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I came across this video today from Seneca Lake, largest of the New York Finger Lakes (and home to some great wine making). Not sure what to make of it though it does show some characteristics of a large tree branch. Then again, it is quite strange especially when it rises out of the water and swirls. Your thoughts...Lon
Seneca Lake has it's share of legends...including 'The Serpent':
The Echo of Agayentah
In the early years, Hobart students embraced the legend of Agayentah, the bygone Seneca chief struck down by a bolt of lightening. As the story goes, both the chief and the tree where he took refuge were swept down a creek and into the lake. The following day, as storm clouds again gathered, a large tree trunk floated upright "slowly and majestically around the lake, like a funeral barge," according to the writer Arch Merrill. From then on, the tree was said to reappear in the "deathlike stillness that precedes the storm." A manuscript by George M.B. Hawley (Class of 1892) in the HWS archives cites reputable observances of the floating stump, then known, for no apparent good reason, as "The Wandering Jew."
There were some who said Agayentah had somehow angered the God of Thunder, who orchestrated his demise. "As he died," reads the Hobart H Book, "the echo of his cry reached the shore." In the 1850s, Echo of the Seneca became the title of the Hobart yearbook, which was then adorned with images of the Iroquois Nations.
Legend also has it a spirit boatman paddles the lake on moonlit nights, a spectral reminder of natives who narrowly escaped a party of Continental soldiers by climbing down a sheer cliff to canoes waiting below. The cliffs, located near Hector, were painted by the natives, supposedly to commemorate their good fortune.
Lake Drums
The low, distant booms said to occur on still summer evenings almost certainly exist, but explanations vary. Some explain them as gases bubbling up from the lakes depth and escaping with thunderous reports. Native Americans heard them variously as the drums of the ancestors, manifestations of evil spirits, or divine messages from the God of Thunder.
Passageways
A person drowns in Cayuga Lake and turns up in Seneca — such stories support the belief that underground passages connect the Finger Lakes with one another, and perhaps with the Atlantic Ocean (which would explain the lake’s high salinity, too). Jack Jones, a reporter from the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, researched the topic and became convinced underwater passages in Seneca Lake are a "geological impossibility." William Ahrnsbrak, professor of geoscience concurs — cracks in the bedrock might release salt and allow subterranean seepage, but nothing more.
The Serpent
According to newspaper report in 1900, a Captain Herendeen (perhaps one of the many Hobart Herendeens) was skippering the steamship Otetiani on Seneca one hot summer afternoon when he spied what looked like wreckage of another vessel floating on the surface. While the crew prepared a boat to investigate, the "wreckage" moved. Herendeen called full ahead and the Otetiani bore down on the object, which suddenly reared its head.
A number of prominent citizens were on board that day, including the manager of the phone company, the police commissioner, and the president of the board of public works. One Professor George Elwood, from Ontario, was also there, and described the creature as serpent-like with a head "four feet long . . . armed with two rows of triangular white teeth. . . . The body was covered with a horny substance . . .much like the carapace of a terrapin. . . .
"The belly . . . was cream white. Its eyes round like those of a fish, and it did not wink."
Herendeen gunned the engines and twice rammed the creature at full speed, the second blow proving fatal. As the serpent floated, men from the Otetiani roped it and attempted to hoist it from the lake. Unfortunately, one rope slipped and the serpent sunk to the bottom.
The Geneva Gazette and Rochester Herald reported the incident, the former bemoaning the creature’s demise: "It should have been captured alive and squirming, brought to Geneva and exhibited."
The Geneva Daily covered the incident only later, observing that the boat may well have visited wine cellars along Seneca's shores, thus preparing passengers and crew alike for visions of "creatures and monsters of all sizes."
On occasion, divers will still report observing the lake serpent. Don Woodrow, professor of geoscience, attributes it to oversized carp which, when turned over to sun themselves, "look bizarre." — P.R. Legends of the Lake - Sea serpents, immortal natives, underground passageways — stuff like that.
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Geneva, N.Y. July 15, 1899
The Otetiani, a side wheel steamboat belonging to the Seneca Lake Steam Navigation company, officered by Captain Carleton C. Herendeen and Pilot Frederick Rose, was between Dresden and Willard a few minutes before 7 o'clock last evening, when Pilot Rose saw about 400 yards ahead, what appeared to him to be an overturned boat. He called Captain Herendeen who examined the object with his glass. It appeared to be about 25 feet long, with a very sharp bow and long, narrow stern. Amidships it was much broader and higher than at either end.
