Shelter Island Hoax

**Nasus** · 07-02-2009, 08:14 AM

The stone marker with the small bronze plaque stood near Shelter Island's north ferry for decades. The inscription read:

On this spot July 11th, 1508

Fell Putikaos

Slain by the Norse Viking

Retawerif

Over the years, thousands of travelers stopped to reflect on the history of the place and silently pay their respects.

In the words of that great philosopher Bugs Bunny: Suckers!

"It was all a funny little hoax,” says Louise Green, the Shelter Island Town historian.

A little boy was the first to figure out that "Putikaos” spelled backward was "soak it up” and "Retawerif” was "firewater,” according to a 1942 Long Island Forum article "The Shelter Island Hoax” by then-Suffolk County historian Morton Pennypacker. Green believes the hoax originated in a temperance tantrum by a monied member of a local Methodist camp who placed the sign there in 1908 as a protest against drinking.

If the marker, with its unfortunate linkage between Indians and drinking, hasn't fooled anyone lately, that's because it disappeared after ferry construction.

**ChrisF202** · 07-02-2009, 12:45 PM

Interesting, some of those anti drinking activists were really wacko so I wouldent put anything past them but it has been proven that the Vikings did come to North America and did have battles with the local Indian tribes ... however this is occurred much further north like modern Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada rather then on Long Island.