THE ST. CHARLES HERALD — FEBRUARY 05, 1887
BUZZARD DEN ♢ A West Virginia Cavern Which Harbors a
Fierce, Sheep-Eating Serpent.
[Milton (W. Va.) Special.]
There is a place on Big Two Mile creek, about three and a half miles east of this place, known as “The Buzzard Den.” It is a large cave in the point of a ridge which extends down between two branches to the rock gorge which incases the creek for nearly its whole length. This cave it entered by a small doorway, which extends down an inclined plane for about twenty feet, there opening into a large rugged room, which has not been explored.
On last Sunday morning as Melsear Braley, a young man of about twenty years, was passing that place en route to his brother’s, about a mile below on the creek, he heard a sheep bleating piteously as it in great distress. Upon going nearer he found the bleating proceeded from the month of the cavern. He approached nearer the place, when, upon suddenly turning the corner of a huge bowlder, he beheld a sight which sent his blood in an arctic flood up his back and standing his hair on end. Ho beheld the bead of a huge serpent protruding from the entrance of the cavern with the hind quarters of a sheep in his mouth, swallowing it gradually, while the sheep was omitting its mournful sound. Braley, being a brave young lad, thought to relieve the sheep, so hurrying up the hill above the cavern he rolled a
