Grafton Monster origin and history on Grafton: Tucked into the hills of northern West Virginia lies the small town of Grafton, about 35 minutes from Morgantown. With roots dating back to 1852, Grafton began as a work camp for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and was officially chartered just a few years later in 1856. During the Civil War, it served as a key rail hub—occupied at various times by both Union and Confederate troops. Today, Grafton is best known as the birthplace of Mother’s Day, with the International Mother’s Day Shrine standing as a testament to that legacy. It also houses both of West Virginia’s only national cemeteries.
But Grafton holds a darker claim to fame as well—one tied not to war or celebration, but to the unexplained. It’s the hometown of one of West Virginia’s lesser-known but most eerie cryptid legends: The Grafton Monster.
A Chilling Encounter on a Quiet Night
The story begins on the night of June 16, 1964. A young reporter named Robert Cockrell, who worked for The Grafton Sentinel, was heading home after a long day at the office. It was around 11:00 PM, and the quiet streets of Grafton were largely empty. As he made his way along Riverside Drive, a winding road that skirts the Tygart River, something bizarre caught his eye.
In a curve near the riverbank, he spotted what he would later describe as a massive, headless creature—standing between the road and the water. The being was an estimated 9 feet tall and 4 feet wide, with a pale gray or white body that looked smooth and slick, almost like seal skin. It stood still, unmoving, but Cockrell could sense that it was alive.
Rattled, he sped home. But curiosity quickly got the better of him. After calming down, he returned to the site about an hour later—this time with two friends. What they found was deeply unsettling: the creature was gone, but a huge, fresh impression had been left in the grass, as if something very large had stood there—and then been lifted straight up into the air.
Even more eerie was the strange low whistling noise they heard coming from the direction of the river. They searched for the source, but couldn’t track it down. The sound persisted, faint and unnatural, like something not of this world.
The Town Goes Wild
Cockrell’s article appeared shortly after in The Grafton Sentinel, sparking a local phenomenon. Within days, over 100 people swarmed the area at night, hoping to catch a glimpse of the mysterious beast. Many claimed to see something unusual—more than 20 people reported similar sightings of a tall, headless figure lurking near the river or hiding just out of sight in the tree line.
But as quickly as it began, the hysteria was tamped down. A follow-up article ran in the local paper claiming the entire thing had been a misunderstanding—explaining that the creature was likely just someone pushing a cart along the roadside at night. The article dismissed Cockrell’s report and the eyewitness accounts as exaggerated storytelling and “monster fever.”
With that, the Grafton Monster quietly faded into local legend.
Resurrecting the Legend
The story might have stayed buried if not for cryptid researcher Mark Hall, who rediscovered the tale in 1995 while reviewing the unpublished files of author Gray Barker, a legendary UFO and paranormal researcher from West Virginia. Hall believed the Grafton Monster belonged to a wider family of creatures he called “Monsters of the Margin”—large, human-like beasts that operate on the edge of human awareness and reason.
In recent years, the Grafton Monster has found a second life in pop culture. It was notably featured in the hit video game Fallout 76, which is set in a post-apocalyptic West Virginia and includes a variety of local folklore figures as enemies—giving new audiences a reason to look into the legends that inspired them.
What Was the Grafton Monster?
Theories about the Grafton Monster vary widely. Some suggest it could have been a Bigfoot-like creature, although the lack of a head and the slick skin set it apart. Others think it might be an extraterrestrial, especially given the strange sound heard by Cockrell and his friends. Still more believe it’s part of Appalachian folklore that predates the 1964 encounter—just one of many creatures said to lurk in the forests and hollows of the region.
Whatever it was, the Grafton Monster remains one of West Virginia’s most unique and eerie cryptid tales.
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Source(s) Monsters of West Virginia by Ellen Guiley
