American President Theodore Roosevelts wrote a lot, he was quite skilled at it too. He wrote on a variety of topics, his memoirs included his time with the Rough Riders, he penned military history novels, and hunting experiences. Teddy Roosevelt also wrote about Bigfoot.
In his 1892 book, “The Wilderness Hunter”, Teddy Roosevelt . In fact it is Roosevelt’s accomplished hunting record that informed him on the seriousness of his wound when he was shot on October 14, 1912, while campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and continued to give his speech afterwards.
Coming back to the fire, he stood by it a minute or two, peering out into the darkness, and suddenly remarked : “Bauman, that bear has been walking on two legs.
The Wilderness Hunter by Theodore Roosevelt
Though Roosevelt writes that the creature was regarded as a “half human, half devil, or half-goblin beast”, the description is clear. These men encountered what they believed to be a Bigfoot, a North American Sasquatch or Great Wood Ape as they called.
The Bauman Story
Teddy Roosevelt writes in “The Wilderness Hunter”, that he counts himself lucky to have hunted every type of game in the United States. He writes also about a fatal encounter with a Bigfoot creature.
Roosevelt writes that he was impressed by a story he once heard.
It was told by a grisled, weather-beaten old mountain hunter, named Bauman, who was born and had passed all his life on the frontier. He must have believed what he said, for he could hardly repress a shudder at certain points of the tale ; but he was of German ancestry, and in childhood had doubtless been saturated with all kinds of ghost and goblin lore
The Wilderness Hunter by Theodore Roosevelt
In the mid 1900s Bauman and a companion decided to set traps on a trail near Montana Wisdom River. The remote trail had an evil reputation. Another trapper had been found half-eaten by mining prospectors along this pass.
They then discovered that the creature had destroyed their camp site the next day upon returning to camp, as if out of contempt for their shooting at it the night before. The creature was nowhere in sight, but it left many visible tracks during its fit of rage while destroy their camp.
Bauman was awakened at midnight, to a foul “wild-best odor”. Still delirious from just waking, he saw what was described as a “great body”, in the distance lurking in the shadows where moonlight could not find it.
He stood up and fired a shot from his rifle into the dark shape. The thing rushed away making a loud noise as it fled. The incident shook the two men as they did not sleep much for the rest of that night.
That night by campfire, the two highly experienced trappers determined together that the tracks they inspected under torch-lit view were made by human nor bear.
Coming back to the fire, he stood by it a minute or two, peering out into the darkness, and suddenly remarked : “Bauman, that bear has been walking on two legs.
The Wilderness Hunter by Theodore Roosevelt
The two men eventually decided to give up their trapping expedition, with little luck in finding furs during that trip. They went to collect their traps and go back to camp to retire.
Bauman returned to camp himself to find a horrible sight. There he found his friend’s dead body. His neck was snapped, and there were four fang marks in his companion’s neck.
Bauman, utterly unnerved, and believing that the creature with which he had to deal was something either half human or half devil, some great goblin-beast, aban- doned everything but his rifle and struck off at speed down the pass, not halting until he reached the beaver meadows where the hobbled ponies were still grazing. Mounting, he rode onwards through the night, until far beyond the reach of pursuit.
The Wilderness Hunter by Theodore Roosevelt
The howling of the night could be the familiar call of the wolf pack, or could it be something more sinister and ancient with a history of hunting the homo sapien?
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