Strange New England

I was ten years old when my grandfather died. He died in his sleep during the cold February night with his rosary in his hands. My cousin had to break into the house on Sunday morning because Grampy never missed Mass and it was time to go.He found him under the covers, cold and still.  The doctor told my father that he had died peacefully, that he fell into a deep sleep and his heart slowed and then, eventually, it simply stopped. My father always said that he hoped that was how he would go - to fall asleep in one world and wake up in the next.  His was the second earliest death I can recall. Grammie had predeceased him by five years and it was during those intervening five years that I got to know the old man. Grampy spoke French, used Pearson’s Red Top Snuff, spoke little and worked hard. He lived alone in the same little house he had  built in the 1920s, heated only by a woodstove. To say he didn’t work would be a lie; he was retired, but spent his time working hard, keeping himself busy

It’s a warm July Sunday in 1745. You’re sitting in your pew at the First Church of York, Maine, waiting for the service to begin. It is a quiet time, a time for reflection and prayer. Today will offer something different though and try as you will to focus on more spiritual matters, you can’t help but wonder at what is to come. Your pastor, old Samuel Moody,has gone with William Pepperrell’s colonial militia to lay siege to Louisbourg at Cape Breton. Old Moody is the army’s spiritual advisor and knowing him as you do, you have no doubt that his long-winded prayers and cutting commentary alone might be enough to force the French from Quebec. You admit that the new pastor might be a breath of fresh air, considering that old Samuel Moody seemed to know everything about everybody in the church and had no qualms exposing the private lives and sins of his congregation from the pulpit. The new pastor, though, has some issues of his own. He stands in front of the crowd and begins to speak, quietly, almost silently. H

A ghost story is usually a solitary thing. It lives by itself and doesn’t go out much and by its nature, is solitary and lonesome. A ghost story is the hermit of tales because, so often, a spirit is only experienced by a single person, whether it be a chill in the air, a fleeting image in the darkness, a shadow in the window on the top floor as you casually  glance upward. Most people don’t see spirits in pairs or groups. They seem them when they’re all alone. It makes you wonder, if you’re an imbiber of such stories, if most of them might simply be creations of the mind, unintended tulpas of the imagination. They’re a part of the human experience. Ghost stories are as old as we are and stretch back into our prehistory, into the times before we could record them for future generations. Ghosts are part of that collective memory we all share. Their stories continue to be told because, I believe, we need them. Strangely, they frighten us but they also bring us hope? We’ll see about that.  But what c

You’ve heard a lot of stories about the old days in the deep woods of northern Maine, when river drivers cut the trees and moved the logs into the rivers, down the great waterways or through the dense frozen forest. In Maine’s early days as a state, most of it was a frontier, far removed from the rest of civilization and only connected with a thin line of rail or a dark ribbon of water weaving its way from the overwhelming forest to the towns and cities near the coast. When winter came and the ground froze solid, that’s when lumbermen ventured deep into the woods, so deep that the closest connection with the world was literally days away.  Working in the deep woods meant isolation for long periods of time, away from the comforts and the safety of civilization, especially healthcare. The men had to rely on each other and themselves in times of trial and uncertainty and this they did. There are songs and stories detailing the toils and times of these men of the woods, but perhaps none so strange and unique t

When I was a boy, I used to hear the train in the distance in the middle of the night. It broke the stone silence of my world like a knife, a long, lonesome whistle from over the hill next to the Aroostook River Valley, where the tracks ran. It was a sign of life, the Bangor and Aroostook.  I never knew if it was headed north or south. I never saw the night train - I only ever heard its wail. It was reassuring. Even though my neck of the woods was lonely, there were train tracks connecting that loneliness to the wider world, somewhere out there.  I had never been on a train. My parents had taken the B&A to Bangor for their honeymoon, but by the time I was a kid, no passengers rode the rails. Trains were a mystery to me, and I loved them. Once, my father took me to the Allagash to see something strange and wonderful - the ghost trains. In a place with nothing but untamed wilderness as far as the eye could see, we walked a path into the dense forest to discover two steam locomotives just sittin

