greater bangor edition

Volume 8, Issue 8

Maine’s History Magazine

Frederick Low:

Yosemite’s Savior

Governor of California was from Frankfort

The Saga Of

Molly Spotted ElkPenobscot from Indian Island found

success as an actress and author

Nine Snowmobilers Rode Into Maine History In 1961

Difficult terrain and conditions made for a dangerous trip

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MAINE2012

Greater Bangor RegionGreater Bangor Region

www.discovermainemagazine.com

DiscoverMaine

— Greater Bangor Region —

2 ~ Inside This Edition ~4 Wilson Goes Missing In Piscataquis County

Town and waterfall bearing the Wilson name disappearIan MacKinnon

7 Yodelin’ Slim Clark: Downeast Country Western StarSt. Albans resident became a legendMatthew Jude Barker

10 Frederick Freeman ProctorDexter’s pioneer of American vaudevilleJames Nalley

14 Trenton’s John Bunker And The Great WarEllsworth lawyer organized Maine’s home frontCharles Francis

17 Frederick Low: Yosemite’s SaviorGovernor of California was from FrankfortCharles Francis

19 Penobscot Bay’s Marine Museum And Fort Point LighthouseJames Nalley

21 The Trim Triple Murder In BucksportFather and daughter dead, child missing in 1876James Nalley

23 Memorable EncountersAmelia Earhart and the stowaway from CorinnaCharles Francis

26 Edith Lesley Founds A SchoolA pioneer in early childhood educationCharles Francis

29 Nine Snowmobilers Rode Into Maine History In 1961Difficult terrain and conditions made for a dangerous tripIan MacKinnon

35 A Pacifist’s DelusionsHampden-born diplomat was dupedCharles Francis

38 William H. GradyThe unknown Irish-American historian of BangorMatthew Jude Barker

40 Bangor Lawyer Brian J. DunnThe poet laureate of the brickyardMatthew Jude Barker

42 Damming The West BranchRipogenus Dam, great wonder of the north woodsCharles Francis

44 Sangerville’s Harry Oakes......and his mysterious connection with the Duke of WindsorCharles Francis

47 Early Birders Of The Appalachian TrailPrinciples of birds’ coloring led to development of camouflage designCharles Francis

49 The Attempted Train Robbery At Enfield StationBandits escaped, but empty-handedJames Nalley

51 The Saga Of Molly Spotted ElkPenobscot from Indian Island found success as an actress and authorCharles Francis

53 The 1927 Double Murder And Suicide In West OronoDrunken jealousy to blameCharles Francis

55 Directory Of AdvertisersSee who helps us bring Maine history to you!

Discover MaineMagazine

Greater Bangor Region

Front cover photo:Springer’s boarding House, Wytopitlock

from the Eastern Illustrating & PublishingCo. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

All photos in Discover Maine’s Greater Bangoredition show Maine as it used to be, and many are

from local citizens who love this part of Maine.Photos are also provided from our collaboration

with the Maine Historical Society and thePenobscot Marine Museum.

Discover Maine Magazine is distributed to fraternal organizations, shopping centers, libraries,

newsstands, grocery and convenience stores, hardwarestores, lumber companies, motels, restaurants and other

locations throughout this part of Maine.

NO PART of this publication may be reproduced without written permission

from CreMark, Inc. Copyright © 2011, CreMark, Inc. SubSCRIPTION FORM ON PAgE 55

Published Annually by CreMark, Inc.

10 Exchange Street, Suite 208Portland, Maine 04101

(207) [email protected]


PublisherJim Burch

Designer & EditorMichele Farrar

Advertising & Sales ManagerTim Maxfield

Advertising & SalesSarah BellowsChris BiggarRyan BourgoinMontana CoffinTeri HakansonCraig PalmacciAndrew Woody

Office ManagerLiana Merdan

Field RepresentativeGeorge Tatro

Contributing WritersMatthew Jude BarkerCharles Francis

[email protected] MacKinnonJames Nalley

DiscoverMaine


3

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Recently I have been reminded of the quirksof living in a rural area. Out in the woods,to be exact. The town road that leads to my

house starts out as paved, then turns to dirt. Itdead-ends half a mile past my house. There are no

streetlights. If you plug my ad-dress into your GPS, you “can’tget there from here.” GPS insiststhat my road does not dead-end.That may have been true 50years ago, but it’s not true now.Most people accept this explana-

tion when I give it to them. Others do not. Theseare the people who swear by GPS. It is, after all, rel-atively new technology, and therefore can’t bewrong. These are the people who will drive into alake if their GPS tells them to do so. These are alsothe people who will inevitably call me from tenmiles away to say they are lost.

My old friend Bob, who lives up here on theridge, is not one for modern technology. He fightsit every step of the way. He has a cell phone be-cause his adult kids got it for him. He has a com-puter with internet for the same reason. He grewto love this when he realized he could order hard-to-find fishing gear and have it delivered straight tohis house. That is, once the local drivers caught on

to the fact that they couldn’t use their GPS devicesto find his house. I never overheard any of theseconversations, but I can imagine how they went.Bob would say something like, “I don’t care whatyour GPS says, I am quite certain I know how to getto my own house. If you still can’t figure it out, usea map.”

This summer we had Hurricane Irene. In herwake, we were without power for four days. Poweroutages on the ridge aren’t unexpected, and mostof us know how to deal with it surprisingly well.Since we all have wells for our water supply, weknow that if we don’t have power, we don’t havewater. (Electric pumps get the water from the wellto the house.) When a storm is predicted, we fillour bathtubs so we have water to flush the toilets.We fill jugs with water for coffee, drinking andwashing. (I have a camping coffee pot that I use onmy gas stove. It makes great coffee.) We have amplecandle and flashlight supplies, and most of us havewoodstoves for heat. (During the ice storm of ’98we lost power for 12 days and stayed here the en-tire time, except for the occasional trip to a friend’shouse for laundry and a shower.) Irene threw us acurve ball because it was summer. This time we hadto worry about food in our freezers – somethingthat’s not a big concern in the winter.

Since the arrival of Irene was predicted, we hadtime to take extra precautionary steps. There wereall kinds of strategies explained on TV. My partic-ular favorite was to fill plastic water bottles andshove them into every nook and cranny of myfreezer before the power went out. When it did goout, I had a freezer full of block ice thanks to thebottles. They kept the inside nice and cold, and Ididn’t lose any of my frozen food. (The refrigera-tor, however, did not fare so well.)

The only thing that’s really hard to overcome isthe boredom. You can only play so many games ofcribbage. I read an entire novel in the first two days.On the third day, around 6pm, boredom got thebest of us and we went to a motel, dogs in tow. Theshower was the best part of that night.

Since my road is a dead-end road we invariablyfind ourselves last on the list for restoration ofpower. Most folks who live up here on the ridgehave generators. I know I should get one, butthere’s always something standing in the way, likethe electric bill or that pesky mortgage payment.Bob doesn’t have a generator. He doesn’t call it“modern technology,” but rather a frivolous pur-chase. Until his kids get him one, I don’t expect tosee one at his house. It’s too bad, really. It would bea lot cheaper to stay at his place than at a motel.

DiscoverMaine


4

If Tom Hanks had filmed the movie “CastAway” in Piscataquis County, he couldhave searched from Greenville to Milo

and never found Wilson — not the volleyball,but the town of that name and an 80-foot wa-terfall.

To encourage settlement in remote Somer-set County during the 1830s, the Maine Legis-lature created towns willy-nilly, with littlethought as to a particular municipality’s eco-nomic and political viability. On February 19,1835, the Legislature incorporated the Townof Elliottsville, originally Township 8 in Range9 NWP (North of the Waldo Patent). Namedfor Elliot Vaughan, Elliottsville lay across thehills, lakes, and mountains spreading northfrom Monson.

On March 29, 1836 the Legislature incor-porated the Town of Wilson, Elliottsville’snext-door western neighbor, and formerlyTownship 9 in Range 8 NWP. Like El-liottsville, Wilson sprawled across rugged ter-rain drained by two appropriately namedwaterways — Big Wilson Stream and Little

Wilson Stream.Legislative hocus-pocus then carved

Piscataquis County from Penobscot and Somerset Counties on March 23, 1838, andElliottsville and Wilson “shifted” political allegiances to the new county. Local residents— not many then, as now — logged theforests and struggled to create economic prosperity where none had existed.

Extending northwest from Monson “toMoose Head Lake,” the State Road rosethrough the Wilson hills and forests before descending toward Greenville, incorporatedon February 6, 1836. Wintertime cold andspringtime snow melt and rains often disrupted travel along the road, used primarilyby merchants and travelers. The road appar-ently represented a money pit. On February25, 1839 the Legislature appropriated $600“for the purpose of repairing the State Roadfrom the dwelling house of H.G.O. Barrows,in the town of Wilson to Moose Head Lake”and authorized the governor “to appoint anagent to superintend the expenditure of saidmoney.”

The State Road ran west alongside LittleWilson Stream, a route followed by a gravelroad that today accesses Maine Forest Servicecampsites near the stream’s lower falls. In the19th century a sawmill known as Savage’s Millexisted upstream from the modern camp sites,and the State Road crossed Little WilsonStream at a ford before rising into the adjacenthills.

According to www.keepmebeautiful.com,the 8,700-acre Big Wilson-Seven Ponds Sanctuary protects “evidence of early settle-ment in Elliottsville Township, including the

remains of Savage’s Mill, established by Nel-son Savage in 1824, and the old stage road(State Road) between Monson andGreenville.” The Savage’s Mill Road, whichserved as the State Road in the 19th century,can still be found not far beyond the LowerFalls on Little Wilson Stream.

Writing in his 1886 “A Gazetteer of theState of Maine,” George J. Varney mentioned“good mill privileges” on Little Wilson Streamand then revealed information startling in its21st-century context. Upstream from the potential mill sites was “one of the most remarkable cataracts of the east… a fall of 80feet perpendicular.”

An 80-foot cataract waterfall — commonsense would dictate that this natural wonderimpeded water-borne transportation in Wil-son. Yet someone — perhaps Nelson Savage,perhaps another individual — attempted to“run the rapids” with wood products intendedfor transportation to the Piscataquis River.Varney indicated that “clapboard cuts havesometimes been driven over this fall, but manyof them would come up in the stream below,split and quartered from end to end.” The 80-foot waterfall destroyed whatever swept overits rim and discouraged upstream mill construction.

Why does Varney’s waterfall reference surprise 21st-century Mainers? Because that80-foot cataract went missing years ago, as didthe Town of Wilson.

Delving deeper in Varney’s gazetteer suggests what likely happened to Wilson. Although referring to Elliottsville, Varneycould have also described Wilson: “The township still has a fair amount of pine and

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spruce timber, and some good agriculturalsoil; but there is much waste land.”

He aptly described the challenges awaitingWilson residents 50 years earlier. They tried —oh, they tried so hard — to create a viabletown, but the poor soil, rugged terrain, andbone-chilling winters defeated their efforts.

In 1848 the Maine Legislature dissolved theTown of Wilson, and land-hungry neighborspounced. Greenville got “North” Wilson, andElliottsville got “East” Wilson,” including Little Wilson Stream and its attendant falls.Varney’s Gazetteer succinctly reported thatShirley “is made up partly of the disintegratedtown of Wilson” — Shirley got “West” Wilson, stretching essentially from today’sRoute 15 east to the Elliottsville line.

So Wilson went missing in PiscataquisCounty. And Elliottsville reverted from townto township in 1858.

What about that missing 80-foot perpendi-cular waterfall?

By its August 1937 completion “as a con-tinuous footpath” (www.appalachiantrail.org),the Appalachian Trail wound through interiorMaine to terminate at Mount Katahdin. Today,a trail head on Route 15 in Monson marks theentrance to the 100-Mile Wilderness, an incredibly rugged multi-day A.T. journey

through the remote Piscataquis County foreststo the Abol Bridge on the Penobscot River’sWest Bridge.

The Appalachian Trail crosses Little WilsonStream in a deep ravine about 0.9 miles upriver from the M.F.S. camp sites. This crossing lay near the 80-foot perpendicularwaterfall, supposedly “the highest waterfall directly on the Appalachian Trail.”

Some early hikers allude to the fall’s unusualheight, but by the 1960s or 1970s, that heighthad declined by 23 feet, a loss attributable toeither flooding or a minor earthquake. On October 3, 2006 a magnitude 3.4 earthquakeoccurred in Frenchman Bay, just off Bar Harbor, and visibly scarred Champlain Mountain’s eastern slope with a large landslide.A similar earthquake could have sheared theLittle Wilson Stream waterfall to 57 feet.

This height’s significance lies in its occasional confusion with the upper falls onLittle Wilson Stream. Various hiking and waterfall guides have listed the height of thisscenic waterfall, which tumbles into a darkslate gorge, as 57 feet; the actual height is 39feet, and hikers standing on the gorge’s broken shelves can sense that Little WilsonFalls (modern name) drops no 55 to 60 feet.The Appalachian Trail brushes against these falls.

Today, hikers can search between Little Wilson Falls and the downstream M.F.S. campsites and find no 57-foot waterfall, which in itsheyday also mentioned “Wilson” in its name.Mother Nature apparently swept away this waterfall during the epic April 1987 flood thatdevastated towns along the various PiscataquisCounty rivers.

Could a rampaging Little Wilson Stream actually annihilate a 57-foot waterfall? Geological and hydrological evidence indicatethat a perpendicular waterfall, such as NiagaraFalls, “undercuts” its own stability. The waterplunging directly over the waterfall’s edgeerodes the underlying bedrock, causing its occasionalcollapse and the waterfall’s slow “retreat”upstream.

Such activity likely occurred at the 57-footwaterfall — the April 1987 flood hastened theprocess and obliterated the falls, roiling itsbedrock and upstream pool downriver alongthe Little Wilson Stream. Local hikers foundthe waterfall “missing” later that spring.

No one knew exactly why this particular waterfall disappeared, while the upstream 39-foot falls did not, but as had happened in1848, another Wilson had gone missing in Piscataquis County.

