(07-29-2024, 09:16 AM)BIAD Wrote: I've never heard of this one... a weird monster or a journalistic tourism tactic?
I have heard of the Grafton Monster, but did not know very much about it. That video had a lot of information on it that I had not previously known.
West Virginia has a long and bloody history. There were a lot of "incidents" between white folks and Indians that have led some to theorize that the Indians placed a curse on the area that is still in operation.
I had one ancestor who ran a reconnaissance route as an "Indian spy" in the area of Grafton during the Revolutionary war. He walked a circular route about 60 miles long in the Tygart's Valley checking Indian paths for signs of activity, and checking in at 3 forts in the valley along his route. One of those forts was Westfall's Fort, but I can't recall the name of the other two. If he found any sign of an Indian presence on the trails, he'd high-tail it to the forts to give them warning. He was 14 years old at the time.
Another ancestor went along on the Lord Dunmore's War expedition, which culminated in the battle of Point Pleasant. One of the highlights of the route marched along the Great Kanawha River was when the scouts (still called "Indian Spies") reported in one evening that they had found a remarkable bare footprint, apparently human, that measured 14 inches long On a hillside above the river. The officer in charge duly recorded the finding in the Orderly Book, where it is still recorded, but not much known - who reads those old books anyhow? The officer chaled it up to being the footprint "of a really large Indian". That was in the fall of 1774.
After the Battle at Point Pleasant, a fort called "Fort Henry" I believe, was built at Point Pleasant. The Shawnee chief Cornstalk, and his son Elinipsico, were captured by treachery when they came to talk peace and imprisoned there at the fort. They were later both killed by some soldiers there, shot in the backs inside their prison cell. It is said that Cornstalk's Curse is still in effect there, and that it is that curse which led to the Mothman sightings at Point Pleasant. I had yet another ancestor who was stationed at the fort at the time of the killings. He was appalled at the killings of an old man and his son who had come to talk peace. That curse was probably deserved.
Later, the same ancestor who had been on the Lord Dunmore's War expedition - Adam O'Brien - was out exploring the wilderness in what is now Calhoun County, near the Clay County border. His companion at the time was Mike Fink. They were beset by Indians on the warpath. He escaped, but Fink was not so lucky. He later returned to the spot and buried Fink, along with an Indian that had been killed in the fight. Those graves are still there, fenced in and marked with headstones, and kept up.
Just across the county line, in Clay County, can be found a holler called "Booger Hole". It's called that, the story goes, because of a great hulking "Wood Booger" that lives there... what we would call today a Bigfoot. Booger Hole had a lot of tragic killings and such around the time of the Civil War, and it's still haunted to this day.
Nearly every hill and holler in the state is claimed to be haunted or occupied by some strange creature. Many of the tales were put out by moonshiners who didn't want folks snooping around. I suspect that to be the case with "haunted" Pup Run, where I got the livin' shit scared out of me as a teenager. Other tales may just be tales spun up to explain things that people couldn't explain without a tale - we saw that happen when I posted the images of that "strange rock carving" at ATS. Folks were eager to spin up all manner of fantasies to explain the rock carving... and it turned out, in the end, to just be a tar kiln.
BUT other tales in West Virginia, some of them, are well and truly strange and mysterious. Just plain unexplainable without a tale to go along with it. The Mothman is one. The Flatwoods Monster another... and so, the Grafton Monster must be included in this latter category.
There are many, many more.
I have to wonder, given the description of the Grafton Monster as having no ears nor eyes... but apparently some sort of mouth to whistle with...might it not bear some relation to that oddball you have living out in your shed?
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