The King Kleagle of Maine’s Ku Klux Klan was an opportunist

Posted in: 2010 Old News Column, Portland, Wells | Comments (0)

Governor Percival Baxter dismissed the validity of the Ku Klux Klan in 1922.  “I do not believe that any level-headed citizens of Maine will allow themselves to be influenced by such an organization,” he told a reporter.  Two years later Baxter’s gubernatorial successor, Ralph O. Brewster, was swept into office by an army of White Knights.  Most of them had been seduced by the flimflammery of F. Eugene Farnsworth.

The first Klansmen organized in the southern states after the Civil War.  Their bigotry was aimed at newly freed African Americans.  When the federal government started prosecuting Klan crime in the 1870s, the organization was suppressed.  The “Second Klan” was formed after World War I in response to growing immigration to the United States.  In addition to feeling threatened by African Americans, the new Klan objected to equal rights for Catholics, Jews and immigrants of all nationalities.  

French Canadian Catholics were gaining influence in local Maine politics and were lobbying for state funds to support their parochial schools.  F. Eugene Farnsworth, who claimed to be a native of Columbia Falls, appealed to Protestant ministers all around the state as Maine’s King Kleagle.  He promised to eradicate parochial schools and to fight for the right of “100% Americans” to teach the bible in public schools.  In exchange, he asked that the clergy declare their support for the Klan from the pulpit.  Many of them did.  Their support and Farnsworth’s memorizing oratory gifts led to the initiation of thousands of Klansmen in a matter of months. 

There was broad social acceptance of the “Invisible Empire” and their claims of patriotism.  One newspaper advertised an impressive list of activities available to vacationers at the Merriland Camp for girls in Wells; “Tennis, croquet, golf, bathing, volleyball, dancing, canoeing, masquerades, Ku Klux initiations, pool and music.”  Farnsworth addressed appreciative crowds in Kittery, Saco, Hollis and Sanford.  The Klan purchased a very visible headquarters on Forest Avenue in Portland, with new membership proceeds.  At the August 1923 opening ceremony, followers were initiated by the light of a fifty foot burning cross, while ten thousand spectators looked on. 

A month after the flamboyant spectacle in Portland, a story broke in the Fitchburg Sentinel that changed everything.  Maine’s King Kleagle was well known in Fitchburg as Salvation Army recruiter and local barber turned travelling hypnotist, Frank Farnsworth.  He had left town in shame in 1901 after his memorized assistant, Tom Bolton, was killed onstage. 

Bolton’s job was to pretend to be hypnotized.  He was laid out between two chairs and a huge boulder was placed on his stomach.  A volunteer from the audience, who was actually employed by Farnsworth, then tried to break the rock with a sledgehammer.  During his final performance, the chair under Bolton’s head slipped and his skull was crushed by the rock.  To avoid a manslaughter conviction, Frank Farnsworth was forced to admit that his hypnotism act was a sham and that his assistant had participated in the trick with his full faculties.   

After leaving Fitchburg, Frank travelled to South America on an expedition to photograph headhunters.  He then returned to the U.S. and as F. Eugene Farnsworth, performed an illustrated magic lantern show about exotic travel destinations.  His dramatic delivery earned rave reviews in Washington D.C.  It was not a lucrative occupation but it satisfied his lust for an audience.  Farnsworth also had a short career as a movie producer in Connecticut.

National Klan officials took a closer look at Maine’s King Kleagle. Farnsworth’s daylight parades in full Klan regalia and his show biz approach started getting him in trouble with the usually clandestine organization.  Then the Klan discovered he had formed an independent women’s Klan in Maine that allowed Canadian Protestants to join.   American citizenship was not exactly a flexible requirement for the Ku Klux Klan. 

Farnsworth’s wife and daughter were stripped of their Klan membership for belonging to the rival group.  As it turned out, they had never been eligible for membership in the first place since both had been born in St Stephen, New Brunswick.  F. Eugene Farnsworth quit the Klan for “health reasons” when it was reported that $4 of every $10 Klan membership fee had found its way into his pocket. He tried unsuccessfully to organize his own copycat Invisible Empire but was eventually run out of Maine.     

The Klan supported candidate had enough momentum to carry the 1924 gubernatorial election but the hooded honeymoon was almost over.  Without charismatic leadership, the Klan all but disappeared in Maine by 1930. 

