This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/highstrangeness by /u/DetectiveFork on 2024-09-13 19:07:01+00:00.

Multiple theories emerged about the identity of a feral lady living on the Louisiana bayou during the late 1800s, but the mystery was never conclusively solved.

A “Wild Girl” was frequently encountered in the woods of Catahoula Parish, Louisiana during the late 1880s and early 1890s. “She is perfectly nude and has no shelter of any kind, but has survived several severe winters,” one Louisiana newspaper described her in 1887. The girl was “so fleet of foot that that all efforts to capture her have failed.” Despite numerous sightings and a few disparate theories regarding her identity, the case was never solved and the Wild Girl disappeared into Louisiana legend.

Catahoula Parish had about 13,000 residents in 1890. Today, it’s even less. The parish was formed in 1808, shortly after the Louisiana Purchase. The stomping grounds of the Wild Girl were described as “the desert of Catahoula Parish,” an area of 45,680 acres north and west of Bayou Funny Louis, a name derived from the Choctaw words “fani” (squirrel) and “lusa” (black), meaning Black Squirrel Bayou. Located on the western edge of Catahoula Parish, this section broke away as LaSalle Parish in 1910. 

The report set the scene: “There are three roads running through it from Centerville, one to Columbia, one to Castor Springs and the other to Simmon’s Ferry, at the head of Little River. There are no habitations on this vast tract of land, yet it is covered with a dense forest of spruce, or short leaf pine, mixed with post oak, white thorn huckleberry bushes and sedge grass.” 

In 1886, several families lived just south of this “desert,” on the northern border of Funny Louis Stream. One of these residents was Jack Francis, who had several children. That December, one of Francis’ daughters, who was 14 or 15, ran into the house and declared that she had seen a wild girl while driving home the cows. The teen said the girl, who was naked and had long, black hair, had broken a parsley haw bush and run away upon seeing her.

“The wild girl, it is claimed, has been repeatedly seen, and several times by persons on horseback, who pursued her at full speed, but her extraordinarily fleetness enabled the strange creature to outstrip their horses and escape,” stated a June 1887 news article in New Orleans’ Daily Picayune.

Mr. A. Dukes, who lived near White Sulphur Springs in Catahoula Parish, at this point offered Theory #1 about the Wild Girl’s identity: A “wretched and degraded white woman” named Madam Duck used to tramp through the country with her three children. One, a 7-year-old girl, was pretty but had a club foot, for which Madam Duck often threatened to abandon her. Dukes soon afterward noticed Duck accompanied by only two children. He suspected that the woman had made good on her threat to abandon the child, who managed to survive the miseries of the situation and was running wild in the forests and swamps. Tracks left by the girl showed one clubbed or otherwise deformed foot. How she achieved great speeds with the disability wasn’t questioned. People in the countryside were planning to conduct a systematic search for the “wild waif.”

In July 1888, about a year after the previous news report, the Wild Girl was sighted again, in the Swilley neighborhood about 15 miles west of Harrisonburg in Catahoula Parish. Several groups claimed to have encountered her multiple times over the course of three weeks. Mrs. Swilley, her two sons and daughter-in-law said they were not more than 30 or 40 steps from the girl. At one time she was seen catching a goose, then picked it up and carried it away with her. The Wild Girl was also seen by two of Mr. Taylor’s grown sons. The witnesses all gave the same description of her and were of the opinion that she frequented the local waterways and subsisted mostly on fish. Based upon the last time the girl was seen with Madam Duck, the townspeople guessed she was between 12 to 14 years of age. The neighbors turned out several times en masse with the goal of rescuing the girl but failed to capture her, only finding her tracks. Jay Ellis, the source for the story, said he did not originally believe in the Wild Girl but changed his opinion after so many citizens of unimpeachable veracity told him the same story.

Soon after this article appeared in the Daily Picayune, Funny Louis resident J.R. Adams wrote to the paper to declare the Wild Girl “a probable creature of the imagination.” Adams lived within two miles of the Francis family, and Lou (as she was called), the girl who first reported the Wild Girl, was his wife’s niece. Lou was actually between 10 and 12 years old, not a teenager. Adams confirmed that the whole neighborhood searched fruitlessly for the lost child, only finding the same tracks Lou had discovered near her father’s house. 

