Goonyak & The Lead Tube
By Joseph A. Citro
GOONYAK
Many of the regional stories I collect are very old and have their roots at least a little bit in fact. But occasionally, a new one pops up that contributes to an age-old story cycle, like ones about “Monsters in the Woods.”
This one seems to have started around 1978 in the Morrisville-Craftsbury area. It's a tale about a monster known as GOONYAK and the terror it brought to that sparsely populated Vermont community.
The sequence of events is a little hard to reconstruct, but it is certain that things culminated in a public meeting where people gathered to give testimony.
Apparently, one of the first people to hear about the Goonyak was a 21-year-old man named John Maskell, a new employee at the Pratt-Read Corporation. Maskell was enjoying a drink of water when another employee, Morris Shulham, came up to him looking rather excited.
Their conversation might have gone something like this. "Hey, d'you hear the stuff on the radio this morning?" Mr. Shulham asked.
"No. What stuff?"
"Stuff about some monster. Goonyak, they called it."
Mr. Shulham had John Maskell's attention. "No. I didn't hear anything about a monster...?"
"Been on the radio the last couple mornings. Fella says some monster broke into a barn somewheres around Craftsbury, North Wolcott, maybe it was. Happened about 4:00 in the morning. Farmer – I forget his name – was on his way out to do his chores—"
Mr. Shulham continued, telling how the farmer had found his barn door ripped off its hinges. Then he found a broken partition behind which his prize Holstein bull was kept.
When the farmer heard an odd cry from outside, he figured the bull had crashed out of his stall, slammed through the barn door, and was running amok in the farmyard.
The farmer heard the crazed cry again – he said it sounded like an elephant only louder – and he ran to get his rifle. As he raced to the far side of the barn, he encountered a sight that froze his blood in his veins.
There, crossing the farmyard, was an eight-foot humanoid dragging the lifeless body of the thousand-pound bull. The farmer could see the bull's neck had been broken. Apparently, the monster had ripped it right out of its stall, then started dragging it across the field. As it moved, the farmer watched it ripping off part of the bull's face with its six-inch claws.
The irate farmer started shooting. Unbelievably, the Goonyak took ten shots in the chest with a 30.06 rifle before it died.
This dramatic story began to spread. People in Montpelier reported hearing that Goonyak's body was taken to a secret laboratory in Burlington. It was autopsied on the 4th floor of a University of Vermont building while armed guards kept the curious away.
In an alternate version of the story, Goonyak was shot and killed by Craftsbury Fish and Game Warden John Kapusta. That story prompted Mr. Kapusta's superior, John Hall, to contact the warden and learn if the killing was true.
It wasn't, Mr. Kapusta said. And with that, the legend of Goonyak started to fall apart.
A check with Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Eleanor McQuillen and professors of animal pathology and zoology at UVM resulted in a chorus of amused but negative responses – there had been no autopsy.
A check with several of the area's radio stations revealed there had been no broadcast. And of course, there was no irate farmer or dead bull.
When at last there was a public fact-finding meeting in Craftsbury, many discrepancies were evident in the various versions of the story. But one fact was universal: no one had any hard evidence. The consensus was that Goonyak did not exist.
So how did the story arise?
Game wardens speculated that someone might have seen the skinned carcass of a bear. Something like that could appear half-human at a glance. In any event, they guessed, the myth was probably conjured up by a deer hunter.
And Morris Shulham was a deer hunter.
Whether he's the culprit or someone else, it's good to know there are still real-life Yankee yarn-spinners out there. Without them, things would be quiet around campfires, and folklore collectors like me would be out of business.
THE LEAD TUBE
Suppose Vermont history had started differently? What I mean is, let's consider the very first European to set foot in the state. Who was he – or possibly she?
It used to be that the answer was simple, but nowadays there are many theories and contenders – a Viking, a Celt, a Phoenician... maybe even an extraterrestrial.
However, in historical terms, "first” status is traditionally awarded to the earliest explorer to leave a written record of his or her visit. On that basis, the winner is French explorer Samuel de Champlain. In 1609, he made his way south into the lake that now bears his name. And he left diaries to prove it.
In other words, the French discovered Vermont.
But there's another document that suggests someone else got here first –
an Englishman.
In December, 1853, two Swanton workers were digging near the bank of the Missisquoi River. About a foot down, embedded in a piece of sod, they saw something that should not have been there: a gray metallic tube about five inches long. The tube was fashioned from a sheet of lead, apparently molded around a stick, and sealed at both ends.
From inside, they extracted a piece of heavy paper and, with some difficulty, deciphered it. It was a message written in what appeared to be archaic English. It said: "This is the Solme day I must now die this is the 90th day since we left the Ship all are Perished and on the Banks of this River I die to, farewelle may future posteretye know our end"
It was signed Johne Graye and dated November 29, 1564.
So who was Johne Graye and what was he doing here some forty-five years before Champlain?
Well, we don't know.
One historian suggested Mr. Graye had been a member of one of Sir Martin Frobisher's expeditions to discover the Northwest Passage. Perhaps the men belonged to a scouting party that got lost. Or maybe they'd been put ashore to fend for themselves when supplies ran low.
But that was just one guess of many.
Over the years, the mystery of Johne Graye's message has pretty much died out. Although for a time it seemed to have the potential to change the history of our region, most people have never heard of it. The document, when first unearthed, had every appearance of being genuine. It is not improbable that sailors should become separated from their ship, become lost, and die in the wilderness. And it is human nature, then as now, for such lost souls to leave a record of their fate.
It is also human nature to engage in a little Barnum-like trickery.
So whether “The Johne Graye Document” is hoax or history, we'll never know for sure because mystery piles upon mystery: The original – and its lead container – seem to have vanished. Sadly, we may never know the origin of Johne Graye, and the circumstances of his lonely death. Was he truly a stranded English sailor, or the product of some 19th century prankster?
Today, the document – or is it a facsimile? – is framed and preserved on the second floor of the Highgate Historical Society in Highgate, Vermont. There it remains as a reminder of one haunting episode from Vermont's undiscoverable past.
Joseph A. Citro is a Vermont author, folklorist, and longtime collector of New England’s strangest stories, from ghostly happenings to local legends and unexplained curiosities. Known to many as Vermont’s “Bard of the Bizarre,” he has spent decades preserving the tales that linger along back roads, old houses, covered bridges, and quiet hillsides. In Passing Strange, Citro shares folklore with a curious eye, a storyteller’s warmth, and just enough mystery to make you look twice on the ride home.