Two mysterious Halloween tales for you

Two Legends by Ross A. Doerr

 

The following 2 legends are written in a narrative or documentary form as if written by a free lance reporter. Everything below is fiction. Or is it? Have a happy Halloween, but be sure to whistle if you’re walking on the West River Road North of Augusta.

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My name is Roland dusette and I have spent the past month and a half researching two heretofore unknown legends from the Augusta, Maine area. As an independent journalist I am submitting the following tales to print media outlets in Maine with the hope of selling them.

 

Poster’s Note: The two legends that appear below were found in a hiker’s backpack along with the cell phone belonging to Mr. Dusette. It was found between West River Road and about 100 feet from the Kennebec river in a thickly wooded area north of Augusta.

Mr. Dusette has not been seen nor has anyone heard from him in the past three weeks.

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The Kennebec Creature

 

Every Halloween I’m struck by how little is written and published about the Augusta, Maine area that’s spooky (other than what’s going on in the State legislature that is). Lacking anything genuine in the records from our area that is remotely scary, I thought I’d post this story. It’s a tale about Augusta’s crypto-creature.

There are tales in Augusta, very old tales that have never been “officially” told.  These tales have been whispered from generation to generation, first by native Americans, and then by early European settlers. The telling of this particular tale is, as noted above, long overdue.

To give you an idea where this tale originates, my wife and I live in Kennebec County, specifically on Augusta’s North end.  The house we live in was built by one of her colonial ancestors back in the late 1780’s and the land it sits on spans 44 densely wooded acres backing up to I-95. All of that used to be thickly forested.   

The origins of this tale, like so many others is lost to time.  What we know is that, in 1628, in what is now known as the Kennebec Valley, the Cushnoc Trading post was established on the banks of the Kennebec river by early English traders and explorers establishing trade with native Americans.  The explorers were warned by the Indians to beware of what they called “the Bec.”  To shorten this tale a bit, the true name of “the Bec” was at that time, known only to the tribes who lived in and hunted this region. However, they refused to speak the full name aloud believing that to speak it was to summon it.

By 1661 the Cushnoc Trading Post had been abandoned, but the tale of “the Bec” quietly persisted.

Early descriptions of what is now locally known as the “Kennebec creature,” remain essentially unchanged since 1628 when white explorers first heard about it from the Indians.

Its height is said to be between 4 and 5 feet and powerfully built. Eye witness accounts agree that it has powerful broad shoulders, a deep and thickly muscled chest, thick and powerful arms with stocky legs and a head that seems to be jammed directly on top of its shoulders.  It is completely covered by brown, thick, bear-like fur and leaves a human-like footprint with 4 toes that are tipped with thick, sharp claws. 

Looking “more or less human” its eyes are said to be large, narrow and wrap nearly a third of the way around the side of it’s head.  If true, this would afford it the best binocular vision of almost any known primate. Descriptions of its ears seem to vary.  Some descriptions claim that its ears are rounded and seem “bear like” in an odd way. Rooted in the sides of its head, the ears extend up above the top of its skull. Other descriptions assert that the ears are pointed like those of a cat, and can be rotated nearly 180 degrees, which would give it excellent, directional hearing without needing to move its head.

Finding verified historic accounts of this creature is as elusive as the creature itself.  Efforts to find anyone willing to speak of “the Kennebec Creature” has proven to be nearly impossible. 

Even the Elders of native American tribes from the Passamaquoddy, MicMac, Algonquin, Penobscot, Abenaki and even as far away as the Mohawk, flatly refuse to have so much as a historic conversation about it. The old cultural belief that to “speak of it summons it” remains deeply rooted.

Even eye witness accounts or rumors of “the Kennebec Creature” by European settlers from early colonial times are either nonexistent or have been so well buried that they are unverifiable.  This is, to an extent, understandable when such accounts would have been viewed as “demonic” and “Heretical” by the strict religious leaders of early New England colonial society.

“The Kennebec Creature” remains an unsubstantiated rumor that only inhabits hushed conversations and whispers with historians and genealogists who refuse to acknowledge any part of the old tales to this very day for fear of damaging their professional reputation.

As in all such tales, you can still get a glimpse of it through the obscurity of time, if you’re persistent.

For example, there is this account from 1934, handed down word of mouth in the Buckshaw family (a local north Augusta family) about the time Grandpa Buckshaw saw “the Kennebec Creature.” 

According to family legend, the elder Buckshaw was returning from a visit to the outhouse when he heard one of his goats “setting up a fuss.”  Running to the goat pen, he was just in time to see one of his best milking goats that weighed nearly 90 pounds, tucked under the arm of a creature that was “about 4 feet tall, covered in dark brown fur, legging it towards the tree line as if the goat weighed little more than a chicken.”  When he yelled at it in an effort to get it to drop his goat, it stopped, turned and looked back at him in his words: “with the most evil eyes I’ve ever seen.”

From that day until his death some 35 years later, he never went to the outhouse without a loaded shotgun.

Then there was the incident that occurred in 1954 on what is today known as West River Road in Augusta’s North end.  Frank LeGuirq, a 34-year-old Marine Corps veteran of some of the worst fighting in the South Pacific during World War II, was driving his loaded logging truck South towards Augusta when he came around a bend in the road.  “It was one of those mornings when the fog was up from the river and real thick,” he later told his wife Pheobe.  “The sun wasn’t up all the way, and with the fog, I couldn’t see very far.  As I came around the bend, a young adult moose bolted out of the fog from the river side of the road right in front of me, as if something was chasing it.  I couldn’t avoid hitting it.  I managed to get my truck stopped about 150 feet down the road, right across from the Cling Cemetery, to look over the damage to the front of my truck. That moose had to weigh in around 350 or 450 pounds. After looking at the crushed grill, busted headlight and bent fender, I figured I’d better go back and see if the moose was down and dead, or still alive.  Since the end of the war, I can’t abide seeing an animal suffer, so I pulled my 300 Savage deer rifle out of the truck’s cab and walked back up the road.  About that time, a breeze kicked up and cleared a good bit of the fog away.  I saw, and this is the God’s honest truth,  a creature with pointy ears, covered in dark brown fur about 5 feet tall, glaring at me with the most frightening eyes I’ve ever seen as it walked away from me.  The bit that made me rack a shell in the chamber was this – “it” had one hand buried inside the flesh of the neck of that dead moose and was walking away with it into the woods with as little effort as you’d have dragging a trash bag full of dry leaves to the trash pile.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  It was dragging a dead moose weighing 350 or 450 pounds with just one hand.  Its tracks looked nearly human, only with 4 toes that had to be tipped with heavy sharp claws.”

   Several years later, I-95 was being built up through Maine to the Canadian border by the Federal Highway Department.  That’s a lot of tree clearing and digging out in the woods.  While road construction crew members in this area initially reported numerous sightings of “The Kennebec Creature,” the reports dropped to near zero after the highway construction company let it be known that such reports were “obvious indicators of on-the-job drinking,” constituting grounds for immediate dismissal if they did not stop.

More recently, Tony Kirk, whose family boasts a 230-year presence on Augusta’s West River Road, sold his house and land to move down to North Carolina.  He said, “Yes, I’ve seen that thing a few times. Sometimes you can feel it looking at you from over there,” and jerked his thickly bearded chin towards a heavy tree line bordering the 180 acres of hay field next to his house.  “When the cows bunch up all facing the trees, and all of the wildlife goes quiet, you know it’s there looking at you.  That’s why I’m selling out and moving down to North Carolina to be close to our kids and grandkids.  They don’t need to inherit this place with that thing living out there.”

When asked why he felt that way, he thumbed his suspenders straight and rubbed his beard.  “Last year I was out in those woods checking on some pine trees I was thinking of having logged, when I came across the remains of an adult black bear.  They grow to be about 250 to 300 pounds.  There was about 30 pounds of this one left, and the ground was covered with human like footprints with 4 toes that seemed to be tipped with thick claws.  Some prints were large, some smaller, like more than one creature had made them. The ground was all torn up like the bear had been in a darn good fight with whatever made those footprints.  The blood on the ground was still wet.  Anything that can take down a full-grown bear in a fight, then eat most of it, isn’t the sort of thing I want to meet up with.”

The people who purchased the farm from him refused to speak with anyone about what seems to be lurking out in that tree line.

We caught up with Tony’s son in North Carolina for a few words about the Kennebec creature.  Major Brandon Costa, Army Special Forces infiltration, sniper and unarmed combat instructor was quite frank with us in his opinion of his parents’ move to North Carolina.  “Oh, something’s in those woods up by Augusta all right, and whatever it is, it’s not good.  I tracked it a few times last year when we were up visiting Mom and dad with the kids.  I’m pretty good at stealthy tracking in the woods, but that thing kept getting around behind me and all I ever saw of it was those 4 toed footprints.  Moving down here was the smartest thing for Mom and Dad to do.”

Most recently Bevin O’Ryan, a highly regarded crypto-zoologist from Newburyport, Massachusetts, came to the woods in Augusta’s North end to investigate the Kennebec Creature.

Laden with video and audio recording equipment, he left his Toyota RAV4 in the middle of an overgrown logging road out in the woods on Augusta’s North end to hike in and set up cameras and recorders at various locations.  Everything was attached to heat and motion-sensitive censors, in the hope of getting video or audio evidence of the creature. He returned to his SUV at midday to eat some lunch and collect his camping gear. His plan was to spend the night in the woods to try and catch a glimpse of the elusive creature.

Arriving back at his SUV, he discovered that all of his food was gone. Whatever had taken it had ripped the tailgate completely off of his RAV4 to get it.  The gate was laying on the ground next to his car and there was one set of footprints, human like, with 4 toes tipped with thick, sharp claws leading out of the woods to the back of his car, then back into the trees.

That wasn’t the end of it. Not wanting to leave several thousand dollars’ worth of motion sensors and recording equipment in the woods, O’Ryan began retracing his path  into the woods to retrieve everything and “call it a day.” 

As he retraced his path, he hadn’t made it 50 feet on his back trail when he looked down to see that another set of footprints, human like, with 4 toes tipped in claws, had been behind him when he’d returned to his car after setting up his equipment.

As far as anyone knows, those cameras, motion sensors and recording equipment are still out in those woods.

To this day only muted rumors of “The Kennebec Creature” have been murmured between locals, but never to anyone in authority for fear of being labeled a “nutcase.” You will not find anyone working for the Fish and Game Department or Forestry department willing to talk about it either.

How do I feel about our local historic monster?  I feel about it the same way I feel about ghosts.  That is to say, if it’s real enough to hurt you, it’s real enough to stop .45 caliber the hard way.  At least that was until the day before yesterday.

A guy living just up the Road from us has a string of black walnut trees in back of his place with several oak trees, as well.  Each fall, the acorns and black walnuts are real abundant and the squirrels go into food-gathering, high gear.  Every year we see them busily storing up nuts for the winter.  The squirrel population around here this year seems to be way down, though.

Two days ago, the guy who smokes venison, salmon  and beef in a smokehouse out behind his garage, came home to find that a part of the back wall of his smokehouse had been ripped out about 5 feet up from the ground and about 3 feet wide. All of the smoked meat in it was gone.

There was only one set of tracks leading up to the back of the smokehouse, and one set leading away, back into the woods.  The tracks going away were deeper than the ones leading up to it, as if the creature that made them was carrying something heavy.  The tracks looked human, with 4 toes that have claws for toenails.

Like I said, this guy lives just up the road, so I keep my 12 gauge, with 3 inch magnum ball bearing loads in it, leaning at the back door now. 

You folks reading this can believe whatever you want to believe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The River Creature

 

We live near the Kennebec river in Augusta.  Those who live near rivers in New England know that sometimes weather conditions involving fog or mist can play tricks on your eyes when you look at the river.

The following tale is compiled from repeated reports of strange things from those who live on the banks of the Kennebec river in Central Maine.  The River cuts through the middle of Maine’s capital City, Augusta, and has been a means of exploration, transportation, trade and movement of military forces for as long as white men have lived in what is known as central Maine. Native Americans of the region lived on its banks, fished in it and traveled it for as long as humans have lived there. 

The Kennebec is much like most rivers in New England, sometimes it’s tranquil, sometimes it floods. It gets dangerous ice dams every spring thaw and even has its own “river creature” legend.

Or is it a legend?

For those who live along the river in the Augusta area, it’s no laughing matter.  

Several times each year, sometimes during the summer, sometimes in late fall, people have reported seeing “The River Snake” or, as the Native Americans have referred to it, the “Great Spirit of the River.”

The “River Snake” is said to be between 40 and 65 feet in length.  When seen, its head has been either barely above water or perched atop at least 10 feet of thick, flexible neck.  Its head is said to resemble that of a horse, only larger, with deep-set eyes, slotted nostrils and overlapping, sharp teeth.  When it “sounds,” it emits a high-pitched, piercing whistle, ending in an ear-splitting howl. 

“I’ve heard it three times since we’ve lived near the river, and just thinking about it makes my blood run cold.” Says Ms. Neddie Grogan, a native of Maine who moved to the east bank of the river, about 3 miles North of Augusta, 13 years ago.  “I only actually saw it once, though, 3 years ago in the summer at night during a thunder storm.  Its head was well up out of the river as it swam quickly North.  I got a real good look at it during a double lightening flash.” 

That description is pretty much the same as descriptions you’ll find repeated by Native Americans and early settlers to the area.  Modern day eye witnesses say that the description is an accurate one.

Back in 1820, two traders, Zackery Bass and Josia Christman, had loaded their river bateaux with fish, cheese and furs they’d just traded for at what is today known as “Old Fort Western,” located on the banks of the Kennebec River.  Guiding their bateaux down the river, they had beached their boat to shelter from a violent thunderstorm, when they claim that they were attacked by a 50-foot-long river creature. 

“It let go a shrill whistle, ending in a howl and glared at us with blood red eyes from what looked like a horse’s head that has fish scales all over it.  Because of the rain, our powder was wet, so we couldn’t get a shot off at it, so we retreated back into the woods.  The creature was much more interested in the fish loaded on the boat than it was in pursuing us. Me and Zackery say it was welcome to those fish.”

“Old Fort Western” still stands in Augusta.  Built in 1754 by the Kennebec proprietors as a military supply depot, Captain James Howard commanded the garrison there until he purchased the fort from the government in 1767, when it was “decommissioned.” The fort has two blockhouses mounting cannon, and one of the blockhouses has a clear line of fire to the river.  Since there was never any Indian attacks or British military activity in the Kennebec Valley during the revolutionary or 1812 wars, why mount cannon aimed only towards the river?

Not too far from the fort, sits an empty granite structure that was built in 1828 serving as a federal arsenal until its closure in 1901. Also located on the banks of the Kennebec river, and easily reached by a path from the fort, the now empty old federal arsenal building has its own history with the River Snake.

Just before America’s entry into the Mexican American War, an officer stationed at the arsenal, Lieutenant Zebulian Mallicette, vanished one warm summer evening.  Two enlisted men reported that the Lieutenant had just gone outside to walk his rounds, when they say they heard a high-pitched whistle and howl followed by what sounded like two pistol shots.  They claim they heard a man scream once, then all was silent. The alarm was sounded and the Lieutenant was never found.  The next morning, his Navy Colt cap and ball pistol was found pressed into the mud near the river’s bank, with two empty chambers. The arsenal’s Sargent who wrote the report on the incident, said that the pistol had been stepped on, which is why it was embedded into the mud of the river bank. The clawed, webbed footprint that covered it was 16 inches wide and 35 inches long. 

Back in the 1930’s, when there was a spike in reports of the “River Spirit,” the head of Maine’s Department of Fish and Game, Tobius Granger, had only this to say about the reports:

“Anyone who says there’s a giant snake living in the Kennebec river is trying to pull your leg.  Our river has no creature of any sort in it, other than what you would find in any river up here.  The Kennebec is safe, so come up for a boat trip and enjoy the fishing and scenery any time.”

Local business owners along the river dismissed such sightings as “folks from away who don’t know a sturgeon when they see one.  They think there’s a giant snake in there.  There’s nothing in that river but fish.”

Pete Caqlaquer, a logger who lives on the river North of Augusta disagrees.  “Last summer, a very big dead sturgeon washed up on a gravel bar below my place and it had a bite, just one, out of it right behind it’s gills.  That bite was 14 inches wide.  You tell me what kind of critter can take a bite out of a 7 foot long sturgeon like that.”

