Pocomoonshine Lake Monster

Pocomoonshine Lake lies in the forest of Washington County, in far eastern Maine near the town of Princeton, well off the usual tourist routes. Local legend says that a huge serpent nicknamed Poco lives there. Estimates of its length range from about 30 to 60 feet, and a few stories have it crossing the land to neighboring lakes.

The earliest documentation comes from 1882. According to Travel Maine, the state’s tourism site, a sawmill owner named Sewell Quimby confirmed seeing a trail on land three to four feet wide and almost three feet deep in places, and the creature was said to have crossed to Crawford Lake. Writer Earl Brechlin, in an Islandport Press feature, notes that in the same year a letter in a Machias newspaper tried to refute the existence of the “Chain Lake Snake” after repeated reports of long, curving tracks on land. As with many such stories, no photographs exist. Maine Boats magazine adds that Quimby later denied his report.

Popular retellings connect the monster to a much older story of a battle on the lake between figures from Algonquian-speaking traditions, in which one combatant is transformed into a giant serpent; one tourism source renders a Native name for the lake, Nesiek, as “muddy from the great fight.” The details differ from one teller to another, and none of the sources consulted traces the story to a Passamaquoddy or other Wabanaki storyteller, so these origins should be treated as unverified; the living traditions of the Wabanaki peoples are best heard in their own voices.

No one has been reported attacked, and an informal survey of lake-country businesses by Maine Boats found no significant recent sightings. Skeptics suggest oversized otters, large eels, an escaped exotic snake, drifting vegetation, or just light playing on the water. The lake sits on a list of North American lake monsters on Wikipedia, and Poco remains one of Maine’s quieter, more rural monsters.

A snake-like animal 30 to 60 feet long, reported both in the water and as a track or trail on land. The 1882 land trail was said to be three to four feet wide and almost three feet deep in places.

Pocomoonshine Lake, a small remote lake near Princeton and Alexander in Washington County, Maine, and the forest between it and nearby lakes such as Crawford Lake. The best-documented reports are from the 1880s.

Poco is featured in Maine tourism material and in regional books and magazine features on Maine’s hidden monsters, and appears on Wikipedia’s list of lake monsters. It has no festival or statue; its charm is the remoteness of the lake itself.