When I was a boy, my father told me a story about a ghost town. I come from northern Maine, Aroostook County, a place of endless trees and potato fields with more deer than people. It's lonely country, a place of long, quiet, windswept vistas, of dark temples in the forest, of a world not yet destroyed by the endless march of human industry. Not yet. To be clear, I had heard my share of ghost stories - my sister had even seen the spirit of my grandmother standing at the foot of her bed, watching over her. I know because I awoke to her screaming. We lived with the idea of the Holy Ghost, the idea that life did not end with death, that life is but a walking shadow of the world and times to come. Once, when I was 17, I came face to face with a full body apparition. I'm still not sure what that was. But when my father told me of the ghost town, it was a horse of a different color. It wasn’t the remnant or memory of a person - no, it was an entire place, lost and forgotten, like a ghost but not a ghost. You c

I’ve been to the place where the world ends. It’s in an out of the way spot, far to the north, near a beaver dam and an abandoned air force base that most people have forgotten even existed. A wildlife refuge surrounds this strange little grotto of man-made hillocks that abides there quietly, a vestige of a time that all too unfortunately has not yet passed from our world. Days go by and no human visits. I walked there with my brother and we moved amid the bunkers, squat tomb-like structures built to withstand a nuclear blast unbothered by anyone or anything but a lonely crow flying over the barest whisper of a breeze. If I didn’t know better, I could swear I heard someone say something there, something like a prayer. Perhaps that person was me. I grew up about fifteen miles away from this place and for the entirety of my life in my hometown of Caribou, Maine, I knew that the military had nuclear weapons nearby. After all, it was the middle of the Cold War. Loring Air Force Base was even mentioned in the m

Three score years and ten. It says it in the Bible, our allotted time upon this planet, the time we can expect to wander and walk and wonder, because nobody lives forever. From dust we come and to dust we return and that is one of the great equalizers for all Humanity - in the end, we're all the same. Well, most of us. The need for humans to forestall their deaths is understandable, because what comes next is perhaps the greatest mystery of all. Most of us can expect a final resting place for our remains, though more and more the trend is the scattering of ashes. As the poet said long ago, the grave's a fine and private place, a little piece of real estate for eternity. But for some, their journey to that final destination is full of detours and winding ways. Take the story of Elmer McCurdy, late of Washington and Bangor,Maine. Washington, Maine. Even today, the little village has a post office, a fire station, a general store and a bookstore. That's about it. It has not changed much since 1880, when Elmer

It looks like a small desk without any legs, just sitting there on a table, a well-fashioned rectangular wooden box containing within it a drawer that pulls out to reveal a crucifix, a journal, a spoon, bottle of white powder and sundry other items that, when attached to the device on top of the box, did something very special, or at least, that’s what was claimed. The device is symmetrical and in its center is a glass column surmounted by a small cast iron skull wearing a helmet and within the glass column one can glimpse a brass bell suspended on a chain. On either side of the glass column are two black horns, much like the ones you would later see on Edison’s talking machines and to their sides, a set of brass balance scales, connected to weights. Near the rear on each side are two glass Crookes solar radiometers, those little glass spheres you can still buy with a metal spinner in the center, moved by the sunlight and photons. There are other strange contrivances attached to this peculiar amalgam of techn

It happens several times a day to everyone I know, usually at dinner time. Sitting quietly, minding your own business in the comfort of your own home and the phone rings. You look at the number and it looks somewhat familiar - whoever is calling lives in your area code, so there’s that. It can’t be from some robocaller - oh, you know, it probably is, but you put your hand up to the phone and wait - that is, if you have an answering machine. My son has a great strategy that he recorded for us a long time ago - it goes - “Hi you’ve reached the Burbys. We can’t come to the phone right now but if you’ll leave your name and number, we’ll be happy to get back to you, unless you’re soliciting something, in which case, please call someone else.” It works most of the time.  There are pathways that lead into our homes - the front walk that leads to the door, your email, your Internet connection and of course, your phone. We have a strange modern relationship with our phones. We eat with them, take them to the b

