Interesting Trail of Details

My personal story of an experience with a Lake Monster is absolutely fascinating. Of course, I think it is. Who would claim to have a Lake Monster experience and then wave it off as being too casual and boring? A lot of what makes the story so fascinating, though, is a long trail of details that have revealed themselves in odd ways. Tonight is not the night for writing the entire story, but I have discovered another interesting detail.

My Lake Monster experience ties very closely with the aquatic dinosaur Tylosaurus. No, I'm not claiming there's a physical live one out there somewhere. That would be too simple a story, and easily disproven. For now, all that's necessary to know is that this aquatic dinosaur is important to me, and that I recently been exploring thoughts of how Tylosaurus may or may not be some kind of appropriate representation of Father Dagon and/or Mother Hydra.

I was reading more information about the dinosaur tonight, digging deeper into how this all could tie into Indigenous lore about water spirit creatures, and crossing back over into what is scientifically known about the dinosaur. That's how I came upon the detail that the Tylosaurus was named by a paleontologist named Othniel Charles Marsh.

I went from, "Marsh? Why does that name stand out?" to, "Aquatic dinosaur...Marsh...Shadow Over Innsmouth...Obed Marsh!" pretty quickly in my mind. Okay, I know why the name jumped out, so back to reading about the dinosaur! Except this was a strange coincidence, so I needed to know more about Othniel Charles Marsh.

He was born in New York, his family was poor, and he was able to get a quality education because it was paid for by his uncle, George Peabody. That would be the George Peabody who started JP Morgan & Co. Oh! And George Peabody was from Massachusetts! The New England states do seem very small to me, but I understand not everything in Massachusetts all happens in the same place. Besides, The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a story that takes place in a fictional town.

Lovecraft based his town of Innsmouth off of the town Newburyport, Massachusetts, which is in Essex county. George Peabody was a native of the South Danvers area, which was eventually named after him, and Peabody, Massachusetts is in... Essex county.

This adds to a long trail of councidences that are so specific that my Lake Monster story even brings forth a pause from folks who are usually inclined to say, "Yeah, but that's just coincidence." The pause is often followed by a quick change of subject, with a chuckle about how "creepy" things would get if they looked any deeper.