“A wild man is loose in the woods at Hancock, N. Y. A group of hunters have just returned from Port Jervis, where they went for guns and ammunition with which to slay him.
But the question has arisen whether they have a right to kill a wild man? Some of the hunters argue tnat it would be murder. Others say that it wouldn’t, but that wild men are protected by the game laws. His life will probably be spared until legal advice has been taken, unless some impetuous woodsman slays him and then waits for a ruling. The first intimation the farmers had of the presence of the wild man was the disappearance of cows, young cattle and sheep.
They at first thought that a bear had taken them. John Cook, a farmer, heard a terrible rumpus in his piggery the other night and, believing that the pigs had upset a beehive placed temporarily in their stye, he ran ont. As he stepped into the shed be was grabbed by the wild man. The fellow looked seven feet high and was quite naked. He was a hairy man.
From his mouth protruded big teeth like fangs. Farmer Cook is six feet three and very powerful, but he was helpless in the grasp of the wild man, who carried him to the door and hurled him thirty feet The farmer fell unconscious; when he woke up he found himself lame and bruised. His best pig was gone. crowbar lay on the ground tied into knots. Farmer Cook says the wild man did this to show his annoyance at being interrupted. The next night Peter Thomas was driving near Dead Man’s Lane when he met the wild man.
Thomas says he looked like an ape. He seized the near horse and, with a single sweep of his long, hairy arm, tore off the harness. Then he wrung the horse’s neck and dragged him to the woods. This story is vouched for by Mr. Thomas, who is a church deacon.
A party of hunters fallowed the tracks to a lonely swamp. The footprints showed that ths man’s nails had developed into claws. He had uprooted trees.The lair ot the wild man was found on Friday, but he was not at home. Berry pickers discovered it in the woods near Rattlesnake Hill.
Near by was a portion of Mr.; Thomas’ horse, which evidently had been torn with the teeth of the wild man. Scattered about were tbe bones of sheep and other animals. The wild man takes his meat raw. Some say the wild man is an escaped chimpanzee or gorilla, but a member of the New York Veterinarian Association who is boarding at Port Jervis says monkeys don’t eat meat.”
The Lancaster Daily
Lancaster Pennsylvania 1895
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