Adams wrote, “Of course all this excited neighbor after neighbor and on all sides would come some unreasonable story, such as men seeing and chasing on horseback, dogs running it, tracks all over the woods for miles away, child seen at gates in snow storms, etc., every one of them resembling in possibilities. Where it is said the child was first seen there is absolutely nothing to subsist on at that time, fall and winter. The clubfoot signifies that the little waif had lost a foot during its wanderings. What an absurdity! It is about all we can do to make a living in this country with all the advantage of our little civilization and both feet, with houses and clothes and parental care added.”

Some local women who desperately wanted to help the lost girl told Adams and others that they were cruel not to believe the story. The search party, unsuccessful, returned to the Francis home for lunch. Lou and her sister were sent outside to gather firewood, but soon came back and reported fresh tracks.

Adams wrote, “Upon this news one of the ladies, Mrs. Emily Cockerham, had her faith shaken and went out in pretended search again, but was on the alert watching Lou, and finally saw her step one foot down into a little ravine or muddy place and make a track, then turning to the parties behind, said: ‘Aunt Emily, I have found another track.’ The truthfulness of this statement can be verified by Mrs. Cockerham’s oath. Since this nothing more has been seen or heard of the lost child… I do not pretend to say but that Mr. J.C. Francis honestly believes his child saw a wild girl.”

Adams said he was also acquainted with Duck; she passed by his place often and still had all her children intact, both before and since the rumor of the wild girl began. Captain M. Dempsey, who had urged townspeople to conduct a search for the unfortunate girl on July 4, 1887, was a nice man with a generous heart who had nonetheless been taken in by the rumors, said Adams. Meanwhile, he learned from the brother of Mrs. Swilley that the family had heard something but was too timid to investigate. The story then became exaggerated to include more tracks and the presence of the Wild Girl. Ellis had then reported the tale, building upon the previous summer’s news coverage. “I have been so disgusted with this stuff I feel it my duty to write what I have written,” Adams explained.

Despite this attempt at a thorough debunking, the Wild Girl was seen again just one week later.

During the third week of July 1888, two men from Alexandria, Louisiana were walking through Trinity near Hemp’s Creek when they stumbled upon “one of the most ferocious looking beings that the human eye was ever cast upon.” The men at first thought the girl was on a jaunt through the woods and not far from home. They stopped to ask her a few questions but could not get nearer than 50 feet. Fleet as a deer, she cleared a large root seven feet high as she fled. Had the men been on horseback, they say it would have still been almost impossible to capture her. “They think she can conquer any three men in the neighborhood” and were terrified to sleep near the woods for fear of encountering the girl again.

The men said the girl appeared to be about 16 and spoke only gibberish. She was clothed in nothing but what nature gave her. The girl had immense eyes and brown hair that hung down to her waist. She stood about 4-foot-6 and weighed about 125 or 140 pounds, “with no surplus flesh.” Her arms were long, brawny and muscular. She walked with a limp, but they could not get near enough to distinguish whether she had a deformed foot. The girl carried an old knife about eight inches long. A dead calf found in the neighborhood with pieces cut out was suspected to be her handiwork.

“A great many who have heretofore doubted the existence of this girl are now more convinced that it is a truth, the information coming as it did from two men who had never been in the parish before,” reported the Trinity Herald. “The country is aroused.” A committee of 15 men with provisions for two weeks was to be organized to capture her. 

The posse was apparently unsuccessful, as another witness claimed to have run into the Wild Girl in September near the mouth of Little River. She did not appear vicious and wasn’t carrying her knife, seemingly engaged in fishing or goose hunting.

In late September, the Wild Girl was seen by Captain J. M. Ball, a large planter near Alexandria; John C. Goulden, a leading scenic artist and house and sign painter; M. W…

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HighStrangeness/comments/1fg2qp5/the_wild_girl_of_catahoula_parish/