Muck Monsters of Massachusetts... maybe?

Hi everyone!  It seems like most of us have survived a crazy year.  I am looking forward to some serious Strange Maine research in 2018, and I hope you can all look forward to seeing the fruits of that labor by the end of the year.

As a personal update, late in the summer of 2017 I finally found my way free from the other job I was working alongside running my shop.  I've spent the last few months getting settled back into running the Green Hand Bookshop full-time.  It's been challenging, but a much-appreciated change of pace!

January brings with it my reduced winter hours at the shop (closed Mon-Weds).  My plan for January through April is to spend my time well, diving deep into one big project that is long overdue for finishing, and getting some more traction on a couple of new ones!

I've already started chipping away at some of my files this month, and blearing my eyes with hours of microfilm searches.  This, of course, means I stumble across some fun stuff that I can't help but take note of.

While I'm still gathering material in preparation for bigger releases ahead, I did want to share this fun almost-a-monster story with those of you who love this kind of stuff the way I do!

While this story is not specifically from Maine, it did appear in the Portland Press Herald, hailing from our old nearby alma mater, Massachusetts.  In 1971, there was a brief scare (dig those headlines in the clipping shown!) about "swamp creatures" on a local golf course.

As you can tell from the headlines, the threat was not taken quite seriously by the press.  Read on to find out more!  Enjoy....

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Swamp Creatures Panic Guards

Golf Course Adds Night Hazards

Boston UPI -- A security guard told today how he, two other guards and two police officers had a hair-raising run-in with "three, big slimy creatures" who emerged from a golf course swamp.

The guard told his story over an all-night talk show on radio station WBZ in Boston, but declined to identify himself or tell where or when the incident occurred because of possible embarrassment to the participants.

As it happened, he said, he and the two other guards were patrolling a golf course during the night when they stopped their golf cards atop a small hill.  Hearing a splash from a nearby swamp, they went to investigate.

"This big, black slimy thing came out of the swamp, all covered with weeds," Guard No. 1 said.  "Then a second creature emerged.  By this time we were a bit upset."

He said that when a third "creature" walked out of the swamp, "We decided to beat a hasty retreat."

Because it was dark and difficult to see, he said, one of the other guards ran into a guy wire and was knocked down, he ran into a water hazard, and the third guard managed to get away on a golf cart.

Guard No. 1, after getting out of the water hazard, went to the aid of his companion who was on the ground.  Meanwhile, the three creatures were "sort of hopping away."

While this was taking place, the third guard had contacted two police officers and brought them to the scene.  They immediately gave chase to the creatures.

When one officer fired a warning shot, the creatures turned and waddled back toward them.  The officers, understandably, also became upset.

Guards No. 1 and No. 2, hurrying to see what was going on, ran through the darkness and bumped into the officers, knocking one down.  The other officer dropped his revolver to the ground and put his hands up in the air.

"Hey, pick up your gun," the excited guard said as the creatures approached.

All turned out well, however, when it was determined the creatures really were three college students dressed in black scuba diving outfits, complete with feet flippers -- that's why they waddled.

What were they doing in the swamp?  Looking for misdirected golf balls so they could sell them.

File it under EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES and stamp it "NOT RECOMMENDED!!!"  Jeepers, guys, you almost got shot!

This is a great example of how under certain circumstances our initial reaction to "mysterious things" can turn into a regular Three Stooges episode, even in such a mundane environment as a well-groomed suburban golf course.

I have to say that the narrator's turns of phrase are particularly entertaining -- but I still would dearly love to read the police report that resulted from this!

Call for info: Portland's haunted mansion... or castle?

Hi folks! I have a question that may be too far back for most of you, but just in case someone once upon a time told you a story about it, I figured it was worth asking. Does anyone have any stories/recollections of hearing about a so-called "haunted house" or castle on Munjoy Hill?

It's a crazy Gothic home that was just up the hill from the Observatory.  It was torn down in 1914, but I keep finding vague references to it being haunted (this may purely be because it LOOKED haunted). I know recollections about it were still lurking around as late as the 1940s/50s.

Any thoughts or loose bits of story rattling around would be appreciated, as so far I have very little to go on so far! Thanks guys!!!  ...also of course any other haunted house stories from Portland are always welcome!

Here's what the crazy thing looked like (in other words, no wonder it had a reputation for being haunted):

Magical History Tour 2017 pics!

Every year for the last three years, the Maine Historical Society (mainehistory.org) has held a one-day event on a weekend in May when they give lucky ticket-holders a chance to tour through areas of approximately ten different historic sites that are normally off-limits to the general public.

I've managed to go every year since they started, come hell or high water, and it's been great.  Here are a bunch of photos from this year's tour on my Flickr page! I think I managed to get almost all of them labelled, but if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkbrilliance/albums/72157682286448194

Here are a few samples:

 We paid a return visit to the clock tower on top of City Hall, voted in as the favorite from 2016.

 We saw the lingering glory of a bygone era hanging in the now-empty WMTW-8 space at the Time & Temp Building.

