It’s a surprise to me, too. I’m driving on over to Windham, CT to go frog hunting.
I ran across a mildly interesting story about the naming of the frogs on the Willimantic Bridge there, and like all good Stone Pilgrim stories, this one got a bit out of control.
Seems that there’s a bridge across the river there and one each corner of it sits a half ton bronze frog. Long, with one sinewy leg hanging down its concrete spool perch . Bizarre, I thought. What gives?
Last month, there was a contest to name these frogs and the public came up with “Willy” and “Manny” for the Willimantic River, Windy for the town of Windham, and Swifty for the translation of Willimantic, which means “the land of the swift running waters," they say.
But why frogs in the first place? Seems that in the mid 18th century when it was all settlers vs. the French and Indians, the erstwhile Col. Dyer stopped by and led all the able bodied to war. That left the town essentially undefended, and when the remainders woke up in the middle of a hot June night, they heard terrifying screams coming from the “Frog Pond” at one end of town. Of course, the boys who were left grabbed their muskets and strafed the area. Since there was no reply, the assumed they were safe. In the morning, they found hundreds of demised amphibians around the nearly dry pond. Apparently, the screams were those of the frogs fighting out quickly- disappearing wetland. Who knew frogs screamed in the first place? When the other towns found out about it, of course, they were merciless, calling it the Windham Frog Fight. At one point an operetta was performed commemorating it. (Who played the frogs?)
So I thought a trip to the famous bridge would be fun. But on the way, I’ll hunt down a 1918 memorial to the same thing- a Frog Rock which is now off road and may take some slogging.
Wish me luck.
(photo from the colormatters.com/frogs site)
8:30:34 AM 
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