Appalachian Folklore & Myths Series – The Dwayyo of Frederick County: Maryland’s Wolf-Man of the Catoctins
Late in November 1965, a strange report reached a Frederick County newspaper. A man identified in the papers as John Becker said he had gone outside after hearing a noise near his home along Fern Rock Road. What he claimed to find there was not a fox, a stray dog, or a bear moving through the dark. It was something taller, stranger, and harder to explain.
According to the account that soon appeared in The News of Frederick, Becker described a black-haired creature about six feet tall, with doglike feet and a bushy tail. It was supposed to have moved with an unsettling mix of animal and human qualities. Becker said he fought the thing off before it disappeared into the night.
The newspaper gave the creature a name that sounded as odd as the report itself. It was called the Dwayyo.
The story belonged to Frederick County, Maryland, but the setting gave it a mountain character from the beginning. Gambrill State Park lies on the ridge of the Catoctin Mountains, where wooded slopes, rocky trails, old roads, and scattered homes make a natural home for rumors. Long before the Dwayyo appeared in print, the Catoctins and the Middletown Valley had already produced one of Maryland’s most famous monsters, the Snallygaster. In 1965 another creature stepped out of the newspaper columns and into local folklore.
The First Newspaper Reports
The best source base for the Dwayyo is not a modern monster book or internet retelling. It is the Frederick newspaper run from late November and December 1965.
The key first article appears to have been written by George May for The News of Frederick under the title “Don’t Mess With It: Mysterious ‘Dwayyo’ On Loose In County.” Later summaries identify the story as appearing at the end of November 1965. It introduced Becker’s account and described the creature in the form that later retellings would repeat: tall, black-haired, doglike, and strangely upright.
The story did not sit alone for long. Within days, The News followed with additional reports. A December 1 article, “‘Dwayyo’ monster is still running loose,” reportedly included the now-famous drawing by News-Post sketch artist Ed Mull. That image helped fix the Dwayyo in local memory. A strange story told over the telephone became a creature people could imagine. Once readers had a sketch in front of them, every odd sound in the woods had a shape.
The early newspaper coverage also shows why the Dwayyo must be handled carefully as history. Police could not confirm the basic details of the first report. They reportedly could not locate a Fern Rock Road in Frederick County, and they could not identify the man called John Becker. That does not prove no call was made, and it does not prove every later report was invented. It does mean the historian has to keep the original claim at arm’s length.
The Dwayyo entered public record as a newspaper story, not as a verified police case.
Other Voices in the Woods
Once the first story appeared, other people began connecting their own experiences to the Dwayyo.
One hunter near Middletown reportedly told George May that his dogs had chased something black. At first he thought it might have been a dog or perhaps a bear. After reading the newspaper, he wondered if it had been the Dwayyo. He described the animal as trotting in a strange way, almost like a horse. His report did not prove the creature existed, but it showed how quickly the newspaper story gave people a new language for old uncertainties.
An Ellerton woman reportedly said she had heard something unusual near her Catoctin Mountain home months earlier. It cried like a baby, then screamed like a woman. Her husband had searched for footprints but found none. This detail sounds familiar to anyone who studies mountain folklore. The woods at night are full of sounds that can unsettle people, especially when they are heard at a distance and filtered through fear. Foxes, bobcats, owls, cats, and other animals can make sounds that seem almost human. A strange cry in the dark can become part of a monster story once the community has a name for the monster.
There was also a report of a Dwayyo being kept in a basement. When police investigated, the homeowner reportedly said he had not called them, and no creature was found. That story pushed the Dwayyo further into the territory of prank, rumor, and local amusement.
By early December 1965, the Dwayyo was no longer just Becker’s reported backyard visitor. It had become a Frederick County event.
The Hunt That Did Not Happen
The Dwayyo story reached its comic peak with talk of an organized hunt.
Reports said a group of Frederick Community College students planned to search for the creature. Modern summaries of the newspaper coverage say dozens of people signed up. When the time came, the hunt fizzled. George May later wrote that no real crowd appeared, though someone claimed to have seen boys riding through Frederick in a pickup truck, wearing helmets and waving machetes.
This scene captures the whole Dwayyo episode. It was half fear, half joke. People were curious enough to talk about hunting the creature, but not convinced enough to gather in force and march into the dark. The monster was fun at a distance.
Then came the dog license.
A letter reportedly arrived at the Frederick News-Post office in care of George May. It came from the Frederick County Treasurer and contained a license for a dog named Dwayyo. The license was made out to John Becker. The breed was marked with uncertainty. If the original story had not already begun to look shaky, the dog license made the prankish side of the episode hard to miss.
After that, the newspaper reports faded. The Dwayyo had come quickly, stirred the county for a couple of weeks, then seemed to vanish back into the Catoctins.
The Shadow of the Snallygaster
Frederick County already had a monster before the Dwayyo arrived. The Snallygaster, the old winged terror of western Maryland legend, had haunted newspaper columns and oral tradition for decades. In the early twentieth century, Snallygaster reports filled central Maryland papers with stories of a flying beast that preyed on livestock and frightened rural families.
