An entry on BFRO relates a 1985 sighting by two women of a large hairy biped near the entrance to Ice Cave Mountain in Cragsmoor. This would be about a 10-12 mile hike from western New Paltz.

There is a report of an alleged “baby” Bigfoot found on a 1997 videotape shot near Lembo Lake in Modena, of Route 44/45. This would be only about 5 miles south of western New Paltz, and about a 10-12 miles hike also from Cragsmoor.

The Shawangunk Ridge (pronounced “Shongum”) is an imposing mountain ridge in southern Ulster County. It is often referred to as “The Gunks” by the many climbers who find its cliffs to be great climbing. I’ve read about at least one secluded area in the Gunks that as far as anyone knows has not been previously documented as being known by anyone in modern or historical times.

Loren, if you can get more information on the exact place where it was found, I could see what the area is like next time I’m down there (which may not be for a while, though). If you prefer to do so privately, I can give you my email address.

In the southeast, at Sequoya Caverns and Ellis Homestead, Valley Head, AL, at the end of one of the cave tours there is a large stone head on display that was found lying in a hay field some years back. It is the property of a Mr. Clark Byers. From what I can remember it is about two feet wide by a foot and a half or so high.

The stone head is flat and in the shape of a half circle and is carved with what appears to be a native american wearing a headress. It looks similar to the Mayan carvings in a way but more primitive.

I’ll see if I can scan the pic I took of it this past summer and e-mail it to ya.

For more info on it, you can contact the owner of the land through this link.

No disrespect meant to the art historian you spoke to, but having worked with seals as a young man and having lived in a cabin on a west coast island and hunted them for food, I can’t find any resemblance between seals and those masks. Perhaps the person you spoke with just didn’t believe in the possible existence of Sasquatch and could only imagine the masks as representing seals. I managed to find a couple articles I found interesting, one concerning masks and another regarding carved stone heads.

In 1887, the paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh wrote, “Among the many stone carvings (from the Columbia) were a number of heads, which so strongly resemble those of apes that the likeness at once presents itself.” Around 1914, a Leutenant G.T. Eammons obtained one of two wood facemasks that were collected from the Tshimsian and Nisga’s tribes on the coast of British Columbia. He described the mask as “a mythical being found in the woods, and called today as a monkey.”

I don’t know much about dating ancient artifacts, but I do know a little bit about cemeteries.

Since this event took place in New York, it was likely the gravesite was in an existing cemetery, or in an area where people had been buried in the past.

I think it would be important to find out what type of cemetery it was and where it was located. If it was in an area where slaves were buried years earlier, it could explain why this was simply “found” in the ground. Some former slave cemeteries were later utilized by the general population, especially back East. There was virtually no marking of slave gravesites.

In years past, all gravesites weren’t plotted carefully, especially if it was used prior to the 1920’s — which is highly likely given the date of the find. There are some cemeteries in NY that have been around for hundreds of years.

Not to be gruesome, today remains are often “discovered” while digging a new grave. Sometimes this is due to the ground shifting, but other times it is because the cemetery has been in use for so many decades that it is not known where all the gravesites are located.

And we all know it has been tradition to bury items with the deceased.

I think it is highly likely that if this was indeed found in the ground in the 1930’s, and it was at a cemetery, it was probably something that was buried with someone in the past.