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raymond leroy clark was an amer-ican country western musician mostnoted for his yodeling. a Maine res-

ident for more than fifty years, clark is bestknown to generations of country musiclovers as Yodelin’ Slim clark.

clark was born in Springfield, Massachu-setts in december 1917 and had only com-pleted two years of high school when hebecame a professional musician at the age offifteen. He had previously performed atchurch fairs and grange halls since the ageof twelve. at the age of seven or eight, hehad decided to become a cowboy singer, andby age thirteen he was singing songs he hadlearned listening to the victrola, an oldphonograph player. raymond clark knew all along that he

would become a singer and an artist; in the1980s he fondly recalled his early ambition:“i said, i’ll do those things, and believed it.So much so that i just went ahead and did

them and thought that was the way it wassupposed to be.” He performed for radio sta-tions in Massachusetts and new Hampshire

for several years before going on the air as“wyoming Buck” in 1936. a few monthslater a radio station manager renamed him“Yodelin’ Slim clark,” and that became histrademark name for the rest of his long life.although Slim usually performed solo

acts, he did play in several bands: “redriver rangers,” “the trailriders,” and “thetrailsmen.” country western favorites dickcurless (“the tumbleweed Kid”) andKenny roberts often performed with him inthese groups. in 1946 clark signed withcontinental records in new York city, andmade his first 78 rpm recording later thatyear. His songs included folk tunes, west-erns, and traditional cowboy airs. clark alsorecorded some wilf carter (“MontanaSlim”) songs; wilf was his hero throughouthis life. together with Pete roy, clark alsocomposed some of his own music, whichlater became hits in their own right. He

(Continued on page 8)

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stayed with continental records until 1957,and then signed with various labels until1965, when he had several successful al-bums with Palomino records.

clark had summered for seven yearsin Maine before becoming a year-roundresident in 1952. From that year until1967, he was featured on radio and tel-evision programs at waBi in Bangor.in the 1960s, he also starred on a Ban-gor radio show called “rFd dinner-bell.” a lifelong outdoorsman, clarkwas a registered guide in Maine for 17years, as well as a guide in the othernew england states.

Yodelin’ Slim recorded over fifty 78s,forty 45s, and at least 25 albums. Hismusic was enjoyed by listenersthroughout the U.S., canada, australia,and even europe. clark was inductedinto the Yodeler’s Hall of Fame, thewestern Music association’s Hall ofFame, and the country music halls offame for Maine, Massachusetts, andrhode island. He is represented in the walk-way of Stars at the country Music Hall ofFame and Museum in nashville, and in 2000he was posthumously inducted into the cow-

boy Hall of Fame.Slim was a man of many talents. He was

an avid baseball player in his youth, havingbeen a semi-pro pitcher for the Blackstone

valley league in Massachusetts, and eventried out as a pitcher for the Boston Braves.one of his childhood ambitions was to be-come an artist, and this he also accom-

plished, becoming a talented painter of out-doors scenes. Slim painted anything andeverything related to the good ol’ days of thenew england outdoors, including log

haulers, white-tailed deer (one of his fa-vorites), old country homes and farms,pets, hunting and fishing scenes, and the“horse and drag days” of new england.

clark was twice married, first to celiaJo roberson (“Blue eyed celia”), bywhich he had two children, Jewel lav-erne and wilf carter clark; and then todr. Kathleen Pigeon. this great countrylegend from Maine and new englanddied at his St. albans, Maine home inJuly 2000 at the age of 82. His widowKathleen still resides there. His daugh-ter Jewel has created an interesting andinformative website for her dad that in-cludes an autobiography clark wasworking on in the 1980s, as well as cov-ers of his music albums and prints of hisartwork. Yodelin’ Slim clark’s life andtimes would make a great biography —it seems that it is long overdue.

(Continued from page 7)

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In 1870 a young man under the stagename of “Fred Levantine,” ran outon stage and performed the usual

“death-defying” routines as part of anacrobatic troupe. The group had just re-turned from a successful tour of Europeand began a trip through the morerowdy theatres of the eastern UnitedStates, which served alcohol and offeredless wholesome shows. As the membersof the troupe imbibed and enjoyed thefruits of their labors, “Fred” slowlysaved his earnings. By 1886 he had takenhis savings and purchased his share of asmall theater in Albany, New York.Within four years, he owned 12 theatersthat discontinued alcohol service andprovided a continuous schedule ofwholesome family entertainment. By thetime of his death, he was known as the“Dean of American Vaudeville.”

“Fred Levantine” was actually Fred-erick Freeman Proctor, who was born inthe town of Dexter on March 17, 1851.His childhood was spent working and sup-porting the family due to his father’s untimelydeath. But after high school, when most of hisclassmates either found work in the familybusiness or headed to college, Proctor yearnedfor traveling the world and joined an acrobatictroupe headed for Europe.

As he experienced and observed the “the-ater life,” Proctor was disturbed by the rau-cous and unwholesome audience attitude dueto the service of alcohol. Being a frugal tee-totaler, Proctor slowly saved his money withthe plans of opening his own theater for a dif-

ferent clientele. In 1886 Proctor invested hissavings into a small theater in Albany, and itwas billed as a “clean and wholesome family-oriented” theater that did not serve alcohol.Word spread quickly about this new type oftheater and by 1890, Proctor and his partner,Henry Jacobs, owned 12 top-quality vaudevilletheaters.

After his business relationship with Jacobsended, Proctor headed to New York City totake over the venture. He quickly acquired animpressive list of theaters that included the23rd Street Theatre and Proctor’s PleasurePalace in New York City. In 1894 he devoted

all of his energy to vaudeville entertain-ment, and ultimately owned 25 differenttheaters throughout the eastern UnitedStates by 1906. One theater in particularexemplified the type of design that Proc-tor had become known for: the NewarkTheatre at 116 Market Street. Accordingto historian Warren Harris: The eight-storycomplex had a large 2,300-seat theater atground level and a smaller theatre of about 900seats occupying the top four floors beneath theroof. This fairly narrow building contained onlythe lobby of the larger theatre, which had its au-ditorium behind it. But the main theatre, with itscavernous two balconies, was always one ofNewark’s leaders.

By the first decade of the 20th century,Proctor’s vaudeville theaters were packedwith enthusiastic crowds who came towatch the variety of acts that were of-fered from morning to night. His enter-tainment formula had worked, andProctor had amassed a fortune. In 1912he purchased approximately 1,150 acres

of land near the Hudson River in Central Val-ley, New York. The grand estate was titled“Proctoria” and it consisted of five large res-idences, a variety of barns, and an impressivegatehouse that marked the entrance.

Meanwhile, more grand vaudeville theaterswere being built that included the massive“Proctor’s Theatre” in Schenectady, NewYork. Designed by his architect, ThomasLamb, the theater was completed in 1926 atan unheard of sum of $1.5 million. Proctorcalled his new theater “The largest, hand-somest and most costly theater that I have

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One of Proctor’s Theatres.(Photo by Matt Wade)

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ever built.” According to the History of the Proc-tor Theatre: On Dec. 27, 1926 Proctor’s The-atre opened with a showing of “Stranded inParis,” a silent film starring Bebe Daniels. Peo-ple had lined up for hours, and once inside thetheater, they were overwhelmed by the ornatedecorations — plush carpeting, marble stair-cases, drinking fountains, and velvet draperies.Enthralled patrons didn’t even seem to mindthat the $50,000 Wurlitzer organ malfunc-tioned. Over 7,100 paid admission was col-lected that day, making F.F. Proctor’s newvaudeville house a rousing success.

The theater would go on as one of Proc-tor’s primary theaters, with an impressive listof legendary performers that included RedSkelton, George Burns and Gracie Allen, aswell as bandleaders Duke Ellington and GlennMiller.

In 1929 Proctor had become ill, and soldthe majority of his theaters to the Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) Company for theamount of $16 million, just months before hisdeath on September 24 at the age of 78. Thechanges would have both a positive and neg-ative effect that would be felt throughout thetheater chain. Many venues, including Proc-tor’s Theatre in Schenectady, thrived as themovies and Big Band Era brought record

numbers of people out to the theaters. Otherswere not so fortunate. According to historianHarris: When all of F.F. Proctor’s theatres were ac-quired by Radio-Keith-Orpheum, (the Newark The-atre) became known as RKO Proctor’s. The theatreeventually fell victim to the urban decline of Newark,and to RKO’s merger with Stanley-Warner, which op-erated nearby and larger Branford. The new manage-ment decided to close Proctor’s and it has been standingmore or less derelict ever since.

Meanwhile, the “Proctoria” estate was di-vided and put up for sale, only to be finally ac-quired by the U.S. Military Academy at WestPoint. All of the former grand structures ofthe residence were destroyed except for thegatehouse and small carriage house. The landsare now used for both military maneuvers andparachute training.

After World War II television had becomeincreasingly popular and widely available inhouseholds throughout the country, whichgreatly impacted the movie industry. All of theformer movie houses struggled to stay in busi-ness. Even an icon as strong as Proctor’s The-atre struggled. By the 1970s, the Theatre wastaken over by the city, and closed for unpaidtaxes. Proctor’s seemed destined to go the wayof so many of its other theaters — destroyedby the wrecking ball. Fortunately, a group of

citizens formed the Arts Center and Theatreof Schenectady organization, and purchasedthe abandoned theater from the city for just$1 in 1979.

Today, after continued support from thecommunity, businesses, and sponsors, Proc-tor’s Theatre still thrives in its original loca-tion. It offers a wide array of shows that rangefrom concerts by performers such as TonyBennett and Mariah Carey, to Broadway pro-ductions that include “The Phantom of theOpera.” Although the theater has now ad-justed to the needs of the times by having justone performance per evening, it is fun toimagine what it must have been like to have aconstant stream of performances back in theturn of the century. Perhaps it was best statedin an 1893 advertisement: “After breakfast goto Proctor’s; after Proctor’s go to bed!”

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Probably no region in Maine realized theimmediate significance of America’sentry into World War I, or the Great

War, as it was first known, than HancockCounty. The reason for this was that John E.Bunker, a Hancock County man, was in chargeof Maine’s home front defenses. What thismeant was that Bunker had the ultimate re-sponsibility to see that every Maine village,town and city had an established system fordealing with any civil emergency, and, beyondthat, the possible incursion of German sabo-teurs.

The United States entered the war on April2, 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson ap-peared before both houses of Congress andsolemnly charged the German nation withhaving forced him to ask the Congress of theUnited States to declare war against it. WhenCongress acted in the affirmative on the Pres-ident’s request, the news flashed across thecountry so fast that the air was almost electric

with tension (the actual declaration of war oc-curred five days later on April 7). On themorning following President Wilson’s addressto Congress, Governor Carl Milliken gave hiswar address to a joint session of the MaineLegislature, which was on the point of ad-journing for the summer.

In his address, Governor Milliken calledupon the Maine Legislature to give him andhis Council the funding and authority neces-sary for enacting defensive measures on thehome front. This included issuing bonds tothe amount of a million dollars. The Gover-nor concluded his address with the followingwords:

Our little state has a role in the coming conflict farout of proportion to her size. Our rocky shores lookout upon the broad Atlantic, once the highway ofpeaceful commerce, now the path of the ruthless in-vader.

The Legislature granted Governor Mil-liken’s bond request, and put into form a num-

ber of other emergency war measures. Thesemeasures included sheriffs being authorized toappoint special deputies, the governor beingempowered to take any land in the name ofthe state for military uses, and municipal au-thorities being required to raise money for theaid of families of soldiers, sailors and marineswhile in military service. Ultimately, the re-sponsibility for overseeing these measures, anda good many more, fell to John Bunker.

John Bunker was a Trenton native and alawyer. When the United States entered theGreat War, Bunker was practicing law in BarHarbor. He had prepared for the Maine Barby reading for the law in the offices ofWiswall, King and Peters in Ellsworth. His ed-ucation had included Eastern Maine Confer-ence Seminary in Bucksport, and BostonUniversity. He had been active in almost alllevels of Hancock County politics, and hadbeen Maine’s Secretary of State in 1915, whenOakley Curtis, one of the few Democrats to

Trenton’s John Bunker And The Great WarEllsworth lawyer organized Maine’s home front

by Charles Francis

DiscoverMaine


15

be elected to a high state office in the first halfof the twentieth century, had been Governor,In fact, Baker was a Democrat. This did not,however, prevent Republican Governor Mil-liken from placing Bunker in charge ofMaine’s home front security.

John Bunker had actually been appointed tohis position in March of 1917, when Gover-nor Milliken had created a Committee of Pub-lic Safety. This Committee had consisted ofone hundred members scattered across thestate. Bunker’s official title was Executive Sec-retary of the Maine Committee of PublicSafety. As such, every request and directivepertaining to home front security in Mainepassed across Bunker’s desk.

The creation of the Maine Committee ofPublic Safety was actually a reflection of thetimes. As fighting spread in Europe, Maineresidents became aware of the magnitude ofthe conflict. As more and more reports camein from Europe, a martial fervor sweptthrough the entire state. Young Maine menbegan joining the national Guard as well as theregular military, especially when reports ofJohn J. Pershing’s pursuit of the Mexican ban-dit Pancho Villa began appearing in the pagesof the local papers. What was especially excit-ing to Maine residents was that some of their

own were serving under Pershing. The SecondInfantry Regiment of the Maine NationalGuard had been called into federal servicewhen trouble had started along the Mexicanborder, and many Mainers had someone theyknew in the Second Maine. Then, as the con-flict in Europe progressed, Mainers becameaware of the fact that hostilities could actuallyoccur nearer to home.

At the beginning of the conflict, Maine re-ceived the special attention of German andAustrian spies and agents. The chief reasonfor this was the state’s proximity to Canada,whose produce was of vital importance toEngland, and passed through Maine on theCanadian Pacific to Canada’s Atlantic portsand on the Grand Trunk, which connectedMontreal with Portland. During 1914 and1915, the German and Austrian embassies inWashington conducted espionage campaignsconcentrating on the Maine border with Que-bec and New Brunswick. German submarinesdropped agents along the Maine coast. Oth-ers came into the United States posing as busi-nessmen and diplomats, only to disappear.Warehouses in port cities like Boston and NewYork, which held supplies purportedly boundfor neutral nations friendly to England andFrance, were bombed. Then an attempt was

made to blow up the International Bridge overwhich the Canadian Pacific passed in Vance-boro. While the saboteurs were captured, itserved as a lesson for all of Maine, and led toa significant number of Maine men wishing tofight the Germans, volunteering for the Cana-dian army. It also led to the creation of theCommittee of Public Safety to organize pro-tection at the local level across the state.

Possibly the most important organizationformed during the Great war to deal withHome Front security was the Maine HomeGuard. It came into existence to serve in placeof the Maine National Guard. The SecondMaine Infantry of the Maine National Guardwas ordered to mobilize at Augusta in Augustof 1917. On August 19 the regiment left forWestfield, Massachusetts, where it joined otherNew England National Guard units for fur-ther training. Here it became the 103rd Regi-ment of the 26th Division. Its departure leftMaine without any organization to deal withsuch natural catastrophes as flood and stormdamage, a responsibility which also fell to theCommittee of Public Safety.

