SyFy Channel’s "Ghost Hunter" TV program will air the results of its February investigation of Fort Knox, in Prospect, Maine, on Wednesday, April 6 at 9 p.m.! Shown here is Leon Seymore, of the Friends of Fort Knox, sitting with Amy Bruni and Grant Wilson of TAPS, ready for the "reveal" segment of the episode.
A live public screening of the "Ghost Hunters" Fort Knox episode, which is titled “Residual Haunts,” will take place Wednesday, April 6 from 7:30 to 10:00 p.m. at the Bucksport Golf Club on Route 46.
The special event fundraiser, sponsored by the Friends of Fort Knox, will provide viewers an opportunity to meet people who have reported paranormal experiences at the fort and watch the show on a big-screen TV.
Advanced tickets for the Bucksport event are $7 in advance, $10 night of the event, and may be purchased by calling (207)469-6553 or stopping by the Friends’ office at Fort Knox. Attendees will receive snacks, and a cash bar will be available.
The Village Soup reports on the recent visit of members of TAPS and their visit to Fort Knox in Prospect, near Bucksport.
'Ghost Hunters' wraps Fort Knox investigation
Show to air late March or April
Feb 12, 2011
Prospect — The Friends of Fort Knox, working in partnership with the Maine Department of Conservation’s Bureau of Parks and Lands, has announced that the SyFy Channel’s "Ghost Hunters" TV program has concluded its paranormal investigation of the state historic site.
The investigation and filming began late Feb. 6 when the 19-member production crew arrived at Fort Knox. Leon Seymour, Friends of Fort Knox executive director, provided the investigators a tour of the site and recounted visitor reports of paranormal experiences. After the initial tour and overview, SyFy "Ghost Hunters" stars Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson began their investigation of the fort. Their efforts extended to approximately 3:30 a.m.
The investigation continued the evening of Feb. 7 into the following morning amidst brief snow showers. On the afternoon of Feb. 8, the "Ghost Hunters" production company interviewed individuals who had reported as having a paranormal experience at the fort to the Friends. One of those interviewed by the crew was local radio personality Sky Taylor, who reported hearing various sounds and even seeing an apparition. On Feb. 9, Bureau of Parks and Lands Historic Site Specialist Tom Desjardin provided the production company with a brief history of Fort Knox. The "Ghost Hunters" film crew spent the rest of the day shooting exterior shots of the fort from various locations and some shots of the town of Prospect.
On Feb. 11, Hawes and Wilson, presented their paranormal investigation findings to Seymour. This portion of the investigative process, known as "the reveal," will be kept confidential until the TV program airs.
"Ghost Hunters" producer Patrick Powell, based in California, told Seymour that he expects the Fort Knox episode to air in late March or April. The Friends of Fort Knox are giving some thought to having a screening party the night the episode airs on the SyFy channel. The organization says that they will release details and how the public may obtain tickets in the near future.
[...]
Individuals interested in learning more about the Friends of Fort Knox, special events and the history of the historic site are encouraged to visit fortknox.maineguide.com.
Some of you may remember rumors from about a year ago that the television show Ghost Hunters was interested in paying a visit to Fort Knox, located across the Penobscot River from Bucksport, Maine. Now, seen on Fenceviewer and elsewhere, the confirmation of the soon-to-be visit of Ghost Hunters to Maine's own Fort Knox is official!
“Ghost Hunters” to Visit Fort Knox
Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 4:10 pm
PROSPECT — SyFy television network’s “Ghost Hunters” program will film an episode of the popular series this month at Fort Knox.
A video crew will spend six days at the fort looking for evidence of “ectoplasmic apparitions,” according to a press release from the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands.
[...]
“The fort has the feel of a big, medieval dungeon, so it’s really natural for people to wonder if it’s haunted,” Desjardin said.
The park historian said there are no official reports of hauntings at Fort Knox, and only one soldier on record died while at the fort.
The fort’s barracks were not located in the fort, but in an unspecified wooden structure located somewhere on the fort property, Desjardin said. In 1866, an artilleryman, a new recruit that spoke only German, died of disease while stationed there.
“He was buried at the fort, but we don’t know where,” Desjardin continued. “No one knows where the burial ground is. It was never fenced off — and he’s the only occupant.”
Desjardin said he will give the video crew a tour of the fort, help with setting up and do a historical interview. The crew is expected to do two nights of investigation, the park historian said.
“We hope the crew will be prepared for winter nights on the Maine coast,” Desjardin said.
Leon Seymour, executive director of the Friends of Fort Knox, will serve as “the client” who points out where visitors have had unusual experiences.
