Ghosts on the Coast of Maine Read online

  Or was it some sort of warning from her own mother?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BANK ACCOUNT BREAKER

  This house had come to my attention through four Maine residents who claimed it to be haunted, one of whom traveled with me to point out the location. Upon entering South Thomaston, I noticed a spot where a small bridge functioned as the belt between two larger bodies of water, known as the Gig. Around the bend, coming north on Route 73, we came upon a huge block of a house the color of creamed coffee. Its hip-roofed structure dwarfed the neighboring dwellings, some of which were older than the Victorian house in question. There was definitely something about the top of that house that drew my attention. It was not female.

  No one was living in the house, so we peeked in the windows that were not sheeted over. The original velvet drapes framed what seemed like an age-old scene from an antique doll house. Wooden carvings of grape clusters studded the stocky legs of a low, wide piano, which stood in front of a conversation grouping of a brocaded settee and chairs. Keeping watch over the piano was the tall, slender sentinel of a lamp. It was topped with colored glass sections of a tulip-shaped shade. As we turned to continue walking, a sharp odor of fire hit my nostrils. Looking around and seeing nothing amiss, I quickly dismissed the sensation.

  A room on the east side seemed like a lighthouse unto itself, with an ornate brass table lamp dominating a small area that jutted out from the rest of the house. It was this room that smelled of the sea, with old charts on the walls that hung opposite black-framed photographs of schooner ships. A sea captain’s reading room, for sure.

  Although these furnishings were of great value, the house itself looked sorely neglected. The walls were crumbling, the majestic front door was weather-beaten, and the barn attached to the house was leaning on the main structure for support. Above the barn door was a sign spelling out the exact name of the school I had attended for twelve years, and that omen spurred me on to research the place.

  The local historian lived several miles down the road, so off we went. He said that a sea captain had built the mansion in 1855, the year after a fire had destroyed his first house constructed on the same plot of ground. This comment triggered my memory about the odor I had encountered. After perusing photographs and old records, we asked about the present owner and found a parallel between his circumstances and the captain’s.

  Ghosts will do this. They will often choose to communicate to a person or inhabitant who has been through a predicament similar to theirs. This situation allows for a sympathetic ear, on both sides of the line.

  First, the captain’s story: Josiah Thurston, in spite of his rural elementary education, went on to pursue an intellectual career. The Honorable Thurston practiced law for a while until he became interested in business. Then he reverted to family tradition and chose a marine occupation, operating a shipyard on the Wessaweskeag. Translation from the Indian is Tidal Creek Place, nicknamed “The Gig.” Within eighteen years, he had built nineteen vessels.

  Josiah adjusted well. During the first seven years of marriage, which were childless, he spent most of his time bolstering his law and shipbuilding businesses. When the children came, he worked even harder to keep his family well fed and able to continue in the lifestyle to which they were accustomed.

  In 1848 this father of a growing brood was elected a Selectman of Thomaston, a job which he took very seriously. He was appointed to a committee which traveled to Augusta, and his law training served him well in the devising of bills and in lobbying the State Legislature for passage of them. Shortly afterwards he became a state senator.

  The 1854 fire dismayed but did not discourage Thurston. Politics was in his blood by this time, and he decided to go for it. He was going to build the biggest, most elegant mansion in the Knox/ Waldo County area, including a ballroom on the floor above the barn. It would serve as a good family home, but oh, would it impress his evergrowing list of Washington friends and cronies.

  Ambition became reality. By 1860 Josiah was rubbing noses with the likes of Hannibal Hamlin, the vice presidential running mate of Abraham Lincoln. Thurston’s single-handed campaign to swing Knox County for the Hamlin/Lincoln ticket was so impressive that the new President invited him to consider a high Washington office.

