Strange New England: Recent Episodes
Strange New England
You are standing on a great height, overlooking a vast distance toward the far horizon. You are invigorated and somewhat relieved – it has been a long climb. The wind…
You’re sitting in a darkened room. In front of you on a small, makeshift raised stage sit three people all covered by a sheet except for their heads. The man…
The problem with ghost stories is that they, like ghosts themselves, are only barely there. They’re witnessed by one or two people. What is witnessed can take many forms: a…
“Yesterday upon the stair,I met a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today I wish, I wish he’d go away… When I came home last night at three…
NOTE: The following story contains description of a suicide and may not be suitable for younger listeners. Ghosts are old companions. They’ve been with us since the very beginning. Go…
I was ten years old when my grandfather died. He died in his sleep during the cold February night with his rosary in his hands. My cousin had to break…
It’s a warm July Sunday in 1745. You’re sitting in your pew at the First Church of York, Maine, waiting for the service to begin. It is a quiet time, a time for reflection and prayer. Today will offer something different though and try as you will to focus on more spiritual matters, you can’t help but wonder at what is to come. Your pastor, old Samuel Moody,has gone with William Pepperrell’s colonial militia to lay siege to Louisbourg at Cape Breton. Old Moody is the army’s spiritual advisor and knowing him as you do, you have no doubt that his long-winded prayers and cutting commentary alone might be enough to force the French from Quebec. You admit that the new pastor might be a breath of fresh air, considering that old Samuel Moody seemed to know everything about everybody in the church and had no qualms exposing the private lives and sins of his congregation from the pulpit. The new pastor, though, has some issues of his own. He stands in front of the crowd and begins to speak, quietly, almost silently. He is well-known to you. But in the past few years, he has isolated himself more and more from people, sent his own children to live with relatives, for his wife has passed, and is only seen outside rarely, at night, walking among the headstones or along the beach. Stranger still is the man’s appearance and that’s what you have been wondering about as you sit there quietly. Will he remove it? Will he preach without it? Apparently not. He’s wearing it now as he speaks, the fabric fluttering with his breath as he forms the words. Then, when he must read from the Scriptures, he takes the Bible in his hands and turns his back on the congregation and only then does he remove it. Reading to the wall, so no one can see his face, only then is he free from it. When he turns back around, it is there. You suspected as much. His sermon is as long as his father’s and you sit there, sweating and listening intently. He certainly doesn’t seem demented but he does seem clouded or depressed. This is Joseph Moody, the son of your own pastor. Everyone in York knows that he wears a veil to cover his face, is never seen in public without it, and with no explanation why. The minister’s black veil is in place this morning as it has been for the past seven years.
It wasn’t always this way for Joseph Moody. There was a time when he was one of the most popular and influential men in the village of York. Old Samuel Moody’s son grew up with his father’s tutelage and was highly educated. He was the school master of the settlement, helping to prepare young men for Harvard. He was the Register of Deeds and the Town Clerk, not to mention being his father’s assistant minister. There was hardly a more social, community-minded man in the village. He married and had a family and in all ways seemed destined to continue in the footsteps of his father, that is, until something happened, something that he never shared with anyone and made him cover his face from all except the eyes of God for the remainder of his life. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about him, although he changed the minister's name, in one of his earliest stories, “The Minister’s Black Veil.”
Women wore black veils when they mourned, but for a man to cover his face with a veil was unheard of. It was strange. But the people of York grew used to his bizarre habit because he was one of their own, because he could still perform the functions of a minister, even though he was the preferred choice for funerals over christenings. Except for the veil, he seemed mostly normal. He spent most of his time in his own rooms, bothering no one, and to avoid contact when he was with others, he often sat facing a wall. Some people think his strange behavior is a result of the death of his wife, but the wearing of the veil did not coincide with the time of her death. What could cause an educated socially-minded man of God to cover his face, as though he was ashamed of some private sin? The people did not know, and after his death in 1753, they still were unsure. A legend arose that he told a friend on his deathbed that he wore the veil because once, when he had been a child, he and friend had been out hunting and he mistakenly shot his friend to death. Then he reported to the people that his friend had been shot as a result of an Indian attack, a harsh reality of the time. No one would have questioned an Indian attack. The legend says that the good reverend lied his entire life about the accidental death and that lie ate away at him. The veil was his outward sign of his secret sin. The legend even says that he was buried with the veil over his face, according to his wishes. We know that at the end of his life, Joseph Moody, the veiled man, lived with one of his deacons. One night in 1753, Joseph was in good spirits and began to sing hymns, something he rarely did at home. Then he refused to eat dinner before retiring. Then, he went to bed and died in the night in his sleep. He went to sleep in one world and hopefully awoke in the next, although whether it was in Heaven or Hell, God only knows. He did not confess to anything on his deathbed, or at least, there is no proof. The eccentric son of an eccentric man died and was buried with the following epitaph:
“Here lies interred the body of the Reverend Joseph Moody pastor of the Second Church in York, an excelling instance of knowledge, ingenuity, learning, piety, virtue and usefulness, was very serviceable as a school master, clerk, register, magistrate and afterwards as a minister was uncommonly qualified and spirited to do good, and accordingly was highly esteemed and greatly lamented.
Although this stone may moulder into dust,
Yet Joseph Moody's name continue must.”
There is another side to the story of Joseph Moody. Something else occurred in his life that could have led to this strange behavior, something far worse than a lie. To understand it, we have to look at the life of his father and of a 23 year old Native American woman named Patience Boston. The intersection of the lives of these three people may well have led to Joseph Moody wearing a veil and hiding his face from all but God.The real reason he wore it may lie in that intersection of souls.
Joseph Moody’s father, Samuel, was the grandson of an accused witch, Mary Bradbury. She was imprisoned for the crime and taken into custody in May of 1692. She was not executed. His own father, Caleb, was imprisoned for five weeks for daring to speak as a Free Man. Young Samuel put his nose to the grindstone and eventually graduated Harvard in 1697 and was offered the chaplaincy of York, then on the very edge of the frontier, a place where locals had been killed in Indian raids and people only attended church services while armed. He accepted the task but without any remuneration, believing that God would provide. He gave away all that he owned in the world, even his horse, and took up the cause of the Lord. He was a powerful speaker with a temper. He would visit alehouses and drive the drinkers out. He spoke long prayers and uttered things his congregation may not have truly understood, but he was steadfast and strong in a dangerous place. You might not agree with the Reverend Samuel Moody but you did not miss his Sunday sermon. He was a self-righteous, bombastic, holier-than-thou, fire and brimstone preacher whose power of personality was immense among his people. This was the man who at 71 years old, a very ripe age for the time, volunteered to be the senior chaplain to the expedition at Louisbourg. At the time he was the oldest man in the Colonial Army. When they did capture the fort, Moody took an ax to the Catholic altar and religious images in the chapel there. He was a fiery, powerful, not-to-be-questioned man.
Old Samuel Moody may have been so righteous and driven because he felt the “irresistible grace” of the Lord. Like most of the other early American religious sects, he was a follower of that branch of Protestantism called Calvinism, named after John Calvin of Geneva. One of the core beliefs of Calvinism was that before God created the world, he predestined or predetermined the eternal destiny of each and every soul born into the world. You were either going to Heaven or Hell and there was nothing you could do about it. Neither Faith nor good works could change your standing in the eyes of God and you had no way of knowing if you were saved or not. But there were clues and the hope of salvation was what this system of beliefs was all about. Samuel Moody approached his work on earth from a very particular kind of Calvinism called Preparationist Predestination.In this nuanced form of Calvinism, God grants each person a kind of foreknowledge, a preparatory grace. Some people will simply know if they are saved, hearing the call, feeling the will of God at work within them. These are the lucky ones because, although God gives everyone the ability to feel this grace, not everyone does. Some people like the good Reverend Samuel Moody felt something called “irresistible grace,” an overwhelming confirmation in your heart that you are saved, a feeling so strong that it changes your life completely. After all, if you know you are going to Heaven, then you are one of the chosen ones, you don’t have to worry anymore. Samuel believed in this kind of preparatory predestination and it is safe to say, so did his son Joseph. Ostensibly, so did the members of his congregation. The question is, did Joseph feel this irresistible grace? If he didn’t, it is also safe to say that doubt would haunt him day and night, uncertainty would gnaw at his sleep. Why hadn’t he been chosen? When would he know? How difficult it must have been to be the son of Samuel Moody. How could you ever please such a man? How could you ever hope to gain his pleasure and approval? How could you ever function outside of his shadow? When old Samuel Moody died in 1746, he did so in his son’s arms. Was there relief for Joseph who could now finally become his own man in the community or was there fear? Fear that he might not be good enough to fill his father’s shoes in the community? Fear that he was not a chosen one.
Patience Boston was a Native American woman who was executed for murder in July of 1735 outside the old York jail at the young age of twenty-three years. She had freely confessed her guilt to the authorities in York. There was no trial for Patience. Young Benjamin Trott, she said, had been lured to a well and she had pushed him in and held him down with a stick until he drowned. But before she died upon the gallows, she played a very important part in the lives of the Moodys and in particular, may well be the reason that Joseph had his breakdown and began withdrawing from the world - all of this because, though she was a confessed murderer, she may have been entirely innocent.
What we know of her actually comes from her own story, as told to the Moodys, most probably Joseph, while she lingered for a year in jail awaiting sentencing. It is one of the few first-person tracts we have from a native American of the time. Through many visits with the Moodys, she narrated her tale, though upon reading it the men state that the words may not all be hers, the spirit of what is written is. Her story begins when she was born a member of the Nauset tribe in Massachusetts, a group of natives who had converted and were known to the white settlers as the ‘praying’ Indians. Her grandfather was one of the leaders of the tribe through her mothers side, but her mother died when she was three and her father indentured her to a white family, where she was removed from her people and placed among strangers in a separate, distinctly different culture than her own. Massachusetts law at the time declared that indentured servants were required to be able to read so they could study scripture, so young Patience was taught to read but not to write, thus requiring the Moodys to scribe for her while she was in prison. She was a Native American living under the roof of an English settler at a time of the French and Indian Wars, a stranger in a strange land. In her confession she indicates that while growing up, she was wicked and set fire to the house three times. She was taught that she had a wicked spirit by her mistress, the only person who, it seems, paid the girl any attention at all, that her nature was evil and sinful.. She writes, “My mistress would tell me that if I did not repent and turn to God, he might justly leave me to greater Sins. She was greatly concerned for me, and told me she was much afraid I should come to the gallows; and though she might not live to see it, she expected it.”
When she reached the end of her indenture, she was free. The problem was that she was also an outcast. Who would she keep society with? Other natives? Probably not because she had not grown up among them and did not know them, influenced as she was by the English families she had been indentured to. The white settlers? Again, probably not, because of the color of her skin and the fact that she was native. Patience Boston had a problem: she didn’t really belong anywhere.
She gained her freedom and eventually met a black man, a slave, named Boston. Patience owned some land and used it to purchase Boston’s freedom. However, no natives were allowed to live within the confines of the town unless they were connected with a member or servant of one of the English families, so Patience indentured herself again so she could be connected and remain with her husband in the settlement. How much time she actually spent with her husband is in question. He was a whaler and gone for long stretches of time. She must have truly loved him to sacrifice so much to be with him, or perhaps she was simply so very hungry for connection to something, to someone.
During one of his absences, Patience gave birth to her first child who subsequently died soon after. She later claimed to the judicial authorities that the child was physically damaged during a particularly difficult birth and there was no way it could have lived. Truthfully, a native woman would not have expected or received help from an English master during birth, not a midwife or a helper in sight. This was her first child and she was mostly likely alone during the birth, which she claimed was a difficult one. Subsequently, she was either accused of infanticide or accused herself. A pious Christian woman of the time might well have blamed herself as having brought down the wrath of God by not being pious enough. If there was no other apparent cause, then it must be the fault of the mother for the death of the child, God’s punishment to her. To what extent Patience believed this can be inferred because, strangely enough, she claimed it happened again.
Boston returned and soon Patience was pregnant again and he was back at sea, leaving her to engage in whatever life she wanted insofar as her indenture allowed. Did she engage in the consumption of alcohol during this time? She claims she did. Did she consort with unfavorable characters while her husband was away? Yes. There was a belief in the culture of the time that if a woman was a sinner and had been actively engaged in sinful behavior that her offspring might be misshapen or deformed and the reason that the child was born this way was proof of a sinful nature. Thus, she claims in her confession, she gave birth to such a child, her second, and it only lived for a brief time, like her first. It is no stretch of the imagination to conclude that Patience blamed her child’s misshapen form and death on her own sinful behavior.
Patience accused herself once more of infanticide, claiming that she was responsible for the death of her second child as she was for the first. The court took this seriously. She took them to the place where she claimed she buried her misshapen child. There was no corpse. The court ordered her to be examined by midwives who concluded that she had not recently given birth. Had there even been a second child at all or was this second claim of infanticide a sign of some kind of deep mental illness on her part? A need for attention, a call for help? The local authorities pronounced her not guilty as there was no proof. Her husband effectively abandoned her after this debacle and Boston is not heard from again. At this point, Patience is indentured to the family of Benjamin Skillin in Falmouth, modern day Portland, Maine. She leaves Massachusetts forever.
The events so far show us a young woman who, at the age of three, was removed from her native culture and family to live with English settlers. When she comes of age, she is a young woman without a place in the world - she does not belong to the tribe in that she was not brought up as one of them. She does not belong to the English community, because as a Native American, she would always be an outsider. She gains her freedom only to sell it again so she can be with a man who is rarely home and then abandons her. She is now working for a family of strangers in a new place, a place unfamiliar and for her, it must have been even more lonely and isolating. She claims that she hated her position and her master. She writes about wanting to poison him and either cannot find the courage or the opportunity to kill him in that manner. She decides instead to kill his favorite grandchild, an 8 year old boy who she claims to love, named Benjamin Trott.
One day, with the entire family gone and while in her charge, she calls him to a well either in or near the forest and tells him that a stick has fallen into it and she needs help retrieving it. He obliges and while bent over, she claims she pushed him in and held him down under the water with another stick until he drowns. From there, she immediately goes to a neighboring house and confesses her deed. She is taken into custody and placed in York jail, which is, coincidently, not very far away from the workplace of Joseph and Samuel Moody. There, she confesses to the willful murder of the child. Because she confesses, there is no trial. Instead, she needs to be sentenced by the court that tries capital cases and that is a traveling court that visits York only once a year. She is incarcerated until they return the next year. What makes the case even stranger is that at the time of her incarceration, Patience is pregnant for a third time.
Or perhaps only her second. While in jail, she is visited often by the Moodys who listen to her and witness her conversion, pledging her life to Jesus and narrating to them one of the most remarkable narratives in early American history. Samuel Moody is convinced in the sincerity of her knowledge of possessing the ‘irresistible grace’ that he, too, has felt, from God. She is so convinced that she committed the crime that she asks to do something that might be thought of as the time’s equivalent of a lie-detector test. In front of the Coroner's Jury, she asks to touch the body of young Benjamin Trott. At the time, there were limited methods of investigating crimes and science and logic did not always play as large a role as they do today. They had their own methods from times past. According to English folk belief, it was thought that the body of a murder victim retained some form of mystical connection to the perpetrator. If the murderer touched or somehow came into contact with the victim’s body, it was believed that the corpse would bleed, that the blood would rise to the murderer’s touch. This ‘trial by touch’ was allowed in Patience’s case. Young Trott’s body did not bruise, move or bleed at her touch, which was some proof that she did not commit this crime she admitted to. She disputed the results of this test, and perhaps she was troubled about it. Perhaps Joseph Moody was, too.
“The Faithful Narrative of the Wicked Life and Remarkable Conversion of Patience Boston” will one day become a pamphlet one could buy in any of the colonies. A repentant sinner who has experienced the irresistible grace of God, she impresses the Moodys in her earnestness and calm, convincing old Samuel that she is one of the elect, as far as he can tell. At the gallows, a man who was well-known for doubting anyone’s chances of salvation, proclaims that he is fairly certain that if Patience is telling the truth about the murder of Benjamin Trott, that she would be in Paradise with the Elect after her execution. How strange to say that if she was ‘telling the truth’, then she would be saved. Was he somehow saying publicly that he was absolving himself of his part in this affair, that the lie was hers to own, not his? Did he know she was lying?
She was hanged. Her grave is unmarked and unknown. Thus, we have the confession of a sinner and a murderer and that is the end of it. That is how it rested for two hundred years or more.
But this is where things begin to fall apart. Let’s imagine another scenario. This is not the one that will be written about, published and sold to the edification of the righteous. This one,however, might be true. On the day in question, Patience Boston is left alone to care for young 8 year old Benjamin Trott. They are together on the property and she leaves him alone for a few moments while attending to one of the many chores she is required to complete before the family returns home. She calls for young Benjamin and he does not answer. Searching for him, she finds him in the well, drowned, unable to climb out of the water on his own. She knows this is all her fault, that she should have been watching him and not knowing what else to do, she goes to the neighbors house and explains what has happened. One can imagine her taking the blame for the boy’s death, claiming that is “all my fault.” They hold her there, a native American servant with no real rights, and go to the well, finding the boy's body as she had told them. They immediately take her to the jail, the place in the settlement where the men of the law could question her. It is not out of the question to surmise that Joseph Moody, Town Clerk, Register of Deeds, Schoolmaster and minister might have been the first to know of her presence there and he visits her in the jail, most likely accompanied by his father, the Reverend Mr. Samuel Moody of the long prayer.
Samuel sees one of the most wretched sights of his life sitting on the cold stone floor of the cell, a Native American indentured woman who has a known history of having claimed to have murdered her own children, though most people doubt the veracity of her wild assertions.. She is known to be a person who has made unsubstantiated claims in the past. And it is then that I believe Samuel Moody makes a decision as the senior pastor of the Church, a decision that will strengthen his standing among the people, a decision that will haunt Joseph for the remainder of his life. There she was, confused and alone in the world without any champions or rights, a person without support. She feels responsible for the deaths of her own children, though it seems highly likely that she did not actually murder them, and now there is another child whose life was taken because of her own negligence. She feels responsible for the child’s death, she decides, and she will most certainly burn in the fires of Hell for all eternity. She is being punished by God and she is lost, alone, and wretched.
In walks Samuel Moody, powerful, and able to speak with confidence about the assurance of salvation and the grace of God. In walks Joseph Moody right behind him, the chronicler of her story, two men whose lives are at this moment intersecting with the life of Patience Boston. Words were said among sinners in that cell, words that convinced Patience to repent and confess and accept the irresistible grace that must surely be hers, even though she die upon the gallows for it. If you tell someone they are guilty often enough, if you repeatedly beat them down with their own words, you can make them believe and say things that simply are not true. Did Samuel and Joseph Moody convince her that she was truly guilty of pushing the boy into the well, not just of negligence because she was not focused on his whereabouts at the time? Might someone already convinced of the verdict of God against her be easy to manipulate?
During her time in jail, she had moments where she despairs, moments where her anxiety about burning in Hell nearly totally consumes her. She gives birth to her child in that cell. She is allowed out to go to Church where her evil nature would be reinforced, but at least she got to leave once a week. There was no doubt as the days turned into weeks that sooner rather than later she would be executed. This gave Patience plenty of time to question her confession and that was when Joseph came to visit with his pen and paper. Sitting through hour after hour of conversation and counseling, he made sure she told him everything about her, her entire life story. One can well imagine how the more sensitive Joseph could listen with a sympathetic ear and bond with Patience, always assuring her that if she would only submit herself to the Lord, she might be gifted with that irresistible grace that would assure her she was one of his Elect, though it is very likely that Joseph never once felt that way himself. She continued to vacillate, to be unsure about having pushed young Trott into the well which would be murder or having merely lost track of where he was and therefore to be guilty only of negligence. It was a very difficult time for her. The visits from the two clergymen continue, likely her only visitors, and if old Samuel prayed with her, it is likely that he spoke out the entire narrative aloud as he prayed. And it must have been the tale we eventually read in the pamphlet that he and his son Joseph put together and even share on the gallows just before her hanging. I believe she eventually gave way, because one day she is described as being very calm and bright, happy to go to her end, convinced that she was blessed with the true knowledge that she was going to be with the Lord. She had finally found the grace that Preparationist Predestination promises. It was proof to her that she was saved.
But was she? Or was she simply brainwashed into believing that the narrative outlined by the Moodys was in fact correct and that she did willfully murder young Benjamin Trott by luring him to the well and pushing him down into the water? Though she may not have actually done this, over time did she come to believe that she might as well have and if she might as well have, then she did, in truth, willfully kill him when in all likelihood, she did not? Just as she did not kill her other two children? Just as she confessed to crimes in the past that she obviously did not commit? Samuel and Joseph Moody had a great conversion tale to tell the world, a profound prison confession that clearly showed the power of the Holy Spirit moving through the most unworthy among them in the village. If Patience Boston could feel the grace of God, the power of the Holy Spirit moving through her, was this not proof of the power and glory of the Lord?
After she was hanged, she was quickly forgotten, as was the written record scribed by Joseph Moody. One thing led to another and the Moodys never did publish her story to the world. It was only when a minister from Boston saw the story while visiting the Moodys that they decided to give this tale more attention and it was published not in York but in Boston and it quickly became a best-seller in the colonies. The names of Patience Boston and the Moodys were on the lips of many as they read the story to the family after prayers in the evening. How remarkable.! How full of wonder!
What I find remarkable about this is that the publication of her story, which didn’t occur until three years after her execution, coincides with Joseph’s breakdown and the first wearing of the cloth over his face. What if Joseph Moody had reservations about the guilt of Patience Boston? What if he had helped an innocent woman to confess something that she did not do, or what if he had seen the actual truth and said nothing, allowing events to unfold as they did? What troubled Joseph so much that three years after her death, he effectively shuts himself off from the society of others? Did he feel guilt for his part in her execution? Did he feel pain at the orphaning of her child? Did he feel anger at his father for using this poor woman as an example, possibly because she was easily manipulated? Did he truly believe in her guilt or was he haunted by it because he lacked the strength to oppose his father at the time when it was needed the most? He never told anyone why he hid from them.
In the end, my supposition is based upon a single thread, trying to make sense of an educated man’s choice to separate himself from the people, and an uneducated woman’s supposed confession, having confessed previously to murders she did not actually commit. While it is not clear how often Joseph Moody wore the veil, or even if he did at all, it is clear that he spent a great deal of time with a young woman who was troubled and lost, apart from her people, belonging nowhere, not even to Heaven above. He scribed her words and, alone in the cell with her, he may have grown to see the truth, something that is difficult to see when you’re the only one who does. He was a sensitive man, by all accounts, and might well have been troubled by the conversion of Patience Boston, suspecting that it was insincere, a kind of wish-fulfillment on her part and a promise given by his father to her that should never have been offered. Did Patience admit a false confession to the murder of Benjamin Trott? It’s possible and the good people of Old York knew it, too. All we have are modern studies to back this up, but according to the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals, false confessions were a factor in about 25% of the DNA exonerations in the United States. In her case, Patience may have likely had mental health problems that made her susceptible to making false confessions under even the slightest pressure. In a world where nothing you could do could save your soul from eternal damnation, anything was better than nothing, even confessing to murder and then claiming to be saved, convincing yourself that everything will be fine and supported by God’s top representative in the land, the good Reverend Samuel Moody. If the timing of the publication of Patience Boston’s confession and Joseph Moody’s subsequent donning of the veil is mere coincidence, then it is a strange one indeed. Was Patience Boston a murderer or did young Trott simply fall into a well and drown, an unfortunate accident, but an accident nonetheless? Did Joseph Moody ever find peace, ever feel that he was one of God’s chosen? Did he wear the veil to hide the secret sin in his part of convincing and selling the idea of Patience’s guilt to people of York, even when many disputed it? Time has a way of blinding as well as of enlightening. For over two hundred years, a young native American woman has been claimed to be one of New England’s foulest murderers of children, but was she? Or was she a tool for a powerful man who used her very life as a way of upholding his power in a world where the Devil lived in the darkness of the forest and where the damned walked the earth for only a span?
REFERENCES
Bailey, Alfred. “MOODY, SAMUEL,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 3, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed July 28, 2023, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/moody_samuel_3E.html.
Boston, Patience. “A faithful narrative of the wicked life and remarkable conversion of Patience Boston alias Samson; who was executed at York, in the County of York, July 24th. 1735. for the murder of Benjamin Trot of Falmouth in Casco Bay, a child of about eight years of age, whom she drowned in a well. : With a preface by the Reverend Messi. Samuel & Joseph Moody, Pastors of the churches in said town. : [Six lines of Scripture texts]” Joseph and Samuel Moody, Editors. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N03473.0001.001/1:2?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
Bottino, Danny & Peterson, Hannah.“Patience Boston, Life and Execution in York, Maine”. York Maine History. Jan 3 2023.
Carmona, Vana. “Patience Boston 1711-1735 – The Atlantic Black Box Project.” Atlantic Black Box, 28 September 2020, https://atlanticblackbox.com/2020/09/28/patience-boston-1726-1735/. Accessed 28 July 2023.
Siebert, Jr, Frank T. “MOG,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 2, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed July 28, 2023, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mog_2E.html.
A ghost story is usually a solitary thing. It lives by itself and doesn’t go out much and by its nature, is solitary and lonesome. A ghost story is the hermit of tales because, so often, a spirit is only experienced by a single person, whether it be a chill in the air, a fleeting image in the darkness, a shadow in the window on the top floor as you casually glance upward. Most people don’t see spirits in pairs or groups. They seem them when they’re all alone. It makes you wonder, if you’re an imbiber of such stories, if most of them might simply be creations of the mind, unintended tulpas of the imagination. They’re a part of the human experience. Ghost stories are as old as we are and stretch back into our prehistory, into the times before we could record them for future generations. Ghosts are part of that collective memory we all share. Their stories continue to be told because, I believe, we need them. Strangely, they frighten us but they also bring us hope? We’ll see about that.
But what can we make of the other stories, the ones where multiple people claim to have seen or experienced’ that which cannot be easily explained and therefore fall into the inescapable realm of confused possibility? If one person sees a ghost, much like a single witness of a UFO, we can easily dismiss their story as idyll fancy. It’s your word against theirs. But if many people claim to have seen a strange and inexplicable sight such as a ghost, well, that’s something completely different. That’s a little more difficult to refute.
This is the story of such a sighting, though the names of the witnesses are mostly lost to history. We have a captain’s name and the name of two ships. The sighting has devolved into a legend, but when it was first reported in the 1860s, just after the American Civil War, it was regarded as the truth at a time when people were less skeptical and more ready to believe in things they could not prove. As for its actual veracity, I’ll let you be the judge.
The Charles Haskell was a fishing schooner built in Boston. A two-masted ship, fast and efficient, she was built for cod fishing in the Atlantic, where ships like her went for extended periods, for weeks or even months at a time. Typically, the cod was salted right on board before returning to shore. In the case of the Charles Haskell, she was headed for Georges’ Bank, there to reap the rich harvest. By all accounts, she was a sleek vessel, well-made for carving through the waves and making her way. The problem with the Haskell was that….no one wanted to sail on her. Before her maiden voyage, a workman on the ship slipped on the deck and broke his neck, killing him on the spot. Sailors have long been superstitious and they have tales among themselves that prove their belief. There was no whistling aboard ship - it summons the wind down or provokes storms. Women on board were forbidden - they distract the crew and anger the sea gods themselves. Never depart on a Friday, for that was the day the Lord was crucified. A red sky in the morning was a bad omen, spelling out inclement weather. It is not hard to imagine why a sailor might not want to serve on a brand new ship that had been christened by the death of a man. Her owners couldn’t even find a captain - but as must happen in every good story, a captain was eventually found, a man named Curtis and was a Gloucester man and he found a crew alright, mostly fellow Gloucester men like himself.
New England fishermen typically fish for cod during the spring or summer months with the prime season being from late April or early May through September. The Charles Haskell didn’t wait for spring. Like many, she had to venture to much deeper offshore waters as the cod migrated away from shore seeking their food. Winter fishing was challenging and dangerous and required only the sturdiest of vessels using long-lining and nets to catch the cod in the dark depths below. Captain Curtis and the crew of the Haskell made their maiden voyage in February of 1866, off to Georges Bank to join the others whose occupation was to go after cod.
Anyone who has sailed the turbulent Atlantic waters off New England will tell you how capricious the weather can be, how quickly it can rise to a tempest without any real warning. Between 1830 and 1892, nearly 600 ships and more than 3,000 lives were lost in the waters of the Grand Banks, of which Georges Banks is a part. Shallower than the rest of the Grand Banks, Georges Bank covers nearly 10,000 miles southeast of Cape Cod. These waters were among the richest and most important fishing areas in the world and there were many ships fishing in the same area, often with captains and crew who knew each other well.
It was March 7, 1866 and the Haskell was at anchor, her crew going about their daily routine, when Captain Curtis noticed the darkness on the horizon, felt the change in the air, and knew in his bones that they were facing a sudden, imminent change in the weather. He’d seen it many times before and he knew he had only minutes before they would find themselves in the midst of hurricane winds. He could see other vessels out there and he understood that in a storm, two vessels can easily collide with little capacity to control their courses. Curtis prepared to ride out the storm as best he could, keeping his eye on the other ships.
As the wind picked up and began to howl, the crew understood that they were in grave danger. They were facing gale force winds and the sea was roiling with wave after wave covering the decks. All they could do was ride out the storm and try…try and pray while trying…to ride a safe course through it. And then, as the sky grew dark and waves thrashed, Captain Curtis saw another schooner, the Andrew Jackson out of Salem, coming his way. He knew the captain, he knew some of the crew. His own life and the lives of his crew were in peril as the bow of the Andrew Jackson rushed quickly toward the Charles Haskell. He ordered the anchor cut so they could escape a collision, but it was that very act that caused the tragedy. Steering away from the ship with all of his strength and skill, Captain Curtis couldn’t avoid the Jackson as it crossed his path, slamming into his ship in the midst of the screaming wind. The crew of the Charles Haskell held on for dear life, trying to assess their situation. As they waited for word, they watched the Andrew Jackson quickly slip beneath the waves, taking her crew to a watery grave. All hands were lost. The Haskell was damaged and limped back to port when the storm abated, making for St. Johns, Newfoundland.
Such was the fate of the Andrew Jackson and her crew. Those who go down to the sea in ships do not always have divine intervention to save them. Some cry for help and do not receive it. The Charles Haskell’s crew made it home. They got to see their families again. Their lives went on from day to day and the following year, her damages fixed, the Charles Haskell set out again for the Georges Bank. That’s when something inexplicable happened, something beyond any understanding.
The sky was clear and a full moon shone when, six days out of port, the men of the night watch on the Charles Haskell looked out upon the waters and noticed something strange, something that made no sense at all to them. As they regarded the waves lapping up on the sides of their ship, they sawsome things in the water, bobbing up and down. Soon, the men stood in pure fear as the Charles Haskell was surrounded by them and they understood what they were seeing in the moonlight: human heads bobbing up and down with the waves. And then, to their amazement, the heads turned into men in oilskins and they slowly climbed up the side of the Charles Haskell, lifting themselves up the railings and onto the deck of the ship. Speechless, nearly unable to breathe through fear, the men of the night watch stared in wide-eyed fear at the watery forms. They were as silent as the tomb. They had no eyes - only empty sockets.
The night watch called Captain Curtis and they watched the ghostly crew. Each spectral figure took a station and went through the motions of baiting the lines and sinking them into water, for all intents and purposes fishing for cod under the cold light of the full moon. They worked the lines all night long until the approach of the morning light when, in a strange rewinding fashion, they slipped over the sides of the Charles Haskell and back into the sea, falling below the waves, returning to the depths.
The men of the night watch spread the word to the nervous crew. This was a portent, a warning. This was a sign from beyond. All that day the crew whispered among themselves and the captain knew his fishing season was going to be cut short. He called them together and told them that the rumor they had heard from the night watchmen was just that. Nothing unusual had happened. The men were imagining it. He was there and saw nothing. He told them to get back about their business. There was fishing to do and they were Gloucestermen, after all.
But no man on the Charles Haskell slept that night. They waited for the light of the full moon to bathe the waters in its ivory glow and sure enough, the ghostly crew emerged from the waves, arose and climbed onto the Haskell once more. The entire crew watched in abject terror as the phantoms went about their work as they had done the night before. One of the crew counted them - twenty-six. Twenty-six was the number of men who perished aboard the Andrew Jackson out of Salem when she collided with the Haskell the prior year. Was this the crew of the Andrew Jackson returning to the Haskell to give some sort of warning? Then, as the cold light of day began to approach, the ghostly crew slipped back over the side but this time, this time they didn’t sink below the cold and unforgiving waves. They walked on the water in single file in the direction of their home port of Salem, Massachusetts, disappeared as the light of the morning sun erased them from the world.
The captain of the Charles Haskell knew it was over. There was no way this crew could maintain their focus and finish the fishing season. He hauled anchor and set sail for St. John’s, Newfoundland. Anchored there at the dock, the Charles Haskell remained for a long, long time. The captain and crew took passage home on another ship and no one, not a single person, would go aboard the cursed ship, though she was sea-worthy and ready to sail. Her owners wrote her off and would not spend another nickel to retrieve her. They knew well, as did Captain Curtis, that the Charles Haskell was now a “hoodoo’ ship, doomed from its very beginning to its inglorious end.
But there was one more voyage the Charles Haskell would make. Taking up valuable space at the dock in St. Johns, the ship was abandoned and considered salvage, but none wanted her. The harbor master eventually ordered that she be towed to the deep waters and set aflame to make room for other ships at the dock. She was towed out to deep water and those few who were there set her on fire to burn her down to the waterline and then, to sink her beneath the sea, erasing her from the minds of men forever. But when the sailors who were sent to sink her came home, word spread among the mariners that they saw something they could not explain.
As the ship began to burn, it appeared to the tenders that forms could be seen on the deck, forms of men walking amidst the flames, going about the business of baiting and sinking lines. A trick of the light? A trick of the brain? Perhaps. They all knew the story of the crew of the Andrew Jackson and maybe they just told the tale to keep the children awake at night, for the sheer telling of the tale, but a good many of these men believed it, too. The spectral crew moved among the fire and as the Charles Haskell burned, she moved away on some unfelt breeze. As the sun began to set, the tenders of the ship witnessed the last sighting of the Haskell against the orange-red of the horizon, manned by ghosts steering toward some unknown destination.
You can find a ghost story in almost every corner of the world, in any city or little town. They travel with us, never far away. You might ask yourself: did this really happen? Was there actually a ship called the “Charles Haskell” from Boston? The tale of the Charles Haskell and the phantom crew of the Andrew Jackson is a maritime legend. There’s even a famous folk song called “The Ghostly Sailors” that was written about it and sung, no doubt, aboard many a ship under the light of a full and ivory moon. The crew of the Johnson carrying out their eternal task of fishing for cod that sent them to their doom is a story- let’s leave it at that. After enough time passes and everyone who saw the ghosts are possibly ghosts themselves, there’s no point in trying to prove anything, especially a ghost story. Anyway, it is my belief that you don’t prove that ghosts are real. You wonder. Like all stories, it’s just real enough and like all legends, has its basis in truth. Do you believe in ghosts? Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone…
The Ghostly Sailors
You may smile if you want to,
But perhaps you’ll lend an ear,
For boys and girls together,
Well on for fifty years,
I’ve sailed in fishing vessels,
In summer’s pleasant gales,
And all through stormy winters,
Where the howling winds did rage.
I’ve been tossed about on Georgia Shoals,
Been fishing in the Bay,
Down south in early seasons,
Most anywhere would pay,
I’ve been [in different vessels],
On the Western Banks and Grand,
I’ve been in herring vessels
That went to Newfoundland.
There I saw storms, I tell you,
And things looked rather blue,
But somehow I was lucky,
And quickly I got through,
I will not brag, however,
I will not say so much,
I have not been easily frightened,
Like most of other men.
Last night as we were sailing,
We were sailing off the shore,
I never will forget it,
In all my mortal days,
It was in the grand dog watches,
I felt a thrilling dread,
Came over me as I hear,
One calling from the dead.
Right over our rail there clambered,
All silent, one by one,
A dozen dripping sailors,
Just wait till I am done,
Their face were pale and sea worn,
Shone through the ghostly night,
Each fellow took his station,
As if he had a right.
They moved around about us,
‘Till land was most in sight,
Or rather I should say so,
The lighthouse shone its light,
And then those ghostly sailors,
Moved to the rail again,
And vanished in an instant,
Before the sons of men.
We sailed right in the harbour,
And every mother’s son,
Will tell the same sad story,
The same as I have done,
The trip before the other,
We were off Georgia then,
We ran down another vessel,
And sank her and her men.
These were the same poor fellows,
I hope God rests their souls,
That our old craft ran over,
And sank on Georgia Shoals,
So now you have my story,
It is just as I say,
I did not believe in spirits,
Until this very day.
You’ve heard a lot of stories about the old days in the deep woods of northern Maine, when river drivers cut the trees and moved the logs into the rivers, down the great waterways or through the dense frozen forest. In Maine’s early days as a state, most of it was a frontier, far removed from the rest of civilization and only connected with a thin line of rail or a dark ribbon of water weaving its way from the overwhelming forest to the towns and cities near the coast. When winter came and the ground froze solid, that’s when lumbermen ventured deep into the woods, so deep that the closest connection with the world was literally days away.
Working in the deep woods meant isolation for long periods of time, away from the comforts and the safety of civilization, especially healthcare. The men had to rely on each other and themselves in times of trial and uncertainty and this they did. There are songs and stories detailing the toils and times of these men of the woods, but perhaps none so strange and unique to Maine as the tales of the Charming Man. It’s quite likely you’ve never heard a tale like it. The Charming Man? He’s not what you think.
It seems that any time a group of people needs a healer, one seems to arise. It’s a hallmark of our species and perhaps the reasons we’ve made it thus far. When famed anthropologist Margaret Meade was asked when she thought civilization began, she didn’t choose the advent of agriculture over hunting and gathering as her moment when humans became something more than merely animals. She pointed to a fifteen thousand year old healed femur bone, saying that “in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, you cannot drink or hunt for food. Wounded in this way, you are meat for your predators. No creature survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. You are eaten first.” When one of us is in need, we feel a compulsion to help. It’s deep in our bones.
There’s a story told in a 1902 edition of Forest and Stream magazine that details the strange adventure of a friend of author Holman Day, a famous chronicler of the Maine wild lands at the turn of the last century. He details an exploit of a friend of his known only to the reader as “The Doctor.” In this tale, this doctor is hunting in the region of the woods above Upper Lobster Lake east of the Churchill, far from the cities near the coast. The interior of Maine in 1902 was a wild and lonely place. What follows are Holman’s words from the 1902 article, speaking as the doctor whose story it is.
“Now, you know I have been in the woods every season for ten years, and I never was lost up to that time. I did get lost, though, that day. I don’t have the least idea how it happened, but all at once I found myself wandering through the woods with no clear idea where I was going nor why, for I had told the guide that I would meet him at the head of the lake for a snack.
“Well, I traveled around quite a while. I’ll tell you just how I felt -it was as though something all at once had set me into a brown study and then when I came out of it I looked around to find that some sprite had moved the sun and had skeow-wowed the scenery around in some way that I failed to understand. Never had that happen to me in the woods before! In what I am going to relate, I do not want to be considered too credulous, but that mystification of the morning made the later events of that day more impressive.
“After a time I climbed the side of a hill and took a look around to see if I could locate any landmark. Off to the east of south by my compass I spied a column of smoke wavering up over the trees. I was so turned around that I couldn’t tell whether the lake lay in that direction or not, but I scrambled down the hill and plowed away in that hope.
“The smoke must have been five miles away, and it took me more than an hour to cover the distance. But I finally came into a clearing. There was a lumber camp there. No one was in sight outside, but in the free and easy way that prevails in the woods, I walked across the clearing, stamped off the snow in the dingle and walked into the camp. I never got such a surprise in all of my life. Half a dozen of the crew were in the camp. They all jumped up and rushed toward me. One of them yelled, “Be you the doctor?” “Well, I’m a doctor,” I said. “Don’t that beat all tophet, fellows?” cried the man; ‘he’s the doctor. And he’s right on the dot, too. We’ve been looking for ye,’ he stuttered, turning to me and fairly trembling in excitement. I commenced to get some interested myself.
“You folks appear to have been looking for me,” I suggested.
“You bet we have” the cook replied, twisting his bare arms in his apron.
“He said you’d get here at four o’clock,” he added, pointing to a little nickel alarm clock that hung alongside a bunk. It was then a few minutes past the hour.
“No one has sent for me,” said I, “and I didn’t know where I was coming. What do you people mean by saying that I was expected? I’ve been lost in the woods.”
“That’s jest what he said,” shouted several men in chorus, jostling together in their excitement.
“Who said so?” I demanded, with a bit of a temper, for it suddenly occurred to me that the men were ‘joshing’ me for their amusement.
“The charming man,” they answered. They were so earnest that I realized that they were not joshing, though for the life of me I couldn’t understand what it all meant.
“He’s right there in the bunk,” explained the cook.
“This charming man you were speaking of?” I asked. I had never heard of a charming man before and I wanted to see the curiosity.
“No, the man that got hurt,” said one of the crew. “The charming man went away.”
“It was dusky in the camp and one of the men carried a lantern to a bunk in the corner. There lay a man with his foot swathed in a torn blanket and an old coat. ‘He chopped himself on the ankle,” one of the men explained. While they held the lantern I unwrapped the bandages, my professional instincts suppressing, for a time, the questions I wanted to pump at the men. It was a bad case. The ax had partly severed the ankle at the joint, and the wound, treated by such rude methods as were at hand in the camp, was past the point where it could be healed. ‘He hurt it three or four days ago,’ said one of the crew. ‘We done what we could for him, but I guess it wasn’t very much.’
“That foot must come off,” I told them.
“That’s jest what he said,” was the immediate chorus. ‘The charming man said so,’ added the cook, noticing my astonishment at their excitement over my simple statement.
“I assure you I was getting mighty curious by this time, but the doctor in me was on top. I started one of the men off to the sporting camp for my case of instruments that I always take into the woods with me. Then I sat down to wait and listen to the story the men had to tell me.”
“The camp was on Matthew’s Upper Lobster. The injured man was one of the swampers, and when he had hacked his ankle the men had put on a tourniquet in the best style they could and lugged him to the camp. Word was sent by tote-team for a doctor, but the nearest one was a hundred miles away. On the morning of that day, when I arrived at the camp, the stranger had appeared. The men told me that he was about sixty-five years of age, wore a tight-fitting suit of ribbed wool like a union undergarment, and over that a huge blanket coat. On his head was a knitted cap with the peak hanging down his back. The garb was suited well enough to wood’s life, but it was all a dead, deep black, and indicated that our mysterious friend was a bit ‘staggy.’
“The men went on to tell me that the stranger walked into the camp and up to the bunk where the injured man lay and announced in deep tones that he had some to heal. But after he had looked the victim over he said that he could only charm away the inflammation. “The foot must be cut off,” he declared, “and I do not stain my hands in human blood. My mission on earth is to alleviate suffering. I can summon here the man who will do the work, and I will remove the pain.”
“The man then drew some unknown substance from his pocket and threw it upon the coals that he raked forward on the camp hearth. A dense, black smoke went rolling up the short chimney. The men in the camp described this operation as ‘burning medicine,’ a resource that is occasionally adopted by the Penbscot Indians in the woods when they seek for good fortune in hunting or in recovering lost articles. While the stuff smoldered and smoked the man jabbered in low tones. Then he suddenly broke out, ‘He is coming this way - he is crossing a brook, he is climbing a hill - now he sees the smoke - he will come to this place - he is the surgeon who will do this work.”
“The crew then explained that at this point, one of them had the assurance to brace up to the stranger and ask him what he was trying to do. The charming man explained with great dignity that through his spell head caused a hunter - a city doctor - who was then five miles from that place, to lose his way first and then espy the smoke rolling up from the camp hearth. ‘He will be here in just one hour by that clock,’ he stated, ‘He will send for his tools and will cut off that man’s leg. Tell him for me that there will be no pain from the operation and no blood to speak of, neither will there be inflammation following. I have attended to all that. I will return in two weeks for my pay. If it doesn’t come about as I have said, you need give me ‘nother. Remember, the doctor will come in an hour.”
“And sure enough I did, and under those circumstances, you see, my lively reception was not astonishing.”
“While I was waiting for the instruments I examined the patient with great interest. I determined that he was a hypnotic trance. I tested him with the thermometer, took his pulse and listened to his respiration. They were not far from normal, but the man was entirely insensible.
“He remained in that condition through the operation, which I performed without anesthetics after I had made tests and had found that was apparently insensible to pain. But little blood followed the knife. The manner in which the limb had been bound by the rude tourniquet was partly responsible for the slight bleeding, but I am ready to testify as a surgeon that the bleeding was apparently somewhat controlled by the patient’s condition psychically as well as physically.
“But what was more interesting still was the fact that when the man came out of his stupor the next day he felt no pain in the leg, and when I visited him and dressed his stump during the next week he said that he hadn’t suffered even a twinge.
“The case interested me mightily, and if it had not been for the professional engagements that took me back to the city, I would have waited to see and talk with that mysterious man of the woods.”
The word ‘charming’ is defined generally as pleasant or attractive. A less common meaning is to control or achieve as if by magic. That’s the word we’re concerned with in this tale. There was a time, before the advent of modern medical knowledge, when shamen and wise women were the traditional healers of our species, all over the world. They had an understanding of plants and effective treatments, but they also knew of another kind of healing that modern science only recognizes as something like ‘the placebo effect.’ They had the power of belief and perhaps a good idea of the power of hypnotic suggestion. Call it the power of positive thinking if you like. If you’re of a religious bent, call it the power of prayer.
Health care, like the need for food and shelter, is one of the primary rungs on the ladder of Bloom’s taxonomy. In the case of the lumbermen of the North, they had a rudimentary understanding of setting bones and soothing rheumatism and healing small cuts, but when more skill than this was required, they were on their own. Unless…sometimes, a person just shows up, just in the nick of time, when needed.
What is remarkable about the Charming Man in this tale is that he is a stranger wandering an unpopulated land, wandering like a wizard and only appearing when needed. He appears like Odin of the old Norse myths, a bearded man from the wilderness, solitary, ready to assist and even to call for help using supernatural means when his own intervention would not be enough to save a person’s life. Even stranger, he explains that he will return for payment later - and inevitably, he never does.
So what, exactly, is a Charming Man? In the areas of northern Maine reaching into Quebec and any area with the French-Canadian tradition, he is a traditional faith healer whose origins go further back into the native culture of the region. Wandering loners, they have the ability, it seems, to sense when they are needed, arrive, diagnose, and treat illnesses. They are able to use prayer and charms to stop pain and treat inflammation. Leaning down to the afflicted, they would speak their ‘charm’ into his ear only, so that no one else could hear, and then they would treat their patients, calming them, taking away their pain with nothing more than a few well-spoken words and some herbs. For people living far from modern medicine, these people, who could be male or female, were the only doctors available and they were glad they had such help. Their name in French is “traiteur’ or in English, ‘treater’.They used plants, energy, and spiritual practices to affect their healing services and in the case of the lumbermen at the camp in Holman’s tale, they also knew enough about modern medicine to know when the work was beyond their ability to heal.
Sometimes these traiteurs would appear at a lumber camp and would offer prescriptive medicine. Everyone was fine at the moment, but in the middle of winter when he was too far away to affect any assistance, he had a kind of insurance plan he offered. The name of each man on the logging crew would be given to the Charming Man. He would prepare small sticks of what he called ‘medicine wood’, leaving these with the man in charge of the camp. If any man needed help during the winter, that man’s stick was to be burned and certain words were spoken, previously confided to the camp boss -these were sacrosanct words, never to be repeated to anyone. If this ritual was carried out to the word and letter, the Charming Man would hear it, no matter where he was on Earth. Then, he would treat the afflicted person mentally, from a distance. If you were in need of medical attention in the midst of the Maine woods, you had no doctor nearby. All you had was the Charming Man and the faith you had in him.
So where did these people come from and where have they gone? The Charming Man from our story spoke of his mission, “ to alleviate suffering.” Interestingly, he also states that he never stains his hands with human blood. In that, he indicates a pureness, perhaps a holiness, that gives us a glimpse into his nature. In her book, The Kennebec Wilderness Awakens, Mary Calvert writes:
The “power” was believed to be hereditary, with the “spell” being handed down from mother to son or father to daughter, never to the same sex. It could only be given down once, and could not be written down. Many old woodsmen believed implicitly in this power and would cite case after case around the evening campfire.”
The spell Calvert alludes to is a passage from the Bible, or at least that’s what one Charming Man revealed. Vaughn Knight, of Lincoln Center, Maine, had no one to give his charm to - no daughter to which he might pass down the spell and being of sufficient age and being interviewed by folklorists, revealed that his spell was a passage from Ezekiel 16, verse 6:
“And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto (put in the name), when thou wast in thy blood, Live (put in the name); yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.”
Traiteurs are people of faith whose power may lay within their patient’s capacity to believe in them. A man with a serious injury would likely not be healed by a traiteur. Instead, he might be ‘treated’, that is, be made stable and comfortable with hypnotic suggestion or other means until a surgeon could make his long journey inland to the isolated camps. To be fair, men died every winter in the camps. Logging is heavy, dangerous work and in those days, a serious injury often meant death. Charming men must have been few and far between because they did not always arrive when needed. Many lumbermen perished in the far camps without any help from anyone.
Today, we use genetics to create vaccines and to battle emerging diseases as well as older ones that are reemerging as our enemies. We build hospitals and have national and international health organizations to monitor our collective well-being and serve us through the use of well-researched science. It is interesting to note that in the northeast of the United States, a place where modern medicine truly began to thrive in places like the great colleges and universities, there was a need for traditional faith healing no less than a hundred years ago, bringers of hope in the dark and distant forest, arriving when needed, serving their patients and then leaving to melt back into the forest again.
SOURCES
Michaud, Al, Fortean Forest, “Doctors in Woods,” pp. 31-44. Antlerian Press, 2020.
Day, Holman, “The Charming Man of the Maine Woods,” Forest and Stream, October, 1902.
https://archive.org/stream/Foreststreamv58/Foreststreamv58_djvu.txt
Calvert, Mary, The Kennebec Wilderness Awakens, Twin City Printery, 1986.
Dana, David. “A Vernacular Healing System: Reinventing the Circle with Cadien Treaters”. From “Science and Religion: Global Perspectives,” June 408, 2005, Philadelphia, PA.
When I was a boy, I used to hear the train in the distance in the middle of the night. It broke the stone silence of my world like a knife, a long, lonesome whistle from over the hill next to the Aroostook River Valley, where the tracks ran. It was a sign of life, the Bangor and Aroostook. I never knew if it was headed north or south. I never saw the night train - I only ever heard its wail. It was reassuring. Even though my neck of the woods was lonely, there were train tracks connecting that loneliness to the wider world, somewhere out there. I had never been on a train. My parents had taken the B&A to Bangor for their honeymoon, but by the time I was a kid, no passengers rode the rails. Trains were a mystery to me, and I loved them.
Once, my father took me to the Allagash to see something strange and wonderful - the ghost trains. In a place with nothing but untamed wilderness as far as the eye could see, we walked a path into the dense forest to discover two steam locomotives just sitting there rusting away as time ticked on. These are mighty machines from the golden age of steam and must have been worth a fortune in their day and yet, at some point in their history, someone left them where they sat, two behemoths of iron nearly a hundred tons each, a hundred miles from any discernible tracks. I think they serve as a reminder that once, real trains broke through the dense forest, intruding into a wild place that eventually shut them out and left them for dead.
Sometimes trains can intrude upon our lives. We’re trying to get somewhere in a hurry and the lights start to flash and the blockade arms go down and we’re waiting for ten minutes while a freight train crosses our path. It’s huge, longer than a skyscraper is tall, and it takes a long time to crawl past us so we can be on our way. The train I heard as a boy intruded on my sleep. But there are trains, some say, that run on their own tracks, on tracks that aren’t even really there, on tracks that were abandoned years ago. These trains shouldn’t even be there, and they intrude upon our reality, our perception of what is possible. I’ve never seen one, but they’ve been reported for well over a century, nearly since the invention of the train itself.
From The New York Times, 1886
“An old story, which may be of interest to the students of psychical research, comes from Old Orchard. Before the Boston and Maine Railroad was extended to Portland, visitors reached Old Orchard by a branch of the Eastern Road. Since the building of the former road’s extension the branch had been abandoned, and no trains have run over it for years. The rails are up, and in many places the roadbed destroyed.
Last Summer, as a party of Canadian gentlemen, three in number, were walking along this deserted road, they heard distinctly the rumble of an approaching train. It came nearer and nearer, and yet nothing was seen. As it came close to them, they all involuntarily jumped from the track, and the invisible train passed them, going toward the beach, the sound growing fainter as it went on.
The gentlemen were much frightened, and one was quite overcome by the occurrence. He could not shake off the impression that had been left, and declared that he knew something terrible was to happen. That very afternoon he received a dispatch from friends in Montreal telling him that his wife and only child had been killed by a railroad accident that very forenoon.”
What are we to make of this tale? Given the lack of specific information it’s likely it was one of the small stories buried in the New York Times in the late 1880s designed to give the reader a bit of a fright, to appeal, perhaps, to their appreciation of the unknown. Modern journalism isn’t much better and often is written to appeal to emotion rather than to only relate the facts of a happening. It frankly defies belief, but then again, doesn’t every ghost story, everywhere, at any time? Ghost trains are by no means a local New England phenomenon. In fact, anywhere railroads have been laid down, stories of phantom trains have been reported from all around the globe, from South Africa and India to South America and Canada.
The Maine Woods, even today, are thick and cover a vast area. Maine retains the title of the most forested state in the country, surpassing even the states in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. For many, the Maine woods were a green spot on the map, a place they would never quite venture into, a no man’s land of bog, thick undergrowth, sweeping vistas of tall trees, wild animals, and perhaps, something more. Perhaps there was something about the Maine woods that made them different, special in ways other woodlands were not. For thousands of years, the only people who lived here were the indigenous “People of the Dawn,” the Wabanaki Confederacy of many tribes with the Penobscot being the largest. They have their stories of beings who inhabit the woods, ancient beings of power and magic. They do not report to us anything like a phantom locomotive in their lore.
The trains came to Maine almost as soon as they were invented. The lumbermen were already here, first looking for tall pines to use as masts for the tall ships and then the timber needed to build the great cities rising. These men were intruders and those who spent enough time in the deep woods had a respect for those places where no one ever goes. But they went to those places, nevertheless. The first train tracks laid in Maine were from Bangor to Old Town in 1836, only seven years after George Stephenson created the first viable locomotive in England in 1829. Though only 12 miles long, it was the first railroad in the state. From there, tracks were laid through forest and fen, areas were harvested, and then the men left, abandoning the tracks and taking the train to new areas, leaving them to be reclaimed by the woody root and forgotten to the memory of people. But something remained.
