A monkey once escaped Roger Williams Park Zoo, causing chaos in Providence. Here's the story
This is the story of a curious monkey. No, not George but Jocko, a monkey who once tired of his exhibit in Roger Williams Park Zoo and decided to go on an adventure of his own.
All over Providence.
“I’d like to learn more about the time the monkeys escaped from the zoo,” a What and Why RI reader wrote in to ask after reading a post on social media. “Did they really run wild around Warwick for days?”
It turns out there are a few incidents of monkey escapes, but the most documented one is Jocko’s, and the story is thrilling.
How did Jocko the monkey escape from Roger Williams Park Zoo?
As zookeepers cleaned the moat around “Monkey Island,” Jocko spied an opening. One dash later, on a late August day in 1928, Jocko started his grand tour of the city.
Two weeks into his journey, on Sept. 1, Jocko “celebrated another glorious day of freedom yesterday by chasing Mrs. Stewart MacKay of 144 Althea St. indoors,” The Journal wrote. Perhaps tired of a diet of Rhode Island’s bugs and fauna, it seemed he was after her food. From there, he befuddled police officers who came to MacKay’s aid, amused children who held up bananas for him, and “hopelessly outclassed” firefighters as he swung from tree to tree while they chased him with their ladders.
Still in the neighborhood the next day – with police and fire officials complaining that Jocko was “making monkeys out of” them – the children of the neighborhood tried to take matters into their own hands with air guns. Jocko deftly avoided them, and the zoo put out a request for the public to stop shooting at the little troublemaker. One man did offer him a peach, which he grabbed and enjoyed before throwing the pit back at the little crowd that had assembled.
Housewives put out various delicacies to tempt Jocko, but a pile of garbage turned out to be his undoing.
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He was poking through the garbage on Ridge Street on Sept. 3 looking for treasure when he was spotted. The zoo was called, and Superintendent Jeremiah Triggs set out for another day of chase, leaving his coffee unfinished on his desk.
In the end, it wasn’t a police officer, firefighter or zookeeper who caught him. It was just a guy, John Gormley of 53 Capron St., who The Journal declared “will probably be known forevermore as ‘the man who caught Jocko.’”
Gormley did not attempt – as so many others had – to chase Jocko through the treetops, but instead “through some weird power coaxed him down into a backyard on Amherst Street.”
“When Jocko came within reach, Mr. Gormley made a vicious swipe that half-bowled the trusting monkey over. Possibly blinded by rage at Mr. Gormley’s perfidy, Jocko ran straight into a corner between an ashbin and a fence, pausing only for a nip at his captor’s knee.”
Not 10 minutes later, Jocko was bound and at Hose Company 14, where the firefighters, who'd had enough of this monkey business, promptly decided to call the police instead.
A huge crowd gathered outside Precinct 6 to watch Jocko be booked.
“Possibly 15 officers attended the booking and other ceremonies and gazed respectfully at Jocko, who glared back from the peephole of a heavy wooden box,” the article read. “Everyone was telling everyone else what a fine thing it was and wouldn’t Precinct 4 and 7 be sore, when Jocko eased out of the box and scampered to the top of a window.
“It might not have been hell and confusion, but it was a grand spectacle.”
All 15 officers leaped into action, knocking over the phone and standing on wastebaskets while the audience outside called out advice and children cheered – whether for the monkey or the officers is not clear.
“If one can trust one’s lipreading Jocko also called names,” the article read. “Out of the din and the jostling came the calm voice of Mr. Gormley, who had been quietly standing by. ‘I’ll get him.'”
And so, for the second time, he did.
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At that point, the lieutenant wanted the monkey gone. Jocko was swiftly whisked into a taxi, returned to the zoo and taken directly to Monkey Island, where a zookeeper waded through the moat and dropped Jocko back off with his own kind.
His fellow primates were not happy to see the renegade, chasing him right back into the moat.
“When the shade of night fell on Monkeyville, they fell also on the wet and forlorn head of one money who, up to his neck in water, gazed wistfully at dry land,” the article said. “Bedeviled by his kind and saddened by his contact with the human race, Jocko could do more than sit and think.”
Have there been other times when monkeys escaped from the zoo?
Jocko may have been the most spectacular primate escapee from the zoo, but he certainly is not the only one. The others had more help though.
In 1969, a 13-month-old short-tailed monkey was stolen during the night from a broken window in the Bird House, according to Journal archives. Named Cindy, the 8- to 10-pound monkey was born at the zoo and described as “very tame” and “very cute” by the zookeeper, who believed that someone who saw her perform had stolen her as a pet. A tip led police to Cindy’s whereabouts in Barrington a few days later in the possession of two juveniles who went unnamed.
In 1970, the lock was smashed to one of the monkey exhibits, according to Journal archives, allowing six monkeys to escape. It was unclear from the archives what happened to these six monkeys.
A spokesperson for the zoo said no one knew anything about the six monkeys that escaped, and since it happened well before computer records, there wasn’t a paper trail.
What and Why RI is a weekly feature by The Providence Journal to explore our readers' curiosity. If you have a question about Rhode Island, big or small, email it to [email protected]. She loves a good question.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: A monkey escaped Roger Williams Park Zoo in 1928 and roamed Providence