A Feathered River Across the Sky

by Joel Greenberg

  Within a couple of weeks, the woods became filled with swarming pigeons and the gun-toting legions of men and boys who pursued them. One party of three hunters had just bagged four hundred pigeons, an easy task given that “great flocks were seen flying in all directions.” But these three were not alone, as throughout the area hunters were racking up totals just as high.32

  The actual nestings occurred north of Petoskey in low woods of pine, maple, and beech. There were seven or eight places where the birds concentrated. The first big flocks took up residence at Pickerel Lake, while birds arriving later found suitable habitat at Cross Village, Burt Lake, Crooked Lake, and in the swampy woods along the Maple, Crooked, and Indian Rivers. Toward the end of May, masses of pigeons began collecting in what was probably an unsuccessful nesting effort at Boyne Falls to the south. Pigeon trappers filled the town’s hotel, but by early June most had returned north, as pigeons were difficult to find.

  By April and May, pigeon mania had infected everyone. In Petoskey, McCormick and Brothers, a firm specializing in frozen fish, diversified, sending daily shipments of pigeons to Philadelphia, New York, and other large cities. Hotels and boardinghouses ran out of space, and porters were dispatched to comb the town for places to accommodate luckless guests. W. T. Latham, the town’s dairyman, reported that business was unusually brisk. Any boy who wanted could find a job plucking pigeons. In Cheboygan, double-barrel shotguns were at a premium, and supplies of ammunition were nearly exhausted. But the pigeons themselves were in such abundance they became “a drug upon the market,” forcing dealers and merchants to give them away for free.33

  Mark Craw, who was eleven at the time, provided a firsthand account of what it was to be a youngster in the midst of the great nesting. He was too young to possess a gun, but he acted as an errand boy. When the shooters found themselves running low on bullets, they would dispatch Craw to the Hannah and Lay store in downtown Traverse City to get more. He would also serve as a retriever, collecting dead birds and adding them to the growing pile. Eventually the corpses would be divided up among the hunters, with a few going to Craw for his efforts. The site from which the pigeoners plied their trade eventually became the Traverse City State Hospital.34

  Among the pigeoners were some characters whose strangeness rose above the level of their colleagues’ and granted them attention. There was, for instance, Jackson Bennet, who walked all the way from his home in Shelby to Petoskey, 191 miles. He spent a month trapping and obtained 151 dozen pigeons. Toward the end of his stay he caught a black bear, which he had with him as he started his long trek homeward. Old Joe, a local whose surname went unrecorded, had lost an arm in the Civil War. But his handicap did not slow him down any as he helped work the nets. With one motion, he would grab a pigeon by the leg and toss it into his mouth head-first, then chomp down on the skull: “What a sight! His face was smeared with blood from ear to ear; his beard dripped gore; and his clothes were covered with it.”35

  But the pigeons attracted more than pigeoners to Petoskey. At this time in Michigan, the only effective voice for wildlife conservation was the Michigan Sportsmen Association (MSA). This was a coalition of sportsmen clubs that had formally come together three years earlier. The state had had various sportsmen clubs for a long time, but they’d started as primarily social gatherings. The passage of years, however, made it clear that the objects of their searches were fast disappearing, so some of them began actively fighting for legislation to protect wildlife. More and more of them also broadened their views to appreciate how important game was as food for rural citizens and the critical role many birds played in the control of insects. Some even adopted the modern notion that the native flora and fauna were valuable for their own sake. According to the president of the MSA in an 1880 statement, of the three such state associations in the country, the Michigan organization was the only one “whose main object is not the slaughter of the pigeons [in shooting matches], but the protection of its furred, finned, and feathered game.”36

  Taking their missions to heart, the Bay City and East Saginaw MSA chapters met in early April to discuss what could be done to stem the pigeon killing at Petoskey. Most galling was what appeared to be the total failure to abide by or enforce the two modest restrictions that Michigan law then imposed on the taking of passenger pigeons. The first was to limit the use of firearms to no closer than five miles from a nesting. Netters, on the other hand, could operate as close to the nesting as two miles “at any time from the beginning of the nesting until after the last hatching of such nesting.” Conviction for violating these statutes could bring a $50 fine plus costs. It must be noted that once the eggs hatched, the netters had a free hand in taking as many adults or squabs as they could.37