 We tiptoed up into the organ loft at the Sacred Heart Church.

Brunswick Town Hall NOT HAUNTED!

A breaking newsflash from back in 1894!

Town Hall Not Haunted.
A school boy running up Main Street Monday evening exclaimed to a friend that the town building was crazy or haunted, "You never in your life heard such a noise as there is going on in some part of the building," said he. The [Bath] Independent scribe heard and investigated and found that it was the comb orchestra rehearsing for "Mother Goose" which is to take place next Monday evening in Town Hall for the benefit of the public library.

The kazoo had already been in existence for several decades at this point, but apparently the budget only allowed for makeshift musical combs in lieu of their high-tech kazoo cousin.

Maine has a pretty good history of enthusiasm for noisemakers, and kazoos have been a favorite at festivals and musical events in our state for many, many years -- a proclivity which continues to this day.

Early Gravestones! Upcoming talk & READ THIS BOOK!

What: Early Gravestones of Southern Maine Talk!
When: Thursday, August 18, 2016 @ 7:00pm
Where: Maine Charitable Mechanic Association, 519 Congress Street, Portland, Maine
Cost: Free and open to the public
FMI: email MCMA1857@gmail.com or call (207)773-8396

Meet Portland author, Ron Romano, and hear him discuss and read from his new book! Ron is a MCMA member and Spirits Alive Board member. He will discuss, sign, and read from his new book as well as present slides highlighting the incredible skill of Portland’s first gravestone cutter, Bartlett Adams. Light refreshments will be served.

This event is sponsored by Maine Charitable Mechanic Association (MCMA), The History Press & Spirits Alive.
http://www.mainecharitablemechanicassociation.com/
https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/
http://www.spiritsalive.org/

For those of you who don't yet have this book in your gravestone-loving hands, let me tell you -- you do NOT want to miss it. Ron Romano has outdone himself. After following Bartlett's career, and giving tour after tour in Portland's Eastern Cemetery highlighting his stonework, Romano was encouraged to write his account of Bartlett's life and craft. Luckily for us, he really did it!

It is a fascinating story from start to finish, and interwoven as it is with Romano's account of his search for the tale, it had me wanting to go out and search out Bartlett's signature in Maine's graveyards myself ASAP.

This is the gauge of quality of Romano's work -- he explains the finer points of gravestone studies in a way that makes you want to join in the gathering, and at the same time paints a picture of Bartlett's own life and times that brings them to life in your mind's eye.

This is a rare thing in a history book. I recommend you buy it and experience this for yourself.

Bangor PD's Facebook feed is your friend

Let it not be said that some of Maine's police officers do not possess a sense of humor or humanity. If it's not Detective Napijalo finding stolen mascot plushies and most recently writing a comic book for all ages, then it's the anonymous and quirky officer who is currently running the Facebook feed for Bangor Police Department.

If you have been missing the sidelong wit of Maine's old Police Blotter columns in local newspapers (gone the way of the birds, mostly), you will be delighted. If you have yet to check out their feed, then YOU ARE MISSING OUT!
https://www.facebook.com/Bangor-Maine-Police-Department-227432866078/

For instance:
1) One police officer was able to save a tiny chihuahua from a fire last week in spite of a biting from the nervous young lady pup. He tells the story better than I do:

In a celebration of National Puppy day we share the following information.

A structure fire on Hammond Street was discovered by Officer Jordan Bragan while on routine patrol. Bragan alerted folks to get out of the adjacent apartments by pounding on doors and waking those in danger.

Bragan also was able to enter an apartment in order to grab a 6 pound Chihuahua named either Bella or Stella. The pooch refused to come out. Nice save, Bragan. "Don't drop the Chalupa." It is unclear if he will add that slogan to his new tattoo. The dog is fine. He would have done it even if it was not National Puppy Day.

Bragan was bitten by Stella/Bella while carrying her from the building. He was wearing his gloves and was not seriously injured. We could hear him verbalize "doooohhhh" from his cruiser camera audio recording. We are putting it on Sgt. Bushey's mix-tape.

Bangor Fire arrived at the scene and put out the fire. Nice work ladies and gents.

Otherwise, several arrests for various illegal activity and someone dropped off donuts. They are all gone.

Have an awesome Thursday. We will be here!

Or how about
2) The way they handle reminding us all (duh) to lock our doors:

Please folks, if I gave you advice on financial decisions, food selection, roofing materials or what kind of flatware you should buy, ignore it. I know very little about those things.

My idea of a good investment is one which returns just fifty percent of my initial outlay. Flatware pulled from the McDonald's bag has been used on many a night in my little world and I think discarded street signs look pretty cool as a stopgap measure on the camp roof. I am not promoting taking street signs. I said discarded. Read all the words before contacting my supervisor.

I rethought my first paragraph and have decided that my food selection skills are superb. Add a half a cap of apple cider vinegar to your drawn butter when using it dip your steamed clams or lobster. You will be thanking me soon after the meal, possibly naming your next child after me. This child will be well behaved, a heck of a pool player and will move out of your house after his or her 36th birthday. I was a late bloomer as well. Trust me. I work for the government. Get it right. Capital T. Capital C. Sounds like "easy", and rearing him/her will be just that. Their middle name should be, Tangy-Goodness.

