Inside the Oct. 8, 1886, pages of The Industrial Journal of Bangor is the story of a 10-foot-tall “wild man” with 7-foot arms and hair all over his body. The historic newspaper was discovered by Bangor resident Donald Ricker, who dabbles in antiques. He found the periodical inside a leather case protecting a piece of thick black glass. The original article about the “wild man” was reported by the Waterville Sentinel.
Beachdude
Generally speaking, I put a lot of credence in these old newspapers. Due to the very small circulation of local papers of that period, there was no real incentive in doing a story such as this as a publicity gimmick. I suspect if someone had the time and energy to do so, you could find a wealth of similar articles on Sasquatch like creatures heard, seen, and/or killed, during the days before mass media became prevalent.
Randy M
To quote the reporter: “The story has caused great excitement among the more ignorant portion of our foreign population.”
That’s pretty harsh. Makes you wonder why the story got published by this paper at all with a parting shot like that? It’s likely the newspapers of the day were all chasing the same stories. I suppose that even if they felt the item was less than newsworthy, or just simple nonsense, it still got published, as bureaus fought one another for readership loyalty by employing sensationalized material as a basic weapon. Seems some things never change..
Michael M
For more info see: Robert&Paul Bartholomew’s book, BigFoot Encounters in New York & New England. It has all of the published reports, they could find, in this part of America for the last 400 years.