A story is told of a Bangor and Aroostook train running on the Canadian Pacific’s track near Moosehead Lake in the early 1900s. Those tracks cut across Maine running east-west, providing the quickest rail route connecting Montreal with Saint John, New Brunswick and Halifax. One spring night, a phantom train appeared and it seemed to have a purpose. The early spring is a time of ice breaking and flowing down the rivers, lodging in places, and often causing destruction. Late one night a B&A train was making its way up a grade near the southwest of Moosehead Lake when they heard the sound of another train’s whistle in the distance. This wasn’t all that strange. Passing trains, especially this far from civilization, often saluted each other as they approached and they reasoned that was what was happening. But the chief engineer looked behind and saw a light behind his own train, growing brighter and larger as it approached. Clearly, the following train’s speed was great. The chief engineer had his mate telegraph ahead to the next siding so the attendant could throw the switch and allow them to get off the track so this train didn’t run into them. In the meantime, the two railroad men increased their own speed so they would not be overtaken, but it was touch and go. For a few desperate moments, the trains sped into the night with the rear locomotive gaining on the front locomotive with every passing minute. Their anxious shoveling of coal into the firebox must have been accompanied by desperate shouting - was this train following them a special and if it was, why hadn’t anyone told them? Closer and closer the rear train gained and it was only at the last minute that the two engineers successfully turned their train into the siding. As they did so, they watched as the following train passed them by. It was only an engine and its tender car - no other cars attached. They could see the cab, well-lit, was empty.
The switchman ran to the two engineers whose train was now stopped and asked, “How did you fellas know to stop here? Did you know the bridge collapsed up ahead? The ice from the break up bound up against the supports and took her down! I just found out. How did you two know to stop?”
The two engineers looked at each other in amazement, their faces white with fear. “We didn’t,” they replied. “We pulled over to get out of the way of that damned special that was tailing us. Nearly ran us off the tracks!”
The switchman gave them a puzzled look. “Special? What special? You’re the only train on the tracks tonight.” He had neither heard nor seen the train that caused the two men to stop their own locomotive before they made it to the bridge.
Not every example of a phantom train has occurred on an actual railroad. Many tales told by those who worked in the deep woods described phantom trains that ran amidst the trees themselves, far from any ‘ribbon of steel’ upon which to ride. Sometimes, it’s an entire train, but other times, it is merely a light. Ghosts usually are described as haunting a place, a static location that can be pinpointed on a map, but ghost trains are a different kind of apparition altogether. They move through the world and their purpose is unclear, though it seems that they might be a foreteller, a harbinger, of sorts. Lincoln’s funeral train, the Lincoln Special, has been reported to appear on April 21st somewhere between Washington D.C. and Springfield, Illinois, near the anniversary of his death. There is a small train that precedes it, with a band playing silently as it passes by slowly. Then there’s the train carrying the body of the president, all bedecked in black crepe with ghostly figures staring blankly into the night as it moves along toward a destination it never achieves.
Whatever a phantom train is, it certainly is a part of the folklore of the modern world. We don’t have as many tales of phantom planes, although some exist. So far, we don’t have phantom spaceships climbing the skies, though we do have strange objects in the skies. We have stories of phantom cars, but that is fodder for another tale. It seems that moving from place to place has become an essential part of the human condition, something humans do as part of simply being alive. Alive? Perhaps we need to keep moving, even after we’re done living?
A poet from Orono, Maine wrote a poem in 1886. We only know him by his initials, B.B. In his poem his details seeing something otherworldly and wonders about its meaning.
“The Railway” by B.B.
(originally published in the Gospel Banner, Augusta, Maine 1850)
I went one day, when very young
Upon a railway ride,
I thought there was another train
Went with us, side by side.
The shadow of our own went on
Beside the railway track,
And noiselessly and rapidly
Kept on, and never back.
I wondered at that other train
That went so swift and still,
And leapt o’er chase, lakes and streams,
O’er valley, gorge and hill.
And while I saw it gliding on,
Forever by our side,
Meseemed it was a phantom-train
Went with our railway ride.
My merry comrades laughed, but I
In horror held my breath;
I thought ours was the Train of Life
Chased by the Train of Death.
Since then, a very many years
Full rapidly have sped,
Yet with them all have I beheld
The Railroad of the Dead.
Death - Life’s grim shadow - through them all
With life has kept its pace,
And I have sorrowed sore to see
We gain not in the race.
The world around me laugh at me
Because I am not gay,
And yet I know that in their glee
They hurry all away.
REFERENCES
“Ghost Train”. Wikipedia.org. Retrieved 22 Jul 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_train
“Lincoln’s Phantom Ghost Train: Night Switchman Describes Eyewitness Account in 1872”, Unmasked History Magazine, October 22, 2019.
Michaud, Al, Fortean Forest, 2020.Antlerian Press, pp.11-30
Stansfield, Charles A., Haunted Maine, 2007, Stackpole Books.
“The Phantom Train”, The New York Times, May 16, 1886, page 3
When I was a boy, my father told me a story about a ghost town. I come from northern Maine, Aroostook County, a place of endless trees and potato fields with more deer than people. It's lonely country, a place of long, quiet, windswept vistas, of dark temples in the forest, of a world not yet destroyed by the endless march of human industry. Not yet. To be clear, I had heard my share of ghost stories - my sister had even seen the spirit of my grandmother standing at the foot of her bed, watching over her. I know because I awoke to her screaming. We lived with the idea of the Holy Ghost, the idea that life did not end with death, that life is but a walking shadow of the world and times to come. Once, when I was 17, I came face to face with a full body apparition. I'm still not sure what that was. But when my father told me of the ghost town, it was a horse of a different color. It wasn’t the remnant or memory of a person - no, it was an entire place, lost and forgotten, like a ghost but not a ghost. You can’t hang out and linger with a ghost, but a ghost town? Maybe it was the next, best thing.
“The clay there is red,” he told me. “That’s how you’ll know you’re there. It lies next to the river. It was a whole settlement, with a general store, homes, you know…A while back some folks dug there for clay to make ceramics with. Reddest clay you ever saw. Like blood. Not much left now, just a couple of old foundations and an old, broken down church from what I remember when I went there as a kid. It’s not far away,” he told me, “just over the hill and down by the river, a hidden place. No one goes there anymore. It used to be called Dow Siding. There’s a road, but it’s hard to find. Mostly grown over. More like a path” he told me, “but be careful. Don’t go there alone.” That was my old man, for you. Tell your boy about a ghost town, give him the rough coordinates, and then tell him not to go. So when there came a day when I didn’t have any real adult supervision, I hopped on my little Yamaha Mini-Enduro 60 and headed up through the field roads, over Buck Hill and down to the Aroostook River to search for a road that I hoped…man, I hoped for dear life that it existed.
It did. It took me half the day to find it, past people’s homes, down along fields even the farmers didn’t plow anymore, a patch of earth no one thought worthy of visiting. But there I was, going back and forth in a search pattern until…what was that? A pair of ruts in a tiny clearing? A pathway mostly overgrown with raspberry vines and thistle? Slowly, I drove the little bike through the thicket, dodging low hanging branches that cut at my face. Through squinting eyes, an opening appeared and then, a cleared area in the forest, something you only ever saw if it was a farmer’s field. This was not a field, but a half acre of land cleared years ago by forgotten hands and still, the woody root and red alder hadn’t been able to reclaim all of it. There were the remains of a building, very likely the church my father saw when he was a boy, all a pile of ruins. There were bits and pieces of metal, a wagon wheel, an ancient rusted hand pump resting at an angle in the ground. There were fieldstone foundations just peeking up through the undergrowth and, as I recall, a rosebush more full of blossoms than I had ever seen before. Someone had planted that rose, I thought. Someone had lived here, children had grown up here, men had risen early in the morning to keep the fires burning in the coldest winters imaginable. I got off my dirt bike and walked into the middle of the clearing. I could see where someone had dug into the side of a hill and, sure enough, the clay there was fine and as red as the dust of Mars. Someone had come back for it, as my father had told me, but even they eventually left this place alone. I stood there and listened for a long while. A silence fell, a kind of weight covering everything I could see. It was like I was all alone in the world - a totally empty planet, and this was all that was left. For a second, I was the ghost. And the absence of sound probably caused my own imagination to hear, on the edge of things, a cart rolling past, a horse’s measured clop as it passed me, a faint ringing of a bell far in the distance. For a moment, I realized the truth of things: a place, whether it be a room, a house, or even a town, doesn’t hold you and shelter you from the storm for the years of your life and then just let you go. It retains a memory of sorts, an echo of days long past and if you are receptive to such things, you can hear that echo and see those phantoms. They are not ghosts, they are only memories with weight, but on that lost afternoon of my youth nearly fifty years ago, I know one thing to be true - for a few moments, I was somewhere else. I never went back. It wouldn’t be the last time I stepped off the map.
Just like people, there are places that disappear. In the American West, there are many ghost towns. You can find them from Alaska to southern Texas, but there’s something about the climate in those places that keep the buildings standing and the roads open. In Maine, where the cold and the snow, the wind and rain rage and the green growth covers all, such places tend to quickly vanish from view. A road untraveled in this place will soon get lost in the thicket by the little maple saplings and the puckerbrush tangle of growth that are only kept at bay by constant travel.
There are many such places in Maine. This story is about one of them, a place known as Riceville. On a map made in 1894, it is noted as the F. Shaw and Brothers Bark Extract Works. An ancient way of tanning animal skins requires boiling down tree bark to make a dark tea-like liquid that is full of tannins, the substances that give tanning its name. The raw materials for bark extraction were plentiful there: water, trees, and wood for boiling it all down. On the edge of Buffalo Stream, east of Greenfield and west of Nickatous Lake in Hancock County, a little village arose to support the bark extraction works. By 1890, 130 or more people called the place home. Eventually, F. Shaw and brothers sold the works. Its name comes from the fellows who bought it from F. Shaw and Brothers, a company called Buzzell and Rice. They converted the works into a full-fledged tannery. At the time, shoe leather was desperately needed and buffalo skins were shipped all the way to Riceville so they could be processed and shipped back to the growing shoe industry in New England.
If you try to find Riceville now, you’ll have a hard time. It’s nearly lost to the forest. If you do find the tote road a few miles northeast of Old Town, you’ll be walking to Township 39, a place that has a number instead of a name. You’ll be lucky if you can get there on foot - it’s wet and overgrown and you might have to turn back. A couple of hours of trudging will get you to the first thing you encounter - the Riceville Cemetery.
There, in the middle of the thick undergrowth, it meets you with an old crooked white picket fence and a sign nailed to a tree growing in the middle of the little plot. Someone pays enough attention to this place to see that the fence remains and the little plot is kept fairly clear. Strangely enough, there are no markers at all in the cemetery. You wonder as you walk the little spot who lies below, forgotten. It’s quiet here, but the wind whispers through the trees. You listen, then you move a little further into the woods and after a few minutes of walking and dodging, you will come upon an opening, a cleared area, littered with scraps of metal here and there, a wagon axle, a pipe, and rusted barrel hoops. There’s a big open well that has been circled by faded yellow warning tape. If someone fell into that hole this far away from help, they might never emerge. There’s a stone foundation still standing strong after so many years of neglect. You look around a little more, wonder at the thought of it all and realize that you’ve got quite a hike to get out of there and really, there is nothing left. Nothing except the story of how this all came to be.
Today, hunters and ruin-seekers are about the only folks who make it to Riceville, but a little over a hundred years ago, this place had a mill, a school, a general store, boarding house and homes for the workers at the tannery. It was a thriving community. A vital trade in tanned buffalo hides made this place perfect. There was a stream with clean, pure water. It was far enough away from civilization that the foul odors of the tannery would not be bothersome. Set far from any major town or city, Riceville was a successful little community carved into the Maine forest. For years, it was a hub of activity. Families thrived there. Children grew up and went to a school, played on a the baseball team. Visitors stayed at the boarding house. Commerce thrived as product was made and shipped out for the larger markets of the world. The people who lived there, though, lived alone among themselves, especially in the winter. Places that are far from the main currents of the world of people and doings do not often have casual visitors. Long periods of time can occur when no one comes or goes from the town. Days might pass without a visitor, something that would never happen today. It was not unusual for no one to leave or visit for long periods. Riceville, situated where it was, was self-sustaining. It was also isolated. So what happened to the people of Riceville?
And this is where the story comes in. One day, it occurred to someone that they had not heard from anyone in Riceville for a while. We don’t know who asked, but someone did. Asking around in town, they discover that no one else has had any contact with Riceville for more than a week, maybe two. Someone decides it’s time to pay the good folks a visit. In other stories, it’s not a deputation from a town but a traveling merchant who eventually finds his way to Riceville on that fateful day. What was found is legend. As their horse slowly made its way up the road to the village, they noticed a strange stillness, an absence of movement. Actually, there was nothing moving. They cast their gaze around to find someone to speak with but to their shock and then their horror, they begin discovering the bodies. First one lying on the side of the road then others, lying in the grass, their bodies swollen by the heat. They’ve been there awhile. Further investigation of the little homes and boarding house prove an undeniable fact - everyone of them, over a hundred people, are dead. Officials are called in - investigations are made. Has cholera killed them all? Poison from the tannery? Those in charge determine that they need to bury these bodies quickly - a mass grave is dug and the bodies are placed together and covered. In time, the mystery deepens. No one can determine exactly how these people died and why at least one of them did not take a horse and seek help in the next settlement. No one knows what happened to the people of Riceville. And so, a legend is born. The buildings fall in, the road disappears, and the story is the only thing that remains.
Even if it isn’t quite true. As storytelling creatures, we tend to remember the most sensational tales, the ones that leave us wondering, the ones that make our world seem more mysterious. Everyone loves a good mystery, even if there is, after all, no mystery. I’ve heard of cholera as the cause of the large number of deaths or of mercury poisoning the water source. The large number of deaths, however, is not supported by the evidence. An entire town disappearing overnight? Didn’t happen.In fact, as far as we know, nobody died of anything.
But something did happen to the settlement and the people. Towns don’t usually disappear overnight and people need time to move on. According to a report in the Ellsworth American, sometime between December 30 and 31st, 1905, the tannery burned to the ground. The store and boarding house survived, but the rest of the tannery works was suddenly gone. Every single person in Riceville was in some way employed by the tannery, so the livelihood of all was contingent upon the mill being rebuilt. But it wasn’t. The tannery was insured. The owners of the Riceville Tannery also owned a tannery in Lowell, Massachusetts which had previously burned under similar circumstances. Neither was rebuilt. With no income, the people soon found no reason to stay in Riceville. They moved on, as people do, when the income suddenly stops. This is how ghost towns are born, after all. Within ten years, the post office closed and no one lived there anymore. For years, the surviving buildings remained there, alone, quiet, with echoes and shadows and nothing more.
In 2009, a group of ghost hunters from Bangor visited Riceville. Their visit was written up in the Bangor Daily News article entitled, Bangor Ghost Hunters probe site of former tannery town. The members of the team reported a few strange occurrences: a clear path through the trees suddenly filled in with nearly impassable growth, the sound in the wind of someone calling, “It’s time to go in now!” One of the members, a sensitive, was sure they were being followed by the ghost of a young girl. They did their best to document this place, but in the end, there is little to tell except the story of a mill owner who, for awhile, did well financially and whose benefits were shared among his workers. It’s not a ghost story, not really. It’s not even really a ghost town. It’s just a place that used to be, a place with a few reminders left lying in the undisturbed middle of nowhere that once, people thrived here, children ran the streets and went to school and a town prospered. And then it didn’t. Slowly, it ran out of steam and then, one day the last family left and no one ever lived there again. It’s a sad story and perhaps that’s why people keep going there, standing in the quiet, wandering around the few artifacts left to show Riceville even existed. Perhaps the sadness calls them and they answer the call. Perhaps the idea that once, something good existed there and now, there is nothing, is a reminder that we all live on very precarious ground ourselves. If Riceville could turn into nothing more than a legend, what of the towns and cities we live in now? What happened to Riceville? A single thing - a fire. From there, all the dominoes fell into place. That’s all it takes. A single thing.
I’ve been to the place where the world ends. It’s in an out of the way spot, far to the north, near a beaver dam and an abandoned air force base that most people have forgotten even existed. A wildlife refuge surrounds this strange little grotto of man-made hillocks that abides there quietly, a vestige of a time that all too unfortunately has not yet passed from our world. Days go by and no human visits. I walked there with my brother and we moved amid the bunkers, squat tomb-like structures built to withstand a nuclear blast unbothered by anyone or anything but a lonely crow flying over the barest whisper of a breeze. If I didn’t know better, I could swear I heard someone say something there, something like a prayer. Perhaps that person was me.
I grew up about fifteen miles away from this place and for the entirety of my life in my hometown of Caribou, Maine, I knew that the military had nuclear weapons nearby. After all, it was the middle of the Cold War. Loring Air Force Base was even mentioned in the movie ‘Wargames’, a film I watched at the local Caribou Theater. In it, a nervous airman answers the call - if the Russians launched an all-out nuclear attack on the United States, Loring would be the first target. Yes, I knew we had bombs. But walking among the bunkers where the nation’s first batch of bombs waited in readiness to destroy life on Earth, it brought all that fear and helplessness back to me. It reminded me that I had grown up on the edge of oblivion. We all did.
The former site of the North River Depot is in Limestone, Maine. It was built here before the nearby Loring Air Force Base, which itself is now only a memory. The bunkers we walk among are easily viewed on Google Earth but at one time in the early 1950s, this was one of the most secure and secret sites on the planet. Inside this strange and haunting set of structures half buried in the earth, the United States stored enough nuclear warheads to destroy the earth several times over. These are the depositories of doom and they are as quiet as the grave. They stand today as a testament to a period of time in our history when the words ‘the end of the world’ were no longer a metaphor. This was the place where the end of the world could easily have begun.
In the aftermath of World War II, for a while, the United States was the sole superpower on the planet. Two nuclear fission bombs had been dropped on the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan, ending the greatest war this planet and humanity had ever known. The United States had only two bombs at the time and both were used, with the threat that we had many more at our disposal if the need arose to bomb the country of Japan into submission. When the Emperor of Japan signed the documents ending the war, the United States had no nuclear weapons left. The tactic worked. The arsenal was actually empty, but not for long. Armed with the recipe, the building of bombs began in earnest and with the true start of the military industrial complex came the need for a place to store these weapons, a place where no one would even think to look. IF you’re going to stockpile something above top secret, you’d better find someplace no one would ever think of looking. In 1947, a new joint service military organization called the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project began its task of assessing the readiness of the nuclear weapons possessed by the U.S. government. When they got to Los Alamos, they discovered that there were, in fact, no new nuclear weapons to assess. Since the end of World War II, not a single nuclear bomb had been constructed. By the time the inspectors left Los Alamos, there was one bomb that t thought capable of detonation. The Special Weapons project set up shop in neighboring Sandia Base in New Mexico in that same year, which was also the year that the Truman Doctrine became US policy - a doctrine that offered to ‘support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.’ The Truman Doctrine would usher in a period of political tensions that would result in the Cold War, once the USSR also possessed the power of the atom. The US arsenal grew by jumps and starts and by the end of 1947, there were at least fifty-six functional nuclear bombs ready for deployment with a fleet of thirty-five silver-plated B-29s to deliver them.
On August 29, 1949, the USSR detonated its first device. The two forces that helped end the war in Europe were now both in possession of nuclear weapons and they were not on the same team anymore. With the tensions growing, it became clear to the powers that be that what was needed was a place to store these weapons.
Caribou, Maine is a small city that calls itself the northeastern most city in the country. It is an agricultural country with long, rolling hills, millions of trees, lakes and rivers, and more deer than humans. That was true in 1947 and it is still true today. There were only a few roads into and out of Aroostook County. In 1950, the entire population of Aroostook County was 96,039. This quiet, nearly forgotten part of the country was chosen as the first site in the history of the world to store a nuclear arsenal. Eventually, four more sites would be chosen, but Caribou Air Force Station, also known as North River Depot and then East Loring, was allegedly the first to be built and manned.
When you look at an aerial photo of the North River Depot, it is easy to confuse it with a small housing development, but without houses. Instead, you will see over forty small hillocks, covered with grass, masking something larger underneath. These mounds are concrete bunkers built to withstand a nuclear blast. Inside of these structures were stored the bomb housings that, once the detonators were inserted, would each become a means to an end - each designed for the end of someone’s world. Looking closer, you will see a road circling the small facility. There are no fences. Instead of fences, a constant patrol circled the bunkers twenty-four hours a day, always in motion. If someone wanted to infiltrate this place, they would have to get there first and then pass through marsh and forest before encountering armed resistance.
There are other structures. There is a huge concrete cube that is designed to look like a building. It is modeled to have false windows, false doors and it might be mistaken for a dormitory or office building. If an enemy viewed the building from above, the idea was that they would not view it as a target because of its drab, nondescript design.
In fact, despite its size, it has only a few small chambers inside it which you can peek at if you step onto the landing, though it is still off limits to the public. You can see an open vault door a foot thick, open to the elements. Pictures from the decommissioning show shelving with cubicles. This concrete cube housed the detonators, the highly radioactive elements that, once inserted into the bomb housings, would make the bomb capable of detonation and destruction. It was thought safe to store these away from the housings as a precaution against any accidents that might occur. When required, they could quickly be delivered to the adjacent bunkers and gingerly inserted into the bomb. It is rumored that there were underground tunnels running underneath each of the bunkers and from the cube so that in the event of a heavy winter, nothing could stop the efficiency of the bomb’s delivery to the aircraft that would ultimately deliver them to their final destinations. In the end, this cube had to be abandoned because it was so heavy, it was sinking at an angle into the ground. Another facility was built and this one was sealed for decades. In January of 1992 when Loring Air Force Base was being closed, twelve workers cut into the door of the cube of Building A and were contaminated by radiation. The Air Force and Congressional representatives investigated the claims. The Air Force explained to the investigators that the building was unknown to them. They didn’t know it existed. Officially, the end cause of the illness of the men who cut into the building was that they suffered a massive dose of radon gas that had accumulated in the thirty years it stood there, sealed against the world. This explanation seems weak given that it was once the single place on planet Earth that housed all the man-made radioactive detonators capable of global devastation. Today, there is no door on the building and the winds whistle through the barred doorway. No radon gas can accumulate.
For a few years, this site and four others across the country housed Armageddon. The Russians had their storage facilities, as well. So did other nations as the years passed. The long-range bombers used as delivery systems remained but were largely replaced by newer missile systems to deliver the ultimate payload. In 1988, the Cold War effectively ended and Loring Air Force Base closed. Today, it’s a hauntingly silent place, still maintained by the local authorities, with one of the largest arch hangers in the world and one of the longest runways, too. There are a few businesses, a nature preserve, a motel, and a museum on the site, but it is always strangely quiet and one might even venture to say haunted- not with ghosts - but with memories. Ask anyone who served at Loring and you’ll hear a fondness for the place in their voice, even though the winters were long and cold and it was situated in the middle of nowhere. You’ll hear a fondness for the land, for the people, and for the former mission of the base. Time is having its effect on the buildings that are not maintained and it is only a matter of time before much of it returns to the wild. One day, perhaps thousands of years from now, the concrete bunkers that housed the bombs and the sinking concrete cube that housed the detonators will also crumble, but by that time, who knows what the humans of the distant future will think if they stumble upon these curious ruins and wonder, what was their purpose? Who built them and why?
I’ve been to the place where the world could have ended. That the world still exists over seventy years after it was constructed is a testament to the tenacious nature of Humanity. But how strange it is now to walk among the grassy hillocks and into the cavernous mouths of the bunkers and think of things that might have been. It is a lonely, cold feeling, after all, because those things that might have been? Well, the pity is, they still might be...
REFERENCES
Garbinski, John C., North River Depot, 2011
Rhodes, Richard, Dark Sun The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, 1995, Touchstone
Loring Remembers the Skies for Us, “The History”
https://sites.google.com/site/loringremembers/history-of-loring-afb
Declassified U.S. Nuclear Test Film #69
Three score years and ten. It says it in the Bible, our allotted time upon this planet, the time we can expect to wander and walk and wonder, because nobody lives forever. From dust we come and to dust we return and that is one of the great equalizers for all Humanity - in the end, we're all the same. Well, most of us. The need for humans to forestall their deaths is understandable, because what comes next is perhaps the greatest mystery of all. Most of us can expect a final resting place for our remains, though more and more the trend is the scattering of ashes. As the poet said long ago, the grave's a fine and private place, a little piece of real estate for eternity. But for some, their journey to that final destination is full of detours and winding ways. Take the story of Elmer McCurdy, late of Washington and Bangor,Maine.
Washington, Maine. Even today, the little village has a post office, a fire station, a general store and a bookstore. That's about it. It has not changed much since 1880, when Elmer was born January 1, 1880 in Washington, Maine- a New Years's baby - to 17 year old Sadie. His father was not in the picture nor did he ever know him, though it was rumored to be her cousin,Charles. In order to save his sister from the stigma and also to give little Elmer support, Sadie's brother, George, adopted him. Sadie lived with George and his wife, Helen. So Elmer had a father for the first ten years of his life, someone to guide him. He was brought up to think that George was his natural father and Helen his natural mother and that Sadie was his spinster aunt. In 1890, when Elmer was ten years old, George succumbed to tuberculosis. With no one to support them, Sadie and Helen took Elmer and moved north to the bustling city of Bangor, alongside the Penobscot.
It was a working man's town, a drinking man's town with places no ten year old boy, especially without a father, should ever go, either in the daylight or after dark. By the time Elmer was a teenager he had discovered his true parentage. Elmer became a rebellious teenager, with no guidance in a town where beer and whiskey ran like water on nearly every street corner. It was during these formative years that Elmer became an alcoholic. Things went from bad to worse in Bangor. The fighting, the drinking and the lack of any focus in his life sent Elmer into a downward spiral that somehow, he found his way out of. When he had male guidance in his life, he had done well. When he had none, he fell hard from grace. To that end he reached out to his only other male relative, his grandfather who still lived in the town of Washington. There he learned the trade of a plumber. Away from the night life and rowdiness of Bangor and in the presence of his sober grandfather, their plumbing business thrived until 1898, when the economy took a downward turn.
His grandfather began to suffer from dropsy, hemorrhages, and other symptoms what would eventually be diagnosed as Bright's Disease. He died from a ruptured ulcer. After a month of illness, Elmer found himself without a male force in his life to guide him. He was young, he had no connections, but he did have a trade. Why he left his trade for a life of villainy, we will never know.
Maine was too quiet a setting to hold the anger and rambunctiousness that Elmer had when on a tear. With no one to stop him, Elmer took to the bottle again and then, he took to the road. He went from job to job, rambling the country. He tried plumbing for awhile, but it lacked adventure, it lacked the excitement that he was craving, so he went west and tried his hand as a lead miner. Roaming from job to job and town to town, drinking along the way found his first real run-in with the law: he was arrested for public drunkenness in Kansas. As soon as he could, he left Kansas for Missouri.
Elmer must have wanted a better life. He must have longed for something better. Perhaps his recent run-ins with the law made him reconsider the course of his life. After seven years of struggle and uncertainty, drinking and rowdiness, in 1907 Elmer McCurdy joined the United States Army and was assigned to Fort Leavenworth. His assignment was that of machine gun operator, a weapon invented by fellow Maine native Hiram Maxim. Though he could operate a machine gun with great alacrity, he showed real promise with high explosives. He learned to handle and use nitroglycerin. For the three years of his enlistment, Elmer McCurdy became proficient at blowing things up. But the end of his term came in November 1910. Had he stayed in the Army, Elmer might have made older bones. As things panned out, Elmer would be dead in less than twelve months.
Elmer found himself at sixes and seven, unable or unwilling to settle down to a simple life. He took again to rambling from town to town, eventually winding up with an army buddy in Kansas where they were both arrested for possession of the tools of a thief. They were tried and at their trial, McCurdy and his friend insisted to the judge that they needed the blackpowder, hammers, chisels and saws because they were endeavoring to invent a foot-operated machine gun. A sympathetic judge found the pair not guilty and Elmer McCurdy found himself a free man when he was released just after he turned thirty one years of age.
Elmer was released back to the world without a direction or a plan. He took to wandering again, this time to Oklahoma where he heard rumors of a safe being transported that contained a lot of money, perhaps as much as four thousand dollars. It was supposed to be on the Iron Mountain-Missouri Pacific Train. A daring act of boldness and some nitroglycerine could do the trick. With the help of three other men, he gave it a shot. The result was disastrous - he miscalculated the amount of nitro needed and blew up the safe so totally that any paper money that might have been inside was incinerated. He managed to haul away a hunk of silver coins that had fused together, equalling about $450 for their troubles.
Having escaped and absconded with the silver, McCurdy turned his hand to bank robbing. Chautauqua, Kansas offered a tempting target - the Citizens Bank. With the help of two new scoundrels, Elmer took more care not to blow the safe to Kingdom Come with his nitroglycerin. But Elmer's luck was beginning to show a pattern toward the unfortunate. His first attempt destroyed only the outer door of the vault. Another secondary charge didn't even explode. Elmer and his accomplices found some bags of coins left outside the main vault and left with a pitiful amount given their efforts - around $150, again, in coins. He was turning out to be a successful coin thief, and that was it.
On the run again, Elmer split up from his two accomplices and found himself living in a hay barn on a ranch in Oklahoma. Tired, sick and depending heavily on drink, Elmer heard of another chance to prove himself as a skilled thief. The Osage Nation was to receive a royalty payment of $400,000, a tempting target for a man on the run with nothing to lose. He easily found two other men to help him. The trio successfully stopped the train and searched it frantically for the money, but it became clear very quickly to them that they had, in fact, stopped the wrong train. They robbed the passengers taking whatever they had, including $46 and some whiskey. Another failed attempted - the worst one yet.
Elmer McCurdy went back to the farm where he had been staying in Oklahoma. He was sick, probably with pneumonia and tuberculosis, a dire condition indeed, especially when living in a hay barn. What little luck he had was running out. A $2000 reward was offered for his apprehension, something he was unaware of in his quiet hideout. On the morning of October 7, 1911, the farm was visited by a deputation of three Sheriffs who had tracked McCurdy with bloodhounds. McCurdy put up a fight but in the end, a sheriff's bullet pierced his chest and the last day of a bad man ended. Elmer McCurdy from Washington,Maine, plumber, alcoholic, train and bank robber and criminal failure, was done. It was over.
But not really. In a way, Elmer's journey had only just begun...
Since he was brought in dead, and not alive, there was no need for a trial. The body was brought to the local undertaker in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, who, after the manner of his occupation, embalmed Elmer's corpse with embalming fluid infused with arsenic, to preserve it for whatever journey it would need to take to make it to his final burying ground. Little did he know how long that journey would be.
Imagine being the undertaker waiting for days, then weeks, without anyone showing up to claim the body. After six months, it became clear to the undertaker that he was going to take a loss on this cadaver, so he stuck a pistol in Elmer's hand and charged folks a nickel to see the infamous train robber, Elmer McCurdy. People came from miles around and soon word spread - not only could you see a preserved dead body but it was that of an outlaw! For five years, the attraction continued until one day, two men showed up claiming to be Elmer's kin. They paid the undertaker and left with the corpse. Of course, they weren't his kin and of course, they weren't about to bury a moneymaker.
The two mysterious 'relatives' were actually owners of a traveling carnival. From 1916 to 1922, Elmer's corpse kept roaming from town to town. In 1922 he was sold to a man who had a wax museum. Elmer was put in the outlaw section but was touted as a 'real dead outlaw'. His corpse remained there 49 years until it was sold again and went on display in a California fun park, displayed as the Thousand year old man. He was hung from the neck in a ghost train ride, painted in phosphorous paint to glow in the dark.
The fun park , known as The Great Patterson Shows, was rented in 1971 for an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. The props man, Chris Haynes, noticed that the dummy hanging from its neck looked too real. He was trying to move the thousand year old glow-in-the-dark man from his noose, when Elmer's arm fell off, revealing his bones.
Haynes tell us the following: " It was easy to see his body stitched up from his autopsy. Elmer's hands were covering his private parts. I tried to move the hand to show them that he ... wasn't made from papier maché. When I moved his arm, it snapped off in my hand, exposing bone and mummified muscles. I reported this to the Long Beach cop working on the show."
After a rather lengthy investigation and following the paper trail, the authorities discovered who this unlikely carnival attraction really was. They pried open his mouth and found a 1924 penny and a ticket from the Museum of Crime in LA. They found the .32 caliber gunshot wound and the bullet that killed him - manufactured somewhere between 1830 and 1920. Eventually, newspaper accounts helped them discover the identity of the cadaver: none other than Elmer McCurdy, formerly of Washington and Bangor, Maine, plumber, train and bank robber.
They buried his bones in April of 1977 in the Boot Hill section of the Summit View Cemetery, in Guthrie, Oklahoma. They covered the coffin in concrete before they piled the dirt back on. After all of his rambling and nefarious deeds, his suffering and death, Elmer McCurdy is finally at rest.
When you step out of your door as your leave your house, you never truly know when you're ever going to come back again, if at all. Not a very comforting thought. You might find a vast journey ahead of you, or maybe just a trip to market, before you make it home again. In the case of Elmer McCurdy, he might have gone on to meet his maker in 1922 but his body kept on moving from town to town, for all to see, without ever knowing the truth of his identity or the sad turns his life took before he met with the bullet that robbed him of his breath.
SOURCES
Images - in the Public Domain
Cover Art - "Wandering Death" by Ernst Barlach, commons.wikimedia.org
Aulenbacher, Carrie. “The 97 year journey of 31 year old bank robber, Elmer McCurdy.” Western Magazine, Aug 29 2021. https://www.westernmagazinedigest.com/2021/08/the-97-year-journey-of-31-year-old-bank.html
Aulenbacher, Carrie. “Elmer McCurdy, Part Two.” Western Magazine, Sep 12 2021. https://www.westernmagazinedigest.com/2021/09/elmer-mccurdy-part-two.html
Chronicle Live. 2013. “Why Elmer McCurdy will never be a dead loss.” Jun 1 2001. Updated Feb 28 2013. https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/whats-on/theatre-news/elmer-mccurdy-never-dead-loss-1681906
Readman, Kurt. “Elmer McCurdy, America’s Bizarre Sideshow Corpse” Historic Mysteries. https://www.historicmysteries.com/elmer-mccurdy/?fbclid=IwAR3TfJjN8IVuEh9ETFXeyT-Gw5JN0qU7PG64FR9CP07uodeiJ9S_aN_OTFU
Deem, J.M. Elmer McCurdy, “The Trainrobber Who Became a Mummy.” How to Make a Mummy, Houghton Mifflin, 1995. https://jamesmdeem.com/stories.mummy.mccurdy.html
Human Marvels. “ELMER MCCURDY – THE WANDERING DEAD” 2021. https://www.thehumanmarvels.com/elmer-mccurdy-the-wandering-dead/
Meier, A. “The Mummy Everyone Forgot Was Real”.2013. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/31-days-of-halloween-day-1-elmer-mccurdy
Npr. “The Long, Strange, 60-Year Trip of Elmer McCurdy”.2015. https://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/376097471/the-long-strange-60-year-trip-of-elmer-mccurdy?t=1632159020386
Souerbry, R. “The Strange Story Of Elmer McCurdy – The Outlaw Whose Body Became A Film Prop”. 2019.
Find a Grave - Elmer McCurdy https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1706/elmer-mccurdyhttps://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1706/elmer-mccurdy
It looks like a small desk without any legs, just sitting there on a table, a well-fashioned rectangular wooden box containing within it a drawer that pulls out to reveal a crucifix, a journal, a spoon, bottle of white powder and sundry other items that, when attached to the device on top of the box, did something very special, or at least, that’s what was claimed. The device is symmetrical and in its center is a glass column surmounted by a small cast iron skull wearing a helmet and within the glass column one can glimpse a brass bell suspended on a chain. On either side of the glass column are two black horns, much like the ones you would later see on Edison’s talking machines and to their sides, a set of brass balance scales, connected to weights. Near the rear on each side are two glass Crookes solar radiometers, those little glass spheres you can still buy with a metal spinner in the center, moved by the sunlight and photons. There are other strange contrivances attached to this peculiar amalgam of technology, but exactly what the purpose of this device is was made clear by its inventor over a hundred years ago and it was so famous and its purpose so spectacular that it made the national papers and was the talk of the nation. This was purported by its inventor and his followers to be a ‘living machine,’ designed and created by angels for the sole purpose of….well, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. It would be best to begin at the beginning and tell the story. If you look closely at this curious device, you will see engraved in a small brass plate the words, “New Motive Power” and the name John Murray Spear.
In the summer of 1818, a young woman named Mary Shelley was spending an unsettling vacation with her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron in a villa on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. During a bout of cold weather the poets decided to have a contest to see who could come up with the strangest spooky story from among them. In a fit of creative energy seldom seen in literature, 18 year old Mary Shelley created what most people consider to be the founding work of science fiction, Frankenstein. From an assemblage of dead tissue and body parts, Doctor Victor Frankenstein creates a new being, the first and only one of his kind, known only as ‘the monster’. The work was fiction, of course, but it was timely. Science was the new frontier and people, though fascinated with it, knew very little about it. Indeed, science seemed to promise everything that magic used to describe. Her work became famous on both sides of the Atlantic and in all probability fed the imagination of the protagonist of our tale, John Murray Spear. His interest in electricity, to be specific, would lead to a contraption that would be part perpetual motion machine and part Frankenstein’s monster and it would all happen with the help of Heaven above.
John Murray Spear was born in Boston on September 16, 1804. By all accounts, and there are many, he was brought up to be thoughtful, compassionate and mindful of his fellow man. Named after the actual founder of the movement known as Universalism, he was destined to be connected with Heavenly pursuits for his entire life, even though life wasn’t easy for John and his brother Charles who had to fend for their mother and grandmother while still children after their father died. There was work in the factories of Dorchester where they worked impossible hours to make ends meet, but through the ministration of their Sunday school teacher, both the brothers learned to read and write, giving John a way out of the factory and into the position of apprentice shoemaker. Things began to look up for him, but looking up was about to change his life forever.
Like his namesake, John Murray Spear felt a calling to become a preacher. He was kind, gentle, thoughtful and full of love and generosity and though he was self-taught and never attended seminary, he began preaching and was well-received. He became an ordained Universalist minister in 1830. He married and the couple had five children. Not bad for a poor boy from Dorchester. He was particularly concerned with the abolitionist movement and he gave help to those people of color who had made it north and to freedom, only to find themselves also desperately poor and in need of assistance. Spear had a reputation for doing the work on the ground, walking among the poor, and he became very respected in his community.
But something happened to John Murray Spear, something dreadful. During the winter of 1844-1845, Spear was speaking out in Portland,Maine to a mass of people who raged into a mob and beat him senseless. Spear was saved by an old friend, Oliver Dennett who also carefully nursed him back to health. To what extent his injuries included some kind of brain damage, we can never know, but something was changed in the mind of Spear, and he was not in tune with other places, other beings…
Shortly after Spear recovered, his friend Dennett died. One can imagine the sense of loss Spear must have felt, but even stranger what sense of wonder must have pervaded his mind when he sat and watched his hand - seemingly of its own accord and without his own volition, picked up a pen and began to write message to him from, of all people, his dead compatriot - Oliver Dennett. The first note Spear received in this way instructed him to find a man named David Vining and help him. Even stranger, the note was signed by none other than Oliver.
There is a condition known to modern medicine as Alien Hand Syndrome. It occurs when a person’s hand seems to have a mind of its own and cannot be controlled by the owner of the hand. It is often the left hand and according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, there are a variety of causes to this frightening condition: temporal lobe epilepsy, brain surgery, stroke, infection, tumors, aneurysm, among others. Given the fact that Spears had been beaten by an angry mob, is it possible that he had some kind of event or damage that initiated this syndrome? As with many who have suffered from it, it eventually faded and Oliver stopped writing letters, but before he did, Spears became convinced that he was in contact with the dead and that this automatic writing that was occurring came straight from the spiritual realm.
But what is so strange is that David Vining was real. Time after time, Oliver directed Spear to people who needed his help. Spear was indefatigable - willing to travel far on these missions from the dead. Word of his connection to the spirit realm and his good works began to spread.
In 1848, the Fox sisters, Catherine and Mararetta, began the Spiritualist movement in the United States. While still children, the sisters began to witness strange rappings in their house in the hamlet of Hydesville, New York. One thing led to another and soon, the nation was introduced to the idea that it was possible to talk to the dead, and that almost everybody could do it. Mediums could act as connections to those who had passed on and great comfort could be had about the life of the world to come simply by attending a seance and witnessing the demonstrations of the mediums. Of course John Murray Spear was aware of the movement - he had to have been. It was all the rage. And as he wondered about the actions of his hand and how the process was working, he could find no better explanation than that of being possessed by a kindly spirit, a goodly being who had taken care of him, still working from beyond the grave. Of course, we would have had no idea about anything as modern as Alien Hand Syndrome.
To that end, Spear dove into the spiritualist movement. He gave spontaneous lectures where he allowed himself to be the medium through which other voices spoke. Already well-known and well-thought of, he became a celebrity of sorts. He attended seances and came to believe that he was not only dealing with the spirits of the dead, but also with spirits of a different sort altogether - angels...angels of electricity…
During a deep trance among his followers, he willingly surrendered by body to that of seven spirits whose task it was to use his body as a vessel with which to construct the new motive power of the age, an age of enlightenment and of power that would flow directly from Heaven in the form of… well, we really don’t know. An aficionado of magnetism and electricity, his angelic engineers conceived of a machine that would have analogues to a heart, to lungs, to all of the systems of the living body, but they would be mechanical in nature and would, once animated, move forward without any further input of energy. The machine would be built, but the spark of life would need to be imbued by another sort of power altogether. And so his followers donated over $2000, a huge sum of money in his time, and he spent the better part of a year building the Heavenly Machine from which the greatest gift of Heaven would flow. There were no blueprints. It was built from day to day, like Mrs. Winchester’s house, with plans abandoned or changed or dropped at the whim of the celestial voices speaking through John Murray Spear. There was a revolving steel arm surmounted by two steel balls, both with embedded magnets. There are obvious positive and negative aspects to the machine, with zinc and copper plates - this was an electrical child being built by a man touched by...well, again, we’re not sure. But as the months passed and word of his wondrous machine reached the masses, the newspapermen followed its evolution. He promised that this device would be Heaven’s greatest gift to Man, a kind of Christlike telephone from which we might speak to God or at the very least, it would provide unlimited power to move the world into a new, more perfect state.
The world had heard all of this kind of thing before with one singular exception: John Murray Spear had nothing of the charlatan about him. In fact, he was singularly unassailable because he had put himself on the front line for those in need, had championed for just causes and had even suffered at the hands of unruly mobs when standing for what was right. All those who came into contact with him truly believed that he was in earnest and that he was a good man who had the spiritual health of the nation in his heart. He made no money from his project. All of the funds raised went toward the construction of the device. His prayer gatherings were widely attended and for all the people knew, this man was in touch with the angels, and how the world needed such a thing was clear to them all.
But the machine just kind of sat there and did nothing. No trouble, he insisted. It is but a vessel, like a human body, and it needed to be imbued with life. For that, he explained, people needed to remember that in nature, life was not perpetuated unless male met female. For this new Prometheus to come to life, a female influence would need to ignite it and for that, he searched for and wide for the child’s mother.
Two newspaper editors seized the opportunity to help Spear search for her. S. Crosby Hewitt and Alonzo Newton knew a good story when they saw one and they made sure there were headlines as the search progressed. It wasn’t long before the angels told the world the name of the new Mary: Mrs. Semantha Mettler, the wife of a Boston doctor. She was also, not coincidentally, a medium. When she joined the room, Spear went into one of his trance states and she, like those in the room, had to ask themselves if they were in the presence of the Heavenly host itself when he spoke. The newspapers chronicle what he said that day when the mother met her child. In his trance state, the angels spoke:
“How fondly, how constantly, how widely is this one beloved! How beautiful is the influence this woman exerts! Wherever she is she attracts In this particular she possesses a most remarkable character. Her friends know no bounds to their affection for this one; and there is nothing which they would leave undone to gratify her. There passes from this woman a very marked influence. It is not precisely the religious influence; it is not precisely the moral influence, it is not precisely the practical influence; but it is, so to speak, a compost of all; and these are charmingly intermingled, imparting a most adhesive influence. This medium has been commissioned to widely instruct this woman for a high purpose. There is before this woman a new and beautiful labor. At 10 o’clock tomorrow the purpose of his mission to this place will be unfolded. Let this woman be in the region of the tranquilities at that hour.”
Beautiful labor: these were the words spoken by Spear while under the influence of the angels. And that was her purpose for this woman was supposed to be the conduit that would shunt the power of life from the celestial realm to the machine, spurring it into life, and in a sense, she was to give birth to it. After all, Spears had worked on the machine for nine months...
The next morning, at 10 o’clock, Mrs. Mettler was brought into the chamber with the machine and went into her own trance, all while being witnessed by Spear and his followers. Soon, she began to experience all of the symptoms of labor. It was as though she was undergoing the full gestation of a child in the matter of an hour and the mechanism was designed to absorb her maternal influence. As she moved and writhed and moaned, the witnesses observed something no less than marvelous. As reported that evening in the Boston’s New Era newspaper, “THE THING MOVES!” That day, the world changed. In Lynn, Massachusetts, a thing made of metal, chemicals and wood, began to pulsate like a heart. The monster had been given the spark.
According to Spear, this living child would grow and soon would move the wheels of the world, replacing all other means of moving machinery. It would take over all.
How strange it must have been there that day to watch the machine move. One must wonder, though, if these people had any idea how electricity worked and how copper and zinc react when a current is applied to them? The basic dynamics of a simple electric motor was not known to the world yet, but Spear may have touched upon something that a fellow from Vermont did in 1834, not many years before. Thomas Davenport invented the first battery powered electric motor to power a small printing press. A well-read man like Spear may have heard of Davenport’s achievement, but may not have understood the forces involved. Electricity seemed magical, moving things with unseen forces. Perhaps Spear was correct in that one day, electricity would power the world, overwhelmingly moving the machines of industry, replacing water power and that of the steam engine. Certainly this extraordinary claim seems pretty commonplace today, but in his day, no one knew that. Perhaps it was nothing more than the movement of a metal plate responding to a magnetic field. People believed that invisible spirits could rap and tap and communicate through mediums. Why not build a machine to channel the power of God?
News of the movement of the new machine spread throughout the land, but those who did not take to communicating with the dead and the ways of the spiritualists had no use for such practices. To a mainstream religious American audience, this might even have hinted of witchcraft and magic. Instead of being divinely inspired by the angels, was this some Devil’s work? Reports claim that John Murray Spears’ machine was destroyed by an angry mob, tearing it to pieces and trampling it beneath their feet. Spears faded into obscurity after that. He never thought to rebuild the machine and his hope to tap into an invisible power that might move the machines of the world was forgotten.
Except it wasn’t. An invisible force does move the machines of the world - electricity. He must have believed it would work and in his own way, he was right. It wasn’t a hoax, as far as the idea goes. Given the knowledge of his age, we might even look back upon him, strange as his sensibilities seem to us today, he really did want to gift the world a very real power. Just not what he thought it was.
And his machine? We thought it was destroyed - it was reported as such, but in 2019, in Greely, Colorado, a Miss Akerman passed away and her home, full of hoarded objects, was being cleared when the machine showed up resting in her attic. It must have sat there for one hundred and fifty-six years. If it isn’t the real machine, even though it is clearly labeled, it certainly looks like the God machine of John Murray Spears. Whether or not it works remains a mystery, but then again, such things as this beg for speculation and make us wonder, “what makes it tick?” For that matter, what makes one want to know? Better to ask how a persons’ hand might write messages of its own volition and how this alien hand could lead to a machine that claimed to be a robotic body for God.
Sources
John Murray Spear
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Murray_Spear
https://uudb.org/articles/johnmurrayspear.html
http://www.danbaines.com/blog/john-murray-spears-mechanical-messiah-discovered-in-colorado-attic/3/7/2019
Alien Hand Syndrome
The National Library of Medicine - Alien Hand Syndrome
It happens several times a day to everyone I know, usually at dinner time. Sitting quietly, minding your own business in the comfort of your own home and the phone rings. You look at the number and it looks somewhat familiar - whoever is calling lives in your area code, so there’s that. It can’t be from some robocaller - oh, you know, it probably is, but you put your hand up to the phone and wait - that is, if you have an answering machine. My son has a great strategy that he recorded for us a long time ago - it goes - “Hi you’ve reached the Burbys. We can’t come to the phone right now but if you’ll leave your name and number, we’ll be happy to get back to you, unless you’re soliciting something, in which case, please call someone else.” It works most of the time.
There are pathways that lead into our homes - the front walk that leads to the door, your email, your Internet connection and of course, your phone. We have a strange modern relationship with our phones. We eat with them, take them to the bathroom and take them to bed. Phones have become a hardware addition to the human mind, a kind of peripheral that we just can’t seem to do without. We hold them in our hands and keep them safe because they connect us to so many people, places and things. We have ways of filtering out the unwanted emails and calls, but even then, sometimes you get that call - the weird one where you decide to answer and say, “Hello?” and then you wait and time passes - and there is no answer, but you know, or at least you tell yourself - that there is someone there on the end of the line - someone who isn’t answering. These are unnerving, to be sure. Maybe it was just a wrong number. You hang up and forget about it. These things happen all the time. Probably a glitch.
But there are the calls where someone does answer and these calls can change the way you look at the world and gauge your own experience of the strange. Phones operate using electricity and are, in the context of human history, a fairly recent invention. How can such a thing made of batteries and silicon, copper and gold be a conduit for the experience of the unexplained? When I was a kid we had something called a party line. Everyone on our long country road shared the same line, but we all had different rings. If you answered someone else’s call, you heard about it. If you picked up the phone and didn’t listen to hear if someone else down the road was using it, you might begin dialing over someone’s conversation. Sometimes, though, you’d hear your ring - it was meant for your household, and you rushed over and picked up the receiver and put it to your ear and heard...what was that? Was someone whispering? It always happened when you were home alone, when the shadows of night started falling. A phone call from someone - but who? What did they want? Why wouldn’t they talk? And then a sound - from a thousand miles away, a static-filled nearly indistinguishable utterance of something unintelligible. But you can swear it sounds like someone you know. Did they say your name? “Hello? Hello?” you say over and over, but to no avail. There were more than a few of these calls at my house growing up. I wonder about them from time to time.
There is a story from before the invention of cell phones in the summer of 1970 from a town in northern New Hampshire. Like so many ghost stories, it is simple and cannot be proven, but that doesn’t matter. Ghost stories don’t need proof - they only require belief. See if you...believe.
Three friends are in a pickup truck, driving down the back road that leads deep into the back forty of a northern New Hampshire property. It’s summer and the weather is fine - the sun is bright and the hour is late in the afternoon, casting long shadows. Frank Carlye and his friend Sam Dugan, policemen on their day off, are in the cab of the pickup. Their friend, Lincoln Hassen, is in the open bed of the truck, laughing as the tires throw stones and dust high into the air as they barrel down the tote road. They’ve done this so many times before. Good times among good friends.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Sam loses control of the pickup. The ditches are high and the truck rolls off the road and down a deep, timber-filled embankment at a high rate of speed. Time slows down. The world becomes a thick fluid through which Frank blinks and tries to determine if they are alright, if they are hurt. Sam is next to him, unconscious, slumped over the wheel. Frank, dizzy and disoriented, cut and bruised, sees the red hue of Sam’s blood on the windshield and he knows things are bad for his friend.
Then Frank remembers Lincoln. He calls for him, “Lincoln, are you there? Are you okay? Lincoln?” And a sense of relief comes to Frank as he sees Lincoln walking toward the truck, obviously uninjured. In the quickness of the moment, Frank assumes that his friend must have jumped from the truck before it headed down the embankment.
“Frank, it’s okay,” Frank recalls Lincoln assuring him. “Don’t move. I’ll go for help.”
Help. Lincoln had miraculously survived the accident and though they were in the woods, Lincoln was a local boy - he knew these back roads better than anyone. He knew where the closest house was. Frank tried to concentrate on his breathing and kept checking on Sam, who was still unconscious but thankfully, was still alive.
“The paramedics arrived in no time. I remember saying that to the EMT who was taking care of me in the ambulance,” Frank remembers. “The EMT looked at me, smiling, and said, ‘Yeah, it’s a good thing someone called. We never would have found you guys if the caller hadn’t given us good directions. If we had made it here any later, you both might have bled to death. That was when another EMT entered the ambulance and said to me that he was sorry that my friend didn’t survive the accident. I was wondering what he was talking about because Sam was right next to me in the ambulance and he was waking up. I said, look, he’s alive. And that’s when the EMT looked at me and said really quietly, “No, I mean your friend, the one riding in the back of the truck. He didn’t make it.”
But someone had called. Someone had given their precise location. And he had seen Lincoln, had talked to him, as he wavered in and out of consciousness. He remembered how Lincoln had assured him that he would get help. Now, the doctors assumed them, their friend Lincoln Hassen, was indeed deceased. “He was found by the paramedics pinned beneath the truck and must have died instantly when the vehicle rolled,” explained their attending physician. “I’m so sorry.”
Frank and Sam recovered from their injuries, but they couldn’t stop thinking about Lincoln. The question that needed to be answered, of course, was, who called for the ambulance? Someone did. The policemen knew that the hospital kept a log of callers as a matter of course and as soon as they were able, they visited and asked about the caller.
The nurse in charge of the department opened the log book and moved her finger down the lines until she came to the call that had miraculously saved both of their lives. She looked up at the two eager listeners and replied, “Lincoln. The person who called said his name was Lincoln.”
Friendships are forged and must be cared for like they are living things. We’ve all had a good friendship fall by the wayside because we forgot to feed it, to call our friend, to care enough to do that something extra that would make all the difference for our friend. Frank and Sam know the value of Lincoln’s friendship. They are reminded of it all the time. Exactly how the spirit of Lincoln used a telephone to call an ambulance is beyond explanation, beyond belief, really. But that is the power of a good ghost story. Beyond all belief, you know you still want to...
SOURCE for this story:
Robinson, Charles Turek. The New England Ghost Files, 1994, Covered Bridge Press, North Attleborough, MA. pp.12-13 "The Posthumous Power of Friendship".
Original Music by Jim Burby
Audio mastering by Jim Burby
Original text by Thomas Burby
My name is George Miller Beard and I have a strange tale to tell you, a story so bizarre and truly unbelievable that I am certain people will doubt my report and perhaps even question my motives in discussing this subject. Still, what I have to reveal to you is the honest truth, witnessed only lately from my long journey to the northern woods of Maine in this year, 1878.
Now, before I reveal my discovery, which I am certain you will doubt, you should know that I am a graduate of Yale College, class of 1862, and I received my medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in 1866. During the War, I was an assistant surgeon in the West Gulf Squadron of the Union Navy aboard the gunboat New London. I have published several articles concerning the mental conditions suffered by so many after the war and was the first to name exhaustion of the central nervous system as Neurasthenia. My entire professional life has been devoted to helping those afflicted by the stresses of the modern world, a kind of deep anxiety characterized by low energy, headaches, and finally, of depression. I have fought for psychiatric reforms and have diligently tried to care for the mentally ill. I am, as I am sure you can imagine, not a man prone to flights of fancy or foolish suppositions. But that is precisely why you should listen to my discovery because, as truly remarkable and unbelievable as it is, I could never have concocted such a tale as the one which follows.