Without question, the most serious threatto face Maine arising out of the Great War wasthe outbreak of the Spanish Influenza. Almost


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every Maine community was affected by it, asmilitary personnel carrying the dreaded dis-ease came to one of the state’s many militaryinstallations. Dealing with it in terms of or-ganizing the state’s fledgling, and much-de-pleted public health services ultimately fell tothe Committee of Public Safety,

In May of 1919 the 103rd Regiment wasdischarged from active duty at Fort Devens inMassachusetts. Its men made their way homeby train. With its return, Maine again had itsNational Guard. Shortly after that, the MaineCommittee of Public Safety was relegated tothe pages of history.

John Bunker did not live to see the returnof the Maine men and women who answeredthe call to duty, however. He passed away inAugust of 1918. Prior to his passing, he hadbeen one of the driving forces behind the cre-ation of the Public Utilities Commission, aswell as its chairman. His story is a remarkableon of dedication and service to Maine.


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The history bookstell us that thecreation of

Yosemite National Parkwas a landmark event.Never before had a na-tional government — orany state government —set aside land for thesimple fact it was beauti-ful. Simply put, prior tothe creation of Yosemiteas the prototype of theworld’s national parksystems, the preserva-tion of land for futuregenerations by govern-ment was unheard ofand unknown.

There are certainnames that will always be associated withYosemite. John Muir, environmental preser-vationist, is one. Muir’s writing and activismwas fundamental in establishing the guidelinesunder which Yosemite and other nationalparks are managed. Frederick Law Olmsted,the landscape designer who created CentralPark, is another. It was Olmsted who, alongwith Israel W. Raymond, an important San

Francisco businessman, petitioned Congressfor a bill to preserve Yosemite. Then there isAbraham Lincoln. President Lincoln signedthe Yosemite legislation.

The fight to preserve Yosemite as a nationaltreasure does not end with President Lincoln’ssignature on the Congressional bill. The nextstep in protecting Yosemite for all time fallsto a man from Frankfort, Maine. That man’s

name was Frederick Low.The name Frederick

Low is not unknown tothe history books. How-ever, Low’s role in thepreservation ofYosemite is usually over-looked. Low played hispart in preservingYosemite in 1864, whenhe was Governor of Cal-ifornia.

The bill to preserveYosemite was introducedto Congress by Califor-nia Senator John Con-ness. The bill’s purposewas “to prevent occupa-tion and especially topreserve the trees” of

Yosemite. Congress was to grant Yosemite tothe state of California. However, there wasopposition to preserving Yosemite in Califor-nia. Private developers and timber companieswanted free access to exploit its natural won-ders and especially its timber. It was Gover-nor Low who saved the day.

Before real estate and timber lobbyists had(Continued on page 18)

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time to influence the California legislature,Frederick Low issued a proclamation citingCongress’s act. The proclamation set up acommission to implement the act. In part, thismeant getting the California legislature to ac-cept the federal grant. The commission mem-bers chosen by Governor Low were such thatacceptance of the grant by the legislature wasalmost assured. Olmsted and Raymond wereon it. Other members were equally influential.Governor Low was a commission member exofficio.

The struggle over Yosemite did not enduntil 1873. That year the U.S. Supreme Courtupheld a decision of the California SupremeCourt supporting the legality of the processleading to the preservation of Yosemite. Itneeds to be noted that Yosemite was first astate park. Its creation as such was the start ofCalifornia’s system of state parks, the firstsuch system anywhere. Not until later did itbecome a national park.

So exactly who was Frederick Low and howwas it that a Frankfort, Maine man came toplay such an important role in the creation offederal and state park systems?

Frederick Low was a ‘49er. He was one ofthe almost countless number of easterners

who answered the siren call of the Californiagold fields. And he found gold. Not a fortune,but enough to put himself in a position to sethimself up in business. He prospered, enteredpolitics as a Republican, was elected to Con-gress, and then to the California Governor’smansion.

Frederick Ferdinand Low was born in 1828in that part of Frankfort which was later setoff to become Winterport. He was a memberof the Low family that settled what is knownas the River District after the Revolution. TheLows came from Marshfield, Massachusettsand settled towns up and down the Penobscotfrom Stockton to Hampden and inland toMonroe and Brooks.

After attending Hampden Academy Fred-erick Low headed for the Boston area, wherehe studied business at Lowell Institute and at-tended lectures at Boston’s famous FanueilHall. It was there that he heard of the discov-ery of gold at Sutter’s Mill.

Frederick Low panned some $1500 worthof gold from tributaries of the SacramentoRiver. He then invested his “strike” in a fledg-ling steamship company, the California SteamNavigation Company, a river navigation com-pany serving inland boom towns. He went onto found a bank. In 1862 he served a term as

a member of the U.S. House of Representa-tives. The next year he was elected Governor.Leland Stanford handpicked him as his suc-cessor.

As Governor, Frederick Low can truly besaid to fit the description of enlightened andprogressive. Besides his support of the cre-ation of California’s system of state parks,Low is sometimes credited with the creationof the state’s university system. Some sourcescall him the father of the University of Cali-fornia.

Frederick Low’s career doesn’t end in Cali-fornia. From 1869 to 1873 he served as U.S.Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipo-tentiary to the Quig Empire. In today’s termi-nology, this means he was Ambassador toChina.

Frederick Low died in 1894. His life storyis a remarkable one, one that would seem to beconnected by rivers, whether they be thePenobscot of Maine, the Charles of Boston,the Sacramento of California or the Yellow ofChina. Perhaps sometime in the future a bi-ographer will use these rivers as a theme inwriting Frederick Low’s life story. His is a lifewell worth exploring.


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In February 1886 a young man namedEdwin Mitchell was making his first voy-age as a sailor. He diligently recorded his

observations in a journal that included high-lights as well as more mundane chores:

All hands turned to this morning at four o’clock toget the Ship ready to haul into the stream…at five atug came and towed us into the stream where we layuntil about one o’clock p.m. when two tugs came andtowed us to sea…it has been cloudy all day. Tonightthe Officers chose their watches I being chosen in theStarboard watch…

Another entry showed both his concern andsense of humor: “Last night one of the sailorswas taken sick with the fever and ague… Ihave also this day made up my mind to leaveoff using tobacco.” This detailed journal is justone preserved example of Penobscot Bay’srole in the shipping trade of the 19th century.Today, both the informative Penobscot Ma-rine Museum and the historic Fort PointLighthouse are important destinations for any-one interested in coastal Maine’s marine his-tory.

Founded in 1936 by the descendants ofPenobscot Bay’s sea captains, the PenobscotMarine Museum originally began in the for-mer Town Hall in Searsport. As stated in themuseum’s mission, its purpose was to “pre-serve, interpret, and celebrate the maritimeculture of the Penobscot Bay Region and be-yond through collections, education, and com-munity engagement.” In its relatively shorthistory, the museum has grown substantially,and it now consists of 13 different buildingsthat include eight registered historic structuressuch as the houses of former sea captains, achurch vestry, and barns. The best aspect ofthe museum is that all of the buildings are lo-cated in their original locations and have beenauthentically recreated to provide the feelingof walking in a 19th-century seaport village.It also includes a wide array of exhibits inseven different areas of interest: Small Craft(working and recreational boats such as aBeals Island lobster boat and a North Havendinghy); Marine Art (with paintings byThomas and James Buttersworth as well asRobert Salmon); Furniture (domestic and for-eign); Tools (used by Penobscot Bay’s loggers,ship builders and farmers); Ship Models;Scrimshaw (inscribed and painted whales’


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teeth and other ivory objects); and Photogra-phy (with more than 100,000 items). This im-pressive museum is open seven days a weekfrom late May to approximately the third weekof October.

Located on a remote overlook on the west-ern side of the Penobscot River in StocktonSprings is the historic Fort Point Lighthouse.As Maine’s lumber and potato industry rapidlyexpanded, vessels that traveled between Stock-ton Springs and Bangor were in desperateneed of a lighthouse to safely guide the shipsalong the Penobscot River. According to theLighthouse Friends Organization: “ O nJune 30, 1834, Congress appropriated $5,000to enable the Secretary of the Treasure to pro-vide, by contract, for building a lighthouse ona proper site on Fort Point, at the entrance ofPenobscot Bay, in the state of Maine. Thelighthouse, a conical tower built of undressedsplit granite, and an accompany dwelling werecompleted for just over $4,377.”

The lighthouse was immediately put intoservice and its first keeper was William Clew-ley, who happily moved into the new one-and-a-half-story house with an attached kitchen.But Maine’s coastal weather would prove to bea problem for the structure. According to an

1842 inspection report, “The lighthouse’swalls are cracked from roof to base. The deckwas loose and leaky, and the interior wallsfroze over during the winter.” In a letter byClewley, he agreed: “My dwelling-house is verymuch out of repair. The walls are of stone,and owing to defective building, have crackedon all four sides, so much as to cause contin-ued leakage in wet weather. The roof alsoleaks so much that we are obliged to take upcarpets and swab the floors. I swabbed uptwelve buckets of water off the floor of thesitting room. The cellar walls will fall downunless rebuilt.”

In 1857 after two years of construction anda request to Congress, a completely new light-house was built that included a 31-foot square-brick tower equipped with a fourth-orderFresnel lens and a wood-framed, two-storykeeper’s house. The lighthouse remained rela-tively peaceful in its remote location until1872, when developers decided to build a lux-ury hotel just 50 feet away.

The new hotel offered 125 guest roomswith views of the bay, salt- and fresh-waterspas, a state-of-the-art game room and broadverandas. Despite the fact that it was a money-losing venture from its inception, its locationwas certainly promising. In the 1886 book All

Among the Lighthouses: by Mary BradfordCrowninshield: “The view up the river is alovely one from this place… there werebrightly dressed children playing about thegrounds of the hotel… and summer visitorswalking over by the lighthouse.”

This wandering of visitors would cause aproblem for the lighthouse, which forced aninspector in 1883 to issue a request to provideprivacy for the keeper. “A portion of thegrounds was enclosed with some 900 feet ofwire and 1,000 feet of picket fencing.” But in1898, like many other fine wooden hotelsthroughout Maine, it was totally destroyed byfire and never rebuilt. Once again, the light-house remained in its solitary location on thebay.

Although there were some minor changesto the lighthouse itself, its light and fog signalstill remains active as a guide to navigationalong the Penobscot Bay and River. It is onlyone of nine lighthouses in Maine that still usea Fresnel lens, and the only lighthouse in thestate whose tower is square. The light was au-tomated in 1988 and the grounds became apart of Fort Point State Park in 1998. Thelighthouse is not open to the public, but thegrounds are accessible seven days a week from9 a.m. to sunset.


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Melissa Thayer and her four-year-olddaughter had just relocated to Buck-sport, soon after the death of her

husband. For emotional and financial stability,Thayer’s father, Robert Trim, welcomed theminto his house. With the original intention ofsetting up a small neighborhood school, every-thing changed on the evening of October 13,1876.

Earlier on that day, Thayer had decided torun an errand and walked to the local post of-fice. On the way, she met the neighbor’s step-daughter, Ada Snow, who had mentioned thatCaptain Edward M. Smith (who frequentlyvisited Mr. Trim) had married Ada’s aunt. Thetwo continued on together. According toMaine Supernatural: “Captain Smith and hiswife had stayed in the Trim homestead helpingMr. Trim with yard work and chores, while hewaited for his next ship to leave. He was awell-known and trusted Captain, having sailedthe seven seas. When they received word of

Mr. Trim’s daughter moving back, they hadmoved back into the Bucksport village, but healways came by and visited.”

When both Thayer and Snow returnedfrom their walk, they parted toward their re-spective houses at approximately 8 p.m. It wasthe last time that Thayer was seen alive.

After midnight on the morning of October14, a neighbor woke up to see an unusual glowcoming from the Trim residence. It turned outto be from a fire that was engulfing the barnand the carriage house. After an alarm wassounded, neighbors headed toward the burn-ing buildings in an attempt to save them. Bythe time they had arrived, The New York Timesarticle states, “The body of Capt. Trim was thefirst found in the ruins of the carriagehouse… (and) the charred remains of Mrs.Thayer were taken from the debris of thebarn.” The body of Thayer’s daughter was notfound anywhere in the either the barn or

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The Trim Triple Murder In BucksportFather and daughter dead, child missing in 1876

by James Nalley

In an October 14, 1876 article inThe New York Times, surprisingnews alerted the public of atragedy in Maine:

“News of a probable triple murderhas been received from Bucksport,Maine. The victims are an aged mannamed Trim, his daughter Mrs.Thayer, and her little girl. Trim’shouse and buildings were burnedlast night. His charred remains werefound in the debris at the carriagehouse. A bloody trail was foundleading from the house to the rear ofthe barn, and it is supposed (that)Mrs. Thayer and her daughter weremurdered and the bodies dragged tothe barn, though they have not beenfound.”

DiscoverMaine


22

carriage house. The community immediatelybegan a search for both the daughter and thepossible murderers. According to The NewYork Times, “Blood stains were found in theroad, (along with) a broken comb, some hair,and other signs indicating that a struggle hadtaken place at that point, and the bloody trailwas followed to the barn.”

After local law enforcement arrived, they in-terviewed neighbors in order to learn of anyunusual sightings during the night. After Cap-tain Smith’s name was mentioned by neigh-bors, detectives went to interview him at his

home. This is when problems arose for Smith.He was found with blood on a long list ofitems that included his hat, shirt, vest, pants,and heavy overcoat. What made things worsefor Smith was that blood was also found onhis knife and gun. Maine Supernatural states:“When questioned about the blood on the hatand vest, the captain explained that he hadbeen hunting several times during the pastweeks. He said the shirt he was wearing hadbeen the one he had on all week.” Eventhough the initial evidence had made the cap-tain a possible suspect, the fact that the bloodwas already dry had made his participationsomewhat unlikely. It was also noted that theblood was a mixture of several types of ani-mals, in addition to human blood. Unfortu-nately, the mere fact that some human bloodwas found on his items was enough to havehim taken into custody.

As stated in the book In Search of MelissaThayer by Emeric Spooner, “Blood analysis,from back in the day, was done with (only) amagnifying glass.” This lack of forensic inves-tigation had only made Smith look even moreguilty. Without any reliable witness nor analibi, the derived story accused Smith of wait-ing for Thayer, knocking her unconscious withthe rock and then murdering her with the

knife. The New York Times states, “Mrs. Thayerwas known to have had $800 in the house, andplunder is supposed to have been the incen-tive.” The story continued by claiming thatSmith also went to the Trim house and killedboth Mr. Trim and Thayer’s daughter.

