Speaker 1: On the west edge of the small town of Five
Lakes lies or Lake Road. It is a narrow, ruddy,
twisted lane that runs between small and waverly roads. On
one side, the land is heavily forested and rises higher
than the church steeple, and on the other side, the
land slopes down to or Lake, a large dank, lily
covered wetland beyond. On both sides, the land is wooded, dark,
and as silent as a grave. They say it always
feels cold on or Lake Road, even on the hottest days.
Some say the road is haunted, that a wild man,
a creature, or even a witch lives in the forest.
The first person to notice something strange on or Lake
Road was young Master John Rumley Sky, one of the
richest family in Five Lakes. One day, as Rumley later
told the tale, he was riding down the road when
halfway through he saw an old, withered woman sitting on
a stump paring an apple. He didn't recognize her as
anyone he knew, so he dismounted to address her. Once
he was on the ground, the woman had vanished stumping.
All after that, there were disappearances at least three known
to the people in Five Lakes, people traveling alone down
or Lake Road who went onto the lane and never
came out. Legend, of course, added another two. On Waverley Road,
there was a small country store called Miller's Market. Mister
Miller owned this old time general store and had for
many years. He was a respected man in Five Lakes.
He didn't believe the Or Lake stories, though he did
acknowledge that, yes, over the years, there had been some
disappearances in the area, and that what they all seemed
to have in common were people traveling on Oor Lake Road.
Mister Miller had a daughter named Mary. His wife had
died some years before, and Mary was very dear to
her father. Like her mother, she had rich, thick hair,
dark as coal, eyes a gem like blue, and lips
red as summer berries. She was a lively, dutiful girl
and a renowned sixteen year old beauty. Many people would
stop at Miller's Market just to see Mary, maybe buy
a coke or a sandwich as an excuse to pause
a while and talk with her. One of the people
was a big, husky young man named Daniel Martin. Dan
would stop every day after work to spend time with Mary,
and one day mister Miller asked Mary about the braid
and her hair, and she told him it was what
they called a love Not on the other end of
our lake road was Small Road, and the last house
on Small Road was owned by the Wilmos family. As
it happened that winter, the Wilmos baby took sick. Doctor
Kepler went out there to find the infant to be
very sick, indeed, so he phoned in a prescription to
be delivered immediately. The delivery boy from the pharmacy in
Five Lakes went out on Waverley Road and stopped at
Miller's market. When he learned from mister Miller that he
would have to take or Lake Road to reach the
Wilma's place on Small Road, he declared that he was
afraid and he wouldn't do it. It's your job and
your duty, mister Miller told him. But the boy said no,
he wouldn't travel on or Lake Road. Had they never
heard the rumors about the place. Confounded rumor boy said,
mister Miller, you might be saving that child's life with
this medicine, and I might be losing my own in
doing so. The boy replied, and he set the package
down on the counter and ran out. It happened that
Dan Martin was in the store just then talking with Mary.
He heard the conversation and watched the boy leave. Mister
Miller stood there, almost quivering with disgust. He started to
take off his shop apron and said, Mary, I'm off
to the Wilma's place. You mind the store for me,
and just do as we always do and close at six.
This was December and it was already dusk. The sun
was a cold ragball on the splintered western horizon. Dan
Martin stepped up and said, mister Miller, here, give it
to me. I'll deliver the package. The Wilma's house is
that blue house, right, yes, said mister Miller. It's the
last house on small road, and as soon as you're
off four Lake Road, it's that house. You sure you
want to do this, Dan, Well, I'm not sure, said Dan.
