The Snallygaster
the United States
Western Maryland: the Middletown Valley and South Mountain, Frederick County, in 1909; in 1932 the declared area is three counties, Washington, Frederick and Upper Montgomery, with Sugarloaf Mountain
The Snallygaster — the winged monster of western Maryland, born in a weekly paper in 1909 and killed off in another in 1932: a creature whose fabrication can be dated.
- Variants and names
- snallygaster. Not to be confused with snollygoster, an American political term attested in print from 1846 and meaning «an unprincipled but shrewd person»: the likeness is there, but the chronology rules out the creature having produced the word. The bovalopus or bovulopus, which appears beside him in the same newsrooms, is another hoax beast
- What is told
- A winged monster with a wingspan of «at least 30 feet», a long sharp bill, claws like steel hooks and, in the 1909 versions, a single eye in the middle of its forehead. It drains its victims: the name that recurs in the 1909 accounts is Bill Gifferson, whose jugular the beast pierces with its bill «while it gently fanned him with its wings». In 1965 a newspaper sums it up as «a mythical nocturnal creature, half reptile and half bird, which preys on children and poultry».
It ends as it began, in a newspaper: in December 1932 it falls into a 2,500-gallon mash vat at an illicit still, and «the mash has eaten practically all the flesh from the beast». - What it was forthe author’s reading
- Racial intimidation, and not as subtext: as text. The first article of 1909 is headlined «The Colored People Are in Great Danger»; in 1932 it is written that the beast «will not harm a white person, but lives mainly on colored men», and the piece that could be read in full adds «Why the Snallygaster prefers, even insists upon the negro as food, is not clearly known». The electoral function is stated in the same column: «Some say that he appears after every election», and right after it «Some say that is just a G.O.P. fairytale». It is the framing Gladys-Marie Fry gave to this kind of figure in Night Riders in Black Folk History, 1975.
- Where it is attested
- Montgomery County Sentinel, Rockville, Maryland, 2 December 1932, p. 8, «Sleeping Snallygaster Snores Serenely In Sugar Loaf Sunday; Seven Snares Set». It is the oldest text whose exact words I have read, and I declare it with its limit: I read it in the transcription published by the Library of Congress, in the Headlines & Heroes blog of October 2022, not in facsimile — the digitised page did not open.
The first attestation, that of 1909, was opened by nobody here, and the reason should be written down because it is useful to whoever comes next: the Middletown Valley Register is not digitised in Chronicling America. The Library of Congress catalogue record (LCCN sn83016221) lists no years at all, and the librarian who searched the archive states that the first hit for «snallygaster» is the one of 1932. Those who cite 12 February 1909 and the headline «The Colored People Are in Great Danger» do so from microfilm or from other people's searches: two independent secondary sources converge on that date, and convergence is not an opening.
Dated searches of other papers: The News (Frederick) of 28 November and 1 December 1932, the Cumberland Evening Times of 8 July 1947, The News of 1 and 3 December 1965. For the dwayyo: The News, 1965, «Mysterious “Dwayyo” On Loose In County», subtitle «Don't Mess with It», with the issues of 28 November and 1, 2, 3 and 9 December. For snollygoster: Merriam-Webster, which gives its first written attestation as 1846. - Caution
- Five things, and the first is the one the others depend on.
1735. It is read everywhere as the year of the first appearance. I have found no source that supports it, and above all it does not appear in five of the most cited sources I opened — the Library of Congress blog, the online encyclopaedia, two magazines and a popularising site. Those speak only of German settlement «from the 1730s onwards». The hypothesis, which I mark as mine and as unverified: «1735» comes from the hardening of «the 1730s» into a precise year, in an aggregator layer and not in 1909. Who writes it first I have not identified.
The etymology from Schneller Geist. It is not lexicographical. The online encyclopaedia supports it with a private museum's website; the others cite nothing; the Library of Congress blog uses an «apparently». No Pennsylvania Dutch dictionary attests it, as far as I could open, and the sources do not even agree on the spelling — «Schneller Geist» for «quick spirit» against «schnelle geist» for «quick ghost», which is the typical symptom of an after the fact reconstruction.
Theodore Roosevelt postponing his safari to hunt it. The chain is short and late: it goes back to a local history booklet on Braddock Heights of 1974, sixty-five years after the events, and it is the only reference the encyclopaedia carries. It does not appear in the Library of Congress blog nor in the two magazines. A hypothesis about the misunderstanding, to be verified: the 1932 article speaks of Black voters going over to «Roosevelt» — that is, Franklin, in that year's presidential election.
The Smithsonian. The version of the reward for the hide is without a note in all the sources that report it. There is however a soberer and more promising one: a magazine attributes to the Hagerstown Mail of 1909 a reply from the Smithsonian stating that the beast was «either a winged bovulopus or a Snallygaster» — and the bovalopus is itself a hoax of the same newsrooms, which suggests a joking answer. To be opened on microfilm.
The centuries-old feud with the dwayyo. In the 1965 issues there is only the sentence of a man from Burkittsville, «And the dwayyo could actually be a snallygaster». The frame of sworn enemies fighting since the settlement of the valley appears on a popularising site, without a source: it is a later elaboration.
And the seven-pointed star on the barns, which circulates as a countermeasure against the Snallygaster, does not appear in any of the nine sources I opened, Library of Congress blog included. It is to be treated as unattested until 1909 is opened.
The grade says how well the entry is documented, not how interesting it is. How the grades are assigned.