To start, my son was looking for a specific SpongeBob costume we saw at a Spirit a couple days ago that they didn't have his size. So yesterday I went to a few but again came up empty. Well, there was one more to check in nearby Dunkirk, NY, and normally I'd hesitate to make the 35 minute drive, but my wife's car was low on gas and since heading in that direction would take me past the Seneca Nation territory, where as I discussed previously in a post I will share next, you can often get gas for a lot less since they don't have to collect government taxes on sovereign land.
Now, if you've been following the Monster of the Day thread, you may've seen our discussion just a week ago about Pigmen and my post on Pigman's Bridge in Angola, NY. If not, here it is again:
packerbacker180 wrote:That's an odd story. There are actually a few Pigmen throughout the US and not all of them are in a political office! In fact, there's a local Pigman I was going to do sometime this year, and that time appears to be now. But this is a different kind of Pigman, and his story begins almost 100 years before he was said to haunt these woods of Angola, NY.
On the morning of December 18, 1867, the New York Express left Cleveland's Union Depot at 6:40 a.m. and was due to arrive in Buffalo, New York, at 1:30 p.m. John D. Rockefeller planned to make the journey, but arrived a few minutes late. His baggage made it onto the train; he did not. That day the train consisted of four baggage cars, one second-class car and three first-class cars. Each wooden passenger car had a pot-bellied stove at each end to provide heat, and kerosene lamps for light. The train lost time on the journey. By the time it passed Angola, it was running two hours and forty-five minutes late, traveling rapidly to try to make up lost time.
As the train neared the truss bridge over Big Sister Creek just east of Angola at 3:11, it ran over a frog (the crossing point of two rails). The front axle of the rear car was slightly bent, and the frog caused a wheel on the defective axle to jump off the track, derailing the rear car, which then swayed violently from side to side. The last car uncoupled from the train and plunged down into the icy gorge. The second-to-last car also derailed but made it to the other side of the gorge. Only one person was killed in this car while.the last car plunged 40 feet down the ice-covered slope to the gully bottom and came to a rest with a fearful crash. The passengers were thrown together at the end of the car onto the overturned stove. The stove from the other end of the car fell upon them and released hot coals. The carriage immediately caught fire, the fuel from the kerosene lamps fueling the flames. Only two people escaped alive from the carriage; some may have suffocated, but the majority were burned alive. Witnesses spoke of hearing the screams of those trapped inside lasting for five minutes.
The closest road to access the accident was Holland Road, but in more recent years its been called Pigman Road. Pigman Road, in Angola, New York is known locally as a place of tragedy and despair. Many claim that the spirits of those who died there still roam the area, especially the Pigman Road Bridge. Holland Road gained its nickname, Pigman Road, from the legend of a local butcher who would place the heads of pigs on stakes along the street in the 1950s and 1960s to frighten trespassers. Legend has it that the same butcher shot a man and killed him then hung his body on a meat hook in his shop. In another local story it is said that the Pigman captured and murdered five young boys, cut their heads off and placed them on stakes along the bridge. The story goes that the Pigman was busy one evening working on some pig carcasses when some schoolboys started hanging around in the bushes outside his home watching and giggling to themselves. This location was even featured in the first episode of Hometown Horror on the Travel Channel in 2019 though sadly nothing of that episode was on YouTube.
Pigman was enraged by the presence of the boys and killed them, placing their heads on stakes outside his property as a warning to anyone else who wanted to bother him. Locals believe the spirits of these victims still haunt the area surrounding Pigman road and their cries and screams of pain can still be heard on otherwise quiet evenings. And on some nights you can hear the squeals of the Pigman searching for his next victims.
One day, a student from a nearby town decided to visit the haunted site. He went with a girl friend, hoping to impress her with his bravery. When they reached the bridge with a graffiti painted warning reading “Pigman raped me here,” they got out of the car and started walking the train tracks. Suddenly, they heard squealing noises, like those of a hungry pig, and turned around to find the cause of the sound. Except there was no one there, but they could hear the squealing still, so they ran for their car and sped away as fast as possible.
“Pigman is more than just a ghost,” the student later said, “Pigman is real.”
Angola, NY is only about 15 minutes from me. We live just south of West Seneca on this map and Angola is the red star. I've driven through it many times on my way to the Seneca Nation gas stations just before Silver Creek where the fuel on their sovereign land is usually anywhere between $.30 to $1.00 cheaper because they do not have to charge state and county taxes, so it's often worth the drive to save money. Once at the height of covid, gas there was $.87 a gallon for a couple days! Today it's about $2.85 while local stations are closer to $3.30.
But I've never gone in search of Pigman Road. Perhaps someday.
So today, I was just a couple minutes away from the gas station and in Angola when I said to myself, "Self, I wonder where Holland RD is anyway?" So while I was filling up the tank (saving $.31 per gallon times a 15 gallon tank and a 2 gallon gas cannister--not the greatest savings but I was heading that way anyway) I googled Holland Rd and found it was only a couple minutes away.