The Dwayyo’s connection to the Snallygaster appears early, but it should not be overstated. One of George May’s December 1965 articles reportedly asked whether the Dwayyo could be a modern Snallygaster. A Burkittsville resident suggested that old Snallygaster eggs might be hatching and that the Dwayyo could be connected to the older beast.
Later folklore made the connection much stronger. In modern retellings, the Dwayyo is often described as the Snallygaster’s enemy. Some versions say the two creatures are rivals locked in a long mountain struggle. Other versions claim the Dwayyo hatches from a Snallygaster egg. Those details make good folklore, but they are harder to anchor in the 1965 newspaper record.
The safer reading is this. The Snallygaster gave Frederick County a ready-made framework for understanding a new monster. When the Dwayyo appeared in print, readers naturally compared it to the older legend. Over time, that comparison hardened into a relationship.
Folklore often works that way. A passing newspaper joke becomes a detail. A detail becomes a tradition. A tradition becomes something people insist was always part of the story.
Dog, Bear, Prank, or Something Else?
There is no evidence that a six-foot wolf-man roamed Frederick County in 1965. There is also no single explanation that accounts for every part of the episode.
Some people at the time thought the Dwayyo sketch looked like an Irish Wolfhound standing on its hind legs. That explanation fits the doglike features, the bushy tail, and the later dog license joke. Large dogs can appear much bigger in poor light, especially when seen briefly or when the witness is already startled.
A black bear is another possible explanation for some later sightings. Maryland’s black bear range includes Frederick County today, and bears are especially likely to move during certain parts of the year. A bear standing upright can look disturbingly human for a moment. A bear seen through brush, headlights, or fear can become something else in memory. This does not explain the whole story, but it does help explain why some witnesses might have connected ordinary wildlife to the Dwayyo after the newspaper coverage began.
Coyotes are less helpful for the original 1965 story. Maryland wildlife sources say coyotes were first documented in the state in 1972, with early substantiated sightings in Cecil, Frederick, and Washington counties. That makes coyotes an unlikely explanation for the first Dwayyo newspaper burst, though they may have shaped later dogman-style interpretations.
The prank theory remains strong. The missing road, the unconfirmed witness, the false basement report, the failed hunt, and the dog license all point toward a story that at least some people were playing with. George May’s tone, as preserved in later summaries, suggests he recognized the humor in it.
Still, folklore does not require a monster to be real in order for the story to matter. The Dwayyo was real as a community event. It was real as a newspaper sensation. It was real as a name that Frederick County people remembered.
From Local Newspaper Story to Maryland Monster
For years, the Dwayyo remained smaller than the Snallygaster. It did not have the same long newspaper life, the same political uses, or the same statewide fame. Yet it survived.
The creature appeared in later Maryland monster writing, including local folklore collections, popular cryptid books, and accounts of Frederick County legends. Timothy L. Cannon and Nancy F. Whitmore helped preserve the story in Ghosts and Legends of Frederick County. Susan Fair later placed the Dwayyo within the wider world of western Maryland mysteries and mountain tales. Folklorists Trevor J. Blank and David J. Puglia included Maryland legends in a broader study of Old Line State folklore, helping place creatures like the Dwayyo in a more serious cultural frame.
The Dwayyo also resurfaced in later newspaper language. In 1973, reports from Sykesville described a huge hairy creature in terms that mixed Snallygaster and Dwayyo language. By then, the Dwayyo had become useful shorthand for a particular kind of Maryland monster: hairy, doglike, upright, and hard to explain.
That is how a brief 1965 newspaper run became a lasting piece of regional folklore.
Why the Dwayyo Still Matters
The Dwayyo matters because it shows how modern folklore is made.
This was not an ancient legend passed down unchanged from colonial days. It was not a creature with a clear chain of documented sightings stretching back centuries. The Dwayyo, as far as the strongest evidence shows, came into public view through a Frederick newspaper in 1965. It grew through follow-up articles, reader reactions, police doubts, student jokes, and local memory.
That makes it valuable. The Dwayyo lets us watch folklore forming almost in real time.
A man calls a newspaper. A reporter writes a story. Police cannot verify the details. Other readers begin remembering strange noises and dark shapes. An artist draws the monster. Students talk about hunting it. Someone buys it a dog license. A few days later, the story fades from the front page. Years later, writers return to it, connect it to the Snallygaster, and place it among Maryland’s mountain creatures.
The result is not just a cryptid story. It is a record of how people in a mountain county made meaning out of uncertainty.
The Dwayyo belongs to the Catoctin landscape because it grew from the same ingredients that have shaped Appalachian and upland folklore for generations: wooded ridges, night sounds, old roads, rural humor, newspaper storytelling, and the human need to give a name to whatever moves just beyond the porch light.
Whether the first caller saw a dog, a bear, a shadow, or nothing at all, Frederick County gained a monster. For a few weeks in 1965, the Dwayyo ran through the pages of The News. After that, it ran into folklore.
