In Episode 467, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the woods of Stonington, Connecticut, searching for an ape man first spotted here in 1926. Thought to be maybe the missing link, this wild man was said to be terrorizing a local farm. The reports were frequent enough that the game warden got involved, search parties were formed, rifles were loaded, and the community came together to solve the mystery.
BECOME A LEGENDARY PATRON:
https://www.patreon.com/NewEnglandLegends
CREDITS:
Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Theme Music by: John Judd
SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST FOR FREE:
Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Podcasts | TuneIn | iHeartRadio
JOIN OUR SUPER-SECRET:
New England Legends Facebook Group
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[DRIVING IN CAR]
RAY: We’re currently heading north on Taugwonk Road in Stonington, Connecticut.
JEFF: We are. It’s pretty rural. A lot of trees and woods, a few spread out houses, old colonial stone walls by the side of the road. We’ve passed a couple of small commercial buildings. And the leaves look amazing right now.
RAY: They do! Autumn is at its peak here in Stonington.
JEFF: Let’s pull over up here in that clearing.
RAY: Okay.
[CAR STOPS]
[DOORS OPEN/CLOSE]
RAY: What are we looking for, Jeff?
JEFF: Ray, keep your eyes pealed toward the woods… We’ve come to Stonington, Connecticut, to search for what might have been the missing link between humans and primates. We’re searching for an Ape-Man.
[INTRO]
JEFF: Hello, I’m Jeff Belanger, and welcome to Episode 467 of the New England Legends podcast.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger, thanks for joining us on our mission to chronicle every wicked strange legend in New England one story at a time. Did you know most of our story leads come from you? This one did! Thanks to our friends at the Stonington Free Library for sending it in.
JEFF: Thank you! And thank you to everyone who has seen me on my story tour so far this month including in Stonington. I have upcoming dates in Warren, Massachusetts, Groton, Connecticut, Somers, Connecticut, Marion, Mass, Franklin, Mass, Tolland, Connecticut, and Nashua, New Hampshire.
RAY: Also, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but be sure to tune in next week for our Halloween special! We already recorded it and we can’t wait for you to hear this eerie tale.
JEFF: We’ll go searching for the Ape-man of Stonington, Connecticut, right after this word from our sponsor.
[SPONSOR]
[CARS DRIVING BY]
RAY: So we’re in this somewhat rural section of Stonington looking for the missing link between humans and primates.
JEFF: Right. Something like that.
RAY: Here’s a little more on Stonington, Connecticut. The town is located in southeastern Connecticut on the Rhode Island border. The Mystic River borders to the west, and Long Island sound to the south. The first European settlers came here in 1649. The town got its name in 1666…
JEFF: (INTERRUPTING) Spoooooky.
RAY: Right?! Stonington made the history books back in August of 1814 when it was attacked by the British during the War of 1812. One of the attacking ships was the HMS Terror.
JEFF: Okay, while getting attacked isn’t cool, the fact that the HMS Terror was here is kind of amazing. The HMS Terror was one of two ships lost during that famous expedition to find the Northwest Passage through the arctic in 1845. The ship and crew were lost along with the HMS Erebus.
RAY: A lot of history here. Also, do you know who is from Stonington?
JEFF: Who?
RAY: Peter Benchley. He is the author of the book Jaws that would go on to become one of the most iconic movies of our lifetime.
JEFF: We’re gonna need a bigger podcast, Ray.
RAY: We might. (BEAT) So, this isn’t the first time we’ve gone looking for an ape-man.
JEFF: No it isn’t.
RAY: Not to be confused with a Bigfoot or Sasquatch, an Ape-man is more like human-sized proportions, just wild and completely covered in hair.
JEFF: Right.
RAY: This isn’t even our first Connecticut ape-man story.
JEFF: That’s right!
RAY: Way back in Episode 30 we explored the wild man of Winsted, Connecticut.
JEFF: Hundreds of locals went hunting for a feral Wild man out in the woods of Winsted. They found a cave with bones and a shoe in it. That was way back in 1895.
RAY: And we have another Wildman or ape man here in Stonington?