  The clubs decided to do something that had never before been done anywhere in passenger pigeon range: they were going to send a contingent to the Petoskey nesting to enforce the pigeon law in an effort to save birds. The Bay City chapter secured the services of undersheriff William Fox, and East Saginaw hired R. Fairchild, both described as “two thorough sportsmen and well chosen for the work in hand.” Accompanying then as “backers” were Del McLean and Henry B. Roney.38

  This unique intervention came about due to the influence of two remarkable men, William Butts Mershon of the East Saginaw chapter, and Roney, also of East Saginaw and secretary of the MSA. Mershon was a lumber baron who loved to hunt and fish. He owned a railcar, which he took all over the Midwest in pursuit of game. But at some point he realized that the quarry he so enthusiastically sought was vanishing. He became a leader in promoting conservation legislation in Michigan and on the federal level, using his influence and fortune to get things accomplished. He attained immortality in 1907 by producing the first book-length account of the passenger pigeon.

  Henry Roney, in his way, was even more intriguing. A music teacher born in Ohio, he came to Saginaw in 1871 as organist for the First Congregational Church United Church of Christ. Later he would gain international fame with his traveling choir known as Roney’s Boys. But while in Saginaw, he worked closely with Mershon in a successful effort to get the state legislature to pass a game-protection bill.

  On April 15, Fox, Fairchild, McLean, and Roney boarded a train for Petoskey. They secured lodging at the Cushman House hotel and encountered “Uncle Len” Jewell of Bay City, a savvy old woodsman who agreed to join them for a few days. A check of the hotel register revealed that guests from at least twelve states were present, including those as far away as New York, Virginia, and Texas. Roney noted that “in the village nothing else seemed to be thought of but pigeons.” Fifty wagons were in constant motion taking pigeons to the railroad station, and the road upon which the wheels rolled was covered with pigeon feathers: “The wings and feathers from the packing-houses were used by the wagon load to fill up the mud holes in the road for miles out of town.”39

  Wasting no time, they hired a wagon and went in search of the nesting grounds. Fifteen miles out of town they came to a track heading into the woods toward the cacophony of pigeon noise that told them they were close. Roney and two others went on foot, following behind the wagon. They did not have far to go:

  The twittering grew louder and louder, the birds more numerous, and in a few minutes we were in the midst of that marvel of the forest and nature’s wonderland—the pigeon nesting. We stood and gazed in bewilderment upon the scene around and above us.

  Picture of the rail car owned by William Butts Mershon that he used on hunting trips during the 1880s and ’90s. This one displays assorted game shot by his party in North Dakota. Courtesy of Local Histor and Genealogy Collection, Public Libraries of Saginaw (Michigan)

  Henry Roney and his choir, circa 1900

  Was it indeed a fairy land we stood upon, or did our eyes deceive us? On every hand the eye would meet these graceful creatures of the forest, which, in their delicate robes of blue, purple, and brown, darted hither and thither … In every direction, crossing and re-crossing, the flying birds drew
a network before the dizzy eyes of the beholder, until he fain would close his eyes to shut out the scene.40

  While entranced by the sight of the birds, they had not come as naturalists or journalists, so they proceeded to where the pigeoners were most active. Bedlam reigned as an army of men and boys felled the nest-laden trees to get at the squabs. Others used long poles to knock the birds from their elevated perches. Upon grabbing their quarry, the pigeoners would yank their heads off. Almost an equal number of squabs lay dead among the understory, having starved when their parents failed to survive the gauntlet of nets and guns. The going rate for this work was a penny a bird, and every able-bodied male in the vicinity was so employed. Roney and his crew, though, wanted bigger pigeoners to pluck and obtained the names of the leaders. With that information in hand, three of the party headed back to Petoskey.41