But it's better for me to go than you, with
your business and all. And if I leave now, I'll
be back no later than midnight. And so that's when
Dan Martin left. But he didn't return at midnight, and
he didn't return at dawn. In fact, he never returned
at all. What we do know is that he did
reach the Wilmos house sometime around ten o'clock because he
delivered the medicine that saved the Wilma's boy. That baby
was Ron Wilmos, and his son Ray now owns the
dry cleaning shop in Five Lakes. But Dan Martin never
returned from his errand that saved Ron Wilmos, and he
never returned to Miller's market, and he never returned to
Mary with the dark love knot in her hair. Many
years passed, the water table rose, and the rising waters
of or Lake nibbled away at or Lake Road, and
they had to close it. No one had traveled that
road for a long while. Anyway, the store worries about
the creature, the wildman or the witch persisted. There was
a new story about the disappearance of Dan Martin. Mister
Miller took sick. A few years after this happened. He died,
and dutiful Mary took over the market. She was known,
like her father, for kindness and for her beauty, though
they said something seemed to have gone out of her
after Dan Martin disappeared. She never married, though it is
said she had many offers. Some time later, Mary died
when she was in her early forties and there was
no one left to take over the store. Five Lakes
has changed over the years, but not much. The land
indoors or a lake indoors and has in fact grown.
There is still a deep gnarl dark forest where Ora
Lake Road once lay. Eventually, over the years, the stories
about the wildman, the creature, the witch, even about Dan
Martin ceased. Things change and go on what do you do?
But sometimes on dark December nights, between twilight or his
latest midnight, the people that still live along Waverley Road
swear they can see a shadowy figure, a big man,
walk out of the woods where or Lake Road once lay.
He walks to the ruins of Miller's Market, which is
now abandoned and boarded over, and he walks to the
market and looks around as if someone is waiting for him,
expecting him. If you go to or Lake Road today,
you can still find a remnant of the road where
John Rumley met the old woman on the small roadside.
The Wilma's house is long gone, and there's an orchard
and a day spa there. Now on Waverley you can
see the old Miller's Market building washed gray by the
years and back by a tangle of thorns. Be careful
if you walk around the building the thorn you're thick
and sharp as knives. But above all, don't spend much
time pondering oor Lake Road. You just might wind up
writing a story about it. I got a message on
Facebook from someone who follows my page, or is who's
liked my page, and they posted a series of articles
on a some kind of creature down in Smith County, Mississippi.
This caught my attention and it's a whole series of articles,
and I thought i'd just share it with you guys.
The name of the publication is The Morning Call. I
don't know where that paper was based out of, but
the first article was issued on September one, nineteen twenty nine,
on a Sunday, and the big headline is big posse
will seek wild woman this morning. So I'm just gonna
start at the first article, and I'm gonna read them
all to you because I don't know why, but these old,
older articles really interest me. But here we go. Let me.
I'm just reading this off my screen, so y'all bear
with me. Here a wild woman reported in the swamps
in Smith County. Scores of citizens from Smith and Jones
Counties are expected to gather at Taylorsville Sunday morning, when
a hunt will begin at eight o'clock for a wild
woman reported to be in the swamps near that town.
Marshall TE. Blankney of Taylorsville informed the call Saturday night.
Whether the affair will be a wild woman chase or
a wild goose chase remains to be seen. At any rate,
a lot of people who have never before chased wild
women are expected to be on hand. Quote. We are
extending a special limitation to our Laurel friends to come
out and join us in this hunt. Marshall Blankney stated, quote,
we intend to comb the swamp where she is reported
to be until we find her. That Marshall can con
tinues on we will begin our search. We will not
use dogs to track her down, but should it become
necessary in order to locate her, we will probably secure
some good hounds. Some of this is real faded on
the article, so I'm having a strain to read it.
The search for the wild woman reported to be inhabiting
the swamps near Taylor Taylorsville follows the account which Pa Walker,
a farmer, tells of having seen such a creature and
talked with her several days ago at his farm. According
to mister Walker's description, the woman, who was nude except
for a cloth girdle, was covered from head to foot
with hair about four inches long. From mister Walker's description,
she has more the appearance of an animal than a
human being. Mister Walker states that he questioned the woman
when she suddenly appeared near him at the edge of
the swamp where he was chopping wood. She told the
Smith County farmer that she was reared in Alabama about
six years ago and became mentally deranged. Since that time.