JEFF: That’s what they say. To see him, let’s head back to the year 1926.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: It’s mid-March of 1926 here in Stonington, Connecticut. Calvin Coolidge is in the White House, John Trumbull is governor of Connecticut, and “Who” by George Olsen and his Orchestra is the number one song. The twenties are roaring. Jazz music is blowing us away, the economy is booming, and folks are partying.
JEFF: While folks maybe be tripping the life fantastic in the cities and suburbs around the country, folks here in Stonington are talking about a strange primate lurking through the Taugwonk section of town by Highland Farm.
RAY: Some believe this creature is an ape or baboon that escaped from a circus or traveling carnival, but there have been no reports of anything like that missing nearby. Plus, the creature was described as wearing a shroud, AND pants and shoes.
JEFF: Right. And circuses don’t dress up their animals. (BEAT) Though Spring is just a few days away, the leaves and grasses are weeks away from filling in.
RAY: Okay, what does that have to do with anything?
JEFF: My point is we have a lot of visibility in the woods that we won’t have in another month when the foliage fills in.
RAY: Got ya. Good point. This ape-man was first seen in the middle of the day by one local man who said the creature leapt onto a rock, did some calisthenics, then jumped into the cover of the forest below as easy as a cat jumping from a windowsill.
JEFF: A local North Stonington girl from the Miner farm claims she was chased by the beast while driving cows home from their pasture. Enough people are shaken up that Stonington Game Warden, George Denison is mounting a search party the northern part of Stonington.
[HIKING IN THE WOODS]
RAY: There’s plenty of visibility out here.
JEFF: Right. Without leaves on the trees we can see pretty far in the woods. We’re looking for any signs. Footprints, hair, anything that might help us track this ape man.
RAY: I’m not seeing much of anything out here. Just more woods. And if we see a shoeprint, it could be anyone considering one witness said the ape man had shoes on.
[HIKING SLOWLY FADES]
JEFF: For two days the Game Warden searches the woods along with others… He finds nothing.
RAY: Meanwhile, other locals think this is just some made-up story.
JEFF: The thing is, most locals, especially farmers, consider themselves experts on all of the creatures both big and small that roam the region. There’s some truth to that. It’s their business to know the predators, game, and creatures that actually help by hunting pests. You can’t blame some people for being skep….
[HIGH PITCHED SHRIEKING IN THE DISTANCE]
JEFF: What was that?
RAY: I don’t know. It sounds like it’s coming from the swampy area.
JEFF: The swamp is pretty close to the Miner Farm, the estate of the late H.D. Miner. Today his daughters live there. There’s 19 year old Muriel, and 16 year old Mildred. We should head over there.
[WALKING DOWN THE ROAD FEW SECONDS]
RAY: I’m going to go talk to Muriel over there by the barn.
JEFF: Okay, I’ll look around the property.
[WALKING]
RAY: Okay, this is weird.
JEFF: What’s up?
RAY: This was the same woman who said she saw the ape man while driving the cows from their pasture.
JEFF: Okay.
RAY: Now she’s saying she never saw the ape man. She said there was a man who came calling here the other day, but he was just a regular man. No leaping, jumping, or scaring anyone.
JEFF: It could be she was ridiculed for sharing her story and now she’s trying to walk it back?
RAY: Maybe. Whatever is happening, folks in town are pretty split. Should we head to the tavern and talk to some others?
JEFF: Definitely. Let’s hitch a ride into town.
[OLD TRUCK ROLLS DOWN THE ROAD]
[TRUCK STOPS]
JEFF/RAY: Thank you!
[DOOR OPENS]
[DOOR CLOSES]
[TAVERN NOISES]
RAY: Two beers please!
[CLINK]
JEFF/RAY: Cheers!
RAY: Let’s go ask around to see what people think about the ape man.
[TAVERN NOISES]
RAY: I just spoke with William Byrne. He thinks it’s a prank. Someone is out there messing with the women at the farm and with the public.
JEFF: I just spoke with Ed Doucett. He’s got an interesting take. He thinks it could be someone who just wants to live out there on his own. Step away from it all. A wild man. He pointed out that no one has claimed the ape man has tried to hurt anyone. Maybe we should just leave him alone.
