Name/Title
Mastodon Pages copied from History of Orange County NYEntry/Object ID
000036Tags
Orange County HistoryScope and Content
Page 72
MASTODON.
created animals of water, land or air, which overtook and laid the giants low? that by the physical law of their nature, the decree of heaven, the race started into being—grew up to physical perfection—and having fulfilled the purpose assigned by their creation, by a decrease slow, but sure as their increase, degenerated in number, and gradually died away and became extinct. Or was it some malignant distemper, fatal as the Egyptian murrain, which attacked the herd in every locality of this wide domain—sending its burning poison to their very vitals—forcing them to allay an insatiate thirst and seek relief in the water ponds around them, and there drank, and drank, and died? Or was it rather, as is the general belief in this community, that individual accident, numerous as the race, befel each one, and in the throes of extrication sank deep and deeper still in the soft and miry beds where we now find their bones reposing?
We have thus briefly laid before our readers all the causes which we have heard assigned for this remarkable, ancient and wide-spread catastrophe, and leave them to the speculation of others, while we wait for time and the developments of geology to uncover the cause.
But when did these animals live and when did they perish, are questions equally wrapt in profound mystery, and can be answered only when the true cause of their death is found. In the meantime we ask, were they pre-Adamites, and did they graze upon the fields of Orange and bask in the sunlight of that early period of the globe?—or were they antediluvian, and carried to a common grave by the deluge of the Scriptures?—or were they postdiluvian only, and till very recent periods wandered over our hills and fed in these vallies; and that now some wandering lord of the race, an exile from the land of his birth on the banks of the great father of waters, is gone in silence and melancholy grandeur to lay himself down and die in the yet unexplored regions of the continent? On these points, of vital interest in solving the great question of time and mode of death, we hazard no conjecture. Among geologists the opinion is fast gaining ground, that the epoch of the appearance of the Mastodon on earth was about the middle of the tertiary period,—and that he was here ages before man was created,—that before that epoch warm-blooded terrestrial animals had not appeared. The period of their extinction is thought to be more doubtful, but probably was just before the creation of the human race.—Geologists think there is no evidence sufficient to establish
Page 73
MASTODON
the fact that man and the Mastodon were cotemporary.—Time and further investigation may explain the mystery.
WHEN FIRST FOUND.
The remains of the Mastodon were first found in this State, near Albany, probably as early as 1705, as appears from the letter of Gov. Dudley to the Rev. Cotton Mather, of July 10, 1706—a copy of which is furnished and worth reading. The accounts which state it to have been in 1712 are erroneous—taking, probably the date of Cotton Mather’s letter (of that date) upon this subject to Dr. Woodward as the date of the finding. They were next found by Longueil, a French officer, on the Ohio River, in 1739. In 1740 large quantities were found at Big Bone Lick, in Kentucky, carried to France, and there called the “Animal of the Ohio.” Since which many have been found in various parts of the Union.
No locality, except the Big Bone Lick, has contained a greater number of these remains than Orange County. The first were discovered in 1782, about three miles south of the village of Montgomery, on the farm now owned by Mr. Foster Smith. These bones were visited by Gen. Washington and other officers of the army while encamped at Newburgh in 1782-3. The Rev. Robert Annan, who then owned the farm, made a publication at the time, describing the bones, locality, &c., which caused Mr. Peale subsequently to visit this County.
In 1794 they were found about five miles west of the village of Montgomery, just east of the residence of Archibald Crawford, Esq., and near the line of the Cocchecton turnpike. In 1800 they were found about seven miles northeast from Montgomery, on or near the farm of Dr. George Graham.—In 1803, found one mile east of Montgomery, on the farm now owned by Dr. Charles Fowler. These were the bones dug out by Mr. Peale of Philadelphia, in 1805 or 6,—and the writer, then a boy at school in the village, saw the work in progress from day to day. In 1838 a tooth was found by Mr. Daniel Embler, of Newburgh, on or near the farm of Samuel Dixon, Esq., of that town. In 1844, found eight miles southwest from Montgomery, on the farm of Mr. Conner, near Scotchtown, in Wallkill. In 1845, found about seven miles east of Montgomery, on the farm of Nathaniel Brewster, Esq.; and, in the same year, on the farm of Jesse C. Cleve, Esq., in Hamptonburgh, about twelve miles southeast of Montgomery. They were also found in the town of Goshen some years since, but the time and locality we do not.Relationships
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