I had heard of these lumbermen of Maine from an acquaintance who had returned from a winter spent among them in the region of Maine near Moosehead Lake. This distant outpost was sparsely settled and these people were a singular one, hardly mixing with others. Most of these men he described to me were of French-Canadian descent and many only spoke a smattering of English. My friend described to me a condition he had witnessed more than once among this population that was at once both unbelievable and inconceivable. It was something that the lumbermen understood as common and not remarkable at all, though they took great pleasure in torturing those poor souls who were afflicted with it.
He explained it to me in this way. “When one of his fellows suddenly shouts an order to one of these Frenchmen, like, ‘Punch the Wall!’ or ‘throw that axe’, why, the poor fellow suddenly drops whatever he is doing and does whatever he had been commanded to do, sometimes harming himself in the process. The poor fellow is always shocked that he did such a thing, but he cannot seem to stop himself whenever he is suddenly shouted an order. It is always an instantaneous thing, and often accompanied by shouting and wild movements. Many will repeat the last word of the order they were given. That is, if he is told to slap his friend’s face, he shouts “Face!” as he gives his friend a whack.”
My friend told me that it was something that happened to many of the Frenchmen in the camps of the area and he was troubled because these poor souls were being harassed by those other lumbermen who were not afflicted in such a way. “You really should find your way up there, Beard,” he told me, “if only to see these things for yourself.”
After he had related these events to me, I found that the idea of it haunted me day and night. How could such a thing be? I had seen many ailments of the mind in my work, but never anything so odd and unique as the idea that a simple sudden suggestion could elicit such a response from such hardworking but unlearned men. I resolved to make the journey and observe this behavior myself.I would take the train to the end of the line at Moosehead Lake and journey from there to the camps with an acquaintance of my friend. I had to see for myself.
It did not take me long to discover that everything I had been told was true. I found myself in an otherwise unremarkable camp in the middle of forest. The lumbermen do most of their work in the winter cutting down and assembling piles of trees to send to the mills up or downriver in the waters of the Spring thaw. I was sitting with the men in the early evening before they all settled in to sleep. This is one of the few times in their day where they are not moving about and instead each is engaged in one of a variety of tasks before bed. One of the men, a French-Canadian man of about 40 years of age, was sharpening his axe with a stone when one of the loggers quietly stood behind him and quickly commanded, “Throw your ax into the wall!” At that moment, the poor fellow was so startled that he jumped up from his seating position and threw the ax with all of his might toward the far wall of the cabin, shouting the word “Wall!” as he did so. The room erupted with a roar of delight as all of the men found this to be extremely amusing, meanwhile the poor French-Canadian logger could be observed catching his breath and glaring at them all. It was clear this kind of thing had happened before and that he was not amused.
During my time at the camp, I witnessed this kind of behavior several times, especially after word spread that I was there to investigate the very thing. These dramatic responses by the afflicted often included the person also hitting a nearby person, screaming or, much to the delight of the English-speaking lumbermen, a stream of swearing and arm flailing that always caused a spectacle. Not believing my own eyes, I determined to put one of these men to the test. I stood behind him without him knowing it and quickly recited lines from Virgil’s Aenied, startling him. He jumped up and repeated my words, though he had never heard my words before or had any reason to be familiar with them. I found that all of the men afflicted by this strange malady were indeed from that same area and indeed, the same bloodline, more or less. They seem to be bound to automatically obey any command shouted at them, especially if it is done so as a sudden thing, to startle them. In all of my investigations and work with the mentally afflicted, I have never come across such behavior before or since. I cannot begin to explain it.”
Charles Beard never discovered the cause of the affliction which became associated with the French community of Maine, northern New Hampshire and Quebec. Later, the condition would be called “Jumping Frenchmen of Maine” and was a standard recognized condition which seemed to focus on the startle reflex that was fairly well-understood at the time. Anyone who has been jump-scared can understand the sudden rush of adrenaline and the fight or flight response that takes over the mind and body when suddenly startled. Beard published his findings and often spoke of them to august groups of physicians at the time, making it a well-known mystery. He first introduced it to the world in 1878 at the fourth annual meeting of the American Neurological Association. What he described was of great interest to those in attendance. They all understood the reaction to the sudden stimulus startling the men but NOT the obedience that followed it. Why would the poor souls suddenly do whatever they were told? Because it was not something any of these doctors would ever see in their normal, day to day practice, it remained a curiosity and perhaps even a strange kind of pseudo-legend, something that was reported to be real but still quite unbelievable. Over fifty cases were documented, fourteen of which occurred in the same family. All were French Canadian and came from very remote regions from intimately small communities. In 1885, George Tourette ventured that Jumping Frenchmen was a convulsive tic illness, but recent studies do not support his findings. Modern studies, caught on video, show that whatever it is, Jumping Frenchmen of Maine is a real malady and deserves further study.
What are we to make of this medical mystery? Certainly those afflicted live normal lives and go about their day normally. The lumber camps of Maine were very unique places with men from all walks of life cooped up for months together in social isolation, working tirelessly and enduring harsh conditions at a job that could kill them in any number of ways on any given day. These stories seemed apocryphal, could not possibly be true, but when educated men staked their reputations on the veracity of the stories, well, they had to be true, didn’t they? Other such startle reactions have been seen in the world since. In Indonesia they have a word – latah – where started individuals repeat the words that startled them and occasionally follow commands given, though never to the extent that the French-Canadian lumbermen of Maine did.
It is possible, though, that this entire study of a strange condition has everything to do with racism. In the northern woods, those lowest on the social ladder, next to the indigenous population, surely were those of French-Canadian descent, speaking a different language, coming from isolated settlements and large families and indeed, worshipping as Roman Catholics instead of Protestants: this was a people maligned and looked-down upon. The Anglo-Saxon Protestant English Speakers had a stake in the labeling of the Frenchmen as foolish and inferior. Research into the condition persisted into the 20th century, always in people of French heritage, always by people of English heritage. In a land where people of color were nearly nonexistent at the time, it is possible that those in power required someone to look down upon and without a doubt, in Maine at least, it was the French Canadian Catholics who took the brunt of their abuse. How else can we explain the fact that the Ku Klux Klan had such a large following in Maine in the years following Beard’s discovery? Only a few decades earlier Swiss missionary John Bapst, who would later become the first President of Boston College in October of 1854, was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail in Ellsworth, Maine for his Catholic faith. He wasn’t French, but he was Swiss – and he spoke French. Helen Hamlin, one of Maine’s foremost folklorists, decried the condition of the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine as “one of the greatest slanders against these people,” and dismissed it as a myth.
The condition is a strange hybrid of myth, legend, folklore and possibly, of a real condition that to this day confounds researchers. As recently as 1980, scientists in Quebec were studying the condition and still finding people afflicted with the same startle reflex, the same echoing of words, and even hitting and running when startled. Fewer and fewer cases are being reported, but the name remains. Logging camps and their long periods of isolation are a thing of the past as well, though humans will again be isolated for long periods of time once we begin long journeys in space. Perhaps in future centuries there will be a syndrome known as “Jumping Miners of Mars” or “Jumping Janitors of Jupiter.” Given the propensity for humans to label each other, anything is possible.
MUSIC CREDITS
Original Theme Music: composed. andperformed by Jim Burby
"1920 Canadian Waltz" Henri Lacroix
"Breaktime" by Keven MacLeod (Creative Commons License)
"Petite Lil Valse" by J.O. Madeleine
IMAGE CREDITS: Wikimedia Commons
RESOURCES:
Whalen, Stephen R., "The Enigma of the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine." Maine History Journal , Volume 43, No. 1. Jan. 2007, pp. 63-78.
Simons, Ronald "Jumping Frenchmen of Maine." National Organization for Rare Disorders, NORD.org
Howard R, Ford R. From the jumping Frenchmen of Maine to post-traumatic stress disorder: the startle response in neuropsychiatry. Psychol Med. 1992;22:695-707.
Saint-Hilaire MH, Saint-Hilaire JM, Granger L. Jumping Frenchmen of Maine. Neurology. 1986;36:1269-1271.
You find yourself alone on a journey, feeling somewhat lost as the houses seemed to have disappeared from the side of the road and all you have seen for the interim has been nothing but trees and shadows thrown from the moon that seems to be playing hide-and-go-seek with the clouds. It is as though you have driven into another world on as dark a night as you can remember and you hope you’ve taken the right road because right now, you feel like maybe you haven’t. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you see her – a white form in the darkness. At first she is there on the side of the road but suddenly, she is standing on the jagged white separator line and you slam hard on the brakes. Miraculously, you miss her. No one should be out here, this far, on their own. No one. You exit the car and see her there, her face ashen white and her expression almost too serene, strangely silent. You ask her if she is alright. She nods. You ask her if she needs a ride. She nods once more. Relieved but still shaken, you let her in and continue on your journey through the long darkness. The silence is too much for you and you attempt to make small talk, but the woman is strangely silent. You ask her questions, but she does not speak. Soon, as you approach the first house that you have seen in a long while, a chill pervades the atmosphere of the car and you cast your glance into the rear view mirror to check on your passenger. Your foot hits the brakes. You stop, wide-eyed, staring into the backseat. You are alone.
Such a tale has been told around many a campfire and is known as one of the most common urban legend motifs. In Maine though, the long dark nights seem longer and darker than in other places. People do take on long journeys all alone. Long before the advent of Interstate 95 linked northern Maine with the rest of New England, there were few ways to travel past Bangor without encountering strange, long and lonely stretches of rough road, especially in the winter.
In the early days, there was a particularly winding and dangerous portion of U.S. Route 2A near the town of Haynesville and it cut through a patch of forest known as the Haynesville Woods. Today the road through the Haynesville Woods remains circuitous and dangerous in the winter. Truck drivers and motorists who journey in that area understand that the isolation of the northern Maine woods is unmatched anywhere else in New England and that seeing anything out-of-the-ordinary on a long and lonely night is made more jarring by the idea that you are, indeed, in the middle of nowhere. Most people choose to use the Interstate.
As a child, I grew up listening to Maine country music icon Dick Curless sing about the road that might be lined with tombstones instead of trees and it always sent a shiver down my spine. So many died on that road, he claimed, that there could be a tombstone every mile. The song is enjoying new life as Maine singer-songwriter David Mallett (davidmallett.com) has recorded it on his new album of cover songs, The Horse I Rode in On. Death, it seemed, wandered through the imagination of drivers encountering long, icy patches of road in the winter at high rates of speed. Where the imagination and Death join hands, legends soon follow.
In a 1990 article in the Bangor Daily News, journalist Tom Webber detailed the groundbreaking work of students working for the University of Maine Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History, scouring the back roads and interviewing old-timers about the lore of their land before they passed away and the knowledge was irretrievably lost. Those interviews detail a legend concerning two standard motifs in folklore – the woman in white and the phantom hitchhiker.
Every town or city in New England seems to have its own Woman in White story. She might haunt a graveyard or an old mansion, but in the wilds of Maine, she is often encountered on the loneliest portions of the road by a driver in the dead of night. In the case of the Haynesville Hitchhiker, she is encountered as a young woman either seen hitchhiking or simply standing in the middle of the road. Invariably, the driver panics and stops, getting out of the vehicle to check on her safety. In some legends she is wearing a coat and holding a suitcase. She is invited into the vehicle and the driver continues on the journey. Suddenly, the driver experiences a chill and when looking over to check on her, finds that she is gone. In one tale her coat is left on the seat with an address inside. When the driver investigates further, he meets the woman’s mother who recognizes the coat and tells the sad tale of her daughter’s untimely death on the road.
Another version of the Haynesville Hitchhiker comes from the St. John Valley town of Van Buren and tells of a woman on her way to a party, but she has a flat tire. She is wearing a white dress for the occasion and while attempting to change the tire, she is struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver. Her dress, red ribbon and lace is found on the road, but there is no body and there are no bones. This version claims that on foggy nights, the woman in white can sometimes be seen walking in the distance ahead on the side of the road. The frightening part of this claim is that as you speed up to try to catch her, she does, too. Other variations on the legend speak of a red flashing light seen in the distance. As it approaches you, a white cloud floats over your vehicle and the red flashing light disappears.
Perhaps the most popular version of the legend is that of the frozen bride, another common motif in folklore and legend. In this story, a young bride and her husband are driving on the road along Route 2A on a particularly cold winter day when their car encounters the dreaded icy patch and careens into a utility pole. The husband dies upon impact, but the bride is thrown from the car and survives, at least until she freezes to death in the cold. Those who have encountered the frozen bride find her walking alongside the road in the dead of winter, clutching her arms and staring straight ahead. She is offered a ride and wordlessly enters the car. Those who say they have encountered her report a woman who appears to be freezing, even in the heat of a summer night. Like the other spirits described, she disappears and those who have encountered her are filled with both fear and sadness. She continues her journey, searching for help.
I have heard various tales of the Haynesville Hitchhiker from people over the years. The landscape and the loneliness of that road seem to engender stories to chill the spine and make the adrenaline spike. One particularly fearsome tale is a variant of the hitchhiker and involves a bicycle rider who suddenly appears next to you in the darkest part of night and, though you are moving at fifty-five miles per hour, he smiles a crooked grin and pedals ahead, disappearing into the dark, leaving you pondering the impossibility of the event.
Women in White abound in legend and folklore. Medieval legends mention them and when Europeans crossed the ocean to take up residency in the new world, they brought their women in white with them, it seems. There are other roads in New England, as well as the rest of the world, where spectral brides glide across moonlit fields or interrupt the journey of lonely travelers for their own unknown reasons. Find a lonely stretch of road, perhaps with a cemetery not far away, add a lonely night and a weary traveler and you’ve got a recipe for fear and the inexplicable. The strange truth of the Haynesville Hitchhiker is that many people actually have perished on that stretch of road. If you journey north, you might even see the makeshift memorials that locals still set on the sides of the road where their beloved dead have perished: a white cross, a bouquet of plastic flowers, a name written on a piece of cardboard and a remembrance that on this precise spot, someone met their life’s end.
Elbert Stevens owned a sawmill in Bridgewater Corners, Vermont at the turn of the last century. His people had been in the area for time out of mind and he was known as a man who, like the bedrock that makes up the state, was solid, strong, and in a word, reliable. He was also a keeper of things, never one to discard anything that might be of use later, a habit practiced by many folks of his age and caliber. You never know when you might need something later - usually after you threw it out the year before. Such people kept things, just in case.
One of those possessions was a scrapbook, a place to glue the memorable tidbits of news and marginalia found in the papers and almanacs read during those long Vermont winter evenings when the wind howled outside the door like wolves. He hadn’t started the scrapbook - it had merely been handed down to him from a family member long gone, but he held it as something precious for within those pages was something incredible and truly fantastic, a tale told by lamplight on the darkest nights of year, when the cold seeped in from the bottom of the door and made you wonder - how cold is too cold? The thought of it was enough to keep him reading and rereading it over the years, especially on those long, cold winter nights and it set his mind wondering. Can such things be?
That relative had left Elbert a story clipped from a newspaper now long out of print and forgotten, prior to the American Civil War, in the 1830s. The paper’s name was not on the clipping. Fading to yellow, the old newsprint held the story recounted by an unnamed traveler who recalled a practice he had personally witnessed in the far hills of northern Vermont. Later, author Robert Wilson would write of this clipping in the pages of Yankee Magazine, first in April of 1940 and again in March of 1963. So we are several steps away from a primary source, but the idea is one so singularly strange that it bears retelling.
Elbert Stevens recalls, “I am an old man now and have seen some strange sights in the course of a roving life in foreign lands as well as in this country, but none so strange as the one I found recorded in an old diary kept by my Uncle William that came into my possession a few years ago at his decease.”
Elbert claims to have been to the location of the events described in the article, about twenty miles from Vermont’s capital, Montpelier. A log cabin on a mountainside still stood where the traveler claims this all took place. Elbert even claimed to have spoken with an old man about the events in the story and the old fellow claimed that his own father was one of those folk who spent the winter in a kind of frozen death, what scientists today might call ‘suspended animation.’
Scientists have long known about the ability of certain animals who can hibernate - slow down their natural processes to such a degree that they persist in a kind of torpor, a state of sleep so deep, they conserve energy and most efficiently use fat and water in their body so that they can stand the long, low temperatures of northern climates. Bears, turtles, snakes, groundhogs, bats, even bumblebees all possess the ability to enter this state, known to scientists as heterothermy. As the core body temperature drops below 95 degrees, the metabolic rate decreases, the heart beats slowly, respiration slows, as well. The body temperature of these creatures lowers, as well, and fat deposits are called upon to feed the furnace of the body instead of ingesting food. Certainly old-timers who had to hunt to bring home fresh meat in the winter, would have been aware that some creatures effectively disappeared in the winter. Where did they go? But the idea that humans might be able to hibernate seems against all prior knowledge and reason. But what of hypothermia, the slow freezing deathlike state that comes before the final heartbeat of those humans who are exposed to winter’s fury? The cells in the body begin to freeze at 31.1 degrees, and cell walls rupture as the water within them freezes, crystallizes and bursts through cell walls, resulting in frostbite. Freezing to death comes on like a shiver but ends with the body becoming warm and comfortable as the blood abandons extremities and concentrates around internal organs, resulting in a quiet, almost blissful sleep-state, followed by death.
Some people have been able to last for hours and slowly be brought back from the brink of life with slow and deliberate coaxing of the temperature and the metabolism until the victims awaken and recover. Surgeons use something called therapeutic hypothermia after cardiac arrest, a state where the heart stops beating and blood is no longer going to the brain or other organs as it should. By lowering the body’s temperature, the damage done to the brain and other organs is lessened. They use this technique on people whose hearts have stopped, then restarted but who have not reawakened. Cooling them to very cold levels for 24 hours improves their chances of awakening and recovering.
We know a lot about how the human body responds to the cold and we’re learning more. If the body’s core temperature can be lowered and maintained with no long-term damage to cells or organs, such techniques might one day help humans travel the vast distances involved in space travel. To conserve food and the energy to warm these future astronauts, putting them in a state of suspended animation would solve many of the problems with long-term deep space flight. But we don’t know how to do such a thing, not yet. We are doing the research, but such functional practices are still the stuff of science fiction.
What, then, do we make of this anonymous traveler’s story told so long ago? You be the judge. Perhaps the good people of northern Vermont knew something we have yet to prove, yet to comprehend.
Here are his words:
“The account runs in this wise. January 7 - I went on the mountain today and witnessed what to me was a horrible sight. It seems that the dwellers there who are unable either from age or other reasons to contribute to the support of their families are disposed of in the winter months in a manner that will shock the one who reads this diary unless that person lives in the vicinity.
“I will describe what I saw. Six persons, four men and two women, the man a cripple about 30 years old, the other five past the age of usefulness, lay on the earthly floor of the cabin drugged into insensibility, while members of the families were gathered about them in apparent indifference. In a short time the unconscious bodies were inspected by several old people who said, ‘They are ready.’
“They were then stripped of all their clothing except a single garment. Then the bodies were carried outside and laid on logs exposed to the bitter cold mountain air, the operation having been delayed several days for suitable weather.
“It was a night when the bodies were carried out and the full moon occasionally obscured by flying clouds, shone on their upturned, ghastly faces and a horrible fascination kept me by the bodies as long as I could endure the severe cold.
“Soon the noses, ears, and fingers began to turn white, then the limbs and faces assumed a tallowy look. I could stand the cold no longer and went inside, where I found the friends in cheerful conversation. In about an hour I went out and looked at the bodies. They were fast freezing.
“Again I went inside where the men were smoking their clay pipes but silence had fallen on them. Perhaps they were thinking of the time when their time would come to be carried out, for in the same way, one by one, they at last lay down on the floor and went to sleep.
“I could not shut out the sight of their freezing bodies outside, neither could I bear to be in darkness, but I piled on wood in the cavernous fireplace and seated on a shingle block passed the dreary night, terror stricken by the horrible sights I had witnessed.
“January 8 - Day came at length but did not dissipate the terror that filled me. The frozen bodies became visibly white on the snow that lay in huge drifts about them. The women gathered about the fire and soon commenced preparing breakfast. The men awoke, and conversation again commencing, affair assumed a more cheerful aspect.
“After breakfast the men lit their pipes and some of them took a yoke of oxen and went off toward the forest, while others proceeded to nail together boards making a box about 10 feet long and half as high and wide. When this was completed they placed about two feet of straw on the bottom. Then they laid three frozen bodies in the straw. Then the faces and upper part of the bodies were covered with cloth; then more straw was put in the box and the other three bodies placed on top, and covered the same as the first ones, with cloth and straw.
“Boards were then firmly nailed on top to protect the bodies from being injured by carnivorous animals that made their home on these mountains. By this time the men who went off with the ox team returned with a huge load of spruce and hemlock boughs which they unloaded at the foot of a steep ledge, came to the house and loaded the box containing the bodies on the sled and drew it to the foot of the ledge near the boughs.
“These were soon piled on and around the box and it was left to be covered with snow which I was told would lay in drifts 20 feet deep over this rude tomb. ‘We shall want our men to plant our corn next Spring,’ said a youngish-looking woman, the wife of one of the frozen men, ‘and if you want to see them resuscitated, you come here about the 10th of next May.’”
Musical Interlude
In America alone, over three hundred human beings have been frozen in cryogenic facilities with the hope that at some future date, these people - usually only their heads or brains, for the bodies are never frozen - all have one thing in common: they were all dead when they were put into a frozen state. Cryoprotective agents have been injected, but this biological antifreeze has toxic effects at the cellular level. At the molecular level, so much damage will have been done that only something like some kind of advanced nanotechnology will be able to affect repairs, along with an artificial intelligence capable of monitoring every single cell in a biological system.
Who knows if consciousness will ever return to these brains? At the moment, it seems impossible. But the hope is that the future will offer scientific advances sufficient to bring the dead back to life. That’s the hope, and hope is often all that is left when every other avenue has been exhausted. Will we ever bring the frozen dead of our modern scientific world back to life? It is doubtful, but perhaps not impossible.
But what of the frozen folk in northern Vermont, buried in a box with tree boughs and straw? How does the unnamed traveler end his tale? He continues…
“May 10 - I arrived here at 10 A.M. after riding about four hours over muddy, unsettled roads. The weather here is warm and pleasant, most of the snow gone except here and there there are drifts in the fence corners and hollows. But nature is not yet dressed in green.
“We repaired at once to the well-remembered spot at the ledge. The snow had melted from the top of the brush, but still lay deep around the bottom of the pile. The men commenced work at once, some shoveling, and others tearing away the brush. Soon the box was visible. The cover was taken off, the layers of straw removed and the bodies, frozen and apparently lifeless, lifted out and laid on the snow.
“I found the same prairies here I left last January ready to disinter the bodies of their friends. I had no expectations of finding any life there, but a feeling that I could not resist impelled me to come and see.
Large troughs made out of hemlock logs were placed nearby filled with tepid water, into which the bodies were placed separately with the head slightly raised. Boiling water was then poured into the troughs from kettles hung on poles nearby until the water was as hot as I could hold my hand in. Hemlock boughs had been put in the boiling water in such quantities that they had given the water the color of wine.
“After lying in the bath for about an hour, color began to return to the bodies, when all hands began rubbing and chafing them. This continued about an hour when a slight twitching of the muscles of the face and limbs, followed by audible gasps showed that life was not quenched and that vitality was returning.
“Spirits were then given in small quantities and allowed to trickle down their throats. Soon they could swallow and more was given them when their eyes opened and they began to talk, and finally sat up in their bathtubs.
“They were taken out and assisted to the house where after a hearty meal they seemed as well as ever and in nowise injured, but rather refreshed by their long sleep of four months.”
Can such things be true? There is no real proof that this story is anything more than that - just a story. But what a story! If one suspends disbelief and considers the story as factual, one wonders - how many times have these people been put into the frozen suspended state? One year, several years? Did some fail to resuscitate? How was such a process discovered in the first place? If this was a real process, surely it is fantastical and audacious enough to be recalled by anyone who knew of its existence. But all we have is one unnamed traveler’s account.
Still, even if it is just a story, put yourself in a small parlor with the fire burning against the awesome cold of a northern New England deep winter night, the family huddled together before bedtime and mother or father pulling out the old scrapbook. You’ve heard the story before, but it never fails to make you wonder - and shiver a little more from the story than from the cold. As the story is read, you look outside the window at the vault of stars twinkling overhead and see in the distance, against a ledge, a pile of boughs covered with snow. You cannot help but wonder what lies beneath.
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The wind is blowing. It seems like the wind is always blowing here on this rock, like a constant companion, the sea breezes wafting lightly or heavy, but always, the air is moving around you like a torrent of unseen, but not unfelt, spirits. Tonight, though, it is howling, screaming like a banshee. Outside, the elements are raging and there is no sign that this will end soon.
The light is lit, thank God. If not for your toil and attention, such a night could bring the death of many mariners who find themselves at sea so close to the rocky coast and in particular, these treacherous shoals. Winter storms tend to be the worst. As the Keeper for so many years, you’ve learned how quickly the waters can turn on you. You’ve seen the sea throw boulders from its depths against the granite walls of the light. The first three iterations of it were destroyed by the sea, but not this one. This one was built to last.
But tonight you will wait in the comfort of the keeper’s house and stand watch. There is only one place of refuge once things turn a certain corner and that is the safety of the light itself. But tonight, you will linger inside alone - thanking God that the others are safe on shore in York. There will be no sleep tonight, but as you sit there and the winds howl, you listen attentively and hope she doesn’t come again. You’ve seen her before, only when you’ve been alone on the island. She comes to the door in the midst of the rain and wind and knocks. Your heart jumps -how can someone be at the door when you are the only one on this tiny rock of an island? You remember her eyes - those pleading eyes as she looks at you when you open the door . No words are spoken and no words could ever convey the pain and worry on this young woman’s face. So as you sit there to ride out the storm, you say a little prayer for her...and for yourself. Please God, let her be restful tonight.
There is not another living soul on the island. You’ve been here for a quarter of a century already and at your age, this place has become home. It is an island, only 14 feet above sea level, a tiny place 300 by 700 feet at low tide, but it has been enough to sustain you, comfort you, even. On a good day, a clear day, you can see the coast of Maine eight miles away, see York and know that you are not completely separated. On a good day, a clear day, you have a boat that will take you there, if need be, though you rarely take the journey anymore. Your name is William C. Williams and you are the Keeper of the tallest lighthouse in New England, the Boon Island Light. Though you are alone here on this wildest of nights, you are certain of one thing, a fact you’ve come to live with, a fact you’ve come to almost find comforting - almost. Because though no living soul is with you here tonight, you know that you are most certainly not alone.
Keepers were hard to find for the Boon Island Light. The first one lasted two months before leaving his post, declaring it too isolated, too lonely, too maddening. The second keeper lasted a few years, but the duty was too difficult on the mind. The water and waves destroyed stone towers and the isolation destroyed the calm of the soul. But one man stands out in the service of the Boon Island Light.
William C. Williams was not the first keeper of the Boon Island Light, nor would he be the last, but he remains one of the longest serving of all of the lighthouse keepers ever in the service. A Mainer born in Kittery, Williams first went to tiny Boon Island as an assistant in 1885. Three years later he became the principal Keeper and served in that post until 1911. Lighthouse keepers lived solitary lives, though for many of his years, he was not alone on the island. He had his share of assistants to keep him company. In the summer, he had company ,too -his family and the families of his fellow keepers who would come for the season. In good weather, some keepers would work two weeks or more, but always found themselves back on shore before long, with another person taking their place in rotation. Once, in 1888, Williams and his assistants had to take refuge in the top of the tower for three days while winds howled . But every so often, Williams found himself alone on this ragged, tiny rock. Almost.
Boon Island has a history. Over the years it has seen its share of shipwrecks and tragedy. The first recorded shipwreck was a local vessel, the Increase, in 1682. For thirty-one days the castaways, always within sight of land but unable to make the journey, subsisted on bird eggs and fishing. It was July - not a bad month to be shipwrecked off the northeastern coast. Having caught sight of a fire on a coastal mountain, they gathered anything that could burn and set it aflame, hoping someone would see the smoke. Ten days later, they were rescued. They were lucky, unlike the men who found themselves shipwrecked there on December 11, 1710. The English ship, the Nottingham Galley, under the command of their hated captain, John Deanne, found themselves so desperate that they ate their ship’s carpenter. Rescued a little more than a month after the storm tossed them ashore, the remaining crew left their prison with the rumor of cannibalism that would haunt them all until their own deaths. Many lost fingers, toes and in one case, half a foot, to frostbite. But at least they still had their lives. Perhaps when terrible things happen in a place, something remains, something remembers.
William C. Williams, the long-time keeper, might have thought he heard their cries and at least imagined their terror and desperation, especially when he found himself alone. Always keenly aware of how close death was no matter where he stood on the island, he recalled as a 90 year old retired man in Kittery that one of the greatest pleasures of his life was to simply walk in his front yard without having to worry about being swept to his death if he strayed too close to the ledge and shore of Boon Island.
In 1805, while rebuilding the first tower that had been destroyed by the violence of the elements raging, three men drowned there. This little shoal had seen the dark shadow of human death more often than it should have. How strange that so many perished here, within a mere six miles of the continent.
There were other stories of loss and pain, but one of them might have touched him more than the others. Unlike the others, it was a love story, a ghost story. There are no names given, no facts that can be researched because it is, after all, a spirit tale with no proof. William C. Williams was not a man of many words and his speech, they say, was simple, direct and to the point. He was a reader and a thinker, a man of good humor who did not easily become excited or upset. He was a man in control of his own mind. Perhaps that is the secret to his success as one of the longest serving lighthouse keepers in the service: nothing phased him so much that he could not complete his daily appointed rounds. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t experience visits from her - the woman who weeps as she walks the stoney ledges of Boon Island.
It is one of those nineteenth century stories you might find in a magazine of the early Victorian era, a melodramatic tale, complete with an etching of a stone tower against a black backdrop. Picture a lonely, isolated lighthouse just off the Maine coast, kept by a newly appointed lighthouse keeper and his young wife. Together they ensure that the light remains lit. It is a romantic setting for a newly married couple, a place isolated but beautiful in its own wild, hard way. All they have to sustain themselves on this island is each other. Together, they keep the fire burning.
But one night the winds begin to blow and the barometer falls and the waves begin to pound and throw stones from out of the deep onto the island and against the tower and their house. Fearing that their small boat, their only way off the island, might be lost to such a tempest, the keeper ventures out to the launching station to make sure it is secured and in a wild wind is tossed back against the rocks, hitting his head and rendering him unconscious. His wife calls for him, but he does not return. In a panic, she ventures out into the growing storm and finds her husband there in the rocks and the salt pools. She rushes out to him. To her relief, he is breathing but she cannot call him back to consciousness. With Herculean strength, she hauls his body back to the base of the light. Pulling him inside, she shuts the great door against the tempest. Tending to him, she knows that the light has to keep going. Walking the 168 steps to the top, she makes sure the light keeps burning for the next five days - five interminable days as she runs back down to the base of the light to tend to her husband, then back up the winding staircase to set the light.
After five days, the kerosene runs out and the local sailors notice the absence of the light. The storm finally abated, the rescuers make their way to Boon Island. Imagine them calling for someone as they breach the shore. Imagine them going into the flooded house and calling, but hearing no answer. Finally, they open the door at the base of the lighthouse and see her there, cradling her husband’s ashen gray head in her lap, running her fingers through his hair, her eyes red and wild, her mind savaged by the experience. When they try to tell her that her husband was dead, she can not bear it. Her mind unwinds and she becomes hysterical. The rescuers carry her, raving, off the island, all the while with her shouting that he isn’t dead, please, he isn’t dead, he can’t be dead!
Legend relates that she died a few weeks later. That was tragedy enough, but the legend wasn’t born until tales of a woman knocking at the keeper’s house door began to circulate among the good people of York Village.When the door is answered , a young woman looks frantically at the person answering and then turns and runs to the lighthouse, only to disappear. Young keepers told stories of hearing a woman’s voice echoing in the tower while they tended the light, always alone. Her presence lingers. William C. Williams, long time keeper of the Boon Island Light, must have had a brush or two with the keeper’s wife. Of all people, surely he could understand her fear, her isolation and her courage. If anyone could understand her, it would be him.
So a tapping at the window in the night might be a stone thrown from the sea, or perhaps a gull, but just as likely it could be a woman’s hand seen just at the edge of the windowpane. And as he looked out from the light down to the tiny island from the lighthouse chamber, could it be a trick of the light or was that a woman walking the shore, a woman who, by all rights, should not be there. A thought haunts him - why has he never followed her as she beckoned? And if she knocks tonight , will he follow her to the lighthouse? And if he does, will that set her free. Will he have a glimpse into her recurring nightmare? Will he see what she sees? He worries about her, quietly of course. He keeps his counsel and doesn’t talk about it to the other keeper or his wife on shore. She is plainly suffering, but what can he do?
No one lives on Boon Island anymore. The lighthouse is automated like all of the others along the coast. Oh, there are visitors from the Coast Guard from time to time, but the days of keepers and their assistants are long gone. No one tends the light to make sure it doesn’t go dark and if there are knocks on the Keeper’s house door, they always go unanswered.
Music Credits: Myuu - "Bad Encounter" Myuu - "Disintegrating"
Theme Music: copyright 2015 James Burby
Audio Editing and Mastering: James Burby
REFERENCES:
"Boon Island Lighthouse History" newenglandlighthouses.net
"Boon Island Light" wikipedia.org
"The Haunting of Boon Island" seacoastonline.com
Lieutenant Gustavus Drane awoke from his stupor to find himself chained to the floor. It was dark, so dark. Where was he and what was that sound? How did I get here? He struggled to regain his thoughts. He had been drinking, rather heavily, with the other men of the regiment. He ought to have known better, that they had never really liked him, but the days and weeks at Castle Island in Boston Harbor were long and cold with little else to do but play cards and drink. He was better than this, he thought! Gustavus Drane cursed his bad luck, but as his eyes began to focus again and as the thoughts began to come together in his clouded mind, he assessed his situation.
He was in a dark place, but where? Was this a casemate, an underground storage bunker? It must be. And that sound - men talking and the sound of bricks being moved. He struggled but the iron handcuffs were cumbersome and his feet were shackled, as well. Those men, he could see shadows flickering the dimmest of light at the end of the casemate - they were - no, good God, please God no - they were sealing him inside, one granite brick at a time.
He raved, he swore, he shouted, but all to no avail. The sound echoed and rattled around the empty chamber, this vast tomb, but no sound could escape. He pleaded with the men he had played cards with only hours ago, men he had shared whiskey and wine with, men who knew him well. Why were they doing this to him? Was it because of Massie? It must be. Massie, that fool that he ran through with his sword because of his insolence, because of his damned familiarity with the others. Surely these men walling him in alive understood the rules of the duel? Massie had willingly walked to his death that Christmas morning a year ago. By showing up, he had tacitly agreed to the rules and one of the rules was that the winner walked away free. Was it his fault he was the better swordsman? Did these men not understand?
And then, the sounds grew still and the light grew dim and Lieutenant Drane stopped his protestations for a moment to take in the gravity of the situation. It was a long moment, followed by the clink of stone upon stone and then, utter darkness. He screamed and then, with no hope left, he began to weep.
He was never seen or heard from again.
Anyone who has read Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” is familiar with this tale. Well, sort of. The details are different, though the basic plot is the same. A man is tempted and plied with drink, a man who is despised by the one who offers the spirits. He is teased with more good company and more liquor until, at last, he is senseless and easily chained. Then, his captors begin to seal him into the space they have prepared for him. In the end, the poor victim recovers just long enough to see the last light he will ever see in this world as the last brick is inserted into the wall. In Poe’s classic tale, he ends the story with the words
Stories can take their inspiration from legends and legends need not be ancient or ever very old. They can rise from the tales told among a small group of people, stories that resonate and have a moral or a lesson. So it is with Poe’s classic story. In this case, it is a tale told by soldiers to pass the time and while away the long hours of boredom that is the bulk of a soldier's time.
People who are familiar with Poe and his macabre works may not know that Poe was born in Boston in 1809, the son of an alcoholic father and his mother, a locally acclaimed actress, Elizabeth. Poe’s father disappeared early and his mother died when he was two years old of tuberculosis. Moved from foster family to foster family, he eventually found himself adopted by a Richmond couple, to a mother who loved him dearly and doted upon him, and to a father who, over the years, grew to detest young Edgar and his gentile ways. Poe was sent to the University of Virginia in its early days with only enough money from his father to pay tuition and little else. Edgar did well in his studies, to be sure, but he had no money for food or firewood and he turned to gambling to make ends meet. Before long, he found himself owing gambling debts he could not afford to pay. He begged his foster father, John Allan, to help him, but he refused and so, to avoid imprisonment, he left the University under the cover of darkness and joined the army under an assumed name, Edgar A. Perry.
One of his first stints in the military, before he eventually attended West Point and before he was court-martialled and dismissed, was in 1827 in his home town of Boston, at Castle Island in Boston Harbor, a place called Fort Independence. While there, Poe discovered a mystery that would haunt his creative mind long enough to retell the essential tale in a style and fashion that only Poe could.
There was a marble monument that Poe saw that intrigued him. The monument is no longer there, but Poe’s notebook records the lines he read:
The officers of the U.S. Regiment of Lt. Atr’y erected this monument as a testimony of their respect & friendship for an amiable man & gallant officer.
Another side of the monument has a line from Collins, the poet, “Here honour comes, a Pilgrim gray, To deck the turf, that wraps his clay.”
Finally, the north side of the small monument read “Beneath this stone are deposited the remains of Loieut. ROBERT F. MASSIE, of the U.S. Regt. of Light Artillery. Near this spot on the 25th, Decr, 1817, fell Lieut. Robert F. Massie, Aged 21 years.
Near this spot fell…
Poe was intrigued by those four words and he investigated the circumstances that led to the death of a young man, a man his own age. Robert K. Massie was a young officer assigned to the garrison at Castle Island. He was amiable and kind, a friend to all, the kind of young officer who was destined to inspire his men to follow him freely, without reservations. He enjoyed the comradeship of his fellows and in no time was a popular figure at the fort. Everyone seemed to like him, with the exception of a single man - fellow Lieutenant Gustavus Drane. He was argumentative and had a reputation for being a bully. During a friendly card game on the night of Christmas Eve, Drane rose from his chair and stuck Massie across the face with his palm, saying, “You’re a cheat and I demand immediate satisfaction!” In front of these men, Drane had challenged Massie’s honor and a duel was the only honorable way to end this altercation. It was agreed that the next morning, on Christmas Day, the two would meet in the fort’s yard.
A duel was a long standing way for people of a certain pedigree to let God settle a dispute of honor. It was thought that in such a man-to-man challenge, God himself would choose to save the ‘right’ person. In early America, duels were part of the accepted norm. In fact, duels were quite public in nature before they were outlawed in most states by 1859. In places like Boston, they were already frowned upon and looked upon as somewhat childish ways for men to settle their differences. Alexander Hamilton died in such a duel. Later, even Lincoln would be challenged to a duel - and he chose swords, thinking his long arms would be an advantage, but even Lincoln relented and apologized for his insult.
On the moring of December 25 in the chilly Boston dawn, Lieutenant Gustavus Drane made quick work of young Robert Massie, running him through with a sword almost immediately. Oh, their seconds tried in vain to settle this conflict with words, but to no avail. Massie, taken into the barracks, died later that afternoon. Within a few weeks, a marble stone was erected in his memory. Everyone would remember that a cruel, vindictive man had effectively murdered a good man in this spot and had gotten away with it.
Then, Lieutenant Gustavus Drane disappeared. He was never seen or heard from again and was labeled a deserter by the Army. Perhaps he did run away, shamed by the words on the stone that reminded everyone of his foul deed. Poe looked a little further and heard the story among the soldiers that Drane was still among them, albiet many feet below. The friends of Robert Massie, who undoubtedly must have borne the bullying of Drane, learned that not only had he killed Massie, but six other young men as well, using similar tactics. Taking justice into their own hands, they plied Drane with alcohol and carried him to an abandoned casemate they had recently opened. Then, they chained him to the floor with iron and walled him up alive within the darkness of the dungeon. Poe, it is said, was confronted by the commander of the garrison and told to never speak of this tale again. He obviously didn’t quite keep his word, as the story “The Cask of Amontillado” is one of the most famous stories in the world, but he did change the place and the names and only kept the horror. The horror is the thing - the thought of being utterly alone and never again to see the light of day or hear another human voice, to simply lie there, forgotten.
But the truth makes liars of us all. It seems that Lieutenant Gustavus Drane was not murdered and was not a deserter. He continued his military life and made it to the rank of Captain. He later died in 1846 while in the service of the military. This much we know to be true - Massie ‘near this spot fell’ though we do not actually know how.
There are a few books published in the early 20th century that claim that in 1905 during renovations at the fort, a casemate was opened and a skeleton was found within, the small tattered remnants of his clothing were of an old military uniform. Someone, it seems, was left in the darkness of the casemate. Who? We will never know. Folklore and legends hold onto what is essential and leave the rest to float away in the river of time. We have a legend here, and therefore, only a portion of the truth.
Fort Independence was a state prison from 1785 until 1805, before the time of Lieutenants Massie and Drane. Perhaps the remains are from that earlier time. Perhaps not.
One final strange series of events occurred that we can prove, however. The remains of the beloved Lt. Massie took on more importance when a bridge to Castle Island was built in 1891. People made pilgrimages to visit. The following year, Massie’s remains were dug up and reburied at Governor’s Island in a new cemetery. In 1908, he was disinterred again and moved to Deer Island to be laid to rest in the officer’s section of Resthaven Cemetery. Finally, in 1939, he was moved one more final time, to rest at Fort Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts.
Robert F. Massie died once but was buried five times. This must so some sort of record. It seemed that he was not allowed to rest and that we are still connected to him whenever we remember or reread Poe’s tale.
SOURCES
http://newenglandfolklore.blogspot.com/2013/09/fort-indpendence-edgar-allan-poe.html
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/63845919/robert-f_-massie
Cover Art: Harry Clarke, 1919, "The Cask of Amontillado" Public Domain
There is a legend in the northeast of a man condemned to ride the storm for all eternity. When folks first started describing the man and his conveyance, he was always seen running just ahead of a fierce thunderstorm that appeared out of nowhere, in an open carriage being drawn by a fierce bay horse. Sitting next to him is his small daughter, perhaps no more than six years old. They are both soaking wet and their faces are both covered in panic and fear. The carriage is being driven at a frenetic pace for just behind this strange pair is a sky of tight rolling black thunderheads and the sound of distant thunder begins to fill the air. If you ask around, you are sure to find someone who has either seen the man himself or at least knows someone who has.
They say that if you’re of a mind to speak with him and he notices you, he is likely to slow the beast that pulls his rig just long enough to stop and ask you a single question.
“Which way to Boston?”
You might find the words to tell him if you are not stupified by the sight your eyes behold. Then he will give you a weary look and crack the whip and continue the long journey home. The man’s name is Peter Rugg and he is cursed by God or the Devil to ride the road to Boston forever without ever reaching his final destination. He is no ghost or demon, but a mortal man doomed to roam the hills and byways until Kingdom Come, a kind of Flying Dutchman of New England.
Thomas Cutter of West Cambridge claimed that Peter Rugg stopped at his place just before he was lost in the stream of time. They were friends and Rugg has been driving that great bay all day in an effort to get home before dark. He took rum and when Cutter told him he should consider staying the night rather than face the storm, Rugg’s violent temper arose and exclaimed “Let the storm increase! I will see home tonight in spite of the storm or may I never see home!” And with that, he raised his whip high in the air and the horse bolted to action.
But Peter Rugg and his little daughter Jenny never made it home. His wife, Catherine, grew old and died waiting for him, though she must have found it strange that every so often, someone would mention to her that they had seen a man on the road who looked like Peter who had stopped and asked for directions to Boston. Later, years after Catherine Rugg’s demise, a woman called Mrs. Croft tells of a strange visit from a man and his small daughter in a weather-beaten black carriage, just at twilight. Mrs. Croft relates that the man asked her about Catherine Rugg. Mrs. Croft informed the man that Mrs. Rugg had passed on more than twenty years ago.
“How can you deceive me so?” he asked. “This is my home. Go find Mrs. Rugg and have her come to the door, at once!” he demanded. Mrs. Croft assured him that no one lived in that place but herself. The confused man steps back and reexamines the house. “Though the paint looks rather faded, this resembles my house.”
“Yes,” the disheveled and tired child says, “there is the stone before the door that I used to on to eat my bread and milk.”
“Yes,” the man replies, “but this cannot be my house. It is on the wrong side of the street, no doubt. Tell me,” he asked Mrs. Croft, “what town is this?”
“Town? Why, this is Boston,” she answers.
“This is Boston?” he asks, incredulously. “But it seems so different. Well, at any rate, you can see I am wet and weary and I need a place to rest. I will go to Hart’s Tavern, near the market.”
“What market?” she asks.
“You know there is but one market near the town dock,” he exclaims.
Mrs. Croft considers and then, after a moment replied, “Oh, you mean the old town market. But no one has kept there these twenty years!”
The gentleman pushes down is ire and replies mostly to himself, “So strange. How much this looks like Boston. It certainly has a great resemblance to it; but I perceive my mistake now. Some other Mrs. Rugg. Some other Middle Street and some other market.”
Then he looks at the woman again and asks, “Madam, can you direct me to Boston?”
The story is told over and over again. Travelers who encounter the missing man on the road are always asked which way to Boston. He is seen as far south as Virginia and as far north as Portland. If you can perceive him at the right time of day, just at twilight, the lightning in the clouds will show you the image of a giant horse with eyes of flame filling the expanse between black clouds. As far as anyone can tell, Peter Rugg is still on the highway, racing against the storm to make it home. Long haul truckers have made the claim that they have encountered the horse and carriage on a lonely road at twilight, a frightened man at the wheel, a girl holding onto his coat for dear life as they barrel on toward oblivion. Some have reported that the conveyance was struck by a bolt of lightning and that Peter and his daughter glowed like brimstone for a moment afterwards.
The idea of a man lost in a wheel of time, a closed loop never to allowed to meet the end of a journey, is an old tale. The idea of an eternal wanderer goes back far in our memory. Cain is cursed for killing his brother Abel and lying to God about it. His curse is to be marked and to wander so that all may know him by the sign God has put upon him. There is also the legend of the Wandering Jew who denied Christ and was condemned to roam the world until Christ’s second coming. There is punishment in these tales, punishment in not recognizing the authority of God. The concept is familiar to those who have read Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – a sailor who kills a sacred bird, the albatross, and thus sins against God, is doomed to wander the world and tell his story to whoever will listen.
The Legend of New England’s own eternal wanderer left its impression on a few of our writers, as well. Nathaniel Hawthrone knew the story while a student at Bowdoin and even mentions Rugg in his story “The Virtuoso’s Collection” Herman Melville alludes to him in “Bartleby the Scrivener.” Amy Lowell published a long prose-poem entitled “Before the Storm: The Legend of Peter Rugg,” as late as 1917.
If you look for more modern sightings of poor Peter Rugg, you will find no mention of him. One might hope that over the years he has changed his carriage and horse for a black Chevrolet Impala, wandering the back-roads with his now teenage daughter, always looking for put never actually finding home, lost in some pocket of time separate from the rest of us as punishment for threatening God.
But if you look a little deeper you will find another truth: there are stories that become legends. The classic New England authors who referred to Rugg recalled the tale from their childhoods, assumed it to be just another ghost story told around the fire in the dark nights of winter, a cautionary tale to always honor God and never to make idle threats, as Rugg did. They were remembering something, but it wasn’t a real legend at all. Peter Rugg was the creation of a writer and attorney named William Austin. Under the pseudonym Jonathan Dunwell, Austin wrote a tale entitled “Peter Rugg: the Missing Man” published in 1824 in The New England Magazine, a publication of the Boston Masonic Temple. Written as a long letter and in the first person, it had the appearance and feel of an actual account, told by a credible narrator about actual events that had occurred over the years involving a man lost in time, always riding before a violent storm, pulled by a horse with eyes of red. It is likely that because of the nature of the writing and the number of reprints (there were no copyright laws enforced in America at that time), people might have easily assumed that Peter Rugg was an actual Bostonian who had the bad luck to be cursed by God. Who could blame those people who thought he was real – after all – as outlandish as this tale is, we all know what it is like to be lost, to not know where home is, to be aimlessly wandering, at least for a few moments, disconnected from everything we know. Perhaps that basic human fear – of being lost or abandoned, of being disconnected, is the reason the tale of Peter Rugg resonates even today.
In Austin’s writing, Rugg actually makes it home and like some vehicular Rip Van Winkle. Sixty years have passed, his wife is long dead, and he arrives at his home just as it is being auctioned off. Rugg is confused, demands to know how such a thing has happened – how such a strange thing has happened. Then, one of the men in the crowd speaks, saying, “There is nothing strange here but yourself, Mr. Rugg. Time, which destroys and renews all things, has dilapidated your house and brought us here. You have suffered many years an illusion. The tempest which you profanely defied at Menotomy has at length subsided; but you will never see home, for your house and wife and neighbors have all disappeared. Your estate, indeed, remains, but no home. You were cut off from the last age, and you never can be fitted to the present. Your home is gone, and you can never have another home in the world.”
So if you’re on the road and a stranger happens by and stops you to inquire the way to Boston, be kind. Assure him that all will be well, for that is all you can do. No matter what you tell him or which way you direct him, the poor man is destined to roam the highways with his little daughter, always looking for and alas, never finding, home. And remember, it’s only a story. Funny – how it haunts us, even though its just a tale. Maybe it’s because we too have been lost on a dark and stormy night, just hoping and praying that we’ll find our way home.
NOTE: If you would like to hear William Austin's original tale of high strangeness, we've created a recording for your listening entertainment.
https://youtu.be/4gyO0455wiA
It is dusk of a late summer day and you are standing quietly on a shoreline. There are bits of gnarled tree roots washed ashore here and there, pebbles, and small patches of mossy green vegetation at the lip of the water. The long vista you’re observing is a mixture of green and gold and blue, with the orange-red of the setting sun casting long shadows over the water of the quiet lake. There are trees as far as the eye can see, covering the rolling hills. If you stay very still and listen attentively, you might hear the sound of people laughing at their camps, of an outboard motor slowly cruising along in the rapture of the moment. It is a timeless place, a place of deep beauty. People might work hard and save for years for a moment such as this, far from the crowded city, a place where the angels come to play.
But if you wait a while and let the last light of the setting sun fall away to the West, wait for the stars to turn on one by one in the darkest and brightest night sky you’ve ever seen, if you listen for the long lonesome call of the loon and feel the night air grow colder, you might also hear the sound of people, of cars, of tractors and children laughing, of radios on front porches and dogs barking. You have to hear it with the soul’s ear, but if you listen, the sound is there: for this is a place where memories linger, a place that, if not haunted, is certainly trying to be.
Places are a lot like people. They are born, they slowly grow and take on shape and purpose, they find a way to thrive in the world, and they change, adapt, and continue. But some places, a very few, like people, die. Some simply just cease to be and die a natural death. But some places are murdered. Such is the place you are viewing in your mind’s eye - it is the victim of a premeditated crime, committed for money, leaving the corpse to rot underneath the shallow waters.
This is Flagstaff Lake, the fourth largest lake in Maine,a state with over six thousand lakes and ponds. But before the 1950’s, this 20,300 acre lake didn’t exist. Before that, there were the towns of Flagstaff Village and Dead River Plantation, home to families, houses, stores, farms, schools, and churches. Children laughed there, the seasons ran their courses, people fell in love, married, grew old and were buried there. Life was anchored in this place. This was home. Today, it is an extremely shallow man-made lake and below the waters, memories linger. You can almost hear it, if you have an imagination.
People needed power to drive the future. Factories, farms, and businesses all were bursting to grow into something more, to bring jobs and prosperity to even the most far-flung and isloated residents of the land. Electricty was on the minds of everyone who witnessed its possibilities in the few places in America where it was generated. Like so many emerging technologies, it became a revolution, and like many revolutions, there would be casualties.
The man who set the machinations into motion had profit on his mind. His name was Walter Wyman and the company was the Central Maine Power Company. Wyman was a pioneer in electricty production in Maine. As early as 1899, he and his partner began producing electricty for the town of Oakland. Over time, he set his sights on all of western Maine as a kind of kingdom of power. Wyman looked at the state of Maine’s electrical power production, which was scattered and unorganized. He began to change all of that by purchasing one small electrical producer after another, creating a single power-producing entity, Central Maine Power. Wyman knew that electricty would soon drive the engines of civilization, even in the smallest, most remote areas and he was going to control the means of production. In the early 1930s, he began acquiring other companies, growing his business. In 1936 the federal government instituted the Rural Electrification Act and provided money to those people and companies who could bring electricity to the isolated rural areas of the country. Wyman wanted his share of that money. He wanted to become Maine’s premier electricity producer. Ultimately, he would need to harness hydro-power and the flow of the mighty Kennebec River. He looked at the map of Western Maine and saw an existing lake, a much smaller body of water called Flagstaff Pond. With the area’s vast woodlands and rivers leading to the larger rivers, it was no stretch of the imagination to see a hydro-electric dam that regulated the water flow of the North and South Dead Rivers into the larger Kennebec. Wyman embraced the idea and began by purchasing parcel after parcel of land and burning the forests to the ground. His plan was to create a vast resevoir of water, the future Flagstaff Lake, to drive the turbines and create one of the largest electrical companies in the northeast.
But Wyman had a problem. In 1909, in an effort to preserve Maine’s natural heritage and keep it wild and open, the legislature passed the Fernald Bill. It prohibited companies that produced electricity in the state from selling it outside of the state, banning its export.That was a problem for Wyman who had plans. The law was almost repealed, but the voters of the state chose to keep it. Frustrated, he didn’t let the Fernald Law stop him from building the capacity for power generation in the state, even while building the largest hydroelectric dam in the northeast, the Wyman Dam at Bingham. He had too much power - literally - to sell in Maine. If there was no one to buy his power, that meant that Wyman had to create places that needed it, so he heavily invested in Bath Iron Works, Keyes Fiber in Waterville, shoe companies, and textile mills. He even created the Maine Seaboard Paper Company in Bucksport - a mill that had no way of producing its own power. If he couldn’t export power, he would invest in businesses that needed his power right in the state and profit from selling his power and from their products, which could be exported legally. Wyman was, after all, a business man with plans. And if a business stops growing, it begins to die.
But what of the towns of Flagstaff, Bigelow, and Dead River Planation? The people knew what he was doing. They saw the smoke from the fires, talked to the people who sold off their land to the speculators, understood that change was on the horizon and it was coming to take something away. Central Maine Power sent letters, went door to door,applied legal pressure where it was needed to get things moving and soon people began to succumb to the idea that their town was going to be taken from them. First, it was a farm here,a home there, but then businesses sold out, and larger and larger pieces of land were owned by the company. The townships were dissolved. Most folks took the money and moved away to places like Eustis. Some even had their homes transported like mobile homes. They dug up the dead and put them somewhere else. Some few people held on and refused to take the power company’s checks for their homes. Many of those people simply lost everything, because with their permission or without it, Walter Wyman and his company would have their way, as they always did.