What does all that rambling have to do with police work. Nothing. You expect too much from me.

I need you to lock your stinking car doors. All over Bangor, we are dealing with a roaming dipstick or dipsticks that are ransacking your belongings, dropping your registration paperwork on the floor of the Civic and taking things of value. How hard is this for us? Obviously, it is tougher than I think.

Lock your doors. Just use the little button on the remote, hold down the mushroom looking thingie on the door, push forward or backward on that tab near the handle. They even make it easy by marking it with orange. Lock it. Lock it. Lock it.

Some of us might even remember next time as a result of this.

I would be remiss if I neglected to mention Westbrook Police Department's feed, which is regularly updated with useful and helpful info, including major traffic updates when roads are closed due to crashes, links to confidential victim support services, historic photos from the force archives, pics of new and outstanding personnel, photos of suspects they are trying to identify, etc.
https://www.facebook.com/WestbrookPD/

Portland Police Department is online on Facebook as well, and they seem to be trying to up their game in recent weeks in an effort at matching Bangor's outreach. Let's hope they continue! We need it here, guys. I'm serious!:
https://www.facebook.com/Portland-Maine-Police-Department-121900037821056/

NOTE: For those wanting to know more details, Portland Police Department Detective Andjelko Napijalo's comic book, Nightmare Warriors, is being launched by a Kickstarter campaign (47 hours left and it's just over its goal). If you want to check it out, here it is:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/34629306/nightmare-warriors

Here's to all of Maine's women and men in blue, and especially to those who handle such a difficult and frustrating job by finding a way through all the stress to help us with a smile on their face or by offering a helping hand in the worst times of need and distress. Thanks for doing a job that would drive me into a straightjacket. Thanks for being on the other end when we call. Thanks for having a sense of humor when you hear things like, "Oh, nope -- he just dropped the bullhorn out the window." We're glad to have you here beside us in the light AND the darkness before the dawn.

If you love your Maine PD's Facebook feed or have a favorite weekly Maine police blotter that's still running, please feel free to recommend it in the comments, and I will post it! :)

BIgfoot in Maine update

Over the last two months I have been putting out the call for information on sightings of Bigfoot in Maine. The reason for this is to fill in the blanks in Maine's historic record when it comes to sightings within this state of large mystery mammals, specifically hominids.

I have had a reasonably good response, and have been able to add a few new incidents to the record. However, I would like to add more. Perhaps optimistically, I theorize that there are many unexplained sightings in Maine that are not on record.

If you or someone you know has had such a sighting or experience, please feel free to call me on my cellphone at (207)450-6695, or email me at michelle.souliere@gmail.com -- or you can write me at P.O. Box 5302, Portland, Maine 04101.

For those of you who haven't had an experience of your own, but who are interested in what has been gleaned so far, I can tell you that I have one very interesting sighting from up in Aroostook County (and honestly I hope for more from this quarter of the state, along with the Allagash and Golden Road). I can also tell you that I have been surprised by multiple reports from the midcoast area.

I am very interested in speaking to more people who have had inexplicable experiences with large mammals in the Maine woods. The more interviews I can complete, the clearer the patterns and trends will become, I hope. Also, with more accounts, the historic record of Maine sightings will become more complete.

The end goal of this is to pull all these stories together, no matter how far apart in time and distance, in a single volume, along with Maine's historic sightings and cultural expressions of interest in Bigfoot. Because if one thing is completely clear, it is that Mainers sometimes encounter things in the woods that are not run-of-the-mill. And even if we can't figure out what exactly those things are, we are definitely interested in hearing more about them from people who have run into them.

Tell me your MAINE Bigfoot experience!

Dear readers,

Many of you know that for some years I have been working on writing a book about Maine Bigfoot-related stories, titled Bigfoot in Maine. It has been over 10 years since I began digging around in Maine’s history in search of stories about Bigfoot and other mystery hominid encounters in the state. Even though my research has uncovered dozens of interesting stories scattered through our state’s history, it's not enough.

It is clearly time for me to take the next step. My goal is to start tying in all the current stories that are floating around, and talk to folks about what they’ve seen out there in the Maine woods. While archive sources are a great way to learn about Maine’s history, the state’s living history is just as important as its past.

I know there are folks out there working the logging roads and up in the Aroostook regions who have seen things they can't explain. I know there are also stories from mid-coast and Western Maine that have not been recorded yet.

In the wake of Finding Bigfoot’s Maine episode, which aired Monday, January 11th, 2016, I am hoping the new awareness of sightings within Maine’s borders will encourage eyewitnesses to step forward and have their stories added to the state’s historic record.

