Research source

Long Island Sound put in a claim for a sea-serpent

Date of account: Late nineteenth-century survey
Source: The great sea-serpent: an historical and critical treatise
Reference: The great sea-serpent: an historical and critical treatise · selected passage 44
Rights: public_domain
Language: English edition of a European scholarly compilation
Translation: English edition of A. C. Oudemans's historical survey
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

“(b). Long Island Sound put in a claim for a sea-serpent. On this fiction I am well satisfied of the particulars that follow. An active young fellow who had become weary of ploughing the land, bought a little sloop of about fifteen tons, which I remember to have seen; and resolved to try his luck in ploughing the waves. He named his vessel the _Sea-Serpent_. She was mostly employed in carrying country produce to the New-York market and in bringing manure back, with the advantage of passengers when any offered. This boat was on her way from Mamaroneck harbor or thereabout toward the city, and was met by a sloop from that place, a short distance from City-Island. The captain of the latter, on arriving at home, was eagerly interrogated by a quidnunc for news; and being a man of some humor and fancy, told his neighbor, the querist, he had just seen the sea-serpent.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical compilation of unusual-animal reports and argument. Witness testimony, repetition between publications and the author's zoological assumptions all affect independence and reliability.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares morphology, behaviour and setting while keeping misidentification, folklore, exaggeration, error and known animals available as alternatives.

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