Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

The earliest account of a animal of this general description is furnished by Pantoppidan, Bishop of Bergen in Norway, and author of an old Natural History, in the first editions of which is a picture of the serpent. This gives him a mane-an appearance doubtless caused by his rapid motion through the water. He says, it lay on the water, when it was calm; and when it moved, parts of the back were to be seen in the line of the head. The color was dark brown, variegated with light spots or streaks. The animal appeared regularly for many years off the Manor of Norland, in July and August, where all the inhabitants were familiarly acquainted with him, though the Bishop doubted the whole story for a long time. he represented the length to have been 600 feet, and the size of two hogsheads!-a statement which furnishes rather curious food for discussion. It was at least an immense exaggeration of the ignorant peasant and fisherman.
The Bishop also cites a letter dated 1757, from a Captain in the Swedish Navy, DeMerry, relating to a snake seen by him near Holne, on a calm hot day in August, 1745-he fired at it, on which it immediately sunk. Observing the water to be red, he supposed he had wounded it. The head he relates was like that of a horse and of greyish color-the mouth was quite black and very large. He also mentions the bright mane. The eyes were black, and there were seven or eight thick folds, about six feet distance from one another. This letter was sworn to before the Bergen magistrate.
In 1804, Allen Bradford, Esq. then of Maine, addressed a letter to J. Q. Adams, the secretary of the American Academy, transmitting a document to show that a large sea serpent had been seen in and about Penobscot Bay. The Academy laid them aside, and they first appeared in Silliman’s Journal, in 1820. One was a letter from the Rev. Mr. Cummings, of Sullivan, Maine, dated August 1803. The animal was seen by Mr. Cummings, his wife, daughter, and another lady, as they were on their passage to Belfast, between Cape Rosoi and Long Island. In was in the month of July, the sea was calm; there was very little wind, and the first appearance of the serpent was near Long Island. Mr. C. supposed it to be a large shoal of fish, with a seal at one end of it; but he wondered why the seal should rise out of the water so much higher than usual; as he drew near they discovered the whole appearance to be an animal in the form of a serpent. He had not the horizontal but an ascending and descending serpentine motion. This account also refers to the description given by other persons of similar animals.
A letter of March, 1781, from Capt. Little of our Navy, to Mr. Bradford, states that in May, 1780, as he was lying in Broad Bay, [Penobscot] in a public armed ship, he discovered at sunrise, a large serpent, coming down the bay on the surface of the water. The cutter was manned and armed, he went himself in the boat; and when within 100 feet of the serpent, the mariners were ordered to fire on him; but before they could make ready, he plunged into the water. He was not less than 45 to 50 feet long; the largest diameter of his body was supposed to be 15 inches, and his head nearly the size of that of a man, he carried four or five feet out of water. He wore every appearance of a Black Snake. He was afterwards pursued, but they never came nearer to him than a quarter of a mile. A Mr. Joseph Kent, of Marshfield, says Capt. Little saw a like animal at the same place in the year 1751, which was longer and larger than the main Boom of his Sloop, of 85 tons. He observed him within ten or twelve yards of his vessel.
The declaration of Eleazer Crabtree, is then given, who lived at Fox Island, in the Bay of Penobscot, in the year 1777, and 78. He had frequently heard of a sea-monster frequenting the waters near the shore, and doubting the fact, he went one day on hearing from a neighbor that he was in the sea near his house. He saw a large animal in the form of a snake, lying almost motionless in the water, about 500 feet from the bank where he stood. His head was about four feet above the surface; he appeared a hundred feet long and he supposed him to be three feet in diameter. Many other inhabitants, upon whose veracity he could depend, had also declared to him that at other times they had seen such an animal.