My name is George Miller Beard and I have a strange tale to tell you, a story so bizarre and truly unbelievable that I am certain people will doubt my report and perhaps even question my motives in discussing this subject. Still, what I have to reveal to you is the honest truth, witnessed only lately from my long journey to the northern woods of Maine in this year, 1878. Now, before I reveal my discovery, which I am certain you will doubt, you should know that I am a graduate of Yale College, class of 1862, and I received my medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in 1866. During the War, I was an assistant surgeon in the West Gulf Squadron of the Union Navy aboard the gunboat New London. I have published several articles concerning the mental conditions suffered by so many after the war and was the first to name exhaustion of the central nervous system as Neurasthenia.  My entire professional life has been devoted to helping those afflicted by the stresses of the modern

You find yourself alone on a journey, feeling somewhat lost as the houses seemed to have disappeared from the side of the road and all you have seen for the interim has been nothing but trees and shadows thrown from the moon that seems to be playing hide-and-go-seek with the clouds. It is as though you have driven into another world on as dark a night as you can remember and you hope you’ve taken the right road because right now, you feel like maybe you haven’t. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you see her – a white form in the darkness. At first she is there on the side of the road but suddenly, she is standing on the jagged white separator line and you slam hard on the brakes. Miraculously, you miss her. No one should be out here, this far, on their own. No one. You exit the car and see her there, her face ashen white and her expression almost too serene, strangely silent. You ask her if she is alright. She nods. You ask her if she needs a ride. She nods once more. Relieved but still shaken, you let her

Elbert Stevens owned a sawmill in Bridgewater Corners, Vermont at the turn of the last century. His people had been in the area for time out of mind and he was known as a man who, like the bedrock that makes up the state, was solid, strong, and in a word, reliable.  He was also a keeper of things, never one to discard anything that might be of use later, a habit practiced by many folks of his age and caliber. You never know when you might need something later - usually after you threw it out the year before. Such people kept things, just in case. One of those possessions was a scrapbook, a place to glue the memorable tidbits of news and marginalia found in the papers and almanacs read during those long Vermont winter evenings when the wind howled outside the door like wolves. He hadn’t started the scrapbook - it had merely been handed down to him from a family member long gone, but he held it as something precious for within those pages was something incredible and truly fantastic, a tale told by lamp

The wind is blowing. It seems like the wind is always blowing here on this rock, like a constant companion, the sea breezes wafting lightly or heavy, but always, the air is moving around you like a torrent of unseen, but not unfelt, spirits. Tonight, though, it is howling, screaming like a banshee. Outside, the elements are raging and there is no sign that this will end soon.  The light is lit, thank God. If not for your toil and attention, such a night could bring the death of many mariners who find themselves at sea so close to the rocky coast and in particular, these treacherous shoals. Winter storms tend to be the worst.  As the Keeper for so many years, you’ve learned how quickly the waters can turn on you. You’ve seen the sea throw boulders from its depths against the granite walls of the light. The first three iterations of it were destroyed by the sea, but not this one. This one was built to last.  But tonight you will wait in the comfort of the keeper’s house and stand watch. The

Lieutenant Gustavus Drane awoke from his stupor to find himself chained to the floor. It was dark, so dark. Where was he and what was that sound? How did I get here? He struggled to regain his thoughts. He had been drinking, rather heavily, with the other men of the regiment. He ought to have known better, that they had never really liked him, but the days and weeks at Castle Island in Boston Harbor were long and cold with little else to do but play cards and drink. He was better than this, he thought! Gustavus Drane cursed his bad luck, but as his eyes began to focus again and as the thoughts began to come together in his clouded mind, he assessed his situation. He was in a dark place, but where? Was this a casemate, an underground storage bunker? It must be. And that sound - men talking and the sound of bricks being moved. He struggled but the iron handcuffs were cumbersome and his feet were shackled, as well. Those men, he could see shadows flickering the dimmest of light at the end of the casemate - th

