Pennsylvania Game News - August 2022 - 13

water's edge, essentially freezing them in
place until they were shot. Gunners harvested
thousands of deer in this fashion.
THE DEERSLAYERS
The totals rung up by some Deerslayers
are staggering - if they can be believed.
Many stories of their hunts were told
around campfires and even written about
in books like Henry W. Shoemaker's
Pennsylvania Deer and Their Horns.
But determining how true they are is
challenging. Shoemaker's accounts are
considered overblown by historians and
conservationists alike.
Even if somewhat exaggerated, though,
there's no denying the scale of destruction
wrought by the Deerslayers.
Bill Long (1790-1880) of Berks
County, for example, is said to have
harvested 3,500 deer in his lifetime. His
son, Andrew Jackson Long of DuBois,
reportedly tallied 1,500, including six in
one day. Seth Iredell Nelson (1809-1905)
of Union County killed 1,000 deer, including
23 in 1873, when he was 64 years old.
Another of the premier Deerslayers
was Clinton County's John Q. Dyce
(1830-1904). He was an outlier in the age
of mass slaughter, reputedly a solo hunter
who stalked his prey in the style of the
great Scottish sportsmen.
In his most famed moment, recounted
in Pennsylvania Deer and Their Horns,
Dyce was hunting along Spring Run
Ridge. After sneaking up on a group of
deer, he fired a shot at 100 yards. The
bullet reportedly traveled " through the
brain of the buck, the throat of the doe ...
lodging in the heart of the fawn. "
Other stories persist, some likewise
more believable than others.
AUGUST 2022
Pike County's Marcus N.B. Killam
(1815-1902) is said to have killed 900
deer, including a buck that weighed 306
pounds field-dressed.
Perhaps the most famous story of
Henry L. Quiggle, of Clinton County,
starts with him in a dugout canoe, catching
eels, when he spots a buck - chased
by hounds, he learned later - swimming
across the West Branch Susquehanna
River. Legend says he leapt onto the deer's
back and killed the animal by cutting its
throat.
A generation earlier, in 1840, Quiggle's
father Jacob shot the ear off a buck
that otherwise escaped. More than two
decades later, in 1866, a Civil War veteran
named Bill Williams claimed to finally
kill that same deer at the mouth of Kammerdiner
Run. That would have made the
deer nearly 30 years old.
While some of these tales might
seem unbelievable, there were remarkably
skilled hunters roaming the Commonwealth's
forests in those days. They
ranked among the absolute best at their
craft. But their collective prowess nearly
eliminated the whitetail from Pennsylvania.
So
as the 19th century turned to the
20th, the challenge became not duplicating
their success but surviving it.
Clearly, unless the unrestricted bloodletting
was stopped, there would be no
deer left in Pennsylvania to hunt.
KEYSTONE CONSERVATION
Decades after wondering if he'd killed
the last deer in Pennsylvania, John M.
Phillips was among those championing
efforts to restore them.
" In 1890, the game had practically
13
Pennsylvania Game News - August 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - August 2022
