 300, was decimated 12/31/1799; the last bison slain either January or February 19, 1801, in Union County where there are places named Buffalo Creek, Valley and Mountain.
“Wilcox is mentioned as the site of the largest tannery in the U.S., processing perhaps a million western hides between 1845 to 1855. As for the Pennsylvania elk, the last native was slain Oct. 1, 1878. Unfortunately, the passenger pigeon was hunted to extinction too.”
We did some research on this book. We see historians are not fully in agreement that this work was entirely factual.
Originally written by Henry W. Shoemaker, the book is considered “tainted with fiction” rather than truly historical, according to a work written in July 2007 by Van Wagner and Karl Shellenberger.
“Although infrequently and only somewhat recently, buffalo were indeed in Pennsylvania at the time of European colonization,” the more recent work suggested. “Some researchers suggest that the species may have continued eastward in their range had Europeans not eradicated them.
“Given the thousands of armed settlers backed by a lack of appreciation for nature, the buffalo were quickly extirpated from Pennsylvania,” the work read. “Although it is uncertain when, exactly, the animals began arriving here, it seems likely that by the close of the 18th century, the few buffalo had been in Pennsylvania were gone. Like wolves, mountain lions, moose, and many other species, buffalo were extirpated from Pennsylvania by the hand of man.”
Whether they were here or not, one thing is for certain — there are elk in Elk County today. And gazing at those majestic creatures, it isn’t hard to imagine beasts of this size having the run of Pennsylvania at some point in time.
