If you aren’t from Connecticut, you’ve likely never heard of the Windham frogs. I certainly hadn’t, until one day recently, when I was looking through the items Dick Grinolds had just listed on everyone’s favorite Internet auction site. Dick, a longtime friend, always has a varied selection of interesting tokens and medals, and one of his lots was the medalet illustrated here. Intrigued, I decided to see if I could find a story connected to it. As I soon learned, these were no ordinary frogs. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, they are by far the most famous amphibians in this country’s history.
There are various versions of the story, which occurred during the French and Indian War, and some of them are quite fanciful. In a history of Connecticut written in 1781, author Reverend Samuel Peters states that in July 1758, during a drought:
“The frogs of an artificial pond, three miles square, and about five from Windham, finding the water dried up, left the place in a body, and marched, or rather hopped, towards Winnomantic [sic] River. They were under the necessity of taking the road and going through the town, which they entered about midnight. The bull-frogs were the leaders, and the pipers followed without number. They filled the road, forty yards wide, for four miles in length, and were for several hours in passing through the town unusually clamorous.”
Peters continues the tale by explaining that the town’s residents, frightened by the noise and fearing they were being attacked by Indians or the French, “fled naked from their beds, with worse shriekings than those of the frogs,” and that several women died during the panic. Eventually they realized that they weren’t being chased, and some of the men carefully started back. Interpreting some of the noise they heard as words meaning “treaty,” they ventured closer and asked to speak with a person in charge. Of course, they received no reply except for the continuous racket. After some time, they realized that what they were hearing was “an army of thirsty frogs going to the river for a little water.”
Long-lived Legend
Tales such as this can quickly become legends, and I found newspaper references to the Windham frogs as early as June 8, 1789, when Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet reported an unrelated event that had taken place the previous month. Some Litchfield residents had been awakened at four o’clock in the morning and were alarmed by loud noises. If the source hadn’t been determined, they might have been more panicked than they would have been by “the croaking of frogs at Windham.” Reverend Peters’s story was even printed verbatim in the October 13, 1815, edition of an English newspaper.
Unlike many stories, this one didn’t fade away over time. Over the years, numerous articles have been devoted to the event, including one titled “A Warwhoop” in the December 28, 1893, issue of the Eugene Guard, an Oregon newspaper. It gave a lengthy and very detailed rendition, and the writer remarked:
This frightened townspeople of Windham prepared to defend themselves from an unknown attacker in this illustration. (Photo: Hartford Courant)
“It was wonderful how the story of the Windham frogs sought out and found every little nook and corner of the country. There were no railroads, no telegraphs or newspapers
in those days. The stagecoach was the only means of intercommunication. Yet the story, greatly exaggerated and elaborately dressed up by the imagination, was told in almost every tavern in the country.”
Songs are often written about legends, and this one is no exception. The September 2, 1823, issue of the Portland Gazette includes an article about the anniversary of the Cambridge Phi Beta Kappa Society. It mentions that among the many attendees who spoke at the celebration was a man who “amused the company with the old song of the Windham frogs.” And, in 1857 a 48-page booklet titled The Battle of the Frogs, at Windham 1758 With various accounts and three of the most popular ballads on the Subject was compiled by William Lawton Weaver.
An article titled “Early Windham’s Historic Battle of the Frogs” in the July 6, 1941, Hartford Courant commented that “lurid and spectacular accounts have been handed down regarding the June 1758 fracas [that] laid war-like croakers low.”
Frog Symbols
In the early 1860s, The Windham Bank in Connecticut issued bank notes, and the $1 denomination bears a large vignette of two frogs at the lower right. One is on his back, presumably dead or conquered, and the other is standing over him with one foot on his chest. The note is apparently very rare.
The Windham Bank in Connecticut included a vignette of two frogs on this 1862 $1 bill. (Photo: Heritage Auctions)
That’s not the only numismatic item relating to the famous frogs. On the obverse of a 32mm bronze medal, a frog is depicted in the center, with THE WINDHAM/ FROG above and WILLIMANTIC, CONN. below. WINDHAM–TOLLAND COUNTY FIREMAN’S 3RD ANNUAL FIELD DAY is around the rim, with 1940 at the bottom. The reverse depicts a fireman’s hat and tools in the center, with the die-sinker’s name, WHITEHEAD–HOAG, in tiny letters below.
An intriguing medalet made for the Windham-Tolland County Fireman’s 3rd Annual Field Day in 1940 features the Windham frog. (Photo: David Schenkman)
Area residents and town officials obviously take the frog legend seriously. This is evidenced by the fact that on November 15, 2000, the first of four bronze frogs, each weighing more than a ton, was hoisted with a crane onto a pillar at one corner of the Willimantic Bridge. Shortly thereafter, the other three frogs were transported from a foundry in Bridgeport and placed on the remaining corners. A frog even appears in the center of the Windham town seal.
I welcome readers’ comments. Write to me at schenkman@money.org.
A version of this article appears in the January 2024 issue of The Numismatist (money.org).