  Roney and Jewell, meanwhile, continued their reconnaissance by walking five miles north to Maple River. They were intent on busting illegal netting operations but found themselves stymied as no one would acknowledge that there was any netting. They met two pigeoners who were willing to chat a little, but became close-lipped as to where the netting was occurring. A “tow-headed mossback” insisted he knew nothing of pigeons, yet feathers littered his residence. Similarly, “an old hag” known to be lodging three netters swore that “there wasn’t no nesting anywhere around here that she knew of,” even as she stood at her stove frying pigeons. When they reached a ramshackle hotel, the two men adopted a stratagem that proved fruitful. Jewell left the hotel while Roney stretched out on a bench and feigned sleep, “emitting snores that would have done credit to a full grown porpoise.” Convinced by Roney’s cetacean impersonation, the pigeoners ignored him and began talking freely, thereby providing him with the intelligence he sought. Perhaps even more helpful, though, was when Roney and Jewell began cultivating children and found one youngster who gave quite detailed information on the closest netting operation.42

  Roney and Jewell began their trek to the netting area early the next day. After a long hike they reached a ravine broad enough to hold the bough house and net. They stationed themselves behind the shelter of some bushes to await the crime they were certain would soon occur. The pigeons began alighting in the mud seeded with salt and sulfur until they became a seething mass of blue and purple. Then, with a loud whoosh, the double net of ten by twenty feet slapped over them, trapping hundreds of birds. The two detectives leaped from their hiding place and beheld a disgusting sight:

  In the midst of them stood a stalwart pigeoner up to his knees in the mire and bespattered with mud and blood from head to foot. Passing from bird to bird, with a pair of blacksmith’s pincers he gave the neck of each a cruel grip with his remorseless weapon, causing the blood to burst from the eyes and trickle down the beak of the helpless captive … When all were dead, the net was raised, many still clinging to its meshes with beak and claws in their death grip and were shaken off.43

  The netter said he had been in this line for years and had caught as many as eighty-seven dozen in a day. Roney later learned that on that very day the netter had come close to his record with eighty-two dozen. As the net was within a hundred rods of the nests, Roney and Jewell graciously said good-bye and hightailed it to Petoskey to swear out a warrant. Faced with two eyewitnesses testifying against him, the netter pleaded guilty and paid the $50 fine.44

  More than once, Roney and his group were threatened with being “buck-shotted,” but perhaps surprisingly they experienced no actual violence. The closest they came to suffering vengeance is when Jewell, feeling “the rheumatics,” decided to go fishing one day rather than track down offenders. He brought back a dozen speckled trout, which he proudly displayed. He gave half of them away and asked the hotel to prepare the others as dinner for the group. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that trout season did not start until May 1, and he was immediately arrested and fined $25. Roney says they were all shocked by Jewell’s actions, and he assured the officials that there were no hard feelings, for in arresting Jewell “they had done no less than their duty.”45

  Roney’s raiders also received strong admonishment that they go after out-of-town big shots and not just target locals trying to eke out a living. The most conspicuous of these visiting transgressors was the editor of the Grand Rapids Eagle and a prominent member of the Michigan Sportsmen Association, A. B. Turner. He not only allegedly shot birds within two miles of the nesting, he did so merely to amass a high number, making no effort to collect the fallen birds. One witness was the postmaster and justice of the peace of the township, whose home was surrounded by the woods where the pigeons nested. After watching Turner and his party fire at the passing flocks, the man chewed them out for ignoring the law. Turner’s group responded that unless the man backed down, their guns might accidentally go off in his direction.46

  Numerous observers came forward to support the claims against Turner. But the prosecuting attorney was away on business, so the people’s case was handled by a less experienced substitute. Representing Turner was one of the most successful lawyers in town. The dismissal of all charges at trial confirmed Roney’s fear that convicting pigeon miscreants would be almost impossible in local courts.47

  The Turner case was certainly the most notorious, but other people were tried as well. Quite a few pigeon hunters were fined $50 plus court costs. Later in April, two men from the Detroit Sportsmen Club were also arrested for shooting too close to the nesting and were fined $110. Their request to remain anonymous, so their club would not learn of their indiscretion, was honored.48

