Hideous Wild Man Terrorizes NY Town (1869)

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Bigfoot Chicks, Melissa Adair. As serious researchers, the Bigfoot Chicks are commited to seeking the truth regarding the Bigfoot mystery. Assuming that Bigfoots exist, they want to help ensure their surival and hope for an opportunity to observe them in their natural habitat. You can visit their blog at bigfootchicks.blogspot.com.

An extremely detailed account of a sighting in New York state in 1869. It is interesting to note that the creature was reported as wearing "soldier pants". This is not the first account of a sighting where a creature was seen wearing some sort of clothing. As they are said to be covered with fur all over their bodies, I have to wonder about the wearing of clothing. Are they concerned about modesty? If so, that would indicate a higher, and very human level of thinking in these beings...

THE EVENING GAZETTE. 1869 A wild man, a hideous monster roaming about in the neighborhood of Woodhull and Troupsburgh, N.Y. A correspondent of Hornellsville paper tells the following veracious story: For the very strange story I am about to relate I scarcely expect, nor do I solicit belief. Indeed, were it not that hundreds of reliable men and women in the county of Steuben are ready and willing to vouch for its truthfulness, I would never ask you to put :it in print. The facts are, as follows:

During the four weeks last past a wild man has been prowling around the woods in the towns of Woodhull and Troupsburgh, in the southern part of this county, coming frequently into the highways and cleared fields, to the intense terror of women and children,and even strong men. So great is the excitement in some parts of the towns mentioned, that schools have been broken up—parents not daring to send their little ones along the public highways to the schoolhouses. At first the whole thing was considered by most people as a hoax, intended merely to frighten old women and children; but as many of the most prominent citizens vouched for the actual existence of the wild man, and fit disturbance of the schools was making it a matter of public importance, the people of Woodhull and Troupsburgh determined to do all in their power to :ferret the matter out. Accordingly, on the12th inst., about 200 men assembled at the residence of Mr. S. G. Brown, and proceeded to search the woods in that immediate locality. Under the leadership of Capt. J. J. Buchanan and the writer of this article, crowds searched the woods for hours. but with no success, further than the finding a camp fire and the track of a barefooted man imprinted in the soft soil of a marshy part of the forest; and the whole party, at about 3:00 P. M., returned to Mr. Brown's house, and getting ready their teams, started back to Woodhull. The party had proceeded scarcely fifty rods from Mr. Brown's, when on the outskirts of the wood, and within twenty rods of the band of searchers appeared the veritable wild man of the woods: Myself, Capt. Buchanan, and others immediately started in full pursuit. We approached within six or eight rods this strange being without attracting his notice, when suddenly, with a wild, unearthly shriek, he notified us that we were perceived. I drew my rifle, intending to halt him or send a bullet crashing through his skull. I ordered him to halt, when he sprang with the agility of a deer toward the woods. I did not fire, because on second thought I doubted my right to take the life of any human being, however wild, until he had at least violated some law.

So far as I have related facts, which will be vouched for by at least 100 persons, I will now give you a perfect description of this wild man—or animal—or "What is it”--as he, she, or it appeared to me. He was bare-footed, bareheaded, and wore no clothing except an old pair of' soldier's pants; his hair, which was black, sprinkled with gray, was :from two to three foot long, frizzly and matted, hanging over his neck, face, shoulders, and back, reaching half way to the ground; his beard reached to the waistband of his pants, and was jet black; this, together with a springing, jerking hitch his gait, gave him more the appearance of a wild animal than a human being, and though I am not of a nervous temperament, may all the saints in Heaven shield and defend me from ever meeting; such a fiendish looking being face to faec again! The long, matted hair; the thick, black, uncombed beard; the wild, glaring, bloodshot, eyeballs, which seemed bursting from their sockets; the savage, haggard, unearthly countenance; the wild, beastly appearance of this thing, whether man or animal, has haunted me continually by day and night; and I do not wonder that when this strangebeing rapped on the school house windows, children were frightened half out of their sense, and refused to be pacified; for although I have seen the chiefs of fifty different tribes of Rocky Mountain Indians, painted for the war path. and have looked with wonder on the stuffed gorilla, Barnum's "What is it," the man monkey, etc., I never beheld anything in the human form half as hideous as the wild man of Woodhull woods.

I will close by saying that twenty-five years ago a man named William Little suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from Woodhull, and has never been heard of since; and as the farm on which the wild man spends most of his time was formerly owned by the absentee, it is supposed by some that the wild man is none other than William Little himself, returned in this disguise to the home of his youth. But I hardly think this theory the true one. I do believe, however, that a woman and a baby are somewhat mixed up in matter.