In 1886, several newspapers in New England published accounts about a deadly encounter in the Maine woods at Moosehead Lake involving what was likely a Bigfoot.
The story of the 10-foot-tall “wild man” with 7-foot-long arms and hair growing all over his face and body was reported in broadsheets of the time after first gracing the pages of the Waterville Sentinel, a weekly paper that no longer exists. The Waterville Morning Sentinel was established 18 years later in 1904.
Tales of these seldom-seen, mysterious apelike beasts are found in Maine folklore, according to experts, but they are more prevalent in California, Washington, and Oregon tales. Online searches yield hundreds of similar stories from around the globe.
The Maine story starts in early October 1886 when “an affrighted Frenchman from over the line” arrived in Elm City to weave a frightening tale of woe, according to an excerpt from the Sentinel published in at least two other papers of the era, the Wilton Record and The Industrial Journal of Bangor.
“The Frenchman’s story, which is implicitly believed, is that three men were camping out in the woods about a hundred miles north of Moosehead Lake,” the 127-year-old newspaper articles state. “Two of the campers were away from the camp for a week and came back to find the dead body of their companion.”
The unnamed storyteller, possibly a Canadian, “had his fellows in town all by the ears” with the story about the giant wild man he encountered in the dense woods above Moosehead, according to the papers.
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