Credible Citizens See Champ
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 15th, 2007
A Lake Monster
Three Reputable Citizens of St. Albans Discover What Appears to be a Huge Serpent, in Lake Champlain.
The celebrated Lake Champlain sea-serpent has again made its appearance. The St. Albans [Vermont] Messenger says that on Friday afternoon [May 9] Charles H. Harvey, L. M. Downing and W. M. Downing, while fishing on a row boat west of St. Albans shore, heard a great agitation of the water at a distance, and on looking towards Butler’s Island, some two miles away, they discovered that the water was lashed into a foam.
A dead calm was prevailing, there being not so much as a ripple on the water anywhere else. At first they thought this might have been caused by a school of fish coming to the surface, but this rational supposition was soon dispelled. The agitation increased and in a moment the water was thrown to an estimated height of thirty or forty feet.
In the midst of it they discovered a dark object of considerable bulk, which would rise to the height of ten or fifteen feet for a minute or two and then go down and come up again. They pulled for the spot as fast as they could, but before they got near enough to get any distinct outline of the object, it dove out of sight and the water soon became placid. The appearance, however, had continued for some ten minutes, and it impressed each beholder alike. What it was they do not pretend to say, but that it was something one or two feet in diameter and at least ten or twelve feet long, and alive and active and powerful, they positively know.Plattsburgh [New York] Sentinel, May 16, 1879
Across The Lake
[excerpt]
The Vermont papers state that the famous Lake Champlain sea serpent has been seen again, this time by a farmer residing near the city of Maquam. The animal’s head is shaped like that of a snake, only much larger[;] he travels with fifteen feet of his body above the water, and at intervals makes a noise like the firing of a cannon, followed by a loud roar. The atmosphere of Maquam must have high refracting powers and the water they drink has very peculiar effects.Plattsburgh [New York] Sentinel, May 23, 1879
Camping at Ladd’s Point
[excerpt]
Among the incidents of the campaign was the appearance of the lake monster, called the sea serpent, while two of the young men were out rowing. They were considerably alarmed, and pushed for the shore with all possible speed. Their description of the creature compares with the one seen in St. Albans Bay, and there is not a particle of doubt that there is some sort of animal of large proportions, perhaps a number of them, inhabiting the lake.Plattsburgh [New York] Sentinel, July 18, 1879
The Lake Serpent Again
We learn from the Burlington [Vermont] Free Press that the Lake Champlain serpent has again appeared.
On Monday [September 15], Major W. W. Scranton, of Scranton, Penn., while out on a boating trip to Wood’s Island with two ladies, saw, about 1,000 feet from the island, the dreadful monster in rapid motion. The gentle in question hastily collected a lot of stones and rowed out in the direction of the moving object. Although he succeeded in
perceptibly lessening the distance between them, and kept the serpent in sight for some ten minutes, he could not overtake it, and soon after[,] it disappeared from view. The Major describes it as being of dark color, with a head about the thickness of a man’s, and at least three or four feet of body was visible at times, while it was certain that the entire length was at no time to be seen.Plattsburgh [New York] Sentinel, September 19, 1879
For more on the credible history of sightings and the Mansi photograph of the Lake Champlain Monsters, see the chapter on “Champ” in Mysterious America. Please buy the 2007 edition of Mysterious America on April 24th and beyond!
*****************
Thanks to
Jerome Clark for passing these 1879 archival news items along.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I find the mention of the “cannon” like sound to be peculiar. Is this a common feature in Champ sightings? I wonder what excactly was being heard and how the creature could have been making such a noise.
Consider the fact that Lake Champlain over the previous 50 years and more had been deforested famously. Imaging a mature tree with its long arcing branches and trunk along the lake’s edge, being washed away root wad and all in a storm. Most trees float but trees with big root wads encompassing a lot of rocks and dirt, drift downward and there they sit as they decay. A rootwad and it’s roots have relatively high surface to volume ratios, exposing a lot of itself to the agents of decay, just like the branches from above the soil. When enough roots and other entanglements fall away, the tree’s trunk, still adequately buoyant, rises to the surface. Sometimes it’s built up enough momentum to breach the surface with a considerable display of energy; erupting amid spray and noise, falling and rebounding until, its energy spent, it floats away innocuously, and in no way looking any different from any other floating old log, a not uncommon sight.
I don’t know about the cannon shot thing…that is odd…of course it is open to interpretation as that is how the sound was described…
The biggest problem I have with the log theory is that occasionally someone should be able to catch up to and identify these things as logs…so far, the logs are as uncatchable as any lake critters…and since logs are not sentient, nor capable of animated movement…the comment about “alive and active” leads me to believe that the thing in the water was moving in some way that indicated to the witnesses that it was more than just bobbing up and down in the water, but actually moving in some animated way…of course it would be better to talk to them personally and see what they meant by that comment.
I would be interested to put together a database of sightings and try to go hunting after Champ during a prime sighting month. Is Dennis Hall still on the missing list? I visited his website and he definitely thought he had some pattern behavior down on this thing…
Who’s in?