I am now actively searching for Mainers who believe they may have encountered Bigfoot or similar unexplained large mammals within the state and are willing to be interviewed, whether via phone or via email. Those interested should contact me using the information given below.
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Contact:
Michelle Souliere
email: michelle.souliere@gmail.com ← best contact method
cell: (207)450-6695 (evenings and by chance)
mail: P.O. Box 5302 -- Portland, ME 04101

EVENT: Victoria Mansion Christmas Madness

Reception room - photo by M.Souliere (c)2015

It was with great fanfare that the Victoria Mansion unveiled their ever-changing annual Christmas extravaganza. This year the theme is simply a Victorian Christmas, but the results are very pleasing.

The main stairway and the parlor are the areas of the mansion that in past years have been the most effusively decorated, and this year is no exception. The crowning glory of this holiday affair extends its light down from the central skylight, and will surprise and delight visitors.

The other rooms (of which there are many) will likewise enchant visitors. Some chambers are dramatically lit, others quietly cozy to suit a more intimate family environment.

For those wishing to indulge themselves in this Yuletide wonderland, Christmas at Victoria Mansion will be open daily from November 27th to January 3rd (except on Christmas Day and New Year's Day).

The Mansion opens at 11:00 am with last admission at 4:30 pm. Special evening hours are offered on Mondays, with last admission at 6:30 pm.

Main stairway - photo by M.Souliere (c)2015

Admission is $15.00 for the general public, $13.50 for seniors and AAA members, $7.00 for college students (with ID), $5.00 for children age 6-17, and free for children under 6. Victoria Mansion members are always free.

For full details, please visit http://www.victoriamansion.org/events_rentals/default.aspx

In addition, this year the Mansion is pleased to offer the following menu of delectable holiday events:

Saturdays, 10:00am, throughout the season - Stories on the Staircase
Every Saturday during the Christmas season at Victoria Mansion children ages 3-5 are invited to join us for a free story hour and a tour tailored just for them.

Wednesday, December 2, 6:00pm - Annual Christmas Gala
Enjoy complimentary drinks and hors d'oeuvres amid the glittering decorations enhancing the Mansion's interiors. Speak with this year's designers and be inspired for your own holiday decor.

Friday, December 4, 5:00pm - First Friday Special
For one night only, Friday, December 4, 2015 Victoria Mansion will be open for $5 from 5:00-8:00 (last admission 7:30). Reservations are not needed, just come to the front door. A free gallery exhibit highlighting art and crafts created by Victoria Mansion volunteers and staff will be open upstairs over the Carriage House Museum Shop adjacent to the Mansion.

Sunday, December 6, 5:30/6:00/6:30/7:00pm - Night of the Nutcracker
Victoria Mansion and Portland Ballet present an event filled with holiday wonder. Children are invited to bring their parents to see the Mansion, decorated for the Christmas season, and meet dancers dressed for Portland Ballet's Victorian Nutcracker. There will be music, dance performances, and every child leaves with a special treat.

The Mansion by moonlight - photo by M.Souliere (c)2015

Appalachian Trail mystery via the Bollard

Most of you probably remember the unexpected, worrisome and sad disappearance of 66-year-old Geraldine Largay from the Appalachian Trail in Maine last spring. The most recent monthly issue of the Bollard has an intense article about the disappearance with some interesting information about the area that few people know.

If you'd like to read it online, please click here:
http://thebollard.com/2015/06/30/m-i-a-on-the-a-t/
If you prefer a hard copy of the issue, it is available for free at my used bookshop in Portland, the Green Hand Bookshop, at 661 Congress Street, or you can pick up a copy at any other of 500+ locations statewide where you can regularly find the Bollard.

Portlander Hutch Brown did a great job of fleshing out the article, with editor Chris Busby assisting. I think those among you who wonder about disappearances and secret areas will be very interested in what they dug up.

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PERIPHERALLY RELATED NOTE: Those interested in David Paulides Missing 411 series, which features some Maine disappearance cases over the years, may want to add this story to their files. Incidentally, if you want to buy Mr. Paulides' books, DO NOT be fooled into paying overinflated prices ($99+?!!) elsewhere online. You can buy brand new copies for $24.99 directly from him on his website. You can purchase the Eastern U.S. volume (which has the historic Maine cases in it) from him here: http://www.nabigfootsearch.com/catalog/item/6180213/9296880.htm

Maine MUFON involvement

This post is a follow-up to my post earlier this month about a recent Maine UFO sighting. If you missed that article, you can read it here:
http://strangemaine.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-latest-maine-ufo-sighting-orrington.html

When I was discussing the Orrington article with Roger Marsh, editor of the monthly MUFON UFO Journal, in order to secure permission to reprint the account, he mentioned that MUFON has a need for involvement from Maine members.

MUFON is interested in increasing it's Maine membership, and more particularly in encouraging Mainers to become Field Investigators. Roger Marsh states, "We need good paranormal investigators and we need a lot more help in Maine these days. We have a new program launching soon where we are specifically reaching out to paranormal investigation groups to see if they want to cross-train with MUFON and additionally become UFO investigators." Marsh continued by mentioning that there is often a similar background shared by the two groups, and that MUFON's past experience has shown that those with paranormal investigation backgrounds work very well as UFO investigators.