  The Civil War intervened, and Lincoln’s offer was disregarded. After a brief stint in Cassius Clay’s Battalion, Thurston returned home in 1861 to find that he was a man deep in debt. Politics had kept him from being on top of the shipyard’s finances, and it had also inspired him to borrow lavish sums for the construction and decoration of his house.

  Determined to keep his “dream house,” Josiah switched gears and assumed a new career, that of sea captain. In one winter he absorbed all the books on navigation that were available to him, then took command of a ship the following spring. It was a valiant effort but not quite sufficient to bail him out of his money troubles. His brother made him a deal, which rendered the unfinished mansion to the brother. Josiah moved to another town and remained a sea captain as long as his physical constitution permitted.

  Just as Josiah’s highest aspiration was all wrapped up in his mansion, so was Avery Henderson’s. Avery, the present owner, a man of books and letters and local politics, tackled the business of buying the Thurston house in 1986. He told everyone of his restoration plans and how much he wanted the place to be beautiful again.

  Avery was enthralled with the new purchase. He tried to raise money for the restoration by having huge lawn sales. He dragged valuables from his Massachusetts home and sold them on the lawn of the mansion. He tried for two years.

  During those years, he knew that he and his family were not alone in the house. While he’d be busy in his workroom, he’d hear footsteps on the floor above. His wife heard a knock on the front door once and opened it to vacant space. After one of his lawn sales, when everything was put away and in order, Avery looked up to the semi-dark sky to see the figure of a man in seafaring clothes watching him from the roof. Two others saw it; then it disappeared. The “man” seemed to be concerned about the outcome of the sale. Would it be enough to help the owner make a go of it?

  The third year Avery realized that his attempts had failed. The house was just too expensive to finish and restore. The neighbors hardly ever saw his Massachusetts car in the driveway. That is why we were able to look into the windows and catch a glimpse of a ghostly past, along with the ghostly present.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PITCHER MAN

  Maine coast towns were perfect targets for British depredation during the Revolutionary War, and Goose River was no exception. The town took its name from the high-banked stream that flows over chunky greenmossed rocks to become part of the great harbor. Across the river spanned a small wooden bridge, the significance of which will be revealed in the course of this chapter.

  The British took it upon themselves to pester the inhabitants of Goose River, notwithstanding the hardy temperament of these early Americans. They would sail down the coast in vessels called “shaving mills” and disembark to steal cattle, butter, or guns. Sometimes they made women and children take to the woods while they burned their houses.

  The husbands of these women fought back with everything they had, ambushing the invaders from the woods or volleying shots from the shore line shrubbery. There were no soldiers assigned to protect this little town, so the settlers had to be ingenious. One fellow, upon sight of a British barge, ran for his drum and started to beat “roll call,” while another fellow shouted military commands to an imaginary band of troops. The barge passed on.

  The patriot from Goose River who gained the most recognition during this time was a fisherman named William Richardson. Bill happened to be at the right place at the right time for his greatest act of valor. It was 1779 and Revolutionary sentiment was at fever pitch, especially aboard the privateer of Commodore Samuel Tucker. This ambitious American captain spied an English East Indiaman bound for the coast of Maine, loaded with a bo
untiful cargo of East Indian goods. He captured the ship, stole the cargo, and was heading toward Goose River when he realized that he was unfamiliar with the area and needed guidance. Meanwhile another English ship had been alerted to Tucker’s deed and was in hot pursuit of the miscreant.

  The bright eye of Captain Tucker rested upon a small fishing boat and he drew up to it at once. He immediately enlisted the services of the pilot, William Richardson, and together they journeyed about sixty miles up to Harpswell. Here they anchored by the ledges and remained out of the enemy’s reach, since the British vessel was much larger and could not come close to shore. This did not deter the English captain, who blockaded the port and was awaiting reinforcements.

  Tucker feared for his ship, but Richardson told him to hold on until the first storm. It was then that the American ship, guided by the skillful hands of the Goose River navigator, slipped past the enemy in the thick black of night. Driven by the northeast wind, she sailed on to Portland.

