GLOUCESTER SEA SERPENT

Opening

In August 1817, a long, many-humped animal appeared in the harbour of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and stayed for weeks. Fishermen, shore people and visitors watched it, sometimes hundreds at a time, and described something 50 to 100 feet long, as thick as a barrel, with a head some compared to a horse's.

The Linnaean Society of New England sent a committee to take sworn statements. Then it made a mistake: it named a new species, Scoliophis atlanticus, from a small deformed snake killed on the shore. The name did not survive. The harbour sightings, with many named witnesses, have never been explained.

Timeline

1638John Josselyn records an earlier report of a sea serpent coiled on a rock off Cape Ann.

August 1817Sightings begin in Gloucester Harbor. On 14 August a boat crew fires on the animal. It sinks and resurfaces about 100 yards away.

18 August 1817The Boston Daily Advertiser reports a "prodigious snake" seen by hundreds of people over several days.

August 1817The Linnaean Society appoints a committee of John Davis, Jacob Bigelow and Francis C. Gray to interview witnesses.

27 September 1817Gorham Norwood kills a small, humped snake on the shore. The Society decides it is the serpent's offspring.

November 1817The committee's report names the genus Scoliophis and the species Scoliophis atlanticus.

1818 and 1819More sightings off Cape Ann and the New England coast, including one by a U.S. Navy schooner in August 1819.

1863 and 1868The Boston Society of Natural History re-examines the specimen, finds a common black snake with a deformed spine, and declares Scoliophis a myth.

Key figures

Solomon Allen III estimated the animal at 80 to 90 feet. James Mansfield said he saw no ears, horns or other appendages. Sewall Toppan, a schooner master, also gave evidence.

David Humphreys, a former aide-de-camp to George Washington, said the serpent was seen by 200 people at one time.

John Davis, Jacob Bigelow and Francis C. Gray made up the Linnaean Society committee. Davis privately admitted that it was rather bold to come out with a new genus.

Gorham Norwood killed the snake that became the Society's specimen.

Physical and documentary trail

The trail: the Report of a Committee of the Linnaean Society of New England, with its sworn statements, the Boston newspaper coverage, letters from committee members, and the later re-examination of the specimen. The snake itself is the only physical object, and it turned out to be a known species. Nothing was ever recovered from the harbour.

Things you might not know

• Science named it from the wrong animal. Scoliophis atlanticus was based on a three-and-a-half-foot snake with 32 bumps on its back.
• The specimen was a black snake. Re-examination found Coluber constrictor, a common local snake, with a deformed spine.
• A Boston editor gave up. One wrote that the existence of the animal was now proven beyond all chance of doubt.
• It was mocked on stage. William Crafts's 1819 play The Sea Serpent; or, Gloucester Hoax satirised the excitement.
• Bullets did not seem to matter. Shots were fired at it more than once, and it kept coming back.
• The explanations keep changing. Recent suggestions include a narwhal, animals tangled in fishing gear, and harpooned sperm whales towing overturned boats and debris.

Competing explanations

An unknown marine animal. Dozens of named, sworn witnesses described the same general shape over weeks, in daylight and at short range. That is better testimony than most sea-serpent cases have.

A known animal seen in an unusual way. Proposals include a large eel, a narwhal, a whale trailing gear or debris, and animals entangled in fishing lines. Each explains some descriptions but not all.

A hoax or excitement feeding on itself. The playwright Crafts thought so, and later sightings may have been shaped by the newspapers. That does not account for the earliest sworn statements.

Later life of the case

The Gloucester serpent became the founding case of American sea-serpent lore, covered by Bernard Heuvelmans and nearly every writer since. Reports off Cape Ann continued into the 20th century.

Finding

Something was in Gloucester Harbor in August 1817: too many people saw it, and swore to it, for the case to be dismissed. The Society's specimen was a deformed black snake, and that part of the story is settled. What the harbour animal was is still open, and the best modern guesses are known animals behaving or entangled in unusual ways.

What still will not resolve: what the witnesses saw, which no specimen, carcass or later identification has yet explained.