Pennsylvania: The Squonk & Bigfoot

The next stop on the Backwoods Cryptid Road Trip is Pennsylvania, home of the most miserable monster in American folklore. The squonk comes out of the state's old lumber camps, where woodhicks and bark peelers told of a small, wart-covered animal with skin that didn't fit, so ashamed of its own looks that it hid in the hemlocks and cried all night. It reached print in 1910 in William T. Cox's Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, along with the story of J. P. Wentling, a forester near Mont Alto who lured one into a sack and got home to find nothing inside but tears and bubbles.

This episode covers the logging era that gave rise to the legend, from the Williamsport boom and the hemlock bark trade to life in the camps and the real dangers of the deep woods. It then follows the crying through the years in accounts from a Potter County bark camp in 1898, a Civilian Conservation Corps trail crew in 1934, a dairy farm springhouse in 1952, a deer camp above Pine Creek in 1967, a trout stream in the Loyalsock State Forest in 1979, and a gas well pad in Tioga County in 2011.

From the squonk, the trip moves on to Pennsylvania's long history with Bigfoot, starting with an 1830s account from Susquehanna County, an 1897 newspaper report from Potter County, the 1973 wave of sightings Stan Gordon investigated along Chestnut Ridge, and the 2007 trail camera photos from the Allegheny National Forest.

The encounters that follow take place on a strip mine haul road, a school bus route through the national forest, a maple sugarbush in Somerset County, a bow hunter's tree stand, a late-night wrecker call in elk country, and the Pine Creek Rail Trail.

If you enjoyed this stop, please leave the show a rating and a review, and tell your friends and family about it.

Send your own sightings, stories, and suggestions for future stops to brian@paranormalworldproductions.com


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Have you experienced a Bigfoot sighting, Sasquatch encounter, Dogman experience, UFO sighting, or any unexplained cryptid or paranormal event deep in the woods? We want to hear your story.

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Backwoods Bigfoot Stories is a paranormal storytelling podcast featuring real Bigfoot encounters, Sasquatch sightings, Dogman reports, cryptid experiences, and true scary stories from the backwoods.

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