{"id":57302,"date":"2018-03-15T05:12:07","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T11:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=57302"},"modified":"2018-03-15T07:24:24","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T13:24:24","slug":"my-puritan-ancestor-governor-thomas-dudley-and-the-passenger-pigeon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/15\/my-puritan-ancestor-governor-thomas-dudley-and-the-passenger-pigeon\/","title":{"rendered":"My Puritan Ancestor Governor Thomas Dudley And The Passenger Pigeon"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><em>Occasionally I rerun an older post because many current viewers have never seen it. This one was published on December 5, 2013. For this version I&#8217;ve added new information, cleaned up the formatting and\u00a0edited the text. Apologies to Feathered Photography old-timers who have seen much (though not all) of this before.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As most everyone knows, the Passenger Pigeon is extinct.\u00a0So is my\u00a0great (x 8) grandfather Governor Thomas Dudley of Massachusetts but I recently found a link between those two old birds and as an aficionado of both family history and birds I was thrilled by the discovery.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Thomas_Dudley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Thomas Dudley<\/a> was my direct (lineal)\u00a0paternal ancestor. He was second in command of the Winthrop Fleet, 11 ships and about 700\u00a0Puritans\u00a0who came to the\u00a0New World from England\u00a0to establish the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.\u00a0He was a man of many traits and accomplishments, not all of them admirable. A\u00a0partial list includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>chief founder (along with Simon Bradstreet) of Cambridge, Massachusetts (called Newtowne at the time) and he\u00a0built the town&#8217;s first home<\/li>\n<li>four times\u00a0governor\u00a0and deputy-governor many times<\/li>\n<li>instrumental in the formation of\u00a0Harvard College and as\u00a0governor he signed its charter in 1650<\/li>\n<li>a devout and inflexible Puritan who was a &#8220;thrifty man who was somewhat prone to usury&#8221;.\u00a0He &#8220;often won approval but never affection&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>had 8 children, including Anne Dudley Bradstreet (she married Simon Bradstreet). Anne was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Anne_Bradstreet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">North America&#8217;s first published poet<\/a>. Joseph Dudley who became\u00a0Royal Governor of Massachusetts\u00a0(Joseph was born when the old man was 70 years old).\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/exeterhistory.blogspot.com\/2013\/06\/the-reverend-samuel-dudley.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Reverend Samuel Dudley<\/a> from whom I am directly\u00a0descended.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The first winter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was horrific and 200 of the original 700\u00a0Puritans\u00a0died from disease and starvation.\u00a0In March of the following spring (1631)\u00a0Thomas Dudley wrote a\u00a0letter to his friend Lady Bridget, Countess of Lincoln back in England, in which he detailed the\u00a0trials and tribulations\u00a0of the colony up to that point.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.winthropsociety.com\/doc_bridget.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">That letter <\/a>is a long one and I had read many parts\u00a0of it\u00a0previously but recently I perused it once again and something jumped out at me.\u00a0The letter included a paragraph near the end that described an experience the colonists had with a great flock of Passenger Pigeons! This must be among the first (or perhaps even the very\u00a0first)\u00a0written accounts of European settlers\u00a0regarding this now extinct bird.\u00a0I include that paragraph below (redacted by the Winthrop Society for explanation, in parentheses,\u00a0to make it a little easier to understand).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>&#8220;Upon the 8th of March, from after it was fair day light until about 8 of the clock in the forenoon, there flew over all the towns in our plantations so many flocks of doves (passenger pigeons, a species\u00a0now extinct), each flock containing many thousands, and some so\u00a0many that they obscured the light, that passeth credit, if but the truth should be written. And the thing was the more strange, because I scarce remember to have seen ten doves since I came into this country. They were all turtle doves, as appeared by diverse of them we killed flying,\u00a0 somewhat bigger than those of Europe, and they flew from the north east to the south west; but what it portends I know not.&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As you can imagine I was\u00a0overjoyed to stumble upon this 382 year old written connection between my ancestor and the\u00a0ill-fated Passenger Pigeon!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"20330\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/my-puritan-ancestor-and-the-passenger-pigeon\/live-passenger-pigeon-in-1896-kept-by-c-o-whitman\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Live-Passenger-Pigeon-in-1896-kept-by-C.O.-Whitman.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"290,429\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Live Passenger Pigeon in 1896, kept by C.O. Whitman\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Live-Passenger-Pigeon-in-1896-kept-by-C.O.-Whitman.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-20330 size-full\" title=\"Live-Passenger-Pigeon-in-1896-kept-by-C.O.-Whitman\" src=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Live-Passenger-Pigeon-in-1896-kept-by-C.O.-Whitman.jpg\" alt=\"Live Passenger Pigeon in 1896, kept by C.O. Whitman\" width=\"290\" height=\"429\" srcset=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Live-Passenger-Pigeon-in-1896-kept-by-C.O.-Whitman.jpg 290w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Live-Passenger-Pigeon-in-1896-kept-by-C.O.-Whitman-202x300.jpg 202w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Live-Passenger-Pigeon-in-1896-kept-by-C.O.-Whitman-101x150.jpg 101w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Live Passenger Pigeon in 1896 kept by C.O. Whitman<\/strong> (image in the public domain)<\/p>\n<p>For those who may be unfamiliar with the tragic history of the Passenger Pigeon, here&#8217;s a few &#8220;gee whiz&#8221; facts and figures\u00a0about the species and its demise:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>at one time it may have been the most numerous bird species on the planet with estimates of numbers as high as 5 billion individuals<\/li>\n<li>the historic population of this species is roughly equivalent to the total number of birds (of all species)\u00a0that overwinter every year in the U.S.