The trial occurred approximately sixmonths later, and Captain Smith adamantlypleaded innocence despite the overwhelmingodds against him. According to Maine Super-natural, even when Smith’s friends and familytried to defend him in the trial, the judge de-clared that they were lying to protect him andthrew out their testimonies. Based solely onthe evidence of blood on the clothes, knife,and gun, Smith was found guilty and eventu-ally sentenced to life in prison.

In 1908, approximately 31 years after hissentence, Smith was attacked and killed by an-other prisoner with an iron pipe. To this day,the body of Thayer’s young daughter hasnever been found.


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There is a well-known but rather myste-rious picture of Amelia Earhart takenin Bangor in the summer of 1934. It

shows four people standing before a tri-motorairplane. One of the four is the attractiveEarhart. She is smiling. Her hat is in her handand her hair a bit windblown. Two of the oth-ers are identified as Herbert Baldwin ofBoston and Maine Airways, and Edward Gra-ham, President of Bangor Hydro. The fourthis identified as an unknown guest.

The unknown guest of that now-fading pic-ture appears to be a woman. She is wearing alight colored suit and hat. It is the kind of out-fit a well-to-do woman out for a day on thetown would wear. While the other three in thepicture are looking directly into the cameralens, the woman is looking away to her right.Her eyebrows suggest tension. Her mouth ispursed. She looks pensive.

Who was the mysterious woman? It seemsshe may not have been a woman at all, butrather a man. A man named Ralph Mills. Mills

wasn’t a terrorist. He was simply someonewho wished to meet the famous Earhart. Andif the picture is indeed that of Mills, he didmeet Earhart, in the air on a plane carryingwomen-only groups with Earhart on ten-minute promotional flights over Bangor.

In August of 1934 Amelia Earhart — theLady Lindy — paid a visit to Bangor. The visitwas part of a promotional plan cooked up byHerbert L. Baldwin, a former reporter for theBoston Post, who was publicity director of theBoston and Maine and Maine Central rail-roads. At the time, the two rail lines had joinedtogether to promote the development of anair service to northern New England and theMaritime Provinces of Canada. The air serv-ice was variously known as Boston and MaineAirways and the Pan Am Clipper Connection.The airway’s premier service went by the name“Flying Yankee of the Air.” That name was aword play on the famous Flying Yankee train.

Amelia Earhart’s appearance on behalf ofBoston and Maine Airways was a bit more

than a publicity stunt. The president ofBoston and Maine, Inc., as well as Central Ver-mont Airways, was Paul Collins, a front manfor Juan Trippe, the president of Pan Am.Earhart was a vice president of the two lines.

The Lady Lindy’s purpose in visiting Ban-gor, as well as other Maine cities on theBoston and Maine Airways run, had to dowith encouraging women to use the airline aspassengers. One of Earhart’s chosen roles inthe early decades of the development of theairplane was to encourage women to becomeinvolved in the industry not only as pilots, butas users. To do this she went on the lecture cir-cuit, pointing out that while the press tendedto play up air disasters, travel by air was actu-ally quite safe.

In the years that have passed since Earhart’sname was a household word, many have for-gotten or else never knew in the first place thatAmelia Earhart was an extraordinary pilot.Part of the reason for that has to do with the

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series of sensational claims linking her toeverything from having been on a spy missionfor the Navy at the time she disappeared overthe Pacific, to having been interred in a Japan-ese prison camp. Even though reputablesources have discounted these theories, sensa-tionalists still present their case, much to thedelight of less than scrupulous publishers. Inaddition, while most know that Earhart wasthe first woman to fly across the Atlantic —doing so in 1928 as a passenger — theirknowledge stops there. In 1932 Earhart wasthe first woman to make a solo flight acrossthe Atlantic. In doing so she was just the sec-ond person to accomplish the feat, which wasdone at a time when airplane malfunctionswere almost the order of the day. WhenEarhart came to Maine in 1934 she was oneof just six pilots to have soloed the Atlantic,and the only woman to do so.

Amelia Earhart routinely received $250 perlecture when she went on the lecture circuit.As she often gave lectures to the tune of thirtya month, she was making a good deal ofmoney for the Depression. Her visit to Ban-gor and other cities on the Boston and MaineAirways route was not part of her regular lec-ture circuit, however. It was done to further

the development of commercial air travel,something Earhart strongly believed in.

Boston and Maine Airways inaugurated itsMaine service in August of 1931. The initialservice connected Boston, Portland and Ban-gor. It cost all of $5.50 to fly from Boston toPortland, and $13.00 to fly from Boston toBangor. Later, additional connections weremade (and sometimes dropped) to cities likeAugusta, Waterville, Presque Isle, Calais andRockland. The fact that some of the connec-tions, like the one to Rockland, never becamea paying stop was one of the reasons that Her-bert Baldwin brought the Lady Lindy to Mainecities like Portland and Bangor.

Amelia Earhart came to Maine in part be-cause Boston and Maine Airways was viewedas a stepping stone of a much grander scheme— a scheme to create a commercial link be-tween the east coast of North America andEurope. The scheme was the brainchild ofJuan Trippe of Pan Am. What Trippe hopedfor first was a mail contract across the Atlantic,and then passenger service.

The extension of Boston and Maine Air-ways connections to St. John, New Brunswickand Halifax, Nova Scotia was a part of thisgrand design.

Earhart’s promotional flights in Bangor

took place from Godfrey Field. They werearranged by the Chamber of Commerce.Some 200 women signed up for the honor ofaccompanying Earhart. No men were to be in-cluded. Therefore, Ralph Mills’ harmlesscross-dressing hoax.

Ralph Mills worked for Snowflake Canningin Corinna. He was thirty-six in 1934. Millswas able to pull off his deception because hewas something of an actor. The Bangor DailyNews described him as a “thespian.” He signedup for his flight with Earhart using the nameSally Miller. He revealed his deception whenhis flight was in progress and Earhart wasspeaking with each passenger in turn. WhenEarhart came to him, he doffed his hat andwig all in one sweep, saying “Well, Amelia,here I am.” (Close scrutiny of the picture ofEarhart and the “unknown guest” does notshow the wig.) The Lady Lindy took the cha-rade as “a good joke on her.”

Amelia Earhart’s plane disappeared over thePacific three years after her visit to Bangor. InBangor and other Maine cities where she hadstopped in 1934, people remembered her forher honest and forthright promotion ofBoston and Maine Airways. It was as if a closepersonal friend had been lost.


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The Lesley family motto is “I wouldhave perished had I not persisted.” Fora long time that motto hung over the

fireplace of Alumni Hall of Lesley University,the university that was named for its founder,Edith Lesley.

Lesley University traces its origins to 1909,the year Edith Lesley founded The LesleySchool in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The firstclasses offered at The Lesley School weretaught by Edith and her sister Olive. Theclasses were unique, almost first of a kind inAmerica. They prepared students to becomekindergarten teachers. In turn-of-the -twenti-eth century America, kindergarten was still aninnovative idea.

The Lesley sisters were introduced to theidea of the kindergarten in Bangor. AlonzoLesley, the girls’ father, was from Carmel. Formuch of the Lesley sisters’ early years AlonzoLesley made his living in Bangor makingshoes.

The most important word in the Lesleyfamily motto is undoubtedly “persisted.” It

takes a lot of persistence to start a school asEdith Lesley did, that grows into a respecteduniversity, especially when that school is ini-tially devoted to preparing teachers for in-structing students of an age for whicheducation had hitherto been deemed of littlesignificance.

Edith Lesley was a disciple of German ed-ucator Friedrich Frobel. Frobel is creditedwith originating the concept of kindergarteneducation. Frobel’s great contribution to earlychildhood education was to incorporate activ-ity into the learning process. For Frobel, ac-tivity included singing, dancing andself-directed play with educational materialssuch as geometrical building blocks. For Fro-bel, activity meant learning through experi-encing — experiential learning.

Edith Lesley was born in what is now thecountry of Panama in 1872. Her sister Olivewas born in Bangor in 1875. It isn’t at all clearwhat Alonzo Lesley and his wife Rebecca weredoing in Central America back in the 1870s,but whatever it was wasn’t enough to keep

them there. The Lesley family returned toAlonzo’s hometown of Carmel in 1874. Theysubsequently moved to Bangor when Alonzofound work there as a shoemaker.

It would appear that Bangor had some sortof private kindergarten education during theLesley sisters’ adolescence. Whether or notthey attended a kindergarten themselves is de-bated. However, it would seem that they atleast knew kindergarten or early childhoodteachers when they were in their teen years.Rebecca Lesley ran a boarding house. Two ofthe boarders were kindergarten or early child-hood educators. One, Emily Alden, was a Les-ley cousin.

Early childhood education places a greatdeal of importance on language development.Language as used here includes mathematicsand music. It should be noted that FriedrichFrobel’s theories of experiential learning in-cluded singing and playing with geometricalshapes and figures.

Today educational testers regard languageusage as a signal of mental health and

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intelligence. As a general statement most psy-chological testing draws a direct correlationbetween vocabulary size and effective and cre-ative use of vocabulary and intelligence. Fro-bel’s emphasis on experiential learning andself-directed play as a stimulant of creativityforeshadows this. Accurate use of vocabularyis a handy quantitative measure of a person’smental powers. Vocabulary increase, masteryof numbers and shapes and expressionthrough music and dance begin around thetime a child is three.

From age three or so on we learn some tento twenty new words a day — that is, if we arein an environment which encourages vocabu-lary growth. This process continues on untilabout age eighteen, when we know somethinglike 60,000 words. Of course we don’t use all60,000 — most of us get along quite well on4,000. Early childhood education is of vitalimportance in vocabulary growth. It is alsojust as important in the development of otherlanguage skills like grammar, syntax, appro-priate and relevant word choice and the abilityto play with words. The latter skills all relateto eloquence. Eloquence as it occurs in publicspeaking and in writing is a mark of the intel-ligent, healthy individual. These skills all beginwith early childhood education, a formal edu-cational process. This, then, was the profes-

sion the Lesley sisters trained teachers for.The Lesley family left Bangor for Boston in

1891. They settled in Cambridge. Cambridgehad a kindergarten run by Elizabeth Peabodyin the 1860s. Others followed, based on theprinciples espoused by Friedrich Frobel. TheLesley sisters found employment in them, inboth the private and public sector.

The Lesley School profited from the factthat the early 1900s saw higher education forwomen become more socially accepted. Thiswas especially so in the Boston area, whereschools like Radcliffe, Simmons, Jackson andWellesley experienced an upwelling of studentenrolment.

The Lesley School started with an enrol-ment of nine in 1909. The sisters ran it as apart-time endeavor. By the 1920s enrolmentran to over 300. Olive Lesley left the school inthe early years of the Great War to work inLabrador as an aid to medical missionary Wil-fred Grenfell, and then later with the GirlScout movement. By that time The LesleySchool, which was now The Lesley NormalSchool, had expanded its offerings to includeprimary school teacher training. Eventually thename would change again, this time to LesleyCollege. Edith Lesley was retired when thatchange occurred in 1944. Today Lesley Uni-versity, the school Edith Lesley founded, of-

fers doctoral programs.Sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s

the Lesley family motto was taken down fromits place over the fireplace of Alumni Hall.During the Depression Edith Lesley com-menced a losing struggle with chronic illnessand slowly removed herself from the man-agement of the school she had long been soinvolved with. Perhaps as a tribute to her per-sistent efforts in keeping the school going dur-ing the trying financial times of the 1930s,administrators placed Edith’s picture over thefireplace mantle. It was a fitting tribute.

Edith Lesley died in 1953. Today the schoolshe founded is recognized as a leader in expe-riential learning and for pioneering programsin “Expressive Therapies” and “IntegratedTeaching Through the Arts.” Experientiallearning at Lesley traces its roots to the inno-vative practices begun so long ago by the Les-ley sisters, Edith and Olive. “ExpressiveTherapies” and “Integrated TeachingThrough the Arts” are natural extensions ofthe Lesley sisters’ first tentative steps in intro-ducing formal kindergarten teacher trainingprograms to the United States. Lesley Univer-sity as it is today owes much to the Lesley fam-ily motto, “I would have perished had I notpersisted.”

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Nine intrepid snowmobilers steeredtheir Polaris sleds into Maine historyduring an epic February, 1961 ride

into the Allagash.On Friday, February 10 nine men gathered

in Millinocket to check their equipment andhone their plans to depart the next morningfor a two-day snowmobile journey toChurchill Lake. There they intended to meet adog-sled expedition led by Clarence LeBell, aMassachusetts resident with extensive dog-sledding experience in the Arctic.

Millinocket’s Earlan Campbell organized thesnowmobile expedition, the first such long-distance ride in Maine history. Named a Po-laris dealer — only the fifth in the UnitedStates and likely the first in Maine — in thesummer of 1958 after signing the requisite pa-perwork with Polaris distributor Robert Mor-rill of Yarmouth, Campbell started sellingPolaris sleds designed for Minnesota winters.

During the next few years, customers re-ported that Polaris snowmobiles did not per-

form well in Maine’s wintry climate and ter-rain. Campbell and Morrill urged Polaris Pres-ident Alan Hetteen to test new sleds in Maine.Hetteen agreed — Polaris sent nine snowmo-biles, including a Scout B-55 and an SRRanger, to Campbell’s dealership in January1961.

The snowmobilers would start at RipogenusDam, spend the first night at ChamberlainLake, and then reach Churchill Lake the nextnight. Meanwhile, LeBell and his companions— Angel Pelletier of Massachusetts andEdwin Childs, an exchange student fromPortsmouth, England — would leaveDaaquam, Quebec with two dog sleds and 14huskies and meet the snowmobilers atChurchill Lake. From there, the dog sledswould cut east to Patten.

The two expeditions would honor Arcticexplorer Sir Hubert Wilkins.

Accompanying Campbell and Morrill wereHetteen, Polaris engineer Arthur Erickson,Morrill’s friend Ralph Stevens, Millinocket

publisher Robert Hume Jr., Reginald Boynton,Richard Rideout, and Bangor Daily News re-porter Robert Drew. With light snow coveringthe Golden Road, they transported their sledsand gear to Ripogenus Dam before dawn onSaturday, February 11, and headed out aftersunrise in temperatures hovering at zero de-grees Fahrenheit.

Utilizing frozen lakes and some loggingroads, the snowmobilers battled the elementswhile riding 40 miles to Chamberlain Dam.The LeBell-led dog-sledders encountered sim-ilar weather and rough trail conditions whiletraveling from Daaquam to Clayton Lake,where men and dogs bedded down for thecold night. The snowmobilers spent Saturdaynight at Great Northern Camp on PillsburyPond.

