Project Scroll Research Note 2026-34: "A Wild Child" of Michigan City, Indiana, December 1839: the earliest printing yet found

The hairy "wild child" of Michigan City, Indiana, a staple of Midwestern wild-man lists, has been cited from a Gettysburg reprint of 30 December 1839 (Indiana History Blog, 2017). The report went out under a dateline "Michigan City, (Indiana,) Dec. 4," and was credited to the Michigan City Gazette. The earliest printing yet found is in the Farmers' Gazette, and Cheraw Advertiser of Cheraw, South Carolina, on 27 December 1839: a "wild child, or lad," "about four feet high, and covered with a light coat of chestnut-colored hair," running "among the sand hills round and in the vicinity of Fish Lake," plunging into the lake to swim, "all the time whining most piteously." The plea to capture it, "an act of humanity on the part of our young men," stands inside the text credited to the Gazette.

Project Scroll Research Note 2026-34, version 1. The note sets out the record quoted, where it is held, what it changes, its limits, and what was searched before calling it new. Web version: projectscroll.com/discoveries/notes/2026-34/.