The Extermination of the American Bison | Page 5

the preparation of this map I have drawn liberally
from Mr. J. A. Allen's admirable monograph of "The American Bison,"
in which the author has brought together, with great labor and
invariable accuracy, a vast amount of historical data bearing upon this
subject. In this connection I take great pleasure in acknowledging my
indebtedness to Professor Allen's work.
While it is inexpedient to include here all the facts that might be
recorded with reference to the discovery, existence, and ultimate
extinction of the bison in the various portions of its former habitat, it is
yet worth while to sketch briefly the extreme limits of its range. In
doing this, our starting point will be the Atlantic slope east of the
Alleghanies, and the reader will do well to refer to the large map.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.--There is no indisputable evidence that
the bison ever inhabited this precise locality, but it is probable that it
did. In 1612 Captain Argoll sailed up the "Pembrook River" to the head
of navigation (Mr. Allen believes this was the James River, and not the
Potomac) and marched inland a few miles, where he discovered
buffaloes, some of which were killed by his Indian guides. If this river
was the Potomac, and most authorities believe that it was, the buffaloes
seen by Captain Argoll might easily have been in what is now the
District of Columbia.
Admitting the existence of a reasonable doubt as to the identity of the
Pembrook River of Captain Argoll, there is yet another bit of history
which fairly establishes the fact that in the early part of the seventeenth
century buffaloes inhabited the banks of the Potomac between this city
and the lower falls. In 1624 an English fur trader named Henry Fleet
came hither to trade with the Anacostian Indians, who then inhabited
the present site of the city of Washington, and with the tribes of the
Upper Potomac. In his journal (discovered a few years since in the
Lambeth Library, London) Fleet gave a quaint description of the city's
site as it then appeared. The following is from the explorer's journal:
"Monday, the 25th June, we set sail for the town of Tohoga, where we
came to an anchor 2 leagues short of the falls. * * * This place, without
question, is the most pleasant and healthful place in all this country,

and most convenient for habitation, the air temperate in summer and
not violent in winter. It aboundeth with all manner of fish. The Indians
in one night commonly will catch thirty sturgeons in a place where the
river is not above 12 fathoms broad, and as for deer, buffaloes, bears,
turkeys, the woods do swarm with them. * * * The 27th of June I
manned my shallop and went up with the flood, the tide rising about 4
feet at this place. We had not rowed above 3 miles, but we might hear
the falls to roar about 6 miles distant."[7]
[Note 7: Charles Burr Todd's "Story of Washington," p. 18. New York,
1889.]
MARYLAND.--There is no evidence that the bison ever inhabited
Maryland, except what has already been adduced with reference to the
District of Columbia. If either of the references quoted may be taken as
conclusive proof, and I see no reason for disputing either, then the fact
that the bison once ranged northward from Virginia into Maryland is
fairly established. There is reason to expect that fossil remains of
_Bison americanus_ will yet be found both in Maryland and the
District of Columbia, and I venture to predict that this will yet occur.
VIRGINIA.--Of the numerous references to the occurrence of the bison
in Virginia, it is sufficient to allude to Col. William Byrd's meetings
with buffaloes in 1620, while surveying the southern boundary of the
State, about 155 miles from the coast, as already quoted; the references
to the discovery of buffaloes on the eastern side of the Virginia
mountains, quoted by Mr. Allen from Salmon's "Present State of
Virginia," page 14 (London, 1737), and the capture and domestication
of buffaloes in 1701 by the Huguenot settlers at Manikintown, which
was situated on the James River, about 14 miles above Richmond.
Apparently, buffaloes were more numerous in Virginia than in any
other of the Atlantic States.
NORTH CAROLINA.--Colonel Byrd's discoveries along the interstate
boundary between Virginia and North Carolina fixes the presence of
the bison in the northern part of the latter State at the date of the survey.
The following letter to Prof. G. Brown Goode, dated Birdsnest
post-office, Va., August 6, 1888, from Mr. C. R. Moore, furnishes

reliable evidence of the presence of the buffalo at another point in
North Carolina: "In the winter of 1857 I was staying for the night at the
house of an old gentleman