No picture, but thoughts on the type of snake I saw ?

[Gardener123]

I tried to get my phone to take a picture, but by the time I did, the snake was gone. It was sitting in one of my raised beds.

I live just west of Philadelphia.

The snake was about 6 feet to 7 feet long. It was about 10" - 14" in circumference. It had dark eyes. It wasn't poisonous by the looks of it. It was all black. And my guess is that it weighed about 10 pounds. It looked like a constrictor of some kind. My guess is it might have been a rat snake, but I have never seen one even close to that size.

I have lived in this area my entire life and have never seen anything like it here. I think I saw a similar snake while on vacation in Florida.

[shadylane]

I know them as Blue racers, they are black although. They can become so huge that they can cross a country road and not seeing either end, with a 12" circumference . They pin down the prey, not by contraction but by swallow it hole, no distinguished markings. They are also know to chase you if you confront them, once you turn your back and start to run, keep running...
Rat snakes make a lot of rattling sounds, hisses and lunges in a draw back head in a S-shape curve with striking motions, both farmer friendly, non-poisonous. The Rat snake dose however climb trees in search of birds and eggs.

[Gardener123]

I just did a google search and it looks like you might be right. It looked like several of the images provided by google. Only thing is, as you say, this snake is definitely supposed to br aggressive. I got reasonably close, and it saw me for sure, but it seemed very calm.

[tomc]

If you were a mouse or chipmunk, you should be scared of a black racer. Otherwise they do a lot of mouse catching that needs be done.

FWIW all snakes are deaf. Next time you see one and are out of its reach, stomp your feet and he'll scram.
The only exceptions are cottonmouth.