Slightly Odd Fitchburg

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! Fitch Bits: Champ DID YOU KNOW that New England has its own lake monster? Champ is his name and being a cryptid is his game! He's said to live in the waters of Lake Champlain in Vermont. There have been more than 300 documented sightings and P.T. Barnum, himself, once offered a $20,000 reward to anyone who could bring him the creature, dead or alive. One of the earliest sightings by western eyes was in 1819 by a ship's captain. He reported that he saw a creature over 180 feet long with "eyes like peeled onions!" The story goes even further back in time, though. The Iroquois and Abenaki tribes both have ancient legends of a lake monster that lurked in the lake and ate people. The Abenaki even

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! Fitch Bits: The New England Man in Black DID YOU KNOW that New England has its own Men in Black stories? The most famous one happened to a fellier by the name of Dr. Herbert Hopkins in Old Orchard Beach in Maine. He was putting supposed UFO abductees and witnesses under hypnosis and studying their cases. He must have gotten a little to close to some form of truth because a Man in Black showed up at his house on September 11, 1976! He was your typical Man in Black with a black suit, white shirt, and black hat. His skin was pale, his lips were too red, and he lacked any hair; eyebrows and eyelashes included. He knew facts about Hopkins that he had no business knowing, including that he had two coins in his pock

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! The Lake Winnipesaukee Mystery Stone DID YOU KNOW that there's a mystery stone in New Hampshire? Sometimes known as the Lake Winnipesaukee Mystery Stone, this thing was pulled from six feet of earth, by laborers, digging holes for a fence in 1872. The owner of the property, one Seneca Augustus Ladd immediately caught it and examined it. It's very clearly not a natural formation, but that's pretty much all we know about it. Theories have it being created by anyone from the Inuit to the Celts. Ladd never tried to make money off it, so a hoax seems unlikely. It made its way to the New Hampshire Historical Society in 1927, where it remains to this day. So, was it made by ancient Celts visiting North A

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg and following us at Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! Fitch Bits: Leather Man Okay, so this might actually become a full post but, DID YOU KNOW that a man clad in rough, stiff leather used to walk a constant 365 mile circuit through western Connecticut and eastern New York? Dubbed Leather Man, he was first spotted in 1857, walking between the Hudson and Connecticut rivers. He walked about ten miles a day and never stopped. It didn't matter how hot the summer sun was or how cold the winter, he walked all day, every day, completing his circuit every single year. The leather he wore was handmade and barely fit for a human. He rarely spoke a word and never accepted any invitations for a place to sleep at night. He simply found a cave or built a shelter when it was

    This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! Fitch Bits: The Dover Demon DID YOU KNOW that the Dover Demon might just be a real deal, living cryptid? Back on April 21,1977, William Bartlett, 17 at the time, claimed to see the creature in Dover, Massachusetts. That very same night, 15 year old John Baxter was allegedly frightened by the very same creature on Miller Hill Rd. That sounds like teenagers with overactive imaginations, but here's the thing: neither of the boys knew each other or spoke to each other. They were both asked to draw the creature individually and that's the kicker! They both drew the same exact thing and you can see the pictures for yourself right here! That sounds crazy, but what do you think it was? Let us know in the

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg and following us at Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the sad story! The Hartford, Vermont Railroad Disaster DID YOU KNOW that Hartford, Vermont is home to one of the country's worst railroad disasters in history? It happened in the winter of 1887 and claimed the lives of 37 passengers. A further 50 people were injured in the accident. Just like a few days ago, Vermont was in the middle of an arctic blast that froze the White River solid,  below the Woodstock bridge in -18 degree cold. The Montreal Express, out of Boston, was over an hour behind schedule. Ordered to make up for lost time, the engineer hit the bridge at a higher than usual speed. The rear passenger car hit a break in the track and that was all it took. It went over the bridge and took two additional cars wit

Well, I've been struggling with finding a good time to make this very exciting announcement.  I figure there's no better time than a holiday when almost no one is paying attention! The coming year is going to bring a lot to the world of Slightly Odd Fitchburg, not the least of which is... An actual book! That's right, Slightly Odd Fitchburg is going to be published by Weird Darkness Publishing in early 2023! There's no date set in stone yet, but you can expect to see it on Amazon in the next few months! The cover you see is designed by the incredibly talented author Scott Donnelly and I'm eternally grateful to both him and Darren Marlar for this chance to reach a much larger audience! The nonsense I blather through the odd and haunted history of New England will be available on mutliple formats and I can't wait to share them with you! This is all thanks to all of you! Your support and interaction is what keeps the site going and I really hope that I get