 There is a legend in the northeast of a man condemned to ride the storm for all eternity. When folks first started describing the man and his conveyance, he was always seen running just ahead of a fierce thunderstorm that appeared out of nowhere, in an open carriage being drawn by a fierce bay horse. Sitting next to him is his small daughter, perhaps no more than six years old. They are both soaking wet and their faces are both covered in panic and fear. The carriage is being driven at a frenetic pace for just behind this strange pair is a sky of tight rolling black thunderheads and the sound of distant thunder begins to fill the air. If you ask around, you are sure to find someone who has either seen the man himself or at least knows someone who has. They say that if you’re of a mind to speak with him and he notices you, he is likely to slow the beast that pulls his rig just long enough to stop and ask you a single question. “Which way to Boston?” You might find the words to tell him if you ar

It is dusk of a late summer day and you are standing quietly on a shoreline. There are bits of gnarled tree roots washed ashore here and there, pebbles, and small patches of mossy green vegetation at the lip of the water. The long vista you’re observing is a mixture of green and gold and blue, with the orange-red of the setting sun casting long shadows over the water of the quiet lake. There are trees as far as the eye can see, covering the rolling hills. If you stay very still and listen attentively, you might hear the sound of people laughing at their camps, of an outboard motor slowly cruising along in the rapture of the moment. It is a timeless place, a place of deep beauty. People might work hard and save for years for a moment such as this, far from the crowded city, a place where the angels come to play. But if you wait a while and let the last light of the setting sun fall away to the West, wait for the stars to turn on one by one in the darkest and brightest night sky you’ve ever seen, if you list

When I was a young boy living in Caribou, Maine, back in the 1960s, we had two rocking chairs in our living room. I spent a lot of time in that room, playing with my Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars on the floor, building with my Lincoln Logs, and generally lost in sweet illusion. Life was sweet and completely innocent and I was the master of my own imagination. But something happened. Something I did a lot of the time, without thinking, has haunted me up to this day. It was something I knew nothing about, something that I couldn’t possibly have guessed.  You see, when I was lying there on the floor, my foot would invariably find its way to the leg of one of those rocking chairs and then, without the slightest thought, I would start that empty chair a rocking, back and forth. The rhythm soothed me and gave me a sense of peace. Then, one day, my mother was walking through the room and saw what I was doing, rocking that empty chair with my foot, and she stopped cold, dropped the clothesbasket she was carry

Not everyone can claim that they were born in Purgatory, but Andrew Tozier could, on February 11, 1838. Purgatory is a town near the Monmouth-Litchfield line in central Maine and is neither a heaven or a hell - like most towns, just somewhere in between. But during his life, Andrew Tozier would see more than his fair share of the landscape bordering Hell, even if it was all man-made. In fact, he would become one of the most interesting and least noted figures of the American Civil War. Tozier’s family moved from Purgatory to the Plymouth, Maine area in 1848 when he was a mere ten years old. His father, was an abusive alcoholic who wrought his anger upon his children. We do not know exactly at what age Andrew ran away from home, but it is likely he was quite young. The fifth of seven children, his absence meant one less mouth to feed at the Tozier homestead, but it also meant that young Andrew was now penniless, and on his own in a largely agrarian state, with no real prospects and no plan for the future.

[Please note – some of the descriptions in this article/episode are graphic. Use discretion with younger readers/listeners] You are lying in your bed on this hot July night. It has been a long, hot summer with no rain for weeks. The ground is turning to dust and the wind is warmer than usual. Outside, the light of moon is bright as it peeks between the curtains and if you are still, you can hear the rustle of the leaves and the peepers outside in the distance. You close your eyes again and know that soon, you will drift back to sleep. There are chores to do in the morning and it will come soon enough. As you lie there drifting back to sleep, you hear a sound, something not ordinary, something not expected. You stiffen and listen more intently. Time slows down to a crawl as you attend to every single noise. What was that? Was that your mother? Your sister? And then a thump and a muffled scream bolt you to attention. Someone is in the house, someone is moving in the darkness. Another muffled sound – someon