Family records held by the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick indicate that Farnsworth’s parents had moved from Columbia Falls to New Brunswick long before his 1868 birth. Like his wife and daughter, Maine’s King Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan was probably Canadian.

Tags: Crime, Portland, York County

Sharon Cummins @ March 4, 2010

Early bathers at Goose Rocks Beach

Posted in: 2009 Old News Column, Kennebunkport | Comments (0)

Goose Rocks Beach was already a summer resort in 1873 when the Kennebunkport Seashore Company subdivided Cape Arundel to make way for opulent shingle-style “cottages.”  From the beginning, Goose Rocks was a casual place for parents to relax while their children discovered the meaning of life.

Daniel Dow of Newton, MA built the first summer cottage at Goose Rocks in 1865.  The King’s Highway house was constructed on land owned by Kennebunkport farmer, Elbridge Proctor.  Dow’s younger brothers, Sewell, Edward and Orlando and his sister Clarissa Fuller joined the family each summer.  One year in the early 1870s, when just a handful of cottages stood at the beach, Daniel Dow’s adolescent son Francis made coming of age memories at Goose Rocks that his wife Eugenia later shared with the Biddeford Journal. 

Francis and his older brother Billy were five years apart.  Their single uncles were chronologically adult but one would never know it from their youthful antics.  When eight girls, in assorted sizes, took the Lowe cottage next door for the summer, the boys were taken aback.  They might as well have been asked to cohabitate with creatures from outer space. 

The Dows owned a big canvas sailor’s hammock strung under a clump of Spruce trees in their yard.  Once the girls moved in it was never empty.  One by one they availed themselves of it without so much as a pretty please.  Mother suggested that the girls might be hoping for an opportunity to get acquainted but the boys were outraged at the intrusion.  After a week of restraint, Uncle Ed went out early one morning and drew the hammock up as taut as a fiddle string.  One by one the girls made their way to the hammock and one by one, they were ejected by the booby-trapped swing.  The boys watched from their hiding place behind the wild roses.  “Edward and Orlando rolled on the grass in silent unholy glee,” remembered Francis “and we boys crammed things in our mouths and covered our head to smother our wild shrieks of laughter”. 

Their plan worked.  The hammock was empty once more but somehow it no longer held any appeal.  They missed watching the girls and started feeling guilty for the prank.  Francis and Billy watched the girls from afar for a while.  Amazingly, their uncles were always at hand just when one of the girls needed rescuing.  Ed courageously dragged the oldest girl out of the undertow and from that moment on he was by her side. 

 George T. Emmons owned a farm at one end of the beach.  He kept an angry bull called “Old Shorty” in a pasture near the sea wall.  The bull escaped often and Goose Rocks regulars knew to run for cover while George’s dog Nero corralled the beast home.  One morning, the girls were lounging in the sand when Old Shorty charged them with Nero at his heels.   Uncle Sewell appeared out of nowhere with his rifle and stepped between the bull and the most ample of the ladies.  She had modestly refused to discard her red cape and slumped to the sand, resigned to her fate. Sewell shot the bull in the leg and rescued himself a devoted summer companion.  After pulling a girl with mischievous eyes and dark bobbed hair out of a sinking boat, Orlando was the next to desert the boys. 

 One moonlit night, Billy and a fiery, freckle-faced redhead walked off down the beach together leaving Francis alone.  He felt abandoned by his brother and bewildered by the events of the summer.  As he stood at the water’s edge contemplating his plight he became aware of the littlest neighbour girl standing close behind him.  “Are you lonely?” she asked.  Francis nodded.   Her voice was so soft and sympathetic.  “Isn’t the moonlight wonderful?  I wonder how it looks around the western bend; I have always wanted to see it, but I suppose it wouldn’t do for me to walk down there alone.”   “It certainly wouldn’t,” Francis assured her.  “Would you mind walking down there with me?” she hesitated- adding, “You are so very brave”.  Well, he could hardly let her walk the beach alone.  She took his arm which he did not remember offering.  Francis felt he could go on walking forever with that little hand on his arm. 

 Too soon, the girls went home.  The Dow boys went back to school in Newton, MA., as they had every September before.  But that summer everything had changed. 

Thanks to Goose Rocks Beach historians, John Pinel and Barbara Barwise for verifying the historical plausibility of Francis A. Dow’s account.

