The Unique Serpent of Silver Lake

The Silver Lake serpent defied all of these possible theories and explanations and was in a class by itself. The Seneca tribe believed there was a monster in Silver Lake and they would not swim in it. The settlers, most likely, thought this was superstition. They had not seen anything unusual in the lake until a summer night in 1885.

On July 13th, 1885, a moonlit night, Joseph McKnight, Charles Hall and Alonzo and Charles Scribner were in a boat in Silver Lake, trying to catch catfish. McKnight saw something large that he called the other men's attention to. It looked like a huge log. It disappeared and they gave it no more thought and continued their fishing. Suddenly, the log reappeared closer to the boat and began to move in a serpentine manner toward it. In the moonlight, they could see that the log was a serpent. The men grabbed the oars in panic and rowed away from it as fast as they could. They went toward the end of the lake opposite from their homes and left the boat there. The quartet had to walk two miles to their homes. The trip across the lake was only half a mile, but there was no way they would get in the boat, in that lake and row across it with what they saw in it.

The next day, they signed notarized statements attesting as to what they saw. Their friends joked with them and said they must have been drinking. There was no way a 60 foot serpent lived in the lake!

Within several weeks, at least a hundred people saw the serpent. The townspeople formed a vigilante committee to kill it. Word spread and people came to Silver Lake in hopes of catching a glimpse of the serpent. They ranged from curiosity seekers to hunters to a whaling man who brought his lances and harpoons with him to deal with the creature.

Hotels did not have room enough for the tourists and people rented rooms in their homes to them. Business increased and an air of excitement filled the quiet resort town.

They the last sighting of the creature was in the late summer of 1885.

For the next two years, people still flocked to Perry in hopes that they would see the Silver Lake serpent. There was speculation as to why it disappeared in1885. Did it die? Was it in hibernation? Could there

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