Bay of Quinte Sea Serpent
Posted by: Loren Coleman on October 9th, 2010
Halifax Citizen
Halifax, Nova Scotia]
October 15, 1864
Something Like a Snake.
The Trenton people are just now considerably agitated about a great serpent
which has been seen in the Bay [of Quinte] by a number of the inhabitants of
the village. There have been a good many reports about the existence of
such a serpent for some time past, but as they could not be definitely
traced, very little credence was attached to them. However, the matter has
at length been settled beyond question, for the “sea monster” has been seen
by a resident of the village, a Mr. Julius Baker who is said to be perfectly
sensible. Not many days ago, while he and his wife were in a boat near
Indian Island, they were suddenly startled by a great splashing in the
water, and looking around discovered within about 10 rods of the boat, the
head and neck of a great serpent, about two feet out of water. Mr. Baker
describes the head to be in appearance like a bull dog, and says the neck
was about “three feet through.” Both were very much frightened, and
immediately pulled for shore. Before reaching land the snake was seen three
times, once only six yards from the boat, and again, after they had landed,
only a few feet off. Mr. Baker said it followed him to the shore, and made
at times a fearful noise. We may remark that the story is believed by some
of the most respectable inhabitants to be strictly true[,] they having the
utmost confidence in the statements of Mr. and Mrs. Baker. – Belleville
Intelligencer.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
These old accounts are fascinating, however the publications of the time were not above a little embellishment or sensationalism from time to time. It is hard to say with certainty the level of veracity on display in the journalism here, and so it’s difficult to decide how much credibility to assign to the report.
It may be helpful to look at reports like this in comparison to others of the same alleged creature. It says that a number of people witnessed the creature, and that there were many reports. Although in fairness it does state that these reports were difficult to trace, surely there must be some record of at least a few of these accounts. By looking at these other accounts and comparing and contrasting them, we may come to a better understanding of what was going on.
As it stands, one single report of possibly questionable credibility from a newspaper is pretty much just a curiosity.
The historical collection of news accounts of cryptids is important to fill in the record of any location’s sightings. Needless to say, it is only when they are placed in context do they mean anything, but it may be the finding of one news account that stimulates others in a specific locale to look further and deeper for more articles.
I look forward to Brent’s comparative analysis of old Japanese news accounts of, for example, the Kappas, as an instance in which individual news items may look bizarre out of context.
Loren, now there is an idea! I may just put something like that together.
I am not really trying to cheapen the value of these accounts, just making some observations on these solitary news articles. The Meiji and Edo era publications are quite similar in many ways to the publication shown here, complete with the occasional embellishments. On many occasions I have indeed found a single account that I found strange enough to want to dig deeper on. The Ryuu Gyo, or Dragon Fish was just such a case. In that case, I wasable to track down similar reports and thus compare and contrast them, leading me to the conclusion that indeed the same sort of creature was being sighted rather that a bizarre one off sighting. This is what I’d like to see with accounts like this.
More records of more similar accounts to me are helpful, rather than a vague “there were a good many reports, but they could not be traced,” and such additional reports and information would help to point one in the right direction or indeed tell us whether it is filling in any blanks or just a conundrum. For instance with the Kappas, we have a good many reports to look at, whereas some other oddities I’ve come across in old Japanese papers are mentioned only once and leave me scratching my head. Dig as I may, there just wasn’t anything there other than things like “it’s been seen by many,” and whatnot. They don’t even really fill in any blanks, but rather just pose a big question mark to which I may never be able to approach an answer. Without more to go on, I just don’t know what to make of these sorts of accounts.
That is the gist of what I was getting at, the single reports that lack any corroboration. I don’t mean to say these reports are useless as a whole, and they can be very useful in the way you mentioned. I just like to have more corroborating accounts to lay side by side when its is in any way possible.
Kappas are good to go in this sense, whereas something like, say, the Gatagon, a sort of Japanese Jersey Devil which left a mysterious trail of footprints on just one occasion and is very poorly documented with news reports? I don’t know what else to do with something like that other than file it under “curiosities.” No one of the time followed up on it, it is a practically forgotten account, and so it remains an oddity.
This examination of old accounts is actually quite a fascinating area for me, and the question you raise of the accounts being in context is a valid one. It might be a good idea for me to do like you say and visit this topic in a future posting, as I do agree with you on the question of context, and it is something to think about within cryptozoology in general.
Oarfish fits well with this critter, especially in the bull dog-like head. One of them was recently found in Sweden, that is to say in cold waters.
Regarding the comments regarding the veracity of a newspaper, I find the comments overly general and dismissive of such a rich vein of research.
These accounts should be taken seriously, and while newspapers of the time did sometimes employ breathless prose and at times outright lies, in the case of the Belleville Intelligencer, this would be an unfair generalization.
The newspaper is still in existence, has a long and fairly honourable history in the community of Belleville Ontario, and one of its publishers went on to become Prime Minister of Canada.
So tread carefully with your criticisim here, as one size does not always fit all.