<\/li>\n<li>in 1866 one southern Ontario migrating\u00a0flock was described as being 300 miles long and\u00a01 mile wide.\u00a0It took 14 hours for the flock to pass overhead.<\/li>\n<li>communal nesting areas (known as &#8220;cities&#8221;) were huge &#8211; one in central Wisconsin in 1871 covered 850\u00a0square miles and included an estimated 136 million nesting birds<\/li>\n<li>early colonists believed large flocks of pigeons brought ill fortune &#8211; perhaps an explanation for the last line in Governor Dudley&#8217;s account of the bird<\/li>\n<li>commercial hunting took a huge toll on the Passenger Pigeon with a variety of methods used.\u00a0One type of net could capture up to 3500 birds at a time.<\/li>\n<li>at a Petoskey, Michigan nesting site in 1878, 50,000 birds were\u00a0&#8220;harvested&#8221; every day for 5 months<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The two primary causes of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon were commercial hunting and habitat loss. The species\u00a0was genetically programmed to breed only in huge colonies and when\u00a0their numbers were sufficiently reduced they simply stopped breeding.<\/p>\n<p>The last reliable record of a wild bird was in Pike County, Ohio in March of 1900\u00a0when the bird was killed by a boy with a BB gun, though there were undocumented reports of a few more birds for several years after that.\u00a0Attempts were made to breed some of the remaining birds in captivity but they failed, largely because of the lack of a communal breeding opportunity<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"20331\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/my-puritan-ancestor-and-the-passenger-pigeon\/martha_last_passenger_pigeon_1914\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Martha_last_passenger_pigeon_1914.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"316,477\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Martha_last_passenger_pigeon_1914\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Martha_last_passenger_pigeon_1914.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-20331 size-full\" title=\"Martha_last_passenger_pigeon_1914\" src=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Martha_last_passenger_pigeon_1914.jpg\" alt=\"Martha_last_passenger_pigeon_1914\" width=\"316\" height=\"477\" srcset=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Martha_last_passenger_pigeon_1914.jpg 316w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Martha_last_passenger_pigeon_1914-198x300.jpg 198w, https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Martha_last_passenger_pigeon_1914-99x150.jpg 99w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 316px) 100vw, 316px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>&#8220;Martha&#8221; &#8211; the last Passenger Pigeon<\/strong><\/em> (image in the public domain)<\/p>\n<p>Martha, the last known Passenger Pigeon, died on September 1, 1914 at the Cincinnati Zoo.\u00a0After her body was frozen into a block of ice she was sent to the Smithsonian Institution\u00a0where she\u00a0was &#8220;skinned, dissected, photographed and mounted&#8221;.\u00a0Today she sits in the museum&#8217;s archived collection and is not on display. There&#8217;s a memorial statue of her on the grounds of the Cincinnati Zoo.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;d think we&#8217;d have learned some lessons from this tragic example\u00a0but at the rate of extinction today we obviously haven&#8217;t learned\u00a0nearly enough of them. If\u00a0a species as numerous\u00a0as the\u00a0Passenger Pigeon can\u00a0be wiped out so easily in such a short period of time it surely doesn&#8217;t bode well for the\u00a0countless others already\u00a0on the brink, especially considering the abysmal\u00a0conservation record of our current administration.<\/p>\n<p>Grieve, for them and for us.<\/p>\n<p>Ron<\/p>\n<p><em>Notes:\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>I&#8217;ve taken much of the information presented here about the Passenger Pigeon from <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Passenger_Pigeon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wikipedia<\/a>.\u00a0 If you have the interest (and the stomach for it) I suggest you at least read the &#8220;hunting&#8221; portion of the article.\u00a0Humans can be truly ingenious in dreaming up ways to kill.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>If you think wanton mass killing of wildlife is behind us in the USA think again. Just this week (March, 2018) a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cdfgnews.wordpress.com\/2018\/03\/14\/lassen-county-man-arrested-for-illegal-mass-killing-of-raptors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California man was charged with killing 135 raptors<\/a> on his\u00a080 acre property.<\/em><em> \u00a0<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Joel Greenberg&#8217;s &#8220;<em><span id=\"productTitle\" class=\"a-size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Feathered-River-Across-Sky-Extinction\/dp\/1620405342\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon&#8217;s Flight to Extinction<\/a>&#8221; is an excellent book on the\u00a0plight of the\u00a0Passenger Pigeon. I have a hard copy in my own library (I much prefer &#8220;real&#8221; books).<\/span><\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>I apologize for including so much of my family history here.\u00a0That\u00a0portion of this post\u00a0is likely to be of interest to only a select few but I simply had to include it.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Given my strongly held\u00a0views regarding religion I&#8217;ve taken an immense amount of good-natured\u00a0teasing from friends about my rigid, straight-laced and ultra-religious Puritan ancestors. That interaction has actually been fun for all involved, including me.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was extremely happy to make this connection between my Dudley ancestor and the extinct Passenger Pigeon.<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/15\/my-puritan-ancestor-governor-thomas-dudley-and-the-passenger-pigeon\/\"><span>Continue reading<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,8,16],"tags":[1774,1769,1778,1772,1767,1771,3896],"class_list":["post-57302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-ecology-and-environment","category-photography-ethics","tag-anne-bradstreet","tag-governor-thomas-dudley","tag-martha","tag-massachusetts-bay-colony","tag-passenger-pigeon","tag-puritans","tag-why-passenger-pigeon-became-extinct"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Martha_last_passenger_pigeon_1914.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-eUe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}