Skunk Ape in Alabama: The Russell County Wild Man

"He has been seen a number of times."

by Dale Cox

Beautiful old Uchee Chapel United Methodist Church has
stood in the Uchee Community of Russell County, Alabama
since before the wild man sightings. It was built in 1859 and
is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The skunk ape, a smaller version of what many people call Bigfoot or Sasquatch, is usually associated with Florida. Many who believe in them, however, say they also live in areas of Alabama and Georgia.

Skunk apes are said to be bipedal creatures or apes. They stand 5-6 feet tall, are covered with hair, and live in the swamps and wetlands where humans rarely go. One of the most famous of these was the Ocheesee Pond Wild Man, a creature captured in 1884 at Ocheesee Pond in Jackson County, Florida. You can learn more about him by watching the short video at the bottom of this page.

Seven years earlier, a similar (or the same?) creature was spotted in the swamps along Uchee Creek in Russell County, Alabama:

Today's Uchee Road follows the approximate trace of the
Old Federal Road through the area of the wild man sightings
in Russell County, Alabama.

The people in the Hichtie [Hitchiti] country on the Uchee tell us of a wild man up there. He is about five feet high, covered all over with gray hairs, and is stark naked. He keeps concealed generally in the Uchee swamp, though he has been seen a number of times passing about and near the swamp. - Russell Register, July 1877.

The area along Uchee Creek was one of those where the Muscogee (Creek) Indians made their last stands in Alabama during the Creek Wars of 1813-1814 and 1836. These lands were coveted by white speculators and settlers because they were prime for growing cotton. The Old Federal Road wound along the ridge overlooking the Uchee swamp and its trace is followed - more or less - by Sandfort and Uchee Roads today.

Uchee Good Hope Cemetery, along the ridge overlooking
Uchee swamp, was already 40 years old when the wild man
made his appearance in the summer of 1877.

The 1877 report continued:

...About two weeks ago Johnnie, a little son of Mr. F.A. Boykin, saw him standing in a horse lot on the creek used for feeding stock when working that part of the plantation. As soon as he saw Johnnie he ran to the fence, jumped it, (ten rails) and made his escape to the swamp. His track upon being examined looked like that of a ten year old boy. - Russell Register, July 1877.

Several other eyewitnesses reported seeing the creature, but he grew with each telling until at least one said that it was over ten feet tall! Efforts were made to capture it throughout the summer of 1877, but each one failed. Whether the creature actually lived in the area or was just passing through was never determined.

Editor's Note: Learn more about the actual capture of another "wild man" in this fun story from Two Egg TV:

Ocheesee Pond Wild Man: A 19th Century Bigfoot capture in Florida?

Was a bigfoot captured in Florida in the 1880s?  Check out the video above to find out!

#94 The Wild Man of Ocheesee Pond (100 Great Things about Jackson County, Florida)

Who or what was the Wild Man?

The mysterious Ocheesee Pond Wild Man is #94 on our list of 100 Great Things about Jackson County, Florida. Click here to see previous items on the list.

If you aren't familiar with the story, the "Wild Man" was a mysterious creature captured at Ocheesee Pond south of Sneads and Grand Ridge in 1884. Some believe the incident may be one of the best documented cases ever of the capture of a Bigfoot or Sasquatch (often called the Skunk Ape in Florida).

The story of a strange hair-covered creature being captured in the swamps of Ocheesee Pond has long been part of the folklore of southeastern Jackson County, but while researching a different topic a few years ago I was surprised to find that the incident was documented at the time it took place.

Ocheesee Pond in Jackson County, Florida

The Wild Man had been causing trouble around Ocheesee Pond by making off with chickens, garden vegetables and other items from the farms that lined the borders of the vast swamp. Reconstruction had ended only eight years before and times were still hard for families in the area, so the men gathered together and decided to go after the creature. They cornered and captured him in the swamp.

Stories of the Wild Man's capture appeared in newspapers including The New York Times:

Steamboat Amos Hays at Chattahoochee in 1884.

News brought by the steamer Amos Hays from Lower River is to the effect that the wild man captured in Ocheecee Swamp, near Chattahoochee, and carried to Tallahassee, did not belong to a Florida asylum, and that all inquiry proved unavailing to identify him. He had been swimming in Ocheecee Lake, from island to island, and when taken was entirely destitute of clothing, emaciated, and covered with a phenomenal growth of hair. - The New York Times, August 1884.

The Amos Hays was a paddlewheel steamboat that carried passengers and commerce up and down the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. It was at the Chattahoochee wharf when the Wild Man was brought up by the men who had captured him.

Administration Building at Florida State Hospital

Today's Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee was then the State Asylum and it was thought by his captors that the raving creature was an escaped patient. He was not. In fact, he had not escaped from any mental institution in the country!

All that could ever be determined about him was that he was covered with hair, could not speak in any known language and had survived by "living on berries, &c."

