These were found in the book "Mythical Creatures of the North Country" by Walker D. Wyman (River Falls State University Press, River Falls Wisconsin, 1969). These 2 stories were exerpts from the included reprinting of "Feasome Creatures of the Lumberwoods" written by William T. Cox (Washington D.C. press of Judd & Detweiler, Inc. 1910). It is in the public domain.

Interesting that one mentions an ape face and the other describes a gorilla-shaped head with enormous front feet...and BOTH talk about killed or missing humans!

tirademan

I love this stuff! I gotta get me that book!

This reminds me of the cartoon with the fearsome looking monster spinning around while moving from place to place. Maybe the cartoonist had read this book. Cannot remember the cartoon monster name.

Taz ??

Sometimes a story really is only a story!

-Vern

Thanks, Tirademan!

got to agree the "ape face" descriptions tend to make these relevant here!

Those stories are great! Post more.

Thanks

Thanks Tirademan. I think I love the language of the old articles more than anything else.

I especially find interesting in the first story the part about the hoot-owls and the woodpeckers. Kinda fits in with todays rumors of BFs imitating owl calls and the woodpeckers could be the wood knocks that some have claimed to have heard with BF activity being suspicioned. In my case, with the wood-knocks, I'm a little more than suspicious.

I can post more stories that I've found online at the Library of Congress...Moderators, should I post them in "Media" or "Sightings and Encounters"?

I've compiled them into a 20 page PDF file that you can download (www.lungoyster.com/sasquatch), but I think sometimes people don't want to bother downloading etc.

And I'm still searching for some way to get ahold of old newpapers that have been microfiched...online!

tirademan

PS-here's one of my favorite Lib of Congress finds...and yes, talk about the "old time" language!

Adirondack’s 1830s
A New Sound In The Forest
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amrvhtml/conshome.html

Book by S. H. Hammond:
Wild northern scenes; or, Sporting adventures with the rifle and the rod.

Chapter Ix. Hunting By Torch Light—An Incompetent Judge—A New Sound In The Forest—Old Sangamo’s Donkey.

Page 95
...Beyond us, through an opening in the tress, we could see the lake, sparkling and shining in the evening sunbeams, and we were talking about the beauty of the view, and the calmness and repose that seemed resting upon all things, when, of a sudden, there came up from that shadowy dell a sound, the most unearthly that ever broke upon the astonished ear of mortal man. I have heard the roar of the lion of the desert, the yell of the hyena, the trumpeting of the elephant, the scream of the panther, the howl of the wolf. It was like none of these; but if you could imagine them all combined, and concentrated into a single sound, and ushered together upon the air from a single throat, shaped like the long neck of some gigantic ichthiosaurus of the times of old, you would have some faint idea of the strange sounds that came roaring up from that hollow way. My friend was a man of courage, and, like myself, had been around the world some; had spent a good deal of time, first and last, in the woods, was familiar with most of the legitimate forest sounds, and had heard all the ten thousand voices that belong in the wilderness, but we had never before listened to a noise like that.

“We looked to our rifles and at one another, and it may well be that our hats sat somewhat loosely upon our heads from an involuntary rising of the hair. ‘What, in the name of all that is mysterious,’ cried my friend, in amazement, ‘is that?’ ‘It is more than I know,’ I replied, as I placed a fresh cap on my rifle.

WooHoo!
A tale of High Adventure in the offing!

"It's interesting that Lumberjacks, one of the few occupational groups that systematically indulged itself in this sort of extravagant mythologizing, apparently did not count Bigfoot among their Legends. I guess one could argue the implication of that either way."


Roger, I bumped this thread, so you could see the accounts from that book...they seem pretty ape-like to me!

Also, one I didn't post regards a "leprocaun" that had "escaped into the swamps and was a creature that was to be feared and avoided"

Here's a very early account that is also in that book that I've posted before...

Interesting.

For a geographical reference Fort William was in northwestern Onterio, becoming a city Fort William later merged with Port Authur and is now known as Thunder Bay.

Pie Island is an island in Thunder Bay.

Grand Portage is on the Pigeon river in northern Minnesota and was a well known Voyageur rendezvous as well as a gateway from Lake Superior into the BWCA/Quetico region of northern Minnesota and northwestern Onterio.

TM,

I just want to let you know how much I appreciate you sending this stuff out. I love it!



Redwolf

Agropelters. Scary thought. If BF aims to kill, and his aim is true, it means no warning. One minute you are hiking a trail, totally unaprehensive, the next, 'thwack', and your at the pearly gates. I'd much rather deal with the shagamaws, upland trout and hoop snakes myself. I do remember from my childhood, talk of a four-legged creature that lived on hills, and had shorter legs on one side of the body than on the other. There were left-legged ones and right-legged ones. I used to wonder what happened when the creature got to the top of the mountain, or if one were captured, and released on flat land. Can't seem to recall their name.