She has reported to have said she has lived in
the Smith County swamp, where she has shot her food
and eaten it raw. We have heard no definite reports
of the woman since she was seen by mister Walker,
Marshall Blakeney told the call, but we have reason to
believe that she is still in the swamp where she
was first reported. That's the first article. The second thing
of the Gentleman sent me is another article says big
Posse fails to find trace of wild woman. If there's
a wild woman in Leaf River Swamp, in Smith County.
One hundred and fifty citizens from that and adjoining counties
failed Sunday morning to find hair nor height of her,
and from all reports, she has plenty of the lighter
and maybe presumed sooner or later to shed some of
that hair near her lair. Gathering at the home of
Pa Walker, Smith County farmer, who reported several days ago
that the wild woman had visited him at his farm,
a large posse led by Sheriff TJ. Tullis, Smith County,
began a search for the harry Swamp Dennison. About eight o'clock.
Members of the posse stationed themselves fifty paces apart and
proceeded up to swamp until they reached a vacated mill house,
where the woman told mister Walker she spent her nights.
Nowhere was there a trace of the wild woman found,
and before eleven o'clock the posse decided that it might
be engaged in a wild goose chase instead of one
for a wallwoman, and abandoned the search. No further efforts
will be made to apprehend the weird creature, officers state
unless she again makes her appearance. In such a case,
dogs will be secured and put on her trail. Failure
of the posse to find the wall woman was the
greatest disappointment in the lives of a lot of Laurel
County people who have been preparing themselves for a look
at the unusual lady. From all the descriptions, she is
covered from head to foot with brown hair about four
or five inches long. Her face is covered with hair
two inches long, and for six years, as the wild
Woman's story goes, she has been living in Leaf River swamp,
shooting her food and eating at raw That's a second article.
Here's another article, and I don't I guess it's from
the same newspaper. Call offers reward for a wild woman.
The Morning Call will pay one hundred dollars in cash
to any person or persons delivering to the office of
this newspaper a wild woman found in a Smith County swamp,
whose body is naturally covered with brown hair between four
and five inches long, and whose face is covered with
hair one inch long, whose hair drops down over her
wrist us to her knuckle joints, and that on her
feet trails in the dust as she walks to and fro.
Provided these conditions are carefully observed. Number one, said wild
woman must be securely tied and delivered at this office.
We don't propose to have our whole staff laid up
in the hospital. She must be brought directly to this
newspaper office after she is found. Note. If her clothing
or absence of it is ultra modern, she may be
taken first to a dress shop and guarbed. However, the
lady's wishes shall be abided by in this case. If
she doesn't care well, we aren't particular either. Number three,
Any and all newspaper interviews with her must be secured
by representative of the call. We may have to employ
a special reporter to handle this assignment. Our regular staff
is skittish of the wild woman. Number four the said
l must be really wild. That is wilder, wilder than
the wilder than women usually are. We don't want her.
If she's just crazy. A lot of people are that way. Okay,
this gets better as we go. Okay, here's another one.
I can't see the title of it. Let me zoom out. Okay.
Smith County Man seeks wild Woman Naked in the Woods, Taylorsville,
August thirty first. Apparently this was written before the first
article I read you, but here we go hopes had
not been abandoned Friday night in the search for a
wild woman who is reported to be living in the
swamps a few miles below here. The first reports were
given last Wednesday, when Pink Walker, a farmer who lives
below here, said that the woman approached him where he
was at work in the woods. A search was made,
but no trace of her was found. Rumors were spread
Friday that other people living in that vicinity he had
seen a wild woman. Walker is said to have stated
that she had long hair, she was manlike, and wore
very little clothing. Okay, that's another. Here's one more again.