On Sunday, February 12 the Polaris expedi-tion reached Nugent’s Camps on ChamberlainLake at 10:30 a.m. before heading north toChurchill Lake. Often creating their own trails

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nine Snowmobilers rode Into Maine History In 1961Difficult terrain and conditions made for a dangerous trip

by Ian MacKinnon


DiscoverMaine


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in the trackless, snow-covered Allagash wilder-ness, the sledders “had to slash open sometrails with axes,” Drew subsequently reported.Some snowmobiles bogged down in lake-sur-face slush, a nasty ride-disrupting hassle, asmodern snowmobilers can attest.

That evening the Polaris sledders reachedtheir intended destination — a warden’s campat Churchill Dam.

That Sunday the LeBell dog sleds enjoyedrelatively smooth running along a plowed roadbetween Clayton Lake and Umsaskis Lake,where the dog sledders intended to turn southto meet the snowmobile expedition atChurchill Dam. Then, along “a final three-milestretch” near Umsaskis, the dog teams boggeddown in “‘mealy’ snow” measuring 18-20inches deep, Drew reported.

Some dogs “chewed up their harnesses,”and one lead dog “became ill,” he informedhis readers.

LeBell and his companions pulled into aMaine Fish & Game Department warden’scamp on Umsaskis Lake, near where the Re-alty Road bridges The Thoroughfare on theAllagash Wilderness Waterway.

In that era before cell phones and email, thenine snowmobilers wondered Sunday night

what had happened to LeBell and his com-panions. On Monday morning, three snow-mobilers rode their sleds north to UmsaskisLake, found the LeBell expedition, and“packed down a trail along a woods road”leading to the Churchill Dam camp, Drew re-ported.

LeBell and his companions lingered at Um-saskis until Tuesday; that morning “the en-gine-driven sleds returned again… and foundLeBell along this trail,” Drew reported. Thesnowmobilers “then left to finish their portionof the trip and to pack down a trail for the fol-lowing dog teams” before heading for Nu-gent’s Camps on Chamberlain Lake.

The dog sleds reached the Churchill Damcamp Tuesday night.

On Wednesday morning the snowmobilersheaded east toward Baxter State Park and“reached Katahdin Stream Campgroundabout 6 o’clock (p.m.),” Drew reported. Enroute “considerable difficulty was encounteredin the state park with hills and deep snow,” hewrote.

“Several times the men had to get out andpush the snow sleds up the mountain trails,”Drew reported from personal experience.

On Wednesday, the LeBell expedition trav-eled south along Churchill Lake before camp-

ing that night near Johns Bridge “below” theEagle Lake outlet. LeBell checked the huskies;“the snow was too deep for his dogs… asthere was virtually no base for the snow topack upon,” Drew wrote. “The slush frozearound their (dogs’) feet, making travel toohard on the animals.”

LeBell aborted his expedition’s last leg fromEagle Lake to Patten. An Ashland-boundtrucker contacted Patten residents Ellery Coleand Lloyd McKenney about LeBell’s decision.On Thursday morning they took two pickupsand a dog trailer on a circuitous “80-mile tripthrough Grand Lake Mattagammon… and fi-nally located” the LeBell expedition “at awoods camp on Churchill Lake” about 6 p.m.,Drew reported.

“They took a 110-mile return round trip toPatten through Ashland,” he wrote. School-children turned out to see the dogs, and LeBellleft 800 commemorative letters to “be post-marked Saturday by Patten Postmaster HubertA. Nevers.”

Departing Baxter State Park on Thursday,February 16 the nine snowmobilers “traveled… to a main highway (Golden Road) wherethey were met by automobiles” and trans-ported to Millinocket, Drew wrote. The wearyPolaris sledders “ended their grueling trip”

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about 9 p.m. “after being greeted by membersof the Millinocket Chamber of Commerce,town officials, and others,” he reported.

“Later, they were guests of Chamber ofCommerce President Hugh Avery at a steaksupper,” and Drew succinctly described a de-licious meal.

Perhaps unaware that they had written anexciting chapter in Maine snowmobiling his-tory, the nine men reported “no mechanicalbreakdowns” during their expedition, Drewwrote. All nine sleds had traveled at least 165miles; “with side trips… some of the ma-chines… covered as much as 200 miles,” hewrote.

Earlan Campbell and Robert Morrill likedthe particular Polaris sleds used by the expe-dition. Campbell purchased at least two —today, the Northern Timber Cruisers Snow-mobile Museum displays the B-55 Scout andthe SR Ranger, the sled ridden by Campbellduring the 1961 expedition. Open winterweekends, the museum is located at the NTCClubhouse on Millinocket’s Lake Road.

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Stories of Mainers abroad would be awonderful subject for a book. Theevents that Mainers have witnessed

and the personalities they have encoun-tered on travels beyond the borders of thestate and the nation are as varied as thosedescribing them. Take Philip MarshallBrown of Hampden, for instance.

Philip Brown was one of the U.S. offi-cials who attended the Paris Peace Con-ference of 1919. He was an aid to HerbertHoover. Hoover was in Paris as head ofthe American Relief Administration. TheAmerican Relief Administration was afood relief program. Herbert Hoover sawthe program as a way of stemming thetide of communism that was then spread-ing across Europe toward the Atlantic.For Hoover, food relief was directly tiedto the fight against communism. For thisreason, Hoover sent representatives ofthe American Relief Administration tocountries he felt most likely to succumbto the Red Menace, as communism was al-ready being called by many westerners.Hoover was particularly concerned aboutHungary. That is where he sent PhilipBrown.

Hungary had been on the losing side inWorld War I. As such, it was ripe for rev-

olution of the communist variety. Thecountry’s infrastructure was a shambles,industry and transportation were dis-rupted, much of the work force was job-less, and great numbers of Hungarianswere homeless and starving.

When Philip Brown arrived in Bu-dapest, the capitol of Hungary, in April of1919, communists led by Bela Kun had al-ready seized control of the country. Thequestion involving Kun was just whatkind of a man was he? Philip Brown pro-vided the first insight on the question.

Brown arrived in Budapest when Kunwas fresh out of prison. He had been in-carcerated because he was communist.Kun walked out prison doors right into aleadership role. One day he was beingbeaten, and the next he sat in a luxuriousoffice. Brown even noted Kun’s healingwounds. They were that fresh, and Brownwas that much of an early bird, or johnny-on-the-spot, in revolutionary Hungary.

Bela Kun turned Hungary into a com-munist country quicker than Lenin turnedRussia communist. Kun was ruthless. Ona lesser scale, he was as bad or worse thanLenin. An apt comparison would be Kunand Stalin. But Philip Brown missed this.

When Philip Brown met Bela Kun, theHungarian presented himself as a patri-otic nationalist. Because of this Brownfelt Hungary could be made a useful bul-wark to offset the spread of Soviet dom-ination in Europe. Of course, Brown was

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942-2943/2933 (Continued on page 36)

Bela Kun, leader of the 1919 Hungarian Revolution

by Charles Francis

DiscoverMaine


36

duped. Even as he was making the initialcontacts with Kun for the American Re-lief Administration, Hungarian commu-nists were instituting a reign of terror,property seizure and dictatorship. It was alesson Philip Brown would not forget.

Philip Brown opposed war. He was amember of the American Peace Society.In fact, he would serve as president of thesociety from 1946 to 1948. Brown was arespected lawyer. His specialty was inter-national law and diplomacy. He taught it atPrinceton. Brown was a member of thehighly regarded Institute of InternationalLaw in Brussels, Belgium. He was an edi-tor of the American Journal of InternationalLaw. In short, Philip Brown was an aca-demic, the sort of academic that the U.S.State Department calls on for advice, orasks to fill important positions in theworld’s trouble spots where American in-terests may be in jeopardy.

Philip Marshall Brown was born inHampden in 1875. His father DavidWilbur Brown was a highly successfullumber dealer with business interests

throughout New England and Canada.Philip Brown spent a fair portion of hisearly years in Sherbrooke, Quebec. Theexperience gave him his first exposure tointernational diplomacy. He had to learnFrench to get along with classmates andplaymates. It may have been this experi-ence that motivated Brown to take up thestudy of international relations and diplo-macy at Williams College as an under-graduate, and Harvard as a graduatestudent.

Brown entered the diplomatic corpsafter college. His postings ranged fromthe Middle East to Central America. Hishighest postings were those of Secretaryand Charge d’Affaires of the AmericanEmbassy in Constantinople, and Ministerto Honduras. Brown left the diplomaticcorps in 1912 to accept a position at Har-vard as instructor of international law. Heleft Harvard the next year for Princeton.This was Brown’s academic home for therest of his life.

In 1914 Princeton University Press pub-lished the first of Philip Brown’s books.The work is based on Brown’s experiences

in Constantinople and has engendered afair amount of interest since the sadevents we refer to by the simple date 9/11.The title of the work is Foreigners In Turkey:Their Judicial Status.

Foreigners In Turkey deals with the sus-pension of the rights and privileges offoreigners in that country in 1914. Specif-ically, the book deals with Moslem law asit relates to non-Moslems. The New YorkTimes phrased it this way: “...on Sept. 10...Turkey... abrogated the extraterritorialprivileges that have been enjoyed by for-eigners, some of these privileges havingbeen maintained under Turkish rule sincethe Crescent supplanted the Cross in Con-stantinople on May 29, 1453.” The Turk-ish issue of 1914 involved the conceptthat Moslem law and state law are identi-cal. Moslem law can only apply toMoslems. Therefore, non-Moslems enjoyno legal protections. The protections andprivileges that non-Moslems had enjoyedin Turkey had been put in place by liberalor moderate Turkish leaders. PhilipBrown`s book described the exact natureof the protections and privileges. Brown


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describes situations like the one in Turkeyas “intellectual anarchism.” He wouldapply the term to pacifists, too.

As a member of the American PeaceSociety, Philip Brown supported pacifism.Brown was also a member of the Insti-tute of International Law. The Institute’spolicy is not to comment on particulardisputes. It makes recommendations forchanges in international law. It supportshuman rights as a matter of course. In1904 the Institute was awarded the NobelPeace Prize for its work.

In the years prior to the United Statesentering World War II, American pacifistslike Brown had to come to terms with therise of fascism in Europe and the possi-bility that it might make a mark in Amer-ica. Brown saw authoritarian states likethose governed by the fascists and com-munists as stumbling blocks to interna-tional jurisprudence. For Philip Brown,pacifists that refuse to support the rightsof the individual in the face of political orreligious totalitarianism for whatever rea-son, are deluded. They are advocates of“intellectual anarchism.”

Philip Marshall Brown was an advocatefor an ordered international society, a so-ciety based on international law. His viewswere of the highest order, of a sort thatdeserve consideration today. Perhaps this

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William H. GradyThe unknown Irish-American historian of Bangor


Few, if any, now remember William H.Grady, a lawyer, contractor, Gaelic re-vivalist, and dedicated amateur histo-

rian from Bangor. If it was not for his nephew,John O’Grady, who rescued his writings fromoblivion by donating them to the Maine His-torical Society after an Irish American HistoryRoundtable in 1999, we might never havelearned of Grady’s existence and his life’swork.

William Henry Grady was born in BangorAugust 16, 1875, the oldest child of John andMargaret Murray Grady, Irish emigrants whowould also have five other children. After at-tending Bangor schools, Grady graduatedfrom Georgetown University, and fromBoston University Law School in 1899.

Grady returned to Bangor, where he prac-ticed law for several years before joining hisfather’s contracting firm, John Grady & Son.

An advertisement from the 1903 Bangor CityDirectory states that the company was “Con-tractors and Builders” who specialized instone, brick, and carpenter work, as well asbuilding mills, dams, and bridges. Their officewas at 39 Hammond Street in Bangor.

William H. Grady appears to have devel-oped an early interest in Irish studies. Hebegan the study of the Irish Gaelic languagewhile a student, ironically, at Boston UniversityLaw School, not Georgetown. His parents,being natives of Ireland, may also have beenIrish speakers. In the Fall of 1903 Grady,along with fellow lawyer Brian J. Dunn, andJohn F. Ford, organized the Philo-Celtic Soci-ety of Bangor. These men “had long cher-ished the idea of forming a Gaelic school forthe study of Irish language and literature,” ac-cording to the Boston Pilot of January 30, 1904.This newspaper, established in Boston in

1829, had long been almost mandatory read-ing for the Irish households of Maine. Gradybecame the instructor for Bangor’s Gaelic lan-guage school at this time. In January 1904 hewas elected the president of the Philo-CelticSociety, while his brother Edward J. Grady waschosen as the society’s secretary and treasurer.This Bangor society was part of the interna-tional Gaelic Revival Movement, initiated inIreland in the 1890s by Douglas Hyde, whowas soon joined by William Butler Yeats, LadyAugusta Gregory, and many other luminaries.The Philo-Celtic Society of Bangor was thefirst of its kind in the state. After each of theirmeetings, literary exercises were carried outand papers on Gaelic topics that had beenwritten by members of the group were read.

It is not known how long the Philo-CelticSociety of Bangor lasted, nor how longWilliam Grady was the teacher of the Irish

DiscoverMaine


39

language in Bangor. It is known that Gradybecame more and more involved in his father’scompany, and it seems he eventually had littletime to participate in Gaelic revival studies.But as we shall see, his thirst for Irish andIrish-American history continued to grow.

Grady’s father passed away in the 1920s, butthe firm of Grady & Son continued for manyyears after, with Grady as president and hisbrothers Michael and Edward as clerks in thebusiness. Sometime in the 1930s Grady alsobegan the practice of law again.

Now we enter “Irish Studies Phase Two” ofWilliam Grady’s life. He retired in the early1940s and then spent the next five years re-searching and writing about the Irish of Ban-gor and vicinity. As Maine historian WilliamDavid Barry wrote in his piece Jim Vickery andThe Grady Manuscript Collection (see Maine His-tory, 41:3 & 4, Fall/Winter 2002, p. 249-252),Grady became “a serious scholar of Mainehistory who seemed to have worked in neartotal isolation.” In fact, he worked in a nearvacuum, as Barry commented to this author.

It appears Grady consulted census records,city directories, old deeds, naturalizationrecords, and other sources to compile a de-tailed history and genealogy of the Irish whosettled in Bangor and surrounding communi-

ties between the 1820s and the 1860s. He mayalso have collected oral history from many ofthe elderly Irish residents of Bangor. Gradytyped all of this information into two boundbooks and in this format a voluminousamount of history has remained ever since.For some unknown reason, Grady neitherpublished his work, nor deposited it in any li-brary or historical society. We are left to won-der if his friends and family knew of hisendeavors. At some point, of course, they didfind out, yet still nothing was done with hisworks.