In July of 1949, about 300 people met in the village one final time before it all was taken from them. As they met, they were surrounded by a an empty forest of tree stumpage, all cut and removed so that the reservoir for the nearly completed Long Falls Dam could be free of debris, as it created the largest man-made lake in the state of Maine. They must have been quiet; their past was being taken from them, even if they had cashed Wyman’s checks. The outskirts were already empty,the buildings all future ghosts just waiting for the inevitable. The school had already been razed to the ground. The church would be flooded, as would all of the other houses, under water and lost to their sight. There was nothing to celebrate. It was like gathering together for a kind of execution. Within a year, everything would be gone.
In 1950, the Long Falls Dam was completed and the last people in the villages and towns witnessed the rising waters. It was a slow death, they say, as it took weeks for the waters to fill the 20,000 acres. All those places they knew so well, the houses that sheltered them, the fields that fed them, the lawns where the children played, even the graveyard that honored their revered dead, all were erased from human sight for the march of progress. In order for Walter Wyman to provide the power that would eventually be exported from Maine to Boston and places south, this quiet, rural place would need to go, and with it, the heritage of hundreds of ordinary people without the money that bought influence. The Fernald Bill would be repealed, people would move on and these places, now underwater, would eventually be forgotten until finally, only a few survivors who grew up there, can recall the streets, the lights in the corner store at twilight, the sound of the radio and people rocking on their porches on a hot summmer night.
They say that Benedict Arnold, on his march to Canada, stopped at this place and put up a flag. When he left, the flagstaff remained, replaced by a trapper who found it. From that moment on, there had always been a flagstaff in the town. It was its namesake. In the end, when they flooded the town, they let it stand and for awhile, it poked above the waters as a maker, a kind of gravestone, for the town whose life was taken from its people and its people taken from it. If you go onto the lake today and stand on the shore, search as you will, you will not find that flagstaff. But if you take a moment, especially at dusk or in the early morning and stare for awhile over the calm waters, you just might discern the outline of a barn roof,of a stand of trees, or even a church steeple. Stories are all that are left and when the last resident of these places passes away and is buried in some other town’s cemetery, then legends will begin to grow. The story of a murder - something ostensibly done for the good of the many - that cries out, the drowned village that whispers from under the waters - remember me…
REFERENCES
Dead River Historical Society https://sites.google.com/site/deadriverareahistory/home/the-flooding-of-flagstaff
“Walter Wyman and River Power Power” https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/815/page/1225/display
MUSIC CREDITS
"Collapse" by Myuu (Creative Commons)
"Edge of Life" by Myuu (Creative Commons)
"Strange New England Theme" by Jim Burby
PHOTO CREDITS
Dead River Historical Society
Maine Historical Society
Picture of Flagstaff Lake - by Mlanni98 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77135333
When I was a young boy living in Caribou, Maine, back in the 1960s, we had two rocking chairs in our living room. I spent a lot of time in that room, playing with my Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars on the floor, building with my Lincoln Logs, and generally lost in sweet illusion. Life was sweet and completely innocent and I was the master of my own imagination. But something happened. Something I did a lot of the time, without thinking, has haunted me up to this day. It was something I knew nothing about, something that I couldn’t possibly have guessed. You see, when I was lying there on the floor, my foot would invariably find its way to the leg of one of those rocking chairs and then, without the slightest thought, I would start that empty chair a rocking, back and forth. The rhythm soothed me and gave me a sense of peace.
Then, one day, my mother was walking through the room and saw what I was doing, rocking that empty chair with my foot, and she stopped cold, dropped the clothesbasket she was carrying, spreading its contents all over the floor, and she cried, “Tommy! Stop it!”
I looked up at her, confused. What was I supposed to stop? Stop playing with my toys? I didn’t think, couldn’t possibly have imaged, what caused her so much concern.
“Stop rocking that chair with your foot!”
I stopped. But then, like any kid might, I asked “Why?”
She looked at me with wide eyes and said quietly, in a voice that was a warning, “Never, never, ever rock and empty rocking chair. It’s bad luck.”
“But what will happen?” I asked, still confused.
“When an empty rocking chair rocks, it means that soon, someone will die.”
And a million thoughts ran through my mind. I thought back to all the times I rocked that empty chair and in the simple faith of my youth I wondered, “How many people have I killed by mindlessly rocking the empty chair?”
I never did it again.
Even though I know better now, even though I realize that it was only my mother’s belief in a superstition that gave me many sleepless nights, even though I am educated and know better, I still make it appoint never to rock an empty rocking chair. Just in case…
Ghost stories aren’t usually easy to research. They don’t happen to several people at once. They never occur when you have a camera or a recording device. I have seen one ghost in my life, which I will not discuss here, not yet at least, but I am certain that if I had such a device in my hand at the time, the last thing I would have done would have been to have the presence of mind to point it at the apparition. Besides, ghosts exist in the corner of your eye and at the very edge of your hearing. They care little for our modern devices.
So when trying to research a good ghost story, you won’t find the kind of documentary evidence that would make a skeptic happy. No. People who tell their stories don’t usually want to and often only do so after someone pleads with them to share, to get it off their chest, so that they won’t feel like they’re so alone. It does a person little good to share an experience that they can’t explain and that keeps them on the very edge of being considered a fool by the world because, yes, once, perhaps more than once, they saw something that they cannot possibly explain. And then you listen and even though you know better, there’s something ancient deep down inside you, something innocent and even though you know better, you can’t stop yourself from listening…and believing.
Such is the story of Tina and Kenny Lusk of Waterbury, Connecticut, two professional pilots who moved into a charming Victorian home in Waterbury in the spring of 1990. As they were signing the papers, the seller of the house, an elderly fellow who had lived in it for years, gave them a quiet warning about a ‘disturbing presence’ within, and to expect to experience it at some point. But a story is only a story and after a year of living in the house with no sight or feeling of such a thing, the Lusks must have shrugged it all off as the imagination of an old man and nothing more.
But then there was the rocking chair in the attic…
People who have lived in houses they claim are haunted will tell you that there are usually places within the house where they experience cold air or the hair raising on the back of their heads. It could be a room, a corner, even a closet. In the case of the Lusk home, it was the attic. This was a Victorian house, so the attic was full of odd corners and dark exposed wood. People often leave things in the attic that they don’t want, and when they move, they don’t bother to take them with them. These things are all that remain of the people who have lived and passed through before. They are a reminder that someone came before. So it was with this place – a rocking chair, some clothing hanging on a bar, sundry items, toys and cookware.
A window on either side of the space let in enough light to waken the shadows and…something else? Ken was in the attic for a moment to store supplies when, in a moment of silence, from the corner of his eye in the corner of the attic, he saw the empty rocking chair left there by the previous owner, begin to rock by itself. Ken moved toward it to discover how such a thing was possible but as got close, it abruptly stopped.
“I just kind of shrugged it off at first,” he explained in Charles Robinson’s The New England Ghost Files, “I attributed it to a draft passing through and left it at that.”
Then the presence the previous owner had hinted about began to truly stir. Preparing for bed one evening, whatever was in the attic began to make itself known to them.
Thumping sounds would be heard and Ken would climb the stairs to the attic only to find everything quiet and as it should be. It happened at odd, unpredictable intervals.
In early August, 1991, things became even stranger and more unsettling. One afternoon while playing with the dog in the yard, Tina looked up to the attic and saw something that should not have been there, something…other. A dark figure was moving strangely in the attic, twisting and twirling in front of the window.
“The figure seemed to be dancing,” she recalls, “I couldn’t make it out well enough to tell if it was a man or a woman but it was twirling and throwing up its arms in a dance.”
She ran inside and told Kenny what she had seen. She was beside herself with fright. Together, they went upstairs to see if somehow, someone, a stranger, was dancing in front of the window in their attic.
They found nothing. Ken’s response was to shrug it off, to dismiss his wife’s experience as nothing more than a wild imagining. Tina recalls, “He told me that I was letting my imagination run wild because of what the seller had told us. Still, I didn’t see how he could take it so lightly, considering that he himself had heard those strange thumpings in the attic late at night. But I guess he wasn’t ready to accept the idea of a haunting. He’s a very rational person. As for me, “she remembers, “the figure I had seen in the attic window was very disturbing, although Kenny was able to half convince me that I had probably just seen a moving shadow up in the window, maybe a draft rustling through some old dresses hanging in the attic.”
The Lusks were pilots and one of them was often gone while the other remained at home with the dog. Three months after Tina saw the strange dancing form in the attic window, Ken was away on a flight and she was alone in the house. Repainting some of the rooms, they kept their painting supplies in the attic and one afternoon, Tina reluctantly made her way up the stairs to get the paint. She recalls the effect visiting the attic had on her that afternoon. “
“While I was up there, I couldn’t believe how nervous I was getting,” she recalls. “My whole body was shaking. Still, nothing unusual happened., and I went back downstairs feeling a little more relaxed. I got more and more relaxed each time but on my fourth trip to the attic, all of that changed.”
She was more relaxed. Of course there was nothing there, nothing at all. So it was with a light heart that she began to gather the color of paint she needed. As she bent over to find it, she heard a strange, light tapping noise coming from the far corner of the attic, where an old Raggedy Ann doll sat propped on a chair.
Tina’s words speak of a nearly unutterable fear. “When I looked in that direction, I saw something absolutely bizarre. You are going to think I’m crazy, but…well, the arms of the stuffed doll were clapping and moving frantically, like some invisible force was manipulating them. I just froze and stood there in absolute terror. Then, a few moments later, the doll came flying in my direction, like something invisible had picked it up ad thrown it at me. At that point, I rushed out of the attic screaming at the top of my lungs. When I got downstairs, I ran out of the house.”
She went to the house of a friend and calmed down. She decided not to tell her husband about her experience, fearing that he would lightly brush it off again as nothing more than her imagination. When he returned later that evening, Tina returned to the house but never left his side. The next day, something would happen to Ken that would make him change his mind about his wife’s wild imaginings.
He would meet…her…
Ken was a hobbyist, a maker of models, and he went to the attic to look for his model airplane glue. He had to move boxes and search, so he was up there for some time. He was rummaging through a box when he happened to look up. What he saw there defies explanation. He remembers, “I suddenly saw the strangest thing. I was…well…an elderly woman slowly crawling across the attic floor on her hands and knees. I just stood there sort of dumbfounded. As she crawled past me, she turned her head and grinned at me strangely, and then she proceeded to crawl on all fours toward the attic wall. When she reached the wall, she passed right through it and vanished. And then, for just a few moments, I could hear this strange muffled chuckling coming from the inside of the wall. It was the most frightening thing I have ever experienced.”
The couple began to think about leaving the house, but they were not the kind of people to leave without at least knowing why. The rappings continued. They avoided the attic. They had a friend who worked for the historical society and had access to a lot of local history. What they discovered seemed to at least align with what Ken saw in the attic on that afternoon.
Tina recalls, “We found out that one of the home’s original owners, an elderly widow named Mrs. Bouchard, went insane and starved herself in the attic in either 1878 or 1879. We were at a loss about what to do. We even talked to our priest about it, but he didn’t want to get involved.”
Whoever…or whatever…was taking refuge in their attic, it continued to make itself known. An oil paiting they had stored in the attic was torn and defaced. Tina’s sister, Catherine, had been visiting and ran from the yard screaming when she clearly seeing an elderly woman looking down at her from the attic window.
Some houses can’t seem to keep an owner. You’ve probably known of a place, perhaps near your own house, that keeps going up on the market every year or two. There are places that seem like they can’t hold a family. Something pushes people away and out. Kenny and Tina sold their house in July of 1992 to a businessman from Rhode Island who himself moved out and put the house back on the market in 1993. Is it possible he saw the ghost of Mrs. Bouchard crawling across the attic floor, too? They say that a house doesn’t shelter you for long periods of time and then just let you pass – it retains a part of you, a kind of residential memory.
But here’s the thing. We will never truly know the story, the full, unadulterated story of the house in Waterbury with the spirit of a mad woman lingering in the dark corners of an attic. Charles Turek Robinson interviewed the Lusks in November of 1992, again in December and once more in February of 1993. He relates the events of the couple as the first of his ghost files in the seminal work on ghosts in New England, The New England Ghost Files. In an author’s note to the book, he explains that he has changed the names of all persons in the book and replaced them with pseudonyms to assure privacy and anonymity. The book is a particularly frightening compendium of tales gathered from interviews throughout New England. Most of those interviewed would not have agreed to have their experiences recounted in book form unless their names were changed. Mr. Robinson has passed away, so it is unlikely that we will ever know who the Lusks really are and whether or not this entire tale is nothing more than a creative exercise in fear.
That’s the thing about ghost stories. They take place in quiet, out of the way places with only one or two people to experience the ineffable. It wouldn’t be a ghost story if you could tear it apart, dissect it bit by bit, analyze every minute detail and find a way to explain it away. No, a ghost story is a lonely thing, a bit like a ghost itself, to be experienced by a few, in the lonely dark of an evening, far from the light, far from any explanation except that somehow, something remains long after it should, and it waits there, in the corner of the attic, for a new tenant of the house below.
LINK - The New England Ghost Files on Amazon
Music for this Podcast
MYUU Living in the Dark
MYUU Collapse
MYUU Cold Shivers
Not everyone can claim that they were born in Purgatory, but Andrew Tozier could, on February 11, 1838. Purgatory is a town near the Monmouth-Litchfield line in central Maine and is neither a heaven or a hell - like most towns, just somewhere in between. But during his life, Andrew Tozier would see more than his fair share of the landscape bordering Hell, even if it was all man-made. In fact, he would become one of the most interesting and least noted figures of the American Civil War.
Tozier’s family moved from Purgatory to the Plymouth, Maine area in 1848 when he was a mere ten years old. His father, was an abusive alcoholic who wrought his anger upon his children. We do not know exactly at what age Andrew ran away from home, but it is likely he was quite young. The fifth of seven children, his absence meant one less mouth to feed at the Tozier homestead, but it also meant that young Andrew was now penniless, and on his own in a largely agrarian state, with no real prospects and no plan for the future.
In that, he wasn’t alone. In the 1850s before the advent of the American Civil War, there were large numbers of ‘homeless’ men moving from place to place in search of work, food, and warmth in the winter. Tozier likely took a common route - he may have made his way to the coast and became a sailor. He may have been a day laborer or worked from season to season, depending on the harvest. He may have found work in the lumber trade. Whatever he did, he was surely uneducated beyond a basic grammar school experience and he was certainly a wanderer, growing up rather quickly on his own, away from any home.
We do know that he reconnected with the Tozier clan in 1861 when he returned to their Plymouth home. Lincoln had called the banners and it was time for twenty-seven year old Andrew Tozier to settle into a trade, of sorts. He signed up to fight for the Union, enlisting in Company F of the 2nd Maine Infantry. In those days, local groups of men could form units and fight together within the larger companies in the army.So it was in Maine, like it was everywhere else. Andrew would have received the basic training and drill that any of the soldiers of the newly formed Army would have received. In the early days of the war, the number of battles were few and far between, but the 2nd Maine saw action in one of the early ones. Andrew Tozier was in the thick of the Battle of Gaines Mill, also known as the Battle of Chickahominy River. In Hanover County, Virginia, on June 27,1862, General Lee made the largest advance of the confederate side thus far in the war, pushing the Union troops back over the Chickahominy River in retreat. Tozier was wounded in the battle almost a year to his date of enlistment, losing his middle finger to a minie ball, breaking one rib, and receiving what must have been a lifelong ailment for him - a bullet in his left ankle that went in but never came out. Captured as a prisoner of war by the South, he recuperated in two different Confederate prisons in Richmond. He was used to hard living and managed to heal while incarcerated. He was eventually paroled and allowed to return to the north, this time with Company I of the 20th Maine.
In the early part of the war, nearly every soldier was inexperienced. A soldier like Tozier, already wounded, imprisoned, battle-scarred and now back to fight again, would likely have had some gravitas with the newer recruits as someone with at least a modicum of knowledge of how to fight.His experience in battle, brief though it was, set him apart from the rest of the men. It must have been an odd thing for him to experience - the respect and admiration of other soldiers for an ill-educated rambler from central Maine. The whole unit was a little like him -it was made up of men from other units, leftovers, remnants and the odd new recruit. That’s how Tozier got in to the 20th Maine. Their leader was a scholar, an unlikely military strategist who knew his martial training from reading ancient texts in Greek and Latin. Andrew Tozier didn’t know Joshua Chmaberlain, not then. He was his commander and that was all he needed to know. Like all of the men in the 20th Maine, he knew how to work, how to walk, how to make do. It was something that had kept him going when everything seemed like it was going against him. He had been wounded and captured, but here he was, back in the midst of the action. Events would conspiure so that in less than a month when another soldier’s drunkenness reared its ugly head, it gave him the opportunity that changed his life forever.
To be a bearer of the colors for a unit was an honor among the soldiers of the day. It was generally believed by the soldiers than the man bearing the colors was the bravest of them all. He was in the front. He was bold. A color bearer led the men into battle and gave the soldiers a focal point on the field when the fighting started and the fog of battle descended on them. A soldier looked to the color bearer and followed him - no other real communication was possible on the field once the guns began to fire. Hiram Maxim, another Mainer from Sangerville, had not yet invented smokeless gunpowder and in the heat of any Civil War battle, soldiers were often limited to being able to see only a few feet in front of themselves. The color bearer might be the only sight recognized in that field, once the bullets began to fly.
Sergeant Charles Proctor was the color bearer for the 20th Maine as it marched towards Gettysburg. Imbibing too much liquor one night, Proctor became so riled up and intoxicated that he began to cuss out the officers of the regiment. Acknowledging that he was not in his right mind because of drink, the officers limited their response to him by taking the colors away from him, one of the greatest of insults one could give to a soldier. There was no time to let him sober up as they marched onward to battle. Three recruits in the rear tried to frog-walk him for awhile as they moved towards Gettysburg, but they found it impossible to keep up. He was eventually left there on the side of the road and was officially listed as A.W.O.L.
Proctor had been the senior enlisted man in the unit prior to this, and the colors would now be given to the next most experienced man in the 20th Maine, which was...Andrew Tozier. Marching at night, in the rain and through the mud, Andrew led the men of the 20th Maine through the dismal Maryland countryside. He had been in the 20th Maine less than a month and was now in charge of her colors. He would take this task more seriously, perhaps, than any other task in his life.
By the time they had made it to Unions Mills, they had marched nonstop and covered 25 miles of hard slogging. They were now only four miles from Pennsylvania. In another day they would make it to Hanover and then, finally to a little place called Gettysburg and a hill known as Little Round Top.
The significance of the Union winning the Battle of Gettysburg is that it became the turning point of the war. It was decisive because there was no guarantee that the strategy and prowess of General Lee would ever fail. The South had won battle after battle with fewer men and fewer supplies. Up to this point in the Civil War, it was not at all clear if the North could eventually muster the kind of willpower, strategy and tenacity to take on Lee and his generals and gain the kind of ground needed to take back the South. The Battle of Gettysburg became the pivot around which the war turned, and a small Company from the northern state of Maine would be given a task that, if they failed, would have given the south its biggest victory yet and all but spell the end of the war within months, in favor of the Confederacy.
Late in the afternoon of July 2, 1863, Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and his 386 infantrymen found themselves running desperately low on ammunition. The 20th Maine had been given the task of holding the left flank of the Army’s line. The 16th Michigan held the right flank and the men from New York and Pennsylvania held the center. Earlier in the day, Chamberlain’s commander, Colonel Vincent, had told him that the thin line that the Maine men held was the left of the Uinion army’s line. “You are to hold this line at all costs!” he told Chamberlain and Chamberlain took him at his word. Earlier, 44 of his men from Company B were cut off by the enemy’s flanking maneuver, leaving only 314 men from Maine to hold the main line. Early in the day, over 800 Texans under General Hood began their assualt on Little Round Top. Later, the 15th and 47th of Alabama began to hammer into the Maine line. The Maine men held the high ground, but they were vastly outnumbered and their supply of ammunition was running dangerously low. There was little hope of holding this hill for long. Something had to happen. Something had to change.
There are times in battle when something unlikely happens, something unexpected and so unusual that it can change the course of events for everyone involved, stirring people to action they might not otherwise take. At such moments, it is all one can do not to simply stop and wonder, to gaze upon something so unlikely, so perfect. Things were looking bad for the 20th Maine. The Alabamans were moving up the hill and the Maine men had run out of ammunition. Company B was still nowhere to be seen and Colonel Joshua Chamberlain surveyed the scene at this terrible moment, only to see something that stirred his courage into even more action and caused him to make a decision that would alter the course of the battle, the war, and the fate of his country.
As he stood there, his sword drawn, he observed for a long moment the state of his color guard. All were gone, either killed or wounded, with the exception of one man - Andrew Tozier. While all possibility of snatching a victory out of the jaws of defeat seemed lost, there was one man who seemed unfazed by the carnage and confusion around him - Andrew Tozier. With the colors still flying, held in the crook of one arm and steadied against his body, he stood fast, methodically and cooly loading and then firing a borrowed musket.
Later, Colonel Chamberlain would put his memory to pen. He wrote:
“I first thought some optical illusion imposed upon me. But as forms emerged from the drifting smoke, the truth came into view...in the center, wreathed in battle smoke, stood the Color-Sergeant, Andrew Tozier. His color-staff planted in the ground by his side, the upper part clasped in his elbow,so holding the flag upright, with musket and cartridges seized from the fallen comrade at his side he was defending his sacred trust in the manner of the songs of chivalry.”
At that precise moment, is it reckoned, a total of over forty thousand bullets had been fired by combatants in the fray. With so many bullets, nearly everyone should have been hit in some way, either mortally or incidentally. Chamberlain remained unharmed. The Alabama men still lingered at the bottom of the hill. The Maine men still held it. But Chamberlain knew if the southerners rallied, the Maine men could not take another onslaught. Spurred on by Andrew Tozier’s impossible coolness in battle, Chamberlain placed himself behind Tozier and ordered a right wheel maneuver. Some say he shouted ‘Bayonets’ but it little mattered. They were out of ammunition anyway and if they were to move forward and down the hill, all they had were bayonets. Andrew Tozier led them down.
The outcome of that battle remains one of the most decisive in American Military history. The south did not take the high ground. The left flank held. Because of this, the course of the war shifted in the North’s favor. But there was something almost unworldly about Chamberlain and his fellow mainer, Andrew Tozier, at the Battle of Little Round Top. Chamberlain had been in plain sight to the enemy - he was a classical leader, a fighter, visible to all. Twice an Alabama soldier had taken aim against him and twice the soldier, inspired perhaps by Chmaberlain’s bravery and boldness, decided against pulling the trigger. In another close call, a Southern officer’s pistol misfired only feet from Chamberlain’s face. By all acounts, he should not have survived that battle.
And then there was Tozier. He stood his ground, against all odds, inspiring his own Colonel and all who saw him. That inspiration caused the sagging middle of the regiment to bolster - if they had not seen Tozier calmly firing, loading, and firing again as he held the flag slightly askew, there is little doubt that the Alabama men would have taken the hill. His courage gave Chamberlain the chance to order an unlikely attack that drove the confederates flying. It is fair to say that without Tozier, Chamberlain would not have held that hill. Andrew Tozier, son of an alcoholic, a drifter, with no place to call his home.
After the battle Tozier was offered a field promotion by Chamberlain but he asked his Colonel to withdraw it. He had more in common, it can be assumed, with the common soldiers than he did with officers. He remained in action until May of 1864 at The Battle of North Anna, where he received a wound in the left temple. Months passed before surgeons removed as many of the fragments as they could, but there would always be pieces of the minie ball in his cranium. He was not unaffected by the wound, either. Dizziness, headaches and tinnitus remained for the rest of his life. Perhaps something else happened as a result of that wound, something that changed not only his health, but his perspective, his behavior, his future.
In 1864, his term ended, and Andrew Tozier returned to Maine. He got married and became the proud father of a son. We aren’’t sure what he did before the war, but we know that in 1865, Andrew Tozier, hero of the Battle of Little Round Top, began a life of crime. Along with his half-brother, Lewis Cushman, he began to steal cattle, clothing and sundry other items. He did not act with honor or courage. He did not step forward bravely. He stole. He lied. He cheated. In 1869, the law finally caught up with him and he was implicated in a heist at the clothing store in East Livermore. He was sentenced to five years hard labor at the Maine State Prison in Thomaston. It can be rightly assumed that Andrew Tozier probably suffered from what we would today call PTSD - post-traumatic-stress-syndrome. His head injury alone may have accounted for his behavior after his enlistment was done.
But just after he was given his cell in the prison, he received a full pardon by the Governor of the State of Maine - none other than Joshua Chamberlain, his former commander. One might think that this was a kind of honor payment, a thank you for what had happened on the sweltering day in July in Pennsylvania, but Chamberlain was better than that. He asked Tozier to move in with him and his family and he promised Tozier that he would help him change the course of his life. He taught Andrew how to read and write and gave him the kind of attention few men would have received from their former commander. A convicted felon and his wife moved in and lived with the Governor of the State and his family. In the fullness of time, Tozier’s wife gave birth to a daughter and they named her Gracie, after the Governor’s teenage daughter. By all accounts, Andrew Tozier was lucky to have such a friend as Joshua Chamberlain.
Eventually Tozier moved out and took up the straight and narrow, never again to turn to a life of crime. His health continued to falter and he found himself working odd jobs, enduring the pain of his many wounds from the war. He moved back to the area he was born and settled down to the life of a small farm - vegetables, milk, and a job in a broom factory. He had started out in Purgatory, left, took a detour into the hell that was war, and then was saved by Chamberlain, only to move back to the area of Purgatory, where it all began.
In 1890, Chamberlain wrote to the War Department, suggesting that Tozier be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions on Little Round Top in 1863. Eight years later, the award was given. It arrived in the mail at Tozier’s door.
The citation read, “At the crisis of the engagement this soldier, a color bearer, stood alone in an advanced position, the regiment having been borne back, and defended his colors with musket and ammunition picked up at his feet.” In this letter to the War Department, the Grand Old Man of Maine wrote, “He was an example of all that was excellent in a soldier” and is “one of the bravest and most deserving men.
The war took the lives of so many men. But it is safe to say that it made some men, too. Joshua Chamberlain was such a man - before the war he was a professor of languages of Bowdoin, a self-made man who taught himself Latin and Greek by shutting himself up in a garret until he understood them. He lied to get out of his teaching contract so he could join the army. He was the hero of the Battle of Little Round Top. He accepted Lee’s sword at Appomatix. He became the Governor of Maine. He became President of Bowdoin.
Andrew Tozier was made by that war, as well. Before the war, he was no one in particular, one of the many with no real place to call home. But after the war, he became a wanted man, a criminal on a spree that lasted years before he was caught and sentenced, then pardoned and cared for by his old commander who so fondly recalled that one moment in all of his life (that we know of) when Andrew Tozier decided to stand fast and hold his ground, against all odds. That one act changed the course of history - not just his own, but ours, as well. A single act of courage in an otherwise unremarkable life, except for that time after the war, when he lived the life of a common criminal.
Not many American realize that the actions of this one man turned the events of the Civil War in the North’s favor. One man and a single show of outrageous courage set into action a chain of events at led to the inevitable conclusion of the south’s surrender. One has to wonder, did he even realize what he had done for his nation?
The bravery of Tozier has been immortalized in a song by the Ghosts of Paul Revere that has been officially recognized by the state legislature as Maine’s official state ballad. It is told from the point of view of none other than Andrew Tozier,child of an alcoholic, drifter,common soldier and color-beaer, small time farmer and broom-maker, convicted criminal and Medal of Honor winner. He died on March 28, 1910. He was 72 years old.
SOURCES
Christian, James A."Sgt. Andrew J. Tozier, Medal of Honor Recipient of the Twentieth Maine". Gettysburg Magazine. University of Nebraska Press. Number 54. January, 2016. pp. 81-90. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/605540/pdf
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3604/andrew-j_-tozier
"Andrew Jackson Tozier," Litchfield Historical Society. http://www.historicalsocietyoflitchfieldmaine.org/AndrewJacksonTozier.htm
"Andrew J. Tozier." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_J._Tozier
Desjardin, Thomas (1995). Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine. 2009. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195382310. https://www.amazon.com/Stand-Firm-Boys-Maine-Gettysburg/dp/0195382315/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=9780195382310&qid=1566070875&s=gateway&sr=8-1
[Please note – some of the descriptions in this article/episode are graphic. Use discretion with younger readers/listeners]
You are lying in your bed on this hot July night. It has been a long, hot summer with no rain for weeks. The ground is turning to dust and the wind is warmer than usual. Outside, the light of moon is bright as it peeks between the curtains and if you are still, you can hear the rustle of the leaves and the peepers outside in the distance. You close your eyes again and know that soon, you will drift back to sleep. There are chores to do in the morning and it will come soon enough. As you lie there drifting back to sleep, you hear a sound, something not ordinary, something not expected. You stiffen and listen more intently. Time slows down to a crawl as you attend to every single noise. What was that? Was that your mother? Your sister? And then a thump and a muffled scream bolt you to attention. Someone is in the house, someone is moving in the darkness. Another muffled sound – someone is in trouble. You jump out of bed, shouting for your father to help as you move toward the door. But it is too late. From the light peeking in at the window, for the moon shone bright, you see the glint of an ax and you see the form of a man moving toward you with dire intent. The ax falls but you are fast and it glances over your shoulder instead of into it. You are near enough to the door to make your escape into the yard, away from your assailant. As you run, your mind a whirlwind, you cannot shake the vision that fills it. That man wielding the ax, that man who is undoubtedly attacking your family as you run for help...no, it couldn’t be...because he is the one who has supported and protected you your whole life. But you know it as surely as you feel the pain in your shoulder – the man who attacked you was your own father.
Captain James Purington (Purrinton, Purrington) was born in Bowdoinham, Maine in 1760 and was from good Yankee stock. His father was a Cape Cod man and his mother was from North Yarmouth. Having married young Betsy Clifford of Bath, James came into an inheritance upon the death of his father that set him up as what we would today call a rich and independent farmer. Known for his frugality and his industrious work ethic, the people of Bowdoinham found him to be worthy of the rank of Captain of their militia. From what little we know of him in this time, he had every reason to be happy. After all, he had been blessed with a productive farmstead, a wife who had given him twelve children, four of whom died in infancy, and the respect of his community. Indeed, he seemed to possess everything a man could desire for the sum total of happiness.
But there is always more to a person than possessions or achievements, something deeper and more essential to the true character within, something that few people even suspect might be there, hiding in the dark shadows of the mind. What makes one person successful might make another person a failure, depending on such intangible things as their outlook or their point of view. James Purington was a man with a grave countenance, a man who kept his own counsel in polite company, and who, it is claimed, had trouble looking another man in the eye while he spoke. It was, perhaps, simply an idiosyncrasy, just a way of his, but add that to his way of never believing he was wrong, never admitting to an error. James Purington always had to be right. Those who knew him claim that he was ‘easily elated or depressed,’ depending on how well his finances fared. Some ideas seemed to weigh more heavily on his mind than others. For all of these qualities, he was also a tenacious worker, a man who understood what it meant to do an honest days labor. As the Captain of the Militia, he took his responsibility toward his community very seriously. Yes,if there was one word that might sum up such a man, it might be that he was responsible, for his community’s safety, and for his family’s well-being, in this world and the next.
As prosperous as he was in Bowdoinham, he made the decision to move northward. In 1803, Maine was still the frontier of the United States. This sparsely populated area was settled mostly along her waterways and coast and whenever people of a certain disposition found the world creeping a little too closely to them, they moved north and that meant inland. Captain Purington purchased Lot#17, a hundred acre plot of land just above the established farm of Ephraim and Martha Ballard in Augusta, along what is known today as the Old Belgrade Road. The Ballard Farm was small but functional, while the Captain’s lot of land was still wild and needed clearing. Having built a shelter on the land, James Purington set to work clearing it by the toil of his own two hands while his family remained in Bowdoinham. In August of 1805, he had cleared six acres of his hundred - evidence of how hard this man worked. He had done more in two years than most men did in four. The locals in his new little neighborhood respected this quiet, sober man who had tamed his patch of wilderness. Soon, he moved his family into the sturdy house he had built for them. If they shared bedrooms, there was room for the six children, whose ages ranged from 19 years old to two years old. Everyone would have to do their part to make the new farm work. It was like a new beginning for the family. Martha Ballard, whose diary is one of the primary sources we have of life in Maine in the early 1800s, claims that the Puringtons were good neighbors who often visited her. She cooked bread for them, had tea with Mrs. Purington, and often visited with the children. Martha Ballard traveled far and wide in her role as midwife in the region and once, Captain Purington even took time to bring her to and from a delivery. This was just the kind of thing neighbors did for each other. They had to rely on each other, through the good times and the bad. The move from Bowdoinham seemed like it had been a good one.
But why did he move in the first place? What would make a prosperous and respected member of the community move to a much more difficult lifestyle in the wilderness, we do not know. To give up the relative comfort of an established farm for the grind of a new one must have required a push from some direction. We do not know why James Purington moved his family. Perhaps it had something to do with his standing in the faith.
Most Christian circles adhere to the idea that souls are saved only if they find redemption in their faith in Jesus Christ. Those who do not find salvation or who are not ‘born again’ will not enter the Kingdom and will ultimately find their souls in some other place, a place of torment, a place away from God’s mercy. Early New England was a fruitful field for those who believed we were all sinners in the hands of an angry God. But as the years went on, many Christians who had been brought up with such doctrine began to doubt it, and other ideas began to form.
It is possible that his beliefs contrasted with those of his peers in Bowdoinham and perhaps the move was instigated as a way to practice his new faith away from the judgment of old friends and acquaintances. Many New England towns at the time were split on the grounds of religious dogma. Free-Will Baptists believed that sinners could choose to accept or reject Christ’s offer of salvation. The new Universalists believed in a benevolent God and free grace for all believers. Both of these new beliefs rejected the Calvinist idea that only a few predestined souls would enter Heaven. Purington rejected that idea, as well and to that extent, it separated him from the community that had previously embraced him.
James Purington was a man who must have moved from this idea of special salvation to a new one at the time, circulating quietly throughout the land. The Universalist movement was only just beginning and how Purington first heard of the doctrine, we will never know. We do know from a pamphlet published shortly after his death by local Augusta printer Peter Edes that Purington believed in the idea of universal salvation. According to this doctrine, the divine love and mercy of God was such that anyone, any sinful human soul, no matter what they believed in life or what they had done, will be granted salvation. They don’t even have to want it - it will simply happen. God’s love and mercy must be stronger, better and deeper than that of human love and mercy, according to these precepts. Jesus, the adherents believed, died for everyone’s sins, not just for those who want to be saved. We know that James Purington believed this. In Ede’s tract on Purington, he states, “He was obstinately tenacious of his opinion and it was very difficult to convince him that he was in error. He has frequently, however, voluntarily changed his religious sentiments; and he died a firm believer in the doctrine of universal salvation. When surrounded by his family, he has been often heard to express his fond anticipation of the moment when they would all be happy; and has sometimes added, how greatly it would enhance his happiness if they could all die at once.”
The summer of 1806 saw precious little rain, a reason for grave concern for the subsistence farmers of Maine at the time. In his pamphlet, Peter Edes claims that Purington seemed ‘greatly depressed’ and when speaking with his neighbors, spoke of his concern that his family would suffer for want of bread and that his cattle would starve. His tendency to suffer from depression when things were going poorly made him dread the consequences of a drought. His brooding was something his family knew about, but they also must have assumed that it would pass as soon as the next heavy rain. The first suspicion that something was terribly askew occurred on Sunday, July 6. While his wife and eldest daughter went to prayer meeting, James remained at home with the other children. His daughter Martha noticed her father writing a letter. When he perceived that she had seen him in the act of writing, he quickly concealed the letter from her sight. She asked him what he was doing and he replied, “Nothing.” Then, he asked her for his butcher knife, claiming it needed to be sharpened. She brought it to him and he spent some time sharpening it. Later, daughter Martha witnessed him standing quietly before the mirror, moving his left hand over and over his throat. This singular act caused Martha to exclaim, “Dada, what are you doing?” Again, his answer was “Nothing,” as he laid the knife solemnly down on the table.
When Betsy returned from church meeting, Martha told her what had transpired. A clandestine search for the letter he had been writing was made, which was found among his papers. It read as follows:
“Dear Brother,
These lines is to let you know that I am going on a long journey, and I would have you sell what I have, and put it out to interest, and put out my boys to trades, or send them to sea.
I cannot see the distress of my family - God only knows my distress. -I would have you put Nathaniel to uncle Purrinton, to a tanner’s trade - I want James to go to school, until sufficient to attend in a store - Benjamin to a blacksmith’s trade, or to what you think best - But to be sure to give them learning, if it takes all - Divide what is left, for I am no more.”
Betsy confronted her husband with the contents of the letter. What could they mean but suicide? What journey other than the long journey from one world to another? James Purington tried to console his distraught wife. He told her that he had no intention of committing suicide, that instead, he had a premonition that his death was near and he was merely taking precautions, just in case. According to Peter Edes, nothing could console Mrs. Purington. It was simply too terrible to contemplate.
But something was horribly, terribly wrong in the mind of Captain James Purington. Perhaps he was considering suicide, except now his wife and family knew of his plan - therefore, he had to change it. If he killed himself, would not his family grieve terribly? Would not that sorrow go on for the rest of their lives? Was there a way to minimize their distress and bring the family back together again to perfect and never-ending happiness?
We are presented with three contemporary documents that detail what happened in the Purington house on the night of Wednesday, July 9th, 1806. The first is the pamphlet written immediately after the events of that evening, printed and sold by Peter Edes, an Augusta area printer from Boston famous for, among other things, filling the punch bowl several times for the patriots who threw tea into Boston Harbor just before the Tea Party, and being jailed by the British for 107 days for watching the Battle of Bunker Hill from a distance and rooting for the patriots. Edes was a shrewd salesman and he knew a good story when he heard one. He moved quickly to print the details of the night, though we do not know his sources. Like the good businessman he was, he made sure that any good detail was fleshed out to become a lurid one.
The other document we have is the one we must believe to be the most reliable and valid source: Martha Ballard’s diary. Martha was the Purington’s next door neighbor. She knew the family and she was one of the first to visit the Purington home. Her diary entry is very short, almost too brief, to describe the events. It is almost as if it was too much for her poor heart to bear.
The final source is the verdict of the jury of inquiry, a succinct document that lays out the details of the crime. Together, these three documents, accompanied by the statements of the two surviving children, paint the terrible sequence of events of that fateful evening.
Martha Ballard and her husband Ephraim were sound asleep when a commotion at their front door awoke them at three in the morning. Two neighbors greeted them at the door with grave news - Captain Purington had just murdered all of this family with the exception of his seventeen year old son, James, who had been wounded by his father with an ax as he fled the murder house. James had showed up at another neighbor’s house in only his shirt, his shoulder covered with blood. Martha’s son Jonathan accompanied Mr. Wiman, the neighbor, to the Purington house. Upon returning to his mother’s, he described what he saw as he went from room to room with nothing more than the light of a single candle.
Peter Ede’s pamphlet is entitled, “Horrid Massacre!! Sketches of the Life of Captain James Purrinton, the night of the 8th of July, 1806. murdering his wife, six children and himself.” In it, we can read his red prose.
“In the outer room lay prostrate on his face and weltering in his gore, the perpetrator of the dreadful deed; his throat cut in the most shocking manner, and the bloody razor lying on a table by his side - In an adjoining bed-room lay Mrs. Purrinton in her bed, her head almost severed from her body; and near her on the floor, a little daughter about ten years old, who probably hearing the cries of distress, alarmed and terrified, ran to her mother for relief, and was murdered by her bedside. In another apartment was found in one bed, the two oldest and youngest daughters; the first most dreadfully butchered; the second desperately wounded, and reclining her head on the body of the dead infant and in a state of indescribable horror and almost total insensibility. In the room with the father, lay in bed with their throats cut, the two youngest sons. And in another room was found on the hearth, most dreadfully mangled, the second son; he had fallen with his trousers under one arm, with which he had attempted to escape. On the breastwork over the fireplace, was the distinct impression of a bloody hand, where the unhappy victim had probably supported himself before he fell.”
As grisly as Edes description is, there is also Martha Ballard’s description of what her son saw that night.
“They two went to (the) house where the horrid scene was perpetrated. My son went in and found a candle, which he lit and to his great surprise (saw) Purington, his wife & six children's’ corpses. Martha he perceived had life remaining who was removed to his house. Surgical aid was immediately called and she remains alive as yet. My husband went and returned before sunrise when after taking a little food he and I went on to the house there to behold the most shocking scene that was even seen in this part of the world. May an infinitely good God grant that we may all take suitable notice of this horrid deed, learn wisdom therefrom. The corpses were removed to his barn where they were washed and laid out side by side. A horrid spectacle which many hundred persons came to behold. I was there till near night when son Jonathan conducted me to his house and gave me refreshment. The coffins were brought and the corpses carried in a wagon and deposited in the Augusta meeting house.”
James Purington, on hearing the cries of his mother, arose from his bed and shouted to her to see what was amiss. He was able to throw his shirt on and run toward the door when his father appeared and struck at him with an ax. The ax passed over his shoulder, glancing off, making only a superficial wound. At this point 12 year old Benjamin awoke and began to run when his father prevented him from doing so with mortal consequences. James Purington later said that this was all done in utter silence. Everything was done efficiently and with a coolness colder than death.
Martha also survived, but her wounds would soon prove fatal. She recalled that as the family retired to bed that evening, her father was still awake, reading the Bible. She awoke in the darkness of her room as her sister was murdered next to her. She was hit three times, but rolled away, feigning death. Within days, she perished from her wounds.
What followed was perhaps the largest public funeral that Augusta had known. President Washington had died six years earlier and that event had brought the people together to publicly mourn his passing, but this even rivaled such a spectacle. Leading the funeral procession were the men who had been part of the jury of inquest, along with the coroner. Behind them were the victims in their coffins, followed by family members and citizens from all walks of life, from clergy to militia, magistrates and workmen. Each family member’s coffin was carried by their neighbors and friends. James Purington’s body was placed on a wagon and was the last in the procession. Strangely, someone had placed the bloody ax and razor on the top of his coffin. The bodies of Mrs. Purington and her children were ceremoniously buried together in an unmarked mass grave in the common burying ground in Augusta. Captain Purington was ‘interred without the wall,’ which can be taken to mean that he was put into a hole by the side of the road in an unmarked grave, forever separated from his family.
Why did James Purington kill his family and then himself? It is clear that he had a large enough estate and money enough to see them through the harshest of droughts. He had made it clear to neighbors that he worried that his family would starve. For that, we can turn to the words of Timothy Merritt in a sermon he preached at Bowdoinham not ten days after the tragedy. Merritt knew Captain Purington. He had been his minster before the Captain shifted his family north and he understood what was in the heart and mind of his old congregate. It is clear that Merritt pointed to Purington’s belief in universal salvation as the cause of this heinous and violent act. In fact, with a little imagination, one might picture Merritt speaking with Purington about his wrong belief in which he persisted. Remember, Captain Purington liked to be right, all the time. How well would he take it when a man of the cloth perhaps upbraided him for straying from church doctrine, imagining that everyone, no matter how sinful, could be saved? Might he have suggested to Purington that he could no longer be a part of that congregation if he persisted in this belief. Did Purington anticipate such a thing might happen and move his family to a place where they could escape the watchful eyes of the minister?
What actually happened, we cannot know, but we can read Merritt’s words concerning Purington and his reasons. He writes, “You all know, that for some years past, he has professed to believe firmly that all mankind, immediately upon leaving the body, go to a state of the most perfect rest and enjoyment: and to my own certain knowledge he denied the doctrine of a day of judgment and retribution. Of course, it was no question with him whether his family were regenerate, or born again, or in other words, whether they were prepared for so sudden a remove from this world. It was, therefore, natural, and what any one would do under the same circumstances, to endeavor to prevent the anticipated trouble of his family, and make them all forever happy. There is every reason to believe that this was his real motive.”
If the next world is guaranteed to be better than this one, no matter what, claims Merritt, then Purrington was only taking care of his family by slaying them in the bright moonlit night of July 9th. They were to be together forever in a blissful state. No matter how good this world is, the next one is immeasurably better, so why not hasten towards it? But Merrill made sure to drive the point home to his congregation, to the same congregation that Purrington had once belonged, that the Captain’s beliefs had been in error. You don’t get into Heaven that easily. Murder is a sin. Hell is real. Not everyone is saved.
What James Purington believed will never be known. It must remain inexplicable and unknown. They did live in the isolation of an early Maine farm, with only a few neighbors for company. His life had radically changed with the move from an established farm to a new hardscrabble farm. With a lot of time on his hands and few people to challenge his perspectives, James Purington may have fallen victim to his own peculiar view of the world. Perhaps it was a kind of religious fervor that caused him to become the Angel of Death in his own house that night. Perhaps he was what we would today call depressed, or worse, psychotic. What we do know is that on the night of the massacre, the family Bible was open to the ninth chapter of the Book of Ezekiel, which reads,
“He cried also into mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. ...let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark.”
- Elizabeth Purrington (-1806)
- Polly Purrington (1787 – 1806)
- Martha Purrington (1791 – 1806)
- Benjamin Purrington (1794 – 1806)
- Anna Purrington (1796 – 1806)
- Nathaniel Purrington (1798 – 1806)
- Nathan Purrington (1800 – 1806)
- Louisa Purrington (1804 – 1806)
SOURCES
Edes, Peter, Horrid Massacre!!: Sketches of the Life of Captain James Purrinton, who on the Night of the Eighth of July, 1806, Murdered His Wife, Six Children, and Himself: with a Particular Account of that shocking Catastrophe: to which are Subjoined, Remarks on the Fatal Tendency of Erroneous Principles, and Motives for Receiving and Obeying the Pure and Salutary Precepts of the Gospel, Augusta, 1806.
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, A Midwife's Tale, Vintage, 1991.
It is night. Darkness has fallen over the September night as the half moon rises and the stars begin to fill the sky over Penobscot Bay. Sometimes the night falls so deeply here in this Maine hamlet that it seems like the Sun might never rise again. It is a darkness full of potential. The year is 1898 and you are walking along a dark path in the small coastal town of Bucksport, Maine. You are alone, quite alone. You are sure of it. In the distance, you can see the vague outline of ships in the harbor and lights in the windows of the townspeople in houses you know well, for you are worker, a cleaner, a hired servant willing to scrub and polish and shine the possessions of others to make your living. For some, this might be a happy lot, but not for you. These people for whom you work could be your friends and compatriots, but that is not the case. You are, and forever will be, from away. These people are not your people and you are not one of them, but as you walk carefully along the lane, you remember your home in Nova Scotia. Sometimes you wonder what it would have been like had you never met the man you wed. You moved from your home to his, this place, and had his children and toiled away the years. Then you divorced, and though you tried to go back to Canada, you found you didn’t belong there anymore. Where is home, you wonder as you walk the dark path on the cool September night. But those thoughts are fleeting, at best. No time for regret, you tell yourself, when there is work to do. This is your home, now.
As you move forward down the lane, you put your hand on your purse and recall the payments you have collected. You had nothing when you came here, but with hard work and tenacity, you needled your way into the homes and lives of the people, at first with an offer to work and then, as the years rolled past and you accumulated some small wealth, even the offer of a loan, of course, with interest to a few select individuals whose names you will never mention. It has been grind and scrape, working all hours, but you are independent. After all, though your children have grown, you still have yourself to support and you know that you will never be included, that you will always be regarded as ‘from away’ no matter how long you live among them. You may live there and walk among them, but they never truly take you in, do they? Still, there is recompense. Then you remember that you have one more stop before you head home. The stovemaker, the tin-knocker, William Treworgy owes you his payment. One last stop before bed.
You reach into your purse and remove the cigarillo you just purchased less than fifteen minutes ago, the final purchase at the little store on the edge of town before they closed for the night and blew out their lanterns. They’ve seen you before at this late hour, making your rounds at the only time you can, because when tomorrow comes, you will be back to work again, cleaning their houses, tending to the smallest of their needs. The wind begins to blow as you light the match and inhale. It is a small pleasure, you think, to walk alone, independent and in charge of your life, with a purse full of small change and a life in front of you full of work.
Your name is Sarah Ware and soon, very soon, something quite terrible will happen.
In 1898 Maine had less than a million inhabitants and the only cities were small in comparison with neighboring states. Even today, it is a place of long distances, of varied customs and terrain. Before the turn of the century, the coastal towns and villages featured harbors full of ships that sailed to every corner of the globe and captains and crews who had been as part of the bedrock of their communities for time out of mind. I 1898, Everyone knows everyone else and everyone seems to know everyone else’s business, too. Even the smallest newsworthy morsel of information could become the topic of hot conversation, is passed by word of mouth from one householder to another with great alacrity. It doesn’t take long for the disappearance of Sarah Ware to become the subject on everyone’s lips. No one has seen her since the storeholders sold her that cigarillo before closing. Then, as now, people disappeared, moved on, took to the road without telling anyone of their passing. It isn’t unusual, except that people know her so well, she is a part of their lives and has been for years. Surely someone must know something about where she went? For now, 59 year old Sarah Ware is one of the missing.
For two weeks, search parties scour the countryside. The nights are growing colder as the trees begin to change to the colors of autumn. After nearly two weeks of searching, no one has yet found hide nor hair of Sarah Ware. The good people who used her as their housekeeper make other arrangements. But what had been a local, albeit strange, disappearance, would soon make the front page of papers from Portland to Boston.
It was the odor of death that eventually brings the searchers to her body. Not a mile from her own home, just off Miles Lane near the current high school parking lot, a path she trod daily for years, she is found. A raincoat is tucked up like a pillow underneath her nearly severed head. Indeed, searchers aren’t completely sure it is her at all due to the fact that her face is gone – eaten away by some wild animals. Her purse is found nearby, as well as a knife with a ragged, serrated edge, obviously used upon her. The grisly state of the corpse tells the story of a violent crime, a murder so repugnant and vile that no one could recall anything happening in Bucksport to match the extreme nature of such a ferocious crime.
Her body is carefully placed in a wagon to be transported back to town, but the brutal nature of the crime was such that during the bumpy ride back into her town, her head detached from her body.
When her skull is examined, now completely detached from her body, a round hole in her forehead reveals the probable cause of death. A blow with a blunt object so strong that it penetrated her cranium. One thing is clear to investigators – someone among them had committed a horrid act of bloody murder, ripe pickings for the tabloids and sensationalist newspapers of the time. Precisely who had done such a thing became front page news and the source of talk in the town for the days and weeks to come. All of New England read the papers each morning for further developments in the case.
Detectives were few and far between in the State of Maine at the turn of the century. The local constabulary was poorly equipped to solve such a case so they sent for help. First, a seasoned detective from the city of Lewiston, one hundred miles away, began his investigation, soon joined by another detective from the nearby river city of Bangor. These two men, also from away, were the ones with the power to uncover the identity of the murderer and solve this most heinous of crimes. She had taken residence with an older woman, Mrs. Miles, and was her caretaker. Mrs. Miles informed the investigators that Sarah kept her earnings in a trunk in her bedroom but when it was searched, there was not a penny to be found. When deposits were checked at the local bank, the missing money was not accounted for. So perhaps money was the motive for her murder?
Sarah Ware was known for her hard work and enterprise. Being alone in the world except for her children, she had to work a hardscrabble existence just to make ends meet, and at times, she might have to wait for payment from the men she worked for, or worse, not collect payment for services rendered at all. But she was a worker and people knew it. The money she had been collecting was nowhere to be found and perhaps this was the motive for the murder. Word spread concerning the progress in the case, leading newspaper readers to speculate that someone in town owed Sarah Ware money – all they needed to do was find out who. Strangely enough, after another thorough search of the area and her house, the money that had been missing somehow had mysteriously found its way back in her trunk in her room at the Miles house.
Soon enough, a bloody tarp was found in William Treworgy’s wagon – and within it was a hammer with the initials W.T.T. engraved upon it. The round ‘peg’ of the hammer seemed to match the round hole in Sarah’s skull. Treworgy denied any knowledge of the crime. He was a divorced father whose wife had left him with two daughters to raise on his own. He known for having a quick temper and word spread about that he had not paid what he owed for quite some time. His house would have been the final stop on her usual route before heading home on that fateful night. And he knew Sarah well. In fact, she had worked for him as a live-in nanny. It was understood in the town that Treworgy was a hard man to work for and that when she left, Treworgy refused to pay her what she was owed. It is entirely plausible that before going back to Mrs. Mile’s house that night, Sarah made the fateful decision to stop one more time at her old employer’s house and seek recompense from him, one more time.
In those days, when a town needed the services of an outside detective from another city, they had to pay the expenses.On November 28, just as William Treworgy was implicated in the murder and the investigation began to pick up steam, the funds paying the two detectives mysteriously dried up and the case was abandoned. Apparently not everyone in the community was happy with this state of affairs and a group of concerned citizens raised five hundred dollars to pay the detectives to continue their work. The case reopened.
It wasn’t until the following spring that a man named Joe Fogg, Jr. confessed to accepting payment from William Treworgy in return for disposing the body in the pasture just off Miles Lane. Such a witness was enough to bring the case to trial.
But this is where the story of the murder of Sarah Ware becomes most confusing. There was a murder weapon, there was motive – Ware cleaned for Treworgy and he may have borrowed money – and there was a living witness who claimed to have disposed of the body, itself a crime, willing to testify. In today’s world, this would seem to be more than enough to set the wheels of justice in motion. But not, apparently, in the world of small towns and villages that comprised rural Maine at the turn of the century. The local courts refused to hear the case, possibly because everyone knew everyone else and a fair trial seemed unlikely, as officials applied to higher courts. Three years into the review process, it landed in the purview of the Hancock County Supreme Court in the City of Ellsworth. The trial went forward with William Treworgy accused of murdering his housekeeper.
By July, 1902, things started to happen, strange, unlikely things that seemed to be more than mere coincidences. Many of the people involved in the original investigation four years past, had died including the coroner who examined her corpse and determined cause of death, and deputies who took part in the search for her body and the discovery of the tarp and hammer. Then, Joseph Fogg, the witness who claimed to have helped Treworgy dispose of Sarah’s corpse, recanted his testimony, claiming that he had been forced to lie about his role in the case by the selectmen of the town of Bucksport and others. With no witnesses, all that remained was the tarp and hammer…except that these had disappeared, as well. The only piece of evidence besides the bloody knife that was found next to her body was her skull itself, kept inside a sealed box in the Ellsworth Court as evidence.
It sat there in a locked case for one hundred years. Her headless body was buried in a pauper’s grave. Thirty years afterwards, the entire graveyard was dug up and moved to make way for a new man-made lake, known today as Silver Lake. Since her grave had no marker, it is not known if, in fact, her body was moved or if it lies beneath the waters, far from any marker. Oak Hill Cemetery in Bucksport does have a marker for Sarah in the Ware family plot – but all that lies there is her head. It rests in the family plot of her in-laws and near the husband she divorced.
