A Feathered River Across the Sky by Joel Greenberg

Author:Joel Greenberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

SHELBY, MICHIGAN: 1874 AND 1876

Little has been recorded about the large nesting at South Haven, Michigan, in Van Buren County in 1872. One old pigeoner recounted that they had located their operations in Bangor, ten miles to the southeast, and caught many birds during some heavy snowstorms. A local paper reported at the time that over a forty-day period a total of 7.2 million birds were shipped out in barrels by the railroad. No mention was made of the trade in live pigeons.19

The major nestings of 1874 and 1876 formed in roughly the same place: Shelby, Michigan in Oceana County. Perhaps nowhere else did the pigeons create a more profound effect. Some said their appearances were acts of Providence.

The principal city in Oceana County was Pentwater. Situated on Lake Michigan, it was endowed with streams, a superb harbor leading to a small lake, and two branches of the Pentwater River, which provided easy access to inland timber and farming regions. Another up-and-coming municipality was Hart, founded on the banks of the south branch of the Pentwater River. The river provided the power for the county’s first gristmill, which anchored the town’s economic growth and probably led to its selection as county seat. Bereft of these advantages, Shelby seems to have been founded as the halfway point between Pentwater to the north and Whitehall to the south. It was a place where travelers could spend the night. Later, an artificial tributary in the way of railroad tracks was completed. Being connected to the larger world boosted morale and commerce, and growing prosperity seemed inevitable. But the novelty of the train wore off, and the surrounding farmland, though promising, was too hilly to be fully utilized. An 1890 history says that “a period of decline was becoming painfully manifest … as the little village was sinking into the slough of despond.”20

Then, in the early spring of 1874, the pigeons arrived. They congregated near the Lake Michigan shoreline, in woods of hemlock and pine twenty miles long and from four to seven miles wide. Nesting began in early April, and the first chicks hatched after another two weeks. As the males and females took their turns pursuing beechnuts and worms that might be twenty-five miles away, the birds passed without break over some locations for hours at a time. Here hunters would gather to shoot pigeons until they became bored or dusk intervened. Those who spent the entire day routinely bagged 250 to 300 pigeons.21

Shelby hotelkeepers and the railroad organized a weekend excursion for hunters. A special train originating in Chicago arrived on one Saturday night with a hundred pigeon hunters from various places along the line. One observer noted, “During the whole day, in and out of the roost, it was the most lively fusillade I ever heard. They set a large belt of woods on fire in the roost, and if it had not been for an opportune rain, great damage would have been done.”22

All the locals became pigeon hunters or agents, and they were joined by six hundred professional netters.

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