On Saturday, October 23rd, the Town of Bucksport embraces the Halloween season with a day-long festival full of variety and fun -- Ghostport 2010! Visit http://www.bucksportchamber.org/ghostport.html for more info, a schedule, and contest information.
Activities include:
-- Kids costume parade
-- Brunch with witches
-- Chili Cook Off contest
-- Trebuchet pumpkin chucking into the Penobscot River
-- Jonathan Buck’s coffin race to the grave
-- Pumpkin carving contest
-- Evening Monster Mash Acoustic Bash concert
-- Friends of Fort Knox Fright at the Fort fireworks
-- Screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Alamo Theater
(see schedule below)
Across the river starting at 5:30 PM, Ghostport’s sister event, Fright at the Fort, opens for its second of four nights of scary fun (http://fortknox.maineguide.com/fright/).
This year's Ghostport Festival promises to be bigger then last year. The Event is Saturday the 23rd, with a full moon. Rain date Oct. 30th.
Several contests are featured during Ghostport, and perhaps the most unusual of the contests is the Jonathan Buck’s Race to the Grave coffin race. The coffin race is comprised of teams of four people, plus a coffin rider called a Jonathan, who speed the wheeled coffins down a designated racecourse. The race format is similar to a drag race. For race rules please view the PDF at http://www.bucksportchamber.org/ghostport/Race%20to%20the%20Grave.pdf
Another activity that is sure to cause some excitement is the Seaboard Credit Union’s Trebuchet (similar to a catapult) that will be erected on the Bucksport waterfront.
10:00am – 4:00pm Wahl’s Dairy Port offers fall flavors
10:00am – 4:00pm “BOO”k Sale and Raffle
Help raise funds for Buck’s Memorial Library - Celebrating 123 Spooktacular years!
10:00am Little Goblins Parade - We meet at Town Office and march down Main St.
10:15am - 11:30am PTO Brunch with the witches at the Gazebo on the waterfront
11:30am Bittersweet Gift’s Chili cook off, check in - Located at the Gazebo on the waterfront
12:00pm - 1:00pm Chili cook off judging and eating - Located at the Gazebo on the waterfront
11:30am - 4:00pm Seaboard Federal Credit Union Trebuchet launches pumpkins into the Penobscot! At Flag Point on the waterfront
12:00pm - 1:00pm Jonathan Bucks Race to the Grave, check in - In Bangor Savings parking lot on Main St
1:00pm - 1:45pm Tech Inspection and pre judging
2:00pm Jonathan Buck's Race to the Grave Coffin Races Begin! Located in parking lot behind Chamber offices
4:00pm – 5:00pm Bookstacks host Spooky Story hour
5:00pm – 5:30pm Carved Pumpkin Contest, sponsored by Wahl’s Dairy Port. Check in located behind Rosen’s on the waterfront
7:00pm – 9:00pm Monster Mash Acoustic Bash, brought to you by United Cerebral Palsy of North Eastern Maine. Performance held at the Gazebo on the waterfront
9:15pm – 9:45pm Friends of Fort Knox Fireworks Display, launched from Verona Island
10:00pm The Alamo presents The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Come in your best costume! You may be nabbed by a Ghostport Ghoul and win a cash prize!
The Friends of Fort Knox are once again looking for volunteers to assist with their annual Fright at the Fort haunt attraction.
Volunteers are being recruited to help haunt the fort or lead guests through the twists and turns of the Fright course. Groups of volunteers are encouraged as the haunt is arranged area by area throughout the fort, making it easy to assign volunteer groups to each area. An orientation session for all Fright volunteers will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 16, at the Fort Knox Visitor and Education Center in Bucksport.
Interested volunteers may contact Leon Seymour, executive director of the Friends of Fort Knox, at 469-6553 or e-mail him at FOFK1@aol.com
See below for directions.
One of Maine's largest Halloween events, Fright at the Fort will creeeep from the grave to scare all you happy campers on four nights in late October:
5:30-9:00 p.m. Friday, Oct. 22, Saturday, Oct. 23, Friday, Oct. 29 and Saturday, Oct. 30
FMI: http://fortknox.maineguide.com/fright/ has more info, including the volunteer application form
Readers will remember how the Fort impressed me in broad daylight. Imagine the same setting at night! Guests are guided through the shadowed passages of the early Victorian-era granite fortification, where imaginatively terrifying scenes and spirited spooks await them.
