The Last Deer

[Editor’s Note:  After hitting another deer on the road en route to work, I felt this story was a little relevant.]

As you travel the roads of upper Appalachia, whether they are the modern asphalt highways or the worn in dirt roads, it is hard not to see the constant presence of the whitetail deer. Signs dot the state routes warning of heavy deer crossing areas and a seemingly endless number of deer are seen throughout the area. It is almost unconceivable to think that for a century these silent beasts of the forest were nonexistent in the area.

When the French and British traders first began to explore the area of upper Appalachia they found many native wildlife species that soon became highly sought after trade goods. The pelts of beaver, fox, bear, panther, wolf, and deer became the driving force for western expansion and helped to put early America on the map as an invaluable source of commerce for the European markets. Moreover, the pelts were not all sent over the Atlantic, many were used bought and traded within the colonies, so much so that the deer pelt became interchangeable with forms of currency. The deer pelt was a very common and easily harvested fur to the point that the value of the skin was worth a dollar; therefore, since actual legal tender was in short supply on the frontier the hide of the deer was a common substitute as a form of currency. This is where the synonym of “a buck” came into being for the dollar.

The deer continued to be hunted and traded as western expansion crawled further and further west. As communities began to pop up along the ridges and valleys of the greater Ohio Valley the deer population began to decline as they were hunted as both a food source as well as a trade good.  By the 1830s a deer sighting became a rare event, as the forests were disappearing into cleared farmlands and the creatures were nearly hunted to the point of extinction.

In 1844, it became a historical fact that the last deer in Carroll County, Ohio was killed. James Ferrell a resident of Fox Township, in Carroll County and one of the original county commissioners was travelling the North Branch of Yellow Creek, when he spotted a deer. The deer was at a small salt lick and quickly spotted Ferrell. A chase then commenced and for three days a lengthy pursuit occurred crisscrossing the rough terrain of Northern Jefferson and Eastern Carroll counties. The chase ended by a well-placed rifle shot from Mr. Ferrell which dropped the weary beast, at which point a large feast was then held and the last of the native venison was savored by all of those in attendance.  

Deer in the area remained to be nonexistent for many decades to come.  Moreover, during the 1910s and 20s it was determined that deer no longer existed within the state of Ohio by the Ohio Division of Natural Resources.  This is further evidenced by a newspaper clipping from the Massillon Independent in 1926. In the article it describes how police were called to a Perry Township residence just west of Canton in Stark County, Ohio, to investigate “a horned beast, scaring the local citizens.” Upon further investigation that resulted in the death of the “beast” it was determined that the animal was in fact a buck that was believed to have travelled from deep in the mountains of Pennsylvania.

In years that followed the Stark County incident, deer slowly began to work their way back into the area. They began a slow steady growth in and around Ohio. By 1990, the deer population was estimated to be around 150,000 in the state of Ohio.  The current deer population is estimated to be close to 750,000 deer, where a reported 27,000 where killed on the roads by motorists and 261,000 deer were killed in Ohio by hunters with over 2000 killed in Carroll County.

It is hard to ever imagine a time without deer being a constant presence, and one can only imagine if you told James Ferrell that there would be so many deer roaming the area what his response would be.  However, although they create a lot of damage by way of vehicles and crop destruction they are still a mystical wonder of the woods that helped to establish this area in its pioneer days. Just as it hard to imagine what it would be like without deer around it is hard to imagine what this area would be like if we never had them.