The Panther Page

(From an old Vineland (NJ) postcard dated 1911.)

VISIT BEAUTIFUL VINELAND

OLD HOME WEEK AND SEMI-CENTENNIAL

AUGUST 6TH TO 12TH, 1911

Click image for the "big picture" of the panther.

The Passing of the Panther.

In bronze the Panther stands beside the trail,

Where once he roamed the forest at will;

He thrilled the woodland with his mighty wail,

Seeking his prey, he ate his carnivorous fill.

The Founder dreamed of a City Beautiful,

In the midst of fruit laden fields,

Where the soil yields harvests bountiful,

And to labor a full recompense yields.

The Spirit of Progress wove on its magic loom:

The forest fell before the sturdy pioneers:

Behold! the orchards sweet with bloom:

Behold! the ripened shocks of golden ears.

Vineland, Beautiful Queen of the pine lands!

In garlands sweet we will clothe her.

Come back to the vines: Come join hands

The week we celebrate the Passing of the Panther.

Roaming Through My Neighborhood

About the Panther; The life-size statue stood on his base for many years, just up the street from where I grew up. You could see him from my house, standing there, frozen in mid stride. The statue was and still remains a topic of discussion of those of us who have lived in the area long enough to remember it. Occasionally, a local newspaper will revive the old stories (rumors). Was he placed on the corner of Panther Rd. and Genoa Ave. for a reason? Was he an early street sign, or was the street named after him?

Less than a mile away, on Cornucopia Ave., a figure holding a cornucopia, also on a base of stone stood. The statues are gone now, destroyed by vandalism: the panther in the early 1970's and the cornucopia much earlier than that. Being so far out of the old town of Vineland, adds to the mystery. Only a handful of people lived out there. Why would Charles Landis (the city's founder) have placed these statues so far away from the main part of town? Was there a reason for their placement?

Old photographs of the statue of the panther show a base made of large Jersey brown stone; later photos show a base of a smaller masonry blocks. It isn't even known when the base was changed. Searches through early newspapers have not yielded any answers. The mystery continues. Some believe the statue of the panther was a tombstone for a panther that was killed on that spot. Stories have been told of an escaped panther from a circus that was destroyed there. Others tell of a wild panther who was hunted down for the attack on an innocent child. Truth is, the only thing we know for sure is the statue of the panther existed before August 1911, and is now gone. Some have said, on a still summer night, you can still hear the wail of that old black panther.

Many thanks to the staff at The Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society for their time and resources.

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