William H. Grady died in Bangor on No-vember 18, 1953, at the age of 78. He was sur-vived by two sisters, including Mrs. Dennis L.O’Grady of Watertown, Massachusetts, twobrothers, a niece, and a nephew, Capt. John W.O’Grady, with the Army Medical Corps inGermany. His funeral was held from St.Mary’s Church in Bangor, where he had beena communicant for most of his life.

Now fast forward to 1999. With a major in-crease in ethnic studies in Maine in the 1990s,it was decided that the Maine Historical Soci-ety should start hosting ethnic history round-tables. The first of many was the IrishAmerican History Roundtable, held in June1999. John O’Grady, of Bedford, Massachu-

setts, later read about the roundtable, and, toeveryone’s pleasant surprise, donated hisuncle’s manuscripts to the M.H.S. (they hadbeen stored in his attic for decades!).

William Grady’s work is now M.H.S. Man-uscript Collection Number 1960, and includesthree volumes on Irish immigration to Ban-gor, the Penobscot, Benedicta, and otherareas of Maine. The collection also includesmiscellaneous documents, including THEGAEL, a New York Irish bi-lingual newspa-per dated September 1899. Many genealogistswho have consulted the Grady collection havediscovered the Irish origins of their Bangorancestors, as Grady usually included this oftenelusive piece of information in his genealogi-cal accounts.

Present and future historians and genealo-gists of the Bangor Irish should be forevergrateful for the amazing work William H.Grady accomplished and for his nephew, JohnW. O’Grady, who saved it from oblivion. Wecan only hope that Grady’s manuscripts willbe copied and published at some point in thefuture — we owe that and much more toWilliam H. Grady.

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Brian J. Dunn, a Bangor brick worker,attorney, writer, politician, and poet, isall but forgotten today. In his time, he

was known throughout New England and theNortheast as “The Poet Laureate of the BrickYard.”

Dunn was born in Brewer on June 14, 1863,the son of Thomas and Bridget WhalenDunn, natives of Ireland. He attended localschools, and in the tradition of the day, stud-ied law in the office of a Brewer attorney, Ben-ning C. Additon. But serious problems with

his eyes soon made it necessary for him toseek other avenues of work. Dunn found aniche in his father’s brickyard, where hequickly became an expert and gained keen in-sight into the business, thus making him an au-thority for years to come.

At some point Brian Dunn entered thenewspaper business, his eyes having evidentlyimproved. He “at once won for himself morethan local fame as a writer of unusually goodand clear cut English.” Dunn became a staffmember of the Bangor Daily News, and eventook over the editorial chair for a time. Hethen removed to New York City, where he wasemployed by the New York Sun and otherGotham newspapers.

When Patrick Jerome “Battle-Axe” Glea-son, the infamous mayor of Long Island City,advertised for a personal secretary, Dunn an-swered and received the job. Dunn’s obituaryin the Boston Pilot years later stated, “Mr.Dunn’s keen sense of humor made him a cap-ital story teller and his most amusing taleswere of the days he spent with “Pat” Glea-son.”

Dunn was later editor of the Elizabeth,New Jersey Democrat and a contributor to theMetropolitan Magazine; some of his mostpraised work appeared in the latter, including

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an article on the night he spent with ThomasEdison in his laboratory.

Although Dunn had great success in thenewspaper world, he returned to the study oflaw at Boston University Law School. But thenewspaper world came calling once again,when he was offered a prominent positionwith the Worcester Telegram. This he could notrefuse. After a few years, Dunn’s writings againreceived wide attention, and he was soonworking for Senator Hoar, accompanying himon his many speechmaking tours. After thishe returned to the Worcester paper for a timeand then resumed his law studies. Dunn waseventually admitted to the bar, for Worcesterand the state of Massachusetts.

Brian J. Dunn operated a law office inBoston for several years before returning toBangor, where he opened an office at the turnof the 20th century. On June 5, 1900, he mar-ried Mary A. Donovan of Bangor. They madetheir home in Brewer, where Dunn served asan alderman and as city solicitor. Ever restless,Dunn moved his family to Bangor about 1903,where he was elected as a member of theCommon Council. He became a leader inPenobscot County Democratic circles.

Dunn wrote for many periodicals, and hiswork continued to be recognized and ac-

claimed for the rest of his short life. His“clever verse” often appeared in a magazinecalled The Clay-Worker, an organ for brick andclay workers. Due to Dunn’s masterful workin this journal, he was honored with the title,“The Poet Laureate of the Brick Yard.” Hewas often in demand at the annual conven-tions of clay workers, especially in Bangor.

Dunn was long interested in establishing aGaelic Revival organization in Bangor, a groupthat would foster Irish language and literature.The Gaelic Revival was initiated by DouglasHyde in Ireland in the early 1890s. Dunn,along with fellow Bangor attorney William H.Grady, and John F. Ford, organized the Philo-Celtic Society of Bangor in the fall of 1903.On January 10, 1904, at a meeting of the so-ciety, Dunn, along with John Ford, Miss Leti-tia Day, J. George Mooney, and Miss EllaMullen, was elected a member of the execu-tive committee of the group. William Gradywas chosen to teach classes in the Irish Gaeliclanguage (see page 38 for an article on Grady).Dunn became one of the most prominentmembers of the Philo-Celtic Society and wasone of the leaders of the local United IrishLeague. He was also a member of the AncientOrder of Hibernians and the Knights ofColumbus.

Brian J. Dunn contracted typhoid fever,from which he succumbed to on October 1,1904, at the age of 41. He was survived by hiswife Mary and three sons, as well as by hismother, four sisters, and a brother. The BostonPilot, of which Dunn was a frequent contrib-utor, wrote on October 8th: “Brian J. Dunnhas many friends because of his genial andkindly manner and he was ever ready to do agood deed, but he was modest in his charitiesand few, except those to whom he has ex-tended the helping hand, know of his gen-erosity.” This paper also wrote that Dunn was“a fine type of the Catholic Celtic young man,a man of splendid character and high ideals,patriotic to both his native land and that ofhis forefathers, brainy and progressive.”

Now, in the year 2011, Brian J. Dunn is for-gotten, one of countless natives of Mainewho contributed much to his community andto his state, yet little remembered, if at all, bythe present generation. But perhaps some-where one of his descendants is aware of theirancestor and will someday explore more ofthe life and times of “The Poet Laureate ofthe Brick Yard.”

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Great Northern Paper in Millinocket was the biggest paper com-pany in the world for the first decades of the twentieth century. Inthe 1920s it produced 600 tons of newsprint a week, and con-

sumed 750 cords of wood a day. Much of the company’s wood passedthrough Ripogenus Gorge. Sometimes, however, if water was low, no logsreached the Great Northern mill. If this happened the company lost money.So, to ensure the flow of water on the West Branch of the Penobscot andits tributaries, Great Northern built a system of dams.

The West Branch of the Penobscot, which is really the main branch ofthe river, rises in northwestern Maine, a region that is some 1600 to 2200feet above sea level. It flows southwest, from these beginnings, passingwithin two miles of the head of Moosehead Lake. There it turns north,flowing into Chesuncook Lake. Leaving Chesuncook, it again flows south-west, passing through Ripogenus, Ambajejus, Pemadamcook, North Twinand Quakish lakes. At least that was its route before Ripogenus Dam wasbuilt.

The entire course of the Penobscot draws water from approximately1600 streams and 470 lakes and ponds. The river basin itself covers about8,200 square miles. From Chesuncook to Bangor the river falls almost 900feet. Controlling this queen of Maine rivers is an expensive task.

Great Northern built three types of dams on the upper Penobscot — rolldams, crib work dams and great Ripogenus Dam. Roll dams are small damsacross streams where there is a natural drop of about ten feet. They haveone or two sluice ways with slanting floors extending downstream. The logsroll along these sluice ways to the smoother water below. Next in size arethe crib work dams with sluice ways and gates to control water flow wherethe drop from one level to another is greater than ten feet. Finally, there isthe great mass of Ripogenus Dam at the head of Ripogenus Gorge.

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Northern had maintained crib work dams atthe head of Ripogenus Gorge. Every fewyears they had to be rebuilt, however, as thepower of the West Branch was too great for asimple structure of rock and oak timbers.Schenck decided that a great dam was neededat the head of Ripogenus as the final controlfor the upper Penobscot.

Until 1917 it took at least three days for ahorse and wagon to travel from Greenville,where materials for a dam would arrive by rail,to the gorge. So, first it was necessary to builda road suitable for heavy trucks through thenorth woods. This was the 42- mile-longGolden Road, touching at Lily Bay, GrantFarm and Kokadjo before turning towardsKatahdin and Millinocket.

At the time of its construction RipogenusDam was the seventh-largest dam in theworld, and the fourth-largest in the UnitedStates. It is 860 feet long with an approach of1000 feet. It is 94 feet at its highest point and64 feet wide at its base. Its 16-foot width atthe top is wide enough for vehicular traffic.From the top of the dam to the foot of Ri-pogenus Gorge at Big Eddy, the drop is 260feet. To build this incredible structure, a vil-lage of 700 workers sprang up almostovernight on the banks of the West Branch ofthe Penobscot.

Materials for the dam traveled by rail toKineo Station on the west bank of Moose-head Lake. From there they traveled bysteamer to Lily Bay to be loaded onto seven-ton trucks that made two daily runs to thegorge. Over 65,000 barrels of cement wereused in the construction of the dam as well asquantities of steel. More than a million boardfeet of lumber was used to make forms forthe cement. Giant rock crushers and mixerswere brought in. Rock was blasted from anearby quarry and put in cars to be carried tothe crushers. From there a mixture of cementand rock was carried to forms in huge buckets.All this was done through the use of gravity.Sand for the cement came from a pit a mileand a half away. A stream was diverted fromits course to clean soil from the pit. Seams andfaults in the rock foundation of the gorgewere filled by drilling two-inch diameter holes60 feet into the rock, and filling them with ce-ment forced in with compressed air. This pre-vented water from seeping under the dam.

Ripogenus Dam merged Ripogenus, Cari-bou and Chesuncook lakes, creating a storagebasin of some 20 billion cubic feet of water.The new lake is 25 miles long and covers a sur-face area of 45 square miles. The water fromRipogenus Dam, besides easing four-foot logsdownstream, provided power for running the

Great Northern mills at Millinocket.Beginning in the 1930s painter Carl Sprin-

chorn spent some 15 years at Shin Pond in theshadow of Mt. Katahdin. He lived alone orwith lumberjacks, and produced some of themost memorable and significant paintings ofMaine’s north woods. He journeyed to the Ri-pogenus Dam region several times, and wascaptivated by the romance of the log driveswhich started in the streams and ponds feed-ing into Chesuncook Lake. From their start,when they had to be pried over and over againfrom small jams when caught on rocks, logswere floated into great booms and towedacross the smooth lake water to RipogenusDam, where they then tumbled through thegorge to continue their way to Millinocket.

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One gave up a crown. The other hasbeen called the “uncrowned king ofthe Bahamas.”

The first is the Duke of Windsor, once Ed-ward VIII of England.

The second is Sangerville-born HarryOakes, baronet.

The Duke of Windsor has been calledeverything from ignorant bumbler to Nazi

sympathizer. Sir Harry Oakes, most often a de-termined Yankee who struck it rich, big time.

Windsor and Oakes are key figures in whatsome call the greatest celebrity murder mys-tery of the twentieth century. Part of the mys-tery involves Windsor’s role in what is still a“cold case.” Oakes’ role is that of murder vic-tim. The murder occurred in the Bahamas onJuly 8, 1943. Windsor was Bahamian gover-nor at the time.

Harry Oakes struck it rich prospecting forgold. The strike made him so much moneythat he had enough to give some away. Thatwas how he became a baronet — he gavemoney to charities in the British Empire. Thetitle came for his largess.

Harry Oakes was born in Sangerville in1874. He and his three siblings, a brother andtwo sisters, grew up surrounded by the northwoods. In them, Harry and his brother Lewisacquired woods lore that would stand both ingood stead later in life — Harry as a prospec-

tor, Lewis as a Greenville lumberman. Harry Oakes went to Foxcroft Academy,

graduated from Bowdoin and studied medi-cine at Syracuse for two years before droppingout to search for gold. He set off on his questwith the help of his brother, who committed$75 a month to the project. After prospectingin Canada, Alaska, New Zealand and Aus-tralia, Oakes struck it rich back in Canada, atKirkland Lake in 1912.

While estimates of Oakes’s wealth vary, hewas among the super-rich. There is no ques-tion of that. It was this wealth that broughthim into the same social circles as those of theDuke and Duchess of Windsor, the formerWallace Warfield Simpson, in Nassau in theBahamas. Oakes moved there for tax pur-poses.

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that does not mean that there were no illegalactivities. During Prohibition, Nassau-basedrumrunners made small fortunes smugglingalcohol to big-time gangsters in the UnitedStates. With the end of Prohibition, this ele-ment hoped to amend the law and open theisland to gambling. Sir Harry Oakes’ fortunemade him the most powerful man in Nassau,and he did not want the island developed.And, he opposed gambling. But, this does notmean that Sir Harry was above doing anythingillegal himself.

When Great Britain entered World War II,the Bahamas were placed under wartime reg-ulations. One of the regulations the Duke ofWindsor had to enforce as Governor was aban on the removal of any money fromBritish possessions. This is one of the areasinvolving Oakes and Windsor where the plot— as they say — thickens, and the waters be-come murky.

Sir Harry routinely transferred funds andgold from Nassau to Mexico, as did the Dukeand other wealthy island residents like Oakes’sometime-associate Harold Christie, a confi-dant of alleged Nazi sympathizer Axel Wen-ner-Gren.

Sir Harry’s remains were found in his bed-room. His body was partially burned and cov-ered with feathers. The skull was bashed in.

Oakes’ new son-in-law, previously twice-mar-ried playboy Count Alfred de Marigny, was thefirst to be accused. Then it was discovered thepolice had fabricated evidence against theCount. He was acquitted.

So who killed Sir Harry, or had him killed?John Marquis is the most recent finger-pointer. In his book, In the Blood and the Fire,which bears the subtitle The Duke of Windsorand the Strange Murder of Sir Harry Oakes, Mar-quis alleges the Duke engaged in an activecover-up. Part of Marquis’ allegations involvethe fact that the Duke brought in two second-rate detectives from Miami to investigate themurder. The two detectives were brought inagainst the advice of both Scotland Yard andthe FBI. Marquis goes on to suggest there wasevidence that might have come to the fore in-dicating that Oakes, Harold Christie and AxelWenner-Gren and the Duke had conspired tosmuggle millions out of the Bahamas. Someof the millions might have been Nazi gold.The conspiracy may have included gangstersLucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. TheDuchess of Windsor, the woman for whomEdward VIII gave up his throne, gets addedto this mix.