  The British captain was not aware of the escape till morning, at which time he hightailed it west. Richardson had done his job well, however, and only allowed the enemy a fleeting glimpse of the Yankee privateer rounding the bend at Cape Elizabeth. She had passed the point of being overtaken and safely continued on to her destination, Salem, Massachusetts.

  Richardson was pleased to have avenged his townspeople for the plunderings they had suffered at British hands. By the war’s end, Goose River residents had endured their crops being burned, their animals slaughtered, and their houses razed. That is why, when these people learned of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, they gathered for the biggest, wildest party ever thrown in the area. It was, of course, hosted by William Richardson.

  It began with a burst of cannon shot booming its echo throughout the Penobscot mountains. Guns were fired and drums beat in order to call the neighboring citizens of Camden and Castine. Civilians, soldiers, and officers poured in from the garrisons of Penobscot Bay to celebrate the longawaited victory.

  Pitchers of ale and canisters of tobacco adorned all the tables and sideboards of Bill’s house. Not an inch of space was bare. A pig was killed for the feast, as well as a lamb and a steer. Fifers blew on their high-pitched instruments for a circle of dancing men wielding drink mugs, while others roared patriotic war songs. It was a wondrous evening of revelry that went far into the night.

  At one point during the celebration, after several mugs of ale, Bill decided to go wandering about town with a pitcher full of brew, rousting out anyone who was missing the party. He went ambling down the road, singing and yelling, peering in any window with a light in it, and knocking on those with none. The road took him down the hill from his house and over to the bridge across the river. There he met three horsemen, to whom he jubilantly offered his pitcher of ale. Not realizing that they were Tories, who were suffering enough indignation on this eventful day, Bill never gave a thought to any malice. As he held out his pitcher, one of the men struck him in the head with the butt of his gun and rendered him unconscious. The three travelers sped off and left Bill to die, never knowing what hit him.

  The bridge has since been replaced, and the town renamed Rockport, but it is still the haunt of William Richardson. Nineteen twenty is the earliest anyone can remember hearing about the Revolutionary War hero who stalks the bridge with a pitcher in his hand.

  One night in the late summer of 1953, a young couple was approaching the bridge, when the girl grabbed onto her boyfriend in rigid fear. At the other end of the bridge was a man coming towards them, holding something out in front of him. He seemed purposeful. The boyfriend prepared to defend his female companion against the weird stranger, when suddenly the man disappeared. After they had calmed down, they realized that what they had seen was no ordinary personage.

  The area around the bridge is significant also. It is a cozy glen, suitable for lovers. About ten years after the latter incident, two couples were parked in this quaint, wooded spot. They were too busy having fun to notice a man approaching from the rear. One of the guys rolled down a window to get some air and in so doing came face to face with a man holding a pitcher towards him. The guy quickly rolled up the window and told the driver to step on the gas.

  Old-timers chuckle whenever they hear one of the Rockport lovers’ lane stories. They know better than to go meandering around there after dark. They attend to the sign, “No trespassing between sunset and sunrise.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  WRECK ISLAND

  Nobody would go up with me to Wreck Island, formerly False Franklin, four miles southwest of Friendship Harbor. ‘Course I’d just told ‘em that I’d read it was haunted (maybe that had something to do with it). On the other hand, any place with a name like that sounded dangerous for any craft, so I left our fifteenfoot Glassmaster at her mooring and gassed up the Buick for the trip.

  It was a long one. Going up and down roller coaster hills on narrow two-lane roads with low visibility and lack of signs made a stomach-stressed journey. I was well rewarded, however, when I took a wrong turn and drove up the driveway of Eaton Stearns. OF Eaton came out (I’d never seen him before in my life) and said, “By Gawd, I hope you’re looking for me.”

  I hesitated, then laughed, “Well I don’t rightly know. Can you tell me about Wreck Island?”

