From Wild Man to Monster: The Historical Evolution of Bigfoot in New York State

When the first European settlers VV entered what is now New York State and its environs, they brought them not only their material culture, but also an array of beliefs in mythical beings. Such creatures had been part of the European psyche for centuries. A central character in this pantheon was the thought to inhabit the darker parts of the European countryside. Also known as the woodwose, wooser, or man of the woods, it was conspicuous in folklore between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries and holds a prominent place in later medieval European artwork and literature. A wild man's image even appears in many coats-of-arms and as a herald figure in book illustrations. During the later Middle Ages, people were thought to be ordinary humans, such as hermits and eccentrics: the socially marginal and mentally deranged, who had turned to life in the wilderness and began to regress, growing a thick coat of and foraging for food like a wild animal. character of the wild man did not remain a feral human. image evolved slowly over time into a more malevolent and less human form. By reviewing sightings of man-like monsters in nineteenth-century and contemporary New York, this transformation can be traced. Not surprisingly, the early pioneers of what is now New York State reported their own wild men. Some of these accounts undoubtedly depict hermits or deranged individuals whose dishevelled and unkempt appearance led to the conclusion that they were degenerates regressed to a feral state after living in the wild. first New World account of a wild man in the region occurred in 1818 near Ellisburg, close to the Canadian border, when a gentleman of unquestionable veracity reported seeing a man dashing through the woods. It was covered in and bent forward as it moved. A massive search ensued, involving hundreds of residents, but to no avail (Exeter Watchman 1818). Two decades later, in August 1838, a boy told his father of encountering a hairy boy in the town of Silver Lake, Pennsylvania, on the New York border: boy was sent to work in the backwoods near the New York State line. He took him a gun, and was told by his father to shoot anything he might see, except persons or cattle. After working for a while, he heard some person, a little brother he supposed, coming toward him whistling quite merrily. It came within a few rods of him and stopped. He said it looked like a human being, covered black hair, about the size of his brother, who was six or seven years old. His gun was some little distance off, and he was very much frightened. He, however, got his gun and shot at the animal, but trembled so that he could not hold it still. (Dorchester Aurora 1838) During the summer of 1869, a wild man was spotted by at least one hundred residents in the vicinity of Woodhill and Troupsville in Steuben County. It made shrieking sounds as it raced through the countryside. An eyewitness said it moved with a springing, jerking hitch in his gait [that] gave him more the appearance of a wild animal than a human being. One man got a close-up view: The long, matted hair; the thick, black, uncombed beard; the wild, glaring, bloodshot eyeballs, which seemed bursting from their sockets; the swage, haggard, unearthly countenance; the wild, beastly appearance of this thing, whether man or animal, has haunted me (Evening Gazette 1869). Later that year, a wild man was observed eating minnows near Sucker Brook, one mile south of Ogdensburg along the Canadian border. While human in appearance, its observers said its arms and legs were covered in long hair (Plattsburgh Sentinel 1869). In March 1883, a wild man was spotted in the northeastern portion of New York at Port Henry on Lake Champlain. Witnesses said the on the creature was so thick that it resembled an overcoat (Plattsburgh Sentinel 1883). Between August and November 1883, the tiny community of Maine in western Broome County, was the site of a spate of wild man sightings. …

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