The Wild Man was taken to Tallahassee where efforts to identify him continued through telegrams sent to state capitals throughout the nation. No information on his background could be found.  Baffled, state officials sent him back to the State Asylum in Chattahoochee.

Swamps of Ocheesee Pond

There, for now at least, he disappears from the record. The big question remains as to whether he was a man or something else. Perhaps somewhere deep in the records of the Florida State Hospital will be found the answer to that mystery. Was he just an unfortunate man suffering from a severe mental illness who had lived so long in the woods in a state of nakedness that he grew his "phenomenal growth of hair"? Was he an escaped ape, something that most of the people in Florida would have never seen at that time? Or was he a Bigfoot?

And then of course, there is the question of what finally happened to him?  If he was a man, did he recover enough to eventually go to his home? Or does the Wild Man rest in a grave in one of the State Hospital cemeteries in Chattahoochee? And if so, does that grave contain evidence that would answer the mystery of Bigfoot once and for all?

It is a true mystery and a fascinating part of Jackson County history and folklore.  To read more about the Ocheesee Pond Wild Man, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ocheeseewildman.

Update on the Wild Man of Ocheesee Pond

Swamps of Ocheesee Pond

I'll resume with my postings about Reconstruction in Jackson County soon, but I am taking a break today to tell you more about a story I first posted here on August 26, 2011 (See The Wild Man of Ocheesee Pond - A 19th Century Bigfoot Capture in Jackson County?)
To refresh your memory, in August of 1884 a party of men living around Ocheesee Pond in Jackson County took up arms and went into the swamp in search of a "wild man" that had been terrorizing the neighborhood. "Wild Man" was a common 19th century term used to refer to the creature we know of today as Bigfoot or Sasquatch.

Somewhere in the roughly nine square mile swamp, the search party came up with the Wild Man and managed to surround and capture him. Eyewitness accounts at the time described him as "entirely destitute of clothing, emaciated, and covered with a phenomenal growth of hair."

Open Water Section of Ocheesee Pond

Thinking that perhaps he was a mental patient who had escaped from the State Hospital in Chattahoochee, they took him there but found that no one was missing from that institution. Unsure of what else to do with their strange prisoners, the Jackson County men loaded him on a train and took him to Tallahassee.

When I wrote the original story last year, I was unable to learn anything more about the Wild Man and the story ended with many unanswered questions. I've continued to look for more references and finally, this weekend, found another.

Florida State Hospital
As it appeared in 1884.

The story was datelined Columbus, Georgia, on August 23, 1884, one week after the original report. The steamboat Amos Hayes, which brought the first news of the capture, had made its way back down the Chattahoochee River and returned to Columbus, bringing back fresh news on the Wild Man.

While the story still leaves many unanswered questions, it reveals that at least one week after his capture, authorities in Florida still had no idea of what to do with the Wild Man. All efforts to identify the prisoner had still proved unavailable and state authorities were operating under the assumption that he must have been an insane individual who had escaped from a mental facility in a different state.

The second report confirmed the first as to the man's or creature's appearance, he was "emaciated" and covered with hair.

I still have not been able to learn the fate of the Wild Man of Ocheesee Pond, but the search will go on! To learn more about the capture of the creature, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ocheeseewildman.

The Wild Man of Ocheesee Pond - A 19th Century Bigfoot Capture in Jackson County?

Ocheesee Pond

One of the most startling yet least known Bigfoot stories in American history originated in the cypress swamps of Ocheesee Pond in 1883-1884. It also has the potential to be one of the most important in the long story of the legendary creature.
If the stories that went up the Chattahoochee River by steamboat from Jackson County in August of 1884 are true, then the county was the scene of one of the only documented captures of a Bigfoot in American history.

For those who don't keep up with such things, Bigfoot (or Sasquatch, as he is sometimes known) is said to be a gigantic, hair-covered creature that roams the remote woods, swamps and forests of North America. He is traditionally associated with the Pacific Northwest, but every part of the country has a Bigfoot of its own. The area around Two Egg and Parramore in eastern Jackson County, for example, has its Stump Jumper, while the South Florida version is usually called the Skunk Ape.

Swamps of Ocheesee Pond

Most fans of the creature do not realize that it was actually well known in the South decades before its first documented appearance in Washington and Oregon. In the 19th century, sightings of large hairy creatures were often reported as the frontiers of the United States rapidly spread out from the Atlantic seaboard. People of that day and age, however, called him the "Wild Man."

In the winter of 1883-1884, a Wild Man appeared at Ocheesee Pond, a large wetland covering nearly 9 square miles in southeastern Jackson County. Most of the pond is covered by a vast cypress swamp, although there are some stretches of open water - most notably its southern arm, and the human-like creature was often spotted roaming the swamps or swimming from place to place.

As eyewitness accounts of his presence increased, local residents - many of them former Confederate soldiers - met and launched an expedition to capture the Wild Man of Ocheesee Pond. In August of 1884, they succeeded!

To read the complete story of the Wild Man of Ocheesee Pond, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ocheeseewildman.