15 May 2014

Pigeon Roost in Ohio

Chilicothe, (Ohio,) Oct. 7.

Pigeons, in numbers exceeding all calculation, have, for several weeks, been collected on the waters of Sciota, Brush Creek, a few miles east of the Furnaces, in Adams county. Their roost extends over an acre of ground about a quarter of a mile in length and breadth. To this place they collect in the evening; and, in the morning, they rise in a cloud, and literally darken the air. To persons a mile distant, their noise, when on the roost, seems to resemble the sound of a distant water fall. The trees and shrubs which form their roost are bent to the ground by their weight. They are destroying the white oak mast, which is abundant in that district of country; and fears are entertained that the fields of ripening corn will not escape their ravages. Many of them have been beaten down with stick and caught in the night, by the surrounding inhabitants.

October 20, 1820. [Pigeon roost in Ohio.] Washington D.C. Daily National Intelligencer 8(2426): 2. Also: October 23, 1820 in The American; November 4, 1820 in Carolina Sentinel.