Historic Cryptid Headline: August 11, 1906 - Snake Milked The Old Brindle Cow

The Superior Times

August 11, 1906

“Snake Milked The Old Brindle Cow.”

Farmer Finally Discovers Mysterious Thief.

First Laid To Witchcraft.

But Finally Bossy and the Reptile Were Found Meeting by Appointment and Now the Latter Is No More.

Pine Brook, Mich. - Abraham Skadowski, a Hebrew farmer living near this place, has discovered the thief that daily for the last four weeks has been milking one of his cows.

And, what’s more, Skadowski has the thief’s hide on the fence, not figuratively, but literally speaking.

It measures more than half the length of a ten-foot chestnut rail, to which it is nailed, in plain sight of everybody that passes along the road in front of his house. Those that have seen it say it is the largest specimen of spotted or milk snake ever seen near Pine Brook.

The snake was killed by Skadowski himself in the pasture lot adjoining his barn. It had just helped itself to a good feed from an old brindle cow. The strangest part of the affair was that the cow stood as quietly while the reptile was milking her as though it were the milkmaid’s hand to which she submitted.

When Skadowski approached the snake dropped in the grass and started to crawl away, but he had no trouble overtaking it and killing it with a stick. The discovery and death of the reptile cleared up a mystery that for nearly a month has been puzzling the Skadowski household.

It was in early June that the farmer, on going to the barnyard one night to milk discovered that none could be drawn from the bindle cow, one of the heaviest milkers in the heard of 12. Every night since, if the cow spent the day in the pasture field, it was the same way. In the morning she would be all right, and also at night on the few days during that period Skadowski kept her confined to the limits of the barnyard. It was only when turned loose in the pasture that the milk was taken.

None of the other cows were ever afflicted in the same manner, and how to account for the strange condition of affairs was beyond Skadowski’s power. He reported the circumstance to his Hebrew neighbors, but they could offer no relief. He called the rabbi, but the religious leader could give no better advice than the laymen. All were inclined to attribute it to witchcraft or some other supernatural cause. He wanted the rabbi to kill the animal, but this the latter refused to do, as he said the meat would not be “kosher,” or clean, according to Hebrew standards. Skadowski then, on the advice of one of his American neighbors, set a watch on the cow while in the pasture, with the result that the mystery was cleared when the snake was killed.

The cow had separated herself from the rest of the heard and came toward the barn. It was near milking time, and the farmer thought nothing of it, as she, as well as the rest, was in the habit of coming home about that hour. What was his surprise to see her stop near a clump of blackberry bushes, out of which the snake glided and ran to meet her. It looked as though the two met by some prearranged appointment.

When Hiram Perry, one of the oldest farmers in Pine Brook, saw the snake and heard Skadowski’s story, he said that he had thought it was a snake doing the milking all along. He claimed that that particular breed of snakes was getting very scarce in Jersey now, but that formerly they were plentiful.

“I believe that the milking of a cow by a snake is one of the rarest things that ever happens, and that conditions must be just right for it to happen. In fact, if there should be a hundred more milk snakes in that pasture, and a hundred cows were to pasture there, it might never occur again.”

“Historic Cryptid Headlines” showcases actual articles involving cryptids that were published within United States newspapers back in the 1800s-1900s. The articles posted here are written exactly as they appeared during their original publishing date.

-The Pine Barrens Institute

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