To the extent that this is still an unsolved murder in the State of Maine, this case remains active. But it is unlikely that Sarah Ware’s murder will ever be solved in any official way. What we know about William Treworgy, the loss of the evidence, the bad blood between them, it seems likely that Treworgy got away with murder.
Some people claim that Sarah Ware can be seen wandering the shores of Silver Lake in the mists of a moonlit night, especially if it is a mid-September night. If ever a spirit was restless waiting for closure and justice, it would be hers. If you happen to drive down that lonely road and see her, stop for a moment and let her be. She is only seeking something we all thirst for – justice, which may only be found on the other side of the veil.
I know you don’t tell other people that you’ve had that experience, that one singular time when you were alone in your house and it happened: something inexplicable. Maybe it was when your parents first thought you were old enough to be left alone without a babysitter and told you that they would only be out for a little while. You’d had the drill - don’t open the door to strangers, don’t try to use the stove, keep the door locked and just be good - everything would be okay and they would be back before you knew it. You remember, don’t you, that time? It was nighttime in the autumn and you were glad to have the house to yourself, even excited by the prospect.
But as the minutes turn into an hour and then another hour, you begin to feel the weight of the evening growing on your shoulders and soon enough, it begins to dawn on you that, no, it can’t be, you know it’s impossible, but you could swear that you’re not alone in the house.
First you just feel it, the way you feel it when you know you’re being watched. Then, you think you hear it, think you hear it because you’re not sure and you strain to listen and finally, you think you hear it again: that soft, clicking sound, that squeak from the loose floorboard upstairs, and your heart begins to pound like a hammer in your chest. Somehow, you’re not alone in the house. You know it. You begin to panic, but at the same time to tell yourself over and over, “No, it can’t be, I know no one has come in since my parents left.” You almost convince yourself and then, like a clock striking midnight, you see something from the corner of your eye and the darkness grows and you...yes, you...know that you are no longer safe. Something wants to get you. It’s almost at your throat.
I know you remember. I do. Most of us have the moment of terror etched into our memory like a tattoo on a biker’s arm. We’re addicted to the memory because, though we never actually made true contact with that thing that came after us, we remember the sheer terror as we ran to the door when we heard our parent’s car turn into the driveway and we knew that somehow, Mom and Dad would send the evil away and we would miraculously be saved from...what? Saved from the monster in the dark? Saved from the ghost who seeks revenge? Or perhaps, we were saved from a spirit who didn’t wish to harm us at all. Perhaps we were frightened by something that didn’t mean to frighten us at all.
Ghosts might just be that part of our imagination that reminds us of our own soul. Real or not, they haunt our thoughts, especially on dark, cold nights when we’re alone. We all have our ghosts. Strangely enough, there are times we will even invite the ghost in to stay awhile, so we can bask in the truth that there is life after death. Perhaps our ghosts are only memories we can see, after all, but real enough for all of that.
The northern city of Brewer, Maine has a ghost. All old towns do, especially ones like Brewer. This was a mill town, full of working men and women and their families. The folks of Brewer made ships that sailed the seven seas, bricks that built the cities of Boston and New York, and fine paper that filled the offices of senators and Wall Street magnates. Brewer was a town of workers, but on the weekend, it was a town of worshipers. It wasn’t so long ago that one man in particular led his flock like Moses through the desert: Father Thomas Moriarty of St. Joseph’s Parish. A former hammer-thrower at Boston College, this great mountain of a man was a worker, too - doing God’s work, keeping his parishioners on the straight and narrow, guiding his sheep with a stern but loving hand. In the mid 1920s, Father Moriarty was the kind of priest you rarely see today, a warrior of the Lord, a man of great stature and even larger personality. He impacted the lives of his parishioners deeply, and not just on the Sabbath. Father Thomas Moriarty was there to baptize you, to help you through your childhood, to administer the sacrament of marriage and finally, to give you extreme unction so your soul might pass easily from this world to the next. But he was also there to make sure your family was treated fairly, that you had enough to eat and that you didn’t freeze in the winter. He noticed things - he paid attention. Father Moriarty was a true believer.
This was the time when the Ku Klux Klan had a large presence in the State of Maine, except they weren’t discriminating and threatening African Americans - there simply weren’t enough people of color in Brewer to warrant the KKK’s interference in that manner. No, their target was the Irish and French-Canadian Catholics who largely made up the congregation of St. Joseph’s. The story is told that one evening after he arrived in Brewer in 1926, Father Moriarty met with the local branch of the KKK as they paraded to his own doorstep in the small hours of the evening. Father Moriarty could not have been surprised. Crosses were burned on many a lawn in Maine in the twenties. The Irish had a long history of hardship in this part of the state. Back in the 1850s during the Know Nothing Movement, the Irish laborers who built St. John’s Catholic Church on the other side of the river in Bangor had to work at night and under guard to safeguard their work. It wasn’t unusual for the Catholics to have to stand their ground in this Bangor-Brewer area, but rarely did one man stand against so many. Imagine him then,a man in a long, black cassock and priest collar, burly as a Rugby player and as stalwart as Mount Katahdin standing his ground as a group of white-cassocked men challenge him to leave Brewer. Father Moriarty’s charge from his bishop was to establish the Church of St. Joseph, to found a new parish, and to help guide it through its birthing pains. There was no way that he was going to stand these white-clad klansmen trying to stop God’s work. Rolling up his sleeves, he was ready to take and then give back in style anything they had to offer. He told them to leave and never come back. One can imagine him standing his ground like Moses against the armies of Pharaoh, a stalwart defender of his people and his faith. We don’t know exactly what was said, but they never troubled Father Moriarty again. The church was founded and that was largely because of the actions of one man of devotion, strength and a will of iron.
Father Thomas H. Moriarty was an Irishman who did not suffer fools and errant parishioners lightly. If you missed mass, you would be asked about it and you’d better have a good reason. However, if you needed anything, food, money for the doctor, a new coat for the harsh Maine winters, like the father figure he was, Moriarty made sure you were not forgotten. In the end, he served the people of St. Joseph’s in Brewer for over forty years growing old in their service. Even into his old age, he said Mass daily and continued to take part in the life of the community. It was said that he was a driven man, perhaps to the point where he frightened his flock, but as ever, everyone knew that it was better to have him on your side than not. Father Moriarty was a fixture in the lives of the people of North Brewer until his death in 1969.
When he died, his funeral service was held in the very church he founded. However, it seems that the good man’s work on this planet was not yet over. Strange things began to happen - strange things indeed. Father Moriarty had been the elder priest, the monseigneur of the parish, while a younger man, Father Richard Rice, took over the management and major duties until Father Moriarty’s replacement arrived. Two days before his funeral and burial, Father Rice was in the rectory. He was sitting in the rectory across from the church one late afternoon, trying to catch up on some tedious paperwork. He wasn’t alone: a young priest had been sent to Brewer by the bishop to help. Feeling tired, the young priest lay down on the bed in his room to take a quick nap before evening service while Father Rice worked on paperwork in his office.
“It was at about one in the afternoon when I heard some footsteps on the floor above me. It sounded to me like pacing back and forth, such as a priest does saying his breviary, or his daily office. The footsteps continued for twenty minutes or so, and I thought that the pastor had woken from his nap was was saying his prayers. I went to the bottom of the stairs and I looked up, but saw that the custodian was working outside of the church, so I knew it couldn’t be he who was making the noise. Then I thought it might have been a visiting priest in town for Father Moriarty’s funeral service, so I went upstairs to greet him. When I got to the bedroom where the noise was coming from, though, I found it empty.”
Inexplicable? Old houses breathe. They sway a little in the wind. Their floors sing when stepped upon. The sun warms the roof and when it begins to go down, the timbers snap and complain as they cool down. But Father Rice heard footsteps from a walker who simply wasn’t there. Curious. But he didn’t have time to linger - there were confessions to hear and a Mass to celebrate. At dinner, Father Rice asked the young napping priest if he had heard the footsteps.
“Oh, that was probably Father Moriarty,” replied the priest.Father Rice smiled. The old priest had been his friend, his grandfather figure, his mentor. It gave him a little comfort to think that perhaps the old man was lingering before going to his eternal reward. But to his chagrin, the next few weeks saw a rash of unexplained events happening in the old rectory. More footsteps were heard, drawers mysteriously opening and closing, and that back-of-the-neck hair-raising feeling that someone is watching you continued to be reported. For the next seven years, strange occurrences continued to happen in the rectory of St. Joseph’s.
There is nothing Catholic theology that denies the existence of ghosts. The church is based upon a basic belief in the supernatural and until recently, at least one of the three in the Trinity was referred to as ‘the Holy Ghost.’ The word ghost comes to us from the German geist and means spirit. Peter Kreeft, a philosophy professor at Boston College, writes that, “The dead often do appear to the living. There is enormous evidence of ‘ghosts’ in all cultures.” Kreeft says that there is “no contradiction” between ghosts and Catholic theology. “Ghosts appear on earth, but do not live on earth any longer,” he says. “They are either in heaven, hell, or purgatory.” According to Dr. Kreeft, if Father Moriarty lingered, he was not really there, merely a kind of projection. But this projection kept himself busy over the years to come.
In 1976 a new rectory was built and the old one was sold to Dr. John H. Hart, a local chiropractor. When he bought the place, it was made clear to him that he was also buying a ghost. Dr. Hart didn’t seem to care. But as happens with so many people who seem unperturbed at the commencement of events, things began to happen in the old rectory that were curious and inexplicable. “I don’t believe in these things, “ said the good doctor. In the fullness of time, footsteps were heard running in the hallway in the small hours of the night when no one was downstairs. Dr. Hart attributed it to the banging of the heating pipes as they received fresh steam from the boiler in the basement. His wife heard voices when she was alone in the house, but because the house is nearby a very busy intersection, he reasoned it was merely the sound of passers-by. One night his wife had left a Corningware ‘unbreakable’ plate on the sideboard full of fresh-baked cookies overnight. In the morning the cookies were all still there, but the plate shattered beneath them. However, he reasoned, all plates break, given the right pressure over time. He’d seen it happen before.
But then visitors stayed overnight with the Hart family. One of Dr. Hart’s college friends and his wife and baby were staying in the room at the head of the stairs. The child was in a portable rolling crib they had brought with them. The couple was awakened by the crying of their child, but when they rose from their bed in the small hours of the morning, the child was no longer in the room with them.
Neither was the crib.
They stepped into the long, dark hallway half mad with panic. In their excitement, they were brought to a full, gasping stop when inexplicably, the bathroom light at the end of the hall suddenly clicked on by an unseen hand. The light from the bathroom fell upon the child and her crib, in the hallway next to the bathroom door.
There was no way the child could have moved itself and its crib out of the room, into the hallway and then down to the bathroom. It was impossible. Dr. Hart’s wife insisted that they were not the only inhabitants of the house. The footsteps always seemed to come from the same place, the room at the top of the stairs. “He’s pacing,” she explained to her skeptical husband, “he’s walking back and forth in the room, over and over again.” For the remainder of the time they lived in the old rectory, they heard footsteps and other sounds, including the sound of running water though all of the faucets that were, of course, closed tight. The Harts moved out in 1980.
There are things we believe because we have no choice and there are things we believe because we choose to believe. Does the spirit of the protective Father Moriarty haunt the old rectory of the church he founded in Brewer,Maine? Even in life, he was a protective spirit, a man of principle and honor - so might he still be on duty, even after he had the call from on high? There is one anecdote of note that is worth telling that seems to point to the old priest still shepherding his flock. In his 1989 book, Maine Ghosts and Legends, Thomas A. Verde relates the following tale:
“Not long ago, a new family moved into Brewer. The wife was outside in her yard washing the windows of her new home when she noticed a priest walking across the lawn to greet her. He introduced himself and then asked whether she and her family were Catholic. “Yes,” she replied. “Yes, we are.” “Then why,” thundered the priest, “haven’t I seen you down at church?” The woman apologized, saying that with all the chaos of moving in she hadn’t had the time. The priest made her promise to be there with her family the following Sunday and went on his way. When the woman told her neighbor about the incident, the neighbor was a bit surprised. It didn’t sound like the behavior of the current pastor at St. Joseph’s. “What was the priest’s name?” asked the neighbor. “Father Moriarty.”
Today, the old parsonage where the lingering soul of Father Moriarty is rumored to ramble is an apartment house. It is said that no one stays long in the place, with a steady stream of people coming and going. One might wonder and ask why.
Father Moriarty isn’t the only spirit of a priest reported by their flock. The world over, there are tales that tell of servants of God whose work is not yet finished, who stay earthbound, for whatever reason they might have, reminding their old parish that they are still watching. Suffice it to say that Maine has its own resident priest spirit who does not yet rest in peace. One day, perhaps he will.
References
Kreeft, Peter. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven. Ignatius Press, 1990.
Sarnaki, Aislinn, “Does a late priest’s spirit still dwell in his Brewer church?” WGME.COM, 10/26/2016. https://wgme.com/news/local/does-a-late-priests-spirit-still-dwell-in-his-brewer-church
Verde, Thomas A., Maine Ghosts & Legend: 26 Encounters with the Supernatural. 1989 Down East Books, Camden, Maine, pp.35-40.
John Bowman sat inside his mansion as evening fell and the light between the Vermont hills faded into dusk as he had done hundreds of times before. He had finished his dinner early and the servants had all gone their respective ways, back to their own homes in the village. He was alone in the house. As the light dimmed and the colors began to disappear, he couldn’t help but look out his parlor window toward the cemetery across the road. He lingered there for a long while, wondering, thinking...feeling. Would it happen tonight? Please, God, he thought, let it be tonight.As he wondered, the light of day finally shed its last rays and vanished. He was in the night country now.
The moon was playing hide and go seek with the clouds, dark as pitch one moment and in the next, the entire countryside was awash with lunar light. How many times had he sat here, looking out where they lay? Had it really been years? So long to wait for a single, simple thing. The pain in his heart was as fresh as the day it happened for each of them, first his little baby daughter, then his 22 year old daughter Ella, cut down by sickness in the prime of life, followed only a year later by his beloved wife, Jennie. With her passing, a large part of him died, too. They had meant everything to him: they had been his world. Now, all he had were his memories and a belief in something extraordinary, something he held close to his heart like a treasure, telling no one.
There, the moon had cast its light upon world again. He squinted his eyes to get a better view of the mausoleum steps atop the little rise next to the road. What was that? Was that...could it be...a man kneeling in front of the mausoleum that held the remains of this wife and children? Yes, it was the form of a man, stone still and kneeling, looking longingly into the locked space within holding a key in his hand. Of course it was a man. John Bowman knew him well. In fact, he had seen that same man kneeling there, seeking entrance into the house of the dead, every night for years, summer, winter, rain or snow. He looked one more time out of the window and then turned back into his parlor and with a wave of fatigue,blew out the lamp. Of course there was the form of a man kneeling out there in the pale moonlight, he thought as he made his way up the stairs to his bedroom. He thought to himself, ‘That solitary mourner, ghostly white and completely motionless, who never seems to leave the family alone in the cold fastness of stone is...after all, me.’
Cuttingsville, Vermont is part of the slightly larger town of Shrewsbury,on Route 103. Like many New England towns, there isn’t much of note, nothing out of the ordinary that would catch your eye except for the Laurel Glen Cemetery and the stately Victorian mansion known as Laurel Hall directly across the road. You might drive by and give it a double-take: have you just seen a ghost in mid-daylight, lingering in front of the Bowman Mausoleum? No, you haven’t. What you have seen is a fine marble sculpture of John Bowman himself kneeling in front of the doorway to the family tomb. He is clutching a key in one hand and a flowered wreath in the other. The little stone structure seems quite out of place amid the other simpler stones erected in the modest cemetery. Designed and completed in 1880 by noted New York architect G.B. Croff, the Bowman Mausoleum may be the most heart-rending and expensive example of a belief in life beyond death ever constructed in New England.
The story begins when fifteen year old John Bowman learns a trade. He apprentices out as a worker in a tannery in Rutland and then moves to New York state to learn the business. In the middle of the 19th century, leather goods helped hold the country together, used in almost every industry imaginable, from leather belts that drove the machinery of the New England mills to the rigging for ships and for all manner of horse-driven contrivances. In the next few years, the American Civil War would increase the demand for leather goods so such a degree that it could make a modest man rich, if he had the inclination to invest in his business. Bowman does so well that be moves back to Shrewsbury. He prospers and participates in local politics. With proserity comes a wife and family and all the happiness that a man might hold dear in his heart and be thankful for. So many Americans would lose loved ones during the war that it seems almost no one in the country was untouched by the conflict in some way. Everyone knew someone who died in that war. John Bowman may have wondered in those early days how he had been so fortunate. He had it all, it seemed.
But no one escapes the trials of this world unscathed and for John Bowman, his dark night of the soul would arrive again and again over the coming years. Five years after marrying Jennie Gates from Warren, New York, the couple was blessed with their first child, a girl named Addie. Although we do not know the exact circumstances of her life, we know that young Addie only lived for four months. The couple was obviously distraught but the death of children was a more common event in the 1850s than it is today, as evidenced by the sheer number of childrens’ headstones found in any cemetery of the time. Large families were the rule rather than the exception and the multitude of childhood diseases meant that it was common for families to lose a child to one of them. But that didn’t make their loss any less poignant.
The couple had another daughter, Ella, born in 1860. They lived in relative comfort and happiness, one must assume, for he was the most prosperous man in town and they must have wanted for nothing. It was during this time that Bowman was elected to the Vermont state legislature. The war ensured Bowman’s fortune. For many years, the family prospered. But tragedy loomed ever on the horizon and when 23 year old Ella fell ill and then died in 1879, Mr. and Mrs. John Bowman’s world fell apart. None of the money mattered. Their two children, the light of their lives, were gone. Then, when it may have seemed like nothing could make anything worse, Mrs. Bowman fell ill and died a year later in 1880. John Bowman was alone, utterly and completely alone.
John Bowman needed a purpose, something into which he could pour his anguish and his considerable fortune to help him find a reason to go on. This was a time in America when the business of memorials was in full swing. People tended toward the sentimental and spent long hours contemplating death, erecting memorials, and for some, attempting to speak to the dearly departed. The Spiritualist movement had started not far from Cuttingsville in upstate New York where Bowman had apprenticed as a young man. Perhaps in his formative years he had met someone involved in the movement, had heard of those people conversing with the dead. There is no proof of this connection but talk of the new movement was everywhere.It gave hope to so many who had lost so much. In the 1880s, funerals were productions and even the afterlife, it seemed, was affected by the wishes and longings of those who survived. People were seeking a closeness in death like the one they had in life.
Bowman determined to build a mausoleum unlike any other. Many of the larger cemeteries of this time saw a number of extravagant tombs built from imported Italian marble. Also in place were any number exquistely carved angels, shrouded figures in mourning, and other human forms set in stone to last the centuries. Bowman wanted both.The Laurel Glen Cemetery at Cuttingsville was a simpler place, with rows of white marble slabs hewn from the nearby hills as the only makers of the good people who rested below. Bowman would change all of that. He would build a structure to last the ages. Money was no object. Tons of marble were imported from Italy and cut to fit the designs of architect G.B. Croff from New York. When it was completed, people began to visit and wonder at the structure, a tiny Grecian Temple nestled between who Vermont hills. The doors were opened and Bowman, pleased that so many were taking an interest in his project, hired a keeper and set up a guestbook inside. For awhile, the Bowman Mausoleum was a tourist attraction. Perhaps people even brought the kids.
As the people came to visit and as time continued to pass, Bowman had another idea. He decided to build a large Victorian house almost directly across the road from the mausoleum. When completed, he moved into it, so close to the mortal remains of his beloved family.He named it ‘Laurel Hall’. It must have been a comfort.
But it wasn’t enough.
We don’t know exactly how the idea came into his mind, but once conceived, there was no stopping its realization. Bowman must have looked out that window a thousand and one times and seen something that no one else could see, a figure of a man begging to be let into the sanctum and be reunited with the only people who brought him comfort and solace.There he was, kneeling, holding a key to the door or was it to the life beyond? He could see it was, of course, his own figure kneeling there in the moonlight, looking longingly into the crypt. Other people needed to see this solitary, eternal mourner, too. So he hired an Italian sculptor named Giovanni Turini to carve his image into stone and place it on the steps, kneeling, entreating entrance into that glorious afterlife where he could be with his beloved family again.
If that was the end of the story, it would be enough to make us wonder at the man’s pertinacity and devotion. But there’s more. There’s always more. As he settled into his life in the mansion, he spent less and less time outside of its walls and it become more and more of a tomb for him. He had servants, of course, but their nature was as taciturn as any Yankee. No one knew for sure what was taking place inside the walls of Laurel Hall. Rumors began to spread about the peculiar doings inside. He had the table set for his whole family. Beds were turned down for them. Though he ate alone, he lived as though he was whole again and the family was still with him. Rumors persisted that Bowman was studying the occult sciences, that he was seeking a way to come back from the dead and, one might assume, bring his family back with him. He grow older and more and more isolated. We can imagine him making the occasional journey across the street, opening the door with the real key and sitting amid his departed family, the carefully arranged mirrors reflecting his image over and over in the small space, making it seem enormous and empty, showing rooms beyond that simply could not exist in this world. The mirrors are situated to make the little room seem enormous, showing entrance ways to other rooms, branching off in a hundred different ways. Did he sit there quietly and seek to wander those rooms in his mind? When he looked at the little marble statue of his infant daughter reaching her arms out to him, did he reach down to gather her into his arms? His wife’s elegantly sculpted face gazed at him with empty eyes - or were they full of love for him?
In the light of modern science, we can point to his depression and realize that, because it went untreated, it turned into a kind of manic obsession with death and the afterlife. When he died in 1891, according to local lore, his will stipulated that each night, the hearth fires would be lit. Funds were left to pay for the servants to continue their work of maintenance and cleaning of the house and the mausoleum. The bed linens would also be changed weekly and every evening, the table would be set for everyone in the family. Did Bowman know something the rest of us don’t?
Why did Bowman ask for these strange requests? Why set the table and change the beds for people who obviously weren’t there? Was he getting things ready, just in case, somehow, he found a way back from beyond the veil? Would the family somehow appear or did he believe that, in fact, they had been there with him all along, at least in his mind: a baby girl who never grew up, a 22 year old daughter forever in the prime of her life, and a wife of many years whose love and support carried him through the hardest of times? Is it possible that he was never, truly alone, after all? Was it a kind of insanity for him to long for comfort and to imagine that those who had passed might actually be as close as his next breath? Who can say?
He’s still there. You can see him for yourself any hour of the day and night along Route 103 in Cuttingsville - the white and ghostly marble form of John Bowman, slightly larger than life, gazing into the sanctum where his two daughters, his wife and he are all resting the slumber of the ages. It’s an old adage that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone. One man’s monument to his family might make you realize how important family is in your life, after all.
PHOTO CREDITS: Don Shall
Photos : http://www.flickr.com/photos/donshall/
Ten thousand warplanes flew from or over Maine during World War II. Over the course of the war, a total of 48 aircraft crashed in the state accounting for 143 deaths. The vast majority of those planes made it safely to their destinations, but it was certainly not unheard of for one of the thousands of planes in the sky to fall to earth before they crossed the ocean for the war. But there was a day, a single day, where two bombers crashed within four hours of each other, claiming the lives of 27 people. This day remains the worst day for aviation in the state's history.
Aircraft 1: July 11, 1944 -Just after midnight, an 8th Air Force B-17G Flying Fortress heavy bomber (SN 43-38023) takes off with a 10 man crew from Kearney, Nebraska headed for Dow Army Air Field in Bangor, Maine, and then to Gander, Newfoundland, en route to a base in the English midlands, one of seventeen in a group, though it wasn't strange for Cast to be flying on his own - it wasn't actually common practice for pilots to fly in formation while on route, except during a bombing raid. Cast and crew were on their own until they made it to their destination. Everything went according to plan until...well, it will never be known exactly what happened to cause the plane to crash into Deer Mountain in Maine.
All we can do is speculate. We have no way of ever knowing for certain what happened to the aircraft to cause the events that happened that July day. We do know that the weather over the Appalachians was foul and the crew must have flown high enough to avoid most of the turbulence. We can imagine that they were tossed and buffeted about with wind, thunder, rain and hail all part of the mix. Anyone who has experienced turbulence knows the feeling of being thrown about like a bb in a can.The plane can be lifted or dropped several hundred feet without any warning. Other planes from the flight group reported these conditions, so we can safely assume that Cast and crew also experienced a similar set of events.
We do know that the radio operator made his last scheduled contact with ground radio operators at around 9:30 and that this was something he did every half hour to help maintain his position. At around 10 AM when the radio operator was scheduled to make radio contact with the ground to help maintain his fix, he found that he couldn't raise anyone. He may have also found that he couldn't receive any fixed signals or commercial radio stations. Perhaps they checked the radio equipment and found some smashed tubes, a common occurrence. Perhaps they even replaced the broken tubes in an attempt to make contact and determine their position. But they never make contact with the ground again.
But all was not lost: there were other ways of finding their way. It is possible that the rough weather and turbulence caused the gyroscopic magnetic compass to malfunction, giving a false reading. There was also a radio compass that was quite likely not working, either. Cast and his navigator, Second Lieutenant William Hudgens, Jr., had very few tools to help them find their way. It might have seemed pretty hopeless but for their last resort for determining their position.
In those days, when weather would cause a pilot to lose his position, he had to rely largely on navigation by dead-reckoning, using radio beacons and radio fixes from airfields along the way. If dead-reckoning failed, a pilot could use a sextant and navigate using the positions of celestial bodies, but it appears that Cast was unable to use either navigation system to help him find his way.
It had come down to his last option: he would have to rely on his eyesight alone. This combination of bad weather and loss of radio contact probably caused Lieutenant Cast to fly off course and after over twelve hours airborne, it must have become clear to him that he was running low on fuel. Using only his vision to guide him, to see the world below he would have needed to fly below the cloud bank to look for anything that could help him determine a course. One can imagine all of the members of the crew straining at their respective windows to see something, anything, that could inform them of their position. They would have had to rely on the aircraft's intercom to communicate, with the roar of four 1200 horsepower engines whining loud and reverberating throughout the plane.
We know that they were still airborne at 1:30 in the afternoon and their fuel must have been dangerously low. The B-17G burned 50 gallons of fuel per hour, per engine and had a capacity of seventeen hundred gallons, most of which was already gone.
They must have checked their charts and understood that they had been circling the town of Rangeley. They must have been so relieved to know that close by was an airstrip, a runway, and a safe landing. Flying in a long circle for more than an hour, they must have recognized where they were because Cast finally steered the plane towards Rangeley's tiny airstrip. But there was still a final problem: because they had been flying low enough to look at the terrain, they needed to gain altitude to come in on their approach.But the B-17G had a relatively poor rate of climb, at only nine hundred feet per minute. To get the plane up to where it rightfully belonged to be safe would take minutes.
They never made it to the runway. Details from the crash site investigation showed that they must have been flying extremely low because as Lieutenant Cast turned to bank, the B-17s wingtip caught on a treetop, causing the plane to twist and corkscrew into the ground at full speed.The wreck created a swath in the forest 200 feet wide for a distance of over 800 feet before it finally stopped. With so little fuel left in the tanks, there was no fireball or great explosion, just a sudden crashing sound and the snapping of trees and timber, followed by a long, hollow silence. No one survived. All were under the age of twenty-seven years old.
The wreck was discovered three days later after an exhaustive search, the few crew remains were taken to Bangor and the remains of the plane were left to sit in the middle of the north woods, perhaps to be seen by a hunter now and again as the years went by. Eventually a logging company came upon the wreckage years later and buried the wreckage. Later, it seems, another storm uprooted some of the trees that had grown over the wreck, exposing it again to the elements and inspiring a few people to erect a stone to the memory of the fallen airmen. The remains of the B-17 lie beneath the forest and a stone marker is all that remains to mark the spot where these brave men met their end on a blustery July day in Maine.
Aircraft 2: A twin engine A-26 Invader attack bomber from Barksdale Field in Louisiana, took off from Bradley Field in Connecticut after refueling. It was being piloted by a Mainer, Second Lieutenant Philip "Phee" Russell, a flight instructor, from South Portland. This journey was a kind of gift to Russell from the Army, called a "long-distance training mission" to his home state for a well-deserved break and visit home. He was almost there, with only 170 miles between Russell and his wife and daughter.
Russell was a flight instructor. He knew how to pilot an airplane and wasn’t a rookie by any measure. He had made it through much of the same weather that Cast and his crew had encountered and he had been lucky enough to stay on course. His wife and baby daughter were on the base, waiting in the the observation tower, ready to greet him as he exited the plane.The fog was so thick that afternoon that the base commander had actually closed the runway, but Russell was close. At 4:35 PM his voice came over the radio requesting landing instructions. He was on time to land in Portland, but time was running out. The people in the observation tower reported seeing his Invader come out of the fog at two-hundred feet.
What happened next happened so quickly. Was that smoke coming from his starboard engine or just a trick of the light in the fog? The tower immediately instructed Russell to climb to 1500 feet, but didn't get a chance to finish their instructions to head to another field in New Hampshire. For a reason we will never be able to truly ascertain, Russell never touched down on Portland's runway, though he flew directly over it at high speed and low altitude.As he was circling, his wingtip caught the ground and the Invader cart-wheeled, plowing into the ground. He met his end when the plane collided with Westbrook's Redbank Trailer Camp, full of workers building Liberty Ships at the New England Shipbuilding Corporation's facility. A fireball with 100 foot flames lit up the sky as the A-26 Invader made impact and created an impact crater. Nineteen people died in that trailer park, including Russell and his flight engineer, Wallace Mifflin. In the Portland area, this incident would be remembered as the Long Creek disaster. A small memorial to the victims of the crash has recently been erected.
On that fateful day, 27 people lost their lives due to a strange combination of weather, confusion and reasons we will never determine, July 11, 1944 marks Maine’s worst day in aviation history.
Maine remains a place where the sky seems filled with aircraft either coming from or going to Canada or Europe, planes whose contrails fill the sky with a kind of white-lace reminder that up there, too high to hear, thousands of people fly over us on their way to somewhere beyond. But every now and then, often on a quiet night, late in the evening, you might find yourself drawn to the window to see if you can glimpse whatever it is that is making that sound that’s caught your ear. It’s a kind of low, loud whine in the distance, a deep-throated hum that seems louder and lower than it should be ,just above your head, growing in intensity as it passes over and then diminishes into the darkness, continuing its lonely journey. I’ve heard that sound more than once in my life and I know it might simply be a lovingly maintained museum piece on its way to an airshow somewhere, but there is a part of me that wonders if that sound of roaring engines might also be a memory, an echo from a time when thousands of planes filled with tens of thousands of young men, flew overhead towards their own uncertain futures.
Today there are many who visit the site in Rangeley that commemorates the last flight of the B-17 piloted by Lieutenant Cast. If you are interested, it’s located west of Rangeley off Route 16, just before Cupsuptic Boat Launch.
Sources
Johnson, Alan W. "A B17 Memorial". Aziscohos Lake Preservation Council. aziscohos.org, 30 May 2011.
Noddin, Peter. “Aviation Archeology in Maine”. Mewreckchasers.com. Accessed 26 June 2018.
Sneddon, Rob, "The Wreck Chaser". Downeast Magazine. https://downeast.com/the-wreck-chaser/
Memorial Stone Photo
http://www.eskerridge.com/bj/303rdbg/crashsit.html
If you live in New England, sooner or later you’ll have this experience: you’ll find yourself driving down a road you’ve driven a hundred times before and you’ll notice something is different. At first, you might shrug it off, but the idea will dog you until you realize something is wrong: something is there that wasn’t there before, a small detail like a sign or a tree, or perhaps it’s something bigger, like a house or perhaps a road that branches off the main drag which you can’t believe you never noticed before.
If you’re curious or perhaps just plain foolish, you might just backtrack and turn down that road to see where it goes. What harm will it do, you ask? And where that road takes you might just be to a place from which you can never escape,not because you’re lost and can’t get back to your starting point, but because once you turn around and finally make your hurried way back home, you can never go back, because when you try to return down that road or to that house, you discover, much to your chagrin and mounting concern, that there is no house and no one you know, I mean no one, has ever seen that road that branched off into that place you went. You might try a hundred times to find that road again, but it just isn’t there.
Sound like something out of the Twilight Zone? I know. Is it possible that things like this do happen? As the writer of these stories here at Strange New England, I’ve done a fair amount of research about the inexplicable, but stories about disappearing places? Perhaps this it the ‘glitch in the matrix’ kind of story that makes for good late night reading on Reddit. Perhaps it’s more of a time slip tale? It’s as though once you’ve slipped out of one place and into another, you don’t even want to think about it, or the implications that it brings. I mean, all you have to prove you were ever in such a place or on such a road is your own recollection, and that can easily be discounted to fatigue, a trick of the light, or even a creation of an overstimulated mind.
Still, such a thing happened to my wife and I when we were first married over thirty years ago and to this day, we are both convinced that we were allowed a glimse of a place and perhaps a time, that does not exist, at least on any map we can find. And we wouldn’t be the first who found themselves in such a predicament. No matter where you are on Earth there are GPS coordinates that will tell you exactly where you are and they are as close as your smartphone. You can save your location like a bookmark and return to it at your leisure. But there might just be places that don’t show up on the maps, places the GPS satellites don’t cover and these places, if they exist, perhaps only exist in the geography of imagination.
What I’m about to tell you really happened. My wife, Victoria, and I, both experienced it and it continues to haunt us to this day. Perhaps the word ‘haunt’ is incorrect. It doesn’t frighten us when we recall what happened. When we remember it, we do so with longing and something else...I think I’ll call it hope.
We met in college in the early 1980s. I was living on campus in Orono and she was commuting from Dexter three or four times a week, still living with her parents. We had an immediate connection and within two years, we were married and living in a tiny apartment in Bangor, happy and looking forward to whatever came our way. We both worked during the week and though we had almost no money at all, we really were about as happy as either of us ever expected we ever would be. We had an old red Datsun pickup and on weekends, Vic armed with her State of Maine DeLorme Gazeteer, and I would go exploring. For you to understand the impact of this story, you must know that Vic has an excellent sense of direction. I can get lost driving home from work, but not Vic. She has a nearly infallible internal compass and can easily weave her way to a place using backroads and byways that appear as only dotted lines on the maps. Be it Boston or some small hidden Maine village whose name is tiny on the map, Vic is a keen pilot.
It was on a late August afternoon that we found ourselves sitting under a tree having a picnic with our friends, Thane and her future husband, James, in Newburgh, Maine, about twenty minutes away from our Bangor apartment. Situated halfway between Hampden and Dixmont, Newburgh is rural with mostly small houses and farms surrounded by wooded, rolling hills and farmland. There are many sideroads leading off Kennebec Road. As the day wore down to dinner time, we decided it was time to head back into Bangor. With little else to do, we took it upon ourselves to take the ride slowly just in case any new path came our way that we could explore. There were hours of daylight left and we had no particular place to go.
We turned onto Kennebec Road and began driving back to Bangor with the lazy afternoon sun still high overhead. Vic and I both grew up in the country, she in Dexter and I in Caribou, and though we were now residents of Bangor, we were hopeful to someday find our own little place away from the hustle and flow of the city in which we now lived. We talked about it often, but only in a vague, in the distant future kind of way. We couldn’t afford to buy a used car, let alone a plot of land in the country. To that end, we often turned down back roads, especially if they were narrow and tree-lined and unpaved, looking for some prime piece of real estate in which to plant a dream. You never know where you’ll end up when you start down such a road. You might find a sheltered little village or at least an abandoned farm or two that you might be able to buy cheap and revamp into your own little paradise on earth, some place with only a foundation and perhaps an ancient orchard to tell us that people once lived there before the ravages of time caught up to them. We had little else back then except our dreams and each other, so it was a cheap adventure to go exploring.
“Here,” Vic said as we approached a road just barely visible until you were right on it. “Turn here. Let’s see where that goes.” We were perhaps three miles from our friend’s house in Newburgh.
It was a narrow track with barely enough room for our truck, our tires vibrating to the dirt, sending a small cloud of dust behind us as we drove, erasing the world. The trees that lined the road were deciduous, not evergreen, with maples and birches predominating. There were no houses to be seen and telephone poles, either. In fact, there was little on either side of this road to indicate that anyone lived nearby. Such roads aren’t that rare in this part of the state. They are the rule, rather than the exception. As we continued on for perhaps a half mile, we noticed the road rising as we made our way up the slope of a hill.
When we reached the top of that hill, what we saw was burned into each of our memories. Even today, thiry years later, we reminisce about it. Vic remembers the details better, with the eye of an artist, but without a doubt, we both remember the same place with the same details.
There was a field on the right just before the old white farmhouse. Across the road from the farmhouse was a traditional red barn with perhaps a small outbuilding or two. Another field to the left of the barn rolled out down the hill into what appeared like a long private valley. We could see no other houses either nearby or in the distance. I stopped the car because it appeared to us from our vantage point that the road ended right there, in front of the little house.
We sat transfixed, quietly taking it all in. Later we would each claim that this was our idea of a dream house, in a dream spot and that no other place we could ever imagine could be as perfect as this place. It was a small, two-story house with a white fence and flowers blooming next to the foundation, the kind of farmhouse you’d find in a hundred small Maine towns anywhere in the state. The medium sized-barn was well-kept and sturdy with one sliding board door, all closed. Whoever lived here took pride in appearances. It felt like home.
As we looked out over the field in the distance, we saw a green valley and a wooded hill beyond, looking southward toward Dixmont. It was a secluded spot, away from the world and we felt that in a very real way. There were no cars or tractors, just the buildings and the road and the view that seemed to never end. As we sat there, a nagging feeling of having to leave entered our minds, but we lingered nonetheless. I remember putting the car in reverse to turn around when Vic stopped me and asked if we couldn’t go closer to the house, to see what lay beyond. I said I didn’t think so. Were we trespassing? Yes, probably, though there was no posted sign and we had turned down this path innocently enough. We contented ourselves by soaking in the view for a few more moments before I backed onto the field, turned the truck around and left, catching my final glimpse of the golden afternoon in the rearview mirror as we rose over the top of the hill and made our way back to the Kennebec Road.
But for days we couldn’t get the thought of that place out of our minds. How often did we talk about how perfect it seemed, how a place like that...no...how that place would make a perfect home, a hideaway with a few acres where we could settle down and build a life together. We knew we couldn’t afford a place like that, not yet, but we could dream, couldn’t we? For a week, we spoke of little else. The next Saturday we loaded a picnic lunch into the old Datsun and drove back to that place, this time to knock on the door and meet the people who lived in our dream house.
But we couldn’t find the road. At first we both laughed it off, amused that we could have missed such an obvious thing, but as the afternoon wore on, it became clear to us that we were searching frantically for something which, to be quite honest, wasn’t there anymore. But how could a road vanish? How could we be so wrong about its location when both of us distinctly could recall the entire series of events that led us to that place? As the afternoon wore on and we had backtracked again and again to no avail, we shrugged our shoulders and found our way back home, completely stymied by the whole experience. We were sure we had seen it, certain that we weren’t experiencing some shared hallucination, but at the end of the day one thing was clear: we couldn’t find the road that led to the house that felt more like home than any place we had seen before.
Time passed. Life kept us busy enough and like most people when faced with the unexplained, we shrugged it off as our own mistake. Somehow, we had simply missed the turn. We had obviously not paid attention to detail, lost in the perfect moment we spent looking out into the field beyond the house and into the isolated valley below. It was a small thing, really, and we had a life to build, but in the back of our minds, we always wondered. As the years passed, we kept looking. No one we knew had any idea what we were talking about, not that we told many about our visit to the lost valley. We scoured the maps, tried every back road and dirt path we could find, but to no end. That house and barn, that long valley, those forested hills beyond were nowhere to be found. When Google Earth came online, we made a point to scrutinize the imagery as closely as we could, expanding our search to miles beyond anywhere we had been on that late summer Saturday so many years ago. That road, that house and barn, simply aren’t there.
We strayed off the map. It happens from time to time. It might have happened to you and you weren’t even aware of it. How could you know, unless you were enchanted by something you saw and tried to find it again and found it gone, dissolved into the space between the atoms of the world, unavailable to you, ever again. What haunts my wife and I today, more than anything else, is the feeling that we were supposed to see that place, that it was no accident that we stumbled upon it. It felt like home to us, that much remains. Everything else is just a mystery.
If you’ve ever found yourself off the map and dare to share your story, please contact us at strangenewenglander@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you and if nothing else, assure you that in the strange world of people and doings, you are not alone.
Some might say that northwestern Rhode Island had been cursed by some dark force in the past. It has been the source of many foul tales of devilish specters and hideous brutes. Its forests appear darker and colder than others. On all sides are ancient trees with branches that writhe like tendrils over its roads. As a fog settles over the evening, you can’t escape the feeling that stygian beast skulks within it. Though you might expect these sensations are borne from the darkest corners of our imagination, there are five men who would strongly disagree. For one late night in Glocester, Rhode Island, they encountered a fiend like no other; the Glocester Ghoul. Albert Hicks, the last person to be executed for piracy in America, was born in Foster, Rhode Island in 1820. He had one ambition in life: to become rich by some bold stroke. He said that the only value his wealth would have was to gratify his passions with no restraint. His career as a pirate and criminal involved many monstrous deeds. In his confession, Hicks said, that the devil, whose work he was doing so industriously, seemed to protect him while he pursued a career of blood and crime with impunity. “He has stood by me all my life, on ship and on shore; amid the howling storms of the ocean,” Hicks said, “where every moment the waves threatened to ingulf (sic) me, he has snatched me from their deadly embrace; on the battle-field, in Continue Reading →
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The Connecticut River is the largest river in New England. It meanders its way through the hills and forest of Northern New England between Vermont and New Hampshire and discharges itself in Long Island Sound. This leviathan consumes over 11,263 sq miles of the Northeast. Traced by many cities and small towns, it’s an icon of the New England lifestyle. Though seemingly beautiful and peaceful by day, its undulating coils hide many stories and secrets along its path to the Devil’s Belt. One is a mysterious glowing thing that lurks in its waters. In 1956, a portion of the Connecticut River was dammed up for the purpose of hydroelectric power production. Though formally named the Samuel Moore Reservoir, the residents of Littleton, New Hampshire refer to it as Moore Lake. It became a staple for summer fun for the people of Littleton, but on the evening of May 20th, 1968 a few would find something other than fun at Moore Lake. Around 3 am Monday morning, what had been a quiet evening for the night officer of the Littleton Police Department came to a sudden end when three seemingly terrified youths stormed into the station. They were so delirious officer Miller only heard, “red glow on the water,” and “thing”, in the anxious chatter. The one thing the officer Miller did understand was that whatever it was these three saw, it had terrorized them. Richard, his wife Cindy and Michael were now feeling safe in the company of the officer. Continue Reading →
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Hidden within the undulating arm of the Connecticut River is a serpent that has frightened those who’ve lived on it banks since colonists first settled there. Often it has been described as an eel or snake-like serpent over one hundred feet long. Though over the past three hundred years it has been spotted by people across three states, it still appears to remain a mystery. In the early 1800s, spotting strange creatures off the coast of Connecticut was not uncommon. Sailors would return to port with tales of ghastly leviathans they encountered in their travels. The most peculiar of these stories frequently surfaced in the local publications. One that crossed the pages of the New York Times and Scientific American was not reported by sailors at sea, but by people deep in the heart of Connecticut. This beast appeared to make its home in the Connecticut River. The first sighting of this monster was in Middletown Connecticut, and recorded by the New York Times on Sept 8, 1886. According to the article, Colonel Stocking and Silas Sage witnessed the creature while in a little skiff off Cromwell, Connecticut. While crossing the river around 6 am, they were suddenly struck by something underwater and the skiff was tossed into the air. As they came crashing back onto the surface of the river, the two men were tossed out of their seats. Fortunately both landed on the floor of their tiny boat. As the two terrified men reluctantly peered over the side Continue Reading →
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Strange History is the audio companion to the blog Strange New England where we investigate the forgotten, unusual, and simply strange folklore, history and destinations in New England. Growing up in the northeast we’ve always had an interest in tales of the ancient structures, monsters, mysterious locations, natural wonders and weird legends of New England. Over the past 15 years we’ve hunted down some of the most unique history and places in the northeast, and shared some of the highlights with you. We’ve spent many hours digging through archives, interviewing local people and traveling throughout the Northeast to visit forgotten sites. Our goal has always been to investigate and record the distinctive history and folklore that makes New England so unique. Recently, we had the opportunity to record some spots called CuRIous for the Rhode Island radio station WPRO. Due to the incredibly positive response to the spots, we decided it was time to finally make the step toward doing our own regularly scheduled PODcast. ~ Strange New England
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Washington Irving wrote of the Headless Horseman, a tale of a Hessian of Sleepy Hollow who had lost his head in war. It’s a wonderful story that all enjoyed in their childhood. In RI though there is a more gruesome tale of a headless spirit in Swampton. This story may even predate Irving’s tale, and cause most to shudder in fear, when alone on Indian Corner Road. In the early 1800s a large portion of Swampton consisted of over grown forest and wetlands. Virtually all of the roads that traverse through the wilds of this portion of RI didn’t have names. Often the locals would apply names to them that best described their location. While some were adorned with pleasant names like Rathbun and Sunnyside others had much more gruesome rubrics. Dark Corners, Purgatory Rd, and Robbers Corner carried names that both identified them and warned the weary traveler. Though most names changed over time, there are those who’s now formal name still carries the spirit of its location. Indian Corner is the most interesting and frightening of those lonely byways. Indian corner Rd. lays in Washington county Rhode Island and travels northeast toward Wickford. Over 200 years ago, Indian corner was marked by a large boulder for when the winter snow made it difficult to follow. Just as long as the rock stood watch over that lonely stretch of road, many travelers who brave it by night spoke of an encounter with a headless torso or its disembodied head. Continue Reading →
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It is September 11, 1976. You are sitting quietly in a living room near Maine’s Old Orchard Beach. The sea air is strangely balmy as you settle down for a quiet evening. Your wife and children are out for a few hours and for once, you have the house to yourself. You are 58 years old and your name is Dr. Herbert Hopkins and your quiet life is about to encounter a road block that will send you careening into an area you’ve glimpsed but never visited before. Though you are a renowned allergist and have done research for years on the causes and treatment of multiple sclerosis, you have been going down a slightly different avenue in your career recently. For the past several weeks you’ve been engaged doing what you most enjoy: hypnosis. The most interesting work of your career has been consulting on a case of alleged UFO teleportation in Oxford, Maine of David Stephens in 1975, work you find both fascinating and difficult to dismiss. Lately, it’s been keeping you up at night, pondering the possibilities of such a thing. How strange that so many people are convinced that they are experiencing things that…simply cannot be. Perhaps tonight you will review some of the tape recordings of the sessions to see if you can find your way into this strange case. Did these abductees really see strange mushroom-headed entities inside of their ships? The peaceful silence is disturbed by the ring of the telephone. You answer, hoping it is a wrong number. Instead, you hear a strange, faint voice of a man who tells you that he is the vice-president of the New Jersey UFO Research Organization calling from a phone booth. He has heard of your recent work. He wonders if he might stop by, since he is in the area, and discuss your findings. This piques your interest – another researcher into the phenomenon that is so troubling you. You agree, telling him your address. You hang up the phone and switch on the porch light so that, when he arrives, he’ll know which door to approach. But when you flip the switch, you see him mounting the steps, already nearly at your door. But there he is, walking up the steps. You are puzzled, since the closest phone booth is several blocks away. Startled, you open the door and quickly allow entrance into your house the single, strangest visitor you will ever have in your whole life – a man not quite of this world.
So begins one of the most famous encounters in the strange history of the Men in Black and one of New England’s closest encounters with them. For the uninitiated, Men in Black are usually black-suited men, often arriving unexpected in pairs or trios, whose provenance is dubious and whose purpose is unknown. They often arrive directly after a UFO sighting to speak with those who have witnessed the lights or craft in the sky. However, whenever people have reported meeting these mysterious beings, they are often left with a profound feeling of unease and distress. Who did they really just meet? What did these people actually want? Are they even human at all?
Dr. Hopkins let the man in before he even knew what was happening. His guest was impeccably dressed in an apparently new suit, pants perfectly creased, black suit coat, tie and shoes and a starched white shirt. He also wore grey leather gloves. On the top of his head was a black hat which the man removed, revealing a perfectly smooth bald head. Dr. Hopkins realized before he had even spoken a word to the man that he was totally hairless – no eyebrows or eyelashes graced the man’s face. Also, even in the dim yellow light of the hall, he could tell that his visitor’s skin was pale to the point of being nearly white. The only hint of color about him were his deep red lips. Later, Dr. Hopkins would swear that the man was wearing lipstick. His nose seemed too small for a man of his height and statue and his ears were very small as well as appearing to be lower on the head than they should have been.
Hopkins invited the stranger into his living room and they sat opposite each other on the chair and the couch. The stranger asked about the hypnotism sessions with the supposed abductees and Hopkins answered all of his questions, even though the strangeness of the whole encounter was beginning to have an impact upon his mind: who was this man, really? He seemed to know things about the case that only someone intimately invovled with it would. Why was he asking questions if he already knew all of the answers? With every answer that Hopkins gave to his inquires, the man would repeat the exact same phrase, “Yes, that’s the way I understand it.”
And then it occurred to him that he did not know the men’s name. Things immediately began to steer towards the unknown and Dr. Hopkins found himself in the presence of something else, something other. First, the man mistakenly brushed his lips with his gray gloves and a portion of lipstick was smeared off, revealing that he had no lips! Then he pointed to Dr. Hopkins’ pocket and told Hopkins that he had two coins in it. This seemingly random observation was true, though how he would have know this was beyond the good doctor. The stranger requested that Hopkins remove one of the coins and hold it in the palm of his hand, which he did.
“Watch the coin,” the stranger requested. As he observed it, his vision began to grow fuzzy and then to waver in his vision. After it changed color, it simply vanished. The man then said that no one on this plane would ever see that coin again.
The conversation was steered by the guest to the Betty and Barney Hill UFO encounter from Exeter, New Hampshire in 1961.
“Do you know what happened to Barney Hill?” asked the stranger.
“No, I don’t,” replied Hopkins, “except that he died.”
“Do you know what he died from,” asked the stranger.
“A heart attack, maybe?”
“No. That’s not entirely accurate. He died because he knew too much,” replied the stranger.
Then he arose slowly and awkwardly and began to move toward the door. With slurred speech he said to Hopkins, “My energy is running low. Must go now. Goodbye.”
And with that, he left Hopkins wondering who he had met and what had just happened.
He rushed to the door to watch the man depart but all that he saw were very bright blue light bathing the parking lot outside his home.
Were the man’s words about Barney Hill a threat against Hopkins, meant to stop his research on the hypnosis case and walk away? As time passed, he became convinced of the truth of this idea. If this had simply been another human being telling him to stop, he might not have, but because of the high strangeness of this man’s behavior and appearance, there was no doubt that he would comply., He erased all of the tapes from the prior session and stopped working on the UFO abduction case altogether. He discovered later that, of course, there was no New Jersey UFO Research Organization and like so many people who have claimed to have had interactions with these beings, he felt like he had been contacted and threatened by these entities. Were the man’s words about Barney Hill a threat against Hopkins, meant to stop his research on the hypnosis case and walk away? As time passed, he became convinced of the truth of this idea. If this had simply been another human being telling him to stop, he might not have, but because of the high strangeness of this man’s behavior and appearance, there was no doubt that he would comply., He erased all of the tapes from the prior session and stopped working on the UFO abduction case altogether. He discovered later that, of course, there was no New Jersey UFO Research Organization and like so many people who have claimed to have had interactions with these beings, he felt like he had been contacted and threatened by these entities.
The 1976 Herbert Hopkins case remains one of the most detailed reports of an interaction with a possible Man in Black. People who study the phenomena often cite this case as the most important and informed report ever recorded about the ominous visitors in the night.
However, a good story doesn’t have to be real to be appreciated. It is possible that the experience as reported by Dr. Hopkins was a fabrication designed to draw attention to his work and his own odd need for attention. Though the source of the following information is no longer available on the Internet, it is available at the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. It is in the form of a blog written by his nephew, author Herbert Hopkins. (see references for link to the blog). In his entry for January 13, 2008, he reveals to the world his intimate knowledge of the whole episode and explains how the whole thing was a desperate grasp for attention from a brilliant but troubled man. Herbert Hopkins writes:
“My uncle was, unfortunately, a fantasy-prone individual, craved the center of attention and limelight and on a base level he sometimes just made things up—no matter how hyperbolic—to top everybody else. As brilliant as he was in many areas, however, he was unskilled at fiction. And for much of the ‘70s and 80s, he was an alcoholic. Every night was spent alone with a magnum of wine…The bottom line for this particular Man in Black tale is unfortunately pretty mundane. This mysterious being in black, inspired by cheap fiction and alcohol, probably less of malicious intent and more from some sad need for attention, was, alas, a simple lie, one that needs to be corrected for those into serious research in this area.”
So, who are we to believe? The good Dr. Hopkins or his nephew? Was he truly threatened or was he simply seeking attention? Whichever one you choose, the story remains interesting and continues to dwell in the annals of the mysterious in the lore of New England. Perhaps when we consider the truly strange, the strangest of all might be the people who claim impossible things.
Sources
Hopkins,Herbert. “The Truth About a Man in Black”.Dark Bits, 13 Jan 2008. Hopkins,Herbert. “The Truth About a Man in Black”.Dark Bits, 13 Jan 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080524015547/http://howardhopkins.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
Citro, Joseph A., Passing Strange, 164-167, 1997 Chapters Publishing Ltd., Shelburne, VT.
For a list of Herbert Hopkins’ works, visit www.herberthopkins.com
It won’t be long now. The night winds begin to gather the chill that will eventually drill into our bones once the damp, grey skies of November gather overhead, anchoring us to the sunset and the dark. Trees are explosions of color and then nothing but skeletons, their gnarled hands reaching for the sliver of moon left to us - the only light left in the dark. October is a country full of spirits and innuendos of the unknown and we are no strangers to its paths. Some of us even enjoy the quickening of the heart that comes with the unexplained shadows and sounds from the dark corner of unlit rooms. As Halloween arrives, I thought Strange New England might serve as a place to recall some of the stranger aspects of living in New England and how this landscape of long shadows keeps us in our place and makes us whistle in the darkness.
Though we report the stories, legends and tales that populate the pages of Strange New England, I can only claim to have experienced the edge of normal a few times in my life. It takes more than a little courage to come out and share them, so I’ll begin with a simple thing.. I would like to share my experience of the phenomenon known as Death Knocks.
I was a senior in high school when my experience occurred and it haunts me to this day. The seemingly inexplicable events of that one stormy winter night has never been something I could explain to my own satisfaction. Perhaps my readers will think I’m stretching the truth, but I invite you also to help me determine what really transpired that cold December night in 1979 in the cold expanse of far northern Maine..
