With permission from Larry B. Massie
The following are excerpts from "Voyages into Michigan's Past"
If you would like your own personal copy of Larry B. Massie's "Voyages into Michigan's Past", please contact him at:

Larry B. Massie
2109 41st St.
Allegan, MI 49010-8906

THE PIGEONS CAME TO PETOSKEY

Pigeon feathers carpeted the rutted road that wound through the woods. The worst of the sloughs had been filled in with of pigeon wings. Long before the stream of hunters reached the nesting grounds, the cacophony of bird voices and th e roar of beating wings drowned out all other sounds. It was the spring of 1878, and a record wild pigeon roost 40 miles long by three to 10 miles wide had been discovered just north of Petoskey.

Wild pigeons, or passenger pigeons, resembled mourning doves but were twice as large and had a beautiful plumage. Males were slate blue with brownishred breasts and brilliant orange eyes, and hens were somewhat duller in appearance and slightly smaller. The huge flights of pigeons that migrated in search of food had amazed generations of frontiersmen.

Ornithologist John James Audubon had witnessed a flight in 1813 that darkened the sky like an eclipse for three days on end. The birds flew approximately 60 miles per hour, and Audubon had computed that an average-sized flock which took three hours to pass overhead contained more than one billion pigeons. The pigeons nested in such huge numbers that they destroyed entire forests by breaking down trees under their combined weight. They fed on beechnuts, acorns, wild berries and insects. When they moved on, miles of land lay bare except for a blanket of droppings several inches deep. Following an impressive mating ritual, pairs of pigeons fashioned flimsy nests which held one or two eggs. Parents pushed fledglings out of the nest in abou t one month and bred again as many as four times a year.

News of pigeon roosts spread quickly through frontier communities as men, women and children dropped everything else to harvest the seemingly inexhaustible supply of birds. But by the last third of the 19th century, passenger pigeons ha d grown scarce in the eastern states. Michigan, however, remained a favored nesting ground. Alternate years corresponding to the cycles of nut-bearing trees drew enormous flocks.

Prior to the Civil War, pigeon roosts were plentiful throughout the southern tiers of counties, but as the forests disappeared the flocks shifted farther north. A major nesting occurred near Vassar, Tuscola County in 1866 and eight years later near Shelby, Oceana County. Then in 1878, a great flight from the south and another from across Lake Michigan converged near Petoskey to create the state's largest recorded roost.

Local families hastened to cash in on this avian windfall by filling up larders depleted by the severe winter. Meanwhile, an itinerant army of professional pigeoners" estimated at 2,000 strong descended from all directions on the fr ontier community.

Some hunters used shotguns, bringing as many as two dozen birds down with one blast. Local Indians preferred long poles and blunt arrows with which they knocked the tasty "butterball" squabs out of their nest. Professional pigeoner s, however, favored netting their,prey.

After clearing the ground of underbrush, pigeoners baited a plot with salt, which the birds craved. On each side of the salt bed a net about six feet wide by 20 to 30 feet long was secured to powerful spring poles. The flutterings o f a blinded bird known as a "stool pigeon" fastened to a device that was raised up and down lured pigeons to the trap. The operator watched in concealment until the seasoned bed was covered with pigeons then yanked a rope that sprung the clap net. A good catch might yield as many as 1,300 birds enmeshed in one net. Pigeoners deftly nipped the necks of the struggling birds with blacksmith's pincers, threw their bodies in a pile and reset the trap. Some professionals caught 5,000 birds per day using o ne net.

Local teamsters made good money hauling wagons heaped with deap pigeons to Petoskey. There, packers salted the birds in barrels which were shipped by rail or steamer to Chicago and other urban markets. At the nesting area, dead bird s were worth 35 to 40 cents a dozen, squabs a penny apiece and live birds 40 to 60 cents a dozen. Live birds were in great demand by eastern sporting clubs for trapshooting. One pigeoner at Petoskey was reported to have earned $60,000 over a number of sea sons.

Michigan game laws which prohibited hunting within five miles of the roost or netting within two miles of nesting grounds were unenforced and routinely violated. Saginaw and Bay City game protection clubs attempted to halt the, ille gal activity. Professor H.B. Roney of East Saginaw traveled to Petoskey with club representatives and recorded the wanton slaughter. With the aid of the local sheriff, Roney routed over 400 Indians out of the nesting one day. Despite angry pigeoners who threatened to "buckshot" him, he swore out warrants against netters operating near the rookery.

During the brief period Roney and his party were at Petoskey, they managed to dramatically reduce the number of pigeons shipped. But because of lack of funds they soon departed, and the "pigeon war" continued unchecked.

For twenty weeks beginning on March 22, rail shipments from Petoskey averaged 12,500 dead birds daily. Steamers from Petoskey, Cheboygan and Cross Village conveyed many more. Roney estimated that, including the dead and wounded not secured and the many squabs that died in the nest after their parents were trapped, a grand total of one billion pigeons had been "sacrificed to mammon during the nesting of 1878." Meanwhile, on the western Great Plains as hide hunters mopped up the last of the great bison herds a new enterprise prospered - the sale of buffalo bones for fertilizer.

The 1878 nesting at Petoskey was the last in Michigan large enough for commercial exploitation. Smaller nestings were reported into the 1890s, but by the turn of the century everyone realized the wild pigeons had all a but disapp eared. On September 1, 1914, the last known passenger pigeon on earth died at the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens.