SNALLYGASTER

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

On February 9, 1909, the Middletown Valley Register, a newspaper in Maryland, ran the following letter written by T.C. Herbage of Casstown, Ohio:

“A gigantic monster passed over this place last night about 6 o’clock. It was plainly visible, had two immense bronze-like objects as wings, an enormous head from which horns protruded and a tail 20 feet long. It emitted a noise like the screech of an octollopus. Some who saw it declared it to be a Snallygaster.” 

Even though the creature sounded too bizarre to be real, sightings of the feared Snallygaster have appeared in newspapers throughout the decades. The stories inspired news organizations, revered museums, and even a President of the United States to seek concrete evidence of the creature. Known for appearing during turbulent times in United State’s history, the Snallygaster is truly a strange phenomenon.

It was February 12, 1909, when the Middletown Valley Register wrote  of a horrific encounter with a beast that would put the area into the national consciousness. Patrick Boyton, author of “Snallygaster: The Lost Legend of Frederick County” recounted those initial stories:

“The Snallygaster was spotted by a man named Bill Gifferson who was walking along a country road one evening when it wouldn't be swooped down from the night sky and snatched him up pierced his neck with its beak and tossed his lifeless body over a cliff. So I'm not sure if Mr. Gifferson counts as an eye witness because he didn't live to tell the tale. But that's the first recorded Snallygaster victim and the first time the snallygaster appears in the newspaper following the initial story. There were a series of articles that appeared in the register and surrounding papers about additional sightings in the area. There was a man named George Jacobs who was out hunting the of Gasper. And when that beast came down from the sky and Jacobs shot at it but apparently the bullet rattled off its hide as if hitting an iron plate and the man narrowly escaped into a barn. So it was a happier ending for him Bill Gifferson for sure.”

Another eyewitness told the Middletown Valley Register that not only had they seen it’s nest, but it had laid an egg as large as a barrel and was “covered with tough a parchment like shell of yellowish color.” This egg was not far away, in the mountains between Gapland and Burkittsville. Unfortunately, he was never able to locate the exact spot again. 

With each day, came new sightings stirring the area into a frenzy. It’s appearance, truly terrifying:

“Around 1909 when it first started appearing in the local newspaper it was described as A Winged Dragon like creature. In addition to its wings it was described as having a needle like beak and four legs. Armed with steel claws like hooks and a single eye in the middle of it spread and it was also reported to emit a screech like a locomotive whistle.”

Many of the locals began to draw a series of hexes on their doors in an effort to ward off the beast from entering their home. A tradition that many Pennsylvania dutch still practice today. 

A local resident wrote to the Smithsonian institute to try and solve the question of what was preying on their town. The Hagerstown Mail published the Smithsonian’s reply. “it is either a winged bovulopus or a Snallygaster, as it has some of the characteristics of both. These animals are exceedingly rare and the hide of the Snallygaster is said to be worth a hundred thousand dollars a square foot as it is the only thing known that will properly polish punkle shells used by Africans ...for ornaments. Telegrams and letters are pouring in from naturalists, and a strict watch is being kept to try to locate the den or roost.”

With public interest reaching a fever pitch, the story eventually made its way to the most well known big game hunter in the country: President Theodore Roosevelt. 

Teddy Roosevelt was in his last weeks of office and when the Snallygaster stories made their way down to D.C. There were reports that the Smithsonian Institution wanted to capture it so it didn't take long before President Roosevelt himself expressed interest in hunting down the beast. Of course Teddy was already known for his big game prowess so it would have made perfect sense to readers at the time. So Roosevelt, as I mentioned, was in the last weeks of his presidency and he was planning a trip to Africa to hunt big game and his African safari dominated the papers. So it was big news. Much more interesting than the incoming president elect task which nobody can get excited about. Everybody loved Teddy Roosevelt. And I think the papers wanted to continue talking about him even as he was getting ready to leave office. So I just I love the idea of Teddy Roosevelt hunting the Snallygaster because it's easy to picture him playing into this legend because he's already this larger than life mythic feature. So it really captures that turn of the century America that has these two legends kind of battling it out.

A subscriber of the Register wrote: “During the past winter, I read with much interest in the columns of THE VALLEY REGISTER, your very entertaining description of the monster which had made its appearance in the state. At that time and which you were pleased to term as a Snallygaster, Boapulous, [or] Go-Devil. Believing that many readers of your valuable paper would be pleased to have more definite information relating to the animal, as to its origin, size, appearance, etc. with your kind permission, I will gladly endeavor to supply the same.” 

The letter went on to describe the Snallygaster as a part of an ancient species that lived deep within the bowels of the earth. It reported that a large earthquake in Italy had set the Snallygaster free. Soon after, the Snallygaster was first seen on South Mountain, east of Crothersville, Indiana and near Burkittsville, Maryland. A group of men had come upon the lair in the mountain when they heard a noise like a “steam calliope (cah-lie-ah-pee), or the wailing of lost souls.” The team followed the noise, but was stopped when a wall of fire erupted in their path, which did not subside until the morning. They returned to find the earth split open, and the Snallygaster rose from the crevice. It looked like ,”a cross between a jackass, a hyena, a baboon, and the devil, having a forked tail, immense horns, cloven hooves, fiery eyes and a screech like a steam siren and in size equaling an elephant.” They watched as it flew over the Potomac (poe-toe-mic) River, and return the next morning, “its horns gory with blood, evidencing the fact that it had secured another victim.”

On March 6, 1909 the Emmitsburg Chronicle published a story claiming that the reign of the Snallygaster was over . Western Maryland Railway employee, Ed Brown, heard a large commotion in the coal bin. He discovered that some coal was missing and as he searched for the thief, the Snallygaster flew from above, grabbed him by his suspenders, and took off with Mr. Brown dangling from its talons. Another local, Bill Snider, had just pulled up in his car around the same time and took off on foot after his dangling friend. Snider was able to latch onto Mr. Brown, and after a brief struggle they freed him from the Snallygaster’s clutches. The Snallygaster reared back, and shot fire from its nostrils while it flapped it’s “ghost like” wings. It took off for Emmitsburg, and then men pursued it -- forming a mob along the way. The Middletown Valley Register had a description of the final confrontation with the Snallygaster. It said, “John Glass, who was returning from a sale at Bridgeport, where he had purchased a well, threw the newly-acquired well at the Snallygaster, and the well passed over the huge snout and when last seen in the woods West of Taneytown it wore it like a nose-ring.” 

That was the last known sighting of the Snallygaster published in the news. Not long after, peace returned to Maryland. It was a truly bizarre end to an unbelievable story.

Largely because it should not have been believed. The story had been completely made up.

In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, hoaxes and mythmaking was incredibly popular in American newspapers. However, by 1909, most newspapers had dropped their made-up stories in favor of serious journalistic integrity. But despite the growth in newspaper sales, the Middletown Valley Register’s circulation was dwindling. George C. Rhoderik, Sr., the editor of the paper, and Ralph S. Wolfe, a staff writer, are largely credited with starting the tales of the Snallygaster. . It is difficult to say that they actually “invented” the Snallygaster, since  it’s physical description and linguistic origins have roots in folklore of the German immigrants  who settled the area. 

From 1812 to 1814,  the War of the Sixth Coalition waged on. These were some of the final battles of the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars -- and Germans were worried about being conscripted into the Prussian Army. With the War of 1812 coming to a close, America saw a huge influx of Germans immigrating to the US. In the early 1820’s, Baltimore, Maryland became the number two port of entry for immigrants, only behind Ellis Island in New York City. By 1850, 20 thousand german immigrants lived in Baltimore and were the largest immigrant group in the city. 

“Well based on my research Snallygaster in its description as a flying winged creature probably comes close to dragon folklore. And of course there's a lot of Dragon folklore in Germany but in 1876 there was a widow from Washington society. Her name was Madeline Albright and she purchased an old home on South Mountain in Washington County and that neighbors Frederick County and Tash turned her residence. Well she turned to be the inventor her private residence her summer residence. So she was a writer and she had started collecting folklore and legends from the locals who lived on the mountain. And she published these legends in a book called South Mountain Magic. It's a great book. It's still in print by the way. And it's filled with all these crazy stories about werewolves and hoop snakes, these snakes that move by fighting their own tail and rolling around like a tire. So they're really crazy and I'm just really really great stories. And she doesn't mention the word Snallygaster in South Mountain Magic but does talk a lot about ghost stories and poltergeists. And in my early research I discovered that Snallygaster may maybe a mispronunciation of Snelle Geist, which is itself a corruption of the German term Schnelle Geist or a quick spirit. So in Pennsylvania Dutch traditions a quick spirit is responsible for things being knocked off shelves and moving around sort of like a poltergeist. We would think of so now against her actually could have started out as a ghost story.”

 In addition to the “schnelle giest”, much of the story of the Snallygaster comes from the idea of the “Wild Hunt” in german folklore. In the essay ,” The Folklore of the Wild Hunt”, it says, “The motif of the living person who is picked up by the horde and carried somewhere else is particularly common in Germany and in Norway… In Pomerania, doors are closed against the Hunter to keep children from being carried off; in Bohuslan, it was said that ‘Oden Fares from up in the air and takes creatures and children with him.” 

At the time of the “Snallygaster” articles, a similar monster that is widely known today was attacking. Leading many to believe that the stories both have similar origins. 

Soon as I started reading about the Snallygaster I realized that there were those parallels between the Snallygaster and the New Jersey Devil and I had heard stories about the New Jersey Devil growing up. So I went back to an old book I had on the Jersey Devil and there was a big rash of sightings. And lo and behold they happened just weeks before the Snallygaster stories started to emerge but the similarities didn't end there. They both shared similar physical characteristics as far as having wings and talons. They were both referred to as Jabbberwockies which of course comes from the Lewis Carroll poem about a fierce creature. So if you're inclined to believe the story you can surmise that the Jersey Devil traveled south and is the same creatures the snarling gastric certainly a lot of people have come to that conclusion. Or you can you know come to the conclusion that the Middletown Register publishers ripped off the story from the New Jersey papers and I don't stress that connection too much because nobody likes to think of their hometown mobster as being knock off with another monster. 

The true reason for the Snallygaster’s arrival at this time was most likely political. The original article published in the Middletown Valley Register was titled “The Colored People Are In Great Danger”. The victim, Bill Gifferson, was an African American man. The article contains the line “this vampire-devil only attacks colored people… It is seldom seen during the day, feeding at night only, and the strange part is that it seems to prefer colored men to colored women, though it attacks the latter at times.” It could not have been a coincidence that this article surfaced the very week that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, was founded not far away in Baltimore. 

However, the articles didn’t seem to be trying to scare African Americans out of Maryland. In fact, they seemed to be warning them of a much more frightening foe: politicians. One article said, “Emanuel Myers, a well known colored man of Middletown, says that the report of a go-devil being seen in the valley don’t bother him a bit. He says the only devil he is worried about is the Democratic amendment next fall.” He was speaking of the Straus Amendment, a Democratic proposal intended to restrict the voting rights of African Americans. Take into account that the American Heritage Dictionary defines the word “Snolly Goster as, “One, especially a politician, who is guided by personal advantage rather than by consistent respectable principles” and you can see the point that the publishers were making about the threat democrats posed to the African American community in Maryland.

So. I believe that Roderick and Wolf we're using these Snallygaster stories in part to troll Democrats in a way and put a spotlight on the concerns of voter suppression in the African-American community. And it seems to have worked because the Strauss amendment was one of three attempts to amend the state constitution to suppress the black vote and all three were defeated by referendum.

Even though sightings were fabricated to sell papers, they caught on and many people believed they were real. Fred Fedler, a professor at Iowa State University, wrote an article titled, “A Journalists’ Favorite Hoax: Petrifications” In it, he wrote, “If journalists decided to write about a monster, for example, they tried to create a monster that was bigger, louder and more dangerous than any of the monsters described by their rivals...When Journalists create a hoax, no matter how preposterous, some readers will believe it. Moreover, other journalists will notice and reprint the story, not knowing (or perhaps caring) that the details are fictitious. For years after that, Americans browsing through old newspapers will find copies of it, and other media will reprint the copies. Thus, a good hoax may continue to appear and reappear for 50 or even 100 years.” 

The Snallygaster is a perfect example of this. Even today, it’s difficult to disentangle fact from fiction. For instance, there’s no consensus on whether or not Teddy Roosevelt actually wanted to hunt the Snallygaster.

I think either Teddy Roosevelt was making light of the Snallygaster stories there's a possibility you know get hurt. That's now I guess for stories. Or there is another possibility that. He did. Teddy Roosevelt had not heard about the Snallygaster and that the papers were capitalizing on Teddy's popularity and injected him into the selling the story which really makes perfect sense. As I mentioned because he was a famous Hunter even at the time. So an interesting aside is a lot of the animal specimens at the Smithsonian Institution today are ones killed by Teddy Roosevelt on that African trip that he took after leaving office.

But the fact it was made up , did not stop the Snallygaster from returning. 

After laying dormant for 23 years, the Middletown Valley Register ran a new headline on November 11, 1932. The alarming article read “STRANGE MONSTER MYSTIFIES AND ALARMS SOUTH MOUNTAIN SECTION.” The report claimed that multiple people in South Mountain had seen a monster flying over the region. In the article, they said a scientist claimed “it takes 20 to 25 years for one of these eggs to hatch, and if such is the case, this could easily be an offspring of the ‘Go-Devil’ which was seen in this section in 1909.” 

Stories of the Snallygaster in the 1932 run get less fanciful and significantly more frightening than in 1909 run and the city of Frederick is the county seat of Frederick County. And even then it was a much different than the rest of the county where this Snallygaster stories had originated. Frederick had factories and shops and row houses. So when reports of the Snallygaster came to the city of Frederick it took on a much more like an urban legend flair. Instead of flying over farm land and swooping down to eat chickens the snarling gangster was seen scaling fences and peering through her bedroom windows. It was much more threatening and menacing more akin to something we'd see in a modern horror movie.

While there was a run of these stories, they abruptly ended on December 12 when the Register declared the Snallygaster had died! 

They claimed that the Snallygaster had been attracted to the fumes coming off a 2500 gallon vat of moonshine, but as it flew by the fumes caused it to pass out mid flight -- plunging into the hot mash. It’s entire body was consumed. George T. Danforth and Charles E. Chushwa, two prohibition officers, were the ones to eventually discover the remains, after the five moonshiners who ran the operation fled the state. Due to the large amount of lye in the mixture, the Snallygaster’s skin had been completely eaten away leaving only its skeleton. The prohibition officers, in an effort to permanently rid the area of the monster, gathered 500 pounds of dynamite and blew the vat and what was left of the snallygaster sky high. 

Of course, the Snallygaster’s death by moonshine was no coincidence. In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt, cousin of previous Snallygaster hunter Teddy Roosevelt, was running for president. At the Democratic National Convention that year, FDR pledged to end Prohibition. 

So the Valley Register publishers at the time these two gentlemen named Charles Lane and Edward Leiter. They were big supporters of upholding prohibition. So they feared that a repeal of the 18th Amendment wasn't far behind. Which of course it wasn't. And the paper was filled with pro prohibition pieces. And it was time to unleash the Snallygaster to take on another social evil.

The death of the fantastic creature ended up being in vain as on December 5,1933 the 21st Amendment was ratified allowing the manufacture and sale of alcohol. Even though it had died, the Snallygaster kept appearing throughout the years. 

As Roswell, New Mexico was reporting that there was a flying saucer recovered at a crash site in July 1947, the Baltimore Sun ran an article with the headline, “Flying Saucers Pretty Tame Beside Flying Snallygaster.” Two years later, the Sun ran another op ed piece blaming the Snallygaster for a rash of livestock mutilations in “Could It Have Been A Snallygaster?” The piece even said that whatever had taken the tail off a cow near Gunpowder Falls had left behind tracks described as, “having a center pad the size of the mouth of a water tumbler with claw marks extending out.”

Despite the Snallygaster being a well known fake, and political tool, the Washington Post -- hot off the heels of taking down Richard Nixon -- ran an article in the middle of a Bigfoot boom titled, “The Grand Bicentennial Washington Post/Potomac (poe-toe-mic) Expedition to Darkest Maryland in Search of the Monstrous Snallygaster by Gordon Chaplin on October 10, 1976.” Gordon described the Snallygaster in a way few had heard before saying, ““It is described both in Webster’s Third International Dictionary and the 1935 Federal Writers Project Guide as part reptile, part bird, but those who claim to have seen it recently say it more closely resembles the Sasquatch or Bigfoot of the Northwestern rainforests. Like the Bigfoot, the Snallygaster is said to be apelike, much bigger than a man, and covered with shaggy hair. “ He went on to say, “Gorillas did not exist in 1856. Simply because the desk-bound scientists of London and Paris said they did not exist. Snallygasters do not officialy exist in 1976 for precisely the same reason.”

Gordon’s team was hand picked by himself. He went on to speak of each person in his article, “Dick Swanson, for six years a Life Magazine photographer in Vietnam, would be expedition photographer in charge of defense and pharmaceuticals. Brian and Danuta Lockett, the first husband-and-wife team to live successfully for an extended period of time in the Big Thicket of Texas, would handle expedition logistics and organizations. Ginny Durrin, the documentary filmmaker now working with Margo St. James on a cinematic study of prostituion, would oversee sound, lighting and special effects. My wife Helen, who has studied homeopathic medicine and spiritual astrology under Isabel Hickey in Boston, agreed to act as expedition psychic and healer.” 

In addition to the team, he got John Lutz, who in 1972 led a separate Snallygaster expedition, to join them. During his 1972 expedition, he did not see it, but did produce what he claimed was the only piece of physical evidence of the snallygaster: a pair of plaster casts made from 13-inch long, three-toed feet. Lutz believed that the Snallygaster might have “extra dimensions.”  

Lutz said, “I’m not fully convinced these things have a physical existence as we understand it. We may be dealing with something from a time warp.” “You know, it’s very strange, but people smell the same smell when there are UFOs around.” “I think these things can read your thoughts. You can be in the right place at the right time, but you’ll never see it unless you are thinking right.” 

Nobody was SHOCKED when the expedition failed to produce any evidence of the Snallygaster. 

It sort of reads like a cross between Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Wes Anderson movie. It's very absurd. Kind of in the vein of Hunter Thompson's gonzo journalism. So again you read the article in context. It's clearly some sort of satire. It's playful it's fun it's bizarre. 

So it was all very sort of 1970s and I. You read the article in context then it's a. There's elements of the Watergate scandal and. New Age religion and gonzo journalism. And it's all kind of meshed together into this you know fun absurd article. 

I think it is misinterpreted as not being satire probably quite often as we were talking about before. Most of these stories exist out of context eventually right. So. Gordon Chaplin just goes out its Malagasy career goes on a Snolly expedition in 1976 and funded by the you know The Washington Post. And that's that becomes the story that most people read. It just becomes part of it gets out more. So the idea that it was this satirical article which is a great piece I read in full. Kind of gets lost I think. But maybe that's not such a terrible thing.

To this day the Snallygaster remains a part of the culture in the area. Founded in 2011, the Snallygaster Beastly Beer Jamboree has grown each and every year to the point where it is now Washington D.C.s largest beer fest with tickets named “the Basilisk” and “the Kraken” and 400 breweries taking apart. It also makes an appearance in the popular video game series Fallout 76.

If the Snallygaster comes back virally somehow it's probably not going to be the Snallygaster that we recognize from 1909 or even 1932 or even 1976 where the Snallygaster had already taken on more of kind of a Bigfoot look. The Snallygaster changes with the times and it would probably be you know something that that would that work or not all that actually. But you see these myths and legends emerging to speak to modern anxieties fears. There we have an eight year old grammar school and we got an e-mail last year you know sort of hysterical e-mail that you know there was this thing on YouTube that was like you know trying to get your take they're like hurt themselves. And it was all a hoax. You know none of it was real. But what it what it was was it was a reflection of parental anxiety about technology and about losing kids to YouTube. You know and all these sort of very real concerns. So it's incredible how these urban legends and the stories mythologies will it will always kind of emerge to speak to modern anxieties.

But no matter what form the Snallygaster takes, and no matter how outlandish the stories become, the Snallygaster will be there. And in these turbulent times, who is to say that there isn’t an egg lodged somewhere in Frederick County just one news cycle away from hatching.