To find out more about becoming an independent MUFON field investigator, please see their information page here: http://www.mufon.com/become-a-field-investigator.html Information about the new program for paranormal investigation groups will be forthcoming.

If you'd like to get in touch with the heads of the Maine MUFON chapter, you can find their contact info here: http://www.mufon.com/maine.html

If you would like to file a report of your own UFO sighting, please visit
http://www.mufon.com/report-a-ufo1.html

Marsh also mentioned that MUFON currently has their own show on the History Channel, called Hangar 1, which has been airing on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m. EST.

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Aside from joining MUFON, if you are in the Portland area and are interested sharing your UFO-related experiences with like-minded people, there is an upcoming (non-MUFON-related) event you may be interested in -- the Experiencers Speak Conference, slated to be held August 28-29, 2015, at the Fireside Inn, 81 Riverside St., Portland, Maine. Among the guest speakers is Travis Walton (well-known co-author of Fire in the Sky: The Walton Experience). You can find more information on their website here: http://www.experiencersspeak.yolasite.com/

The latest Maine UFO sighting: Orrington

Periodically I check MUFON's database to see what's been popping up over the horizon in Maine UFO sightings. May was a busy month -- 4 reports! -- and there were 18 Maine reports filed altogether in the last 6 months (although 6 of the 18 were from prior time periods, retroactively reported, ranging from August 2014 all the way back to 1954).

But it's the sighting from June, coming out of Orrington, that really catches the eye. This report also includes an eyewitness drawing, shown below. Text and image from the report are reprinted by permission of MUFON. Please visit their site at http://www.mufon.com/, where you will find many more Maine reports and current UFO news.

Here is the long description of MUFON's sighting report #66464:

13 June, 2015 just after 9:00 PM driving NORTH on ROUTE 15 after leaving "Snow's Corner" gas station in Orrington, Maine.

100 to 200 yards from my turn off to the right, just before the Orrington-Brewer town-line, I saw a bright teal object slightly above the trees to the North-Northeast going slightly above the tree tops, then dipping below with some lateral motion back and forth as it did. It was "triangular" but had a round shape with smaller circles underneath.

It illuminated a teal color seemingly from within as the surface "glowed" teal, with black features on it. At one point it tipped slightly away and I could see the bottom of the object. Lastly, it went below the trees one last time and I did not see it again.

This sighting lasted less than one minute, but more probably less than 30 seconds.

I pulled over in my truck and tried to see it from the next road down from mine but could not.

I then parked my truck and went inside to grab my 10x50 magnification binoculars and ran back to route 15 and walked down to the train-tracks that go across route 15 in Brewer, paralleling the river - but the object was no longer visible.

I though I might find some people outside using a drone of some sort, but there was no one outside that I saw. There was also no differentiation in color scheme of the lights to indicate a bow/stern or port/starboard configuration for night flying.

At this time I called a family member to tell them what I'd seen and the call was made at 9:28 PM per the phone's history.

This object was clearly not a conventional aircraft and moved very quickly back-and-forth and up-and-down. The color was almost as bizarre as the behavior itself.

[PICTURE]:

It repeated the "1" > "2" steps several times, and the "3" > "4" was it disappearing out of view and below the tree line in that direction.

-----------end MUFON report text------------
Orrington is located near the Penobscot River corridor, and in recent years the surrounding area has had a history of UFO sightings. Another Orrington sighting from May 24, 2010, mentions something that "Looked like a very bright star. Made wobbling movements, then stood still. Stayed put for 30 minutes then slowly moved down below tree line."

Digging back into the newspapers, I found at least one Orrington sighting decades old. In the Bangor Daily News of June 15, 1978, the headline hollers: "Object in sky upsets Orrington woman."

Like this year's June sighting, this one took place on Route 15, and similarly late at night (11:00pm), also near the Orrington/Brewer town line. The woman, who preferred to remain anonymous in the article, reported the incident to the state police, the FAA's radar tower at Bangor, the Bangor Police Department, and an Orrington constable.

What she reported was this: a huge red ball of light, "radiating a lot of heat," passed over her car at Wheeler's Hill on the Orrington/Brewer line. She felt electrified as though being shocked by a high voltage, her car radio went crazy, and her headlights went out. She reassured readers that unlike in the movie "Close Encounters," no papers or loose articles flew around inside the car.

After running her car off the road in a panic, and finding herself unable to rouse anyone in the one nearby house, she flagged down a pickup truck whose owner kindly drove her home, though he arrived several minutes after the incident and had not seen anything himself. No one else in the area reported any commotion, and the FAA logged nothing on its radar. The last she saw of the UFO, it was headed off toward Hampden.

So if you live in Orrington, perhaps a look upwards now and then would serve the curious among you well!

Whiskers of horror

In the recent resurgence of whiskery wonderment that has overswept the Maine hipster crowd, here is a piece of Maine's less kind whisker history, found in the November 5, 1874 issues of the Daily Kennebec Journal:

An aggravated case of hazing occurred at Bates College Friday night, when a party of sophomores broke into the room of C. E. Hussey, a freshman from Farmington, their purpose being to cut off his whiskers. He screamed for help and to smother his cries they held the bed clothes about his head.

