Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1896 — FEW BUFFALOES LEFT. [ARTICLE]

FEW BUFFALOES LEFT.

ONCE THEY ROAMED THE WESTERN PLAINS IN COUNTLESS NUMBERS. Riding for Fifty Miles Through a Herd of 4,000,000 Animals—How They Were Ruthlessly Slaughtered. Few people are now aware of the former wonderful extent of the buffalo, writes Frank G. t'arpenter iu the Washington “Star.” No animal has ever existed in such large numbers nor covered so milch territory. Buffaloes formerly roamed over the country as far east as Washington city, anil there are records of herds of thousands being seen in Pennsylvania not long before the Revolution. A hundred years ago they came in great droves to driuk at the Blue Lick springs of Kentucky. Daniel Boone speaks of them, and it la now only a few years since they existed by the millions on the great plains of the West. In 1871, now only twentyfive years ago. Colonel It. 1. Dodge rode for fifty miles through a herd of buffaloes which he estimated ns lioing twenty-five miles wide. Tills was along the Arkansas River. At one point he was aide to get upon a hill, and he says lie could sec' this vast herd of buffaloes stretching out from six to ten miles in every direction. The herd was moving, and it. took five days to pass a given point. Professor lloruaday says that at the lowest estimate there were 4.000,000 buffaloes in this one herd, and this, as I have said, was only twenty-five years ago. In 18tl8 a traveler along the Kansas Pacific Itnilroad states that the train at one time passed through one hundred and twenty miles inf solid buffalo. The plains were blackened with them, and more than once the cars were stopped by them. The best authority of the National Museum ns to the early buffalo is George Catlln, who spent the greater part of Ills life in the West studying the Indian, and who made many pictures of the buffalo as they existed before the grent destruction liegnn. He tells of herds of millions, and says that Ihelr roaring sounded like thunder, and tells how the Indians killed them by tiro hundreds of thouancls for the skins, for which they received only a pint of whisky apiece.

You would not think that Hitch Immense hords could be wiped out. The buffalo, however, nre very dull boasts In ninny ways. They are a mixture of stupidity nnd intelligence which It Is hard to understand. These mighty herds were made up of companies, or clumps, of buffaloes of from twenty to one hundred each, each clump Is'iug led and taken rare of by one strong bull. In going for water one of the old cows of the clump would start ahead nnd nose nlong the track of a dry stream for miles until it found u water-hole, the others of that company following in single file. The herd ivouhl then drink, and would Ho down to rest before cuting. This would seem to mean a high degree of Intelligence. But such evidence Is not shown in their attempting to escape from man. A hunter might lie with a repeating rifle near such a herd, and pick off ono after the other without apparently frightening or scaring the rest. If they rnn it was usually against the wind, and they were cowards except when brought to hay. At first the skins brought but little and the temptation to kill was not: so great. Still, thousands were killed for the pure fun of killing them. The southern herd, whleh contained about four million, existed as late as 1870, up to which time only about half n million buffaloesayear were killed from It. As sooji.fis the*railroads came In, limiters came by the scores, and, with breech-loading rifles, killed the unlmals by thousands. Captain Jack Bridges killed Ly contract 1142 buffaloes of this herd m six weeks. Buffalo Bill earned Ills title by the numbers of buffalo lie killed in a short time, and Mr. Ilornaday tells of one hunter who told him that lie had killed sixty-three buffaloes In less than an hour. In some places the buffaloes were driven over precipices, breaking their necks by the fall, and being skinned afterward. With some of these hunter murderers the ordinary process of skinning was not fast enough, and they invented a way of skinning the buffulo by means of horses. They would cut the skin at the neck and down the belly and around the legs at the knees. A stout iron liar, like a hitching post, was then driven down through the skull about eighteen inches into the earth. Then a rope was tied to the thick skin of the neck. The other end of the rope was liitched to the whiffle tree of a pair of horses, or to the rear axle of a wHgon. The horses were whipped up, and the skin was either torn In two or torn from the buffulo, with about fifty pounds of flesh sticking to it This method, however, was not a success, and was soon given up. About fifty thousand buffaloes have been killed for their tongues, no account having been made for their skins. For a long time every skin sent to the market represented about live buffaloes, the others having been destroyed. Thousands of buffaloes were killed by firelight and moonlight, the fires in such cases being made for the purpose. During the year 1373 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Ife Railroad alono carried a quarter of .ft million buffalo robes, and more than a million and a half pounds of buffalo meat, and during the three years following 1873 more than three million buffaloes were slaughtered by the white men, and of these 1,800,000 were Wasted. The great southern herd had been annihilated by 1875. At this time the market had been overstocked with ■robes, and the hunters got from 65 cents to |1.15 for them. •There was then left only the great herd of the northern part of the United States. Its destruction began in 1880, at which time about 100,000 buffaloes were shipped out of the country every Vear. The Indians of the northwestern territory marketed about 75,000 buffaloes a year. As soon as the railroads came in to the country the hunters came in, and In 1882 there were 5000 hunters and skinners at work. They killed the buffaloes by the thousands for their robes, getting from $1.50 to $3.50 apiece for them, and within about four years this other vast herd was wiped out. In 1876 it was estimated that there were half a million buffaloes within a radius of 150 miles of Miles

City. In 1884 the last carload of buffalo robes ever shipped to the East was sent over the railroad. The hunting of the buffaloes was immensely profitable. According to the figures of Mr. Hornaday, hundreds of thousands of dollars were made out of the slaughter long before 1840. From 1535 to 1840 there were five expeditious, which killed buffaloes worth more than a million dollars, and the buffaloes killed up to that time within twenty years realized a sum of more than $3,000,000. There are records of single fur firms who handled hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of hides. Joseph Ullman. of New York and Sr. Paul, in 1881 bought about $90,000 worth of buffalo robes. In 1882 an equal amount, and about $120,000 worth of buffHlo hides. This firm within four years paid more than $310,000 for buffalo rolies and hides, and, in connection with ono other firm, they sold enough skins to bring in alnnit $2,000,000. There were a number of other fur dealers who made money out of the business, to say nothing of those who got rich off buffalo meat and buffalo bones. In a trip which I took over the Canadian Pacific road a few years ago, 1 saw mountains of buffalo bones at many of the stations. The railroads shipped them East by the millions of pounds. In 1872 more than 1,000,000 pounds were shipped over the Atchison. Topeka and Santa Fe road, and this read in 1871 handled nearly 7,000,000 peiindH. The bones were sold by the ton, to Is' ground up for fertilizer. In some cases they were crushed before shipment, and crushed 1 tones were worth $lB a toil, while the uncrushed sold for sl2 tier ton. The meat of most of these buffaloes went to waste. It seldom brought more than two or three cents a pound, and it was chiefly of value when dried or jerked. Jerked meat sometimes brought as high as ten cents per pound, the tongues being worth much more.