Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1879 — The Sea Serpent. [ARTICLE]

The Sea Serpent.

New York Star. At 4 o’clock yesterday morning, John McMahon, proprietor of a hotel at Sheepshead Bay, Captain Wm. Van Nostrand, one of the best known fishermen on Long Island, and Mr. Micheal Ryan, of this city, sailed from Sheepshead Bay on a bluefl hing excursion to the waters of Rockaway. On arriving at the fishing grounds the party began to troll for bluefish. At about 5:45 o’clock Mr. Ryan, who was sitting in the stern of the boat, noticed an immense agitation of the” water a short distance to the left, ana called the attention of the party to the occurrence. He had hardly-finished speaking when the head of an enormous serpent appeared above the water. What followed is best described by the three bluefishers themselves. Mr. McMahon tells the following story: “I had no weapon with me but a jack-knife, but I drew this and determined to sell my life dearly. I saw plainly that if the lives of our little party were to be saved I was to be the humble instrument of deliverance to my comrades. Captain Van Nostrand had nothing but a ten-cent corkscrew* and Ryan’s only weapon was a religious tract that bad been handed to him lust before we started for the bay. Well, sir, it was Fa terrible sight. The beast or reptile seemed to be about one hundred and two feet long, and its head was as big as a barrel. It rose out of the water over twenty feet, and then, as quick as lightning, darted clean through the sail of our boat, and landed head first in the water on the other side. One of its scales dropped on the deck, and it was as hard almost as a stove-lid, and of the same s<ze. We sailed straight for home and didn’t see the thing again.” Captain Van Nostrand’s story differs somewhat from Mr. McMahon’s. The Captains version te as follows: “The moment I saw the water a tumbling about I made up my mind it was caused by the serpent I had seen once when I was a boy, forty years ago, off Rockaway. I wasn’t the least bit frightened, and I drew a revolver, determined to kill the serpent, if possible. It had a head on it as nig as an aiderman, and its eyes were as large as saucers. Ryan and McMahon were as white as sheets, and each of them

ou a common ball; u simply bounced oft. The critter gave a snort, and whisked its tail at our boat. Itbo««ht we were gone, sure, but the serpent’s tail missed the boat and fast caught Mr. Ryan on the top of the hat, taking the hair off* closer to the skin than a cltauer machine—so close th** you woui ,u i *to bald-headed. If that tailnau struca an eighth of an tach lower the man Would nave lost the top of hto skoL The serpent disappeared after taking that one crack at us, and we didn’t see him again. McMahon and I were thankful enough to escape, but Ryan kept growltag all the way home about losing hto hiar. He said he wouldn’t mind about being bald-headed in winter,- but it was a tough thing to stand in fly-time.” Mr. Ryan treated hto adventure with apparent indifference. Said he: “The moment I saw the thing I knew what it was. The only woncern I had was for McMahon. I knew he had the heart disease, and I felt alarmed, fearing that the sudden frighthegot would kill him. To reassure Mae. I said: ’Don't be frightened; it’s only a large sized eel.’ I’ll never forget the look he gave me as be replied: ‘Eel? It’s the devil himself!’ and with that he began to read like a madman a religious tract that the fish-bait was wrapped up inJus t then the serpent lifted its head out of the water within a foot of where I was sitting. With that I hauled back and gave him a terrible clip between the eyes with a stout blackthorn I alway cany. The blow staggered him, and he dove under the boat, but came up at the other side, glaring at Mac. like a tiger. Mac. wore a fancy straw hat that was the color ofa green watermelon. ’Overboard with that bat—it’s that which to provokin’ the beast!’ I yelled, and Mac. pulled it off, and scaled it over the water. The next thing we heard was a grating sound; the serpent had bitten one anchor off. Two minutes after it came up under Mac.’shat, and a second later we saw it making for the open sea with the green tile on its bead, and the anchor between Its teeth. I wanted to pursue the serpent, but Mac. and the Captian wouldn’t listen to the proposition, and we sailed home.*’