Odd, Old News: Schumacher’s Snake as Caught by the Press

A drawing in the Illustrated Police News depicting another reported monster. Sadly it doesn’t represent the Eel River creature. We tried valiantly but failed to locate the original illustration.

Nuggets of old news are now being served up once a week by David Heller, one of our local historians.

In the wake of the sensational man vs “snake” encounter described in last week’s post, Humboldt county newspaper editors had great fun, and Gus Schumacher’s account ran a gauntlet of witty skepticism, insider boot jokes, and alternative explanations, until finally the mystery was solved. But by this time the original account of the encounter had been picked up by newspapers around the country, and even “immortalized” with a drawing and article in the nationally distributed Illustrated Police News, a “barbershop rag” of that era.

Safe to swim….

Mr. G.E. Schumacher of Garberville writes to the Times saying that he has seen, fought and conquered the Big Snake of the South Fork of the Eel river.  This will be good news to the people of that section. They can now go swimming with none to molest or make them afraid. Mr. S. says the snake looks like a cross between the crocodile and alligator, a lizard and a water dog. Some Indians are hunting it to skin it.  Here is a chance for Barnum. Democratic Standard, July 6, 1878

Snake story spoiler…

THAT MONSTER- The Police News has the conflict between this Schumacher and the monster of Eel River all pictured out in its last issue. The artist very vividly conveys to the mind of the beholder the awful character of the monster, and the desperation with which Mr. S. fought for his life. And now comes a meddlesome correspondent with astounding discovery that this strange monster of the south fork turns out to be the roots of a redwood tree that extended out into the stream. But then that is just the way somebody is always ready to get up and spoil a good snake story. Ferndale Enterprise, August 23, 1878

Obscure snake and boot jokes…

Your Rohnerville correspondent makes light of Gus Schumacher’s snake, your correspondent says “by their fruits ye shall know them”, if he had said “by their boots ye shall know the Southfork”, he would have been nearer correct. But right here the question arises. How can a man with a No. 6 boots have a snake in them nine feet long? Besides, a physician in your city appointed himself a committee of three, examined the snake and found no boots on it. Daily Humboldt Times 8/16, for July 29

Escaped snake blamed for saloon mayhem….

The Snake Again.–Some weeks ago we announced that Gus Schumacher had captured that snake and taken him to Garberville. Since that time, persons envious of Mr. Schumacher’s fame as a snake catcher, have spread abroad rumors of sturgeons with bullet-holes in their heads, roots of trees that “looked like serpents”, and so forth, in Eel River. All time the snake was in close confinement at Garberville, growing in size and ferocity every day. The other day, however, it escaped and made its way into ‘Schumacher’s saloon. A combat ensued, the terrible nature of which may be imagined from the fact that Brit Greenwood broke up about $20 worth of furniture, decanters, glasses, etc., in trying to capture it. It escaped to some place of concealment, probably to the unexplored recesses of some Garbervillian boot, but will no doubt emerge before long. West Coast Signal August 18, 1878

Bad art depiction may attract good new settlers…

Our Fame Abroad.– We have not heard of G.E. Schumacker since he “captured his snake and started for Rohnerville” many days ago. Perhaps the snake has captured him on the road. If so, our grief at the loss of a citizen, so enterprising and reliable as he, will be mitigated by the fact that in the Illustrated Police News will be handed down to posterity a pictorial representation of his great adventure. “The man-eater of Eel River, California” G.E Schumacher of Humboldt County has a Desperate Encounter with a strange River Monster” is the way in which the News refers to it. Mr. Schumacker, in a brand new suit of clothes and riding a $500 horse, is represented cavorting along the rocky banks of a wild stream, brandishing a pistol with a bore like the Sutro Tunnel. Half out of the water, and looking up at him with a curiously mingled expression of fear, solicitude and astonishment, is the “monster”. The monster has the body of an alligator and the head of a poisoned pup and is of such generally uncertain shape and proportions as an artist wrestling with a description in the Humboldt Times would naturally put upon paper. As a work of art the picture cannot be considered a great success, but as a means of increasing Eastern interest in our golden state, and encouraging the immigration of a desirable class of settlers, such as farmers with their families, it will go very far. West Coast Signal 8/21/1878

Mystery revealed….

WAS IT THE SAME.— A gentleman in this city yesterday from Garberville says that some parties happening on the South Fork of Eel river a few days since discovered a large object struggling to pass a riffle in that stream, at the upper and lower end of which was deep water. Thinking that perhaps it might be a mammoth salmon trying to thrash its way over the rocks and that it might be easily captured, they went to the place, when instead of a salmon they found it to be a huge sturgeon floundering in the shallow water. The monster was almost as plainly visible as it would have been had it lain upon the gravel at their feet. They stood watching its movements as it gradually worked its way to the deep water below, and discovered as they did so, three or four bullet holes through its body not far from the head. Finally it reached the deep water and disappeared. On reaching Garberville this incident was related by the travelers, when some one in hearing said he had seen the same sturgeon, and that it was the veritable “monster’ which Schumacher encountered some time since and fought off with his rifle. Daily Humboldt Times 8/22/1878

G.E. Schumacher’s “river monster”, which the Times described in such a manner as to leave us undecided, whether it was a new fashioned dragon, or an old fashioned case of delirium tremors, turns out to have been a sturgeon. It was seen the other day by cool observers and bore then some of Schumacher’s bullet marks. West Coast Signal August 28, 1878

And so, like a wounded sturgeon seeking deep water, the story of the Man Eating Snake of the South Fork Eel River sank out of history’s spotlight and into the dark recesses of forgotten history.

Earlier Odd and Old News:

• Biggest Rattlesnake Ever?
• The Legend of Humboldt’s Loch Ness Monster
• Odd, Old News: Return Of The Man Eating Snake Of The South Fork (First ‘Viral’ Story From SoHum)