Having accomplished their object and fearing discovery by reason of his outcries, they struck and beat him in a cowardly manner, cutting several deep gashes in his head and maltreating him to such an extent that a physician had to be summoned, and Hussey is now confined to his bed. The faculty have instituted a searching examination.

Even with this inauspicious start to his college career, Charles Edwin Hussey went on to graduate from Bates College in 1878. The May 1879 issue of Bates' Scarab newsletter had this to say about the recent graduate's upswing in career: "'78. — C. E. Hussey, who has during the past year been teaching the High School at Milton Mills, N. H., has been appointed Principal of the High School at Rochester, N. H." In 1881 he received an MA degree, and expanded his career into Massachusetts.

Seen here in a portrait circa 1896, Hussey seems to have toned down his whiskers as a professional adult. I would love to see what they looked like before the attack -- how epic had they become? This photo is from a page-long entry in a town history of Redding, MA.

According to a Hussey genealogy site at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gowenrf/husseyms_102.html, here is a capsule history of his life:

Charles Edwin Hussey (H3/2.2), son of Charles William Hussey (H4/4.2) and Nancy Bickford Davis Hussey (D4/1.1), was born June 16, 1856 in Rochester. He was graduated from Bates College in 1878 with an AB degree and received an MA degree in 1881. He was employed as a school superintendent in New Hampshire and also in Newton, Natick, Wakefield and Reading, Massachusetts. He was married December 25, 1884 to Carrie H. Wallace (W3/1.1), daughter of E. G. Wallace (W4/1.1) of Rochester. She was born February 26, 1862. Charles Edwin Hussey (H3/2.2) became an officer in the U. S. Army during the Spanish-American War. He died October 17, 1915 at Rochester.

So hey -- even if you experience whisker-oriented assault, you can still go on to live a productive life. C.E. Hussey is proof of that!

There's Gold in them there geese!

Well, apparently chickens don't have a monopoly on gold nuggets, at least according to this 1903 Lewiston newspaper article.

If right about now you're saying to yourself, "What the heck are they talking about?" it might be time for you to read this post I did a few weeks ago about gold-digging chickens in Aroostook County:Gold-digging Chickens of Aroostook County

Portland railyard ghosts?

Back in 2007, I came across a query about a Portland railyard ghost in a now-defunct online discussion board, and posted about it here on the blog:

Portland Trainyard Ghost Rumor

"Has anyone heard anything about the old railroad round house on Presumpscot Street in Portland? Someone told me the other day that it was supposed to be haunted by an engineer that got crushed working on a train. Worked in that building for almost 4 years all hours of day and night and on weekends. Never heard anything except pipes clanging. [...] of course, it can't be checked now because it's the DMV office for Portland. Why do we find these things too late?"

I have yet to nail down the various defunct railyard locations in Portland, but I did just come across an old newspaper article from 1894 that had an interesting railyard "spook" placed at the Boston & Maine railyard here in town:

The ghost of the shanty who has been haunting brakemen and switchmen in the Boston & Maine yard at Portland has been laid-out. Lights have been flashed before the windows, unaccountable rappings, tappings, and all sorts of other uncanny sounds have been heard, much to the disquiet of the railroad men. The other night they resolved to lie in wait to corral if possible one of the visitors from Hades, and one turned up on schedule time -- and was seen to approach the window of the shanty carrying a lighted torch. The unterrified ghost hunters immediately charged upon the spectre. The spectre made a bold sprint but stubbed his toe and was captured. He was flesh and blood and was a real Irish "spook" by the name of Paddy.

Pranking it up in the 1890s! I wonder why he went to all that effort, all those nights in a row...?

Anomalous birds & pinging pigeons in Portland

I found this odd little pair of articles in the Lewiston Evening Journal way back in a September 1926 issue.

I'm always curious about mentions of anomalous bird sightings, and sightings of albino animals in Maine. The pigeon article was a bonus, if only for the tongue-in-cheek joke about the potential need for Portlanders to develop their (hitherto unknown) blowpipe skills.

A UK haunted house for Stephen King?

I was poking around in the newspaper archives, and found this tantalizing little article in New Hampshire's Nashua Telegraph, back in late 1977.

According to the article, King had been on the lookout for a haunted house to rent in England. Also according to the article, he found a suitably spooky property in Fleet, a town in Hampshire, England. He planned to move house to the overseas location until he completed the novel that this setting was to inspire.

Who knows if this bit of haunted property ever gave King the inspiration to set ink to paper? Early in 1977, before placing the ad, King released one of his great haunted house (and haunted human) books, The Shining. It wasn't until 1998 that he released his next book that centered on a haunted property, the hair-raising Bag of Bones. However, it isn't England that serves as the setting for Bag of Bones -- it is squarely set in King's fictitious (but oh so real) town of Derry, and migrates up to the lumber and lake country of Maine (perhaps near his post-UK residence in the Kezar Lake country near Center Lovell, Maine).