I'm assuming this is from the call, but it says
wild woman eludes Smith County posse. All right, this is
September two, the day after the first article. Smith County's
wild woman is still at large, roaming the woods of
that county at will and eating raw rabbits and other tidbits,
unmolested by the rules of etiquette and unhampered by the
criticisms of society. Efforts of a posse is said to
have contained at least one hundred and fifty seekers for
the wild woman. And determined to catch her, have returned
to their homes solely disappointed and painfully unrewarded they didn't
find her. The posse was headed by Sheriff TJ. Tullis
and Town Marshall Borough Blakeney of Taylorsville in the name
of the law to capture the wild Woman of Leaf
River Swamp or know the reason why they now know
they couldn't find her. The party formed at the home
of Pa Walker, who reported seeing the demented woman who
claims to have lived in the swamps the past six years,
and took to the lowlands of the river at eight
thirty o clock space fifty paces apart. The party moved
down the river for several miles to the abandoned sawmills
site where the young woman claims to have lived, without
seeing any trace of her. The search was given up
about ten thirty o'clock and the party made its way
back to the starting point. It is likely that no
further effort will be made by a posse to run
the woman to earth, but that if she reappeared, it
is planned to secure dogs and put on her trail.
The woman, extremely muscular, is said to be covered in
short brown hair. That's the end of that one. And
here's one more. I don't see the title for it, mitral, Okay,
the title is wild Woman. I'm sorry. Unmolested by the
rules of etiquette and unhampered by polite society, A wild
woman has been eluding all searchers in the woods of
Smith County, famous now as the wild Woman of Leaf
River Swamps. She dines on raw rabbits and other tidbits,
wears little if any clothing, and is covered with short
brown hair, and has been seen several times but never captured.
And I think that's the last article. But anyway, I
thought that was interesting, and you all may not think
it is. But I have so many people, most of
them that I know are dead now dead and gone,
but uncles and aints and just people I grew grew up.
This team down there around Amy and the tom Bigbee
River bottoms. That's where my people lived, and I would
love to have them around and ask them if they
remember this, because a lot of them were live in
nineteen twenty nine. Anyway, I thought i'd take a break
from working at Sunday. I'm trying to crank some workout
that's due Tuesday. Missed the great camp out at Land
between the Lakes with some friends because of this damn
work good griefs driving me crazy. I thought i'd just
put this podcast out real quick and I don't know
ten fifteen minutes long. Hope you guys enjoyed it and
I'll see you on the next video. Thank you. I'm
not interested in bigfoot research whatsoever. I'm not interested in
camping out to look for them, gathering evidence of anything
that has anything to do with looking for them to
prove they exist. I know they exist. I've seen them.
There is at least one clan that lives in this
particular area, and I'm not the only one who has
seen them. You could say that all the farmers who
live in this area have seen it, and we all
know they're here. We choose to leave them alone. I
am other than a farmer, a paranormal investigator. I live
on my family farm that has been in my family
for over two hundred years. This particular house that I
live in was built in eighteen sixty. Of course, it
has gone through many updates through the years, and it
also happens to be haunted. But that's not really why
I'm sending this This property borders the largest land state
park in this state. There are thousands of acres of
forest in this area, which a lot of people find
surprising for this area of Illinois. Our fields are spread
out a bit in this area, and instead of taking
the highway, we would cut up over the ridge and
end up on the blacktop road that ran behind the park.
I've heard about bigfoot all my life, and sometimes the
other farmers in the area would mention seeing one or
catching a glimpse of one from time to time. I
didn't pay much attention to it because at the time
I never had had an encounter. I would sit out
on the back deck at night, would hear wood knocks
in an occasional whoop, but I never saw one. Sometimes
I would take a baseball bat and hit a tree
or even the railing of the deck, and sometimes I
would get an answer. In the late nineteen nineties, I
cut up over the ridge and I was on the
black top. I was almost to the back entrance of
the park when this huge creature jumped the fence along
the park. It was on my right and it stood
in the road. I had to slam on my brakes
or I would have hit it, and when I stopped,
I could not have been more than twenty feet away.
