Passenger Pigeons in Lake County

Passenger pigeon, 1920. 
The Orthogenetic Evolution
in the Pigeons. Hayashi and Toda (artists)

2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon. This bird once numbered in the billions in North America, but in a matter of decades market and recreational hunting drove the bird to extinction.

The first non-native settlers to Lake County in the mid-1830s found an abundance of wild game, including quail and passenger pigeons. Thousands of pigeons roosted in the county’s oak trees, eating acorns.

Remembrances of those early days were documented by students across Lake County, who in 1918 asked their elders for their memories of the passenger pigeons: In Newport Township, "Wild pigeons... flew in flocks of hundreds and helped furnish the pantry with delicious meat."

Woodblock engraving of passenger pigeons

in flight in Louisiana. "The Illustrated Shooting 

and Dramatic News,"  July 3, 1875.

In Ela Township, "There used to be a great many wild pigeons, but they were all shot. They flew in flocks that darkened the sun." 

Excerpt from students regarding passenger pigeons. 

Dunn Museum, Wauconda School History, 2003.0.46

In Wauconda Township, "There were flocks of quail, partridges and wild pigeons which were hunted for food, taking the place of chicken and turkey.  Great flocks of wild pigeons were common and they were considered a pest by the farmers.  They would pick up to small grain almost as fast as the farmers could sow it, for grain at that time was sown by hand.  Sometimes men and women were obliged to stay in the field to drive these flocks away."

From 1860 to 1880 there was a catastrophic decline in the passenger pigeons' numbers. 

Telegraph lines and railroads made it possible to share the location of passenger pigeon roosts with a nation-wide audience, including professional hunters. The market hunters, as they were called, brought their shot birds (by the tens of thousands) to major cities in order to sell their feathers and breast meat. 

There were also venues that specialized in pigeon shoots. The best known was Dexter Park, on the south side of Chicago. One match in 1877 involved the shooting of 5,000 passenger pigeons. Another match was visited by General Philip Sheridan (Fort Sheridan's namesake). 

Henry Kelso Coale, circa 1920.

Library of Congress. 

In 1879, Henry Kelso Coale (1858 - 1926) of Highland Park, an amateur ornithologist and bird collector, "took specimens" of the pigeons. At the time, the bird's demise was already being talked about by conservationists, but Coale had found them breeding in the woods along the Des Plaines River, west of Lake Forest, and shot several for his collection. (In 1936, the Field Museum in Chicago acquired a great portion of Coale's collection). 

In northern Illinois, the species was deemed to be abundant up to 1882. The last passenger pigeon in Lake County was recorded by John Farwell Ferry on August 7, 1895 in Lake Forest.

In 1912, Coale wrote that Lake County was "one of the most favored spots in Illinois for the study of birds," because of the variety. He also noted that the passenger pigeons were "formerly an abundant summer resident but now practically extinct." In fact, they would be extinct two years later.

The last passenger pigeon in the world, named Martha, was born in Hyde Park, Chicago about 1885 and was conveyed to the Cincinnati Zoo in 1902. She died on September 1, 1914.

Martha (c. 1885-1914), the last passenger pigeon, 

as photographed at the Cincinnati Zoo, ca. 1914. Source online.

To learn more: 

"The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction" exhibition explores connections between the human world and looks at some of the work being done to help prevent similar extinctions from occurring. Lake County Discovery Museum through February 2, 2014. 

Greenberg, Joel. Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction. Bloomsbury, USA. 2014.

Northwestern Military Academy, Highland Park

In 1888, when the Northwestern Military Academy opened in Highland Park, locals thought a boys' military academy would cause problems in town. Just the previous year, the U.S. Army post at Fort Sheridan had opened on the town's doorstep with fears of drunken brawls (which never were a problem).

The animosity for the academy was reflected in the children's taunts as they called the new cadets "Dead Cats."

The academy was founded by Harlan Page Davidson (1838-1913), a graduate of Norwich University, a military college in Vermont. Harlan purchased Highland Hall in Highland Park and renovated it for his academy in which he strove to provide a good education, military discipline and structure, and moral training. The cost to attend was $400 in 1888, and by 1908 had risen to $600 with enrollment averaging about 50 cadets per year.

The first Northwestern Military Academy building (above) was built as the Highland Park House hotel in 1873 at St. Johns Avenue and Ravine Drive. In 1876, it began to be used as an educational institution for young women during the summer and was known as Highland Hall. Harlan P. Davidson purchased the building in May 1888 for his military academy.