More recently, last summer, Betty Carston of Augusta had taken her small boat upstream into the Sidney area and had been quietly fishing when she had the distinct feeling that she was being watched.  Looking over her left shoulder, she was shocked to see what looked like the head of a horse with red eyes staring “down” at her from a long serpentine-like neck, towering about 10 feet above the surface of the water. “I was frozen with fear, I couldn’t scream or move.  I just sat there looking up at it, as it looked back at me.  You don’t really know terror until something as prehistoric as that thing makes eye contact with you and sees right into your soul.  Then, slowly, it lowered back into the water, the surface swirled and it seemed to move away from me downstream towards Augusta, very fast.” She then threw her fishing pole into the water, started her outboard motor, drove the boat to the west side of the river, jumped out and ran as fast as she could away from the river towards West River Road.  When she reached the pavement, she turned towards her house, walked home and hasn’t gone fishing in the Kennebec since that day.

In another incident that happened just this past summer, a local retired legal secretary named Tanej Philbrook was sitting in her car down at the old mill site on the Kennebec, reading a book.  Her husband, who is blind, was standing on the river bank, fishing.  This is their habit during good weather. “Russ goes fishing from the river’s bank, while I read a book in the car until he’s done. Then we go home, hopefully for a fresh fish dinner.”  This particular day, as she sat quietly reading her book, “Something made me look up from the book and glance out the window towards Russ.  Much to my astonishment, I saw what looked like a horse’s head atop a thick serpent-like neck, poking out of the water.  It was about 30 feet out in the river and seemed to be looking directly at him.  The part that terrified me was that “it” was slowly moving towards him.  I jumped out of the car, dashed over to Russ and dragged him to the car, threw him in and raced away from the river.  I’m not taking my husband fishing down there ever again.” 

When asked if she reported this incident to the authorities, she answered, “Hell no.  Nobody would believe me, and I don’t want to be known around town as the crazy lady that sees river monsters.”

Also, this past summer, at 3 a.m. early Saturday morning during the 4^th of July weekend, the public boat landing in Augusta received some unexplained damage to the dock and several boats moored there.  Tilly Francis, age 72, who lives in a 4th floor apartment in a building with an unobstructed view of the docks told us, “I was wide awake that Saturday because the doctor had me on some new pills that are very good at preventing sleep.  Those docks are well-lit and I had a clear view of them that morning.  They keep those public docks lit all night like that to prevent people from trying to steal boats, I guess.  Suddenly I heard ‘Boomp! Boomp! Boomp!’ You know that sort of hollow, empty sound you hear when an empty boat is being pounded on by someone, so I grabbed my binoculars and looked over at the docks.  Something, some sort of real big animal, had gotten in between two of the docks amongst the boats and seemed to be caught, and it was thrashing wildly around, trying to get itself free.  It was hard to get a clear look at it because of all the spray it was throwing up as it struggled, but it all quieted down when it thrashed itself free and moved quickly into the water and out to the deep part of the river, where it was away from the light and I couldn’t get a decent look at it.  Whatever it was, it was big and powerful.” 

Newspaper accounts of the incident all read about the same, “Early Saturday morning vandals went to the public dock/landing on the river, punched holes into boats, smashed windshields on them and busted up several sections of dock. The police are still investigating.  Anyone with information about those responsible for the damage is asked to call…”

The “River Spirit” has been predominantly reported in the Kennebec River in plain sight of, and north of Augusta, in the general direction of the town of Sidney.   

Its description is somewhat similar to the lake creature known as “Ponik,” which is known to inhabit Lake Pohenagamook in Quebec, Canada.

It must be emphasized here that there are no photographs of Augusta’s “River Spirit” that this writer is aware of.  All I’ve been able to find are verbal reports that cannot be verified.  Wildlife officials from the State of Maine flatly deny that there is any such creature and insist that there is absolutely no hard evidence that such a creature exists, or ever existed.  Augusta City officials agree and go one step farther, saying that such reports could harm the thriving tourist trade enjoyed by Augusta every summer.

This latter view by officialdom may very well be the crux of the matter.  Will such a creature scare tourists away, or will it draw the monster hunters in? Who knows? But, if you don’t believe in the Kennebec River’s “River Spirit,” you probably don’t believe that the “Kennebec Creature” exists, either.

While we may never know the truth of the matter, one way or another, those who have seen the “River Spirit” believe it exists, and stay away from the river.