by Laurel | July 21st, 2009
July 21, 1906, page 5
Holyoke was treated to a sensation yesterday morning about 6:45, when a full-grown buck deer with spreading antlers came across the vacant lot adjoining the South Holyoke engine-house and entered Main street. As his appearance caused an admiring crowd to take notice and follow him he threw his head back and began to put on speed. Small boys and dogs began to follow him and becoming badly frightened he dashed up the street and, turning at the north end of Depot square, he crossed the Boston and Main railroad tracks and ran up the steep embankment to the east of the tracks without diminishing his speed.
On reaching the top of Depot hill he turned into East Dwight street, and after following the street for a short distance, he turned suddenly and dashed head first through the plate-glass window and into the vacant store in Fitzsimmons’s new building. Workmen on a near-by building ran to the scene and surrounded the deer so it could not escape. It was found that on his dash into the building he had broken his right foreleg besides receiving some bad cuts on his neck but the broken glass from the window. The deer’s legs were tied and Dr. J. J. Monahan was notified, who, after examination, found it necessary to shoot the deer to ends its sufferings. Where the animal came from no one knows but it is probable that it was one of a number seen recently in the woods in the vicinity. Two were seen on upper Northampton street yesterday morning, and this one had probably come from the same company.
Excerpt from Springfield Republican.
