Arkansas 1856 - The Arkansas Wild Man Heads North - Tirademan!

[Trogluddite]

UPDATE 25 Sept. 2026: The previous article, a truncated story from a distant paper, has now been replaced with the earliest article available on Newspapers.com.  That article was published in The Rockford (IL) Republican on March 26, 1856.  No relevant article was found in the archives of the St. Louis Republican, as claimed in this article. 

 

In the archived thread where Tirademan first posted a now-unknown newspaper article about this encounter, it appears that he and other members believed that the encounter occurred in Arkansas.  While this article calls the creature the "Arkansas wild man," neither of the terrain features identified (Brant Lake, Sun Flour Prairie) can be found in Arkansas on Google Earth.  and states that its also been seen in Louisiana.  Later news articles added new terrain features, such as "the Upper Red River area" and Sunflower Prairie.  

 

The second article below was published in the Hornellsville (NY) Weekly Tribune on May 8, 1856.  It may be the specific article found by Tirademan.  I've broken it into two clippings to improve readability.

 

               

 

 

                                                                             

 

 

Edited September 25 by Trogluddite
To add attribution and clarification; then to fix formatting.