New evidence has been brought forward in-dicating that Wallace Simpson had a torridlove affair with Nazi foreign minister Joachim

von Ribbentrop, and that communicationsmay have been ongoing between the two evenafter Simpson and Edward married. J. EdgarHoover and the FBI were investigating theWindsors in 1941 at the order of PresidentRoosevelt. FBI records contain a report thatthere was an agreement between Herman Go-ering and the Duke that once the Nazis wonthe war they would put the Duke back on thethrone of England. The Duchess supportedthis and was actively engaged in the conspiracyas she hated the English for driving her andthe Duke out of England.

John Marquis’ allegations point to Sir HarryOakes being murdered to prevent him fromrevealing the tangled mess.

Given this incredible backdrop of allega-tions — and the above are just a few of them— it is no wonder that the death of HarryOakes of Sangerville continues to fascinatenew generations. There has even been a Hol-lywood movie on the murder starring RodSteiger: Trouble In Paradise. It is fun to watchwhen one knows some of the background.

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In the first decades of the twentieth cen-tury two birders and naturalists basedmuch of their observations of wildlife on

the section of the Appalachian Trail that runsfrom the White Mountains of New Hamp-shire and Maine to Katahdin. They got into aheated controversy with Theodore Roosevelt.The two birders were Abbott H. Thayer andFrancis Henry Allen.

Today Abbott H. Thayer is known forpaintings of landscapes and animals. He is alsosometimes referred to as the “father of cam-ouflage.” His theories of camouflage in naturewere applied to ships and planes in World WarI. Thayer’s most important work on birdingand camouflage in nature, the seminal Conceal-ing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom: An Exposi-tion of the Laws of Disguise Through Color andPattern, was written with his son Gerald. In thework, Thayer, who was an early proponent of

Darwin, took issue with the eminent natural-ist as deficient in understanding the nature ofoptical illusion as a factor in natural selection.Thayer’s criticism of Darwin, like his militaryapplications of camouflage, came about be-cause of his training as an artist.

Henry Francis Allen was one of America’sfirst truly scientific — as opposed to amateur— naturalists. A fellow of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences, Allen pub-lished well over 200 monographs on birds andsmall woodland animals such as porcupines,moles and woodchucks. Allen was one of thechief collaborators in the production of the21-volume Life Histories of North AmericanBirds, the first scientific ornithological studyput out by the U. S. Printing Office. Allen wasalso the first great Thoreau scholar. It was hisinterest in the sage of Walden Pond that ledhim to become the first naturalist to devote asignificant amount of time to the study of thebirds and small animals of the Katahdin re-gion.

Abbott Thayer came to know the Ap-palachian Trail from the White Mountains toKatahdin because he had an artist’s studio inthe shadow of Mount Monadnock in NewHampshire. The studio was his starting pointfor the exploration of the trail.

Henry Allen came to know the northern-most section of the Appalachian Trail becausehe was an inveterate hiker and outdoorsmanaddicted to sleeping under open night skies.His approach to birding was to concentrate oncollecting data on a small area rather than cov-

ering as much territory as possible to simplylist as many varieties of birds as possible.

The controversy that embroiled Thayer,Allen and Theodore Roosevelt began with thepublication of Concealing Coloration in the Ani-mal Kingdom in 1909. In the work, Thayer states“If, like a multitude of people, one cannot seethat shadows on an open field of snow, or awhite sheet, under a blue sky, are bright blue likethe sky overhead, one will probably provemore or less defective in all color perceptions.”Thayer used the blue jay as one of his camou-flage examples. Most think of the blue jay asa vivid, easily spotted bird. The blue jay is blue,white and gray. These colors, Thayer said,make it almost invisible amid the ever-chang-ing shadows and sunlight on snow. Thereforeraptors or other creatures that might prey onthe blue jay do not do so. Thayer produced


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paintings to illustrate his theory. Theodore Roosevelt, who was a noted amateur naturalist and had written on the

coloration of African game animals in African Game Trails, took umbrage with Thayerin print. As far as Roosevelt was concerned, the fact that something could be imag-ined in the mind of the artist and then produced on canvas did not make it fact. AfterRoosevelt’s initial criticism appeared, Henry Allen joined the fray on Thayer’s side. Thecontroversy continued in a variety of nature journals until Roosevelt’s death in 1919.

Abbott Thayer did make contributions to Darwin’s theory of natural selections.These contributions can be summed up as the nature and function of countershad-ing in the animal kingdom. The contributions are sometimes referred to as Thayer’sLaw. One particular instance is that of the white undersides of animals. The invertedlighter shading makes the animal appear less substantial and therefore less liable tobeing preyed on.

Thayer first became involved in military camouflage in the Spanish-American Warwhen he proposed countershading be used on naval vessels. Thayer, assisted by anumber of other artists, actually worked for the War Department on a number of oc-casions. His ideas also influenced the British Navy in their camouflaging of vessels.

Thayer’s work with camouflage led to the Army Corps of Engineers creating an en-tire section devoted to the science of camouflage. In World War I, Company A of the40th Engineers, “the Camouflage Corps,” was formed to implement Thayer’s princi-ples in the field. The Camouflage Corps, which included a number of Thayer’s for-mer students, was made up of artists and designers. The practices that the CamouflageCorps initiated in World War I continue in a much refined and advanced form today.

The controversy between Abbott Thayer, Henry Allen and Theodore Roosevelt isnow a footnote in early naturalist history. The contributions to birding of Thayer andAllen, two naturalists who loved the northern Appalachian Trail, however, have stoodthe test of time.



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On the evening of May 26, 1891a train known as the “St. JohnNight Express” left the station

in Bangor and headed north on itsnightly trip on the Maine Central Rail-road line. It consisted of a baggage car,a postal car, an express car, a Pullmansleeper and three coaches. That particu-lar evening appeared to be just like anyother night for its engineer, crew andpassengers, but two hours into the jour-ney, things changed. At a lonely stationnear Enfield, four armed men boardedthe train in an attempt to rob the mail-car. Within half-an-hour, multiple shotswere fired at the crew, two crewmen atthe train station were left hiding behindbags of mail, and the four men escapedinto the nearby woods.

The Enfield stop was a small stationlocated approximately one mile from thetown, and although the mail and express carcarried locked valuables, any thought of a pos-sible robbery was usually reserved for thenews stories from the “Wild West.” With thestation practically empty and the night in-tensely dark, the train stopped briefly andpulled away. According to the report in theNew York Times on May 27, 1891: “As the train

pulled out from Enfield and the fireman threwopen the furnace door to coal up, he saw inthe glare from the fire the face of a man peer-ing over the rear end of the tender, evidentlystanding upon the platform of the sealed car.”Immediately he informed the engineer thatthere was a stranger on board. As the firemanturned away, the all-stop alarm was sounded.Believing that the stop cord was accidently

pulled, the engineer continued at fullspeed. After the second alarm wassounded, two gunshots were fired,which prompted the engineer to shutthe engine down.

As stated in the New York Times, “Be-fore the train had come to a stop therebegan rapid firing from the side of thetrack. Three men stood within the circleof light made by the train lamps dis-charging revolvers into the windows ofthe postal car… A fourth man wasclimbing a snow fence beyond them.The gleam of his revolver showed hismovements.” The attack appeared to berelatively well-coordinated, with oneman positioned on the forward end ofthe sealed car with orders to shoot theengineer if he failed to stop, and twoother men positioned on the rear endof the car. But that is when the trouble

started. The two men had mistakenly posi-tioned themselves on the wrong car. Afterthey forced open its rear door, the “mail car”turned out to be the baggage car. The reportstates, “Finding out their blunder, they under-took to force the front door of the mail car,but two tons of mail matter pressed against it.

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Here, again they were frustrated. At this pointthey pulled the cord twice.” Within minutesafter the train had first stopped, the four menjumped off and ran toward the Enfield sta-tion.

Approximately half-an -hour later, the fourfrustrated gunmen entered the Enfield station,where they opened fire at the station- and bag-gage-master. The two crewmen immediatelytook refuge and locked themselves in a roomwith bags of mail. Meanwhile, the four gun-men shot out the large station lights as well asthe switch lights but were scared away into thenearby woods by the approach of a freighttrain that routinely followed the “St. John Ex-press.” Upon hearing the approaching train,the two crewmen lit a red-glass lantern andhung it on a broom from a broken window. Ifnot for their ingenuity, the train would havepassed the station.

Meanwhile, word of the attempted robberywas sent by wire to the High Sheriff in Ban-gor, who immediately announced that his menwould begin a search and hunt down the fourgunmen. Unfortunately, a strange regulationwas already set in place that prevented the planto go forward. It stated that “No informationin cases of detention of trains or accidentshall be given out or made until orders are re-

ceived from headquarters, which are at Port-land, 137 miles away.” Considering that thetime was midnight and realizing that the cru-cial manhunt could only be achieved the nightof the incident, the “disgusted Sheriff wenthome.”

Although a post-incident investigation wascompleted, which included a collection of 44-caliber bullets found at the scene, there wasnot enough information to continue an inves-

tigation. Only an appeal was filed by the postalclerks. Fortunately, there were no injuries orfatalities for both parties. But based on the ev-idence and the report, the four gunmen whotried to rob the “St. John Express” at Enfieldwere either extremely lucky or just plaindumb.

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In the early decades of the twentieth cen-tury independent-minded filmmakerstook up the reality of Native American

life in a traditional setting as a film venue.While this interest may have been somethingof a reaction to the stereotype Hollywoodportrayal of the Native American, it was morean embracing of what scholars of variousartistic media refer to as Primitivism.

Early twentieth century Primitivism was areaction to modernism. In painting, mod-ernism is exemplified with such schools as Cu-bism and artists like Picasso. The Primitivecounterpart to Cubism and Picasso may befound in folk art and Grandma Moses. In filmof the silent era and early talkies, Nanook ofthe North and The Silent Enemy exemplify Prim-itivism.

Nanook of the North is the better-known ofthe above-mentioned films. Probably that hassomething to do with its title. It has a ring toit that catches the ear and therefore the mind.Nanook of the North is a very good movie. So,

too, is The Silent Enemy. It may even be better.One of the reasons that it may be better has todo with its lead actress, Molly Spotted Elk, aPenobscot Native American.

Molly Spotted Elk was the stage name ofMary Nelson. Mary Nelson was born on In-dian Island in 1903. She was an actress, as wellas a dancer. Her greatest success came in Parisof the pre-war years.

I have seen both Nanook of the North andThe Silent Enemy. Because of happenstance Isaw both for the first time in one evening. Iwas visiting relatives in Allentown, Pennsylva-nia in the mid-1950s and they took me to theshowing of the films at Mullenberg College.Because of this experience I got what I referto as “the northern thing.” Ever since seeingthe two films I have been attracted to the farnorth, be it the Arctic or the vast forests ofour northern neighbor, Canada. And while Ihaven’t seen scenes like those in Nanook, Ihave visited the immediate area where TheSilent Enemy was filmed.

Molly Spotted Elk played an Ojibwa in TheSilent Enemy. The film was shot in Ojibwacountry around Lake Temagami in Ontario.Temagami is a huge lake — Moosehead-sizeor more. The forests around it seem unend-ing, dark and deep. The region was the perfectsetting to film a movie about Native Ameri-cans before the coming of the white man. Itwas the perfect setting to film a movie abouta people whose great enemy was hunger.

The Silent Enemy was written by W. DouglasBurden. Burden was a wealthy young mandrawn to the primitive. He wasn’t a screen-writer or an artist in the strict sense. He was adabbler who had a lot of money. (One of hisother projects involved funding an expeditionto study Komodo lizards.) Burden had themoney and the desire to make The Silent Enemyrealistic. That is why he chose Temagami ashis setting. That is why he used — with thesignificant exception of Molly Spotted Elk —Ojibwa tribe members as actors and actresses.


The Saga of Molly Spotted elkPenobscot from Indian Island found success as an actress and author

by Charles Francis

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Burden chose Molly Spotted Elk for his pro-duction because he had seen her perform inNew York.

A good many people are familiar with thestory of Molly Spotted Elk. One reason forthis has to do with the 1997 biography of her,Molly Spotted Elk: A Penobscot in Paris by BunnyMcBride. Another has to do with the recentrelease of her post-war collection of NativeAmerican tales, Katahdin: Wigwam’s Tales of theAbnaki Tribe.

I read Molly Spotted Elk: A Penboscot in Parisat the suggestion of one of my former highschool students, Chris Sockalexis. Chris wasan anthropology major at the University ofMaine and had the book in one of his classes.Molly Spotted Elk’s biography gives one a truesense of what it was like for a gifted and tal-ented Native American to find her way in aworld where her talents and gifts were viewedas aberrations by an unsophisticated middleclass in general, and elite connoisseurs of artin particular. Prejudice was just one of the rea-sons for the view.

Molly Spotted Elk was in Paris during theheyday of modernism. A long time ago I reada statement usually credited to Virginia Woolf.It goes something as follows: “On or about

December, 1910, human nature changed.”The statement relates to the formation of theBloomsbury group of literary and artisticlights and their philosophy of modernism, aview that dominated the art world for muchof the twentieth century. What the statementdid was to say human nature had entered anew cultural era — that human nature hadforever changed. Man was now a creature ofthe elite arts of Cubism, and the stream ofconscious writing and the like. The statementis, of course, untrue, and Molly Spotted Elk isa very good example of just why it is untrue.

Art is a part of our basic nature. Every-where, in every culture, people dance, sing,decorate their surroundings and tell and/oract out tales. This is why Molly Spotted Elkdanced. It explains why she fled America forEurope, where she hoped to find acceptancefor her interpretative dancing rather than beheld up as an example of the unsophisticated,rather than be expected to dress in fringed,buckskin costumes that half exposed herbody. It also explains why Molly Spotted Elkput together her collection of tales.

Katahdin: Wigwam’s Tales of the Abnaki Tribe isa wonderful collection of stories. It is a col-lection put together by someone who clearlyenjoyed and understood the inherent attrac-

tion of straightforward narrative, the style ofnarrative lacking in works like those of aJames Joyce or a William Burroughs.

Molly Spotted Elk was a twentieth-centuryfigure with the twenty-first century evolution-ary psychologist’s understanding of humannature. She understood that what twentieth-century critics viewed as Primitivism was, inreality, an expression of basic human nature.She did not deny her nature but chose to ex-press it. This is her legacy, and this in partcharacterizes her saga, her odyssey. Thatodyssey was a journey that took Molly to On-tario and to Paris. It was a journey that in-cluded a dash with her daughter across themountains of southern France and northernSpain to Portugal to escape the Nazi menace.

