[III. TRADITIONAL EVIDENCE.]
Traditional information concerning the presence of the Moose in Pennsylvania is not lacking. Every old hunter can talk freely on the subject, and will relate what was told him by his father or his father's father on this subject. The gist of the evidence is convincing, as it all dove-tails together so nicely; it is not a heterogeneous collection of irreconcilable statements. Beginning with Seth Iredell Nelson there was not a single old-timer interrogated who had any doubts as to the presence of the animal in Pennsylvania or its identity. John Q. Dyce, probably the most intelligent and best informed of the older generation of Pennsylvania hunters, declared that the Moose had a "crossing" on the West Branch near Renovo, which they followed to Chickalacamoose and along the Allegheny summits to Somerset County. Clement F. Herlacher quotes Josiah Roush as saying to Lewis Dorman that the Moose in Pennsylvania was called the "Original" that it meant that the moose was the "ancestor" or "daddy" of the entire deer tribe. Roush, who was known as "The Terrible Hunter," trailed deer in the snow, using no weapons, killing them by running them to the water, and plunging in after them and drowning them in mid-stream.
JIM JACOBS (1790-1880).
"The Seneca Bear Hunter," Who Found a Set of Moose Antlers in McKean County in 1819.