On a summer night in June or July 1754,[b] the townspeople of Windham were awakened by an unusual, cacophonous noise, and were unable to identify the source of the sound.

The History of Windham County and the introduction to a ballad mention there had been a severe drought the summer of the incident, drastically reducing the water level in the mill pond.

The elder Stiles quoted a passage from Ovid's Metamorphoses referring to the Lycian peasants who had been transformed into frogs before mentioning Windham and the bullfrogs:[3] If the late tragical tidings from Windham deserve credits, as doubtless it doth, it will then concern the gentlemen of your jurisperitian order to be fortified against the dreadfull croaks of the Tauranaon Legions... but pray whence it is that the croaking of a Bull Frogg should so Balshazzarise a Lawyer?—& how Dyarful ye alarm made by these audacious longwinded Croakers!

David Hillhouse, writing of his first experience attending an opera in New York in 1826, was initially displeased by the "gibberish and squall, reminding me forcibly of the—battle of the frogs at Windham in ancient days".

[4] According to folklorist Richard Dorson, Windham's adoption of the frog as a symbol was a form of boosterism with the town turning the tale to their advantage and using it to distinguish themselves from other communities.

Dorson says that the Windham Public Library distributes a booklet with one of the ballads devoted to the battle and "places book plates with the frog emblem in its volumes".

[6] The most popular account of the Battle of the Frogs is probably that of the Reverend Samuel Peters, a Loyalist from nearby Hebron who wrote an exaggerated version of the incident in his inaccurate and spiteful General History of Connecticut (1781).

[3] In addition to naming one of his ancestors as the founder of Yale, Peters invented animals, claimed that a river was "solid", and fabricated non-existent Blue Laws.

[13][3] In Peters' account, the Windhamites Eliphalet Dyer and Jedidiah Elderkin figure prominently and are portrayed as "bumbling idiots and comic cowards".

He writes that the frogs, having found the water dried up, hopped their way towards the Willimantic River and that they "filled a road forty yards wide for four miles in length," entered Windham around midnight, and were several hours in their passage.

In his account, the residents of Windham fled naked from their beds with "worse shrieking than that of the frogs", fearing an earthquake or the "dissolution of nature".

Peters relates that the men retreated a half mile and upon their return, heard from the "enemy's camp" voices uttering the words "Wight, Hilderken, Dier, Tete."

The ballad is introduced as "a true relation of a strange battle between some Lawyers and Bull-Frogs, set forth in a new song written by a jolly farmer of New England."

According to Weaver, the incident took place during the French and Indian War and Colonel Eliphalet Dyer had recently raised a regiment for an expedition against Crown Point under Israel Putnam.

[10] Ellen Douglas Larned, in the second volume of her 1880 History of Windham County, Connecticut, relays the account of Sinda, "wife of Jack, body servant to Colonel Eliphalet Dyer": Well it was in June, I think, and the weather was very hot, and Master had drawn off the Pond to fix the dam.

But Master and Colonel Elderkin and Mr. Gray mounted their horses and rode to the top of Mullein Hill, and as the pond was a little over there beyond they found out what it was—and the scare was over.

[15] Historian Jeptha Root Simms wrote about the Battle of the Frogs in his 1846 book The American Spy, Or, Freedoms Early Sacrifice.

In Simms' retelling of the tale, after Colonel Dyer climbed the hill to the east of Windham, "his courage failed him, and when he would have advanced eastward, his knees smote their fellows with dangerous collision".

The bullfrogs, faced with a shrinking shoreline and being pushed together as they lost physical territory, may have shifted their mating strategy and begun lekking in a situation Herrick likened to a mosh pit.

One such encampment was near Windham and during his tour of the area, Forbes was told by locals that the French had begun hunting frogs after they pitched their tents.

[21][28] Theron Brown, a poet of Windham, wrote the following verse mentioning the banknotes: I pause to nurse a quaint remembrance here, The bank and I were born the self same year.

[23] The frogs are not introduced until the last half of the third act as a "mysterious noise" that Dyer is convinced is a message from God that he should allow his daughter to marry the person she loves.

The opera's "Frog Ballet" was reported to have "caused much merriment"[29] and its drinking song "Good Old Windham Flip" honored a local alcoholic concoction.

Kramer Middle School teacher Robert Brouillard called the operetta "a director's nightmare," noting its amateurish libretto and comparing the opera to the fictional musical Springtime for Hitler.

[31] William H. Grover, who was asked to create designs for the bridge, initially produced a Victorian theme with spools to represent Willimantic as the home of the American Thread Company.

Windham Planning Commission chair David E. Philips, who wrote the 1984 book Legendary Connecticut, suggested incorporating frogs into the design.

In response to the suggestion, Margaret P. Reich, executive director of the Windham Regional Planning Agency, said "we'd like to create a similar urban legend, but with frogs—and probably not involving virgins.