The "Martha - The Last Of The Passengers" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Going back through my stories I had written that dealt with pigeons.  Yep, pigeons.  I wrote a story about pigeons that a fellow in line behind me at the post office was mailing to Dubai.  Seems the pigeons had big plumes on their heads which people buy to show.  Then there was another story I posted about the pigeon my grandpap bought for me at a country auction that had a broken wing.  I nursed it back to health and when it took flight for the first time I was so distraught that I followed it, climbed on a gate to try and lasso it, and fell from the gate, breaking my arm.  Naturally, I was young at the time and the pigeon never returned.  

The Passenger Pigeon

Well, my story today is another pigeon story that I heard from a friend about a month ago.  Takes place in nearby Lititz, Pennsyl- vania and happened close to 170 years ago.  Story was about two young boys who had the chance to witness one of the last flights of the now extinct passenger pigeon, also known as the wild pigeon.  

An etching showing a flock of the passenger pigeons.

It was named after the French word passager for "passing by" and was once the most abundant bird in North America with close to 40% of the total bird population in the U.S.  The two boys, on the morning of March 26, 1780, at the Sunrise Easter Service at the Moravian Church in Lititz, saw the sky darken with the passing overhead of a multitude of wild pigeons.  By the 1800's there were allegedly billions of the birds which eventually were shot and harvested until they became extinct.  Then in the Spring of 1846 another vast migration of wild pigeons passed over Lititz which was seen by two other young boys named Abraham Beck and Dick Tshudy.  Part of the flock landed in a nearby apple orchard, breaking the limbs of the trees due to the weight of the birds.  

A stuffed Martha.

The rest of the flock landed in an area known as Furnace Hills.  But then in the early 1900's the birds habitat was lost due to population growth and clearing of the forests as well as hunters traveling to these areas to harvest the birds by the millions for their meat.  The last known passenger pigeon, Martha, finally died in September of 1914.  Immediately after her death at the Cincinnati Zoo, the bird was frozen in a 300 pound block of ice and shipped to the Smithsonian Institute where she is still on display.  So, it's been a little over 100 years that the passenger pigeon flew over the skies of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  And that, my readers, is my third pigeon story.  Bet you can hardly wait for my next pigeon story!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.