Cold Hollow is a region comprised of seven towns located in the northern part of the state of Vermont amidst the Cold Hollow mountain range. It extends from the south through the towns of Fletcher, Waterville and Belvidere through the towns of Bakersfield, Enosburgh, Richford and Montgomery to the Canadian border. Below you will find a timeline with dates of important events and cultural references shaping the folklore around the creature said to be lurking in the deep mountain forests. If you or someone you know has information you would like to provide to enhance the following timeline, please contact the site administrator.

1767 The Gazette de Québec reports the first modern encounters with the ‘loup garoux’ (English: werewolf) recorded in the New World. According to the article, the creature had appeared in several villages for years and had recently been discovered hiding in its lair when it began wreaking havoc on the nearby towns and townsfolk.
1776 The Gazette de Québec reports a new series of werewolf sightings, with one werewolf appearing casually throughout the region and promising to grant the wishes of those who showed it hospitality. The article also warned readers to beware, as the creature could just as easily behave as a “ravening wolf” toward those it encountered.
1834 In towns throughout Vermont, residents begin noting the arrival of strange “wasting diseases” attributed to the arrival of several persons believed to be vampires. Although the widespread reporting of vampires throughout New England during the great “vampire scare” makes no explicit mention of werewolves, it is long believed that vampires have the ability to take on the appearance of wolves.
1839 Lawrence Brainerd, a businessman and US Senator from Vermont, reportedly had a harrowing encounter with a giant wolf, during which he killed the creature. The creature was so significant that locals saw fit to memorialize the incident on a small marker where the attack occurred, slightly south of the Cold Hollow Mountains near the area of Aldis Hill (now in the City of St Albans, Vermont).
1927 In a book titled The Wolf-men of Ériu, later republished as The Wolf Clan of Erin (Ireland), a resident of Franklin County, Vermont writing as G. Francis Colton recounts an incident which took place during the Fenian Raids of the 1870s when a wounded member of the Fenian Brotherhood appeared to him and confessed to being a werewolf in search of an ancient Irish manuscript. According to Colton’s account, the injured Fenian man believed the manuscript had been written by a contemporary of Saint Patrick and relocated somewhere in Quebec, Canada. If it were authentic, the manuscript would be one of the earliest written records of an encounter with an ancient clan of werewolves living in the Irish Kingdom of Ossory, located in present day Kilkenny, Ireland.
1945-1950 Over the span of a five year period, several people disappeared on separate occasions at approximately the same location near Glastonbury Mountain. The area was since dubbed “The Bennington Triangle” by folklorist and historian Joe Citro, connecting the disappearances with a creature known to locals as The Bennington Monster.
May, 1951 In an article published in National Geographic Magazine, a logger named F. Barrows Colton reports on an encounter with a werewolf in the forests near Groton Pond.
1957-1960 Hope Ryden, a respected conservationist and wildlife photographer, reports on rumors circulating throughout Vermont of werewolves haunting various forests.
1971 Folksinger, Michael Hurley releases his album Armchair Boogie, featuring a song called “Werewolf” after living in Vermont in 1967.
February 24, 1974 The New York Times reports on rumors of a “strange creature” in Vermont that lead to an investigation taking researchers across the Green Mountain State to a discovery in Croydon, New Hampshire where five strange puppies of an unidentifiable species of canid were discovered.
1980 A woman living on the Canadian side of the border Vermont’s northern border reports being stalked by a werewolf while she and her young cousin were playing in a place known as the Black Woods.
1994 Vermont’s werewolf lore is invoked in the motion picture Wolf starring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer as Will Randell, editor-in-chief of a New York publishing company who suffered from an alleged werewolf attack while driving on a deserted road in rural Vermont.
July, 2003 Inner-traditions, a Vermont-based publishing company, releases the book Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies that explores the concept of werewolves specifically, and shape-shifting creatures generally as a projection of a person’s “astral double.”
September, 2003 On separate occasions during the period of September 1 – 14, 2003, several Vermonters recount witnessing creatures meeting earlier descriptions of the werewolf. Ray Dufresne of Winooski Vermont was driving near Glastenbury Mountain where he spotted a “black thing” he described as being approximately 7 to 8 feet tall, and “hairy from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet.”
2009 A woman driving to her home in northern Vermont reports seeing multiple creatures with “red glowing eyes,” loping alongside her car. According to her testimonial, at least four werewolves chased her car at a high rate of speed, but was eventually able to outrun them.
December, 2012 Although wolves in Vermont were driven to extinction during the late 19th century, several residents of Stowe, Vermont claim to have sighted several ‘unusually large’ wolves roaming more remotes part of the area.
2013 During a full-moon, a Canadian woman uses her phone to capture the sound of a howling sound just outside her home. Upon further analysis, the pattern of the howl matches that of a wolf but with a much deeper tone, indicating the creature must be 2 to 3 times the size of a large gray wolf.
August, 2014 Writer and documentary filmmaker J.D. Thompson travels to Vermont to investigate a series of unsolved missing persons cases in the Cold Hollow region and is warned by locals of the presence of an inter-dimensional creature visiting the area described by many as a “werewolf.”
March, 2015 While investigating the Cold Hollow werewolf legend, journalist J.D. Thompson discovers a book later identified as The Wolf Clan of Erin amid a box of antique books purchased at auction. The book later disappeared from Thompson’s Cold Hollow residence after a local junk store owner illegally entered Thompson’s home.
June, 2015 A 24 year-old registered nurse from Burlington reports seeing a “real-life werewolf” with “black matted fur” walking on “two-legs” during a picnic in the southern zone of the Green Mountain National Forest.
October 30, 2015 Playboy publishes J.D. Thompson’s “Werewolves Definitely Aren’t Real…Right?” – an article exploring reports and theories on werewolves by witnesses, historians, and clairvoyants based in Cold Hollow and throughout Vermont.
October 1, 2017 Thompson completes the short film documenting his investigation since the publication of his first article on the subject of The Hound of Cold Hollow.