Creature record / 1873
July 1873. A crew is laying track along the New York shore of Lake Champlain, near Dresden. Out on the water, something moves. A head breaks the surface. An enormous serpent, coming toward them from the opposite shore. The Whitehall Times printed the story on 9 July. Small, piercing eyes. Two rows of teeth. Streams of water spurting about 20 feet above its head. What followed was a summer of fever. A steamer was said to have nearly capsized. A newspaper posse claimed to have shot the beast. P. T. Barnum offered a fortune for its hide. The legend of Champ had begun.
Lake Champlain runs between New York and Vermont. At its narrow southern end, the town of Dresden in Washington County looks across the water toward Whitehall and Vermont. In 1873 the D&H-backed New York & Canada Railroad was building a line along this shore. The line between Whitehall and Plattsburgh would open in 1875. That summer, men were out on the lakeside laying track.