KENTUCKY HISTORY – THE MEAT SHOWER
Only one sample of the mystery meat remains. It sits in a glass bottle of alcohol at the Monroe Moosnick Medical and Science Museum at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky.
Meat from heaven? Manna? Nope.
Best guess, by several knowledgeable people, experienced in the weirdness of nature, is that a passing kettle of turkey vultures (hold your horses, which is a possible meat source) regurgitated the meat as they were flying overhead. Turns out that when one vulture sees another regurgitate he can’t help himself. Whatever is in his gullet gets released.
On a cool, clear Friday morning on March 3, 1876, farmer’s wife Rebeccah Crouch (probably of Salt Lick area) was in her front yard making soap. [There is a reason to do this task outside … it is quite stinky and much fire is used.] The wind was light, the sun was shining when just before noon small chunks of meat fell from the sky all around her.
Crouch’s young grandson, who was in the yard with her, shouted, “Why, Grandma, it’s snowing!” Indeed many pieces were small, but some were long strips. Pounds of meat fell in an area roughly the size of a football field.
Some declared it was bear. Benjamin Franklin Ellington, a local man, claimed that it was bear meat. “I know bar grease when I see it,” he told the New York Herald reporter, “an’ that’s the kind of fluid what come outen that meat at old Allen’s and got all over my hands when I was zamining it. I smelt it, too, and I know that smell as well as I know the smell of licker.” Yet others claimed it was something else, maybe mutton or venison.
I hate to report the following, Butcher L. C. Frisbe examined the mysterious protein substance —and even chewed some up before quickly spitting it out. “I have handled all kinds of meat,” he said, “and I never tasted anything exactly like it before.” Okay! Who does this? You couldn’t get me to do that unless I was literally starving. I would LIKE to say that Frisbe was the only. I can’t, because two other men also chewed the uncured meat. In that era, it should be known, Trichinosis was a common result of eating uncooked or improperly preserved wild game and some tamed ones. Pigs, beaver, deer, and bear are a few carriers of the issue. There are more. Always eat wild game fully cooked/cured.
However, if you lived in Bath County, Kentucky (a number of miles east of Mt Sterling) there would be little else unusual to submit to the newspaper. You planted crops, you raised a family, you were familiar with self-reliance. Meat raining from heaven was not on your list of “what I will experience today.”
Yet meat raining from the sky was not the only notable event of 1876. The telephone was created in another state, sadly. Of the two, meat was the better. We have been subjected to 150 years of telemarketing as a result of the phone.
Many newspapers covered the story, even from as far as New York. They sent reporters to do interviews. The New York Herald’s headline read: “The Carnal Rain.” New York would know. Even The New York Times had to make it to be something illogical (some things never change). They claimed (without evidence – not unusual for them) it was really a meteoric shower. (Thanks for the sarcasm, I guess.)
God has used birds to feed the hungry. Elijah (in the Old Testament) was fed by ravens (I Kings 17:2-6) “2 And the word of the Lord came to him: 3 “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 4 You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” 5 So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan. 6 And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.”
Fun research for you … look this up!
No more of this clan exists any more, but inbreeding can produce serious birth defects. Check out the blue-skinned Fugate family of Kentucky. They didn’t just have blue skin, they had low IQ and other issues. Thankfully (I guess) they finally died out.
Copyright 2026 Donald Whelpley
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