February 20, 2012
Happy President’s Day! Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was the 26th President of the United States of America (1901–1909). He appears to have been the only President to be associated with any of the stories of Bigfoot in frontier America.
This image of “Teddy Roosevelt and Bigfoot” by artist Jason Heuser seems as if it was inspired by the story in The Wilderness Hunter.
In Chapter 12, of Bigfoot!: The True Story of Apes in America, (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2003), by Loren Coleman, you will find this:
Stories of violent Bigfoot do exist. Giant cannibals in the bush eating woman are part of ancient Indian lore, although little discussed today. One of the first stories among nonnatives appears in Theodore Roosevelt’s The Wilderness Hunter, published in 1890. During the mid-1800s, two hunters, one named Baumann, were camping in the Bitterroot Mountains, on the other side of the Rockies from Yosemite, when they were visited by something that left giant footprints. Then at midnight they saw, in the fire’s light, a huge upright form and smelled it, too.
The next morning, Baumann went to check traps, while his mate packed up. When Baumann returned, he found his friend’s neck broken and four great fang marks in his throat. Roosevelt added, “The footprints of the unknown beast, printed deep in the soft soil, told the whole story . . . his monstrous assailant, which must have been lurking in the woods, waiting for a chance to catch one of the adventurers unprepared, came silently up from behind, walking with long noiseless steps and seemingly still on two legs. . . . It had not eaten the body, but apparently had romped and gamboled around it in uncouth and ferocious glee, occasionally rolling it over and over; and had then fled back into the soundless depths of the woods.”
Teddy Roosevelt’s The Wilderness Hunter story has become a mainstay of Bigfoot lore, although considered opinion nowadays is that it is only a twice-told tale that may have more to do with a rouge grizzly bear than a Sasquatch. That has not stopped the widespread reproducing of Heuser’s art and the retelling of the story.
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.
Filed under Bigfoot, CryptoZoo News, Folklore, Pop Culture, Sasquatch
