WARWICK: When it comes to monkeys escaping from zoos, few events rival the amazing story that occurred at Rocky Point Amusement Park in 1937.
Warwick’s monkeys have been on the loose for days, and the escape can’t help but make headlines and go down in history while tugging on some heartstrings and terrifying others.
Here’s how the monkeys escaped, who later helped them, and what happened to the Rocky Point monkeys, primarily from reports in the archives of the Providence Journal and its sister paper, the Evening Gazette:
great escape
Monkeys have been an attraction at Rocky Point since at least 1876, when the Providence Morning Star published a poem about the monkeys’ antics that began: “At Rocky Point the other day, we Saw monkeys playing.
On July 19, 1937, in what was apparently a prank, someone tampered with the monkey cages midway. Eleven monkeys broke free, hid in a tree near the entrance to the amusement park, and mocked park staff for trying to catch them. Traps baited with bananas did not work.
read more:Why are so many monkeys named Jocko?
The monkeys were divided into two groups. A group of five were stuck near a park, playing in the stands of an empty swimming pool. Six others settled in the woods behind the home of William Geddes and Harriette Geddes at 43 Rocky Point Avenue.
The couple’s young children, Dorothy, 7, and Bobby, 6, make faces at their simian neighbors every time the monkey comes to the Geddes’ window. “Monkeys want to do it too,” Bobby happily told reporters.
In early December, a team led by Martin F. Noonan, who oversees Roger Williams Park in Providence, a zoo with its own monkeys, was The Rocky Horned Monkeys were captured when they ventured into a nearby cellar. They were taken to Roger Williams Park Zoo. But Noonan’s staff grew tired and frustrated from repeated attempts to capture the remaining monkeys, so they gave up, leaving the monkeys to nature.
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As time went on, neighbors in Rocky Point began to worry about what would happen to “their” monkeys when winter arrived.
These poor little guys will freeze to death,” Noonan told a worried resident, admitting he could do nothing but advise his neighbor to prop open the cellar window and string it shut to serve as a trap door. Residents should place a banana or other fruit in their cellar to lure monkeys in.
No monkeys have been captured this way, but the primates have devised a different strategy to cope with winter: They retreat into dense evergreen trees and seek shelter in some old boxes behind Geddes’ house.
The monkey’s body adapted to the new climate and grew thick fur.
Noonan later observed that nature provided such conditions.
The 1938 hurricane brought disaster to the monkey population
After the great hurricane of September 21, 1938, the Geddes family came out of their home to see a scene of devastation.
There were fallen trees everywhere and no sign of the monkeys.
Dorothy and Bobby searched what was left of the yard but found nothing. The next day, the family went to the water’s edge at Rocky Point to search. They frantically hope that the monkeys have taken refuge in caves along the shoreline and somehow survived.
But this hope was dashed. The Geddes searched for hours but found nothing.
By dinner time, the family went home dejected. Six monkeys were living on a fallen tree in the backyard!
Within days, however, the Geddy family’s joy would dim: The eldest male monkey, whom Dorothy and Bobby called Grandpa, was severely shaken by the hurricane, looked sullen, and then died.
“Grandpa” is not the only loss
Shortly after Grandpa’s death, three little monkeys were born, including Tommy and Annie, the children of Suzy, one of the original escapees.
But the following summer, tragedy struck again: an entertainer at a catering and dancing club in Warwick thought the addition of a monkey would improve his act. He trapped Suzy. He put a chain around her neck and tied a belt around her waist to prevent her from escaping, but Suzy broke free of the chain and ran away, never to be seen again.
“Jocko” sets out to see the countryside
Frank Ginette of Warwick told the Wall Street Journal years later that Jocko was one of the Rocky Point escapees and was quite a rogue who stole pies cooling on windowsills, broke into houses and Destroyed gardens in the area. But Harriet Geddes defended the monkey’s honor. She admitted that Jocko didn’t take any pies from my windowsill, but one day he got into my pantry and got into the bread box.
In November 1940, Jocko was walking through the countryside and sightings occurred throughout Warwick and even the neighboring city center of East Greenwich. Choco was always one step ahead of the authorities, who would summon the monkey whenever he scared residents.
More: How Jocko got his nameHe’s Not the Only Monkey: Why So Many Monkeys Are Named Jocko
On November 13, Jocko climbed into the third-floor bedroom window of the girls’ dormitory at East Greenwich College, a private boarding school.
Most of the students were in chapel when Jocko broke through the window, leaving math teacher Edna Ashe alone in her dormitory. The frightened woman quickly raised the alarm and Jocko ran to the dormitory building. As students left the church and poured onto campus, Choco observed the crowd from a rooftop, then ran toward St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.
Local and state police launched the manhunt along with armed residents. Police Chief Harold Benson ordered the monkeys to be shot on sight.
Sightings over the next few days raised hopes among his fans that Choco would return to Rocky Point. He was spotted in the Lincoln Park section of Warwick and then showed up in Combicut.
The Providence Journal reported Nov. 23 from Dudley Avenue, about two miles from Chocolokey Point’s home. The monkey crawled into the cellar of a vacant summer house and was shot with a .22-caliber bullet. He was found dead in the cellar, but there was no explanation as to who shot him.
Edgar H. Luther, Warwick’s canine officer, recalled residents’ horrific encounters with Choco over the past few weeks and expressed relief at hearing of the monkey’s death.
Monkey sightings continue for years
Although Jocko’s story ends in Warwick’s basement, the monkeys at Rocky Point remain alive, at least in the public imagination.
During the spring, summer and fall of 1943, there was a string of monkey sightings in the southern part of the state that were attributed to Rocky Point monkeys, but there was neither evidence of a link nor much evidence that the monkeys actually existed.
In June, a monkey was said to be stealing vegetables from World War II victory gardens in parts of Warwick. A police officer allegedly treed the monkey twice at different locations, but each time the animal disappeared without a trace.
In July, monkeys were reported roaming the outskirts of Wickford Village in North Kingstown.
In August, armed residents organized a monkey hunt near Carolina Mills, but no apes were found, according to reports from Charlestown, Richmond, South Kingstown, Narragansett, and North Kingstown.
By September, monkey hunting had become a pastime in Narragansett, and police were notified multiple times that monkeys were on the loose throughout town.
The Evening Bulletin reported on September 23: “The latest report is that a monkey has been spotted on Kingston Road near the stadium. Residents there observed an animal calmly eating apples in a tree. Police found the creature Quite elusive.
In this way, the newspaper reports about the Rocky Horned Monkey also disappeared, and the Rocky Horned Monkey gradually disappeared from the history books.
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