A number of passengers gathered around the pilot house and discussed the supposed boat. Among them were President of the Board of Public Works, Commissioners of Public Works Albert L. Fowle and D.W. Hallenbeck, Police Commissioner George C. Schell, Fred S. Bronson, manager of the Geneva Telephone company, and Charles E. Coon, a commercial traveler for a Philadelphia house, all resident of this city, and Professor George R. Elwood of Guelph, Ont., a geologist who has been studying the country around the lake.
When Captain Herendeen completed his examination of the object, the pilot signalled the engineer to slow down. The steamboat approached to within 100 yards and preparations were made to lower a boat. As the davits were swung outward, the supposed upturned boat turned and began to move away.
"Full speed ahead," shouted the captain. The object was moving slowly and the steamboat gained on it rapidly. The object again turned, this time toward the boat, raising its head, looked in the direction of the boat and opened its mouth, displaying two rows of sharp, white teeth.
The captain said that he would ram the creature with the boat and take it alive, if possible. Otherwise he would kill it, and either take it aboard or tow it to Geneva.
The boat was turned so that the creature would be approached from the side. The deck was crowded with passengers. These the captain ordered amidships in order to avoid any accident should the creature attempt to come aboard after the attack was begun. The captain cautioned everybody to get a life preserver and keep cool, because he said he did not know what would happen when the boat struck the monster. Some of the women, who were in tears, retired to the cabin, the others showed as much interest and excitement in the case as the men. The boat fell away some distance and turned to make the attempt to ram the creature. The captain signalled full speed ahead, and in a moment the Otetiani was under way.
Every eye on deck was fixed on the monster and hardly a person was breathing normally. While the boat was yet some distance from it, the monster again looked at the boat, sank out of sight and the boat passed over the spot where it had been. Some of the passengers decided that they could see a dark outline of the creature's body.
The steamer prepared to continue her course to this city.
"There it is," suddenly exclaimed one of the women passengers, who was standing on the after deck.
The "thing" had come up. The passengers, with the captain in advance, ran to the stern of the vessel and within fifty yards the long, lithe body of the monster was lying on the surface in practically the same position as when discovered. The captain ordered the boat put about and the attack was renewed. Instead of trying to strike the creature full in the side the boat was maneuvered, so that the starboard paddle wheel would strike it about midway between its head and tail.
The boat went ahead under full steam, the monster paid no attention to it, and with a thud which all heard and felt, the steamboat struck the spot.
The force of impact threw every one off his feet, and the vessel careened violently to port, but quickly righted. For an instant everybody wondered what would happen next. There was not a sound on board except the engine. Then the men on board cheered and some of the more timid of the women recovered from their fright and screamed.
Lying close beside the steamer, with a gaping wound in its side, was the monster. It raised its head, gave what sounded like a gasp, and lay quiet. Its spinal column had been broken and it was dead.
The life boats were quickly lowered and rowed to its side and with the aid of boat hook ropes were placed around the carcass. Other ropes which were fastened on board the steamer were then passed up and attached to the improvised swings. All helped to haul the monster in. The carcass was clear of the water when the rope near the tail slipped off and the tail dropped into the water.
The weight on the other rope then became so great that it began to slip through the bands of those holding it. They were compelled to let go or go overboard. As soon as the body struck the water it began to sink and disappeared. At the point where the carcass was lost the lake is over six hundred feet deep and as is well known bodies of persons who have been drowned in that part of the lake never again rise or are recovered.
When the steamer arrived in this city shortly before midnight the stories of the monster were about the same, although in some the imagination was given free play and the length of the monster was estimated at from 25 to ninety feet. The most careful and perhaps most trustworthy account was given by Professor George R. Elwood, a geologist who lives in Guelph, Ont., who was in one of the life boats that made a rope fast around the carcass.
"Do you know what a Clidiastes is?" the Professor asked the Herald correspondent.
"Well, that is exactly what the creature we saw last night seemed to be. It was about twenty-five feet long, with a tail which tapered until within about five feet of the end, when it broadened out and looked much like a whale. The creature weighed about one thousand pounds.
"It's head was perhaps four feet long and triangular in shape. Its mouth was very long and was armed with two rows of triangular white teeth as sharp as those of a shark, but in shape more like those of a sperm whale. Its body was covered with a horny substance which was as much like the carapace of a terrapin as anything else of which I know. This horny substance was brown in color and of a greenish tinge. The belly of the creature, which I saw after the rope slipped and the carcass was going down, was cream white. Its eyes were round like those of a fish, and it did not wink." The Sea Serpent
The following link is to a PDF of 'The Sea Serpent of Seneca Lake'.
Monsters and Legends - Seneca Lake, NY
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