Local historian Pam Witherspoon (1918-1953) wrote a short story about Sam Harris "The
Pig Man" which was featured in the Northfield News titled “
Sam was a good boy, not a swine”. She mysteriously went missing and was found 2 years later dismembered in the
Devil'
s Washbowl with the
words “Picket night” carved in her skull.
Sam's mother Linda herself claimed to see her son one late night in 1954 dragging
pig organs across her porch on Union
Brook Road in Northfield Vermont. He left them at her door step as a cat or dog would a prized
kill as a gift. She said her son’s eyes were wild and that he squealed a high pitch sound as he jumped up and down drooling pointing with his bloody hands down at the ground. Linda took her life 13 days later by jumping into a pig farm pen and being eaten alive by a swarm of ravenous pigs. Some say she was dragged into the pen by
Sam but no eye witness ever stepped forward. Others say she went to save her son but the pigs attacked to protect their adopted son. Locals had all the pigs destroyed which is said to have set the
Pig Man into violent rages that left hundreds of animals and possibly at least 3 human deaths. Still to this day locals gather in pickup trucks and ready their rifles after a night of drinking and boldly set out to hunt The
Pig Man down.