This thing was huge, and I'm guessing it was seven
and a half feet tall and three feet across at
the shoulders. It had dark brown hair all over its
body except on its face. It had a broad nose,
wide set eyes, and a protruding forehead, and its arms
almost appeared to be normal from the shoulders to the elbows,
but from the elbow to the hands, the arms were long.
Stood there and we made eye contact for what seemed
like a full minute. I had the window down on
my truck, and there was a slight breeze, and I
caught a whiff of a strong odor. It was almost
like a bad body odor, like someone who had not
had a bath in months. It never made a move
towards me. It just stood there, and then suddenly it
crossed the road and went down the hill to my left.
I tried to see where it was going, but the
trees were so thick and I couldn't see it. It
was almost like it vanished. The sun was setting, but
it was not quite dust, so there were still plenty
of light. The sun that was left was behind me.
I rolled up my window, and I locked my doors,
and I turned around and I went back home. When
I got home, I told my mom what I had seen,
and she never said a word. She just nodded. Her
response made me think she had seen it, or at
least knew of its existence. We never had problems with
them coming down to the farms and bothering our livestock.
But I think that's because there are so many deer
around here and there's no need to come raid a farm.
But listening to them, you can tell there are more
than one. You will hear a tree knock coming from
one direction and it will be answered from another. The
same with the whoops. This farm sits near the Mississippi River,
and in December of twenty fifteen, we had what you
might call a freak of flood. We have flooding in
the spring, but never in the winter. It was flooding
our land, so my mother and I moved into a
house in town. Three weeks later, the floodwaters receded enough
that we could have moved back, but we decided to
spend the rest of the winter in town. We had
a hired hand and he called one day to say
that he had seen a bigfoot crossing one of the
pastures near the house. This was the first time he
had seen one, so he was very excited and even
a fresh I went down there to check things out
and to assess any damage from the flood. It had
snowed a couple of inches the night before, not much.
My farm hand and I went to the house and
there were these huge footprints that looked like it had
walked around the house and had even stopped to look
into four of the windows. I believe they know who
belongs here, and since we were gone, it was looking
for us. I know it sounds silly, but that's my opinion.
This is the only time I know of that one
has come to one of our houses. We and the
other farmers in this area have not been bothered by them,
except for a sighting now and then one either crossing
a field or walking along the woodline or along the river.
Sometimes while out hunting there will be reports of a sighting.
I'm not saying we see them every day, but we
do see them. When they decide to come out of
the woods. They pretty much leave us alone and we
don't bother them. We've been fortunate that they have not
bothered our homes are our live stock. On October twenty third,
twenty eighteen, my farm hand Mike, and myself went to
pick up some per simmons because we had had a
frost a couple of days before and that's the best
time to pick them up. I also wanted to see
if there were any pawpaws left, and even though it
was a bit late in the year for them, any
that were left will fall off the tree and the
deer and other animals are going to get them. But
I figured it was worth a look. Mike and I
hopped into his truck and headed for the pawpall trees
because they were closer. When we got there, we saw
that there were some on the ground and some on
the trees. Mike grabbed a ladder out of his truck,
and as he was setting it up, he pointed to
a tree stump about halfway up the small hill and
said that he didn't remember that stump being there. I
don't remember seeing it either. Mike set up the ladder
and as he was picking off the tree, I was
picking some up off the ground. I picked a few up.
I straightened up and I was hitting the head with
a paw Paul oh Crap. I heard Mike say we
looked up the hill and that stump was gone. I
told Mike to quickly gather up what he had and
get in the truck. He grabbed the ladder and he
threw it into the bed of his truck. I stopped
and started digging through a backpack. We heard a grunt
just inside the tree line thirty feet away, and we
heard a big crack, like something had stepped on a
large stick. I was still fumbling through my backpack, and
he was urging me to hurry up. I was trying
to hurry up, but I couldn't find my phone. Who
the hell are you gonna call? He asked, The phone
has a camera on it. I said, apparently I had
left the phone at home. Though I had some venison
jerky with me that I had brought for the day.