  The local papers were sympathetic to Roney’s activities. Editor Rose warned that more “squab detectives” were arriving every day and that violators would surely be caught if they did not obey the law. Unfortunately, once the four men from Saginaw and Bay City returned home, there were no others to replace them. But the specter of fear created by Rose’s imaginary enforcers might have scared off a few wannabe pigeon pirates.49

  How many birds were actually killed that spring and summer? Roney concluded that over 1.5 million dead birds and 80,352 live birds were sent out by rail. Only estimates could be made for boat cargoes, wagonloads, express packages, and the vast quantity of squabs and adults that died but were never secured, particularly squabs that starved to death. In adding all these together, Roney says, “We have at the lowest possible estimate not less than a billion pigeons sacrificed to Mammon.” Pigeon dealer Martin provides his own detailed figures and comes up with a total of 1,107,866 birds entering the marketplace. But yet another pigeon merchant said his firm alone processed almost twice as many live birds as Martin’s total.50

  Roney’s estimate that a billion pigeons died proved troubling to subsequent writers, even those sympathetic to conservation. Some quoted Roney’s detailed figures, but ignored the concluding estimate, while others specifically stated they thought it is an exaggeration. Martin not only mocks the number, but claims that the birds nested three times that year, and that some of the nestings were in places so remote they escaped all exploitation. (No one brought up the Pennsylvania carnage going on at the same time.) It matters little whose estimate was more accurate, for we do know with absolute certainty that with the conclusion of the 1878 nesting season, the passenger pigeon would never gather in such numbers again.

  BENZIE COUNTY, MICHIGAN: 1880

  There were evidently two significant nestings in 1880. The lesser known of these occurred in western Pennsylvania, where it was averred that nine tons of pigeons originating from McKean, Forest, and Warren Counties passed through Emporium by express on April 1. Another nesting area in Potter County was a mile long and half mile wide, but impatient shooters caused the birds to scatter without fledging any young. In June, yet another nesting was attempted in the county at the head of West Branch. The shooting was reported as good, and “a great many” pigeons were netted on salt beds.51

  Much more attention was devoted to Michigan. Large flocks also returned to the Petos
key region, but upon discovering frozen lakes and deep snow, they retreated south to Benzie County. They chose an area of woods straddling the Platte River that ran ten miles long and up to four miles wide. A local writer said of their arrival, “They came in clouds, millions upon millions. It seemed as if the entire world of pigeons were concentrating at this point. The air was full of them and sun shut out of sight, and still they came, millions upon millions more.”52

  Telegraphs and railroads made it possible for a growing number of people to actually visit large nestings. In two weeks time, as word of the pigeon gathering spread, Benzie County was inundated with three thousand hunters, described as running the gamut: “Professionals, amateurs, mossbacks, city sports, young bloods, and greenhorns had invaded the country from all directions, surrounding and penetrating the pigeon grounds.” Nearly every residence with a spare bed became a boardinghouse offering accommodations to the visitors.53

  Except for the speed with which word of the nesting traveled, most of this sounds pretty familiar. But there was something new. The old hunters noticed that these birds behaved differently from usual. A core of mated birds commenced nesting, but they were outnumbered ten to one by other birds that seemed reluctant to get on with business. Less patient than the pigeons, bands of hunters entered the nesting area and started blasting away at birds and nests alike. Under this regimen of harassment, combined with a storm that brought eight inches of snow and vigorous winds, “many of the roosting birds, disgusted, postponed their anticipated housekeeping and scattered.”54

  Many birds did stay, however, although after the first huge group of pigeons moved on, others may have followed some days later. One reporter who tried to see them encountered locals who had perhaps learned something from the Petoskey nesting. He was without gun or net and so was suspect in the eyes of those he asked for directions. Men gave bogus instructions while women and children feigned ignorance. What had been purported to be but a three-mile hike to the nests turned into one of fifteen. But unlike at Petos-key, where at least a few violators were arrested, no law enforcement occurred at this nesting, and amateur hunters shot nests and their inhabitants without pause.55