I’ve
lied a wee bit on my way through life,
Especially with pen and ink;
But
there’s one of late in the Nutmeg State
That can discount me some, I think.
I
hate to come down from my lofty perch,
And look to a man who’s gone higher;
But
I realize that I must dip my hat
To the wonderful Winsted liar!
Dec.
16, 1910
Sent
Judge,
Jan’ 11, 1911
Louis
Timothy Stone (1875-1933), more popularly known as Lou Stone, or the Winsted Liar, was a journalist famous
for the hundreds of fanciful articles he wrote about the strange flora and
fauna surrounding his hometown of Winsted, Connecticut. It was said he had a
"faculty for seeing the unusual in stories."
He
lived his entire life in Winsted, refusing offers from other papers to
relocate. He started out at the age of thirteen as a printer's devil at the
Winsted Evening Citizen and a few years later was made a reporter
there.
In
1895, at the age of twenty, he created his first and most famous tale when he
sent out a wire report claiming a "wild man" had been
spotted in the woods outside of Winsted. The big city papers sent reporters to
investigate, but all they ever found was a stray jackass.
After
this, Stone continued to send out weekly reports about bizarre animals and
plants around Winsted. These reports were run by many newspapers, making him
one of the most widely read writers in America. In fact, it was often said that
he "placed Winsted on the map." A billboard at the edge of the town
stated exactly this:
Winsted,
founded in 1779, has been put on the map by the ingenious and queer stories
that emanate from this town and which are printed all over the country, thanks
to L.T. Stone.
Stone
eventually became general manager of the Winsted Citizen. He died on March 13,
1933 after a long illness. After his death, the residents of Winsted named a
bridge after him. The bridge spanned Sucker Creek
Some of the tall tales that made Lou Stone famous include:
A chicken that lay red, white, and blue eggs
every fourth of July.
A tree that grew baked apples.
A bashful cow raised on a farm owned by two
spinsters whom no men ever visited. When the cow was sold, she refused to allow
herself to be milked by a man unless she was dressed in women's clothes.
A man who caught a fish with his red nose as
bait.
The farmer who plucked his chickens with a
vacuum cleaner.
A river that ran uphill.
A cow that was locked in an ice house and produced
ice cream for two weeks after her release.
Winsted resident, Otis Gillette, who, because
he was bothered by flies, had a spider and cobweb painted on his bald head. When
his wife complained that it made him look ridiculous, he replied, "Comfort
before pride."
A cow that was so shaken by a garage explosion
that she produced butter.
A cow that ate radishes and produced burning
milk.
A maternal bulldog that sat for three weeks on
eggs abandoned by a hen.
A windstorm that blew a sheet of paper into a typewriter
and typed the alphabet backward.
A tame squirrel that used his tail to shine his
owner's boots each morning.
A Maltese cat with a harelip that whistled
Yankee Doodle.
A thirsty frog who knocked over a jug of
applejack, removed its cork, drank its contents, and started to sing
"Sweet Adeline." When an editor asked Stone how a frog could remove a
cork from a jug, he replied: "Thirsty frogs are very sure-toed. Their
desire for strong drink inspires them with great strength and amazing agility,
and also makes them musical."
A farmer who lost his watch and found it seven
years later in the stomach of one of his cows, after he had killed it. The
watch was still running because the cow's stomach muscles had kept it wound,
though it was a minute-and-a-half slow.
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