Creature record / 1818
August 30, 1818. Ellisburg, a frontier town on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. A man described only as "a gentleman of unquestionable veracity" watched something come out of the woods. It came within a few rods of him. It stood. It looked at him. Then it ran, hairy, bending forward, in full view for some time. Hundreds of people searched for several days. Nothing further was heard or seen of it. The short report, printed in the Exeter Watchman, is often cited as the earliest known newspaper account of a "Wild Man of the Woods." It is the opening entry in the long history of Bigfoot.
Ellisburg, New York, 1818. A rural frontier town in Jefferson County, organised in 1803 out of the town of Mexico. Marvel and Lyman Ellis had settled near the future village around 1797. Lake Ontario formed its western boundary, and Sandy Creek ran south west past Belleville, Hossington and Woodville. Sackets Harbor lay nearby, with the Canadian border to the north.