Those interested in learning more aboutMolly Spotted Elk may do so by reading MollySpotted Elk: A Penobscot in Paris. The biographywas a Pulitzer Prize nominee. A Pulitzer nom-ination is one of those recognitions that is justas good as a win, which means that the biog-raphy is very, very good. Those interested inMolly Spotted Elk’s sense of the primitive willfind Katahdin:Wigwam’s Tales of the Abnaki Tribemore than rewarding reading.



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On the evening of August 4, 1927,Frank Perkins and his former wifeLizzie were taking a walk together

near the edge of a road approximately 100yards from Lizzie’s home in West Orono.What they did not know was that someonehad been watching them. That someone wasCharles Perkins, who happened to be bothLizzie’s current husband and the nephew ofFrank. By 8:30 p.m., all three people werefound dead in a pool of their own blood.

Earlier in the day, the annual Orono Chil-dren’s Outing at Cole Stream Pond was held.The festive event was filled with the usual ac-tivities such as swimming and games for thechildren, as well as a time for adults to laugh,gossip, eat, and drink. According to the Au-gust 4, 1927 article in the Bangor Daily News,(Charles) seemed to be in good spirits but wasnoticed to be imbibing to some extent in al-coholic beverages.” Apparently, the level of“some extent” was an incredible amount of

rum, which had turned Charles into a para-noid and insanely jealous man.

After Charles spotted his wife and uncle to-gether, he burst out of the house with a Lugerpistol and ran toward the couple. The reportstated that after a “short altercation in whichthe woman was heard to scream ‘For God’ssake Charles, don’t!’ Charles fired once atFrank, the bullet entering the right cheekbelow the eye, and his victim dropped to theground.” As Lizzie staggered back in horror,she tripped and fell to the ground. Immedi-ately, Charles pinned her down, took out apocket knife, and slashed her throat. Her bodywas also found with eight additional stabwounds to the head and body.

With the bloody knife in hand, Charles ranback to his home, placed the pistol against hishead and pulled the trigger (even though itwas empty). As his mother walked into thekitchen, she begged Charles to hand over boththe gun and the knife. After he placed both of

the items on the kitchen table, Charles walkedinto his bedroom and closed the door. Ac-cording to the Bangor Daily News article, a gun-shot was heard and his mother entered theroom to find Charles sprawled across the bedwith a rifle on the floor. “He had placed thebutt of the gun on the floor and sitting on theedge of the bed, placed his head against themuzzle, and pulled the trigger.” It was a quickconclusion to a bloody and gruesome evening.

As much as the evening seemed like someisolated, drunken incident, trouble for thePerkins family had actually begun approxi-mately one year earlier. That is when Lizzie di-vorced Frank after 20 years of marriage andwas frequently seen in the company ofCharles. In June 1927, just two months beforethe tragic night, Charles and Lizzie were mar-ried. But this marriage was not a blissful one.The Bangor Daily News states that Lizzie, “had(Charles) in the Orono municipal court


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charging him with assault and battery. Afterthe court proceedings, she left the building inthe company with Frank and it is understoodthat all was not well between uncle andnephew.” Witnesses stated that both men wereintensely jealous of each other, and to makematters worse, Lizzie was the catalyst.

Although this altercation had ended indeath for Frank Perkins, it was not the firsttime he was involved in a shooting incident.Seven years earlier, he and his brother Jameswere out on a hunting trip near Pushaw Lake.After an argument with a group over the car-cass of a deer, James was shot and killed byone of the men who happened to be a police-man. In an August 5, 1927 article in the Ban-gor Daily News, “The policeman Smith wasindicted of manslaughter, tried and acquittedon the ground of self-manslaughter, tried andacquitted on the ground of self-defense. Frankwas present when his brother was killed andwas (also) shot several times by a young manwho had accompanied the officer, and whosecase was dropped when Smith was acquitted.”

The private funeral of Charles Perkins washeld at 10 a.m. on Thursday, August 5 at theOrono Cemetery while the double service forFrank and Lizzie Perkins was held at 2 p.m. in

the home of Frank Perkins. Upon examina-tion of the double murder and suicide, thesheriff ’s office closed the case on the sameday. As a gruesome reminder of the previousevening’s event, the evidence file included a

Luger pistol, a bloody pocket knife, a rifle, anda half-pint bottle of alcohol.


Town Hall, Main Street in Orono. Item #108942 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and



Old TownArchery Center

& Pro Shop

• One of the largest and bestequipped archery centersin New England

• See us for all your bow huntingand target archery needs

207-827-94891-888-827-9489

Email & Phone orders welcomeCall for lessons & appointments

www.oldtownarcheryshop.com

100’S OF BOWS iN STOCk!

300 Main StreetOld Town, ME 04468-1535

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DiscoverMaine


55

ABM Mechanical . . . . . . . . . . . .21Access Auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50ADA Fence Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19Alltrades Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20Ames Construction . . . . . . . . . . .46Appalachian Trail . . . . . . . . . . . .48Auto Radiator Service . . . . . . . . .37Bagel Central . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38Baker Electric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37Bangor Area Visitng Nurses . . . . .3Bangor Frameworks . . . . . . . . . .38Bangor Letter Shop & Color Copy Center 22Bangor Motor Inn . . . . . . . . . . .36Bangor Photo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34Bangor Tire Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . .35BB’s Tattoo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19Bear Brook Kennels . . . . . . . . . .40Bell’s Orono IGA . . . . . . . . . . . .54Big Jay Tree Service . . . . . . . . . .13Blue Loon Café . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42Bowman Mini Storage . . . . . . . . .9Bradley Redemption Center . . . .54Brewer Veterinary Clinic . . . . . . .39Briarwood Motor Inn . . . . . . . . .31Briggs Plumbing & Heating . . . .45Brookings-Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . .35Brooks Tire & Auto . . . . . . . . . .11Brown Family Electric . . . . . . . . .4Bucksport Electronics . . . . . . . .13Bugaboo Creek Steak House . . .24C.A. Newcomb & Sons . . . . . . .12Campbell’s Service Center . . . . .50Carousel Diversified Services . . .26Carter’s Citgo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13Chase Toys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Children’s Village Child Care . . .12City of Old Town . . . . . . . . . . . .32Cleonice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56Clouston Trucking . . . . . . . . . . .34Coach House Restaurant . . . . . .34Coffee Pot Café . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37Cold Stream Storage . . . . . . . . . .50Cole Land Transportation Museum . . .5Colonial Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . .4Colonial Inn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21Complete Tire Service . . . . . . . .15Computer Fixx . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49Corinna Auto Body . . . . . . . . . . .10Cornerstone In Home Care . . . .14Country Store Antiques . . . . . . .15Cove-Side Wheel & Ski . . . . . . .20Cox Law Offices . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Crandall’s Hardware . . . . . . . . . .48Crystal Limousine . . . . . . . . . . . .14Cummings Health Care Facility .47Custom Memorial Designs . . . . .31D.H. Pinnette & Sons Inc. . . . . . .6Daniel P. Duff & Associates . . .39Dave Eaton Water Treatment . . .5David B. Pooler Land Surveyor .15Davis Dirt Works & Excavation .7DeLaite’s Trucking Inc. . . . . . . .51Dexter Lumber Co. . . . . . . . . . . .11DLC Cedar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Dorsey Furniture . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Dover Audiology . . . . . . . . . . . .44Dover True Value . . . . . . . . . . . .45Down East Sheet Metal . . . . . . .40Dow’s Eastern White Shingles . .25Drinkwater’s Cash Fuel . . . . . . . .50Drummond Construction . . . . .43

Dunnett Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23E.H. Downs Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . .51E.R. Palmer Lumber Co. . . . . . .43Eastern Maine Home Care . . . . . .3Elaine’s Basket Café . . . . . . . . . .46Enfield Citgo & Service Center .50Fairmount Market . . . . . . . . . . . .36Foreign Auto Center . . . . . . . . . .38Fort View Variety . . . . . . . . . . . .13Frank’s Bakery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23Freedom Power Equipment . . . .36Freightliner of Maine . . . . . . . . .37G. Drake Masonry . . . . . . . . . . .18Galeyrie Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Gateway Inn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49George Adams CPA . . . . . . . . . .26Gerald Pelletier Inc. . . . . . . . . . .29Gillmor’s Beef N’ Ale . . . . . . . . .31Global Self Storage . . . . . . . . . . .53Gunn’s Sport Shop . . . . . . . . . . .40H&R Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37H.C. Haynes, Inc. Logging . . . . .52H2O Well Drilling . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Hall’s Valley View Septic . . . . . .46Hammond Lumber Co. . . . . . . .19Hammond’s Mobile Repair . . . .54Hancock Chimney Cleaning . . . .21Harris Drug Store . . . . . . . . . . . .27Hills Granite & Marble . . . . . . . .28Hobnobbers Pub . . . . . . . . . . . .46Horton, McFarland & Veysey . .16Houston Brooks Auctioneers . . . .6Howland Enfield Federal Credit Union . . . .29In-Home Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48J.C. Milliken Agency, Inc. . . . . . .14J.D. Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46Jackman Auto Parts . . . . . . . . . .42Jay’s Towing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42JDL Towing & Salvage . . . . . . . .11John R. Crooker Insurance Agency . .13Johnson Foundations . . . . . . . . .45Just Barb’s Restaurant . . . . . . . . .21K&K Towing & Auto Salvage . . .8Katahdin Karpentry . . . . . . . . . .47KC’s Country Store . . . . . . . . . . .43Kimball Insurance, LLC . . . . . . .43King Bros. General Contractors 47Lander & Sons Inc. . . . . . . . . . . .44Lane Conveyors & Drives Inc. . .26Larry’s Wood Products . . . . . . . .48LeClair Construction . . . . . . . . . .3Lee J. Bell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17Lennie’s Superette . . . . . . . . . . . .49Lincoln Lakes Chamber of Commerce . . .30Lincoln Maine Federal Credit Union .28Lincoln Powersports . . . . . . . . . .50Linden Ridge Homebirth Care . .9Linkletter & Sons Inc. . . . . . . . . . .7Maine Energy Inc. . . . . . . . . . . .22Maine Equipment Company . . . .6Maine Highlands Federal Credit Union . . . . .5Maine Historical Society . . . . . . .17Maine’s Own Treats . . . . . . . . . .16Marden’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18Maynard’s In Maine . . . . . . . . . .27Mayo Regional Hospital . . . . . . .45Mid State Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Mike Nelligan Construction . . . . .6Millmark Products Inc. . . . . . . . .14Mitchell Tweedie Funeral Home 13Moosehead Sled Repair & Rentals LLC . . .26

Mortons Moo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20Mt. Jefferson Ski Area . . . . . . . .52Napa Auto & Truck Parts . . . . .14New Leaf Naturals . . . . . . . . . . .18Newport Big Stop Family Restaurant 19Newt’s Custom Construction . . .28Nicatous Lodge & Camps . . . . .53Nickerson’s Septic Tank Pumping 8Nicky’s Cruisin’ Diner . . . . . . . . .39Norm Cookson Realty . . . . . . . .10North Star Studios . . . . . . . . . . .27North Woods Real Estate . . . . . .28Northern Blasting . . . . . . . . . . . .20Old Town Archery Center . . . . .54Owen Gray & Son, Inc. . . . . . . .22Pampered Chef . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36Pearson Auto Recycling . . . . . . .41Pelletier’s Loggers Restaurant . . .29Penco Contractors . . . . . . . . . . .31Penobscot Marine Museum . . . .33Penobscot Valley Hospital . . . . .51Percko Supply Inc. . . . . . . . . . . .11Perry O’ Brian Attorney at Law .38Pine Grove Crematorium . . . . . .35Piper Mountain Christmas Trees 12Pleasant River Lumber . . . . . . . .45Plumbline Carpentry . . . . . . . . . .28Poirier’s Garage . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40Polar Air Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52Pri Steen Builders . . . . . . . . . . . .15R.A. Thomas Logging . . . . . . . .43

Ramsdell Auto Supply . . . . . . . .13Raymond’s Variety & Diner . . . .52RC Builders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38RH Foster Energy LLC . . . . . . .27Richard Parks Furniture . . . . . . .56Rick’s Auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41Rick’s Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48RN’K Garage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43Robbins Auto & Truck Repair . .34Rogan’s Memorial . . . . . . . . . . . .41Roger’s Plumbing & Heating . . .41Roger’s Small Engine Repair . . .51Rooster Brother . . . . . . . . . . . . .56Sara Sara’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21Seamans Electric . . . . . . . . . . . . .10Sebasticook Valley Federal Credit Union . . . .7Sign Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11Skills, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17Smart’s True Value Annex . . . . .51Smart’s True Value Hardware . . .51Smitty’s Welding Inc. . . . . . . . . . .16Snap Fitness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40Snowman’s Oil & Soil . . . . . . . . . .7Snow’s Saw Shop . . . . . . . . . . . .46South Branch Lake Camps . . . . .30St. Albans Mini Mart . . . . . . . . . .7St. Albans Stove Shop . . . . . . . . .20State St. Wine Cellar . . . . . . . . . .22Steinke & Caruso Dental . . . . . .45Steve Hachey’s Rust Proofing . .41Stewart’s Wrecker Service . . . . . . .6Stone’s Earthwork . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Swett’s Tire & Auto . . . . . . . . . .37T & W Garage . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18Tate Brook Timber Co. Inc. . . . . .6The Covered Bridge Motel . . . . .44The General Store and More . . .47The Grasshopper Shop . . . . . . .56The Kneaded Touch . . . . . . . . . .36The Plymouth Village Store . . . . .8The Residence at Tall Pines . . . .35The Tax Clinic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53Thomas P. Duff, Financial Advisor . .39Timbers Restaurant . . . . . . . . . . .15Tim’s Plumbing . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28Town of Lincoln . . . . . . . . . . . . .30Trailside One Stop . . . . . . . . . . .27Tri City Pizza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35Tucker Auto Repair . . . . . . . . . . .36Twin Super Buffet . . . . . . . . . . . .39Vacationland Inn . . . . . . . . . . . . .23Vancil Vision Care . . . . . . . . . . .13Varney Chevrolet . . . . . . . . . . . .17Vicki Wolfertz Architect . . . . . . .42WERU - FM Community Radio . .25Whittens 2 Way Service . . . . . . .25Willard S. Hanington & Son Inc. 52Winn Service Center . . . . . . . . . .52WKIT/WZON . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26Yates Lumber Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . .53Young Funeral Home . . . . . . . . .13

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