  He said, “No, but I can take you there. Do you trust me?”

  I said, “For the time bein’.”

  Eaton and I went down the road some, till he stopped at a small beach on Martin’s Point. “There she is,” he pointed out.

  We got in a green punt that badly needed paint, and rowed out far enough for me to get a good look at the island. It was such a pretty sight with the sun beaming down on her beige rocks and the air so still around her. In clear daylight it was hard to imagine what devastation had been wreaked by this little spot of sunshine in the sea.

  Stan Bushman, an old fisherman laid up with the gout, tells the story. December 4, 1768, was the date. The ship Winnebec, sailing from Boston, got caught in a storm and lost control around the ledges of False Franklin. The cold wind and driving snow was some fierce, and it blasted that boat against the rocks and stove her to pieces.

  Early the next morning supposedly, some fishermen on their way out to sea found some boards on Cranberry Island, some debris on Harbor Island, and then the wreck on False Franklin. Eleven bodies of crew and passengers were sprawled out on the shore.

  The men left their fishing and went ashore to see if anyone was alive. Seeing none, they loaded chests full of valuables, clothes, and provisions aboard their boats. It took them about seven trips to do this, and they weren’t noticed by anyone till they were about done. When it was learned that the Winnebec had washed up on the island, several townspeople went out to investigate, and proceeded to notify the authorities.

  Meanwhile, by the time of that seventh trip, a terrible squall had blown up, bringing with it violent torrents of ice and snow. The fishermen could not make it back to the mainland, so they had to stay on False Franklin overnight. What happened to them that night was something they never wished to experience again.

  Since the island was uninhabited, the men sought out branches large enough to make a lean-to. Between the branches and the boards from the wreck, they devised a shelter with a floor and bedded down for the night. The snow had stopped, but it was bitter cold.

  A few hours past them sleeping, a breeze found its way into the shelter and stirred Alan Page, one of the men. He woke up and started choking and gagging; he could not catch his breath. His partially frozen eyelids finally opened up to see a “man” with clothes drenched, leaning over him, clutching Alan’s throat with his hands. Alan gasped, then no sound came from his throat. The sleeper next to him shook Page and brought him to, whereupon this second fisherman also felt a constriction around his throat. The whole camp was invaded by figures outlined in white light, intent on giving the men a taste of what it felt like to be strangled.

  “Now my father,” Stanley s
aid as he drew on his pipe, “always told me that he’d heard that them fishermen had murdered the people off of that ship. O’ course, he’d fished those waters many times himself, and he claimed that one night he and Georgy Green started out toward Franklin. The moon was exceptionally bright, and they looked over to see some shapes roaming around in a cloud of light. They got no closer, but they’d never forget that sight.”

  Stanley admitted that he’s seen lights hovering over the island on occasion. A friend of his was passing by the island shortly after evening had set in, once, and saw what looked like the hull of a ship half buried in the sand. He’d never seen anything there before, so he went over to take a look. By the time he’d reached the spot, it was gone.

  On my way back from Friendship, I was mulling over Wreck Island, and skepticism about the possibility of murder came to mind. Why would a group of fishermen, minding their own business, kill some poor shipwrecked people over some food and supplies? My thoughts continued.

  The mishap occurred in the middle of a northern winter. Cold, snow, and ice make land transportation difficult, if not impossible, for an out-of-the-way place like a peninsular village. The roads (?) could easily get blocked with snow, so that neither man nor horse could pass. These ideas came to me as I maneuvered one of the difficult “s” curves peculiar to the Maine backwoods.

  The weather would have rendered fishing vessels useless at least part of the season, while making sea transportation dangerous and oftentimes fatal. The year 1768 did not know lighthouses, channel markers or marine patrol of any kind. Great quantities of food and medicine would have been hard to come by. If an opportunity arose to gather goods like woolen blankets or dried meats, a man would think of his family first, and consequences last.