Sources & Further Reading
May, George. “Don’t Mess With It: Mysterious ‘Dwayyo’ On Loose In County.” The News (Frederick, MD), November 29, 1965. https://www.newspapers.com/article/26795661/dwayyo_loose_in_county/
May, George. “‘Dwayyo’ Could Be a Modern Snallygaster.” The News (Frederick, MD), December 3, 1965. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-news-dwayyo-and-snallygaster/26796032/
“The Dwayyo: ‘Don’t Mess with It.’” Bygone Maryland, October 20, 2016. https://bygonemaryland.com/2016/10/20/the-dwayyo-dont-mess-with-it/
Boteler, Cody. “Meet the Dwayyo, Maryland’s Lesser-Known Foe of the Snallygaster.” The Baltimore Banner, October 26, 2024. https://www.thebanner.com/community/local-news/dwayyo-snallygaster-maryland-lore-GIVUCCORVFGANEPE4TV6JAM3CM/
Rada, James, Jr. “Where Did the Dwayyo Away Go?” James Rada Jr., October 31, 2019. https://jamesrada.com/where-did-the-dwayyo-away-go/
“Dwayyo.” Fearsome Critters. Accessed June 10, 2026. https://www.fearsomecritters.ca/USA/Maryland/Maryland.html
“SNallygaster/Dwayyo.” The Capital (Annapolis, MD), June 13, 1973. https://www.newspapers.com/article/26796269/snallygasterdwayyo/
“Sykesville Beastie Is Still Mystery.” The Evening Star and Daily News (Washington, DC), June 13, 1973. https://www.genealogybank.com/newspaper-clippings/evening-star-june-13-1973-page-3/lfcintezwkytnsitdxdnhsqzpsvwythb_wma-gateway012_1638996804380
Fair, Susan. Mysteries and Lore of Western Maryland: Snallygasters, Dogmen and Other Mountain Tales. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2013. https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/products/mysteries-and-lore-of-western-maryland-9781626190245
Blank, Trevor J., and David J. Puglia. Maryland Legends: Folklore from the Old Line State. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/maryland-legends-trevor-j-blank/1143149026
Cannon, Timothy L., and Nancy F. Whitmore. Ghosts and Legends of Frederick County. Frederick, MD: Cannon and Whitmore, 1979. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3295263-ghosts-legends-of-frederick-county
Okonowicz, Ed. Monsters of Maryland: Mysterious Creatures in the Old Line State. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2012. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/monsters-of-maryland-mysterious-creatures-in-the-old-line-state_ed-okonowicz/12151637/
Fair, Susan. “Mountain Monster: The Snallygaster.” Blue Ridge Country, December 5, 2012. https://blueridgecountry.com/archive/snallygaster-monster/
Dickey, Colin. “The Unsettling Legend of Maryland’s Native Cryptid, the Snallygaster.” Atlas Obscura, October 27, 2023. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-the-snallygaster
Stevens, Scott. “When the Snallygaster Came Calling.” Baltimore Fishbowl, July 18, 2025. https://baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/when-the-snallygaster-came-calling/
Maryland Historical Trust. “Gambrill State Park: The Crown of Civilian Conservation Corps Parks.” Maryland Historical Trust Blog, May 28, 2024. https://mdhistoricaltrust.wordpress.com/2024/05/28/gambrill-state-park-the-crown-of-civilian-conservation-corps-parks/
Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “Gambrill State Park.” Accessed June 10, 2026. https://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/pages/western/gambrill.aspx
Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “History of Gambrill State Park.” Accessed June 10, 2026. https://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/pages/western/gambrill/history-gambrill.aspx
Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “Black Bear Management in Maryland.” Accessed June 10, 2026. https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/pages/hunt_trap/blackbear.aspx
Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “Black Bear Fact Sheet.” Accessed June 10, 2026. https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/pages/plants_wildlife/black-bear.aspx
Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “Coyotes in Maryland.” Accessed June 10, 2026. https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/pages/hunt_trap/coyote.aspx
Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “Coyotes in Maryland: Where They Came From and What to Expect.” June 20, 2016. https://news.maryland.gov/dnr/2016/06/20/coyotes-in-maryland/
National Park Service. “Catoctin Mountain Park.” Accessed June 10, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/cato/
National Park Service. “Exploring the Landscape of the Recent Past at Catoctin Mountain Park.” January 23, 2024. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/catoctin-mountain-park-cultural-landscape-significance-and-documentation.htm
National Park Service History Electronic Library. “Catoctin Mountain Park.” Accessed June 10, 2026. https://npshistory.com/publications/cato/index.htm
Appalachian Regional Commission. “Appalachian Counties Served by ARC.” Accessed June 10, 2026. https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-counties-served-by-arc/
Author Note: This article treats the Dwayyo as folklore with a newspaper trail, not as a proven animal report. The goal is to separate the 1965 Frederick sources from later monster retellings while still respecting the story’s place in Maryland mountain tradition.