Village of Perry

Silver Lake and the Canvas Serpent

In the summer of 1855 a sea serpent began to be seen in Silver Lake beside the village of Perry, New York. The papers took it up, excursion trains ran from Buffalo and Rochester, and the Walker House hotel was full for two seasons. In 1857 the hotel burned down, and in the attic the firemen found what was left: a frame of wire and whalebone covered in canvas, with a system of ropes and a blacksmith's bellows to raise the monster off the bottom and make it breathe smoke. The proprietor, Artemus Walker, had already left town.