The McMellin Monster of Monongalia County

I've got another crazy vintage newspaper article for ya'll. This is from the May 7th, 1902 edition of The New Dominion, a newspaper out of Morgantown, West Virginia. In this article, a haunted ravine between McMellin (spelled incorrectly in the article) and Sand Springs (now home to a camp ground) in Monongalia County is found to be home to a horrible beast with six inch teeth and claws like an eagle! Interestingly, there's a blurb directly below this story about a large bear being seen in the same vicinity...but there's no way that this beast could be a simple misidentification, right?? You can check it out for yourself over at the Chronicling America website.

MODERN ST. GEORGE

Finds His Dragon But Fails To Kill It

Horrible Beast With Teeth Six Inches Long and Claws Like an Eagle Discovered Near Sand Spring--Brave Lumberman Fires at it and Vanquishes it--Others news from Morris Cross Roads

Special to the New Dominion

MORRIS CROSS ROADS, MAY 6--A deep ravine between McMellon and Sand Springs has for some time been considered as being haunted. The people in the vicinity have reported several brands of ghost stories but none had ever seen anything extraordinary. Although several solemnly declared that they had heard "strange things" and had fled without making an investigation. 

It remained for Jack Harris a lumberman, to solve the mystery. He was returning to the camp near midnight when he was suddenly confronted by the most terrible looking beast that mortal man ever saw. The animal was about the size of a hippopotamus and resembled a dog somewhat. Harris fired at the monster with his revolver and the thing never budged but let out a roar that made the trees tremble. He then fired 5 more shots at it when it turned its tail and absquatulated. 

According to the man's description the great animal had teeth 6 inches long and and its claws were something like an eagle's. It's hair was white with large black spots on it.  When still it assumed a crouching position as if to spring upon its prey and in disappearing it made leaps fully 10 feet long so Harris declares.

Theresa's Note: After taking a good, hard look at the details of this story, I'm now convinced that this is a fairly early example of a West Virginia cryptid known as The White Thing or White Thang. The White Thing is actually a pretty broad term, and covers a wide array of white-colored monsters all the way from Sheepsquatch to things that just sort of defy classification---including a large number of sightings of extremely large canine-type monsters roaming around the area of Monongalia County! One of the absolute best resources for information on these monsters is the book, White Things: West Virginia's Weird White Monsters by Kurt McCoy, but this article on Mysterious Universe by Brent Swancer is also a good place to start if you're looking to delve into this strange topic a lil' further!