Proceeds help the Friends of Fort Knox with ongoing restoration efforts. The organization's mission is to preserve Fort Knox and enhance its educational, cultural and economic value for the people of Maine. Fort Knox is a Maine State Historic site managed by the Maine Department of Conservation's Bureau of Parks and Lands on behalf of the people of Maine.
Directions: From Belfast: Proceed north on US Rte 1, through Searsport and Stockton Springs, immediately before crossing the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, take a left onto Rte. 174. Fort Knox will be approximately 1/4 mile up on your right.
From Bar Harbor: Follow US Rte. 1 south across the Penobscot Narrows bridge, immediately adjacent to the town of Bucksport. Once over the bridge take a right onto Rte. 174. Fort Knox will be approximately 1/4 mile up on your right.
From Bangor: On Rte. 1A South....follow Rte 1A South through the towns of Hampden, Winterport, Frankfort and Prospect. In Prospect Center, take a left onto Rte. 174. Follow Rte 174 approximately 4 miles. Fort Knox will be on your left. On Rte 15 South....follow Rte 15 South through the city of Brewer and the towns of Orrington and Bucksport. In Bucksport, take a right onto US Rte.1 South and proceed over the Penobscot Narrows bridge. Immediately upon exiting the bridge take a right onto Rte. 174. Fort Knox will be approximately 1/4 mile up on your right
While I am unable to make it to the Faire this year, that doesn't mean you should stay at home! Far from it. Please see my article about last year's faire here: http://strangemaine.blogspot.com/2009/09/not-your-normal-fort.html Needless to say, I highly recommend a visit to the Fort, faire or not.
The annual Psychic/Paranormal Faire returns to Fort Knox on Saturday and Sunday, July 31st and August 1st, 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM. This unusual event features presentations from ghost hunters, UFO enthusiasts, an exorcist, speakers on the legacy of Edgar Cayce and a practicing psychic. Psychics/card readers will be on hand for those wishing to purchase a reading and vendors will be present to sell unusual items.
Melissa Gaspar will be presenting a talk on one of America’s most famous psychics, Edgar Cayce. Cayce was alo known as the sleeping prophet, because many of his revelations about the future came about when he was in a trance-like state.
Christopher Gardner and Cindy Proulx, will lead discussions on the topic of Unidentified Flying Objects. They will be facilitating discussion on the topic with audience members.
The Bangor Ghost Trackers will be on hand to talk about their investigations at Fort Knox and other sites around Maine. The Ghost Trackers will exhibit the tools, techniques and results found in their paranormal investigations.
Former President of the American Dowsing Society, Gordon Barton, will speak on his decades of experience in the filed of dowsing. Barton will reveal that there is far more to the art of dowsing than simply looking for underground water.
Local psychic, Sky Taylor, will speak on her life experiences as a psychic and how people might tap into their own psychic abilities. Cindy Proulx, a long-time UFO enthusiast will lead discussions on the possible existence of Unidentified flying Objects.
Here is the schedule for the two-day faire: Saturday, July 31st
All-Day Events
10:00 – 4:00 Psychics and vendors in the Fort Officer’s Quarters
10:00 – 4:00 Lecturers will be available in the Visitor Center
Lectures
Lectures take place in the amphitheater at Visitor Center.
10:00am Paranormal Investigation Process, Equipment and Techniques (Bangor Maine Ghost Trackers)
11:00 The Legacy of psychic Edgar Cayce (Melissa Gaspar)
12:00 UFOs? What Do You Think? (Facilitated by local UFO enthusiast Cindy Proulx)
1:00 Exorcism (Ahura Z)
2:00 Paranormal Investigation Process, Equipment and Techniques (Bangor Maine Ghost Trackers)
3:00 Developing Your Sixth Sense (Sky Taylor)
Sunday, August 1
All-Day Events
10:00 – 4:00 Psychics and vendors in the Fort Officer’s Quarters
10:00 - 4:00 Lecturers will be available in the Visitor Center
Lectures
Lectures take place in the amphitheater at Visitor Center.
10:00am Paranormal Investigation Process, Equipment and Techniques (Bangor Maine Ghost Trackers)
11:00 The Legacy of psychic Edgar Cayce (Melissa Gaspar)
12:00 UFOs? What Do You Think? (Facilitated by local UFO enthusiast Cindy Proulx)
1:00 Exorcism (Ahura Z)
2:00 Paranormal Investigation Process, Equipment and Techniques (Bangor Maine Ghost Trackers)
3:00 Developing Your Sixth Sense (Sky Taylor)
Admission to the Psychic/Paranormal Faire is the standard Fort admission plus a requested $2 event donation to help defray costs and fund fort restoration projects. For further information on Friends’ of Fort Knox special events go to their web site at fortknox.maineguide.com. Fort Knox is owned and operated by the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands for the people of Maine.
