Bigfoot Attack in the Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia (1829) exploresouthernhistory/okefenokeebigfoot.html A 19th Century Bigfoot Attack? Did a Bigfoot really attack a party of men in the Okefenokee Swamp in 1829? Or was it all a tall tale? The answer to those questions may never be known, but the story is one of many that add to the mystery of the swamp. The tale originated near the south end of Ware County, where the line that divides Georgia from Florida passes through the Okefenokee. In 1829, the first settlers were just pushing into the fringes of the swamp. Surrounded by the stunning beauty of the swamp, they quickly picked up on an Indian legend that held a mysterious race of people lived on an island deep in the wilderness. So far as is known, this legend first appeared in print in 1806 in Jedidiah Morses book, Geography Made Easy. In his section on Georgia, Morse repeated a legend that a group of Indian hunters had gone into the swamp and become lost. When they were in a desperate condition, a party of the most beautiful women they had ever seen came to their rescue: ...[They] being lost in inextricable swamps and bogs and on the point of perishing, were unexpectedly relived by a company of beautiful women, whom they call daughters of the sun, who kindly gave them such provisions as they had with them, consisting of fruit and corn cakes.... The tale as repeated by Morse continued with the women warning the hunters to flee as fast as possible to their own country, because their husbands were fierce men and cruel to strangers. These men of the swamp were said by the Creek Indians to be of gigantic stature and both cruel and warlike. The winter of 1828-1829 was extremely dry and two men living on the edges of the swamp decided to explore as deep into it as they could. Accompanied by a boy, they went into the Okefenokee and over a course of two weeks continued to penetrate deeper and deeper into it. As they explored the very heart of the swamp, they made a startling discovery of gigantic footprints: ...The length of the foot was eighteen, and the breadth nine inches. The monster, from every appearance, must have moved forward in an easy or hesitating gait, his stride, from heel to toe, being a trifle over six feet. (Milledgeville, Georgia, Statesman January 1829, republished by the Connecticut Sentinel February 9, 1829.) The men, as newspapers of the time noted, had seen enough. Ending their expedition and retreating out of the swamp, they related to their friends and neighbors what they had seen. The story excited the curiosity of a party of hunters who lived just across the Florida line. Nine in number, they went into the swamp to find the mysterious giant. They were guided by one of the members of the original party: ..Following, for some days, the direction of their guide, they came at length upon the track first discovered, some vestiges of which were still remaining; pursuing these traces several days longer, they came to a halt on a little eminence, and determined to pitch their camp, and refresh themselves for the day. The expedition was described in detail in newspaper reports published in February 1829. Those accounts indicated that as the hunters were discharging their guns to reload them with fresh powder for the night, a wild animal charged their camp: ...[T]he next minute he was full in their view, advancing upon them with a terrible look and ferocious mien. Our little band instinctively gathered close in a body and presented their rifles. The huge being, nothing daunted, bounded upon his victims, and in the same instant received the contents of seven rifles. The fight, however, did not end there: ...[H]e did not fall alone, nor until he had glutted his wrath with the death of five of them, which he effected by wringing the head from the body. - Writhing and exhausted, at length he fell, with his hapless prey beneath his grasp. As the creature lay dying on the ground, writhing and sometimes roaring, the men who survived the attack gathered around it to make a closer inspection. The creature was found to measure thirteen feet from head to toe, and his breadth and volume of just proportions. Immediately fearful that the dying monsters cries might attract others of ts kind, the hunters fled the swamp. The men who died in the battle with the creature were left lying where they had fallen. It is a remarkable story, but could it be true? The honest answer is that no one knows. The newspaper correspondent who reported it wrote that people living in Ware County on the margins of the Okefenokee Swamp clearly believed it. Either way, the story of the 1829 attack was one of the earliest written accounts of the creature we know today as Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Sightings of some kind of a large creature in the swamp and discoveries of large footprints continue to be reported from the area to this day.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 13:36:27 +0000
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