Historically, how far into eastern north america did the elk roam?

Answer 1

Right to the coast.

Here's a picture of the historical range:
http://www.defenders.org/habitat/highways/new/target/elk.html
(scroll down slightly)

Answer 2

Eastern elk once ranged statewide, but colonization and exploitation by European settlers eventually led to the species’ demise. Prior to the arrival of European immigrants, elk were found from northern New York to central Georgia.

Pennsylvania’s largest elk concentrations are believed to have been in the Allegheny Mountains. Elk, or wapitis as they were called by native Americans, were doggedly pursued wherever they could be found in colonial Penn’s Woods. They were chased with dogs, jack-lighted, tracked whenever snow provided a trail, and shot on sight.

Elk were exterminated in southeastern Pennsylvania and rare west of the Allegheny River and in the Blue Ridge and Cumberland mountains by the opening of the nineteenth century. By the late 1840s, they were gone in the southwestern Pennsylvania and from the Pocono Plateau. By the 1850s, what remained of Pennsylvania's once mighty elk population was limited to sections of northcentral Pennsylvania, predominantly in Cameron, Elk and McKean counties. Pennsylvania Elk
Search Pennsylvania Game Commission - State Wildlife Management Agency Home Printable Version eMail
History of Pennsylvania Elk


By Joe Kosack, Wildlife Education Specialist - Eastern elk once ranged statewide, but colonization and exploitation by European settlers eventually led to the species’ demise. Prior to the arrival of European immigrants, elk were found from northern New York to central Georgia. Pennsylvania’s largest elk concentrations are believed to have been in the Allegheny Mountains. Elk, or wapitis as they were called by native Americans, were doggedly pursued wherever they could be found in colonial Penn’s Woods. They were chased with dogs, jack-lighted, tracked whenever snow provided a trail, and shot on sight.

Elk were exterminated in southeastern Pennsylvania and rare west of the Allegheny River and in the Blue Ridge and Cumberland mountains by the opening of the nineteenth century. By the late 1840s, they were gone in the southwestern Pennsylvania and from the Pocono Plateau. By the 1850s, what remained of Pennsylvania's once mighty elk population was limited to sections of northcentral Pennsylvania, predominantly in Cameron, Elk and McKean counties.

In the mid 1860s, Pennsylvania's last few native elk were still roaming in Elk and Cameron counties. Within a few years, though, they would be gone. The last two reports of elk being hunted include one supposedly taken not far from St. Marys by an Indian named Jim Jacobs. Historical accounts suggest the elk was pursued for several days before it made its last stand in Flag Swamp, near the Clarion River. A second was said to have been taken by a hunter named John D. Decker in 1877 in Centre County. However, it appears the species was certainly extirpated from the state by the late 1870s, and more than likely, earlier.