Christmas Day 1721
Monster Beast, Natchez, Mississippi - - (Earliest recorded account?)

The following passage is from a book called "Charlevoix's Louisiana." It's from the journal of Pierre François-Xavier de Charlevoix, S J, a French Jesuit and explorer. Though he did not have a true sighting, there is enough evidence to make one wonder if a bigfoot type creature was behind it.

If so, then this account this would be the earliest known white man written report of such a creature in North America. The area around Natchez, Mississippi in this day still brings forth reports of bigfoot type creatures. That a wolf was behind this report seems highly unlikely. Wolves were not common to the area at the time and hardly match up with the characteristics described herein:

"The first night I lay in the settlement, there happened a great alarm about nine o'clock in the evening; upon asking the reason of it, [sic] I was told there was, in the neighborhood, a beast of an unknown species, of an extraordinary bulk, and whose cry did not in the least resemble that of any known animal. Nobody however could say he had seen it and they formed a judgment of its size entirely from its strength: it had already carried off some sheep and calves, and worried some cows. I told those who gave me this account, that an estranged wolf might very well have done all this and that, as to its cry, people were deceived in these matters every day. I could persuade nobody, they still would have it that it was some monstrous beast. It was heard again, and every one ran out armed with what he could find, but it was to no purpose."

Pierre François-Xavier de Charlevoix, SJ
Letter Thirtieth, At the Natchez, December 25, 1721

"Histoire et Description Generale de la Nouvelle France avec le Journal Historique d'un Voyage fait par du Roi dans l'Amerique   Septentrionale"

(Copyright research by Tayau for Bobbie Short's Bigfoot Encounters 1996)