Hague

The Lake George Monster

In the summer of 1904 a green horned head began surfacing beside boats on Lake George in upstate New York. The painter Harry Watrous, who lived at Hague, had made it from a log: painted, with tin teeth and glass eyes, sunk on a rope and pulley so it could be raised at the right moment — the joke was aimed at his friend and fishing rival William Mann, who had been boasting of his catches. Watrous admitted it the same year, once the joke escaped their circle. The log survives: since 1934 the Hague Chamber of Commerce has displayed Harry the Hoax at the local museum on the shore of the same lake.