The Crocodingo

[Eleanor Rose]

(Library of Congress)​

Certainly one of the weirdest tales of mystery monsters to come out of the Civil War is that of a strange creature said to have the body of a dingo and the head of a crocodile, and which has come to be known as the Crocodingo. The creature was said to mostly prowl the area of Scott County, Tennessee, and although the legends of this weird beast had been around for years, the report which most propelled it into notoriety was that of a local from Huntsville, Tennessee named Hank Lemon. According to Hank, on the night of July 31, 1839, a strange creature allegedly bolted forth from the underbrush behind his home as he stood gazing at the greenish sky. He described the monster as having the body of a large dog topped with a bulbous reptilian alligator-like head, complete with jagged fangs. Whatever it was, it reportedly moved very quickly, and was said to exude an unbearably horrid stench. Hank Lemon said of the smell:

"There was this horrible charnel stench in the air, and something else…a horrible thing….something that would drive a man crazy should he be exposed to it for too long a period."

During the Civil War, Confederate soldiers began coming back with accounts of seeing the monster while out in the field, darting through the wilderness, studying them from afar, or even growling in a threatening manner. In one such account, a Confederate soldier by the name of Roger Owens claimed to have come across the creature hunched over the corpse of a fallen soldier, apparently guarding it for some reason, possibly due to it being the thing's kill as evidenced by the mauled state in which the body seemed to be. A follow up investigation into this sighting turned up blood in the vicinity but no body.

Sightings of the Crocodingo would continue after the war well into the 1900s, particularly in the vicinity of the town of Oneida. Railroad workers claimed the thing had a penchant for gnawing on freshly laid rails, on which it would allegedly leave deep teeth mark impressions within the solid steel.

Have you ever heard tales about the Crocodingo?

 

[Mrs. V]

Never heard of it! Sounds like a wild dog carrying around a previous kill.

 

[JOHN42768]

Corn liquor can make one see lots of strange things.

 

[Eleanor Rose]

Corn liquor can make one see lots of strange things.

I wonder if @captaindrew has ever spotted Crocodingo after enjoying some moonshine at a reenactment?

 

[captaindrew]

We thought we saw one one night turns out it was just our colonel who wasn't too happy with us the next morning

 

[donna]

never heard this story before. Sounds like something from Florida.