RAY: Then there’s Everett Wilson’s take. Everett says he thinks it’s some half-wit or escaped insane person from an asylum.
JEFF: For the most part, locals seem to think it’s some kind of prank, or person who went feral, not some new breed of human or animal. Let’s head back outside.
[DOOR OPENS]
[DOOR CLOSES]
JEFF: March turns to April, and now the story of the Stonington Ape man has taken a darker turn. Now the most prominent theory is that someone is dressing up in furs to try and frighten the Miner girls off of their farm.
RAY: Their home is prime farm land. I could see why others would want it. Or think maybe they could take it.
JEFF: Folks in Stonington don’t cotton to predators like that.
[SHOT GUN LOADING]
JEFF: A few locals load their shotguns, and head to the Miner farm to keep an eye out for the ape man’s return.
RAY: Just to be sure, the Game Warden has checked with local asylums and circuses to make sure there hasn’t been any escapes. He confirmed there have not. Which means this Ape man is either someone trying to terrorizer the Miner farm or….
JEFF: Or it’s some kind of missing link ape man who wandered into northern Stonington.
RAY: There’s that.
JEFF: Still, something has people on the Miner farm spooked. Frank Miller, who worked on the Miner Farm as a farm hand for a while now just up and quit. He said he was tired of seeing strange things popping up on rocks and hopping about the place. He’s rattled.
JEFF: It’s April 3rd.
RAY: The Connecticut State Police have gotten involved, and pretty quickly believe they’ve solved the case of the Stonington Ape Man.
JEFF: How?
RAY: Check it out. Some of the officers are carrying a body. Let’s take a closer look.
[RUNNING OVER]
JEFF/RAY: Really?
RAY: We’re looking at a stuffed dummy. Clothes filled with hay and straw. And a pelt for a face. There’s a sign around the dummy’s neck that reads April Fools.
JEFF: Come on… all of this over a prank.
RAY: Police claim the Miner girls made up the story to scare people away from their property.
JEFF: Though that officially closes the case, there are those who observed that if the girls wanted to be left alone, this story brought a lot more people to their farm who were curious to see or hunt for the ape man. Plus, how does a stuffed dummy explain their farm hand seeing someone jumping on rocks?
RAY: Some believe the dummy was a way to end the story… and just maybe the ape man is still out there. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: So maybe a false flag?
JEFF: Maybe. We found a bunch of newspaper articles in the New London Day Newspaper between March and April of 1926. This story got a lot of ink. Some people were scared, others incredulous, the rest were somewhere in-between.
RAY: Either way, the story fades from the news shortly after April 5th 1926. And here we are left to wonder.
JEFF: That’s the thing. We hear about people going off the grid today. That’s not a new idea. There have always been those who prefer the solitude of the forest, or would rather live far away from everyone else. But those people tend not to terrorize farms and draw attention to themselves. Which makes me wonder if maybe out there in the woods of Stonington there was once… an ape man.
[OUTTRO]
RAY: Though it’s been literally a century since the last sighting, you can’t help but gaze in the woods as you drive by. And that takes us to After the Legend where we take a deeper dive into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
JEFF: After the Legend is brought to you by our patreon patrons! Thank you patrons for all that you do to financially support us and our mission. We can’t do it without you. Our patrons kick is just $3 bucks per month to get early ad-free access to our new episodes, access to our entire archive of shows, plus bonus episodes and content that no one else gets to hear. When you sign up you receive a unique RSS feed that you can place in your favorite podcast player or link it to your Spotify account and get everything in one place. To sign up click over to patreon.com/newenglandlegends.
To see some pictures related to this week’s story, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our website and click on Episode 467.
Wait! Before you go, please make sure you’ve subscribed to our podcast so you don’t miss a thing. You can find us anywhere you listen to podcasts. Also, if you’d post a review for us, or tell your friends about our show, we’d be most grateful. You are how we grow.
We’d like to thank our sponsors, thank you to our patreon patrons, and our theme music is by John Judd.
Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think!