----------------------------------
This two-day event, sponsored by the Friends of Fort Knox, is one of many special events this summer at the State Historic Site. The following week, Friday/Saturday, August 6 and 7, at 6:00pm, Shakespeare Comes to Fort Knox featuring the presentation of Romeo and Juliet, performed by Ten Bucks Theatre Troupe (http://www.tenbuckstheatre.org). Ticket prices for the Shakespeare event are $10 for adults, $5 for children 12 and under. Advance tickets may be purchased at the Fort Knox gift shop, by telephoning 207-469-6553 or by emailing FOFK1@aol.com
Exciting news from our friends at Fort Knox! Read on...
Ghost Hunter TV Program Coming to Fort Knox
The Friends of Fort Knox received an interesting email recently from the producer of the SyFy Channel's hit series, Ghost Hunters. According to the email, the producer was searching the Internet and came upon reports of paranormal activity occurring at the State Historic Site.
Over the past several years, local paranormal investigating groups have approached
the Friends of Fort Knox to enlist their help facilitating night time research. Some of these paranormal research groups such as Bangor Ghost Hunters, Central Maine Paranormal and Maine Supernatural, have posted their investigation result on the Internet. Recently, a new paranormal investigation group, the Bangor Ghost Trackers, were featured on a local TV news program describing their belief that Fort Knox is indeed haunted.
The Friends notified the Maine Department of Conservation’s Bureau of Parks and Lands (BPL) about being contacted by the Ghost Hunter TV program. The Bureau of Parks and Lands manages Fort Knox on behalf of the people of Maine and is being asked to approve the shoot. The Friends informed BPL that they would be willing to head up this project by providing staff supervision, facilitate a meeting between the TV show producers and individuals who have reported “experiences” at the Fort and assist the film crew with logistics.
Friends of Fort Knox executive director, Leon Seymour said that "The Friends are very excited about the possibility of the Ghost Hunters traveling to Maine to investigate and film at Fort Knox. The Friends believe that featuring Fort Knox on a TV show watched by millions will swell Fort Knox and Penobscot Narrows Observatory attendance and have a positive impact for local businesses from increased tourism."
Though the Friends of Fort Knox have never taken a position on whether the Fort is haunted, they say that they are often asked by visitors if the historic site is indeed occupied by spirits. The Friends of Fort Knox are a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring Fort Knox and enhancing its educational, cultural and economic value for the people of Maine. The Friends' latest restoration effort is focused on extensive masonry repair throughout the Fort.
Individuals who wish to be considered for an interview relating what they believe to have been a "paranormal experience at the Fort, may contact the Friends at FOFK1@aol.com or by telephone at 207-469-6553.
Let's hope the folks at the Bureau see fit to approve the adventure! I for one would love to see an investigation of the Fort. It's such a fantastic location to begin with, and the stories coming out of the Fort have been so interesting.
One of the most recent took place during work on Fright at the Fort 2008. The Bangor Daily News reports:
Worker ‘creeped-out’ by ‘Fright’ at Fort Knox
By Rich Hewitt, BDN Staff
PROSPECT, Maine — When the Cowardly Lion stood in the Haunted Forest wringing his tail saying, “I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks,” he had good reason.
He was surrounded by trees with faces, flying monkeys, a wicked witch and, yes, spooks.
Now, Teddy Cooke, 19, of Verona Island has a good reason to say the same thing.
Cooke, who works as a tower and gate attendant at Fort Knox Historic Site and the Penobscot Narrows Observation Tower, didn’t have to deal with the Wicked Witch of the West, but he did have a close encounter of some kind last Saturday night inside the fort.
“It creeped me out,” he said.
It happened Saturday night as Cooke was closing up the fort after the annual Fright at the Fort event. He wasn’t one of the ghouls, trolls or ogres stationed in the fort to spook the nighttime visitors. Cooke was part of the tech crew, in charge of the fog, the lights and the scary audio for the event.
The fort was dark except for the “Fright” effects.
“My job was to lock up, shut down all the electrical stuff, the fog machine and the strobe lights,” he said. “I was going to the upper level of the officers’ quarters when I saw it — it was the back of a leg moving at the end of the hall.”
At that point, he said, he thought there was a straggler from the Fright event, and he called out to say the fort was closed and to follow him out. There was no response.