Tags: Goose Rocks Beach, Kennebunkport

Sharon Cummins @ February 25, 2010

Mainers engaged in the slave trade

Posted in: 2010 Old News Column, Portland | Comments (0)

An act of Congress made foreign slave-trade illegal in 1794 and a federal law passed in 1820 made it a capital crime of piracy but some Maine mariners managed to profit from the abhorrent business in a shell game of Brazilian intermediaries and falsified documents. 

 Juries were reluctant to convict traders while slavery was still legal in the southern states.  In fact, when Captain Cyrus Libby of Scarborough appeared before the Portland, Maine Circuit Court in 1846, no American had ever been hanged for the crime. 

 As captain of the Brunswick brig “Porpoise,” Libby had sailed to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and remained onboard as master while the vessel was chartered for a year to notorious Brazilian slave dealer, Manoel Pinto da Fonseca.  Defense attorneys presented evidence at the trial that a lease signed by both parties, included a clause prohibiting any contraband trade.  Captain Libby claimed he had only been following the instructions of the vessel’s owner, George F. Richardson, a merchant born in Limington, Maine, who had since passed away. 

 Libby was acquitted by the First Circuit Court, even though the “Porpoise” had been seized with two East African boys aboard. The branded young slaves, Pedro, and Guilherme, testified that the Maine brig had sailed along the eastern coast of Africa as tender to the slaver, “Kentucky”.  They told the jury that their job had been to serve Captain Paulo Rodrigues, agent to Fonseca, who sailed aboard the “Porpoise”.  The crew had not been told they would be working for a slave-trader until they had no other way home.  They testified that Captain Libby often accompanied Captain Paulo to the African slave factories.  He had clearly been aware of the true nature of the voyage, they said, when the “Porpoise’s” boats were used to load slaves onto her sister vessel. Cyrus Libby denied any knowledge of the cargo on the brig “Kentucky” and claimed he had been shown official documents indicating that Pedro and Guilherme were free.

 While on the outward voyage, some of the 500 slaves aboard the “Kentucky” revolted.  The armed crew easily regained control but forty-six African men women and children were publicly executed and dismembered to discourage further rebellion.  The “Kentucky,” hailed from New York but was built in Prospect, ME.  She avoided capture by the over-painting of her name with “Franklin of Salem”. 

 The “Porpoise” was seized when a disgruntled member of the crew slipped a note to American authorities at Rio de Janeiro.  George W. Gordon, American Consul to Rio, on board the U. S. Frigate “Raritan” fought the Brazilian Government for jurisdiction over the slave-traders.  For the sake of international diplomacy, Secretary of State James Buchanan insisted that he release the crew but the Consul refused to hand over the “Porpoise” or the slave boys onboard.   

After the trial, Cyrus Libby was a free man but the “Porpoise” was not returned to her owners.  It had already been sold by the government for court costs.  A decade later, a Boston Court ruled that the vessel had been rightfully seized. 

 The slave known as Guilherme moved to Milton, Massachusetts and became a well respected barber.  Pedro was taken in by the U. S. Marshall for the District of Maine, Virgil D Parris, Esq., of Paris, Maine.  Pedro Tovooken Parris learned to speak English with his new family.  He studied reading, writing and arithmetic at public school and joined the debating society to hone his public speaking skills.  During the 1856 Massachusetts Gubernatorial Campaign he worked for candidate George W. Gordon, telling voters how the former Consul had rescued him from slavery. 

Pedro died of Pneumonia in 1860, while still a young man. Almost everyone in Paris, Maine attended his funeral.  His adopted brother, Percival J Parris wrote an account of the former slave’s life and illustrated it with drawings by Pedro himself.  The article was published in “Old-Time New England” in 1973.

The first American ever to be convicted and hanged for the crime of trading human beings was also from Maine.  Nathaniel Gordon of Portland was convicted for carrying 897 slaves aboard the 500 ton merchant ship Erie.  Half of Gordon’s captives were children.  Lieutenant Henry Todd, of the U. S. Navy reported that the main deck was so crowded that one could scarcely put his foot down without stepping on their naked bodies.  Abraham Lincoln sealed Nathaniel Gordon’s fate.  After a long, horrific career he was executed in New York City on February 1, 1862.

