The Frogman of Silver Lake: A Truly Mysterious Monster

I purchased a bunch of new paranormal and folklore books just the other week, including Monsters of Massachusetts: Mysterious Creatures of the Bay State by Loren Coleman, one of the superstars of the cryptozoology scene.

I guess I should have had that one on my shelf earlier because while Coleman discusses lots of the famous local monsters, like the Dover Demon and the Gloucester sea serpent, he also mentions one that's pretty obscure: the Frogman of Silver Lake. He's not just obscure, he's downright mysterious.

I'm a sucker for any monster that has "man" as part of its name, whether it's the Mothman, the Goatman, or the Lizardman. I think it's because I read too many comic books when I was a kid and now my mind is drawn to any creature whose name reminds me of a superhero.

Sadly, most of these "(insert name of animal here)man" monsters tend to live outside of New England, with the Vermont Pigman being the prominent exception. And it is true that a goatman has been seen in Maine, but only once. So I was pretty excited to read about a Frogman right here in Massachusetts.

Coleman doesn't include very much information about the Frogman. Here is what he writes:

For instance, the 'lakemonster' accounts from Silver Lake in Plymouth County tell of a 'Giant Frog' or little 'Frogman' being sighted.

But unfortunately he doesn't give any more information. He then goes on to discuss how two police officers encountered a four foot tall froggy humanoid on the outskirts of Loveland, Ohio in 1972. One of them even shot at the creature but missed. One of the police officers later said he probably just saw an iguana, not a monster, but a local farmer also reported seeing a weird little humanoid around the same time.

Coleman suggests that the officer probably changed his story because people made fun of him, and then writes:

Can anyone blame the folks who saw the Frogman of Silver Lake, Massachusetts, for wishing it never happened to them and thus never fully was detailed in the record?

So in other words, there might not be much written about our local Frogman because the witnesses were afraid how others might react. I suppose that's a legitimate concern. The Ohio farmer who saw the Frogman reported that the creature was riding a bicycle, a claim that I'm sure was met with some derision. He was probably teased down at the grange hall until his dying day. (If I knew the farmer I would have asked what type of bicycle the Frogman was riding but would not have teased.)

The Loveland frogman as seen in 1972.

That's all the information about the Frogman in Monsters of Massachusetts. However, Coleman did provide a little more in an October 25, 2013 Boston Globe article titled "Monsters of New England." Here he notes that:

In the 1940s and 1950s, there were reports of a “lake monster” — said to be a “Giant Frog” or little “Frogman” — in Plymouth County’s Silver Lake that were talked about around general stores and mentioned in passing in old newspaper articles.

So at least here we get the years when the Frogman was seen, and information about how the stories were reported. I did some searching online, but unfortunately The Boston Globe archives didn't have any further articles about the Frogman, and neither did Google books or Newspapers.com.

That's why the Frogman of Silver Lake is so mysterious: because there's so little information about him. Who saw the Frogman? Were the witnesses scared? Did they shoot at him? I have a lot of questions but no answers, at least for now. I've written to Loren Coleman to see if he has any more information, and if he writes back I will be sure to give an update. (Note: Loren Coleman did write back to me - thank you Loren! - but said he didn't have any more information about the Frogman.)

I don't know much about the Frogman, but here's what I know about Silver Lake (thanks to Wikipedia). It is a freshwater lake, covers over 600 acres, and provides drinking water to the city of Brockton. It sits within or touches the following towns: Pembroke, Kingston, Plympton, and Halifax.

You can hike around the lake, and fish in it, but swimming is not allowed. That's probably a good idea, just in case there really is a Frogman lurking somewhere its depths.

*****

Speaking of monsters, this past summer I filmed a segment about the Melonheads for the Travel Channel's show Mysteries at the Museum. That episode is going to air on Thursday, April 14 at 9:00 pm. Did the segment I filmed make the final cut, or was I edited out because I am scarier than a frog monster on a bicycle? We'll all just have to wait and see!

A Case of Consumptive Vampirism in Plymouth

Today I was researching an old story about a witch's curse, but came upon something so gruesome I thought I'd share it this week. The witch's curse will show up next week.

What I came upon was a newspaper account of consumptive vampirism in early 19th century Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Consumption, or what we now call tuberculosis, was an untreatable scourge at that time. The article states,

It is well known to those who are acquainted with that section of our country, that nearly one half of its inhabitants die of a consumption, occasioned by the chilly humidity of their atmosphere, and the long prevalence of easterly winds. The inhabitants of the village (or town, as it is there called) to which I allude, were particularly exposed to this scourge; and I have seen, at one time, one of every fifty of its inhabitants gliding down to the grave, with all the certainty which characterizes this insiduous foe of the human family.

The article, which appeared in an 1824 edition of a Philadelphia publication called The United States Gazette, goes on to describe a large family in an unnamed village which suffered particularly hard from consumption. There were fourteen children in the family, but by 1809 all members except the mother, youngest daughter, and one burly son had died from the disease. The daugher, who was sixteen, died later that year and her brother soon contracted consumption as well.

Many New Englanders of the time believed that the corpse of someone who died of consumption would feed on a living family member, giving that person the disease while the corpse remained fresh and vibrant in the grave. Several villagers came to the mother and expressed their fear to her - that her dead daughter was feeding on her remaining son.

I should have added, that it was believed, that if the body thus supernaturally nourished in the grave, should be raised and turned over in the coffin, its depredations upon the survivor would necessarily cease. The consent of the mother being obtained, it was agreed that four persons, attended by the surviving and complaining brother, should, at sunrise the next day, dig up the remains of the last buried sister. 

The author of the article seems to have accompanied the son and the four villagers to the dead daughter's grave, because he relates what he saw when they opened the coffin:

Yes, I saw the visage of one, who had been long the tenant of a silent grave, lit up with the brilliancy of youthful health. The cheek was full to dimpling, and a rich profusion of hair shaded her cold forehead, while some of the richest curls floated upon her unconscious breast. The large blue eye had scarcely lost its brilliancy, and the livid fullness of her lips seemed almost to say "loose me and let go."

Although they apparently turned the sister's corpse face down, this ritual action had no effect on the brother's illness. The shock of seeing his sister was more than he could bear and he died two weeks later. The mother survived for only another year before she too died from the disease. The author notes that the family's fourteen graves were often shown to visitors.

We now know that tuberculosis is caused by bacteria, but I think it's interesting that the author of the article thinks it is caused by damp New England weather. He calls the villagers superstitious even though his explanation of the disease is equally wrong.

Turning the corpse face down or is an ancient tradition found around the world. Murderers and other criminals were often buried this way, and I think the symbolism is obvious. By pointing the face downwards, the community is directing the dangerous dead person to go down into the land of the dead and leave the world of the living alone. Unfortunately for this Plymouth County family it didn't work.

Rhode Island folklorist Michael Bell has an entire book about New England vampirism called Food for the Dead. In some parts of New England, people believed that turning a corpse over was not sufficient to stop it from feeding on a relative. Instead, the living person suffering from consumption needed to incinerate and eat their vampiric dead relative's heart, lungs, or liver. Yikes! It seems hard to believe that something like that happened here, but Bell documents dozens of cases. Sometimes the good old days weren't that good.