Is there a tale locked in a trunk somewhere that shows the fruit borne of this overseas destination? Or is his short story "Crouch End" the only noticeable outcome of his UK rambles? The word is that instead of writing a haunted house opus, he found himself instead writing Cujo, and fortuitously meeting future collaborator Peter Straub to boot.

Cemetery Dance's website cites the move as the inspiration for a fragment published in their 2009 book of King's material Uncollected, Unpublished: "The attempted novel was the result of both the King family’s abortive move to England and a discussion between King and his editor of the time, Bill Thompson. The discussion revolved around the writing of a novel using the detective character, Lord Peter Wimsey, created by Dorothy L Sayers."

Not much of a subject for a haunted house setting, but perhaps we can blame King's publicist for the misdirection, or perhaps (like some of us) he simply prefers a haunted setting, no matter what he's trying to write.

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EDITOR'S NOTE:
Center Lovell has most recently been in the news because of the owner of a bed and breakfast who is running a contest to find the next owners of her Center Lovell Inn -- write your essay and enter, if you like! More info here: http://wincenterlovellinn.com/contest-rules-entry/ or read about it in the CNN article here: http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/13/news/center-lovell-inn-contest/

Aroostook's gold-digging chickens?

In the recent resurgence of poultry raising in Maine towns and cities like Portland, one might often hear folks talk about the "gold mine" of eggs that comes from their feathered charges, or the "gold" of their yolks. But never have I encountered a tale in which the goldmine was literal.

Imagine my surprise when I ran across a story in a New Brunswick newspaper, the St. John Daily Sun. On July 27, 1899, the headline on page 7 read: "CARY'S HEN MINE. How a Wanderer Found a Maine Klondike. Mysterious Hermit Who Buys Poultry and the Use He Makes of It. Puzzled and Surprised the Folks from Perth to Aroostook Junction."

The headline is enough to make one curious about this character. The setting is remote. Simeon Cary reportedly hailed from Pickering Point, north of Perth (New Brunswick), making his way over the border into Maine once or twice a week to collect supplies in his dugout canoe from provisioners in Fort Fairfield.

Little or no notice was taken of him until one day when he turned his steps into a jewelry store there, and casually tossed an envelope onto the top of one of the jeweler's showcases, requesting assistance regarding its contents. "Pure gold," the jeweler was forced to admit in surprise after administering tests for proof. "Where did you get it?" Simeon glibly told the jeweler that a friend in the Klondike had mailed it to him.

But it was the curious folks of Perth, New Brunswick, who eventually wiggled the truth out of the situation. They knew nothing about the gold, but they had noticed Simeon was buying chickens. Lots of chickens. More and more chickens, in fact. What had started as two or three at a time turned into a dozen chickens at a time. The sex of the chickens didn't matter. Whether they laid eggs or not didn't matter. He paid well for vigorous, lively poultry.

After the locals realized he wasn't using the chickens to produce eggs or cutlets for sale, they started wondering -- what exactly was Simeon doing with all those chickens? And then, as the article says, "folks grew curious and made his business their business when he was not around." They stayed curious for about six months.

Then one day, three Perthites found their curiosity getting the better of them (it took a while, perhaps we can blame it on cabin fever), and they finally took the trouble to sneak up the road which led to Simeon's homestead. Two feet of snow lay about the land, covering the ground under the trees, but not so in Simeon's yard.

A clear dirt lot extended about his cabin, chickens scratching away at it busily. Simeon, lounging in the doorway, surprised the men by raising the gun and pegging one of his flock quite casually. This was immediately followed by a quick operation on the spot, in which the poor pullet's crop was removed from his breast and taken forthwith into the cabin, out of side of the baffled watchmen.

Enough was enough. The three men rushed the door. Simeon was "contrary and a trifle saucy." However, the emergence of the fact that one of the three men was in fact the owner of the land and cabin in which they stood had a surprisingly convincing effect on the man, and thus Simeon was convinced to spill the beans.

It had started with a natural love of hens. In his solitude, his first rooster and handful of hens kept him company with their continual busy doings and conversational cluckings. Their eggs were delicious. But on the day he realized it had been a full 46 years since he had eaten a drumstick, one unlucky hen became dinner.

In preparation for the meal, "he sat on a log picking the whiskers out of the end that goes over the fence last," and while doing so, ruminated on what the hens lived on besides "faith and gravel stones." He fed them no grain. What on earth kept them going?

Thought led to action, and he used his knife to extract the hapless fowl's crop from its plucked body. Therein he found small rocks, grit, grass, and "a large number of shining particles that were soft under the point of a knife," that looked suspiciously like nothing but gold.

It turned out that eventually Simeon determined that especially robust chickens could be surgically opened, cleaned out, carefully reassembled with silk thread, and reinstalled in the farmyard with a fortifying dose of stimulant to help them overcome the shock to their system. This was much preferable to executing them continually (and likely also preferable to being forced to eat chicken for the thousandth time).

Simeon found that young, strong chickens could be operated on every ten days, while older ones that moved more slowly could stand to be opened up every two weeks.