Tags: Captain, Crime, Military, Portland

Sharon Cummins @ February 18, 2010

Nowell Legacy at Kennebunkport

Posted in: 2010 Old News Column, Kennebunkport | Comments (0)

The Nowell brothers had a lot to prove to the people of Kennebunkport. When they were young, their father, Brigadier General Simon Nowell had operated an extensive business in town, mostly on borrowed capital. It failed in 1830 and many private citizens were compelled to accept less than $.50 on the dollar for their investments. Some even blamed the General for the failure of the Kennebunk Bank in 1831. The Nowell family moved to Bangor Maine but Thomas, Robert, George and Hiram all returned as adults to sail out of the District of Kennebunk.

Captain George W. Nowell and his wife Frances, the daughter of the wealthy Captain William Jefferds, built an elegant home in 1854 that still stands on Temple Street, next door to the Kennebunkport Post Office. Unlike his father, George rarely borrowed money. He did invest in several of the ships he sailed but had the fiscal foresight to insure his interests against loss. Diarist, Andrew Walker reports that Nowell also insured his own life for $3000. George had very good reasons to buy life insurance. The perils he faced on every voyage put his young family at risk.

He became master of the ship “Tropic” shortly after she was launched in 1855. On a return voyage from New Orleans in January 1857, the 882 ton vessel encountered a heavy gale off Bristol, RI. She lost her foresail and spent 36 hours on her beam ends. Though she eventually righted, her cargo had shifted and she listed to the starboard all the way home.

The odds of returning from a trip around Cape Horn were worst of all. In 1860, Nowell sailed the “Tropic” to San Francisco. Caught in a heavy fog on her return voyage, the Tropic was tacking to the starboard when suddenly she was run into on her port side by a large unknown bark. Captain Nowell later told a reporter for the New York Times, “Her jib boom went through our foresail and main topmast staysail; it broke short off and remained on board, with everything attached and the bark went clear. We shortened sail and hove to and laid by 12 hours. At noon the next day the weather was clear and nothing being in sight from aloft, filed away and proceeded.”

A few days later the Tropic came upon the disabled schooner “Potomac” of Franklin Maine. She was filling with water in a blowing gale. Nowell attempted to go alongside her but the seas were too rough. Captain Winslow Ray jumped overboard the schooner as did his mate and two crewmen. Nowell sent out a boat and successfully hauled to four men to safety.

January 6, 1862, the British brigantine, “Village Belle” was on her way from Clyde River, Nova Scotia to Trinidad with a cargo of lumber when she was dismasted in a heavy gale and began to take on water. By the time the “Tropic” came upon her she had 3 feet of water in her hold. Captain Nowell rescued the crew and landed them at Havre, France.

The odds finally caught up with Captain Nowell. His next voyage was to be his last. The ship “Tropic” cleared Philadelphia on December 11, 1862 with a cargo of coal for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company in San Francisco. She and her crew of twenty were never heard from again. Diarist, Andrew Walker reports that among the local sailors lost were very young men named Twambley, Larrabee, Wildes, Heckman, Tripp and Curtis.

George was not yet 40 when he perished. His youngest son Frank never met his father and was only 8 years old when his mother passed in 1872. Shipbuilder, David Clark bought their Temple Street home and George’s brother took his children to live in Bangor. The Nowell name was again extinct in Kennebunkport, but not forgotten.

The captain’s reputation as a prudent and charitable man was recognized by Victoria, Queen of England. She awarded Captain George W. Nowell, of the ship “Tropic”, an engraved spyglass in testimony of his humanity in rescuing her subjects, the crew of the Village Belle, of Nova Scotia. The Telescope and a certificate, signed by the Queen, have been proudly protected by the Kennebunkport Historical Society.

Tags: Captain, Kennebunkport, Shipbuilding

Sharon Cummins @ February 4, 2010

Lindy’s quest for privacy on the Maine coast

Posted in: 2010 Old News Column, Kennebunkport, Old Orchard Beach | Comments (0)

Charles A. Lindbergh completed the first solo transatlantic flight on May 21, 1927. The handsome 25 year-old air mail pilot and his single engine monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis, became world-famous, overnight. Along with fame came public adoration and the omnipresent paparazzi… even in remote Maine waters.

“Lindy” – as the press had nicknamed him- was already overwhelmed by all the attention when he flew to Maine two months after his record-breaking flight. A man had been killed by an unruly crowd during his public appearance on the Boston Common, July 22, 1927. The tragedy was fresh in his mind as thousands gathered to see him land his famous monoplane at Scarborough Airport. Pea-soup fog obscured the runway for two days and the pilot was finally forced to land at the less secure Old Orchard Beach airstrip. After dutifully fulfilling several promotional obligations to massive crowds in Maine, the pilot made his way back to his plane at Old Orchard Beach. There he found another mob pressing up against the Spirit of St. Louis as he tried to take off.

