The Legend of the Philippi River Monster

Have you heard of the Legend of the Philippi River Monster? No? Well then, you are in luck because I have a story to tell you. This happened long ago, and the story was told for decades by mouth before anyone had the sense to write it down. So, I present to you the tale as it was told to me.

Jack Poling had lived in Philippi his entire life. He was a hard-working man who helped at the Train Depot unloading the trains, and then he would load his wagon full of packages and deliver them across town. He was considered a valuable member of the community and everyone in town knew Jack.

Jack had been raised to understand that all people deserved respect, from the homeless beggar to the rich man in the mansion up on the hill in Berryburg. He believed if a man worked hard and was satisfied with his work, he would never lack in that which he needed to live. Oh, sure, you could be as poor as dirt, but the good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, you’d be fulfilled enough to be content.

Now, Jack was a curious sort. He rarely attended church, and he hardly ever mentioned his faith to others. He felt it should be a private affair between him and God. The public displays of faith always unnerved him. He felt it was merely theatrics for the townsfolk to try and outshine each other's righteousness. No, Jack would rather do his good deeds silently and without praise, do his fine work through the week, and spend Sundays fishing on the river enjoying God’s creations and being content to know that he could talk to God while on the river, and he knew it was as private a place as he could find.

One fine Sunday morning, Jack was in his little modest boat floating in the river. He liked to put in near the Train Depot as the water was usually low and slow there. It also helped that Jack was allowed to keep his small boat locked up in the Depot throughout the week.

He decided to drift down the river and relax a bit with his line in the water. As he drifted he found himself in a bit of a deeper spot than he usually fished, and paddled his way to the bank. He used his tie-off rope on a tree limb so he wouldn’t drift much further and settle into the warm shade for the day.

He watched as fish broke the surface, eating the mosquitoes and other insects, but one thing caught his eye that made him sit ramrod straight and stare at the water. In the middle of the river, a long creature colored bright orange and yellow emerged from the water, grabbed a breaching fish, wrapped itself around the fish, and then just allowed the river to swallow them both back below.

He stared slack-jawed at the spot, and did not move for a good ten minutes. Had that been a snake? It had to have been as thick as his arm! He’d never seen a snake so big in the water before. He didn’t even know if snakes grew that big.

When his senses came back to him, he quickly untethered himself from the tree and started rowing back upstream. He’d never rowed so hard and fast in his entire life. When he made it back to the bank of the river below where the Depot sat, he was out of his boat, and hauled it back up the bank as if he’d seen the dead rise from the grave.

He slumped against the brick wall of the Depot, and slid to the ground. He shook his head. Must be hungry. Just seeing things, he thought. Were it anyone else on the river people would just claim he was drunk, but Jack didn’t drink. His daddy had been the drinker, so much so that he lost their farm before Jack was even born.

He went home early that day but told no one what he had seen. When the next Sunday rolled around, Jack was back out on the river. He’d talked himself into believing he hadn’t seen anything at all. He decided to test this theory, and rowed all the way back to the spot he’d been the previous Sunday. He’d sit there and he would watch while he fished again.

The morning moved by slowly. The sun drifted at half its usual pace across the sky, and Jack was growing impatient. Just as he had decided he was raving mad, and should just move on to his usual fishing holes, he got a bite on his line. The pole bent nearly double, and Jack grabbed it and set his hook, and started reeling as fast as he could.

As he reeled it in, Jack noticed that just under the surface of the water, there was something huge. It was bright orange and yellow, and it wasn’t a snake. This creature had multiple limbs that moved like snakes. He watched in horror as a large bulbous head emerged from the water, and two large round eyes looked at him.

In horror, he threw his pole at the thing, nailing it between the eyes. It recoiled, and Jack grabbed his paddles, and made his way to town. This time, he told everyone who would listen that he had seen a monster in the river.

People, at first, thought he’d gone mad. That was until others started to see it too. Sightings went as far as Elkins and Grafton. The sightings grew less and less over the years, but the story still persisted in Philippi for a while longer.

Today, the story is rarely known. A tribute to the creature, which we now know as an Octopus, can be seen on at least two murals in town done by a local artist by the name of Dianna Maxwell.

Have you heard the tale before? Perhaps another version? Will we see it again? I guess only time will tell.