I pulled it out and I stopped and laid some
on a stump, and then I headed for the truck
and we left. Mike was in his stairs. I knew
something was wrong with that stump. It had eyes, he said.
He kept asking me how I could be so calm.
I finally persuaded him to stop and let me dry,
because I honestly thought he was going to wreck. He
stopped and I drove the rest of the way to
Mike's house, and then I walked home from there, it
was only about a mile. The next day, I drove
out to the Pawpall Pass to see if I could
find anything. I had left a five gallon bucket with
a few pawpoles in it. The bucket was tipped over
and the paw poles were gone, along with the jerky.
I looked around for footprints or anything else that I
could find, but I didn't see anything. I drove out
to the Presimon trees but didn't get out of the
truck because some of the lower branches had been broken off.
They looked almost like they had been twisted, and you
could tell these were fresh breaks. We had not had
any storms or high winds, so I can only guess
at what broke them off. I never got out of
the truck and I went home. In July, I had
to have some work done on my truck. I took
it to my cousin who has a shop in the
next county. He's a good mechanic, and when he fixes something,
he does it right. He also gives me a break
on the labor charges. He had my truck for a
week because he had to wait on some parts to
come in, And when I went to pick up the truck,
he told me that he was going to the Great
Smoky Mountains for a vacation to stay in a cabin
owned by his sister. He had seen bears and other
critters on his last trip there, and so jokingly I
asked him if he had ever seen a bigfoot, because
there are a lot of sightings down there. He went
totally quiet. I had to coax him to tell me
what was wrong, and he asked me if I believed
in bigfoot, and when I said yes, that I had
seen him, he told me about when he and his
wife and his son went mushroom hunting in the hills
on the back of our property just last May. The
three of them had been standing on a hill when
one walked across the clearing below them. He said it
was dark and it was walking on two legs. He
raised his binoculars, but by the time he got them
out to look at the creature, all he saw was
its back. He told his wife and son not to
make any noise and to walk quietly back to the truck.
He didn't want to draw the attention of the creature.
But that wasn't the only bigfoot my cousin had seen.
He was raised in this area. They lived on a
farm up on the ridge. He didn't lean towards farming,
so he got a job in town when he was
nin eighteen. He worked late one night until one am.
On his way home, he was about a mile from
home when one came out of the woods and crossed
in front of him. It stopped for a moment and
then went into the woods on the other side of
the road. It scared him so bad that he didn't
drive on that road at night again for two years. Instead,
he took a longer route home. He never told anyone
about that until he and his family saw the one
in May, and on the drive home he told them
all about it. I'm guessing he felt better knowing he
was not the only one who had seen a bigfoot.
The area where these farms is are isolated. The nearest
town in any direction is forty minutes away. The Mississippi,
Missouri and the Illinois rivers are not far away either.
There are acres and acres of woods It's a great
area for bigfoot to live and hide and not be
seen for long periods of time. There are plenty of
deer berries and other sources of food for them, and
this is probably why they've not rated our farms. But
we also know that these things are dangerous. They have
enormous strength, and at any time they could turn on
us if they had a mind to live and let live.
Only go so far when dealing with a non human creature,
but we give them a wide path. Not long ago,
the man down the road told me about being in
his field checking his corn when one appeared out of nowhere.
He was almost face to face with it, and it
shook him up pretty good. I grew up on this farm.
I was born on it. I played in these woods
and I hunted in them since I was fourteen. I
fished in the river. I've been all over this area.
I never saw one until I became an adult. The
first encounter, although it didn't traumatize me, changed my life.
It made me aware that there are things in this
world that you once believed did not exist. That's a
strange statement coming from someone who chases ghosts. I know that,
but the ghosts seemed far more normal to me because
I had been around them all my life. My dad
was from Arkansas. I remember him telling me when I
would be getting ready to go play in the woods,
be careful, don't let them boogers get you. I never
took him seriously because I always thought he meant the
Boogeyman and I didn't believe in it. Little did I
know that he is real and sign spooking