"The Legend of the Headless Turkey"

Factual Questions
1

When I was recently in Cleveland I picked up a copy of the Times (local free paper, the type that usually carries Cecil’s column). In it there was a short snippet regarding “The Legend of the Headless Turkey”. According to the story, a “headless byrd” was terrorizing the locals in a New England town every year around Thanksgiving until one year when a local blacksmith caught it and found it to be mechanical. Turns out that it was made by a local inventor (IIRC named Isiah Huston) in order to…well, that part I really didn’t understand.

This sounded completely too farfetched for me but I have heard stranger true things. All searches have turned up squat. When and where did this story start- Cleveland c. Nov. 1999 or was it much earlier? Is there any basis in fact? Anyone else see this story?

2

This sounds a little like a story I read years back, I think in an SF anthology, called “The Lurking Duck”. Of course, it was a duck, not a turkey.

3

[quote]
According to the story, a “headless byrd” was terrorizing the locals in a New England town every year around Thanksgiving until one year when a local blacksmith caught it and found it to be mechanical. Turns out that it was made by a local inventor (IIRC named Isiah Huston) in order to…well, that part I really didn’t understand.* I can easily picture my dad doing something like that. Or myself.

4

Let’s try that again…

I can easily picture my dad doing something like that. Or myself.

(Note to self. Stop hanging around here at 1AM and go to bed.)

“I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms.” -The Secret of Monkey Island