From the hall, a set of stairs leads up to a long corridor known as “Two Step Alley.” Cooke walked up the steps and as his eyes reached the level of the floor, he saw the dark shape of someone walking down the alley.
“About halfway down, I could see the figure of a person,” he said. “There was a red floodlight at the other end and it clearly blocked out the light.”
He called out again, but there was no reaction.
Cooke said the figure looked like a “solid shadow.” He saw no face or details, but could tell it was walking, not gliding. It did not react or turn when he called. And it made no sound that he heard.
Although he said he felt a little jittery, he didn’t feel any emotion or any presence from the figure.
He reached for his flashlight and the figure was gone.
“I looked down for just a second and when I looked up again, there was nothing there all the way to the end of the alley,” he said. “At this point, I’m still thinking it’s a person. There are pillars all the way down the alley, and I thought they may have ducked behind there. I thought maybe someone was going to jump out and scare me.”
Cautiously, he checked each pillar all the way down.
No one was there.
“There’s no way anyone could have gotten down the alley in that time,” he said. “Up until I got out I thought it was a person. I don’t know what it was. I got out of the fort as quickly as I could.”
Cooke admits to being a fan of the “Ghost Hunter” television show, but said he wanted proof before he’d believe in ghosts. He says he has it now.
“I considered myself a skeptic until something happened so that I would know,” he said. “This was kind of that ‘it’ that happened.”
Some might discount Cooke’s account as imagination, but he’s not the first to have a supernatural experience in the fort. According to Leon Seymour, executive director of the Friends of Fort Knox, there have been reports for years from visitors and fort staff of unusual happenings.
“I’ve heard hundreds of stories,” he said. “People having their hat taken off, people being pushed.”
The fort is a likely spot for spirits, according to Sky Taylor, a Bangor radio announcer and co-founder of the Down East Paranormal Society.
The granite and the fort’s proximity to the water all help to store and conduct spirit energy, Taylor said.
Taylor and her husband have had unexplained encounters in the fort before, one of them in the same area where Cooke saw his spirit on Saturday. Several years ago, she brought in a psychic, who confirmed there were spirits dwelling in the fort.
Although no one actually died inside the fort, Taylor said, the spirits could be soldiers who had strong ties to the fort. One might be Sgt. Leopold Hegyi, who spent 13 years at Fort Knox and died in a house across the road from the fort where he lived.
Taylor produced a special radio broadcast about the spirits at the fort and included the story from a former guide at the fort during the 1980s. The guide reported that on one of her tours, a soldier showed up at the edge of the group. She assumed it was one of the Civil War re-enactors who hold encampments at the fort.
She learned later that none was at the fort that day.
“A little later, she saw a photo and said [the soldier] looked just like Sgt. Hegyi,” Taylor said. “If anyone had ties to this place, it was Sgt. Hegyi.
Although Hegyi’s widow, who lived in New York, collected his belongings after the sergeant died, she did not claim his remains. He is buried in a cemetery a short distance from the fort down Route 1 in Stockton Springs, Taylor said.
Cooke is not sure what he saw, but he’s convinced he saw something. He’s a little “uneasy” about going back in for this weekend’s version of Fright at the Fort, and admits that anytime he comes back into the fort, he’ll recall this incident.
“I’m not sure I’d want it to happen again,” he said. “But I’d be excited if it did.”
With copies of the late spring Gazette issue hot off the press, I made my way north to historic Fort Knox and the fair town of Bucksport, Maine. I had been hearing about the Paranormal and Psychic Faire for the last couple of years, and while I was interested, I had yet to get up the steam to transport me hither. That was until Leon Seymour, of Friends of Fort Knox, dropped an e-mail in my inbox inviting me to climb on board.
After repeated, unsuccessful rearrangements of my transportation and lodging plans, my friend Sue finally came through in a pinch and drove me up through the spooky fog of an early July 4th morning to the land of Prospect, on the shores of the Penobscot River. The misty atmosphere created an eerie, awesome feel to the scene as we drove past the unmistakable Penobscot Narrows Bridge and the so-called Bigfoot footprint in the cliff which overlooks it (this interesting formation was exposed during blasting for the new roadway). PHOTO : The Penobscot Narrows Bridge dwarfs its predecessor, the Waldo-Hancock bridge. Completed in 1931, it was the first long-span suspension bridge ever erected in Maine. It will remain in place until a thorough dismantling is possible.
On arriving, we made a quick tour to the top of the fort and then down one of its seemingly endless stone battery staircases, damp with condensation. Already the fort was beginning to work its spell on me.