We lived on the Back Presque Isle Road, seven miles from Caribou and fourteen miles from Presque Isle. We had neighbors, but they were not exactly next door neighbors. I was a junior in High School and I was staying up late watching television on Saturday night. I was used to staying up late and on the weekends, I had permission from my parents to set my own bedtime. Like most teenage boys, I got a thrill from staying up until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore and this was such a night. My parents were down the hall asleep and I was camped out on the couch watching Saturday Night Live. Outside, the snowstorm quickly developed into a blizzard, the wind whipping great gusts of snow against the windows and walls, trying to get in at every little crack. At the end of the show, WAGM played its customary film of Old Glory fluttering in the breeze as it played the Star Spangled Banner and then everything turned to static. I had already fed the woodstove an extra helping of birch and was about to see if anything was on CHSJ, the Canadian channel from over the border when it happened.
There was a pounding on our porch door. Three loud thuds resounded in the living room and brought my heart directly to full throttle as it tried to jump out of my chest. As I try to recall the events of that night, I remember that there was essentially a blizzard raging without, one of those that erased all of the hard edges of the world and covered the darkness with the fainted, palest white. I remember that I froze in place, trying to make sense of what I had just heard. It didn’t make any sense.
Our porch was fully enclosed and was a room in its own right. The only entrance to that porch was a sliding glass door that was locked firmly closed by a piece of maple cut to the exact length of the door and set carefully in place to block the door from sliding. There was no way anyone could have gained entrance to that door without breaking the glass or somehow lifting the piece of maple from the groves of the bottom of the casement. The question in my mind had no real answer: no one could be out there. No one.
Three more knocks, this time even more pronounced, hammered against the door. This time, I sprang off the couch and ran down the hallway to awaken my father. Dad had been a deputy sheriff and had a small handgun he kept in a drawer next to his bed. When I recall, I find it odd that he didn’t reach for it. He simply got out of bed and went to the living to room to hear for himself.
Three more thuds.
“Who’s there?” my father said loudly. Two words - a simple question, really. But the answer was not forthcoming. He stood next to the door and said, “I’ll ask you one more time. You are you and what do you want?”
Silence.
“Go see if you can see onto the porch,” he told me. Our porch door had no peep hole and was solid. There was a window in the kitchen that looked out onto the porch, but there was nothing out there but darkness, but because of its placement, I couldn’t see to the door itself.
“I can’t see anything,” I whispered to my dad.
“Come back here,” he whispered back.
A minute that seemed like a slice of eternity passed and then, a single thud, the loudest so far, resounded in the air and shook one of the pictures off the wall.
“I’m doing to get my gun,” my father said firmly to the air. “When I come back, I won’t hesitate to use it. Now, one last time, who the hell are you?”
Silence.
And that was that. No further sounds, no other knocks. Simply the long silence after the fact. We waited near the doorway for perhaps three or four minutes. Dad took the opportunity to put on his winter coat and boots, still not actually retrieving his weapon. Then, he turned on the outside light that lit the driveway and our front yard. Though the driving snow reduced our visibility, we could see that there were no footsteps onto our porch in the snow. The driveway and lawn were a pristine white blanket of snow, undisturbed by any mark of passage.
We both went outside, but not before Dad got his pistol. As the snow and ice stung our faces, we took a flashlight and examined the sliding glass door to the porch from the outsider looking in. It was secure and tight, the measured piece of maple board still blocking the door from opening. The tight beam lit the interior of the porch - it was empty of anything that didn’t belong there. Whatever had caused the knocks was not currently on the porch or anywhere that we could see. Whatever had tried to gain entrance into our little home on the freezing cold night was nowhere to be seen.
I wish I had something to tell you that would help to explain what happened. At the time, we had no idea what this strange occurrence meant or how it could have transpired in the first place. It has become of the strangest mysteries of my life.
I learned later that in some cultures, such as my own Franco-American, but also the Scots-Irish tradition, there is such a thing as a death knock. They come in the night and are supposed to announce the oncoming death of someone in or connected to the household. The knocks usually come in sets of three and are supposed to signify that in three months, three weeks, or three days, someone will pass away. Death knocks, then, are a portent of doom. Strangely enough, no one in our house died in three months, three weeks or three days. But I have kept one of the most disturbing details for the end of my story, which is that even my father, the bravest man I have ever known, didn’t dare to go out onto that porch until the next morning when the sun finally rose. We unlocked the door and slowly opened it.
There, on the floor just in front of the door, no bigger than a saucer plate, was a small puddle of red, red blood.
Happy Halloween!.
How do we knew when a body is truly dead? Modern science shows us that the body dies slowly, not all at once as we used to suppose. It takes time. The body is a rather vast and complex ecosystem of enzymes, processes and functions that rarely, if ever, stop all at once. With our modern sensors and advanced medical knowledge, we usually determine the moment of death as the time when the brain ceases to show any sign of activity. However, if the heart stops beating and breathing ceases, there’s just no way that a body can function much longer. Today, an coroner always double-checks to makes sure the recently deceased is actually and fully gone, but in the past, not so long ago, we did not have the precise knowledge that we have today. What follows is a horrific example of what may have happened on a rather regular basis in the days before electricity. The thin line between life and death was often out of focus and those whose task it was to pronounce a person living to dead may have had a tough time getting it right all of the time.
The Howe family was one of the oldest founding families in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Of note is their founding of the Wayside Inn at Sudbury, Massachusetts which was later lovingly restored by Henry Ford. It is also famous for Elias Howe's invention of America's first lockstitch sewing machine in 1846. Such a family had established itself as memorable by the time they settled in Damariscotta, Maine after the War of 1812 and began their strange association with the phenomenon of American Spiritualism that ushered in one of New England's saddest and possibly darkest burials.
Colonel Joel Howe, the family patriarch and veteran of the War of 1812 had nine children, all curious, well-read and very interested in the new ideas of science and invention beginning to take hold in the popular imagination. Of particular interest are son Edwin and his little sister, Mary Howe. Author Harold W. Castner who researched the legend for Yankee Magazine, actually interviewed people who were present and witnessed the events that passed in the Howe family home, fourteen people, in fact. Their stories corroborated the events described in local newspapers in the Newcastle and Damariscotta area at the time.
The Howe Family made their income from the stagecoach tavern known as the Howe House Inn. It was in that house that the family began their attempts at communication with the dead. This might sound like something out of a 1960s Hammer horror film, but the Spiritualist Movement in America was a bona fide religious organization that still exists today. It first appeared not far from Maine in the 'burned-over district" of upstate New York with the Fox sisters and their supposed communication with the dead. Devout spiritualists at the time were often protestants who were using the idea of a life beyond the physical form in which a person could still learn and grow and, to the great interest of the believers, could communicate from beyond the veil with the living. Fueled by the written works of Emanuel Swedenborg and Franz Mesmer, spiritualists believed that there is not a single Heaven for all to enter, or even a single, solitary Hell. Instead, there was a hierarchy of both, much like Dante's leveling of the Underworld in his Inferno. Spiritualists ascribe to the idea that the spirits of the dead act as a kind of network of connections between God and his living world. Through the souls of the deceased, Spiritualists believed that they could commune with the Almighty. In order to speak directly with the dead, one needed a medium, a gifted living person who could, through a kind of self-hypnosis, get themselves into a mental or spiritual state that was amenable to contacting the dead. Once that state of mind was achieved, the medium became the terminal in the network that connected both worlds. All you had to do was sit quietly and ask questions. If someone on the 'other end' was willing, the medium spoke or wrote your answer. This practice still exists today, but in 1882, it was all the rage. In the forty years since its birth in New England, Spiritualism had grown into a recognized religious organization.
Which brings us to young Mary Howe and her brothers and sisters, all living together under the same roof in Damariscotta. The family was gifted with the ardent belief in life after death coupled with a kind of ingenuity of invention that was the hallmark of a 19th century Yankee. Brothers Edwin and Lorenzo crafted a 'perpetual motion' machine and a way to counterfeit half dollars. Mary devoted her intellectual hunger toward her faith and the family discovered that she had a strong gift as a medium. Her fame spread throughout the Spiritualist community and beyond. Like so many people who have attended a seance or had their palms read, many visitors to the Inn were simply curiosity seekers wondering what this spiritualist stuff was all about, but some were as devout as the Howes. What they discovered when they attended one of Mary's trance sessions might be a quiet conversation with a loved one, a long session of silence, or they might be treated to something quite theatrical. Once, convinced that she was graced with the gift of flight, Mary Howe jumped off the stairs, her arms spread wide like a bird wings, her mouth speaking in a strange, inhuman tongue. When she landed in a heap at the bottom of stairs with a broken ankle and a panoply of bruises and scrapes, it only served to increase her popularity as THE medium to visit if you wanted speak with Uncle Albert about where he buried his money.
A witness to one of the Howe sessions was author Castner's own grandmother. Her question to Mary was a simple one: when would her relative return from his visit to New York. Mary's answer was mumbled and quiet, but she communicated, "I can see him clearly. I see many lights! Wait! He will not return! When all those lights appear, he will die!" According to Castner's grandmother, Mary's prediction came true. Her relative died of apparent heart failure as he witnessed the first nighttime illumination of the lights on the Brooklyn Bridge. One can only imagine how quickly that story spread throughout the community.
Though Mary entertained many guests with her sessions, she also practiced another kind of spiritual connection with the world of the dead: she claimed that she could travel there. Her trances were deep, lasting much longer than any visitor could stay. Many mediums in the 1880s did not explain exactly what they were doing or how they achieved their mystical trances, but today we might classify these as self-hypnosis sessions or even as out-of-body experiences. They would need the help of others because their body would remain in an apparent state of sleep for long periods of time. During that time, they would fall into a deep sleep and then, into something deeper, sometimes for days. In order keep the spiritual journeyer's body warm, they practised a strange habit. Normally, the infrared energy created by a sleeping body can be easily captured by blankets and even on the coldest night, the body's own chemistry will keep itself warm. Not in the case of some of these mental journeyers, like Mary Howe. As she lay on her couch or bed, we never discover which, they would lovingly surround her with stones they had warmed on the stove. These stones maintained, they claimed, enough body heat to keep the medium's body preserved and ready for when he or she returned from their spiritual wanderings and could reinhabit the body. It was claimed by those attending the bodies that these medium were indeed still alive, even though no breath fogged a mirror and no heartbeat could be found. Such practitioners might be doubted if it weren't for our own modern understanding of both the coma state and the trances that various shamans enter in indigenous societies around the world. Mediums who practiced this deep type of trance almost always came out of them fully refreshed with no apparent harm to their physical body. If you waited long enough, they always woke up.
Which makes the story of Mary Howe so mysterious. In 1882, in her house on Hodgdon Street, Mary entered one of her deep trances. This was a commonplace happening and her brother Edwin knew the routine. He would keep the stones warm and keep replacing them around her body until she awoke and told of her journeyings to the other realm. By this time, Mary's trances were an item of curiosity and many people visited the house to see her lying supine, her mind elsewhere. Edwin welcomed his neighbors and friends in to witness his sister thus. One can imagine the conversations, the cups of tea, and the convivial nature of the guests as they wondered about where she was and who she was visiting. Perhaps someone voiced the question, "What might happen if the spirit found itself astray and lost its way back to its earthly vessel?" People marveled when they visited after a week and still, she hadn't returned to her body. Edwin reassured everyone not to worry - that this was not unusual. But after two weeks had passed, someone must have asked the question, "Is she in a trance, or is the poor girl dead?"
Dr. Robert Dixon was a man of science. He did not relish the idea of visiting the Howe household when the sheriff ordered him to make the determination. There were laws, as well as common sense, that dictated that a dead body was a source of disease and must be buried as quickly as possible. Funeral homes existed, but in 1882, it was common practice to lay out the deceased body of your loved one in your own parlor so that friends might visit to say one last goodbye. This is almost exactly the scene that the good doctor witnessed when he entered the Howe home. Edwin admitted Dr. Dixon and led him to the room in which the body of his sister lay in her trance. He explained to Dr. Dixon that the stones were arranged thusly to keep her body warm. Dixon did note that the body did not present as though rigor mortis had set in. The skin was supple and the flesh of her cheeks was both warm and flexible. Edwin assured the doctor not to worry. His sister was merely in a trance. The body had been lying in a warm room for two weeks and there was no smell of putrefaction evident.
Though she appeared to be alive, Dr. Dixon knew that all living people had two things in common: they breathed and their hearts beat. Neither was true for Mary Howe. Knowing that life did not inhabit a body that was neither pumping blood nor breathing, he had no choice but to pronounce her dead.
Of course her brother protested. So did many in the town who were used to her strange trances. That evening, a deputation on three men entered the Howe household and transferred Mary's body into a coffin. Protesters waiting in the community determined that the authorities were about to bury a living woman. With the authority of the law behind the sheriff, there was little anyone could do. Dr. Dixon, the sheriff, and the undertaker began the process of burial. However, the owner of the Hillside Cemetery, Benjamin Metcalf, possibly refused permission to bury Mary in his ground. He was one of those in town who believed that she was possibly still in one of her trances and he would not be a part of such a horrific misdeed. Glidden Cemetery in nearby Newcastle would have to serve as her final resting place, but once at the cemetery, no one could be found who was willing to dig the grave for the very same reason. With determination to finish this episode, the doctor, sheriff and undertaker rolled up their sleeves and grabbed the shovels. After the grave was dug, the undertaker's assistant began to realize the possibility of what was about to happen and he refused to help lower the coffin into the ground. Realizing that they were going to receive no help from anyone else, the three men took it upon themselves to lower Mary into her final resting place. They did not mark her grave, again possibly because they did not want anyone from the community to undo their official work and retrieve her from the cold, cold ground. To this day, no one knows her true final resting place.
Today, people are pronounced dead usually after all brain function ceases. The body can be kept alive in a state similar to Mary Howe's state in 1882. However, in 1882 Dr. Dixon might not have been able to determine without a shadow of a doubt that Mary might have been in a deep coma. In such cases, the heart beats very slowly and respiration is neither deep nor easily perceived. Is the comatose person aware? Can a comatose person reawaken after weeks or months. The answer is yes, if their body is being properly fed and if fluids are being administered. But in 1882, there was no way of keeping Mary hydrated or her body fed if she was in a deep coma, or what her brother referred to as a trance. Is it possible that Dr. Dixon and his two compatriots buried poor Mary Howe alive?
One must assume that it is possible. In fact, when one considers the incidence of comas in the modern world and tries to determine the number of coma cases that must have occurred in the past, it is quite possible that a large number of comatose people were buried alive, given their incomplete knowledge of the condition. This is why some people chose tombs instead of graves and why some had strings attached to external bells so that, if a person awoke entombed, they could tug on the string and be 'saved by the bell.' Burial would be a faster death due to lack of oxygen. Given Mary's supple flesh, the lack of rigor mortis, the lack of the odor of death, and her previous trance experiences, it is not only possible that she was buried alive, but probable.
In 1888, six years after the possible living burial of Mary Howe, the Fox sisters of upstate New York, whose interactions with the spirit of a dead peddler supposedly buried in their cellar started the Spiritualism movement in America, confessed in public on several occasions that they had made the whole thing up. The movement did not lose any ground after their confession. True believers merely brushed them off. Years later, upon the renovation of the Howe Inn , various contrivances were found in the walls: wires with no discernable connection, pipes that led to or from no water source, and other devices whose function defied explanation. This discovery makes for a strong case that many of the trance sessions held by the Howe brothers and sisters were merely parlor tricks after all, perhaps with brother Edwin in an upstairs room moaning through a pipe that led to a hollow space in the wall, amplifying the voice of a long dead relative, strange and distant.
As the days and weeks passed, members of the Newcastle community avoided passing the cemetery if they could. Children were frightened and held their breaths as they passed. One can imagine the quiet of an early evening when the sun bathed the darkening world with a fire in the western sky and the wind died down leaving a deep silence, that perhaps, if you listened carefully, you might hear the quietest of sounds and wonder, is that a moan or a cry? Has Mary Howe finally awakened from her trance?
The great 19th century American poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, composed a strange poem entitled "The Garrison of Cape Ann" that tells one of the strangest tales ever to come from colonial New England. The event he recounts for us is supposed to relate actual events that occurred during the same year that the Salem Witch Trials occurred - 1692. Whittier's poem isn't very long and relates the tale of a garrison of soldiers inside the Fort at Cape Ann, Massachusetts. What is so bizarre about this episode is the nature of the beings assailing them from outside the walls of the fort. Contemporary witnesses had difficulty describing these beings, unsure if they were men or something else. Whatever they might have been, a group of strange beings are attacking the walls of the fort, beings that seem foreign and evil. They wear strange garb, never-before-encountered suits made of a material that shines. They have a language that no one in the Fort can understand or even identify. They seem to possess weaponry like nothing the colonists have ever seen before. Even though the garrison's soldiers shoot their muskets at these strangers and undoubtedly hit them, no damage is ever done. The strange beings fall down in mock wounding and rise again, laughing. No one is ever killed. The beings continue to cavort and mock the soldiers. It appears that there is nothing that can stop them. Then, the Captain of the Garrison puts down his gun and tell the soldiers that there is but one way to beat the creatures. First, he rips a silver button from his jacket and rams it down the barrel of his musket. Then, he takes aim for the creature he deems to be their leader and shoots, hitting him in the chest. The being instantly disappears. Surely this is evidence of the doings of the Devil. Then the Captain calls upon his faith. He falls to his knees and begins to pray and he instructs his men to do the same. They comply. Soon a foul scream is heard outside the walls and the strange beings simply begin to disappear. Prayer, it seems, is a better defense than musket balls.
Whittier must have heard of this well-known legend as a youth, but it is available for everyone to read as chronicled by a contemporary of the Cape Ann witnesses, Cotton Mather, in his book, Magnalia Christi Americana. Mather claims to have interviewed the main character in the actual story, making it as close to a primary source as we are likely to find. The events began with the experiences of one man and his family. Ebenezer Babson, yeoman farmer from Cape Ann (also called Gloucester in the Mather text), one summer evening in 1692, heard noises outside his home. The darkness was deep in early New England, especially in the country and one did not lightly step outside to investigate without looking out the window first. When he did, there was nothing he could discern. While his family remained safely inside, Babson ventured outside to see what was causing the strange sounds that so vexed his family. The noises indicated a large number of people were in his yard, running back and forth. When he investigated, there was no evidence that anyone had ever been there. The sound stopped...for that night. However, the sounds returned for many consecutive nights, frightening the family.
A few weeks later, Babson was returning home alone. It was one of those midsummer evenings where the sun seems to linger on the edge of the horizon, painting the sky a dazzling shade of orange. The air was cooling quickly and soon, night would fall. From a distance, he saw two strangers leave his house from the front door. He was about to shout at them to stop when they noticed him and took off at a clip down the road, away from the Babson farm. Babson ran home and immediately questioned his family who were all safely inside the house. Who were these strangers and what did they want, he asked. His family was confused. There had been no strangers, they claimed. No one had visited them that day. He must be mistaken. With no further hesitation, Babson armed himself with his musket and began searching for these erstwhile intruders. Though he could find no discernible tracks, his good sense told him that these men must have taken the route straight through the corn field. He followed, slowly and deliberately. At the edge of the field with night finally falling , he heard a strange, hollow voice speaking in a monotone, saying, "The man of the house is now come else we might have taken the house." These mark the only words spoken by the strangers in English.
That is when Babson saw the strangers up close for the first time, but only for a moment in the falling dark. When they saw him, they ran away instantly into the swamp, an area he would not enter, leaving him wondering who, or for that matter, what they were. They did not look like or dress like the natives he knew and they did not look like Englishmen. It is at this point in the narrative where the strange nature of the beings begins to be apparent - they were unlike any men he had ever seen. Yet, if they weren't natives and they weren't Englishmen, what were they? Whatever they were, he did not want his family to have to face them alone, particularly after what they had just spoken a moment ago. Running back to his farm, Babson had his family gather some things. They repaired to the local fort where they could safely spend the night without regard for marauding strangers.
However, the moment they entered the well-manned fort, everyone inside heard a ruckus beginning outside the walls. The noise was similar to what the Babsons had been hearing at their home, but this time it was louder and more raucous. Babson was by now so frustrated and angry at the series of events that he opened the fort's gate and ventured out to see exactly who they were. All he saw were two men running swiftly away down the dirt track away from the garrison.
In early America, there were threats abounding from all sides. Babson and the men at the fort had not clearly seen the two men, but they must have assumed that they were scouts for a much larger force not very far away. Natives may have been their first suspects, but Babson's one close peek at them convinced him they weren't the culprits. Perhaps they were Frenchmen. That made more sense as these two men were strangely attired in clothing that the simple New Englanders had never seen before in their lives. Surely only Frenchmen would dress in such a fashion. Perhaps these were truly criminal types, not unknown in the colonies. Pirates might even be an explanation. The fort prepared for an attack which must surely come before dawn. Except it never did. The Babson family was so shaken up by the hole affair that they remained in the fort.
Two nights later the two oddly-dressed strangers returned to the fort and they were armed. Again, Babson walked out of the fort to face them when he saw them move with a super-human rapidity. The men on the fort's ramparts aimed their muskets at the men but, strangely, they took no shots. Their reason was that the men were moving so quickly from place to place that they could not get a bead on either of them. The strangers didn't run away so much as run about . The good folk of Cape Ann were awestruck and dumbfounded at the idea of these strange visitors bothering their peace. Who were they? What did they want? Where did they come from?
The next time we hear of these strange intruders is on July 14, 1692. All of the men in the garrison witnessed a group of six of these strangers approaching the settlement. Expecting to be attacked, the men of Cape Ann waited patiently for the right moment to attack. They waited until they were within range of their guns. When the moment arrived, the villagers moved and frightened the six strangers with their action. The strangers scattered. Babson, whose story this is, found one of them in his sights. He fired, but the weapon strangely failed to discharge. The weird visitors moved rapidly to avoid the villagers, but at one point three of the strangers arose from the swamp walking strangely, shoulder to shoulder in perfect cadence. Babson reports that he fired again - only a single shot, at which point all three of the strangers fell to the ground. However, the excitement of the villagers was short-lived. As soon as they reached the fallen, they simply arose and jumped about, moving merrily about them "apparently without hurt or wound of any kind. Then, for the first time, one of the strangers withdrew from their strange clothing what Babson reported as a 'silver gun' and shot at Babson. The weapon discharged a shot that lodged in the tree that Babson was hiding behind. Later, Babson would remove the shot from the wood only to discover that it was long and pointed, unlike the round lead balls that were the shot of the day among the world's armies. His description sounds like he found a modern bullet. These types of pointed bullets did not come into use until 1823 when Captain John Norton introduced them for use in the British Army, yet Babson describes a pointed bullet lodged in the tree from the stranger's silver gun.
There were other incidences of these strangely clad beings appearing and other reports of them being shot, falling down, and then getting up and cavorting without any obvious damage. It was as though they were play acting and this highly strange behavior left the colonists at their wits end. Everyone involved in the attack returned to the safety of the fort, unsure what to make of the day's happenings. It didn't take long for the strangers to return once again, this time at night and no longer simply walking but flitting from stone to tree, from wall to road and back again. Other forms were perceived as crouching behind rocks, staring at the colonists.
Still, the good people of Cape Ann had no idea who they were dealing with. They were perplexed and in their time, it was not a very far jump to assume that what they were dealing with might be of the Devil himself. After all, they spoke a strange tongue, moved about in an odd, inhuman way, and could not be harmed. If your gun could fire off a shot, it never did any damage, even when it hit them square on. The colonists sent word to Ipswitch, to a certain Captain Appleton for help. He dutifully arrived with his sixty heavily armed men to hold the town from any and all invaders and attackers. The people of the town could sleep more easily now that the professionals had arrived.
Except the military men had no better luck than the men of the town. Over and over again they fired their muskets at the strange revelers to no avail. Nights were worse than days for it was then that the strangers grew more and more restless, throwing stones at the garrison (lithobolia), hitting the wall with clubs, and shouting in a strange, unintelligible language. No progress was made and it seemed there was no end in sight. One line of Whittier's poem reads,
" Lay aside your useless weapons; skill and prowess naught avail; They who do the Devil's service wear their master's coat of mail."
But it did all come to an end after one final encounter with, of course, Babson. In a sojourn that took him out of the confines of the town one day, Babson discovered three of the beings walking down the middle of the road. He took up his musket to fire at them, but it again misfired. The three strangers simply walked past him, barely acknowledging his presence.
After nearly three weeks of being terrorized by these odd creatures, it stopped as suddenly as it began. No one died. No permanent damage was done to anyone involved. What caused it to stop may have been the simple fact that the colonists stopped attacking the strangers. Without the colonists attentions, the strangers simply stopped and then disappeared. No one knows who or what they were or why they seemingly delighted in taunting, teasing and frightening the residents of this early American settlement half to death.
There are many strange theories about the nature of these beings. Of course, at the time the conclusion was easy to draw that they were demons sent from the infernal regions who from time to time intruded among the righteous to test their faith. In later years, other theories such as ghosts, extraterrestrials, and even inter-dimensional beings were proposed. Perhaps the simplest explanation is one that the colonists themselves first came up with when Babson first encountered the 'spectre leaguers' - perhaps they were only Frenchmen, after all? What was stranger to an Englishman than a Frenchman?
But even Frenchmen cannot sustain a chest shot from a musket at close range. The ability for the stranger to receive a lead ball square in the chest and then rise again with no apparent injury puts them in a league of their own. In fact, the name that legend gives these beings is 'Spectre-Leaguers'. Perhaps they were time-travelers with some kind of force field that protected them from the lead balls of the colonists? The strangeness of this episode in early American history is unique - no other report like it has ever been found. It is plausible that Cotton Mather , no stranger to the power of propaganda, used this tale as a kind of Christian pcautionary tale - 'be warned against the strangers from afar...' The idea of strange beings from the edge of the world come to raise havoc and disquiet the good people of the colony must have always been in the back of their minds. Perhaps this tale is nothing more than a story, but if it isn't, it then becomes one of the earliest reports of high strangeness from New England.
SOURCES
Citro, Joseph A., Passing Strange: True Tales of New England Hauntings and Horrors, copyright 1996, Capters Publishing, Shelburne, VT.
Drake, Samuel Adams, New England Legends, copyright 1993, Castle Books
Magnalia Christi Americana : or, The ecclesiastical history of New-England, from its first planting in the year 1620. unto the year of Our Lord, 1698. In seven books ...by Mather, Cotton, 1663-1728; John Adams Library (Boston Public Library) BRL;Adams, John, 1735-1826, former owner; Tufts, Cotton, 1732-1815, former owner Published MDCCII [1702]
Whitter, John Greenleaf, "New England: Cape Ann, Mass. The Garrison of Cape Ann" http://www.bartleby.com/270/13/82.html
The three men made their way down the lonely trail that skirted the fields outside of Machiasport, Maine. These hills were wide open and bare, but the trees in the distance belied a deep forest toward the west and if they listened intently, they might have heard the waves in Machias Bay. It was dusk and the last light of the setting sun burned a bright red gash across last grey light of day. One of the three was a skeptic, certain that the events which had been occurring for the past six years were nothing more than an elaborate hoax played out to fool the locals into believing that it was possible to speak with the dead. His mission was to stop this foolish dependence on chicanery and parlor tricks and get the people back to believing properly about the living and the dead. The other two had seen the spirit before, had even had conversations with it, but that had been in the confines of the cellar of Captain Blaisdel and his family. They knew it was real. They were there as witnesses. Besides, this meeting was something else entirely and none of the three knew how this rendezvous with the dead would turn out.
The year was 1806. For the past six years, a ghost had been speaking from beyond the grave to hundreds of locals in the Machiasport area. This was a good fifty years before the Fox girls of Hydesville, New York began hearing rappings in their house and started the American Spiritualist Movement which still lingers in our modern world as the NSAC (National Spiritualist Association of Churches). Situated on the edge of the new country, this out-of-the-way Maine hamlet would serve as the locale for the largest mass witnessing of a ghost in American history. Reverend Cummings, the skeptic on his was to the rendezvous with the ghost, claimed that he had his doubts. What would happen on the edge of that barren field that night would change his world forever and help him prepare a view of life after death that took the world by storm when the Fox girls popularized the idea of communicating with the dead more than half a century later.
The Machiasport Ghost been called 'America's First Ghost,' but that would be stretching the truth. Certainly the new world had its share of hauntings long before 1799. Native Americans have passed down their stories of spirits by the oral tradition for centuries. Folklorists can call upon hundreds of stories of hauntings and specters from each of the original thirteen colonies. But the difference between these hauntings and the Machiasport haunting is that they were old and based upon memory alone, with few witnesses. The appearance the ghost of the woman in the cellar of the Maschiasport home could be dated and witnessed by dozens of living people. Also, the ghost appeared at a time when science and the value of impartial observation was beginning to become valued over time-honored belief and superstition. The other difference between this haunting and the others that came before it was that this ghost wanted to talk and well over two hundred people claimed to have heard her spoken words. Over a hundred also claimed to have seen her while she spoke. Stranger still, many in the crowd knew her while she was alive. It was like she had never died.
If you've ever spent time alone in a house, you may recall that there are moments when you can swear you've heard a voice. You can't really make out the words and if you live in the city, it's easy to write it off as a conversation between two people walking outside as they pass your house. If you live in the country, however, it's harder to find an explanation for the sound. The experience can leave you with goosebumps and a sudden urge to get in the car and go for a long, long ride. Many people who claim to live in a haunted house describe the experience of hearing the mumbled sound of someone talking, but it's faint and indistinct and comes and goes quickly. Most people go about their business and try not to ponder the cause.
Such was the case for Captain Abner Blaisdel and his family at their house at Machiasport in the year 1799. Blaisdel was a respected member of the community and a regular churchgoer. He wasn't one to fall for gimmicks and foolhardy ideas. But that didn't stop him and his family from being the one place in the community where the spirit decided to take up residence and begin talking.
At first the voice was quiet and almost not there. They weren't enough to spook the Captain and his family, merely enough to inconvenience them.The sounds and noises went on for months and then, on the cold day of January 2, 1800, the voice suddenly gained a more sophisticated manner of speaking. They could distinctly hear words now. Stranger still, the sound seemed to be coming from their cellar. The voice sounded like a woman. With stout heart, Captain Blaisdel entered the cellar and listened. When he had heard enough, he asked the disembodied voice who she was.
"I'm the dead wife of Captain George Butler, born Nelly Hooper," replied the voice, which has been described as "shrill, but mild and pleasant." Nelly Butler had indeed died a few years earlier at the tender age of twenty-one.
Captain Blaisdel was not a medium, yet he was able to clearly speak to someone who obviously wasn't physically there with him in the cellar. He knew both of the men whose names were mentioned by the spirit and he also knew that neither of them would appreciate the idea that their dead beloved Nelly was back among them and able to talk. Her father, Dennis Hooper, only lived six miles down the road. Her widow, George, lived nearby, as well. The voice requested an audience with the two men and asked Captain Blaisdel to send for them forthwith. When asked why she was in the cellar and not in the house above, the voice explained that "I don't want to frighten the children."
There are not many instances of the sudden appearances of spirits who can simply speak to the living without some kind of intercession. Today when such ideas are contemplated, one thinks of this kind of communication as impossible, or at least impossible without mediums, ouiji boards, trances and seances. Yet here was an instance of a simple man having a conversation with a dead woman he might have passed on the street merely a few years before. He reluctantly did as the spirit asked and sent for the two men. When they arrived, he sheepishly explained why he had summoned them in the dead of winter. Abner Blaisdel communicated to the pair that they had been hearing things for about six months and only recently had the sounds turned into a full-bodied human voice. Father and son-in-law listened with what one can only imagine was trepidation and suspicion. But there was only one way to prove the otherwise stalwart Captain Blaisdel wrong and set this matter to rest: they would go into the cellar and have a chat with their Nelly...or not. If they heard nothing, that would be the end of that.
When they emerged from the cellar, they were pale and wide-eyed. After asking the disembodied voice a series of questions that only Nelly Butler could have answered, they were convinced that this was indeed her spirit come back to commune with the living. She knew the answer to every question. Later, her father would write,"I believe it was her voice."
A few days later Abner's son came into the house visibly shaken, claiming that on the way home he had seen a woman in white floating above the fields. Things escalated when, the following day, the voice in the cellar loudly accosted the son asking him why he hadn't said hello to her when he saw her.
In such a small community it didn't take long for word to get around that Captain Blaisdel had a ghost in his cellar who could talk to you. As the weather turned warmer and over the course of the next few years, scores of people visited the Blaisdel house and walked down the steps into the cellar to listen to Nelly Butler. What did she talk about? She spoke of redemption, of righteousness, and she also gave predictions. She prophesied that her widower would marry a Blaisdel and that they would have a child soon after. She spoke of family matters to people who she had known in life and gave advice. She predicted correctly the death of at least three local people. She took questions from the people and claimed to be neither a demon nor a witch. She is quoted to have said to a group of visitors, "Although my body is consumed and turned to dust, my soul is as much alive as before I left my body." She wasn't there to scare them but to guide them. For a ghost, she seemed quite pleasant. People would crowd into the cellar and sing hymns pray, and call to the spirit to appear and the eventually she would take form, indistinct at first, but eventually they saw her and she would move about and among them. It was a religious experience for those involved, a deeply spiritual moment that impressed upon everyone in attendance that there was life after death: they did not need to doubt.
Then, in May of 1800, in front of at least twenty witnesses, she took a step forward from wherever she resided and appeared, materializing in front of the crowd. She was wearing a 'shining white garment'. One of those present wrote, "At first the apparition was a mere mass of light, then it grew into a personal form, about as tall as myself...the glow of the apparition had a constant tremulous motion. At last the personal form became shapeless, expanded every way and then vanished in a moment."
She made a request that her child be reburied with new rites, which was done. Those in attendance at the re-interment of the body claimed that she appeared to them at the graveside to share in the moment. But this apparently wasn't her unfinished business. Word of the ghost spread quickly and her reputation grew.
But such association with the dead would not stand forever. The local townsfolk were becoming used to Nelly's presence, many even visiting her on a regular basis like they might call upon an old friend. There was one person in the town, however, who was determined that this was an elaborate hoax and he was bound and determined to prove it. The Reverend Abraham Cummings did not believe in ghosts. As far as we was concerned, the spirits of the dead didn't linger. They went to perdition or paradise and could not choose to stay. As far as he was concerned, the only living person who had ever died and returned to tell about it was quite familiar to him . The locals didn't need Nelly to prove the existence of a life after death when they had the Son of God. Cummings was an educated man, a graduate of Brown University in Providence, and a man who believed in progress instead of superstition. It was time to end this nonsense once and for all. As an educated man, he would use the light of reason to shine in that dark cellar and end this series of events.
He began by interviewing his parishioners, at least twenty-seven of them, each one certain of the veracity of her existence. They all told the same story - a spirit had returned from the edge of life to tell them truths and guide them. That didn't deter him. The time had come to take on this spirit head on. Though he had avoided meeting with Nelly because agreeing to do so would simply prove her existence to his parishioners, he set up a meeting of sorts, away from the cellar and the prying eyes of the public. He asked her father and a friend to accompany him on a walk. Captain Blaisdel asked Nelly's spirit to meet the Reverend in the open, in a field near the house but away from the road. She agreed to the personal interview.
In his book Unbidden Guests, author William Oliver Stevens writes of the meeting. He gathered his information from Reverend Cummings own writings. He writes, "About twelve rods ahead of [Rev. Cummings] there was a slight knoll...[where] he could see a group of white rocks...showing dimly against the dark turf...Two or three minutes later...one of those...white rocks had risen off the ground, and had now taken the shape of a globe of light with a rosy tinge. As he went toward it, he kept an eye on it for fear it might disappear, but he had not gone more than five paces when the glowing mass flashed right to where he was [and] resolved itself into the shape of a woman, but small, the size of a child of seven. He thought, "You are not tall enough for the woman who has been appearing among us." Immediately, the figure expanded to normal size...and now she appeared glorious, with rays of light shining from her head all about, and reaching to the ground."
This was the last time anyone saw or heard from the spirit of Nelly Butler. Apparently her connection with a man of God was enough to finish her business. But it was only the beginning for Reverend Abraham Cummings. From that moment on, he was transformed. The greatest skeptic had become the greatest believer. Here was definite proof that life continued after death. This ghostly appearance only served to fuel the fire of the good reverend's devotion to the precepts of the Christian religion. He left the Machiasport area and traveled widely, preaching about the life of the world to come as evidenced by the visitation that he had witnessed. He recorded the incident in the book he published in 1826, entitled, Immortality Proved by the Testimony of Sense: In which is contemplated the doctrine of spectres and the existence of a particular spectre addressed to the candor of this enlightened age.
When we consider that by the date of the publication of his book, America would soon be immersed in Spiritualism and the idea of speaking with the dead would enter the mainstream. The Reverend Cummings was recalling a set of events that gave credence to this rather radical set of paranormal ideas that was taking America by storm. IS it possible that the Fox girls might have read his pamphlets? Spiritualist Churches rose up seemingly overnight and with the loss of so much life in the coming years as a result of the American Civil War, the stage was set for an entire nation of grieving people to seek communication with their dearly departed loved ones.
Later, in 1888, the founders of the Spiritualist Movement itself would reject the idea of spiritualism, claiming that it had all started as a hoax with an apple tied to a string making raps on the floor. The Fox sisters eschewed their previous claims, calling the modern movement "an absolute falsehood from beginning to end, as the flimsiest of superstitions, the most wicked blasphemy known to the world." Though the sisters died soon after in abject poverty, the idea of mediumship and speaking to the dead gave them a comfortable income over the years. Motivated and managed by their older sister, they turned their ruse into a regular enterprise. Even though they claimed that the entire idea of spiritualism was a hoax, that didn't stop the Spiritualist movement from continuing to grow. Vestiges of it still live on today.
But what about the Machiasport haunting? No one made any money as a result of it, though it gave the Reverend Cummings a reason to continue his life's work with more vigor for years to come. What makes the Machiasport Haunting important in the history of American paranormal studies is its early date and the number of witnesses who wrote about and claimed to have seen and spoken with the dead woman known to the world as Nelly Butler. No other haunting has had so many witnesses. Also, the mood of this haunting was enlightening rather than frightening, which is singularly rare and seems to compare only to such events as the appearance of the Virgin Mary in Catholic circles. We can even make the claim that this was the first documented haunting in the history of the United States.
Because these events took place in an earlier time, modern people might tend to think of them as slightly foolish, perhaps even as a kind of parlor fiction designed to entertain listeners on long, dark nights by the fireside. Whatever people heard and saw in that cellar in Machiasport in the year 1800 and beyond, they believed it was a ghost. These weren't people prone to flights of fancy. These people were the epitome of the Yankee hands-on, problem-solving spirit, practical in every way. If the appearance of Nelly Butler's spirit was a fabrication created by the Blaisdel family, they must have been among the greatest charlatans ever to walk the earth, or beyond. The questions remain: was this a ghost or a demonic intruder? Was this hope from Heaven or was this a lie perpetrated to lure believers into a false hope? How could such things be?
We will never know.
SOURCES Citro, Joseph A.
Passing Strange: True Tales of New England Hauntings and Horrors. Shelburne, VT: Chapters Pub., 1996. Print.
America's First Ghost
http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/classics/americas-first-ghost#_
Bangor Daily News: "Is Maine Home to America's First Documented Haunting?", Oct 31, 2015
http://bangordailynews.com/2015/10/30/living/is-maine-home-to-the-first-documented-ghost-story-in-the-us/
Gold forms in the heart of dying stars and as a result of their explosions, or novas, it is spread throughout the cosmos as one of the heavier elements. All the gold on earth no doubt came from such an explosion, just as all of the matter for all of the planets and the sun did, too. Maine does, in fact, have some gold in its ground, the first being struck in 1854 in Madrid and later, gold and silver were found in Acton, too. Gold can be found in deposits in the earth, but also dissolved in the waters of Earth's oceans. Since 71 percent of the Earth's surface is covered with water, it might make sense that all one needs to do is find a cheap way to extract that gold from the water to make a fortune. Maine is ideally situated for mining gold from water, if that was indeed possible, with its 3, 478 miles of coastline. But there is no method or invention to do the hard work of filtering out the gold. However, such a device was invented in 1897 and put into use in the small Maine town of Lubec. Why it worked and then, all of a sudden, didn't work, is part of the strange history of New England.
Lubec, Maine is the northeastern-most town in the United States. It is closer to Africa than any other location in the country. With a population of 1,359 (2010 census), this community is situated on the very edge of things, snug next to Canada and only separated from it by the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bridge, which spans the Lubec Narrows and leads to Campbello Island. Change comes creeping slowly to this Washington County hamlet, but sometimes, something comes along that summons a whirlwind of alternation in circumstances and acts to bring such small places notoriety and fame. Lubec had its moment in 1897 and became host to Maine's one and only Saltwater Gold Rush.
To set the stage, one must remember that in 1897, science was beginning to take the main guiding role in the state of American life. In May of 1893, the World's Fair, known as the Colombian Exposition, opened in Chicago. Thomas Edison had just invented the first motion pictures and in 1895, the White House Christmas Tree was decorated with Edison's own light bulbs. The world had telephones and electric fans, Kodak cameras and zippers. Even people in far flung places like Lubec knew of such inventions because of the ubiquitous newspapers that gave such places a daily connection with the world at large. Great faith was put in industry and the power that steam, oil and now electricity promised would means that even one such industry for a small town might mean prosperity for all. Lubec was a fishing and lumbering village and people there lived a hard existence. It was into that setting in October of 1897 that a pair of men from Edgartown, Massachusetts arrived and set a plan into motion that would net them, in today's money, over a million dollars and bring about financial disaster for investors throughout New England. It was a boom followed by the usual bust, but with a bit of wonder, too.
Prescott Ford Jernegan, a Baptist minister, and his good friend Charles Fisher, rolled quietly into town one day and took up shop at an old grist mill at Mill Creek in North Lubec. The two had a business plan that, like most, required investors to open their pocketbooks and take a chance on what they assured people was a sure thing. We still have the prospectus for their enterprise, which they dubbed the Electrolytic Marine Salts Company, or EMS. Their claim was something that many people knew to be true - gold was in the water that flowed through Lubec Narrows. However, unlike anyone before them, they claimed to have hit upon a device that could use electricity and chemistry to grab the microscopic pieces of gold and accumulate it, and best of all, it could happen overnight, while the good people of Lubec and all of the investors slept. Everyone would go to sleep and then wake up in the morning much, much richer.
Why Lubec? Why not Boston or New York? Jernegan answered investors with the fact that Lubec is on Passamaquoddy Bay which experiences some of the highest tides on the planet and as a result, more seawater rushes in and out of the narrows than out of any other harbor in the Northeast. When asked how a minister and not an inventor had come across the idea involved in the accumulator device, Jernegan claimed divine inspiration. God wanted him to build this device and share the wealth and sent him the entire idea in a 'vision.' Today, that alone might stop serious inventors from opening their checkbooks, but in 1897, not everyone was so suspicious of claims of divine visions. Such a connection might even serve to make it more of a sure bet for the investor. It didn't hurt their enterprise to be surrounded by folk who had only a rudientary knowledge of electricity and and chemistry. There were fewer people to discover their duplicity.
The machine that he 'invented' to siphon gold from seawater is quite simple in its design. Imagine a large cast iron tub with two platinum rods inserted into a proprietary mixture of chemicals at the bottom. A battery supposedly ran the accumulator, along with the addition of some mercury. Other than that, all that was needed to collect the gold from the seawater was seawater itself. Twenty-four hours after lowering the accumulator into the water, it would be raised and little nuggets of gold would be found in the mixture - nuggets, not a film or specs of gold, but nuggets. That should have been the first clue that these two men were not what they purported to be and that this was a dubious device, indeed.
Imagine you are an investor. You have made the journey to Lubec, Maine, a rather long distance journey into the wilder regions, just to see if some crackpot invention really works. You are suspicious at first that such a thing is possible. But then you watch as the accumulators are lowered into the channel and at the same time the next day, you watch as they are pulled up and cracked open. There in front you is the proof that it is a sound investment - gold, in all of its glory. One after another, people with a bit of money to invest, or a lot of money, couldn't give the pair of inventors money fast enough. It was simply too good to be true. Everyone wanted in on it.
Hundreds of local people were involved in the new industry - mining gold from seawater. Not that they were easily swayed. There is nothing like a downeast yankee for doubt and discovery, but they had the proof in front of their eyes and if that wasn't enough, the newspapers they all read had articles claiming success in the venture. On January 5, 1898, a year after the EMS Company started business in Lubec, the Portland Transcript ran a story that resonated with the locals and investors.
"It is reported that gold and silver were taken from the sea water at North Lubec at the rate of $2 worth per hour, a few days ago, and that the company intends putting in two hundred machines of that capacity."
That many accumulators cost money - platinum wasn't cheap. Also, there were operating costs and investors had to be paid. As time passed, more and more money was needed to make the venture work. Over two hundred and fifty boxes at a time were being processed in the waters off Lubec. With the rumor that a new plant with five thousand boxes would soon be added to the company's assets, stocks skyrocketed. In fact, an actual 900,000 shares of the stock were sold by that July. Over 800 men were working for the EMS company. It looked like the little town of Lubec was going to be put on the map as the first place on Earth were gold was successfully and profitably 'mined' from the sea. Chemistry, electricity, and invention were the new paradigm. They had replaced logging, fishing and farming with an exciting new industry.
But all good things must come to an end. When Fisher left for a business trip in late July of the next year, no one took much notice, but his absence was soon followed by Jernegan and his entire family. There was neither hide nor hair of the pair of inventors who had promised to make everyone investing in their plans rich beyond the dreams of Midas. The good people of the EMS company found that the accumulators no longer worked now that their inventors had absconded. The locals who worked for the company were paid their final paycheck but the investors were left holding the bag for all of their hopeful monetary dreams. It was, it seems, too good to be true, after all.
So what happened? Why didn't the accumulators work anymore? Probably because they never actually worked in the first place. In later years, the pair of inventors who had successfully evaded justice by never coming back to America from their exile in places like Australia and the islands of the Pacific, had found themselves feeling somewhat guilty and returned some of the money, between $75,000 and $85,000, to some of their investors. How did they do it? Fisher was an adept diver, able to don a helmeted, weighted diver's suit and make his way into the water under the cover of darkness to add small nuggets and chunks of gold to the accumulators. Every night, he added the same pieces of gold into the pots that were pulled out the next day. The problem they had was finding enough gold to put into the new additional accumulators. Like so many schemers, they let their initial success drive them forward too quickly to keep up with the demand. When they were beyond the failsafe point, they left. Their criminal act, for which they were never prosecuted, was the ruin of many investors up and down the East Coast. Fisher may or may not have died in Australia and Jernegan became a teacher in the far-flung Philippines, safe from prosecution. We know truly know what happened to either of them.
But in every dark cloud there is a silver lining. The EMS plant, now standing empty, proved to be the ideal place to implement another, new, far more lucrative industry, one that kept the families of Lubec safe from wolves at the door. It was converted for use as a sardine factory, an extremely lucrative venture for the town for a very long time to come. Gold from seawater? Well, not quite, but the dark schemes of two con artists set up the town of Lubec for another industry that became one of the town's hallmarks.
By the way, if you can figure out a way to extract gold from the oceans, there's a lot of it. Current estimates tell us that there are at least 20 million tons of it there, just floating around, not to mention gold beneath the ocean floor. However, be aware that the ocean is so dilute that the concentration of gold in it is measured in parts per trillion, or, more precisely, for every liter of seawater, there is about 13 billionths if a gram of the yellow stuff. Still, that's enough gold to give every man, woman and child on earth nine pounds of it. Now, wouldn't that be nice? By the way, if you're ever in Lubec, stop by the Historical Society's museum. They have a replica of the ill-famed accumulator set up for your inspection. Too bad it doesn't really work.
SOURCES
http://lubec.mainememory.net/page/960/display.html
Is There Gold in the Ocean http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/gold.html
Parker, Gail, It Happened in Maine: Remarkable Events That Shaped History, 2013, Globe Pequot Press,
Lubec Historical Society http://www.lubechistoricalsociety.com/
"Is There Gold in the Ocean?" http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/gold.html
We are visual creatures linked to the world through images, taking in most of our knowledge through our vision. The poets speak of the eyes as being the windows of the soul. Religious folk will speak of the eye as proof of a divine creation for surely, they claim, blind Nature could not have haphazardly produced such amazing and sophisticated sensors. We live in a world inundated with visual imagery in print, on screen, and to some extent, in our dreams. We have documented most of our world through satellite imaging. We've done the same to most of the planets and moons. We've even taken pictures of the roads of the world and the houses that line them with the wonders of Google Earth. We can travel the world and never leave the comfort of our chair through the videos freely available all over the Net. The world comes to us through our eyes.
Over three million photos are uploaded to Facebook alone each and every day of the year, nonstop. We are recording so much of our world into digital imagery that there is no way any one of us could look at it all. Some of us are making a kind of photo essay or documentary of our own life. The cameras on our cell phones allow us to instantly and constantly record and document and we do so eagerly and daily.
But there was a world before the invention of photography that we will never see, a world lost to us. There was a time not so long ago when the only way to 'see' a person or place not immediately in front of you was to gaze at a painting. But that all changed in the mid-1820s (around the time that Maine became a state) when a Frenchman named Nicephore Niecpe perfected the somewhat makeshift process of photography that had previously existed. The earliest images are of buildings because the process of capturing the light required very long exposures. Very soon afterward, the first known photo of a human was taken in either October or November of 1839. The man's name is Robert Cornelius and his picture is also the oldest known 'selfie', a daguerreotype on whose back is written, "The first light picture ever taken." That may or may not be true but it doesn't matter. Robert Cornelius still looks back at us through time, his eyes meeting ours and his hair curling up into the wind. We can perceive his humanity and we can wonder about the pensive look on his face just as we can linger over the small smile of the Mona Lisa. He is photography's Neil Armstrong, the first man whose face we can still see almost two-hundred years later.
But there is another early image of a man that takes us even further back in time. He is an aged mow with a strong, set chin and a determined look upon his face. His hair is white and his piercing gaze looks into the camera from askance. He is neatly dressed in black with a white shirt and collar and he looks at us through the eyes of age. It is as though he has just noticed us looking at him and he has turned to catch our gaze.
His name is Conrad Heyer and he was in the year 1749 and he is the earliest-born human ever to be photographed. No person born earlier than 1749 has ever been photographed. He hails from Waldoboro, Maine. At the time the photo was taken in 1853, he was 103 years old when the average life expectancy was 38 years.
Here is what we know about Conrad Heyer. He was the first white child born in the German immigrant settlement of Waldoboro shortly after the Abenaki attacks that destroyed an earlier attempt at settlement. He grew up working his father's farm until the advent of the American Revolution where he joined the Continental Army and served under George Washington. He spent the winter in Trenton in 1776-77 with Washington and crossed the Delaware River with him for the attack on the Hessians on Christmas Day, possibly one of the only soldiers on the Continental side able to speak the language of the enemy. One can imagine him standing in the ranks, translating the words of a captured German soldier for his superiors, understanding their comments, curses, and whispered secrets. We will never know because, though he was photographed, he was never interviewed. What we do know is that after the war he did what most soldiers did: he returned to the family farm to live out his many surviving days in the comfort and relative safety of his Waldoboro farm. He lived to be 107 years old, five more years after his historical picture was taken.
It is a moment that asks us to pause when we consider the things those eyes must have seen, of the places he knew and loved, of the men he fought next to, of the birth of a nation that no other older eyes would see and then gaze back into our own. Conrad Heyer becomes the grandfather of photography because he represents the last vestige of a much earlier, noble age. In 1852, the American Civil War was nine years in the future and it is from that point that this veteran of the American Revolution, a simple Maine farmer looks back at us forever. He reminds us of the power of the photograph and how important a single image can be not only to a nation, but to an entire species whose own time of the planet has only barely begun to be recorded by the camera. Before you move on, look him in the eye one more time. He's watching.
WORKS CITED
Conrad Heyer, earliest-born person ever to be photographed Conrad Heyer, a Revolutionary War Veteran, Was the Earliest-Born American To Ever Be Photographed - Smart News - Smithsonian New England man had oldest birth date ever to be photographed - New Market Press This Is Conrad Hayer, A Man Who Made Photographic History At 103 Years Old Maine Memory Network - Conrad Heyer, Waldoboro, ca. 1852 Conrad Heyer (1749 - 1856) - Find A Grave Memorial
Boundary Pond is a small, unassuming body of water in the northeastern corner of Maine. It is almost touching Quebec, earning the pond it's name sake. It has an outlet called "Boundary Brook" that meanders from the pond and into Maine, where it fades off into land. It is ideal for "cold-water fish" according to The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department, whose website displays a map of this and many more lakes and ponds carved out from ice-age glaciers. According to the Department's website, "Spawning and nursery habit is limited, but a few brook trout survive to maintain a fishery. Growth is good with no other competing fish species present. The pond is not stocked."
Many Maine lakes and rivers now rely on fish stocking operations, where fish raised in hatcheries are airlifted over lakes and rivers and dropped into the water. This is said to contribute millions of dollars into Maine's economy through sustaining fishing pursuits. It also helps sustain Maine's ecosystem, which has been influenced by Man despite it's size and condition. Boundary Pond is not one such body of water.
But anyone who goes fishing in this hard to reach spot may not be fishing alone. A lucky fishermen may, according to the legends, hear the splashing of a rare and elusive animal whose fishing technique is as unusual as it's appearance. It is an animal called the Billdad. It is described as being as large as a beaver and even wields a beaver's tail. It is also covered with brown fur similar to a beaver's pelt. It has long hind feet ideal for jumping like a kangaroo, but also are webbed for swimming. They have very short forelegs tucked in like a T-Rex's arms and the bill and face of a hawk. Sometimes, they are even depicted as having pointed ears.
According to accounts, these creatures are predators that feed on insects and fish. They are ambush predators that use both their hind legs and tail in a strange method of hunting. When they see a fish swim up to catch an insect on the surface of the water, the billdad will leap into the air. As they pass over the fish, they swing down their beaver-like tail and smack the fish hard on it's head, stunning it. The billdad goes off with this catch, eats it and continues the pursuit like so. It is implied that this is a nocturnal animal that will usually go fishing at night, and hide during the day
Some accounts describe these animals as fierce, but others state this as being too far from the truth. If humans approach, the billdad either leaps for safety or hides. They may do this not only because they know humans are larger and stronger than them, but because legend has it that lumberjacks considered these strange little creatures as a deep woods delicacy. They were said to be far more common back in the days of lumber camps, but their meat was not considered particularly palatable, so they were abandoned as a delicacy, but too late. They are considered to be very rare, like many animals eaten to endangered status.
One account, however, states that billdad meat has a dangeorus effect on humans, making it unfit for consumption for more than just bad taste. Accoring to a story from page 43 of "Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, 100th edition", one billdad was somehow caught and eaten at a lumber camp owned by The Great Northern Paper Company. The meat was used to make a dish called Slumgullion (otherwise known as American Chop Suey). The only man to eat this dish was a tote-road swamper, who cleared the unpaved roads of debris for the lumberjacks. After the first and only bite, he grabbed the edge of the dinner table, went rigid, a strange look formed in his eyes and he bolted out of the dining room towards the lake outside the camp. He was said to have jumped 50 feet over the lake, just like a billdad leaping for it's dinner. But unlike a water-savvy billdad, the man drowned. After that strange and disturbing incident, billdad meat was never on lumber camp menus again, lest they too be driven to think they are a billdad and drown themselves.
