Strange Case of the Traveling American Mummy

In 1913, a down-on-his-luck one-legged hobo named Anderson McCrew was riding a freight train through Marlin, Texas. Nobody knows for sure exactly what happened; maybe he was hopping off the train to stay a while in Marlin and slipped jumping down or maybe he was leaning out of the empty railroad car feeling the wind in his face and lost his grip, but whatever happened, he was found dead the next day on the tracks with his other leg severed by the train.

His body was taken to a funeral home in Marlin to be preserved until a relative could be found to claim it. Not knowing how long that would take, the undertaker did his job so well that "Andrew" McCrew's body was mummified. It was placed in the window of a local store on the main street through town in the hopes that someone passing through would recognize him. Sadly, nobody ever did.

A year later, a carnival passed through town and since nobody had claimed Andrew's body and nobody had stepped forward to donate the funds for a burial, the carnival owner was allowed to purchase Andrew for the amount owed to the undertaker. For the next 40 years, Andrew, dressed in a moth-eaten tuxedo and sitting in a folding chair, toured all over America. Billed as "The Petrified Man" and the "Eighth Wonder of the World," thousands of people saw him, pointed at him, took pictures of him and talked about him, but nobody laid claim to him.

Eventually the carnival began losing money and had to sell some of its possessions. Andrew and his chair were sold to an individual who kept him in a shed in their back yard. He would be brought into the house occasionally for parties, but he spent most of his time for the next 15 years quietly sitting through the seasons in the shed.

Anderson McCrew's grave

Elgie Pace, a nurse who lived in Dallas, took possession of Andrew when her relative passed away. Thinking the mummy, who she called "Sam," deserved a proper burial, she cleaned away the dust, cobwebs, and bird droppings and stored him in her basement until she could save enough money for the internment. From all accounts, Andrew did just as well in the dark, damp basement as he had everywhere else.

Four years later, Elgie just happened to be passing through Marlin and heard about Andrew. Upon further investigation, it was determined that she, in fact, was indeed in possession of the one-legged, then no-legged hobo Anderson McCrew. The amazing story was printed in a Dallas paper and Frank Lott, a mortuary owner, donated his services so Andrew could finally be buried in 1973, 60 years after his death.

Andrew McCrew's grave marker.

Even then, the strange case of Andrew McCrew didn't end. Don Mclean, the composer and singer who gained fame with his iconic song, American Pie, heard the story and found out that Andrew had finally been buried, but with only a small temporary funeral home plaque to mark his grave. Don wrote a song, "The Legend of Andrew McCrew" Hear the song and donated all of his earnings from it to purchase a proper headstone. Eventually, two stones were purchased, engraved, and placed on Andrew's grave. Even his main headstone is different from the norm as it is inscribed with his year of birth (1867), year of death (1913), and year of burial (1973).

Elgie Pace wrote the words. Don McLean
paid for the stone.

Anderson McCrew, his travels and wait now over, rests peacefully in Dallas' Lincoln Memorial Cemetery. There are no flowers on his grave and he rarely gets visitors. After the life he had after his death, I think he's perfectly fine with that.


Bigfoot in Texas



Bigfoot sightings in Texas

If you think Bigfoot is only in the northwest states of America, you would be wrong. There have been sightings reported in every state except Hawaii. One of the area's with the most sightings is the nearly 12-million acre "Piney Woods" region in East Texas. Stretching from the Gulf Coast all the way up to Texarkana in the northeast corner, this huge strip of land contains four national forests, five state forests, and accounts for almost all of the state's commercial timber.

It is also home to one of the first documented sightings in history - the strange case of "The Wild Woman of Navidad." This story was recounted in the "Legends of Texas" book published by the Texas Folklore Society in 1924. The creature was described as covered in brown hair and was very fast. She eluded capture because the horses were so afraid of the strange creature that they could not be urged within reach of the lasso. The events occurred in 1837 in the Texas settlements of the lower Navidad. Mysterious barefoot tracks were seen frequently in the area for years. There are Native American legends dating back hundreds of years that describe tribes of giants that were hair-covered and lived in the woods.

In 1965, there was a spike in sightings reported by a number of people living in several small, rural towns located deep in the woods. One of the first of these came from an encounter in a cemetery just outside the town of Kountz.

At that time, there was a group of students at Kountz High School who called themselves the Rat Finks. There sure wasn't much for teenagers to do in the small, isolated town so on weekends they would amuse themselves by going "booger hunting," their name for running around in scary places looking for a boogeyman. One night they took a prospective new member of their group to their favorite place, the Old Hardin cemetery located in the woods a couple of miles outside of town. On that night though, they got more than they bargained for.

The Talking Angel

There is a gravestone in Old Hardin cemetery that has a statue of an angel pointing at the heavens. The Rat Finks called it the Talking Angel and would take the prospective club members to the cemetery in the dark of night to ask it questions. The legend they had made up was that if the angel did not answer you, you were doomed!

On this particular night though, with the half-moon providing just enough light to cast shadows, their ceremony was cut short by an eerie figure racing across the cemetery grounds. It ran into a maintenance shed, turning over cans, tossing equipment around, and generally just making a noisy ruckus for a few seconds. The figure came out of the shed and before running away as fast as they could, each of the kids got a good look at the boogeyman. To their horror, it was a huge, hairy apelike creature! One of the few girls in the Rat Finks, Sharon Gossett, let out a scream and when she did, the boogeyman turned to look at them. That was all they needed to beat feet out of there and jump in their car.

After driving back toward town for a couple of miles and regaining their wits, the teens realized that if they ever told anyone about  their experience, they would be accused of having overactive imaginations, so they went to Sharon's aunt's house and persuaded her to return with them to the cemetery for another look and to verify their sighting.

Closer look at the
Talking Angel.

Sure enough, as they pulled into the graveyard entrance, the car's headlights illuminated the creature standing on two legs at the edge of the woods on the other side of the small cemetery. The aunt later described it as being about 7 feet tall and covered with hair like an ape. The creature disappeared into the trees as the aunt and the teenagers got out of the car with several flashlights. After looking into the shed and verifying for herself the disarray of the contents, they were heading back to the car when they heard rustling noises. Their flashlights illuminated the creature which was now back inside the fenced cemetery. As they ran to the car, the boogeyman followed them, loping on all fours alongside them.

After speeding away, the horrified aunt made the kids drive her straight back to her home. Fearing she would be reluctant to verify the kid's account, they then found an adult male to go back with them. After carefully looking all around the cemetery and in the woods along the fence line and seeing nothing, the adult man was getting mad thinking the kids were playing a trick on him. Wanting to show him how the contents of the maintenance shed had been thrown around, they were walking toward it when the beast once again walked out of the shed's door. This time the creature quickly ran away in the opposite direction, leaped over the fence in one bound and into the woods. It was a good thing it did as after seeing the boogeyman, the brave adult male passed out on the spot from sheer fright!

Later, the grandmother of one of the Rat Finks told the kids she remembered hearing of similar sightings near Old Hardin in the Cypress Creek bottoms when she was a child.

Although there is not yet factual proof for the existence of a Bigfoot creature, it's hard to fully dismiss all of the stories and reported sightings. New creatures are routinely being found in the oceans and jungles of the world; strange creatures which have never been seen until now, living and even thriving in places and environments we assumed could never support life. Would it be that much of a surprise to find a species living off the land alongside creeks, streams, and ponds deep in the sparsely inhabited woods of America? Surviving members of the Rat Fink club still swear - the boogeyman is out there!