Sadly, Sue had to head back to town, but it was time for me to get down to business anyways. I found myself set up with a table in the fort’s visitor center, where I joined a terrific assortment of other Maine folks who, like me, are all blessed with an innate curiosity and need-to-know about things on the fringe. Next to me were ufologists Cindy Proulx and Chris Gardner, and further up the row was friend and fellow Portlander, Loren Coleman, as well as another friend, Maine supernatural history author, Emeric Spooner. Facing us were the fine folks of the Bangor Ghost Hunters Association, and Gordon Barton, former President of the American Dowsing Society.
My biggest problem became the agonizing choice between whether to staff my table or to take this rare opportunity to hear some of these folks speak. I wound up divvying up my time between the Strange Maine Gazette table and the guest speaker presentations, and managed to watch each of the presenters once over the course of the weekend. PHOTO : Loren Coleman displays the latest addition to his museum collection of cryptozoological items -- a pop culture representation of a Bigfoot-type creature given away in a furniture store promotion in the South during the 1990s.
It rained off and on all day Saturday, driving Loren Coleman’s audience in and out of the visitor center from minute to minute. But in spite of the iffy weather, a steady stream of folks arrived, either to drink in the fort’s history, or to or to feed their need to find out about the future and other uncertain things. While select speakers entertained the small crowd at the visitor center, down in the dark quarters of the fort, psychics sat for readings with a steady line of those who came in search of comfort, answers, or a sense of mystery to add to their lives.
Expecting a cold but interesting evening spent trying to sleep on the concrete floor of the visitor center in my sleeping bag, I was surprised and pleased to find myself put up for the evening very comfortably in the home of Carol (Bittersweet Gifts, Bucksport) and Don Metthe (Friends of the Fort, Bucksport Director). Thanks to these two kind folks, I spent a very pleasant evening, and Carol treated me to a short tour of the town the next morning, before getting back to business.
Sunday, July 5th, dawned bright and sunny, and the day was great from start to finish. Starting out with my first visit ever to the site of Colonel Buck’s tomb, replete with the alleged stain of the witch’s boot on its face, and ending with a lively drive back down U.S. Route 1 to the outdoor flea markets of Searsport with Loren Coleman before heading inland, it couldn’t have gone better.
In between talking to folks from all over (hi Nomar!) at my table, and signing some new folks up for subscriptions (thanks everyone!), I managed to steal a break so I could wander around the fort a little more. Imagine my surprise when I realized how huge it really was, and how many hundreds of feet of tunnels and stairways wind through the levels of its pentagonal shape. All I can say is, “WOW!” The scale of Fort Knox is phenomenal, especially when compared with some of Maine’s other historic fort site, such as Fort Edgecomb.
Building started on the fort in 1844, and the last troops left its grounds in 1898, leaving the fort under the watchful eye of the official “Keeper of the Fort.” Today, the Friends of Fort Knox have collectively taken on this role, as well as the restoration of the fort and the important task of making the fort and its history available to the public. PHOTO : Fort Knox is made up in a large part by spectacular, endless tunnels, crafted from brick and granite, and constructed in a surprisingly graceful series of arched and angled pathways.
If you are interested in helping out the FOFK, simply write to Friends of Fort Knox, P.O. Box 456, Bucksport, ME 04416, or call (207)469-6553, or e-mail FOFK1[at]aol.com for more information.
In Search of Sarah Ware: Reinvestigating Murder and Conspiracy in a Maine Village by Emeric Spooner has been eagerly awaited by local history fans, as is attested to by his success so far in selling copies of the small self-published first edition. This well-printed volume arrived in my mailbox hot off the press, and over the last couple of weeks I’ve stolen time here and there to read it.
The most compelling element of this book is precisely what drove Spooner to write it – the tragedy of an unsolved murder with an innocent victim. Swept under the judicial rug after a late trial of the primary suspect, who was acquitted, Sarah Ware’s case has continued to call out from the mists of the past to Bucksport residents such as Spooner, who is the assistant librarian at the Buck Memorial Library. When I asked him what the starting point had been for him, he replied, “The place where Sarah lived, and the beginning of [Miles] Lane -- in my backyard, literally. The house lights I see at night are from the house that Sarah lived in, not more then 150 yards across a field and bush.”
Men in the village turned out for the initial organized search effort on October 1st. On the second day of their search, when their eyes turned to the pastures near Mrs. Miles’ house, they found Sarah’s deteriorating corpse. Found as it was, with terrible damage to the skull, the state of the body was enough to arouse dire opinions about the method of her demise. A few optimistic men tried to put forward theories of what sort of “accident” might cause such a death.
