Historic Cryptid Headline: August 30, 1855 - The Silver Lake Snake Captured

January 19, 2021 / adam benedict

Plymouth Weekly Banner

August 30, 1855

“The Silver Lake Snake Captured.”

A correspondent of the Buffalo Republic, writing from Perry Village, gives an account of the capture of the monster snake seen in the lake in that vicinity. An old whaleman, named Daniel Smith, and two companions, having prepared themselves with harpoons, cordage, and all the necessary articles, watched for his snakeship for eight days without success. The correspondent says:

The lake has several outlets, the largest of which runs through this village and finally empties into or becomes the Genessee river. In the vicinity of this outlet he was seen first and on Sunday he came to the surface, displaying about thirty feet of his long sinuous body, remaining however, but a few moments. The boats were on the watch all Sunday night. The whalemen had 1200 feet of strong whale line in their boat, the end of which ran ashore and was fastened to a tree. On Monday morning everything was on the alert. The shores were lined with town people and strangers, and everybody seemed very much excited. About 9 o’clock the animal made his appearance between the whalemen’s boat and the shore, revealing twenty or thirty feet of his length. Mr. Smith of Covington, poising a Lilly iron in the air (a Lilly iron is a patent harpoon, a heavy cutting knife being attached by the middle to the end of the iron by a rivit. As soon as the knife enters the body of the animal, this moveable blade turns at right angles to the wound, and being entirely blunt and flat on one side, it is impossible to extricate it except by cutting out.) When they had got about ten feet from the animal, the iron whistled through the air and went deep into his body. In a moment the whole length of the animal was lashing the air, at a bound revealing his whole enormous length, and then making the water boil in every direction, he described rapid, foaming circles and areas of circles with such swiftness that the eye could scarcely follow him. Then he darted off in another direction toward the upper part of the lake, the suddenness of his movement almost dragging the boat under water. Line was gradually given him, and after the space of half an hour, it was plain his strength was almost exhausted. The whalemen then came on shore and gradually hauled the line in.

The body was within fifty feet of the shore, when new life appeared to have been given him, and with one dart he carried all the line out. This was his last great effort. He was slowly dragged ashore amid the wildest excitement and tumult ever known in the vicinity of Silver Lake. Four or five ladies fainted upon seeing the monster, who, although on shore, was lashing his body into tremendous folds, and then straightening himself out in his agony, with a noise and power that made the very earth tremble around him. The harpoon had gone entirely through the muscular part of him, about eight feet from his head.

The snake, or animal, is fifty-nine feet five inches in length, and is a most disgusting looking creature. A thick slime covers his hideous length, a quarter of an inch thick, which, after being removed, is almost instantly replaced by exudation. The body of this creature is variable in size. The head is about the size of a full grown calf’s. Within eight feet of the head, the neck gradually swells up to the thickness of a foot in diameter, which continues for fifteen inches, and then tapers down the other way, constantly increasing in size, however, as it recedes from the head, until the body of the monster has a diameter of two feet in the centre, giving a girth of over six feet. It then tapers off towards the tail, which ends in a fin which can be expanded in the shape of a fan until it is three feet across, or closed in a sheath. Along the belly, from the head to the tail, are double rows of fins, a foot in length - not opposite to each other, but alternately placed.

The head is a most singular affair. The eyes are very large, white, staring and terrific. Attached to the edge of the upper and lower lids, which are like those of a human being, a transparent film, or membrane is seen, which, while it protects the eye of the animal, does not interfere with its vision. It has no nostrils or gills, apparently. The mouth of this serpent or whatever it may be, is underneath - is almost a counterpart of the fish called the sucker, possessing the same valvular power, pursed up - but it can be stretched so as to take in a body of the diameter of a foot or a foot and a half. No teeth can be discovered. A hard bony substance extends in two parallel lines around the upper and lower part of the head. Its color is a dusky brown on the sides and back, but underneath the belly is a dirty white. It is sinuous like a snake, but has along its back, and on each side, a row of bare substance, knoblike in shape - the largest raised four inches from the surface of the body, extending from head to tail.

“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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