Greenville--The Dan River near Eden is dark and rusty, just the sort of
place you'd find the Wampus Cat.
A Rockingham County man known as Old Man Morehead is closely associated
with the legend of the monster catfish said to live in the dark depths of the
Dan, according to John Marshall Carter, an East Carolina University history
professor.
"Old Man Morehead used to go fishing in the Dan River every
night," Carter said. "During the Depression years about the
only way he could feed his family was to fish.
"They ate well, for he was a crafty fisherman-- bullheads, channel
cats, blue cats, carps, eels, chubs, perch, bluegills and an occasional bass
when the water was especially clear. He used only cane poles, sometimes
three or four of them.
"One evening about 7:30, he saw a V-shape coming through the red-brown
water heading toward his floats. All at once the swirling stopped.
He paid it little mind. Suddenly there was a 'Whoomp!' and a 'Whoosh!'
and all four floats disappeared. Then the poles followed, one, two,
three, four!
"Old Man Morehead salvaged the last pole just as it was about to be
swallowed by the Dan River. He jerked and felt the weight of a telephone
pole on the other end. He was determined to have his prize.
"His arms ached. He then noticed that the bank was caving in. The old
man was up to his knees in water and sand. The relentless tug
continued. He kept after his prey."
Old Man Morehead was never seen again. The Wampus Cat had claimed
another victim.
Carter grew up in Leaksville before the communities of Leaksville, Spray
and Draper were combined to form the town of Eden on the banks of the Dan
River.
"The story of the Wampus
Cat was part of our lives," he said. "Young boys going fishing
knew the story. My father knew it and my grandfather knew it.
They'd say, 'Don't swim in the river or the Wampus Cat will get you.' We
knew there was something in there."
The
Wampus Cat of the Dan River played the role of the boogeyman, that
unspecified evil that awaits youngsters who rnisbehave.
"To
me, it was a huge catfish that had a body 33 feet long," Carter said.
"I hesitated to ask exactly what it was. You were just supposed to know.
It has powers, beyond any mortal catfish."
The
Wampus Cat, like other childish things, stayed behind when Carter left home to
seek his fortune. In 1967, Carter went back to Eden.
"I found the town had changed," he said. "The physical things were changing. I
didn't see the people I used to see. And it seemed like the folklore was going
down the tubes. So I decided to conjure up those things again. To me, the Wampus
Cat became the symbol to save."
Carter
found that people still
remembered
the Wampus Cat, so he used the name and the spirit in a book of poetry he wrote
called, Wampus Cats and Dan River Rimes. He also calls his
rock 'n' roll
band, another Leaksville resurrection, the Wampus Cats.
"Hanging on to the Wampus Cat is part of all our
desires to be part
of
the past," he said. . "In
an age
of rationalization, we like to keep so mysterious, something we don't
understand. It is kind of a revolt against technology. We like to cling to irrational
things
from the past. A lot of people smile when they hear the name of the
band. They know
about the Wampus Cat."
Being
an academic, Carter sought the Wampus Cat in other areas and found it,
including Illinois and the North Carolina mountains.
"I
was a little disappointed at
first,"
he said. "I thought the Wampus Cat belonged to just my past.
"It is usually an aquatic creature, because the water
is a mystery to us. You can't see under there. It is another
universe arid there could be
there could be anything under there".
The spirit of the Wampus Cat could he called Nessie, the Loch Ness monster, or the sea serpents of Jules Verne, or the gigantic albino
alligators in the sewers of New York City. The mountain version is the
Abominable Snowman. And in
Eastern North Carolina we've got our own Beast of Bladen.
"The Wampus Cat still lives," Carter said.
"Barefoot boys in blue jeans with cane poles still fish in the Dan, and they've heard the
story even now. Somehow, it has been passed on."
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