A handful of local men preparing to lift her remains into a coffin at the site discovered, on jostling the body, that she had not only been bludgeoned, but also decapitated, as her head dislodged and rolled away from the corpse. When all was said and done, the inquest jury came back with the judgment that Sarah Ware had “met death at the hands of a person or persons unknown.”
Spooner has transcribed the available documentation of the proceedings, giving us the rare chance to examine what emerged in them for ourselves. What is immediately apparent is that, from the beginning, her death was the cause of conflict and supposition among the townspeople.
The text does not include the questions levied upon witnesses by the examiners, so we are unable to know how much of each person’s statement was volunteered, and how much was steered by questioning. Statements regarding supposed knowledge of Sarah Ware’s habits, morals, personality, mental health, and all manner of details of her personal life are peppered throughout the testimony, leading the careful reader to believe that although a murder may have been committed, in some people’s minds the victim herself was on trial as well.
This is the state of affairs as Spooner launches us into the complicated morass that is the search for Sarah Ware’s murderer. Having spent so much time wading through this material, the author has had time to piece together theories of his own and develop opinions about some of the town characters that people the landscape of this case.
Additional materials are provided here and there to flesh out otherwise unattached names, and to give the reader a feel for how all of the lives in this tiny Maine town intertwined at the turn of the century. Even if there had been no murder, this material would make for a fascinating read, enough to make even Agatha Christie herself inspired.
The accounts of surrounding events vary from witness to witness, and even from one telling to another. People contradict themselves regularly, and some, including William Treworgy, the defendant in the eventual murder trial, avoid explaining themselves entirely. It is no wonder that over a hundred years later the story is still not resolved, if the community was unable to determine the truth of the matter at the trial four years after the killing.
Spooner has been researching the story of Sarah Ware for over two years, and has dug through piles of old newspaper clippings, court documents, and other historical ephemera in his quest for answers. Most recently he was rewarded by finding a photo which includes among its members a woman he thinks can only be Sarah Ware. The resemblance to newspaper portraits of her is indeed startling.
In addition, he interviewed every living descendant of the people mentioned in the newspapers and court documents that he could find, in the hopes of gleaning insight into what the families of the area thought or knew about the murder. “About 80% of the witness list, both defense and prosecution, still have family members who live in town today. It is these people who I interviewed.” A few declined to divulge all the sensitive details they knew, but most were very open with their information.
When I asked Emeric Spooner what his goal was in publishing this book, he replied, “My hope in publishing the book is to set the record straight with the true facts behind the mystery, while making it interesting to read, and spur those families still around to check in their attics for trunks full of photos, diaries, and [examine these] belongings for any piece of evidence that might shed light on the case. That, and slap any of the professionals investigating cold cases, with today’s technology, across the face and say, ‘We have the blood stained cape!’ We have the personal effects and evidence taken from her murdered body. Do DNA testing on it! Check the bloodstains to see if they are all hers.”
Spooner has certainly succeeded in making the subject interesting to read. While some tangents of his arguments and suppositions are at times hard to weave together in the sequence presented by the book, one only has to look at the maze of information to realize that the task was a difficult one at best, and, as Spooner himself says in closing, “The investigation is ongoing.”
The publishing quality is very good, especially impressive considering it was self-published. The restrained design of the front cover features a photo of the area near which key elements of the story take place, while the interior pages are printed on a very pleasant antique white paper stock, which I must say made turning the pages an enjoyable experience.
Readers may have some trouble with Spooner’s syntax and sentence structure, but after a while this seems to blend in with the somewhat archaic tone of the court transcriptions, and the interest of the material itself in many cases makes up for the lack of an editor. Researchers may find themselves frustrated by the lack of citations, leaving this book out of the running as a scholarly historical text, but this could easily be amended with an appendix in a future printing. No doubt Spooner himself will be happy to furnish any necessary information in the meantime, as his meticulous research bespeaks a record-keeping nature.
All in all, the book is well worth the read, and as Spooner sets to work on his next book about another local mystery, the historic Trim family triple homicide of 1876, we can only hope that someone in the publishing world will pick up on this book and, with some careful engineering, set it on the right track for a full-scale printing, so that it reaches a wider audience.
In Search of Sarah Ware: Reinvestigating Murder and Conspiracy in a Maine Village is for sale at BookStacks, at 71 Main Street, and Bittersweet Gift Shop, at 81 Main Street, both in Bucksport, or online at Amazon.com. Readers may also visit http://mysite.verizon.net/espooner/ to purchase the book and find out about other area mysteries.
