Ventriloquist Freaks Out Early Portlanders

Okay, this pretty much beats all. Back in its cultural heyday of the 1800s, Portland, Maine rivaled Boston as a metropolis of the north. Among other famous visitors you will find mention of Edgar Allan Poe's visit with his mother, a traveling actress, in one of his older biographies.

Here, however, is something I did not know. In the very first part of the 19th century, a visit was paid by a notorious ventriloquist, Mr. Rannie. This, apparently, was the result:

Similarly, in Portland, Maine, he "occasioned a child 12 hours old, to exclaim apparently, that the town of Portland would be swallowed up by an earthquake in three days," leading "great numbers to depart from the city for several days."

Neat!!!

Here is the source in case you would like to read the whole bizarre article:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~scat0385/hodgson.html