This animal is often compared to Australia's platypus by some accounts, with the idea that of all of New England's cryptids, this one is mostly likely to be real. In fact, some accounts even state that the billdad is related to The Duck-Billed Platypus. Its appearance and choice of habitat would lend a small spark of plausibility to this theory. When the platypus was first discovered in 1798, most people who saw it thought it was a hoax: a chimera made by a talented taxidermist. Only a drawing and a pelt was brought back to England by Captain John Hunter. But subsequent expeditions to Australia proved that this animal was very real. Today, this animal is alive and well in Australia, being 'of least conservation concern' in Eastern Australia.
Cryptozoologists still think that because of the many similarities that the billdad has with the platypus, we may someday find that the billdad is a real marsupial, making it the second marsupial native to North America. Currently, the only native marsupial to North America is the opossum, which is also found in Maine.
So far, however, no billdad living or dead, has ever been found. Visitors who come to Boundary Pond to catch a glimpse of this cryptid leave empty-handed. Some accounts say that even in their heyday, these were shy and hard to hunt. The only testimony that we have that these animals existed is from the tall tales of logging camps where many fantastic yarns were spun by men seeking entertainment in the quiet heart of nature. It is most likely that lumberjacks made up this story to pass the time or mess with the minds of people who lived in towns and cities. After learning about the platypus, they may have thought about the possibility that Maine could have it's own platypus and let their imagination do the rest from there.
So for now, Boundary Pond is just a quiet, out of the way part of Maine where the sounds of axes and trees falling no longer echo. Silent nature prevails as does great fishing that has not needed man's intervention to thrive. But, if the stories of the lumberjacks have any credence at all, there may be a chance that any fisherman who comes here for the brook trout may have a strange, furry little companion who keeps itself hidden, save only for when it makes a splashing sound with it's tail.
Is it someone with a canoe or kayak paddle? Or is it the elusive billdad?
Fearsome Creatures of The Lumberwoods: 100th Edition, Page 43-The Billdad Cryptids and Monsters: The Billdad Cryptid Wiki-The Billdad Bruce Van Patter-Mythical American Animals Allrecipes.com-Slumgillion Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife-Franklin County Video: Maine Forest Service Fish Drops Wikipedia: Platypus
In ancient times when the night was so much darker than it is today, stories were told that endure to this day. It's easy for scholars to assume that, because written records are a permanent way to record history of any kind, many folktales from literary cultures are assumed to be recent ones. Familiar fairytales such as the ones The Brothers Grimm recorded in their early research in the Black Forest of Europe feel familiar enough as to be from a more recent time in history and not from a remote age like Native American stories.
However, The Brothers Grimm were convinced that the stories they researched were, in fact, as ancient as their Native American counterparts. Folklorists since have had difficulty believing this, however, because they are scientists, solid evidence is the only type of evidence they will consider. Recent research by anthropologists has confirmed that, perhaps, The Brothers Grimm were correct after all and the fairy tales that are so familiar to us have an older, more alien origin in languages and cultures that left so little behind as to be forgotten.
According to this new research, the famous story "Beauty and The Beast", which was once thought to originate in the 16th century, is instead 4,000 years old. One story is mentioned in this article, however, as being older than writing itself and being invented at a time when mammoths walked the earth. It is a lesser known story, but is possibly an inspiration for Goethe's novel "Faust" and also the inspiration behind Jack-O-Lanterns on Halloween. In Acadian French, the name for this spirit is "Feu Follet" or "Foolish Fires". Despite having Christian overtones in many versions, stories of the Will-O-The-Wisp or "The Smith and The Devil" are estimated to be 6,000 years old. At the root of these many versions and names across many countries and centuries, there is one commonality: a mysterious and bright ball of light that appears in the dead of night. Travelers who walk on country roads by night usually spot these strange lights, but not always.
There are many explanations for these haunting lights worldwide, with most being supernatural. For example, the Malecite tribe and the people of Southern Wales see the lights as omens of death. In Wales, these lights are called 'corpse candles', and their color and size further specify the gender and age of the doomed person. In Mexico and Africa, these lights are witches and sorcerers on the move towards a remote place to practice secret and dangerous magic. In Argentina, the lights are 'Luz Mala' or 'evil lights'. This light kills anyone who looks at it, yet it will pursue hapless people at night and try to get them to look at it.
In Japan, these lights are called "Hitodama" and are believed to be either a human soul or a ball of supernatural energy. Such balls of fiery light are either found in graveyards or around fox-like spirits called 'Kitsune'. Kitsune are famous shapeshifters in Japanese mythology who either trick humans into violent misdeeds or help rice farmers as servants of the rice god, Inari.
This version is adapted from the book ""Will O The Wisp" and is adapted from Ireland and New Brunswick, Canada. It describes one of the most common supernatural explanations: A condemned soul tries to lure travelers at night to their death:
There was once a man named Willy O'Bannon who immigrated to America from Ireland to seek his fortune with his family. He took up the blacksmith trade and performed small metalworking jobs such as making and attaching horseshoes and nails. He settled near a small village in Canada, where he had regular work.
None of this work helped him to feed his family, however. It was so difficult to earn enough to keep body and soul together that one day, Willy grew frustrated and said that he would sell his soul to The Devil just for the money.
Not long after this happened, a man dressed in black wearing a tall hat came to his door. Willy said "I have never seen the likes of you in these parts before. Who are you?"
With a sly smile that made Willy feel uneasy, the stranger replied "You don't know me, but know you, Willy O'Bannon. In fact, I heard you just the other day make me an offer. Was it your soul for the money?"
Willy gulped in fear. This was The Devil come to take him up on his offer.
The Devil continued. "I will make sure that you get all the money that you will ever need or want for seven years. But after seven years, I will arrive to take you to Hell."
Feeling that seven years was a good long time, and feeling hunger in his belly, he accepted. The next morning, Willy's life changed. He got enough money to feed his family, buy a new house and workshop and even shared his wealth with the community.
During this time, another strange figure appeared. It was a cold and rainy day, and an old, tired and cold man came to Willy's door. Willy fed him, warmed him up by the fireplace and gave him a place to sleep while the storm outside raged. The old man smiled at Willy as he ate his porridge.
"I am an angel." The stranger said. "For your generosity, you have three wishes."
Having already met an angel before (for The Devil is an angel too), Willy believed him. He thought for a moment. Then, he smiled.
"I want three magical items. The first one is a chair that allows no one to stand up unless I say so. The second is an anvil that no one can let go of unless I say so. The third is a steel purse that does not let anything out of it unless I open it."
The stranger frowned, but said. "It is done."
When the seven years had passed, Willy was shaving and he heard the knock at the door. He knew who it was.
"It's time to go, Willy." The Devil said.
"I'm still shaving, sir." Willy replied. "Come in and have a seat. I'll be finished in a moment. I want to look my best when facing damnation."
The Devil sat in the only chair in the room when he entered. As soon as he tried to rise from the chair, he felt he could not move. Willy wasted no time. He took an iron bar from his workshop and started to smack The Devil with it.
"Stop! Please be merciful."
"To you, Father of Evil? I think not." Willy replied before smacking him again.
"Wait!" The Devil shouted before Willy posed to swing the bar. He listened to a Devil now beaten black and blue.
"I will give you another seven years of wealth if you let me go form this chair."
"No tricks?"
"Of course not." The Devil said. With that, Willy commanded The Devil to stand up and in a flash, The Devil ran out of the house and back to Hell again to nurse his wounds.
The next seven years passed faster than the first. Again, the familiar knock on the door was heard.
"Come out, Willy! It's time to go, as per our agreement."
"Of course, sir." Willie said. "Please come in. I need your help."
The Devil came in and saw Willy organizing his workshop. "I need to leave this place in order for my family, so they don't have a horrible mess to clean up. Can you hand me that anvil over there, so I may put it away?"
The Devil, confident in his strength, tried to lift to anvil. However, he found that he could not move his hand from it. He was rooted to the spot. Again, Willy took another iron rod and beat The Devil black and blue one more time.
"No! Not again!"
"Give me seven more years, Devil, and I'll release you."
"Fine, just stop! Please!"
Again, Willy commanded The Devil to take his hand off the anvil and again, The Devil wasted no time to leave.
This span of seven years went along even faster than the last two. This time, The Devil did not come inside, but Willy left with the steel purse on his person. They walked through the town square and past a pub.
"Say, Old Devil, since you'll be taking me somewhere hot and dry, could you do me the kindness of letting me have a drink for the road to Hell?"
Not seeing any tricks this time, The Devil nodded.
"I'll change myself into a coin for you, so don't worry about the cost."
As soon as The Devil turned himself into a coin, Willy grabbed it, put it inside of the steel purse and bolted back home. He stuck the purse into the forge fire and kicked up the flames as hot as he could manage with the bellows. With each puff, The Devil wailed in pain.
"I'll get you for this Willie!"
"Then I'll just keep going if that's your attitude." He continued to kick up the flames until the purse was almost ready to melt.
"If you let me out, I will never bother you again! I forfeit my claim on you!"
With that, Willie used his blacksmith tools to open the purse. Howling in pain, with a smoking backside, The Devil bolted out of the house in a blackened whirlwind.
Willie lived well until his death of old age. But when he reached the Gates of Heaven, St. Peter did not open the pearly gates.
"I was always generous with my wealth and even took in one of your own. What is the meaning of this?"
St. Peter shook his head. "That angel wanted to save you. The wishes were all attempts to pull you out of your pact with Hell. But instead, you kept yourself in it and played all those tricks on our enemy and hold onto wealth rather than abandon it. It was fun to watch you torture Satan, but because you wasted your chances to be saved and you got greedy, we can't let you in.
So Willie accepted defeat and came to Hell's less than shiny gates. As soon as The Devil opened the gates to peek outside, his eyes widened and he shut the gate.
"Oh God! Not you again!!!" The Devil shouted.
Willie shook his head. "I'm not allowed up in Heaven sir. It looks like you get me in the end. You win."
"Not a chance! After all you put me through, I don't ever want to see your face again, let alone for the rest of eternity! This place will freeze over before I let you in."
"Then tell me where to go or I'll wait outside here and sneak in. You'll have to open those gates sooner or later, considering how many sinners are alive now."
The Devil knew Willy was right and he knew that Willy was very clever. But The Devil came up with an idea. He took a piece of straw and lit it with a spark of hellfire. He opened the gate wide enough to reach out and hand it to him.
"Here! You go get me souls I can use for firewood! Use this! I'm sure with your wily ways, you'll find a way to get them to kill themselves. Don't get any ideas about sneaking in here, though! Now be off with you and don't ever come back!"
And whenever that tiny little spark of light appears in the dead of night, it's Old Willy's ghost trying to complete his task: a task intended to keep him away from Hell. He likes the souls to drown, so don't follow him or he'll mislead you into a deadly trick, just as he misled The Devil three times.
Even in modern times, when there is so much more light to be seen even at the darkest times of the night, there are still sightings of mysterious phantom lights. Rather than resort to sometimes frightening answers with a supernatural bent, the two most popular scientific theories relate to biochemistry.
The first theory was written by Allesandro Volta, a chemist who inspired the name for the standard measurement of electricity: the volt. He also created the world's first recorded battery since the ancient batteries first crafted in Babylon and Egypt. According to Volta, the balls of mysterious lights were not lost souls, witches or faeries, but swamp gas. According to this theory, plant and animal matter in a wetland decomposes and methane gas builds up. Eventually, it must bubble up and fly out of the wet bottom and into the air. If there is lightning or some static discharge in the same area, the gas will be ignited like a match over an open torch head.
At the time that Volta published this theory, which was after he discovered the existence of methane gas in 1776, it caused controversy. By this time, the supernatural legends behind will-o-the-wisps was so commonplace that it was an unquestioned fact. Just as Benjamin Franklin faced controversy for claiming that lighting was not caused by the wrath of God, so did Volta face a crowd angry with the possibility that, maybe, the phantom lights they sometimes saw was nothing to fear. Even today, swamp gas is an explanation that is often not taken seriously or accepted. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that methane gas is a byproduct of natural decay. Wherever there is a large amount of biomass left to decompose, there will be a buildup of this gas.This theory has further evidence to support it with the observed fact that as wetlands in England have been drained and developed, instances of will-o-the-wisp sightings have declined.
The second explanation is bio-luminescent fungi. Some species of fungi will glow in the dark, either to attract insects that help spread the spores or to deter animals from eating it. Often, these fungi will appear either on top of trees or on decomposing logs on the forest floor. It is commonly a dim light, but can be bright enough to read by on rare occasions. The layman's term for this natural phenomena is 'foxfire'.
On Wikipedia's listing of bio-luminescent fungi, there are over 23 species in North America and 22 species in Europe. The first species on this list, Armillaria calvescens, is a species that exists in Canada and New England. Specifically, it lives on maple trees abundant in New England and Canada.
As if in commemoration of these stories, the scientists who discovered the chemical that lights up living things call it Luciferum, a name derived from one of many names for The Devil.
Today, the genes for this chemical's production and expression are vital for use in the study of genetics. A recent study has involved making cats glow in the dark to see if it is possible to implant HIV resistant genes into humans to combat AIDS.
Someday, we may have feline Will-O-The-Wisps roaming the country and spooking travelers because of this.
For now, however, we have only ghosts and gases for explaining why there are errant lights that seem to come from the night with no explanation. It is clear from all of this evidence that this is a story with roots so old, that it is remembered long after it's original language has been completely forgotten. It has come to be retold in many languages across continents and helps to explain a phenomena that continues to intrigue people today. Anthropologists who discovered this story's true age suggest this is a tale that tells of how Man attempts to change his fate, but only ends up doing so in an unpleasant way. This same theme appears in the latest incarnation of the legend in Disney and Pixar's 2012 movie Brave. In it, Princess Merida is lured by tiny blue flame spirtes called "Will-O-The-Wisps". Just like Willie from the Irish and Maritimes version, she tries to defy her fate with magic and faces unforeseen misfortune as a result.
There is another moral to these stories that is new to us, however. While languages come and go and cultures appear and disappear, stories remain today as monuments of the imagination. Even after temples and cities crumble down and their histories fade into the dark twilight of time, stories, like Will-O-The-Wisps, briefly appear to illuminate our past, even casting light onto that which has become alien to our memories and that which is still familiar to us today.
Bibliography
Will O' The Wisp: Folk Tales and Legends of New Brunswick by Carole, Spray
Wikipedia: Will-O-The-Wisp Wikipedia: Biolumiescent Fungi Today I Found Out: What causes Will-O-The-Wisps The Guardian: Fairytales much older than previously thought, says researchers Celtic Monsters- Omen's of Death
It is that time of year again, and apart from the religious significance of the day, there is the secular aspect of days off, possible Christmas bonuses, money spent on gifts and travel, travel, travel. One thing that most people in New England take for granted is that we have a strong Christmas tradition in this part of the world and in some ways, we are among its greatest keepers. However, that has not always been the case and you should know the truth about the history of Christmas in Maine and Massachusetts. You might be interested to know that the modern idea of Christmas, and the associated days off, are fairly new creations, less than two hundred years old. We did not always make merry at Christmas.
The original European settlers of these lands were protestant puritans, renegades from the Church of England and a people desperate to begin in a new land away from the shadows of religious intolerance they were subject to in Europe at the time. More than one historian as claimed that our founders were 'thrown out of every respectable country in Europe." Of all the things that they brought with them to these shores, their staunch belief in the inappropriateness of celebrating such a thing as Christmas was paramount. Mainly, the idea of Christmas was to have fun and rejoice. Fun was not something they valued. Fun was bad. Alcohol was also often part of the celebration, especially in Merry Olde England, and alcohol was bad, too.
First of all, the Puritans claimed that no one on Earth knew when Jesus was born. Modern scholars and historians have yet to nail down the exact dates, but many claim it certainly was not in December. The Catholic Church chose December the 25th as Christ's birthday, they claimed, largely to coincide with the Roman Saturnalia celebration and the celebration of the Winter Solstice. Anything even vaguely related to Catholicism cast a shadow on the Puritan soul and was not to be believed. Even the name "Christmas" broke into its component parts read as "Christ's Mass" or "The Mass of Christ" and only Catholics celebrated mass. Their need to break with the traditions of the Church of England and of Rome was founded in the idea that there were no special 'holy' days. Every day was holy - therefore, every day was a holiday and there was no need to celebrate any one day more than the next. Every day was sacred. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1659 banned the celebration of Christmas altogether. It remained that way for twenty-two years. Less than a hundred years before we proclaimed our independence from the crown of England, it was illegal to celebrate Christmas in Massachusetts and by association, also in Maine. If you were caught making merry, the fine was five shillings.
What did this mean for Maine and Massachusetts? It meant that no matter the day of the week it fell upon, Christmas Day was business as usual. Stores were open, business was conducted, folks went to work and life went on pretty much as usual. Marriages were held. So were funerals. The courts were open for business. You could get sued on Christmas. You could also pay your taxes. Christmas was not a legal holiday in any sense of the word and that was the way it should be, according to the founding Puritans.
Maine became a state on March 15, 1820, no longer subject to the laws of Massachusetts. In 1836, the Maine legislature established that would be such a thing as legal holidays. At the time there weren't many Episcopalians or Catholics in the state, but a year later they were celebrating Christmas openly, without any fear of fines. However, Christmas was not a legal holiday in Maine yet.It did not set well with the staunch, independently-minded Puritan descendants, but it was a crack in the ice. The minority had their fun, but it wasn't legally sanctioned.
Perhaps the biggest factor that changed the hearts and minds of the people of Maine about the sanctity of Christmas was the publication of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens in 1843. Dickens was larger than Stephen King at the time and was the most-read author in the English-speaking world. The redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge resonated in the hearts and minds of his readers and opened the doorway for the idea that Christmas might become a secular holiday as well as a religious one. Regardless of denomination, the book's message was that Christians everywhere owed it to their savior to think of their fellow men and pay attention to their own salvation through the concept of good works. It wasn't an instant change in Maine, but in 1840 a tree was put up in Farmington at Christmas, perhaps the first such public display of a Christmas tree in the state. People began to think of Christmas as something worth celebrating, after all. But it wasn't an official holiday yet.
In 1852, with Christmas not yet an official holiday in Maine, the legislature made it a law that if you owed money and had a grace period that ended on Christmas, you had to pay it before the end of the grace period. As confusing and specific as this law was, it opened the door for a real public acknowledgement of the future holiday. The goose kept getting fatter. Finally, in 1858, the State of Maine declared Christmas an official legal holiday. It was just in time, as an influx of German and French Canadian immigrants came into the state and began celebrating Christmas in loud and public fashion. The descendants of the Puritan fathers were now having to deal with the idea that even though there was no way to prove that December the 25th had anything at to do with Jesus' actual birth, it was something that the majority of folk felt like celebrating.
We all grow up thinking that Christmas has been the great day that it is for hundreds of years and that we have decked the halls and kept the day as something worthy of pause and celebration since our own forebears came across the water to these far shores. In fact, it has only been a legal holiday in Maine for 157 years. We are latecomers to the celebration, but never let it be said that we don't know how to celebrate the season. In an official and very legally-binding sense, Merry Christmas!
There are moments in your life that shine like stars in the darkness and light your path and as you remember your past. Such memories are safely couched in the narrative of your youth and from time to time, they can send a message to you, from far, far away.
One such moment occurred in the year 1977 when I was fifteen years old. On a late May afternoon, I was perhaps the first person to see the movie Star Wars in the continental United States. Well, maybe. It's a big claim, I know, but since I have no way of determining the absolute place of the first viewing of Lucas' masterpiece in the U.S., I believe it is at least possible that I was the one of the first, to witness the spectacle and the wonder that is Star Wars.
I had seen Lucas' American Graffiti twice at the Caribou Theater in Caribou, Maine in 1973 when I was only eleven years old. A callow Richard Dreyfus was desperately seeking the blonde in the Thunderbird all night long, roaming the California streets to the growling rasp of disc jockey Wolfman Jack's records spinning endlessly while hot rods roared and fevers rose. For two dollars and fifty cents, I was no longer a young teen in a dark theater in northern Maine. No. I was sitting alongside a young Harrison Ford as we raced down Petaluma Boulevard, racing against time. You see, what was true for me was also true for most of the people in my generation – movies showed me a world I had only seen in the dark recess of a theater. I wanted more.
I grew up in a trailer in the middle of an old potato field. It was a nice trailer and the potato field was well-mowed with Chinese elms lining the road, but it was essentially the truth of my life that I lived a long way from anywhere in a backwater that might as well have been on another another planet. You had to drive for three and half hours through nothing but trees to get to something that even approximated a city. We had three channels on the TV, one of which was an amalgam of CBS, NBC and ABC, the only one of its type in the country. The other two channels were an early PBS and CHSJ from Canada and it was grainy, at best. It was an era of sitcom Saturday nights when I met with my old friends Archie Bunker, Mary Tyler Moore, Alan Alda, Bob Newhart, and Carol Burnett. The glow of the Zenith television tube bathed our shag-rugged living room with the warmth of other cities and other lives and I was a country boy temporarily transported to these places. There were whole days when I wanted to do nothing more than watch television.
I spent a lot of time with my dad, who owned a mobile home business in downtown Caribou across the street from the LaVerdieres store on the Access Highway in Caribou, Maine. Dad let me tag along with him, which relieved the boredom of hanging out in the country all day. I wasn't a hunter or a camper, so the prospect of hanging out downtown all day was kind of exciting. Dad had a mail box in the post office and he would send me in with his key and I would return with a pile of envelopes and mountains of junk mail and oh, so delicious magazines which I poured over and devoured whenever I could get my hands on them. Dad subscribed to four: Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Readers' Digest and Time Magazine. It was an early summer day when I got the issue that portrayed a strange vehicle sitting in a desert scene and a young blonde man standing next to it, with a robot or two nearby. It was the issue that introduced Stars to the World, proclaiming it to be "The Year's Best Movie." Even now as I compose this, I am sitting in his cawindow down and a cold glass bottle of Coca Cola sitting between my legs, my mirrored sun-glasses, reminiscent of Erik Estrada's from CHIPS resting nimbly on the edge of my nose and my face buried in the pages of an article that detailed a new thing called Star Wars.
I did nothing but talk about it for days and days. I re-read the article and burned the photos from the article into my brain. I had loved science fiction since the time when my father took us to 2001: A Space Odyssey four times in the Presque Isle Cinema fourteen miles away, once during a blizzard. Dad's friend owned the theatre and while we watched the film, he sat in the man's office and visited while my brother and I ventured into the future. I never understood the ending, or the beginning for that matter, but the middle part took me into space and I was there. No really, I was in the Odyssey spacecraft running alongside Dave Bowman as he exercised. But this new film promised me more than I could imagine. I needed to see it. I required it. It became my purpose.
I thought of little else for the rest of the summer. Of course, I had no real idea what lay in store for me and the millions of other fans of the series, but I had an inkling and that was enough. When I saw the 'Coming Soon' posters at the Caribou Cinemas just down the street from by father's office, I marked it on my calendar, determined to be the first, or at least one of the first, to see Star Wars in my hometown.
My mother's cousin, a man named Roger Paul, was the projectionist at the Caribou Cinemas. I knew him only slightly, but well enough to know that around the perimeter of his bedroom at my great Aunt Annie's house were detailed models of every movie monster to grace the silver screen. There was the Wolfman, the Thing from Another World, Frankenstein and Dracula, and the Mummy, among others. His love of film was almost certainly as deep as my own and I developed a simple plan.
Putting on my best smile, even though I was a teenager and should have been over such fawning and begging, and I asked my mother to speak with her cousin and see if there was even the slightest possibility that I could have my very own private viewing, just the projectionist, Star Wars, and me. It was a long shot, I'll admit, but my mother knew how much I loved science fiction and after all, I was her baby, even though I was all of fifteen . As a boy, one of my earliest memories was being huddled under the afghan ( we always called it the af-a-gan) watching Star Trek with my family in the middle of a northern Maine winter, except I was a member of the crew of the Enterprise and I was going boldly where no man had gone before...and I'm not talking about the Ladies Room. I grew up wanting to be Captain James T. Kirk. I had lofty goals.
My mother made the call and Roger Paul, that wonderful man, agreed to give me one of the greatest gifts of my youth. I would watch Star Wars several hours before anyone else in the city. I would have the honor of knowing that I was one of the first initiates into the World of the Jedi.
I hardly slept the night before and I read and reread the Time Magazine article until the pages were dog-eared and thin. Even Christmas held no greater anticipation for me.
I arrived at the empty theatre a little after three o'clock in the afternoon and knocked on the door, putting my hand over my eyes as I tried to peer into the dark void of the lobby. In a moment, Roger Paul unlocked the door and let me in, looking both ways to ensure that no one saw him let me in.
"I'm not supposed to do this," he explained. "Don't tell anyone. I might get fired."
"Geez, thanks, Roger Paul," I replied. I never knew if I was supposed to call him Roger, Roger Paul, or maybe just 'Rog.
"That's okay," he said, giving me a considered look. "You love the movies, don't you?"
"Yes. Almost as much as you," I answered knowlingly.
Roger Paul was a lot older than me and he was a wildly flamboyant man, better suited to the big city night life than the quiet little place we called home. He was as out of place as I would find myself to be. Even though many years separated us, we were blood and we had a shared interest...no, a shared passion, for the stories told on film in the dark, as we allowed our minds to suspend disbelief and journey to far places we could never really go. The movies were that far shore whose sands we could never actually touch. But we could dream, we could reach, we could pretend, for roughly two hours at a time, in Panavision.
"You want to watch it with me, up in the projection booth?"
"Really? Yeah, sure!" I answered, barely able to curb my enthusiasm.
I had never been in a projection booth before. Many times I had glanced back while sitting in the glorious dark at the little square of glass and the light diffracting as it forged its way through, throwing dreams on a white screen to urge us onward and make us forget our own daily drudgeries. I had no idea what to expect.
It was a long, narrow room high atop a set of stairs, almost completely occupied by two massive projectors. He had already threaded the first two reels on each projector. As one film reached its end, he watched for the two little dots to show up on the edge of the screen and that was his cue to start the second projector and turn the first one off. He looked at me excitedly and asked, "Ready?"
"Ready," I replied.
He flicked the switch and I stood next to the little window and watched as the words appeared over a star field and then the yellow rolling lines of test came into view and when they were lost in the distance, the largest space ship that I had ever seen began to roll its underside over me and I was lost.
I can't remember much except that for the next two hours, the real world outside ceased to exist and I was lost in an alternate reality. I had never seen anything like this film, had never comprehended that such a simple story could have so much power and that so few characters could epitomize the meaning of heroism for me. Soon I would need to become the hero of my own narrative and my rite of passage was on the horizon only two years away. I can't recall just how time stood still and caught me off-guard, ready to fall into a maelstrom of Tie fighters, X-wings, banthas, droids, wookies and Jedi Knights from the Old Republic.
I do remember taking a moment and looking over at my second cousin, Roger Paul. He was looking through the other little window, as enthused and enraptured as I was, and though he was older, he was lost, too. For a brief two hours, we shared a singular event. A simple thing, to watch a film together, to cheat and see it first before most of the viewing public had a chance, but that small act of kindness and that little bit of rule-breaking gave us something special. We were both longing for another world, a chance to prove ourselves away from the old hometown, just like Luke Skywalker. We did not know what lay in store but we were willing to take a leap of faith, if not in the Force, than in something greater than ourselves.
We may not have been the first people in North America, other than the film-makers, to see Star Wars. Movies came weeks later to our town, long after they were released in the big cities, even though once in a while, we got the big movies first. We were definitely the first to see it in my neck of the woods and this is something that I will always treasure. There's no way to quantify or prove it, but I knew in my heart that I was among the first to experience something wonderful, something beyond my own imagining, something new in the world of the imagination.
Roger Paul asked me how I liked it when it was all over. I had no words. I think I said something like, "Great. Thanks!" But whatever I said, it paled in comparison to what I felt. I left the theatre, the bright sun of the late afternoon burning my eyes like the twin suns of Tatooine.
Roger Paul left for some southern city soon afterward, never to return, and I had to find my own way. My father wanted me to go into business with him, but I had other ideas. The Universe was too large a place for me to stay in this farm country for long. There would be long distances to travel, but one day, we would leave this place and find the princess and ally ourselves with a wise teacher and a wise-cracking friend and if we drove a Pinto instead of the Millenium Falcon, well, that was just because we lived in the real world, even though our hearts were in a galaxy, far, far, away.
Today, New Castle is a small town of 2.4 square miles at the mouth of the Piscataqua River in New Hampshire bordering the neighboring state of Maine. Today, only 968 people call the town home. Originally settled in 1623, this hamlet was originally populated by a small number of people, primarily fishermen and tradesmen. The island also included farmers from its beginnings and a certain tavern to welcome visitors and shield them from the cold and rain of a coastal New England climate. Though the town is called New Castle, the island itself is known as Great Island and it is the location of one the strangest set of poltergeist-like activity known in early New England. For a period, the small island's fame grew not only in the early colonies but back in England and Europe. It seems Great Island may have been the home of not one, but many devils.
New Hampshire became an independent colony, separating from Massachusetts in 1680. To give you sense of the timeline, the following year, William Penn would be granted a charter from King Charles II, which would make him the proprietor of Pennsylvania. The following year, invisible spirits began pouring a rain of stones outside and inside the Tavern Inn on Great Island, New Hampshire and the echoes of those falling stones would reach down through the years to a little town known as Salem, Massachusetts. New England was still largely wild and wooded, with the Devil in the form of "Old Scratch" lurking in the forests just outside the village common. Ministers in their pulpits exclaimed the tortures of sinners in the hands of an angry God. Magic was as accepted as science is today and to a large degree, people lived in fear of what they did not understand, which was a considerable amount. This was a land of settlers who had no rescue from the nature that railed against them with storm, cold, drought or snow. An entire ocean separated these people from the aid of their families and friends in England.
George and Alice Walton owned the tavern on Great Island. One night in early June in the year 1682, the couple first witnessed what would later become a plague of stones being thrown at and somehow within their tavern. As the calmness of a spring evening was shattered by not one, but a rain of stones thrown at the house from outside, the guests and family within were held hostage. We know of the events of this night because one of the people staying there, Richard Chamberlain, later wrote of it in his account titled "Lithobolia: or, the Stone-Throwing Devil." published in 1698. He writes that on that night "about Ten a Clock, many Stones were heard by my self, and the rest of the Family, to be thrown, and (with Noise) hit against the top and all sides of the House." Calling them "lapidary salutations," he claimed that this rain of stones continued to assail the inhabitants of the building for four more hours. Looking out of the windows into the moonlit night, no one could see what group of people must be responsible for such a barrage of stones being thrown. Granted, the grasses and wild growth would be fresh and wick in early June, perhaps high enough to hide a garrison of stone-throwers, but a full moon should have helped to illuminate the scene enough to see someone close enough to be responsible for the stone rain.
One can imagine that the Waltons might have angered or upset someone on the island enough to engender their anger and response in the form of rocks being thrown. Almost any able bodied person could hide in a concealed space and throw stones all night if they wanted in an attempt to frighten or at least to pester the Waltons and their guests. What is stranger still is that some of the stones actually appeared to be thrown inside the house and how this would have been possible remains a mystery. After looking outside to see if their was anyone, Chamberlain closed the door and then barely escaped grievous bodily harm when a "great Hammer brushing along the top or roof of the Room from the other end, as I was walking in it, and lighting down by me."
He also mentions stones fell from the ceiling to the floor in full view of the people in the room and the pewter on the sideboards were hit with stones causing them to tumble to the floor. Stones also fell from the chimney. When he could stay awake no longer, he claims he went to bed and fell asleep, only to be awakened "with the unwelcome disturbance of another Battery of a different sort, it issuing with so prodigious a Noise against the thin Board-wall of my Chamber (which was within another) that I could not imagine it less than the fracture and downfall of great part of the Chamber." Running from his room and encountering Walton in the downstairs, Chamberlain was shown an eight and a half pound stone that had been responsible for the great commotion, smashing against his door. Strangely enough, not a single pane of glass was broken that night. Whoever had been throwing the stones must have very good aim indeed.
More strangeness ensued the next morning. The chimney spit that had disappeared earlier in the day fell from the chimney wedged as though it had been dropped from a great height. Night had passed, but the stone throwing continued throughout the day. The family and guest, even workmen in the fields witnessed the event but no stone throwers could be seen. What was seen was a black cat walking through the grass, a cat that did not belong to them.
The rocks did not stop flying all summer and they were not only aimed at the tavern. It seemed that George Walton was the main target, after all. When traveling to another property he owned farther up the river, he was the target of stones. His workers gathering hay in the field also were hit. Sounds of snorting and high-pitched whistling were barely audible but definitely there, in the air. George Walton was hit by rocks over forty times, but it did not stop him from attending to his business.
The technical term for stones being thrown by invisible hands is 'lithobolia.' Acknowledged by the New Englanders of the time as supernatural in origin, they decided that the only was to beat the Devil tormenting them was to turn to tried and true methods, passed down by generations of wise men and women. First, they boiled a pot of bent pins in urine. This was then put in bottles and buried under the hearth, a bane to witches, personal human servants of Beelzebub. Though this might have worked, the Waltons would never know. Before they could bury the concoction, a stone from the chimney fell and smashed the bottle.
Today we might try to explain away this tale as an exaggerated instance of vandals bothering neighbors and that the witnesses were taking great license with the actual events, over blowing them for the sake of a good read. After all, Chamberlain's account of the entire affair was written sixteen years after the supposed events. If accounts from the time are to believed, the Walton family was the target of a true paranormal, supernatural onslaught, the kind of attack we seldom hear of or read about in the modern world. Lithobolia is a term that is nearly out of circulation; it simply doesn't seem to happen in the modern world.
Witchcraft was a real concern in the 1680s. Though people believed in the veracity of witchcraft, no major persecutions had taken place. People walked guardedly and said their prayers and made sure to procure certain remedies against the servants of Satan, but people were also loath to point the accusatory finger or hang a neighbor woman on the mere suspicion of her association with evil. No, that hadn't yet taken root in the fertile soil of early New England society. That had to start somewhere. The lithobolia event of 1682 would set into motion a series of events that would lead to the Salem Witch trials and the wave of witch hysteria that would blanket much of superstitious New England.
George Walton decided that witchcraft needed a witch and that person must be none other than his neighbor of thirty years, Hannah Jones. A long standing feud over property may have been the seed that urged this evil weed to grow. How an elderly woman could have either thrown the stones herself of obtained a cadre of strong-armed stone throwers to work her evil against the Waltons is illogical. Today we would dismiss Walton's claims as spurious, but other people witnessed the lithobolia. If she didn't throw the stones, who did?
Things are seldom what they seem. Ghosts or demons might indeed be the stone-throwers and their ability to appear and disappear at will would account for the stones thrown inside the house. If we recall that the good people of Great Island, New Hampshire in 1682 believed that the Devil prowled in the dark depths of the woods outside their doors, it all begins to take on a weight and gravitas that modern people would simply laugh off. It was real to them. They believed.
What the reader needs to understand is that the Walton family did not usually get along. Those in the employ of the Waltons were not inclined to hold any great love of the owner of the tavern. The Anchor, their tavern, had been cited as a place of drink, fornication, and illicit affairs for years. A favorite haunt of the sailors fresh into neighboring Portsmouth, George Walton kept a household very different from the usual Puritanical homestead. In 1664 George Walton and his wife Alice were convicted' of being Quakers, at the time a radical Protestant sect and considered dangerous and untrustworthy by mainline Protestants. This had all happened because their daughter, Abishag, had been taken to court for the crime of not showing up for services for many months prior.
A Quaker and a man of the world, he would accept those from the fringe more readily into his company than most. Perhaps Walton's reputation bought him more than a few enemies. Quakers were social reformers and were open-minded in a close-minded world. Many people found themselves at odds with the innkeeper and his wife. During the time of King Philips's War (also called the First Indian War June 1675-August 1676) almost all the towns of Maine and New Hampshire were attacked by the Abnaki and most people took arms against them. The Waltons did just the opposite - they joined raiding bands of Abnaki and raided in Maine for plunder. They were tired later, but the crime, it was said, took place in Maine and not New Hampshire and so was not in the court's jurisdiction. Certainly the knowledge of their escapade into Maine was well-known to the folks in the area, marking the family as one to watch and not one to trust.
Enough enemies and rocks might be the least of things thrown. Great Island had only 512 acres of land. Only a portion of that was tillable, arable soil. The best crop on much of the island was rocks. In 1680, George owned about one fifth of all of the farmland on the island. Land disputes took up a great deal of the time of the courts of the day and were the main item of dispute in many records of town meetings. Boundaries were a stone here, a tree there, and perhaps a river. These were imprecise and loose boundaries, at best. Arguments over even tiny section of land were not uncommon and would lead toward some dark days when accusations were as blurry and as vague as the boundary markers on the land. Richard Chamberlain, our author in residence who had witnessed the lithobolia attack, claimed that the entire affair came about because of some such dispute between Walton and a neighbor named Hannah Jones. His prominence and already large share of the land on the island possibly helped him in winning his claim and taking the small piece of property that she so vigorously claimed was hers. We will never know. Stones began to fly and continued to fly. Walton blamed witchcraft and pointed to his angry neighbor Hannah as the witch.
A long dispute over land had already lingered in Hannah Jone's life. Her husband now dead and a fifteen year long battle with the courts over another land dispute left her older and poorer than she would have liked. When Hannah finally was awarded a positive outcome by the courts in her battle for her own inheritance, she was now had money and perhaps the tenacity to battle her old neighbor, George Walton. It was probably a bad idea to bother the old Quaker, after all.
In June of 1682, George Walton specifically laid out his charges against his old neighbor, Goodwife Jones. A bond was issued against her to maintain the peace, which meant, presumably, to stop the demons from throwing their stones. On the fourth of July, 1682, Goodwife Jones filed her own charges against Walton, claiming his horse kept breaking into her pasture but she could not do anything about it because of the peace bond paid upon her. Despite the acrimony and charges, Walton and witnesses claimed that the stones kept flying. Finally, George Walton took the next step in his anger toward the old woman and his grasping clutching for land: he confided to a neighbor that he 'believed in his heart and conscience that Grandma Jones was a witch.' What had been a fairly common case of neighbors fighting over a parcel of land had quickly devolved into a case of witchcraft. In years to come, events in Salem, Massachusetts would echo these events.
George Walton started his smear campaign against his neighbor, claiming that she and all her women relatives were witches, She countered that the old Quaker was a wizard. The problem with this accusation of Jones was that only a witch would know the identity of a wizard. To the minds of early New Englanders, it was tantamount to a confession. It had long been known that Hannah's own mother, Jane Walford, had lived for decades with the accusation of witchcraft hanging over her head. In the early days, before the events at Salem, it was not easy to convict someone of being a witch in New England. Extreme claims required extreme evidence in the early days and her mother, Jane, was never actually convicted. That did not stop gossip and goodwives spreading rumors. Mothers passed down their witchcraft to their daughters, it was believed, and so Hannah might indeed be as everyone suspected what her mother was - a bona fide witch, part of a coven that did their malicious deeds throughout the Piscatiqua. White magic was practiced by many, including the boiling of pins in urine - but this was a protective kind of conjuring, done by wise folk and did not harm. Helpful magic was accepted. Black magic was not. In any case, it was usually one person's word against another. In the world of early New England, witchcraft accusations were not all that uncommon. By many accounts, nearly 140 people had been accused of the crime of witchcraft between 1638 and 1697 and most of these occurred in one county - Essex County in Massachusetts.
What was a witch to an early New Englander? Why would she resort to stone-throwing devils? Wouldn't a simple curse be more advantageous for her? In the mind of the early settlers, she was not as we in the modern world have stereotyped her. She was not always poor, not always ugly, not always strange. She could be married, have property, be respectable in all other ways except for a singular instance when someone claimed foul play on her part. She didn't even need to be female. Twenty percent of all witchcraft accusations were made against men. Still, the settlers had come from Europe, where the witch mania was a long tradition.
To George Walton, a witch was a simple explanation for the stones that kept hitting his home and his body no matter where he went. If we only had his word for the stone-throwing, we could very easily dismiss it as a fabrication used to gain advantage over a neighbor in an old land dispute, but we have the testimony of others. To what extent these others would lie to help their friend by perpetrating a false case against Goodwife Jones is unknown, but it does seem unlikely that so many would be involved. Unless Goodwife Jones had a small army to stone throwers who were also adept at disappearing, the case becomes easy to assign to some paranormal source. Perhaps too easy? It is easy to imagine that George Walton's rather puritanical neighbors might have hated him so much that they sent him a message - in the form of stones. Perhaps it was an early American form of trolling, after all? After all, the first Quakers to arrive in Boston were quickly deported and laws were passed against their entrance into the colony, and four Quakers paid with their lives when they tested the weight of those laws. Puritans and Quakers were near opposites and their interactions were rarely civil. But the Quakers were here to stay, often residing in Maine, where they were safer from persecution than they were in New Hampshire. Kittery was a stronghold for early Quakers. But Quakers would become the targets for witchcraft accusations, as well. It seemed that, at the time, anyone who was not in the mainstream was a fair target, including George Walton for his Quaker beliefs or Hannah Jones for her association with her mother's prior witchcraft accusation.
In his exhaustively researched book on the topic, The Devil of Great Island, Emerson W. Baker states, "This led some devout Great Islanders to take out their frustration on the Waltons, the family whose presence seemed to mock their desire to maintain a godly community. So the stones flew all summer long. The names of the culprits will probably never be known. The active participants were no doubt joined by others who silently observed the attacks and refused to implicate the guilty."
Whoever did throw those stones were cause for copycat attacks later that same year. A case of lithobolia in Connecticut and another in Maine occurred shortly after the attack on Walton's tavern, with the usual demonic source being cited in the service of some witch. The Reverend Joshua Moody of Kittery told Increase Mather, "There are sundry reports among us that seem to bee matters of witchcraft." The attacks in Portsmouth, Berwick Maine and Connecticut gained notoriety and the word of demonic stone-throwing devils spread throughout the villages and hamlets of old New England. The good people of Salem would, no doubt, have heard of the them, too. Though we will remember the Salem Witch mania mainly by a ghostly attack against a group of young girls, lithobolia attacks were mentioned and were a part of the events that caused so much vitriol and violent repercussions.
The Brown family of Reading, Massachusetts, in 1692, heard footfalls on their roof and stones began to pelt the roof, as well. Ten years had passed since the first attacks in New Hampshire, but it appeared that the devil was back. In the Brown family case a woman named Sarah Cole was held responsible for the stone-throwing and the illness that affected the family.In Gloucester, noises of stones being thrown were reported by their minister, John Emerson. Though it is a far stretch of the imagination to directly link the events in Salem with those in Portsmouth, it is clear that there are parallels. The idea that stones, thrown by humans but attributed to devils, could provide an opening for accusations of witchcraft, is important when considering how the accusers got the ball rolling. All one needed to do was throw stones, or even claim to have been the victim of such lithobolia and have the tacit consent of silent witnesses and then point the finger, fueling the ire of the superstitious populace. One thing would lead to another and fairly soon, there are witches among the people, ruining their crops, making them sick and throwing a barrage of stones that only a demon could manage.
In the end, the land dispute between George Walton and Goodwife Hannah Jones lasted longer than either of them. We do not know when they died - the records have been lost, but we know that George died first. As to the accusations of witchcraft against Goodwife Jones, nothing ever came of it. You can't try a dead woman. However, the spark that lit the fire of one neighbor against another in New England can be traced back to Great Island and the emnity between people of different religions, different world views and different social standing. It is fairly clear that the Devil did show his ugly head on Great Island, but not in the form of a stone-throwing horned imp. Instead, he may have looked a little like George Walton and a little like Hannah Jones and perhaps, a little like all those who so steadfastly believed in him.
SOURCES
PODCAST: https://mainehumanities.org/blog/podcasts/the-devil-of-great-island/
BOOK: Baker, Emerson W., THE DEVIL OF GREAT ISLAND Witchcraft and Conflict in Early New England, 2007, Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Online version of Richard Chamberlain's - Click Here Lithobolia: or, the Stone-Throwing Devil. Being an Exact and True Account (by way of Journal) of the various Actions of Infernal Spirits, or (Devils Incarnate) Witches, or both; and the great Disturbance and Amazement they gave to George Waltons Family, at a place call’d Great Island in the Province of New-Hantshire in New-England, chiefly in Throwing about (by an Invisible hand) Stone, Bricks, and Brick-bats of all Sizes, with several other things, as Hammers, Mauls, Iron-Crows, Spits, and other Domestick Utensils, as came into their Hellish Minds, and this for the space of a Quarter of a Year.
Burr, George Lincoln, "Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706", 1914
No one knows his name. No one knows his motives. All that is known is where he lingers, what he looks like, how he haunts the living and the circumstances under which he appears. This is the stuff of nightmares, told around a campfire while the stars dance and the long shadows grow. What is known about him, whether it is from academic research or here-say, only creates more questions than answers.
This spirit can be found on Route 44 at the edge of Rehoboth, Massachusetts. The ghost usually looks like a red-headed man wearing a red flannel shirt and jeans. He has a large red beard as well as red hair. He is usually 6 feet tall and described as 'well built' by witnesses. Sometimes, he is very clean cut in his appearance and has his shirt tucked in. Other times, he is dirty and disheveled. The circumstances under which this ghost appears are as specific as the location, but not uncommon or desolate. Most witnesses who find this ghost usually drive on a stretch of Route 44 that is at the end of Rehoboth, Massachussets and on the edge of Seekonk. Usually, motorists chance upon this ghost either at or after 10:00 PM into the small hours of the morning.
While many accounts have surfaced over the years, the most detailed and reliable source on this spirit has been collected by Charles Turek Robinson in his book New England Ghost Files: An Authentic Compendium of Frightening Phantoms, a book that is sadly out-of-print. Originally an anthropologist, Charles took an interest in ghost files when he first received letters from people who described their own encounters with the supernatural. He began to see patterns in many of the accounts that made him question the authenticity of what he received. To screen out stories that are, for whatever reason, inauthentic, he devised a method of interviewing where he would have witnesses retell their accounts three times. If their retellings remained consistent, he considered the accounts to be from people who were not prone to superstition or lying. For the accounts relating to this ghost, most witnesses reported that even decades after the events, they were still shaken up.
One man recalled that he did not even have to stop his car to see the ghost. While driving by himself down this road one night, he looked towards the passenger side window and saw the red-headed man pressing his face against the glass, grinning at him. He immediately pulled over when he saw this and by then, the ghost was gone. It took the man ten minutes to calm down enough to continue his drive.
Another man's experience with this ghost started like most hitch-hiking ghost stories: he saw the man on the side of the road hitchhiking and pulled over to pick him up. He then asked the man where he wanted to go. But the ghost did not reply, stared at him blankly and smiled at him. After trying to find out where his passenger was headed, the driver became unsettled and pulled over again. He ordered the ghost to leave the car, but instead of opening the car door, he faded away.
There is a more unsettling incident involving a woman who thought she had run him over. The ghost appeared right in front of her car and she had no time to stop. When she thought she had hit him, she stopped the car and got out to investigate. She did this despite the fact that she felt nothing under the car and heard no tell-tale thuds. When she turned to go back into her car, she suddenly heard disembodied laughter. It didn't stop with her getting back in the car and driving off. Again, her car passed through the ghost. This time, she didn't leave the car. Instead, she stuck her head out of her car window to look at the road ahead of her. She saw that there was nothing on the road ahead of her. Again, the disembodied laughter echoed, but was much closer this time. She put her foot to the acceleration pedal after rolling up her window. Ever since, this woman has always been scared of driving alone at night.
The most hair-raising account given regarding this ghost comes from a couple whose car broke down on this stretch of road after 10:00 PM. The husband told his wife to stay with the car while he moved forward to find a house where he could call AAA to get a tow truck. As he walked down the road, he saw the ghost sitting by the roadside. He had his red plaid shirt and red hair and beard, but his clothing and hair were in disarray. Thinking this was a living man, the husband asked him if he knew where he could find a phone to use. He had to ask several times, because the only response he got from this ghost was staring and grinning. When the ghost stared and grinned at him, the husband asked him if he was alright.
At this moment, the husband reported that the ghost's mouth began to twist. The ghost's eyes then glazed over into pure white. As the husband backed off slowly at first, then started to hurry. He heard the man's eerie laughter, but when he stopped and turned around, the ghost wasn't there. The laughter lingered, however. It also spontaneously switched location. One second it was in front of the husband and the next, it was behind him and then to one side or the other. The disembodied laughter continued to follow him until it stopped suddenly.
When the husband returned to the car, he found his wife sobbing. When he asked her what was wrong, she told him that while he was gone, something impossible happened. She was sitting in the car when her husband left and turned on the radio to pass the time. After a few minutes, a voice interrupted the song. She assumed it was the DJ at first, but the voice then addressed the wife by her name: something the DJ should not be able to do. After this, the ghost then began to mock her and laugh in an unsettling way. The wife got out of the car to escape this, but she was so frightened by what happened, she remained outside of the car until her husband came back. While the couple was able to flag down another driver and get back home, the husband believed that this incident made his wife a much more nervous woman.
Further research was conducted, to see if there was any additional information available on who this person was (if he was ever human, that is). It was also hoped that the identity of the ghost would be named and with it, an explanation for why he did not cross over and instead haunts the living. If he also has a name, it would answer the question of what he is as well. Also, Charles Turek Robinson conducted the interviews for this book in the 1990s. Since the Internet has grown in size and users, more information might be available that was otherwise difficult to acquire. Unfortunately, the most information that can be gleaned did not go through the same rigorous process that Charles used when he collected accounts for his book. According to various online articles which include blog posts and newspaper articles, there are records of someone who died on the road that matches the description of the ghost.It has proven difficult to confirm this, because whatever information can be found creates more questions than answers.
The closest that this author can come to a name is "Herbie Redd", from comments written in a Youtube video published by user "Creepy Places of New England". According to these comments, mostly written by the publisher of the video series: "NinjaCthulu", the phantom was a man who was a farmer who was hit and killed on the same stretch of road he haunts while trying to change a tire. The commentator further adds that he knew a police officer who once knew the phantom in life. He did not list the name of the officer or any details about the conversation with said officer. All he said was that the officer spoke fondly of this man, suggesting that he liked this person in life.On the same comment feed, this same commentator goes on to say that the man was drunk and was hit by a car while stumbling home.
While looking up obituaries under this name, no obituary relating to the right time period or place showed up. Accounts of this ghost started in the 1960s, suggesting that if this ghost was once a living man, he would have died in that decade. A quick Google search of obituaries from this time period for anyone under that name in the area of Rehoboth and Seekonk, Massachussets turned up very little to match this description.
It isn't common for people commenting on Youtube videos to cite their references or for those who post the video to screen out irrelevant or inaccurate information. This makes the 'Creepy Places of New England" theories the product of Internet folklore at best. No obituaries or news articles were uncovered which could support any claim made on the comments section of the Youtube video or any evidence that there was a man who died on that road who fit that description in the 1960s.
So whether the accounts come from genuinely frightened people whom an academic has screened for authenticity, vague articles or cryptic messages on a Youtube video, the hitchhiking spectre of Route 44 continues to elude explanation or naming. Because a name and purpose cannot be put on him, the dread he continues to inspire in travelers passing through Seekonk and Rehoboth. If you ever do find yourself driving that isolated road on a dark night, beware of the red-headed stranger who lingers at the side of the road, quietly laughing to himself. He may be laughing at you. Keep driving. Don't stop...unless you have to.
Bibliography
The New England Ghost Files: An authentic compendium of frightening phantoms by Charles Turek Robinson What-When-How.com The Red-Headed Hitchhiker of Route 44 Shadowlands Haunted Places-Massachussets The Most Haunted Place in Massachussets Creepy Places of New England-Route 44 New England Folklore-Red-Headed Hitchhiker of Route 44 Racket Communications.com-Need a ride? Looking for a Vanishing Hitchhiker The Bridgewater Triangle-The Red Headed Hitchhiker The Sun Chronicle-Local Ghost Stories Haunt Cumberland This Weekend Wikipedia-Route 44 Paranormal Encyclopedia-The Bridgewater Triangle UFO Info Roundup, Volume 4, Number 27, October 28th, 1999-1994, Rehobath's Haunted Cemetary
Have you ever known an extremely lucky person, a character so unlikely to be successful due to a perceived lack of wit, money, talent, and education as to be the poster boy for failure? Still, they thrive and persevere against all that the hand of Fate has set against them, perhaps in spite of it all. These people are not as uncommon as it might seem and their success is as strange a thing as we encounter in our daily, sometimes mundane life.
Such is the case with one of New England's most interesting and nearly forgotten characters, the unlikely success known to the world as Timothy Dexter. Born in Maiden, Massachusetts in 1748, Dexter did not have the benefit of an education. By the time he was eight years old he was working on a local farm until the age of sixteen when he apprenticed out to a leather-dresser, coloring and preparing leather for working after the hides had been tanned. When he was twenty-one, the unlikely young man made his way to Newburyport in Massachusetts. Such was the simple fate of a simple man, to gain enough training to make his way in the world, to put a roof over his head and food in his belly. He had no connections. He was not a gentleman. He was a workman with a trade with no formal education and no hope of riches. In pre-revolutionary America, people rarely rose above their station unless they were helped by very connected friends or if, and here the point is clear, they were very, very lucky.
Perhaps the first great piece of luck Dexter found was to marry well. Though he had little to offer her except his peculiar outlook upon the world and his abundant energy, the rich widow Elizabeth Frothingham married him. Together, they bought their first mansion and he began to consort with the wealthy of Newburyport. We are not sure what his contemporaries thought of him, but it is safe to assume that it is likely this unlearned, unlettered young man was ignored or even given bad advice to discourage him from being 'uppity' in the company of the elite. After all, he had no experience with the sycophantic and highly stylized banter that the wealthy of the colony employed as their common tongue. Dexter was a simple, down-to-earth man who was more at home with the servants in his mansion, than he was with his white-wigged neighbors.
Perhaps it was his unorthodox view of the world that helped Timothy Dexter beat the odds and rise far above the ranks of the wealthy of Newburyport at the time. During the war, Dexter managed to hold onto his wife's fortune. After the American Revolution commenced and British currency was difficult to procure, the Continental Congress issued its own script, known as Continentals. The new currency ran from 1/6 of a dollar to an $80 bill. All told, the Continental Congress issued a total of over $240,000,000 by the end of the war. During the war, the script became less and less valuable until a famous addage came into ciruclation - that something was 'not worth a continental.' With little gold to back the paper, many did not believe it was worth the paper it was printed on.
Except for Timothy Dexter. At war's end, Dexter did something few other patriotic rich men were willing to do: he purchased large amounts of the 'worthless' currency, trading good money in for bad. Nearly everyone would have considered this a terrible financial move. As time passed, however, and the new American government began to gain solid ground financially, it made good on its promise to make the continentals worth something. Dexter profited from his purchase and made enough money to build two of his own ships and begin his own export business to the West Indies and to Europe.
