Creature record / 1873
October 1873. Two fishermen rowed a small punt off Portugal Cove, in Newfoundland's Conception Bay. Something lay floating on the water. They took it for a large sail, or the wreckage of a ship. One of them struck it with a gaff. It came alive. A parrot-like beak rose up, "as big as a six-gallon keg." Two huge livid arms shot out and began to twine around the boat. An axe ended the struggle. The animal slid away in a cloud of ink, leaving behind a severed arm 19 feet long. That arm reached the Rev. Moses Harvey in St. John's. It became the proof that the giant squid was real.
St. John's, Newfoundland. Autumn 1873. The Rev. Moses Harvey was a clergyman with a naturalist's curiosity. A local clergyman would later sum up his reputation for a young fisherman. Harvey was "crazy after all kinds of strange beasts and fishes."