When the academy was destroyed by fire only a few months after opening, on November 1, 1888, the people of Highland Park set aside any misgivings and made meals for the cadets and opened up their homes to the displaced boys. Rebuilding of the academy progressed rapidly and not one day of classes was missed.

The academy's second building (above) was designed by William W. Boyington and completed in 1889. It was made of brick and able to accommodate 75 cadets. This real photo postcard by C.R. Childs was produced in 1910. Dunn Museum 97.3.2.

By the 1890s, the academy's reputation had made it possible for many cadets to be offered direct admission to colleges and universities.

Perhaps the academy's most notable accomplishments were the brainstorms of Davidson's son, Royal Page Davidson (1870-1943). About 1895, Royal developed a military bicycle corps, thinking that the bicycle would speed up the movement of troops. In June of 1897, he staged a cross-country, 1,000-mile expedition to Washington, D.C., operating as a military foray into enemy territory, and as a "test of bicycles as an accoutrement of war." The bicycle corps had a membership of 28 students, averaging 19 years of age. The trip took 15 days and was widely covered by newspapers along their route.

When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Royal offered the U.S. government the services of the corps, but was politely declined.

Around this time, Royal was at work on another military invention, his Automobile Battery, the forerunner to armored vehicles. His original design was a light frame, three-wheeled machine, operated by gasoline and armed with a Colt automatic gun and a shield to protect the driver. This was the first of a series of military vehicles constructed by Royal for the use by the Northwestern Military Academy.

Royal then had the military gun carriage vehicle built by the Peoria Rubber and Manufacturing Company using patents of Charles Duryea, a well known automobile manufacturer. Duryea put the vehicle into an automobile style patent which he filed for on May 16, 1898, and was approved as Patent No. 653,224 on July 10, 1900. The vehicle was built on a Duryea Automobile Company standard production automobile chassis that was converted for military purposes, and cost $1,500.

Image of the Davidson Automobile Battery armored car. Northwestern Military Academy Archives.

In 1900, the vehicle was modified into a sturdier four-wheeler (above) which became known as the Davidson Automobile Battery armored car. This photo was taken at the academy in Highland Park. 

Royal's bicycle corps and the automobile corps were created at a time when the cavalry was still popular with military commanders. Although he was the inventor of the first armored military vehicle in the United States, Royal Davidson received little credit from the Army for his efforts.

By 1908, the academy offered naval encampments in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and in 1911 officially became a military and naval academy. After another fire in the academy's main building in 1915, the school moved permanently to Lake Geneva.

In 1996, the academy merged with St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin, and together are known as St. John's Northwestern Military Academy.

Native Trail Trees

Trail tree photographed by historian Bess Bower Dunn 

on Waukegan Road west of North Chicago, circa 1910. Dunn Museum Collection. 

Indigenous people have populated this region for thousands of years. As recently as the early 1800s, Potawatomi, Chippewa and Ottawa peoples navigated a vast network of trails by marking those trails with road signs known as trail trees. Also, waterways such as Lake Michigan and the Des Plaines River were used as thoroughfares. 

Trail trees were used along Native American foot trails to direct travelers to neighboring villages, hunting grounds, and ceremonial grounds. The unusually shaped trees essentially “pointed” the direction the traveler needed to go. Typically, trail trees were oak or elm since they lived much longer than other types of trees.

Bess Bower Dunn (1877-1959) researched trail trees at the turn of the 20th century, writing: “[They] marked routes or trails… by taking a small sapling, bending it to the ground, fastening it, taking off the lower branches or twisting them around the trunk… so the forests of Lake County… became penetrated with a network of trails… marked by trees."

Trail tree in Warren Township west of U.S. Hwy 41 and south of Washington Street 

near Park City, circa 1935. Dunn Museum Collection

Dunn also noted that "Some of the early settlers recognized these bent trees as landmarks of importance and made an effort to preserve them; others considered them deformed and cut them down.” 

Though locals continue to report finding these trees in backyards and woodlands, only two trees in Deerfield and Zion are accepted as the last remaining markers of this early navigation system in.  

Historian James Getz took this photo on Hazel Avenue in Highland Park, 1957. Dunn Museum Collection.

The United Nation of Potawatomi, Chippewa and Ottawa reluctantly sold their last remaining Great Lakes land to the U.S. Government in the Treaty of Chicago on September 26, 1833. Lake County's current road system is based largely on historic trails now paved over and in some cases straightened. Milwaukee Avenue, Fairfield Road, Greenbay Road, and Belvidere Road are a few of the former trails still in use today.