There is a saying that some still use, that something silly is like 'shipping coal to Newcastle," which is a city in England that already has plenty of coal in abundance. No one would actually send coal to a coal center to sell unless they were out of their minds. But Timothy Dexter did just that. We do not know if he was aware that there was a coal shortage in Newcastle because of a miners strike: the time it took for a voyage to and from England to Newburyport was long and a strike might well have been over by the time his ship arrived, but it wasn't and Dexter shipped coal to Newcastle and made a good profit on the deal. When the first chain bridge over the Merriamack River was built, Timothy Dexter invested heavily in it. Many at the time thought such a thing unlikely to last and only a few investors were ever found in the first place. But the bridge was a success and offered Dexter a divided of twenty-five cents on the dollar for every year that passed.
Warming pans are heavy brass pans with covers on the end of long wooden poles that go under the mattress and keep those in the grip of a harsh New England winter rather cozy in their beds. Why anyone would ship a boatload of these items to the West Indies requires a great deal of incredulity, but there was Timothy Dexter, who did just that. His competitors must have thought him a fool for such a venture, but Dexter laughed all the way to the bank when the molasses distillers purchased them, took the pin out that held the two brass pans together and made two excellent brass ladles out of each singular warming pan, two for the price of one. He followed this strange transaction up with a boatload of mittens to the West Indies, which were quickly purchased by merchants from Asia who had their own boats heading west to Siberia. Later he sent a boatload of gloves to the South Sea Islands, arriving just in time to sell them to a cadre of Portuguese merchants headed for China and Japan.
Other odd and unaccountable adventures ensured and no matter what he set his lucky hands to, he always rose wealthier and more successful than before, much to the chagrin of those who were bound and determined that one day, this man's luck would surely run out. As a Newburyport merchant, he had connections with the huge American whaling industry whose whale oil businesses kept the lights burning in most of America and Europe. What remained from these behemoths was bone, and a lot of it, particularly from baleen whales. Their mouths offered veritable forests of thin, flexible bone used to filter water and contain the small fish and krill that the giants consumed. Dexter decided to purchase this excess of whalebone without knowing what he could do with it. Most of it was simply dumped into the sea, but Dexter warehoused it, spending a considerable sum to do so. Who could have known that the vagaries of fashion and the introduction of the ladies corset would soon demand tons of this baleen whalebone to use in stiffening the garments to hold in the waistlines and squeeze the inner organs of so many fashionable American and European women. Perhaps Timothy Dexter knew, because he sold all of his whalebone and then some.
Perhaps Dexter will be most remembered for making a profit from the thousands of stray cats that he gathered from the New England cities and then shipped to South Sea Islands in his fleet to sell to islanders who were already suffering from rat infestations originally caused by visiting American and European vessels in the first place. He even anticipated the need for Bibles and made a good profit on the word of God as meaningful missionaries to the East Indies frantically searched for multiple copies of the good book to lay into the hands of the newly baptized natives so that they might learn of the glory of the Lord. Timothy Dexter made that possible, too.
At a time when other merchants from his area spent their money investing in sure things, Dexter made his fortune by bucking trends and trying new things, taking great risks so that he could reap great rewards. Tensions among the elite of Newburyport grew and he and his wife were ostracized from their company. Dexter tried to fit in and perhaps that was his only piece of bad luck, because it didn't work. He did not attend the Presbyterian Church or wear leather breeches. He was a humble worker, a craftsman at best, who happened to marry well and whose unusual world view made him seem the fool when in fact, he was wise. He purchased a mansion and attempted to live like the landed gentry, but no one came to his parties and he wasn't invited to theirs. His family life began to suffer because as a father and a husband he was a good provider, but he was a bad hand at romancing the neighbors. First, he told visitors, presumably not the wealthy ones, that his wife had died and that was why she did not come down to mingle. In fact, she was alive and well. Later, he faked his own demise and then those who loved him, admired him, or simply wanted to make sure he was dead, came to his wake. Over three thousand people showed up.
Dexter continued to thrive. He purchased another estate in New Hampshire, away from those who despised him, and there at the age of fifty, he wrote a book entitled, "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truth in a Homespun Dress." However, there was no punctuation in the book. What rules of grammar that many writers learned, Dexter did not know, or perhaps he simply didn't care. In the book, he told the readers about the problems with politicans, the church and of course, his dear non-dead wife. Even this attempt at publishing seemed likely to fail but Dexter was successful again. Though he began by simply giving his oddly non-punctuated book away, demand for it grew. People couldn't get enough of it. In his second edition, Dexter winks at the world by adding thirteen lines to the original text - all periods. He told his readers to put the periods where they liked - it was all the same to him. The book was reprinted eight more times.
Though others laughed at him and made him the butt of their joke, he had the last laugh. Timothy Dexter came to represent the kind of bold individual who rose from the lowest rank of American society to achieve greatness based upon nothing but his own decisions and foolhardy luck. He was a jester, the harlequin whose plain sense and odd idiosyncrasies set him apart from the old aristocracy and blazed a new path for the sons of more humble men to follow. Timothy Dexter remains one of the luckiest men from old New England.
Sources
The Reader's Digest Book of Strange Stories, Amazing Facts. Reader's Digest Association. 1975. p. 501.
Online version of "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones" Life of Lord Timothy Dexter; with sketches of the eccentric characters that composed his associates..."
This October, Strange New England will cover ghost stories in a special series of articles with a theme befitting Halloween (or The Day of the Dead, if you celebrate it). We will talk about those denizens of New England who never quite left after death, where they remain and their effects on the living. Just as New England's history began with the First Nations that greeted European settlers, so will we kick off a whole month of spooky stories with an obscure Abenaki ghost story that comes with a twist.
There are not many versions of this story, but this one is inspired by the version retold by Tsonakwa and Yolai'kia in their book Seven Eyes, Seven Legs. To date, Tsonakwa and Yolai'kia have the most detailed retelling: Gluskabe and Pogunuk sat around their campfire late one very dark and very unusual night. Even in a time where there was no electricity, the darkness seemed to be thicker and blacker than normal. The sounds of wildlife were barely audible, if at all. Both the god giant and his blue and red fisher friend had to speak loudly to hear each other, but still struggled to be heard. They also threw a lot of wood onto their fire to bring more light and heat to their camp, yet it was still as cold and dark as ever. Both supernatural heroes knew that this was not an ordinary night at all. When the darkness and cold of the deep night was too thick to be penetrated by celestial and man-made light, supernatural mischief must be afoot.
They turned out to be right. The chieftains of the ghostly tribes were due to meet together on this night for an important occasion. Ghosts, like living humans, have a similar social hierarchy and gather together when the need arose. The ghostly leaders were to determine who among them was best suited to lead them all as the 'grand sachem' or grand chief of all of the ghosts. While traveling to the meeting place, they spotted their opportunity for the challenge they were seeking out. They all decided that whoever could scare these two larger-than-life heroes would be declared the grand chief of the ghosts. They knew Gluskabe and Pogunuk were great heroes who were not easily frightened, but if one of their number could scare these two heroes, he or she would be considered powerful enough and frightening enough to lead them all.
First, the ghostly figure, Screech Owl Woman, uttered a spell to secure the heroes' backs to the large pine tree they were sitting against. Forced to sit up and watch, each ghost took a turn to scare the two larger than life heroes. They began with the least frightening ghost chiefs at first, to weed out those who were obviously unfit. They laughed at their non-spooky kinsmen as they each took their turn. Soon, their more frightening chiefs were taking turns. But much to every ghost's dismay, none of their own frightened him. In fact, Gluskabe laughed with delight at them and told them how entertaining he thought they were. Meanwhile, Pogunuk began to fall asleep.By the time each ghost chief had taken his turn trying to scare the god-giant and his friend, no one was laughing at each other's expense anymore. All of them were frustrated and annoyed that their efforts to be terrifying were resulting in the snoring and laughter of their intended victims.
But one ghost still laughed.
They all turned to hear the tiny laughter of a little ghost child. Tired and frustrated, one of the ghost chiefs then said to this ghost child "If you're so brave, let's see YOU scare the Great Gluskabe!" With little ceremony, the ghost child was forced to face the god-giant alone. His eyes grew wide and his little ethereal knees knocked together as he looked up at Gluskabe, who was so much larger than he was. Gluskabe began to feel pity for this little ghost child, who looked up at him with fear in his small, searching eyes. It is also possible that Gluskabe was also feeling very weary as well, since he was being deprived of sleep by this mass of ghosts. To end this tiresome contest once and for all, Gluskabe decided to pretend to be scared. He flailed his arms and legs all around and then proceeded to faint in an over-reaching display of mock fear. He even stuck his tongue out when he pretended to faint for added effect.
Gluskabe's performance of being scared was so convincing, that it left all of the ghost chieftains astonished and humiliated. By the rules of their contest, the little ghost child that no one thought was frightening became the one who ruled them all. He became even bolder after this victory and stole Gluskabe's tobacco pipe, holding it aloft with pride while the other ghosts, chiefs and all, escorted him to their meeting wigwam. As the dawn rose, Gluskabe saw the ghosts grow invisible. It now looked like the pipe was floating in the air down the dirt road all by itself.
As Pogunuk began to wake up, Gluskabe confided in his friend:"I should not have made such a big deal over such a small thing. Now, I've lost my smoking pipe." They also were left struggling to get up, because Screech Owl Woman had not uttered a spell to get them unstuck from the pine tree. After much pulling and pushing, they finally managed to stand up and go after the stolen pipe with large pieces of pine bark still stuck to their backs. Bare patches were left on the pine tree as a result.
According to Tsonakwa and Yolai'kia, the Abenaki tribes never feared ghosts, because they knew from this story that despite being terrifying in sound and appearance, they were all led by a small, overconfident child who was far less powerful and frightening than he thought he was.
There is not much written about this story. However, it does contain a valuable moral: never make a big deal out of something small.
Bibliography
Seven Eyes, Seven Legs: Supernatural Stories of the Abenaki by Tsonakwa and Yolai'kia. Kuloscap is a great hero who owns a great pipe on frenys.com campfire-flickr.com, under Creative Commons License 4.0
Out of place artifacts are items, objects or curiosities that are out of place or out of time. They seem to occur or are discovered at random times and places, for no apparent rhyme or reason and these anomalies lead to nearly impossible conclusions about their origins. Historians and scientists largely discount these items because they logically do not fall into the range of possibility and therefore must be accounted for through means not yet known to science. They are largely dismissed as hoaxes, although a few have proven to be actual items that simply defy explanation and lead to very interesting conclusions. The Baghdad Battery is such an item. Wilhelm Konig, a professional painter who worked at the National Museum of Iraq saw three distinct elements together in the museum that did not seem related to anyone but him. When he returned to his native Germany in the 1940s, he wrote an analysis of the three items and determined that long before anyone on earth should have known about electricity, someone in ancient Iraq had created a battery. The three pieces were a terra-cotta pot, a rolled copper cylinder and an iron rod. His idea that these items were not used to store scrolls, as was previously thought, but to produce an electric current, possibly with lemon or grape juice, wine or vinegar as the electrolyte. This wild theory was eventually tested over and over again, even taking center stage on an episode of Mythbusters, where a series of such batteries produced four volts, enough to electroplate an item. Historians and scientists had to take another look at the Baghdad Battery and at least admit that it was possible that someone in the near east at least partially understood the dynamics of electricity over two hundred years before the Common Era.
New England is not without its out-of-place artifacts, from the Maine Penny to the mysterious Stone Egg of Lake Winnipesaukee. However, it is the Dorchester Pot whose provenance and history make it clear that anyone who wanted could easily make outrageous claims that the media would pounce upon and use to sell more copy. We have to travel back to pre-Civil War America, to 1852, to be exact. Just south of South Boston, the City of Dorchester is old and is considered part of the old great city itself. However, there is no way that it is as old as the Dorchester Pot seems to purport. The claim is simple. Explosives were used to remove and break up a mass of rock on Meeting House Hill. Cleaning up the loose 'puddingstone', part of the Roxbury Conglomerate, workers discovered the two pieces of the pot. Except it wasn't technically a pot. Perhaps it was a candlestick. Perhaps it was something else entirely. Bell-shaped and made of metal, is was described as being about 4.5 inches high, 6.5 inches in diameter at the base and 2.5 inches in diameter at the top. Elaborately decorated with swirls and filigree, it represented metalwork of a very high degree of sophistication. However, for it be where it was, fifteen feet below the surface of the ground embedded within conglomerate rock, it would need to be at least 593 million years old. The Roxbury Conglomerate formed as an accumulation at the bottom of a rift basin, coupled with the pressure of metamorphism during the distantly remote Ediacaran Period. There weren't too many blacksmiths working in the Dorchester area millions of years ago, but that didn't stop the editors of Scientific American from claiming that it might have been created by Tubal Cain, the first blacksmith, as mentioned in the Bible. (Genesis 4:19-24). Perhaps the crafty editor couldn't help himself. After all, one would have to wander far from logic to think that the 'pot' had actually been in the rock, instead of on it. Perhaps some time traveler dropped it as a joke, some out-of-place object that would throw a monkey wrench into our clearly defined timeline and our sense of logic. Fringe theorists existed in 1852 even as they exist and thrive today. Some believe that our understanding of the passage of time and the science of geology are wrong and that humans have been on earth for much longer than our modern theories claim.
The Dorchester Pot has some modern controversy attached to it in the form of the attention given it by the Falun Gong. This religion, so popular and widely adhered to that it causes the Chinese government to clamp down upon its practice, claims on its website, "Pure Insight" that the pot is 100,000 years old. Why such attention is given to a simple Victorian ornament gives rise to the fascination and importance such groups ascribe to out-of-place artifacts. If in fact the pot was actually embedded in the rock that was blasted from Meeting House Hill in 1852, it would mean that metalworkers existed in American over 600 million years ago, or perhaps only 100,000 years ago, if you are a believer in the views of the Falun Gong.
We aren't sure where the pot is anymore. We don't even know where the photo used in this article and all over the Internet and in print, actually comes from. Some websites claim that the metal has been analyzed by researchers at M.I.T., but that is a spurious, unsubstantiated claim. The pot is simply a part of history now, not even truly an out-of-place artifact. Lost or misplaced, without the actual evidence, we have nothing but a story in Scientific American and a photo of something that might be but cannot be proven to be the real Dorchester Pot.
References
http://secretaryofinnovation.com/2010/10/15/freaky-friday-ooparts-out-of-place-artifacts/
"A Relic of a Bygone Age," Scientific American, June 5, 1852.
Fort, Charles H. (1919) The Book of the Damned. New York, New York, Boni and Liveright 228 p. ISBN 1-58509-278-9 Mentioned on page 128 of Chapter IX and The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort
New Hampshire has always held a fascination for me, but it's not the mountains or the live free or die attitude. It's not the New Hampshire Motor Speedway or Strawberry Banke, either. As a young man from far northern Maine, I took my share of trips out of the state at the rate of about two a year. Each time we drove into New Hampshire, especially at night and we passed the sign that read 'Exeter' I turned my eyes to the skies. You see, in my young imagination, the Granite State's reputation as a UFO hotspot fired my imagination. When I was a kid, I read John G. Fuller's Incident at Exeter (now out of print) and it forever altered my view of UFOs. This year, if you've a mind that turns to wondering about such things, there will be a celebration of sorts in the town of Exeter, New Hampshire. On September 5 and 6, the town is hosting the Exeter UFO Festival, a fundraiser for the local Kiwanis Club and its charitable programs.
This is a blend of campy fun and serious ufology studies. With a list of speakers, from physicist Stanton Friedman to political commentator Richard Dolan, visitors will receive more than their fair share of serious investigatory work. Meanwhile, kids can explore a UFO 'Crash Site" in the park, along with extraterrestrial arts and crafts. A fun time is to be had by all. But the best part might be after all of the talks and activities, when the town quiets down and the night skies darken. Then, all you need to do is possibly just look up to be 'entertained.'
Of course, those who visit the festival on a lark might find themselves fascinated by two of the most famous UFO stories ever investigated. The famous "Hill Abduction" of 1961 is the more famous of the two cases. It gained attention in the media as the first widely publicized report of an alien abduction in the country. A best-selling book by John G. Fuller, The Interrupted Journey, sold like hotcakes from the bookstore shelves. Even today, Betty and Barney Hill's notes, tapes and other items including the dress she shore during the abduction have been placed in the University of New Hampshire's permanent collection. The state has even marked the site of the alleged abduction with an appropriate historical marker. For readers interested in the Hill Abduction, there are plenty of online resources that detail their story. It is definitely worth the research and reading, but in the end, we only have the words of the couple and Betty's dreams as a kind of remembrance of the events. Later hypnosis seemed to confirm the 'truth' of the events, though hypnosis still must rely solely on subjective testimony.
The other famous case concerns events that occurred in nearby Kensington in the early morning of September 3, 1965 and are in the official police records of the Exeter Police At around two in the morning, 18 year old Norman Muscarello was hitchhiking to his parent's home along Highway 150. Having already enlisted in the U.S.Navy, he had been spending time with his girlfriend at her parent's home in Amesbury, Massachusetts. There was little traffic on the road at that time of night and he spent most of his time walking. He noticed five red lights low in the sky, flashing on and off. Later, he would claim that the craft with the lights was as big as a house. According to his story, when the 'thing' moved away from him and began hovering over a nearby farmhouse, Muscarello jumped out of the ditch he had been cowering in and ran to the house, pounding on the door as the lights got lower and closer. Of course, no one was home. He was alone, except for whatever or whoever was behind the mysterious lights. He ran back to the road and thankfully, a passing car stopped to pick him up. He asked to go to the police station in nearby Exeter.
As Muscarello reported what he had just witnessed to the policemen in the station, Patrolman Eugene Bertrand must have had a perplexed look on his face. Hours before, while patrolling the roads, he had stopped to help a motorist parked on the Rte. 101 bypass. She was visibly shaken and when the officer inquired why, she explained that she had been followed by a huge glowing object in the sky for the past twelves miles, all the way from Epping. It had red, glowing lights and was as big as a house. At the time, Patrolman Bertrand simply wrote her off as a 'kook' and remained with her long enough for her to resume her journey, about fifteen minutes. It hardly seemed worth mentioning.
It is the testimony of Patrolman Bertrand that makes this particular UFO story worth considering. Here was a no-nonsense man of the law, a level-headed, professionally-trained and well-respected member of the law enforcement community who was willing to go back out to the farmhouse Muscarello mentioned to see if there was any evidence of otherworldly visitation or if this young man was possibly under some kind of influence. With Muscarello in the passenger seat, Bertrand drove them back to the site.
As they sat in the car, nothing seemed out of place or amiss. Not content with simply investigating from the driver's seat, Bertrand told Muscarello to follow him and that they would have a look around. That's when things got weird. Though there were no people about, some horses in a nearby barn began kicking at their stalls and neighing. Local dogs began barking and howling. Something was causing them concern. That was when they saw an object rising from the edge of the trees at the end of the field. Officer Bertrand unholstered his pistol, withdrew it and fell on one knee, taking aim. For whatever reason, he decided not to squeeze the trigger. Instead, he grabbed the teenager and ran back to the squad car, immediately calling the station, exclaiming, "My God. I see the damned thing myself!" He later described the object as a 'brilliant roundish object, without a sound.' White light filled the area.
As they waited for Officer David Hunt to arrive, the two witnesses watched the object about one hundred feet from them and about a hundred feet off the ground pulsate its light from the left to the right and swaying, back and forth. Then, the lights pulsated from the right to the left. Officer Hunt arrived and also witnessed the object and its strange behavior, adding another well-respected and trustworthy witness to the event. Soon enough, the object rose and flew away from them over the trees.
When their chief read their reports of the night, he decided to contact authorities at Pease Air Force Base and report the sighting. Major David Griffin and Lieutenant Alan Brandt came to Exeter to interview the three men involved and asked all three of the men not to report their sighting to the press. It was too late for that, however. The Manchester Union-Leader had already spoken to the men. In his report, Major Griffin would write, "At this time I have been unable to arrive at a probable cause of this sighting. The three observers seem to be stable, reliable persons, especially the two patrolmen. I viewed the area of the sighting and found nothing in the area that could be the probable cause. Pease AFB had five B-47 aircraft flying in the area but I do not believe that they had any connection with this sighting."
Before it had a chance to be investigated by the official UFO investigatory team of Project Blue Book, the Pentagon issued a statement saying that the men had seen "nothing more than stars and planets twinkling...owing to a temperature inversion." This would become one of the classic explanations for hundreds of alleged UFO encounters, in addition to swamp gas. An Air Force operation, BIG BLAST, begin operations that night, as well and this might have added to the confusion, according to the entry for the incident in Project Blue Book. The three men involved were angry at the Air Force's dismissal of their testimony. In the press and personally, these two officers and the now U.S. serviceman Muscarello involved had nothing good to say about the Air Force's conclusions. In 1966, the Air Force finally relented in a reply to their letters. Lieutenant John Spaulding from the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force wrote to the men, "based on additional information submitted to our UFO investigation office, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, we have been unable to identify the object you observed on September 3, 1965."
The story made its way into the mainstream media. First, it was printed in The Saturday Review, then for Look magazine and then for Reader's Digest. John G. Fuller would later write an account of the events entitled Incident at Exeter and it would not only become a New York Times bestseller, but would remain one of the top-selling books on the subject of UFOs for decades. No one knows for certain what was witnessed by Officers Bertrand, Hunt and Mr. Muscarello that night. The Incident at Exeter is only one of thousands of UFO sighting in New England in the early 1960s and remains one of the most famous accounts because of the veracity of the men involved.
Left to right: Eighteen-year-old Norman Muscarello, who first spotted the UFO, patrolman David Hunt and Eugene Bertrand and (seated) dispatcher “Scratch” Toland COURTESY OF THE UNION LEADER
Sources
New Hampshire Magazine, September 2015 * Fuller, John G. Incident at Exeter, the Interrupted Journey: Two Landmark Investigations of UFO Encounters Together in One Volume. MJF, 1997. ISBN 1-56731-134-2 * Clark, Jerome. The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial. Visible Ink Press, 1998.
Here's a quick question that will make you wonder: which son of Maine has affected more lives upon the planet than any other? Seems like a silly idea, really, perhaps because there is no real way to answer such a subjective question. In the arts we have Stephen King, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Edwin Arlington Robinson. In sports we have Louis Sockalexis, Cindy Blodgett, and Joan Benoit. Our political influence includes Lincoln's first vice-president, Hannibal Hamlin, the hero of Little Round Top, Joshua Chamberlain, and Margaret Chase Smith. For inventors, though, I believe there is a clear choice. Yes, Milton Bradley was born in Vienna, Maine. He invented games we still play and was the first person to print kindergarten materials in the country. Yes, we have Chester Greenwood, our beloved inventor of the earmuff. We even have Alvin Lombard, who invented the rolling track we see on snowmobiles and tanks. Of course, we can't forget L.L. Bean, the fellow who finally invented a waterproof boot. But to say that any of these inventors' creations changed the world for the majority of humans on the planet might be forcing the issue. There is one man, however, whose life changed the world for almost everyone. His contribution impacted peoples' lives so intensely, so devastatingly, that many will never be able to forget, or even to forgive him.
His name is Hiram Maxim. During his time on earth he was responsible for 221 patents. Named a knight by by Queen Victoria and knighted by King Edward, he was known to royalty and world leaders. H.G. Wells was a great personal friend. He knew and spent time with the Wright Brothers. His patents include curling irons, amusement park rides, steam pumps, light bulbs and flying machines - all fairly important and mostly benign inventions, making the world a better place. So what on earth could this inventor from Sangerville, Maine have created that links him so inextricably with human suffering and bloody death? The same invention that links him inextricably with national defense and sovereignty.
Hiram Maxim is the inventor of the first portable, fully automatic, self-loading and self-firing machine gun. How a poor boy from the wilds of Maine could have invented such a device and how he rose to such prominence is a fascinating tale, a true Horatio Alger story. Born in a humble shack by the side of the road near a brook at Brockway's Mills, Maine, Hiram began life as the son of a poor farmer and found as he grew that he was good at working with his hands, tinkering and making things work.
Born in 1840, he and his brother Hudson lived in the wilds of the northern woods and found that hunting, fishing and farming were his main interests as he grew. There wasn't much else to do. He was adept with his hands and the use of tools. One day, he and his brother stood on a boulder on the edge of the family farm in Sangerville and each vowed that one day, they would be successful and wealthy men, a vow that ultimately saw fruition. At fourteen, he apprenticed out to a carriage-maker in East Corinth and was a handy hand at small boat-building. He invented a new mousetrap that kept the grist mill in Abbott free from vermin. But was too humble and quiet a place for his roaming mind and he left it to move to Fitchburg, Massachusetts to work at his uncle's machine works. During his time in there, he found work as a draftsman and an instrument maker and it seemed that nothing he put his mind to eluded him. He disliked working with others and found solace only in situations where he was ultimately in charge. When the Civil War broke out, Hiram refused to enlist. He would not become involved in that conflagration for moral reasons. He did not believe in war as a way to solve humanity's problems. How strange that in years to come, in the war to end all wars, his contribution would lead to more casualties than any other human on the planet.
His brother Hudson Maxim was a skilled inventor in his own right, but his specialty was explosives and he put his considerable talent to the task of solving one of the most perplexing problems of modern war. At the time, gunpowder produced a cloud of impenetrable white on the battlefield and very soon after the firing commenced, confusion ensued. Soldiers could barely see the person next to them, let alone the enemy a hundred yards away. The gunpowder also left heavy residue that could gum up the workings of the mechanism. The government was eager to find a replacement for the old recipe for gunpowder, one that would give them the advantage on any battlefield. Hudson delivered and we do not know how much he was assisted by his brother Hiram, but there was a major falling out between them over the patent. Hudson had the greater knowledge when it came to chemicals and ordinance, but when the patent was applied for from the patent office, the applicant only wrote the name "H. Maxim" was on the form. Hiram claimed smokeless powder for his own. Hudson disagreed, claiming that he was the rightful inventor. Though we may never know which of the brothers created smokeless powder, it was enough to split the two men apart for the rest of their lives.
Shortly after this, Hiram Maxim left the shores of America to work for the US Electric Lighting Company in London. He found life in Britain very much to his liking and he would eventually give up his United States citizenship to become a naturalized British citizen. His fortunes grew, as did his creativity. He created the world's first automatic sprinkler system that not only put out the fire but notified the local firehouse, though there was little commercial interest in the invention. Riveting machines, inventions that prevented the rolling of ships at sea, and pine-menthol inhalers to assist those with asthma were all ideas he brought to the world. He dabbled and tinkered and was generally successful, but he was still restless and nowhere near as wealthy as he would like. But then, in 1882, he met another ex-patriot while visiting Vienna, Austria who gave him a piece of advice that would change the world. He said to Hiram, "Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others' throats with greater facility." It was the seed that grew into a nightmare.
Maxim lived in a rather palatial country house in West Norwood. It was there that he threw his mind to the task of creating an efficient killing machine, one that would make him fabulously wealthy. The Gatling Gun, invented for the Union Army during the American Civil War by Richard Gatling, was the world's best known rapid-fire weapon. It's cyclical nature meant that the barrels did not overheat as long as it was not fired any higher than a certain rate. Perhaps its most problematic issue was that it was extremely heavy and once in place, it tended to stay there for the duration of the battle. Something lighter and faster was in Maxim's mind.
Hiram Maxim had spent his youth hunting bears in the Maine woods and he recalled the kickback that the large caliber rifles gave his young shoulder whenever he fired. His genius lay in the idea that the force of the kickback, if properly harnessed, might be used to load the next bullet. It might even be used to have the gun actually fire itself, in effect, pulling its own trigger. The new smokeless powder that he may or may not have had a hand inventing meant almost no gumming up of the mechanism and with the later addition of a water jacket to act a radiator of heat for the barrel, Hiram Maxim found himself the proud inventor of a rifle that was capable of firing bullets over and over again with accuracy until the bullets ran out.
Maxim founded his company based upon the promise of this new weapon. With financial backing from railroad tycoon and steel foundry owner Edward Vickers, "Maxim, Son & Vickers" began creating the gun in the mid 1880s. The American friend's advice had been sound. European governments bought so many automatic machine guns that the foundry ran day and night. Though he lost credit for the invention of the light bulb to Edison, he would now forever be remembered as the man who singlehandedly created the automatic rifle. Hiram Maxim had made the fortune and gained the fame that he and his brother vowed to achieve long ago on the boulder on the edge of property in Sangerville, Maine.
In June of 1890, the tall, white-haired and nearly deaf inventor and entrepreneur found his way back to his roots. He returned to the place where he grew up to meet with old friends and show the folks how he had fared in life. He brought one of his automatic rifles with him. Word of his visit quickly circulated and a rather large crowd gathered on the June day on the hill looking down on Dexter's Lake Wassokeag. His aim was a demonstration of his invention to the locals, but this would also notably be the first time an automatic self-loading, modern machine gun would be fired anywhere in North America. With a grateful crowd's silence, he announced that he would discharge the weapon first, and then others could have a 'shot' at it. All was ready and he gently squeezed the trigger, pointing the weapon at the same spot on the ground without moving it, effectively digging a hole. The gun fired at a rate of 666 shots a minute, a truly coincidental number for an invention that would later be called, "The Devil's Paintbrush."
Then, he told the audience to imagine an army trying to run up at them from the edge of the lake. He squeezed the trigger again, but this time he swept the aim of the weapon back and forth along the shore, shots ringing, water splashing, clods of dirt flung high into the air. One gun, he claimed, could lay an invading force low very quickly. Though it had not yet been used in battle, his prediction was frighteningly accurate. Next, he asked for Mrs. Bryant to come try her hand at the machine gun, probably because she was the oldest person present from the town. Then, his cousin Caroline Maxim True, had her turn at the trigger. Then, the show was over. He informed the crowd that it was expensive to fire the thing, costing him over $14.00 a minute. He traveled the landscape of his youth for another week or so before returning to England where, in 1900, Queen Victoria would recommend him for a knighthood, though it was her son Edward who would eventually knight the boy from Sangerville. His weapon had proven itself in the Russo-Japanese War and several smaller British conflicts. Those in power who had possession of the new weapon were confident that it would give them the advantage in the next conflict.
Soon enough, the Great War would begin. Since his machine gun had been in service for over twenty-five years, it had been made and copied over and over again by other arms factories throughout Europe and America. Variants of the Maxim gun were used by both sides in World War I. Though his invention would be used by the ground troops extensively, it would be attached to the newly invented tank and to the the aircraft flying the skies above the lines in France.How does one calculate the amount of human carnage caused by a weapon that could also cut down trees? How many of the 9 million combatants and 8 million civilian casualties of that war died from a bullet fired from a Maxim-designed gun? One need only look at the Battle of the Somme. On the first day of this battle, over 60,000 men died, 85% of them by machine gun fire. The other battles follow suit. Some historians have subtitled World War I as the "machine gun " war. The boy from Sangerville who as a lad had designed a mousetrap that rid the mill in Abbot, Maine entirely of its infestation, was the man who also made it possible for the nations of Europe to embark upon wholesale slaughter on the battlefield. Most of the deaths of World War One can be directly attributed to machine gun fire and man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
As he sat at his table sipping his coffee and reading the lists of the fallen from his morning paper in West Norwood, did he ever cast his mind back to the quiet, tranquil setting of Sangerville Maine? Did he recall the pleasure with which he hunted bear and deer and did it ever concern him that his invention was at that moment taking the lives of millions? We will never know. Maxim was a man of his times and as a power-player, it is easy to think that he had no qualms about his invention. He might have liked the modern adage, "Guns don't kill people; people kill people."
Sir Hiram Maxim died in his adopted homeland at Streathan on Nov. 24, 1916, at the age of 77. The only formal education he ever had was from five years in the one-room schoolhouse of Sangerville, Maine, but his informal education made him the epitome of the term 'damned Yankee.' It can be easily argued that no other son of Maine has ever affected the world to the extent that this one man has with his creative mind and his gift of the automatic weapon, the "Devil's Paintbrush."
Bibliography
Bangor Daily News "Maine's Hiram Maxim lead rags to riches life but remembered Yankee roots" 11-19-1975 Sir Hiram Maxim Biography - Sangerville Public Library Hiram Maxim - Wikipedia Article Encyclopedia Britannica Article - Hiram Maxim PBS - They Made America Series entry - Hiram Maxim
PHOTO CREDIT: Wikipedia Commons
I remember August of 1976 very well. That summer, the northern lights in Aroostook County, Maine were vibrant, nearly alive in their sheer command of the summer night sky. Ribbons of light rippled across the entire sky from north to south.The Sun was at one of the high points its cycle. That was the summer I spent lying on the ground by the fire, watching the stars and studying the universe in the relative comfort of my backyard. Little did I know that four friends visiting my northern land would experience something akin to high strangeness in the backwaters of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway not more than one hundred miles from where I lay, taking in the infinite. Their experiences, if they can be believed, are laid out in several venues, from an episode of Unsolved Mysteries to a new children's book published last year (2014) by author Cathie Pelletier called "The Summer Experiment".
What I am referring to is known in UFO circles as "The Allagash Abductions". It is a classic in the literature and is often cited as one of the most completely documented cases of alien contact and experimentation on humans ever presented to the public. The fact that the events that allegedly transpired nearly forty years ago are still intriguing to so many makes it perfect food for thought on a summer evening, like tonight...
Let's travel back in time. It is the evening of August 20, 1976. Four young art students from Boston, Massachusetts are taking a break in the northern forest of the Allagash River on the tip of northern Maine. Their names are Jack and Jim Weiner, Charlie Foltz, and Chuck Rak. Specifically, they are camping on the edge of Eagle Lake. It is nearly dark. They have set a rather large fire at the edge of the lake near the shore and their plan is to do a little night fishing from their canoes. The fire would mark the spot of their campsite, otherwise they might become disoriented in the deep darkness that befalls the night in far northern Maine.
Almost immediately after starting to fish, Chuck Rak spied a large bright sphere of colored light hovering motionless and soundless over the water of Eagle Lake, about 300 feet above the southeastern rim of the cove. Chuck shouted to his friends who also witnessed what they describe as a huge oval glowing object. They describe it as being split into four quarters, almost like a gyroscope. The four quadrants of light glowed with an oscillating motion around the equator and from pole to pole. It was as though the object was made of some metallic liquid.
It is at this point that Charlie Folt claims he did something very odd indeed, something that most people would not have done, given the circumstances. He picks up his flashlight and begins rhymically flashing it at the object in the sky. Why he does this, he does not say. Almost immediately, the object stops pulsating and begins to move toward Charlie's canoe. A ray or tube of light issues forth from the glowing object and hits the surface of the water. Then, the beam begins to seek out the canoe, hunting it. The four art students begin to panic and paddle madly toward the shore and their bonfire. I can't help but wonder why the bonfire and the shore might in any way seem safer than where they were. I also wonder if art students might or might not be experimenting with substances in the relative obscurity of far northern Maine that might make them believe they were seeing a large pulsating multi-colored glowing ball.
They make it to the shore. They stand at the water's edge near the fire and they watch the object slowly move away and disappear. Twin brothers Jim and Jack Weiner recall how frightened they were, paddling with every ounce of strength they had until suddenly, they found themselves safely on the shore. They saw a light beam not more than one hundred feet from where they stood and then they saw the object leave. For along while, the four young men simply stood there in silence.
They began to notice lost time. "When we left to go fishing," Jim claims, "we set very large logs on the fire to burn for a good two to three hours. The entire experience seemed to last, at the most, no more than fifteen or twenty minutes. Yet the fire was completed burned down to red coals." It was a puzzle, something that had no explanation. The fishing trip ended and the three went their separate ways. Weird things happen, but life tends to go on.
Flash forward thirteen years. Jim Weiner suffers a head injury which triggers something called tempero-limbic epilepsy, also known as temporal lobe epilepsy. This kind of epilepsy is characterized by many seemingly unprovoked seizures that originate in the temproal lobe of the brain. Sensory changes often accompany the seizures, i.e., smelling odors that are there. One of the other common side effects of temporal lobe epilepsy is the disturbance of memory, either causing the sufferer to be unable to recall things he or she should, or causing memories that are not real or are confused.
Jim slowly begins to recall events of that night. He claims that he remembers waking at night to see creatures gathering in his bedroom around his bed while he lay in paralysis, a common experience often reported by UFO abductees. More to the point, he seemed to be able to remember what really happened that night when they lost time and the fire burned low on the shore.
Many articles discussing the famous incident claim that Jim's doctors did what almost any good physician would never have done, given the circumstances: he told Jim to contact a UFO reseacher in the Boston area. This might seem reasonable to some people. To others, maybe not so much. Jim made his way to a UFO convention and found someone who he thought might be able to help him with his memories. That researcher was high-school English teacher and amateur hypnotist, Anthony Constantino.
Then, of course, hypnosis was used. It usually is. The faith so many people place in hypnosis is often a blind one without realizing that false memories or the power of suggestion may lead the person under hypnosis to claim almost anything. That, combined with the fact that Jim was suffering temporal lobe epilepsy, makes the whole session suspect and its veracity questionable. Once Jim began to recall the events of the night of August 20, 1976 under hypnosis, the other three people on Eagle Lake that night agreed to undergo hypnosis, as well.
They collectively recall riding the beam of light into the craft. They were examined 'medically' using strange equipment. Samples of bodily fluids were gathered by strange gray beings and of course, all four men were naked. After the 'aliens' were satisfied with their probing and prying, they made the four men get dressed and let them ride the beam of light back down to their canoes. To add to the high strangeness of the story, during the UFO researcher's examination of the events of that night, Jack Weiner and his wife Mary claimed that were abducted from their home in Townshend, Vermont. As proof, Jack offered the bottom of his feet, burned by his new abduction.
Time passed once more. The four men, friends since their college years, maintained their belief in the events of that night recalled by hypnosis. A book was written about their story. They appeared on The Joan Rivers Show. NBC's Unsolved Mysteries broadcast their story to millions.
It is strange that all four people remembered roughly the strange thing. Or is it? What really happened on Eagle Lake on the night of August 20th? The element of hypnosis and the addition of temporal lobe epilepsy makes the entire story suspect. The idea that all four men remembered the same thing might also have something to do with the power of suggestion and the tendency to tell the amateur hypnotist the kind of things he wanted to hear. Did the other three men know of Jim's recollections under hypnosis before they too underwent a session and did they suddenly 'remember' or did they simply use the information already in their minds from Jim's account? In fact, besides the viewing of the original light in the sky, hypnosis seems to be the only evidence that the Allagash abductions ever occured.
And that really is too bad. I would love to say that this case is beyond reproach. I want to believe as much as the next person, but I require more than the words of four remembering something under hypnosis years and years after the events supposedly occurred. I am quite sure these are good men who truly believe the events as recalled under hypnosis. I do love their story, though, because I remember the lights of that summer, too. My own memory, unhindered by hypnosis, remembers the Aurora Borealis, the Milky Way and the mystery that it offers must satisfy my taste for now.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Portland Press Herald Article. http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case466.htm
Photo Credit - Lewiston Sun Journal
Are you bald? Do you know any bald men? Of course, there is usually a perfectly rational, medical reason for the loss of hair in the male of the species - male pattern baldness, alopecia, or too much testosterone, among others. Before we discovered the scientific reasons for hair loss, we used stories to help us understand it and this tale from the logging camps of northern New England and the Maritimes is one of the most famous. Remember, be kind to our fine feathered friends - any bird could be somebody's mother...
Many of the animals of New England have their own story, with each one reflecting either the animal's personality or their place in history. Both prehistoric and historic New Englanders have always seen a part of their own personality when they watched animals in their natural environment and it is that perceived relationship that brings us a very strange tale from the northern woods from the time of the big logging camps.
One specific species of bird, common to the deep woods of Maine and Canada, has become a more obscure story as the logging camps in New Brunswick and Maine were closed. Back when logging was a larger industry in the north, however, the stories associated with the Canada Jay or "Gorbey" were commonplace among the men who worked their trade in the deep forests. Because the Gorbey is a deep woods bird that doesn't venture into urban settings, it's stories became obscured as the lumberjacks moved out from the logging camps and into alternative jobs.
It was the work of folklorist Sandy D. Ives, founder of the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History, that helped record the stories of the Gorbey and save them from being forever lost. Through the audio and text recordings that Dr. Ives made, information about this bird's behavior and it's impression on New Englanders can be seen through the tall tales it inspired.
The first aspect of the legends are the folk names the Gorbey has been given: Gray Jay, Camp Robber, Venison Hawk, Hudson Bay, Caribou Bird, Moose Bird, Meat Bird, Grease Bird, Woodsman's Friend, Whiskey Jack or Whiskey John. The original Native American name for this bird is the 'wisk-i-djak', which is similar to 'whiskey jack'. Both names are derived from the bird's call. Other unusual traits that the Gorbey possesses are further implied by their names. The name may come from either Scotland or France. It might be either from the French-Canadian pronunciation of the French word "Corveaux", for a bird who is related to ravens and crows. The Scottish origin might come from the word "Gorb", which has a double meaning: 'glutton' and 'unfledged bird'.
According to some sources, this bird helped hunters to find moose or caribou. This bird would signal to a hunter where they could be found and in exchange, the hunter would give meat to this bird to eat. Those who tell this story suggest that this is because the Gorbey is not satisfied with eating ticks and fleas off moose and caribou and wants a more substantial meal. The Native Americans believed this animal had a powerful spirit living inside of it and would listen for its call while hunting, as well as give the bird meat after the kill was made. Another Native American legend associated with the Gorbey states that cold weather comes when someone pulls a few feathers off of the bird's chest. Whether this was a magical spell or a warning against harming the birds is not made clear.
In later years, when logging camps were more commonplace in rivers across Maine and New Brunswick, the Gorbey did not have to get hunters to give them filling meals anymore. It was said that whole flocks of them would fly out of the trees and steal food straight from the lumberjack's hands and lunch pails. While only one or two would show up on the first day, more and more would appear to make off with the lunches of the lumberjacks as time wore on. They would also hide in the clothes of the lumberjacks, not caring if they were worn or not. The origin of the names "Woodsman's friend' and "camp robber" is probably inspired by these antics.
For lumberjacks, these birds were a great source of amusement. Most were happy to see these birds despite losing their food to them and were entertained by their tricks in the air and on the ground. In remote and quiet forests, such entertainment was certainly a welcome sight.
Others were not happy to feed such a feathered thief.
Whatever a lumberjack's feelings were about the gorbey, there was a strict taboo against harming these birds. The work of the lumberjack was fraught with danger and as a result, superstition ran rife. The bird was regarded as a lucky animal like the albatross from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Sometimes, it was because the bird was a lumberjack who came back from the dead to rejoin his companions. Others believed that if they hurt a gorbey, the injury would be returned on them.
This retelling of "The Man who Plucked The Gorbey" has elements drawn from the book Will O' The Wisp: Folk Tales and Legends of New Brunswick by Carole Spray" and the records left by Dr. Sandy D. Ives.
There was once a gorbey who frequented a logging camp named Old Ferguson. He was named after a lumberjack who had died at work. The lumberjacks believed this bird was a reincarnation of their dead comrade because he had a big appetite and because he wore a grey coat and black hat that reminded them of the bird's feathers. They enjoyed Old Ferguson's antics as a part of their midday meal and welcomed him and the flocks of gorbeys as if they were equals.But a new lumberjack came to work at the camp who was not pleased with entertaining this bird. He is given many names, but let us call the man Archie Stackhouse. He grew angry with this bird's habit of snatching biscuits from his hand as he was about to eat them. Archie swore he would kill Old Ferguson once he got his hands on him. When his comrades warned him not to harm the bird for fear of bad luck, he scorned this as a foolish belief. It is also relevant to mention that Archie Stackhouse had handsome black hair he was particularly proud of.
According to Carole Spray's version, Old Ferguson's favorite snack was biscuits soaked in whiskey. One cold winter day, the bird was fed this treat and soon grew so drunk, he could not fly straight. One kindly lumberjack took this bird into a mitten and let him sleep off his binge. But Archie took his chance to make good on his threats. He seized the small, drunk bird and ripped off the feathers from his back and belly, leaving him very naked with only wing feathers spared. The bird tried to fly up with the feathers he had left but fell down and died instantly. (Dr. Ives' records states that the poor plucked bird merely died of exposure overnight in February.)
The lumberjacks were appalled at this turn of events, but Archie went to bed satisfied with himself. In the morning, there was a surprise waiting for Archie. He saw in the mirror next to the washbasin that all of his coveted black hair had fallen off of his head, leaving his chin and head bare. He never grew this head of hair back again.
According to Carole Spray's telling, if there was a lumberjack who was bald or lacked hair, he would usually be asked "Are you the man who plucked the gorbey?" as a joke. An alternative version from an article written by Dr. Ives' included another character: a bad tempered Frenchman who gave Archie a sound thrashing after he awoke to find his head bare.
In the audio retelling recorded by Dr. Ives, Archie is given a specific job at the logging camp. He is described as a 'wangan man', who was the manager of the outpost store. He was responsible for minding and managing supplies for the whole camp as well as selling goods to the lumberjacks. Even in those camps, the exchange of money was still a necessity.
Dr. Edward Ives Interview with Charles Sibley - 11-30-58 "The Man Who Plucked the Gorbey"
The stories of the gorbey do not end there. According to an informant whose account is on record at The University of Maine, there is an old and simple yarn about a logging camp cook who one day found a gorbey carrying off three stale doughnuts that had been thrown away. Considering that the gorbey is the size of a robin, this is an impressive feat for a bird of that size. Another story is a folk song called "Tom Cray", from Northern Maine. The song warns unwary lumberjacks of gorbeys and blue jays big enough to carry off men to eat. Another version, written on the blog New England Folklore names the bird 'Esau' after a foreman who died. For those who know Hebrew, a hint of what's to come is already given. "Esau" means 'hairy' in Hebrew. Whether this was an intentional hint or not is not mentioned. There are even variations that involve lumberjacks who suffer broken bones after they broke bones on gorbies. In these versions, lumberjacks break either a leg or a wing on this bird and as a result, suffer a broken leg or arm.
All of these stories say a lot about the attitudes of those who told them. It reveals a continued respect of nature that may have it's origin with the Wabanaki tribes, but continued on through to the lumberjacks whose respect to the bird was born out of a continued necessity to respect nature and the unexplained. Both the Wabanaki and the lumberjacks understood the perils nature presented and knew that humility and kindness was important to warding off danger and death.
It is also possible that Native American and European New Englanders have always found entertainment from these intelligent and bold birds and a unique bond between animal and man has been formed that, to this day, continues in the deep woods. Even today, campers in the Northern woods are greeted by gorbies, who follow humans for their food not because any human encouraged it, but because their instinct to find food draw them to us naturally.
This article is published in memory of Sandy Ives, the foremost folklorist on the legends of the gorbey and one of the finest ethnographers at The University of Maine. His organization, The Maine Folklife Center, is still active, working to preserve Maine's rich folk traditions through preserving languages, stories photographs, recipes, songs and recordings.
You can use this link to access the Facebook page, where they talk about their work as well as advertise their events. You can also find them on the campus at The University of Maine and at the Annual Maine Folk Festival in Bangor.
Resources
The Man who Plucked The Gorbey: A Maine Woods Legend by Edward D. Ives in The Journal of American Folklore Places-Moosehead Lake "The Man Who Plucked The Gorbey" New England Folklore At Blogspot.Com: The Gorbey-Pluck at Your Own Risk The University of Maine-The Man Who Plucked The Gorbey Audio Recording
photo credit - Strathcona Wilderness Institute
Strange things happen. Fish sometimes fall from the sky. Unexplained lights perform strange maneuvers in the night sky. Children claim to 'remember' past lives. While all of these must be taken with more than a modicum of suspicion, there are strange occurrences in history which are without a doubt real and actual events. The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 is one such event. Be careful. Though you might be tempted to laugh at the idea of a flood of molasses as ludicrous and unbelievable, the series of tragic events that took place on January 15, 1919 left twenty-one people dead and a score of people injured. As strange and as sickeningly sweet as it sounds, Boston experienced the world's only known disaster caused by a sugar by-product.
Molasses was a staple food in colonial New England. Slave ships emptied their cargo in the West Indies and filled their holds with barrels of molasses and then headed to the colonies. Sugar was one of the most expensive staples in the colonial pantry, so molasses was a welcome and much less expensive alternative. Colonists used it in the production of beer and rum and you cannot have true New England Baked Beans, brown bread or pumpkin pie without it.
Most people are unaware that molasses had a very important role to play during wartime and it had nothing to do with food. As any home brewer will tell you, sugar and yeast together create something very powerful: alcohol. Ships from Cuba, Puerto Rico and other islands in the West Indies would dock and pump out thousands of gallons to later be carried by rail car to the Purity plant in Cambridge where it underwent the process of conversion to industrial alcohol. Then, the alcohol could be used in the mass manufacture of munitions and explosives, adding to the war effort and making a lot of money for the United States Industrial Alcohol Company. Since the outbreak of war in 1914, overseas demand for alcohol had strained domestic resources and the British, the Canadian and the French governments could not get enough. With a paltry twenty percent of the molasses shipped to American converted into rum, a whopping 80 percent of the substance was turned into a major ingredient of weaponry, especially of dynamite, smokeless powder and other explosives.
In order to facilitate the collection and distribution of the molasses, the company built a massive holding tank, fifty feet high and ninety feet in diameter capable of holding as much as 2,300,000 gallons of molasses. The tank stood in the North End, near Boston Harbor and the historic section of town that housed the Old North Church and Paul Revere's House. The tank was very to close the Copp's Hill Burying Ground and Commercial Street. It was one of the largest structures in the area and it towered over many houses and commercial buildings in the area, always in the background.
It was built the same way that metal ships like the Titanic were built at the time with sheet steel and rivets overlapping at the edges. Like the Titanic, the Boston tank had a major flaw in the steel common to all steel manufactured in the early part of the century: it was made with very little manganese, an element that strengthens steel making it capable of withstanding great pressure without cracking.
From the very beginning, people became used to seeing the dark brown stain of molasses running down from rivet holes all over the structure. Children would be dispatched with containers to visit the plant and collect as much of the run-off as they could. Though most of the people who actually lived in the area were Italian immigrants and therefore out of the mainstream of Boston life, it became a problem for the company that owned the tank. They did not want word to spread that there was a problem with it. Something had to be done.
In their wisdom, the people at the US Industrial Alcohol Company found a way to fix the issue: they ordered the structure to be painted a molasses brown, so the leaks could easily be masked. Although the structure was only ever filled to capacity three times before the accident, it was on constant use and was never shut down and emptied for a complete inspection. Perhaps no one could imagine that a substance so obviously harmless as brown liquid sugar could ever be deadly in another sense, a very real and overwhelming sense, without ever being converted into alcohol.
January 15, 1919 should have been a quiet day at the molasses tank. The ship Miliero had unloaded her cargo two days ago. It had taken everything that the pumps had to urge the semi-solid sticky substance through the tubes in freezing weather, but after this unloading, there wouldn't be another ship for at least three months. During those three months, the molasses would be slowly shipped to the Purity plant to be converted into alcohol bound for munition factories. A few who survived the event can remember hearing the shifting and gurgling that occurs when molasses is actively fermenting and perhaps that process helped speed along the final conditions that led to the failure of the hoops at the bottom of the tank and the rivets along the seams.
At 12:41 PM, the tank gave way. The headline of the Boston Daily Globe for the next morning read "Molasses Tank Explosion Inures 50 and kills 11. Death and devastation in wake of North End Disaster." By the time they found all of the bodies glued to the ground in the muck and immovable mire, the number of dead had risen to twenty-one. What happened directly after 12:41 was witnessed by hundreds. A black wave of death flowed much more quickly than might be imagined, twenty-five feet high and one hundred and sixty feet wide.The wave was so heavy that it essentially smashed the waterfront like a bomb. One half-mile of Commercial Street was destroyed and it flowed in all directions. Rivets snapped off and turned into projectiles: steel bullets randomly filling the air as the tank continued to break. The Engine 31 Firehouse was ripped from its foundation and almost made it to the dark waters of the harbor. "Men and women, their feet trapped by the sticky mass, slipped and fell and were suffocated," reported the Boston Globe in a remembrance of the event in 1968. Brick tenements, storefronts, various wooden structures were all torn and shattered. Anything that stood in the path of the oncoming molasses was hit by the heavy liquid hammer of the cascading molasses. What wasn't destroyed or swept into Boston Harbor was glued to the ground or covered by the rubble. Cellars were filled with molasses. Electrical poles and live electrical lines snapped and popped in the thick detritus of the event.
The rescuers were stunned when they arrived. How does a person move in waist-deep molasses? It is even possible? Horses were frozen on the ground, drowning in the thick goo and one of the first things that had to be done was to quickly dispatch them, leaving their fallen forms glued to the ground. How could the rescuers tell where a human form might be beneath the deep mass of molasses? So many died because they could not be reached in time or because they were simply overwhelmed and died of asphyxiation. Some were able to rise from the sticky mass and ride on small flotillas of flotsam and jetsam. Rescuers at the Haymarket Relief Station risked death as their boots bogged down in the mire. At the stations set up to process the injured, teams of rescuers worked tirelessly to remove the hardening molasses from breathing passages and remove the sticky clothing of the victims. Doctor and nurses soon became covered in molasses and blood.
Nothing like this had ever been experienced before. When the time came to clean the molasses, sea water became the only solvent that was plentiful and able to cut through the thick, heavy goop that covered Commercial Street. It would take weeks in the wintry weather to even begin to make a dent in the destruction. Boston Harbor went brown.
How could this have happened? The company that was responsible for the tank had a theory: anarchists. Italian anarchists were immediately labeled as the mad bombers of their day. Surely, given the disproportionate amount of discrimination that Italian Bostonians had to endure, it was easy to imagine that they might have struck back with such an act. Boston had been the hotbed for Italian anarchist activities. Why not a bomb and why not terrorism? In August of 1919, the US Industrial Alcohol Company lost two of its molasses ships, without a trace. These unexplained losses seemed to point toward the same source again: anarchists.
The Boston Molasses Disaster had ramifications that continued to run through the courts and the halls of industry. If no identifiable person or persons could be found, someone would have to bear the burden of the property damages and that had leveled Commercial Street in Boston. The US Industrial Alcohol Company would be taken to court . Valued at today's prices, over $100 million dollars worth of wreckage was claimed.
We know from examining the records that no engineer or architect was ever consulted during the design and building of the huge tank. The tank was built quickly with an eye on spending as little as possible. Six years later the good people who lived in the North End and who lost their lives or their their homes, each received around $7000 each from the US Industrial Alcohol Company which had been found liable for all damages by the Massachusetts Superior Court. Never again would the state of Massachusetts allow such a structure to be built without state supervision and construction codes. Could such a thing ever happen again? Surely not.
But it did. A more recent molasses spill occurred in 2013 in Honolulu, Hawaii. A faulty pipe poured over 1,400 tons of the sticky mass into Honolulu Harbor. All sea life in the harbor was killed due to the de-oxygenation of the water caused by the molasses covering the entire bottom.
Sources
Puleo, Stephen, Dark Tide: The Great Molasses Flood of 1919, copyright 2004, Beacon Press, Boston.
Schworm, Peter "Nearly a century later, structural flaw in molasses tank revealed," Boston Globe 01/14/2015