The sighting at Pine Knot, Virginia
In “The Sighting at Pine Knot, Virginia,” Alton A. Lindsay explores the question of whether Theodore Roosevelt was the last person to report a credible sighting of the extinct passenger pigeon near his presidential retreat, Pine Knot in Virginia, in 1907. Lindsay provides a history of Pine Knot and also looks at the making of Roosevelt as a naturalist going back to his childhood. He notes some of the defining experiences in Roosevelt’s life that made him a naturalist and conservationist, such as his time in the Dakota Badlands. Like other scholars he pushes back against the idea that Roosevelt was merely a man of action and asserts that he “was a man of intellect.”
He details Roosevelt’s sighting of a small flock of passenger pigeons in May 1907, and argues that Roosevelt’s history and experience as a naturalist and ornithologist lend credibility to his claims to have seen the birds.
A photograph of President Roosevelt and another showing the Pine Knot cabin from the side and rear accompany the article.