Willimantic Frogs vs North Kingstown Beagle - 2 terrifying nights in history!

Since I was in Willimantic the other night for their Third Thursdays, it made me think of their frog story.

Here is a brief summary, and you can get the entire story here.

Late at night, amongst threats of disease, Indian, French attacks the town was on edge. A servant walked down the dark road one night after visiting his girlfriend, he neared the Windham Green. It was there he began to hear a strange and terrifying sound echoing through the night air. The noise seemed to come from everywhere at once. They townsmen gathered, then proceeded to sound the alarm, waking those who had not already been aroused by this awful sound or by the screaming of the servant. As the noise continued, most thought it was an Indian ritual and by morning they would surely all be dead. Some insisted they heard Indian chants, some said there was nothing on earth that could make such an outlandish commotion and contended that it could only mean one thing; it is the judgment day and nothing could be done to save them except prayer.

What they found the next day were thousands of dead and dying frogs, some still making their war cries. No one is sure why the frogs died. The theory held at the time was that they died fighting each other, possibly for the small amount of water in the lowered pond.
*****
A dark night years ago in North Kingstown, RI, a similar situation occurred. My father, a young police officer, worked the 3rd shit, leaving my young mother and two small children home alone. One night my mother heard the hurried footsteps outside the house. It sounded like someone was running and running and running around our home. She was petrified and frozen into taking any action at all. At dawn the next morning, the doorbell rang. Mom bravely went to answer it, ready to protect me & Skee. It was our neighbor from across the street, Mr. Stevens, holding one of our beagles that had gotten loose in the middle of the night. He said, "I thought for sure he'd have woken you up. He's been running around the house all night long."

Both stories = hilarious!

It goes to show what an active imagination and a dark night can do to seemingly heroic and cool witted folks!

I am a Putnamanic that is also afraid of the dark and sometimes my imagination gets the best of me in those wee hours of the night, too!