“The Skinner of the Northern Woods”: The Terrifying True Story of Matias Blackwood, America’s Most Disturbing Frontier Mystery
When the winter wind rushes through the mountain passes of northern Montana, old residents say it carries more than snow and ice. They believe it carries memories of a past that was never supposed to be written down.
And in the winter of 1883, a wanderer appeared in the isolated settlement of Whitefish Valley, marking the beginning of one of the darkest and most unsettling episodes in the history of frontier crime.
His name was Matias Blackwood, or at least that was the name he used at first.
Within only a few months, disappearances began to occur. Within a year, the entire region would be forced to confront a horrifying truth:
Blackwood was not hunting animals. He was hunting people.
This is the complete account of a case long hidden in Montana’s archives, and the reason many historians now believe it represents one of the earliest examples of a commercialized serial killer in American history.
THE STRANGER WHO CAME TO THE DOOR – JANUARY 1883
On a night when the temperature dropped far below freezing, locals gathered in a small saloon known as The Lodge.
Records preserved in the Whitefish County Historical Archive describe the moment the door suddenly swung open with a blast of icy wind, revealing a figure wrapped entirely in fur garments.
When he removed the layers and exposed a tall, thin man with unusually pale eyes, he introduced himself quietly.
“My name is Matias Blackwood. I am a trapper.”
He said little more, purchased whiskey, and watched the room without ever blinking. The next morning, he arrived at Powell’s General Store with a sled full of pelts so flawless that even experienced fur buyers were astonished.
But Powell noticed something else: a second bundle Blackwood refused to let anyone touch.
When questioned, Blackwood gave a cold and vague reply.
“Specialty pelts. For a man in Helena.”
A TOWN GROWS UNEASY
Every ten days, with absolute regularity, Blackwood returned with more furs.
Always alone.
Always silent.
Always carrying that extra bundle.
Then came the first rumor.
A hunter named Josiah Hudson claimed he had come across Blackwood’s cabin while tracking an elk, and described seeing strange wooden frames, metal devices, and no signs of ordinary trapping methods.
Most people dismissed the story as the product of too much whiskey.
Until people began to disappear.
THE DISAPPEARANCES AND THE RISING FEAR
March 1883:
Martha Johansson, a young woman gathering herbs at the forest’s edge, never returned home. Her basket was later found abandoned on a path leading toward Blackwood’s cabin.
One week later:
Zachary Norris, a mill worker, vanished while making a routine delivery. His wagon remained on the road. Norris himself had disappeared.
People were too afraid to say what everyone was thinking. No one wanted to accuse a man without proof. And no one wanted to confront someone who lived deep in a wilderness vast enough to swallow up any pursuer.
But suspicion continued to grow.
A WITNESS RETURNS, AND THE TRUTH EMERGES
On April 9, young Sebastian Hollister secretly followed Blackwood back to his remote cabin. What he saw, and what he refused to put into words, changed the entire course of the case.
According to sworn testimony recorded by local lawman Thaddius Ashcroft, Sebastian returned “ashen, trembling, and unable to speak for several hours.”
What he finally whispered was enough to send ten armed men into the woods the very next morning.
What he had seen through the narrow opening in the window shutter were not animal skins.
They were human.
THE RAID ON BLACKWOOD’S CABIN
Only seven men came back.
Ashcroft’s official report was deliberately unclear, only hinting at what they found.
“Inside the structure were materials inconsistent with any known trapping practices.”
But private diaries written by the men who were present that day, preserved in family archives, describe what they saw with unbearable clarity.
Inside the cabin, they discovered:
Wooden stretching frames
Metal hooks and customized tools unknown in hunting
Large preservation barrels
Chemical solutions used for tanning
And the most horrifying discovery of all:
Three missing men were found alive, but without their skin.
Hudson wrote a letter to his brother on April 20, 1883. It contains the most chilling sentence in the entire record.
“I pray that God forgives us for what we witnessed. Their skin had been removed with a precision no surgeon could achieve, and they were still breathing.”
None of them survived the trip back to Whitefish.
THE MEANING OF THE “SPECIALTY PELTS”
Blackwood referred to them as “specialty pelts.”
In truth, they were preserved human skins, prepared so skillfully that collectors in Helena, San Francisco, New York, and even Europe paid extraordinary sums for them.
This was a market the frontier had never seen before. A hidden trade in what one investigator would later describe as:
“Anthropological skin specimens.”
Blackwood was not a delusional killer acting alone.
He was part of a supply network.
THE ESCAPE AND THE SPREAD OF THE BLACKWOOD LEGEND
Despite the raid, Blackwood escaped.
Over the next three years, sightings of a man fitting his description surfaced across Montana, Idaho, and Washington Territory, using names such as:
Jeremiah Caldwell
Matias Thornne
M. B. Carter
Wherever he appeared, the same pattern followed.
Impeccable fur pelts
A separate bundle
New disappearances
Then came another revelation.
THE MAN WHO TRAINED HIM
In 1884, wealthy fur dealer Lawrence Merritt was found dead in his Helena office.
He had been skinned.
Investigators discovered coded notes hidden in his ledger.
He was Blackwood’s mentor.
Merritt had learned methods of preserving human skin while working as a medical orderly during the Civil War. Afterward, he began supplying wealthy collectors fascinated with rare human remains.
And Merritt had trained apprentices.
Blackwood was only one of them.
THE SECRET NETWORK: A TRADE IN HUMAN SKIN
When Pinkerton detective Raymond Walsh decoded the encrypted records, the reality was far worse than anyone expected.
The buyers included:
Wealthy private collectors
Museum acquisitions staff
Doctors
University researchers
Prominent European clients
They sought preserved human skin that showed:
Tattoos
Unusual pigmentation
Scar patterns
Rare medical conditions
Demand was high.
Profits were enormous.
And Blackwood, horrifyingly, was regarded by clients as “one of the finest artisans in the practice.”
THE FINAL SIGHTING AND THE UNSETTLING AFTERMATH
1904: Authorities in northern California found the body of a tall, heavily scarred man matching Blackwood’s appearance. They noted:
“Extensive scarring consistent with attempted flaying.”
Some believed it was revenge.
Others thought it was a competing supplier.
But most historians agree on the most chilling conclusion.
Blackwood was not the only one.
THE MODERN CONNECTION
In the 1960s, investigators uncovered one of Merritt’s descendants conducting a small, discreet continuation of the same trade.
Even more disturbing:
Some of the clients, wealthy collectors, had passed their macabre interests down through their families.
And to this day, forensic agencies occasionally come across pieces of preserved human skin sold through anonymous black-market channels online.
The methods used resemble Blackwood’s with unsettling accuracy.
THE LEGACY OF A MONSTER ON THE FRONTIER
Unlike most serial killers, Blackwood did not kill for pleasure or madness.
He killed for profit.
He created his own product line.
He managed supply and demand.
He used a form of branding by calling them “specialty pelts.”
He developed unique preservation methods.
He worked with clients, apprentices, and distribution routes.
He was, in every respect, a businessman.
One whose product happened to be human beings.
The sharp winter wind still sweeps across Whitefish Lake. Rangers say that even now, animals avoid the spot where the cabin once stood. And during certain storms, local residents insist they can hear faint noises, like the clatter of tools and wood.
The final echo of a place where a man turned human life into inventory.
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