The article does not mention whether anyone in Perth or Fort Fairfield was inspired to try the same. The article gives as its provenance a letter originally published in the Lewiston Journal, though I have yet to find the original publication (if such exists) in my searches of old newspaper files.

The American Merganser

However, I did find the following on page 64 in the October 1898 issue of the National Magazine, which may explain where the author received his or her inspiration for this piece of purported journalism:

"The Klondike Mergansie which you now see," said Macfugle, calmly; "is a Canadian bird and is not so big a goose as he looks. He is of great value to the Klondike miners, flying up and down the narrow creeks and swallowing gold nuggets until he can hold no more. He then alights at his master's feet and the rugged miner gathers his crop. That's what they call gold croppings, see?"

The quote comes from a confabulation of tall tales in zoo form, titled "Seeing the Elephant," by Winthrop Packard. Perhaps the author of the "Fort Fairfield letter" read this write-up first, and wondered how to transpose it to his native ground? I mean, honestly -- who is going to send a correspondent up to the St. John Valley in Aroostook county to check on such a diversion?

In fact, despite Macfugle's fictitious assertion about the nature of gold croppings, the actual definition, according to a dictionary published in New York around 1902, is this:

"Gulch-mining. Mining in gulches, a method akin to that of placermining, consisting in ascertaining the existence of the gold-croppings which are washed down by heavy rains into the ravines or gulches."
This entry is found on pg. 217 of A New Dictionary of Americanisms: Being a Glossary of Words Supposed to Be Peculiar to the United States and the Dominion of Canada, by Sylva Clapin, NY, Louis Weiss & Co. Publishers (undated edition). I do recommend fans of odd turns of phrase find the book online for perusal, because it is itself a treasure trove of marvelous oddities.

So here we leave you until our next discovery, perhaps wondering a little -- but that is good. One must wonder before one can find.

Blog update: new look?

Please bear with me as I wrangle what I want out of the Blogger templates on their upgraded designs (and wish me luck!)

:)

Pulp Fiction on Monument Square

Last month, Abraham Schechter of the Portland Public Library's Portland Room pointed this photo out to me. The other night I finally had a chance to do some digging and find out what it was.

Pictured here is Russell Mack, proprietor of Russell's Cigars, a variety shop run at 15 Monument Square. [Those Portlanders among you will know the building as the current location of a few businesses including Others! Fair Trade Coffee House.] Both Abraham and I were enthralled by the array of old pulp books and magazines shown on Mr. Mack's shelves.

In digging for the article that this photo used to be attached to, I had good luck. In fact, the story is more than just a "Hey, look at this local business owner working with his customary stock." No, instead the story was "Here is Russell Mack dutifully packing up books and magazines that Portland city officials are banning due to their salacious content!" Those pulp paperbacks he's holding are by Erskine Caldwell, the famous author who owned a bookstore in Portland in the late 1920s, in Longfellow Square at 668 Congress Street (see below).

The Portland Press Herald article, published in the August 21, 1948 issue on page 14, details the ban on Caldwell's novels that occurred in Portland... it was in effect for a mere 5 hours on August 20th, before the "misunderstanding" was corrected.

After receipt of the complainant's letter, a city inspector was sent out on the town to see what was what. He returned bearing 6 so-called "art magazines" and 3 of Caldwell's books. The ban was intended to target the magazines only, but in a miscommunication, the Caldwell books got lumped into the mix. The entire brouhaha was started by a letter to City Hall from a Portland citizen who was concerned about the "salacious magazines" and literature being made available to local students in the bookshops of the area. Perhaps some of the other visible titles below Mr. Mack's bent knee are those in question? With titles like "Confessions of a Good Time Girl," "Party Wife," "Pleasure After Hours," "Excess Wife," and "Confessions of a Shakedown Dame," it is hard to imagine these publications wouldn't raise an eyebrow or two. On the other hand, they probably weren't talking about the nearby magazine with the banner headline, "FOOT DOCTOR TO THE STARS!"

Misinformed, the Portland Police Department's detective squad was sent out to warn booksellers off the banned titles, including the 3 Caldwell books, only to have to rescind the ban as it pertained to the Caldwell titles 5 hours later. The City government announced belatedly that it had "no opinion" when it came to differentiating between the varying degrees of worth in adult literature, even though earlier in the day it had officially typified Caldwell's books as "distasteful literature." The "art magazines," however, remained under ban due to their manifest tendency "to corrupt the morals of youth."

Five local booksellers were interviewed as to their opinions on the ban. Most agreed it was "a silly thing to do," as one female bookseller (unnamed) neatly summed it up. Booksellers are notorious as being the bastions of freedom of literary expression, and it seems this has been a trend for a long time.

For those of you wondering about where Erskine Caldwell's Longfellow Bookshop was, here is a comparative shot of 668 Congress St. in 1925 (before Caldwell opened his shop) compared with how it looks today. True to form, this location is right across the street from my own used bookshop, the Green Hand Bookshop, at 661 Congress Street. Longfellow Square cannot help but attract booksellers, no matter what century it is.