Water Monster · Portsmouth, New Hampshire · 1839
NH-1839ID case-17e499fc95Added to map Nov 7, 2026
- Creature
- Water Monster
- When
- Aug 7, 1839to the day
- Where
- Portsmouth, New Hampshireto town level
- Reports
- 2 documents1 independent
The account
Witnesses on a schooner report seeing a large sea serpent with an elephant-like head and long line of humps moving rapidly off Portsmouth Harbor.
Trace the source trail → every document, in time order, and how they connect
We map claims, not creatures: this is what the sources say, not proof. How a case is built
Details
- Creature
- Water Monster
- Where
- Portsmouth, Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States
mapped to town level · from the report's own words - When
- Aug 7, 1839
- Account
- Not first-hand (retold or reported by someone else)
- Backed by
- 1 independent source (2 documents; copies and reprints are not confirmations)
- Added to map
- Nov 7, 2026
- Case id
- case-17e499fc95
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Source trail (2)
Down the rabbit hole → 2 documents, and how they connect
Every link goes to where we found the account. The earliest we found is marked; it is the earliest found, not necessarily the original.
- Image 2 of Alexandria gazette (Alexandria, D.C.), August 13, 1839
Newspaper · 1839-08-13
Earliest found, not necessarily the original. - Image 3 of Daily national intelligencer (Washington City [D.C.]), August 14, 1839
Newspaper · 1839-08-14
Further reading
- The Great New England Sea Serpent, J. P. O'Neill (1999)
Account of the 1817 Gloucester sightings and later reports.
Borrow on Internet Archive - On the Track of Unknown Animals, Bernard Heuvelmans (1959)
The founding work of cryptozoology.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Cryptozoology A to Z, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark (1999)
Encyclopedia of reported creatures.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Abominable Science!, Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero (2013)
Skeptical history of the Yeti, Nessie and others.
Borrow on Internet Archive
Books we have not reproduced: borrow them free at archive.org. Listing a book is not an endorsement of its claims.