Me, too.

Thanks for the historical perspective. There's a lot more of it than I ever thought.

As I remember it, no one has ever seen a shagamaw (at least and lived to talk about it). This led some to speculate that it could be a BF. The only way you knew they existed was the fact that things would go missing along the tote road, and sometimes the weird tracks. Here is a few articles I found after a copernic search on the internet:

shagamaw n :
mythical Maine creature Bipedester deleuissimus with two bear forefeet, and two moose hindfeet, which it varies alternately, making it tricky to track.

The Tote-Road Shagamaw: Uncatalogued Creature Lore

From the Rangeley Lakes to Allegash, on into New Brunswick, loggers tell of an animal that has baffled many-a-man, even those who ain't strangers in the New England Woods. It starts as such: report of bear tracks seen near camp is circulated; soon thereafter, initial reports are denied and moose tracks are reported instead; heated argument breaks out between two men, one saying, "You don't think I know the diff'ernce 'tween bear and moose track you idjit!"; fist fight occurs.

To only a few timber cruisers and rivermen is the explanation of these mysterious changing tracks known.

Gus Demo, of Oldtown, Maine, hunted and trapped in the Maine woods for nearly a half-century. He once come upon what he clearly recognized as moose track and scat.

Mr. Demo: "I follered the tracks for 80 rods, when to my utter astonishment, they suddenly changed to bear track and scat. I go, 'Huh?' No lie. Then, I took up followin' them tracks another 80 rods when they switched back over to moose track and more scat. I go, 'What the?' Amid my surprise, I did take the notion to mark it off, and I calculated that these switchovers happened once every quarter mile, to the foot, and that the steps was exactly one yard apart. Furthermore, I noted, mentally a course, that these mysterious tracks always foll'erd a tote-road or blazed line through the woods.

"This once, I come into sight of the creature, 'twas bizarre, sir, indeed 'twas. I saw it had hind feet like that of bear and fore feet like that of moose. 'Twas the most curious animal I'd seen since or since then. I noted, mentally you see, being without pencil and pad - as so often we find ourselfs in the woods - that the animal paced itself very slowly, as though it were counting its steps. It was walking up on its hind feet, something like a human, though clumsier, then swung and pivoted and walked on its front feet and resumed its heedful pacing."

Mr. Demo reasoned that the animal, the "shagamaw" as he named it later, walked this way because it was an imitative animal and it wanted to be like humans. The creature had observed surveyors carefully moving though the woods or trappers patiently stalking some fur-bearing animal. He speculated, also, that the animal did, in fact, count its steps and could only count as high as 440 (the number of yards in one quarter mile), therefore, it had to pivot and switch from front-to-back or vice versa, in order to keep track of its tracks.

With regard to the strange biology of the animal, Mr. Demo has theorized less extensively, saying, "I'm a woodsman, not a scientist." He did once mention that perhaps the weird animal was "the result of a hex cast forth by some damn wizard."

The Argopelter

Also called a forest monkey, this cute little squirrel-like animal was so friendly, it was nearly hunted to extinction. Then the lumbermen taught argopelters to protect themselves by throwing bits of wood at anyone who would come near their tree-holes. They became chunk chuckers. If you’re walking in the woods and get hit by a falling branch, it was probably thrown by an argopelter.




The Squonk

Pity this poor creature. Its loose, wrinkly skin is covered with bumps and moles. The squonk feels so sorry for itself it just sits and moans. When faced with danger, this little animal quickly dissolves itself with its tears. If you want to catch one, try it in winter. They move around less and their tears fall slower.


The Billdad

Imagine a small kangaroo with a flat tail, webbed feet and a bill like a hawk. That’s the bildad. Since it’s such a good jumper, it waits by the shore of a pond for a fish to rise. Then it leaps over the fish and smacks it with its flat tail. Jumping half the length of a football field is nothing to the bildad.



The Shagamaw

This animal confused woodsmen for a long time, because its front legs are those of a bear, but its back legs are just like a moose’s. It walks 440 steps with its front legs, then quickly hops to its back legs, leaving very confusing trails. The shagamaw’s favorite snack is a lumberjack’s drying shirt on a laundry line.

Fear the Hodag...

Thanks...I too am amazed at how much is out there.

Of course I tend to "read between the lines" which I know some won't do...but who else can revise history if I can't in my mind?

This book is really cool...here's a scan of the index...each of the stories has an illustration that accompanies it like the above posts.

The Walker D. Wyman book is easier to get ahold of than the original 1911 book though...I found my hardcover copy online. My friend had a paperback copy of it I remember reading when we were growing up.

tirademan

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"