Red-Headed Monster of Sylvia Lake
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 5th, 2010
Syracuse Herald
Syracuse, New York
June 18, 1916
Minister Vouches for
Story of Sea Serpent
Red Headed Monster of Sylvia Lake Is
Seen Every Year at This Time.
Watertown, June 17. – That a great serpent or some monster of reptilian form
really inhabits the watery depths of Sylvia lake, a lovely little mountain
loch about eight miles south of the village of Gouverneur, in the town of
Fowler, has been attested by scores of visitors to the resort, who have
caught glimpses of the “varmint” from time to time during the last score or
more of years, the last appearance of the lake serpent having been made a
few years ago when it stampeded a party of Spragueville folk with whom
Gerald Haley of the city, an employe of the A. J. Rockwood Road Construction
company now putting through the Gouverneur-Fullerville highway, was
picnicking at the lake.
According to the description given by the Spragueville folk the lake denizen
is the same old snake that was first seen and described two years ago by
Game Protector John Hunkins of Hermon, a veteran woodsman, and that was met face to face a few days later by the Rev. Dr. S. Thomas Williams, then
pastor of the First Baptist church of Canton, who was spending his vacation
at the lake. After that the serpent was seen by C. E. Holt of Gouverneur,
and has appeared and frightened fishing parties at intervals nearly every
season since.
First Seen by Hunkins.
If ever there was a hard-headed and matter of fact woodsman, not given to
imagining that he “saw things,” that man was John Hunkins of Hermon, for
many years game protector of the old sixth game and fish district of St.
Lawrence county. In August, 1894, Mr. Hunkins visited Sylvia lake, where he
had been told there was some illegal net fishing being practiced. On a
moonlight night he was paddling along the shore of the lake in a skiff,
accompanied by J. W. Royce of Brooklyn, then a frequent visitor to the
place. They were sculling their way through a tangle of lily pads toward a
spot of open water, Royce sitting in the bow and clearing away obstacles
with a boat hook.
Serpent Twelve Feet Long.
The skiff shot across a little space of open water when from some straggling
lily heads appeared what both men took for a floating log or big pole.
Royce made a jab at the supposed pole, when there was a flash of something
black and writhing amid a spray of water. Royce was knocked out of the boat
by a blow to the chest. Hunkins claimed that he got a good look at the
creature as it leaped out of the water at Royce, and that it was about
twelve feet long, as thick through as a man’s thigh and with a head like
that of a lynx and fins or flippers as large as paddle blades.
A few days later C. E. Holt was rowing down the lake about a quarter of a
mile from the shore, when his attention was attracted to some object moving
in the water a short distance away. He thought at first it was a very large
fish, but this thought vanished when the creature raised its head up out of
the water about three feet, and arching its neck swam onward. Its course
took it within fifteen feet of Mr. Holt’s boat, and he got a good view of
it. He said that its head was as large as that of a big dog and its body
about eighteen inches in diameter and six or eight feet long.
The serpent appeared next to the Rev. S. Thomas Williams, D.D., of Canton,
who was passing his vacation at the lake. He was rowing back from the hotel
to his cottage accompanied by Mrs. Williams, who called his attention to
what they took to be a very large lily pad bobbing up and down in the water
in an unaccountable manner. The minister rowed toward the supposed pad,
when it disappeared, to reappear in another place. He was near enough by
that time to see that the object was the head of some reptile or animal. It
sank beneath the water, and when it again reappeared the boat was within
twenty-five feet of it. The head, which was mounted on a long tawny neck,
was as large as that of a good sized dog and was covered with coarse reddish
hair. The head again disappeared, to protrude a moment later amid a bunch
of lily pads. Mr. Williams had a .38-caliber Winchester rifle, and taking
deliberate aim at the head he fired. The head disappeared. The Reverend
marksman does not think he hit it. He is unable to determine exactly what
kind of a creature it was.
Has Red Tawny Hair.
Next to meet the lake serpent was one of the Overpack boys of the Sylvia
Lake section, who that same summer sat one day nodding in his boat, waiting
for a tug at the line, when he was so effectually aroused that he never
drowsed while fishing on Sylvia lake afterward. He heard a gentle splash
and next moment the stern of his boat sank down until water poured in over
the gunwale. Overpack turned to find himself confronted by a great
lizard-like head reared on a tawny arched neck two or three feet above the
stern of the boat, into which the monster appeared intent on gliding. The
big snake opened its mouth, disclosing double rows of pointed teeth, and
darting its red tongue toward the fisherman emitted a hissing noise as loud
as that made by a goose. Then it seized one of the two fish lying in the
bottom of the boat, and with a splash disappeared. Overpack claimed that
its neck and its underjaw were fringed with coarse tawny hair, and that it
had small rounded ears.
Since that time hardly a season has passed that some visitor to the lake has
not claimed to have seen the “varmint.” Sometimes, according to the
accounts appearing, there would be a commotion in the water, usually near
the shore, followed by the appearance of a hideous gleaming head as large as
that of a man, reared two or three feet above the lily pads. At other
times, while lying idly in their boats waiting for a bite, fishermen would
catch a glimpse far down in the watery depths of something huge and sinuous,
gliding beneath the boat, as the lake serpent hunted for its finny prey.
(See the earlier posting concerning a similar report from this lake, here.)
Thanks to Jerry Clark.
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.
Okay, red hair and lynx face, definitely sounds like a pinniped to me. Even though they described it as a serpent.
One of the accounts described ears, which is definitely not reptilian.
The flippers give credence to a pinniped, and while the size is bigger than your average seal or sea lion, and while description of a long neck doesn’t fit with our known species.
Heuvelmans definitely talked about the possibility of a long necked seal in his own idea of the different species of sea serpents.
So there you go.
Or to take the scoftic approach, they were all drunk, didn’t know what they were seeing, and it was obviously a log that knocked them out of the boat and ate their fish.