NOTE: In an effort to expand ourselves into the the wide world of Strange Maine related books, historic and otherwise, this post represents the first of hopefully many book reviews. We hope these will help our readers find even more material that is of interest to them. If you have a book that you think would fit our interests, please feel free to mail review copies for consideration to:
Michelle Souliere, Editor Strange Maine Gazette P.O. Box 8203 Portland, ME 04104
Our readers may also be interested to know that there is a short video clip from the Boston Chronicle’s television segment about the Sarah Ware murder and Spooner’s work on it here:
The Lewiston Sun Journal continues to establish itself as Maine's source for premier investigative journalism about the strange side of Maine and its history with a fascinating article about an 1898 murder and the continuation of it investigation today.
Weird, Wicked Weird: In search of Sarah By Lindsay Tice , Staff Writer Saturday, February 9, 2008
In the fall of 1898, Sarah Ware vanished from the quiet evening streets of Bucksport.
Searchers found her body two weeks later, beheaded and badly decomposed, a raincoat tucked like a pillow under her severed head.
Rumors about her death swirled as town gossips claimed the 52-year-old divorcee had been a drinker, a gambler and worse. Although a local store owner was eventually tried for her murder, neither he nor anyone else was convicted.
A century later: enter Emeric Spooner. A Bucksport librarian and amateur investigator with a penchant for the paranormal and the historical, he was piqued by the gruesome murder, by the fact that no one was ever punished for the horrific crime, by the fact that Ware was all but forgotten in the small town, known only through a bad ghost story and a faded headstone in a pauper's grave.
He's worked for two years to put a face - literally - on her murder.
"She was just a house cleaner heading home," he said. "She was an innocent."
Spooner started a Web site dedicated to Maine's greatest unsolved mysteries a few years ago. He looked into local ghost stories, paranormal events and area murders, posting the information and evidence he'd gathered for anyone to see. Two years ago, he turned to the 1898 Ware case. ... Scouring old documents, court records, news articles and the coroner's inquest, Spooner painstakingly pieced together the life and death of Sarah Ware, spending up to two hours a night on the project. He found she was a mother of four, a divorcee who "caught the eye of the town gossips." She worked as a cleaning woman and lent money to townspeople, including a local store owner she worked for, William Treworgy.
On the evening of Sept. 17, Ware left a friend's house and began walking home. She stopped briefly at a town store. She was never seen alive again.
Two weeks passed before anyone officially reported her missing. Search parties found her badly decomposed body by smell, following the rancid odor to an alder swamp just off Miles Lane, not far from her home. Her skull was broken in several places and had a hammer-sized hole in the temple. She was beheaded.
A Lewiston detective was called to be lead investigator in the case, and a Bangor detective joined him. They soon found a bloody hammer (engraved with the initials W.T.T.) and a bloody tarp in Treworgy's wagon. A man told them Treworgy had paid him to move a body to the swamp.
"They had intent, they had motive and they had Treworgy," Spooner said. "He's the one they finally took to trial."
But the trial took place four years after the murder, and by that time the Bangor detective had lost both the bloody hammer and the tarp, Spooner said. And the man who claimed Treworgy paid him to move a body? He recanted, saying he was forced by a selectman and members of the citizens' committee to lie.
Treworgy was acquitted. ... More than 100 years later, Spooner continues the investigation. He has his own theories.
"There's just too many things involved with Treworgy. If he didn't do it he helped move the body," he said.
Although he hasn't come up with a concrete answer yet, he recently found something almost as good - the only known photograph of Sarah Ware.
He discovered the 1892 black-and-white photo in an old library scrapbook. He compared it to the only other image of Ware he had, a tintype drawing featured in an old newspaper. For the first time, he could put a real face on the victim. ... "I'm just trying to get the facts out there," he said. "She was an innocent."
Photo from Emeric Spooner. The lady in white is believed by him to be Sarah Ware. You can read his explanation of the photo, see the uncropped version of it, and read about his theories here on his website.
WHEN: July 21st and 22nd, Saturday and Sunday, 9:00am to Sunset (normal operating hours) WHAT: Paranormal and Psychic Faire WHO: Meet with people who believe in things unusual. This unique event features renowned crytozoologist and author, Loren Coleman, psychics, ghost hunters and dowsers.
Fort Knox's FAQ, including info about admission prices and a handy e-mail address for questions, can be found here: http://fortknox.maineguide.com/faq.html. You can also call them at (207)469-6553. As I have been unable to find a detailed listing of the event schedule online, you may want to give them a buzz if you want any further info.
