Odd, Old News: The Legend of Humboldt’s Loch Ness Monster

Map showing the Phillipsville area, between Dean Creek and Salmon Creek on the Eel River, snipped from the Doolittle Map drawn in 1865. [Click to go to full map]

Last week’s Odd and Old News Blue Rock rattlesnake was not the first large snake sighting in Southern Humboldt in the late 1870’s. Here are several newspaper clippings from 1877 describing a creature similar to though smaller than the Loch Ness Monster:

Loch Ness monster hoax photo [Via Wikicommons]

West Coast Signal August 19, 1877

I have been requested to write you the following for publication. I had first thought that I would not for the reason that I didn’t like to have my word doubted when I speak only the truth. Although this may not be believed by some of the readers of the SIGNAL, it is something that can be sworn to by three or four different parties.

ALL SNAKE AND NO STORY
About three months ago as I was on my way to Garberville, not far below what is know as Phillip’s Flat [modern day Phillipsville], I saw what I thought was a foot log coming down the South Fork [of the Eel] river, and was not a little surprised to see such a thing adrift at that season of the year.

I was on a cliff of rocks, about 50 feet above the river, and stopped to watch the curious looking object, when I saw to my surprise it was a large serpent. The monster was at least 20 feet long in the water, and its head was raised about 3 feet above the surface of the stream, and was about as large as a dog’s head. It saw me, but did not seem to be alarmed, for it headed for the last cliff on which I was standing.

It was one of those hot days that we are accustomed on the South Fork, and the monster seemed to be hunting shade. It was about a foot in diameter; its color a dark brown, with large light and yellow spots. I watched him until he came under the cliff where the rocks hid him from view. It was seen twice more at the same place and once again further up the river. It seems to go to the woods for food, as there can be no other inducement.
…

SOUTHFORKER

Another Southforker speaks:

West Coast Signal 10/3/77Friend Gordon:–I want to have a word to say to “Southforker” who writes about big snakes…. The snake story is, for all I know, correct as two or three persons claim to have seen it…
ANOTHER SOUTH FORKER
Camp Grant [formerly located northeast of Weott], Sept 24, 1877

And showing how the story grabbed the collective consciousness that year is this in another paper:

EVENING STANDARD November 15, 1877

That Snake.–There has been much wit indulged in at the expense of the alleged discoveries on Eel River. It is a marvelous story, but two men who claim to have seen it are men whose veracity cannot be questioned, and the least that can be said is that they certainly think they have seen the monster. The most curious part of the story is that as soon as the report that the monster had been seen became current, the Indians all left the river. It seems that there is a firm belief among them that there is a monster serpent occasionally to be met with on the river that is capable of swallowing an Indian child; and that it has several times done so. Nothing can induce them to doubt the story of the “big snake”, which is so firmly fixed amongst their most trusted traditions.

 

Perhaps we should revive the Humboldt Nessie to attract tourists?

Earlier Odd and Old News: Biggest Rattlesnake Ever?