When Lindy asked Ann Morrow to marry him in 1929 the whole world speculated about the details of their nuptial plans. Rumor had it that the Lindbergh wedding would take place in late June at the Morrow summer cottage in North Haven, Maine. One Monday afternoon in late May, a small group of family and friends were invited to attend a charity event hosted by the bride’s mother at her Englewood, NJ home. After lunch, they were surprised to discover that they were all guests at a wedding. The understated affair was over in a flash. Ann wore a simple dress and carried a handful of larkspur that the groom had picked from his in-law’s backyard.

By the time the press got wind of the secret marriage the couple had slipped away on a 38-foot honeymoon yacht Lindy had purchased a week earlier. The owner of Elco Boatworks in Bayonne, NJ, resisted the free publicity as long as his professional ambitions would allow but finally gave reporters a very detailed description of the aviator’s new yacht, the “Mouette”.

The honeymooners were tracked from New London, Ct to Provincetown, MA by land, sea and air. In an effort to thwart positive identification the Lindberghs broke marine law by covering the name of the vessel with a piece of canvas. Newspapers all over the world carried a daily account of the little boat’s movements.

They were spotted off Isle of Shoals on June 6th by two New York press planes. The next day the Mouette tied up for gas and provisions at Hartley Philbrick’s fish wharf in York, Maine. Try as he might, Hartley could not engage Mr. Lindbergh in meaningful conversation. While they were loading supplies in relative silence, a 13 year old girl recognized Lindy and ran off to spread the word at the town’s high school graduation celebration. Within minutes, more than 100 people crowded onto Philbrick’s wharf to get a snapshot of the elusive aviator. Anne Lindbergh remained inside the cabin until the Mouette was safely offshore.

The boat put into Cape Porpoise Harbor and anchored very near Goat Island Light for the night. Melville Freeman wrote in his 1953 “History of Cape Porpoise” that residents of Cape Porpoise were unimpressed by Lindy’s visit and were completely discreet out of respect for his privacy. An article that first appeared in the Portsmouth Herald June 8, 1929, told a different story.

Captain Jim Anderson, keeper of the lighthouse, was offended that the little launch failed to answer his customary salute of three bells. He grabbed his powerful binoculars and was able to identify Lindy and Anne moving about the boat. Anderson called to his wife and children so that they might get a glimpse of the celebrities. The following morning, the lighthouse keeper revealed to a Portsmouth reporter that the honeymooners turned out their cabin light at 8:25 p.m.

Jack Seavey and John Martin rowed out to the Mouette under a cloak of darkness. They quietly made their way to the stern of the yacht and lifted the canvas that covered her name just as Lindbergh appeared on deck. Thinking quickly, the Kennebunkport boys claimed they were there to see if he needed assistance. After thanking them wryly for their kind offer, Lindy said if they wanted to help they could leave him alone. The boys left as requested but not before studying the woman silhouetted in the cabin door.

The Lindberghs left Cape Porpoise Harbor first thing the next morning and made their way up the coast to Cape Elizabeth, Pemaquid Point, Rockland, and Swan’s Island. Everywhere they went they were greeted with prying eyes.

On June 13th, the honeymoon cruiser was spotted offshore near Old Orchard Beach. The Linberghs witnessed the lift off of aviators, Jean Assolant, Rene LeFevre and Ameno Lotti on the first French transatlantic flight. The tail of the plane “Yellow Bird” dipped perceptibly as she became airborne. Lindbergh and the rest of the world would later discover that Arthur Schreiber, 22 year old son of a Portland fur salesman, had stowed away on the French plane and was not discovered until some time after takeoff.

Later that afternoon, the Mouette tied up at Cape Porpoise Pier for two hours to get provisions and fuel for the trip back to New York.

When the Lindbergh’s first born son was kidnapped and tragically murdered in 1932, the press mercilessly dissected the family’s every moment of grief, driving them to move to England. Lindy lost public favor for his vocal opposition to American involvement in WWII but he changed his views after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and flew many celebrated combat missions in the Pacific Theater.

Tags: Cape Porpoise, Captain, Military, Old Orchard, planes trains autos, Portland, York

Sharon Cummins @ January 21, 2010

French Espionage in Colonial Wells

Posted in: 2010 Old News Column, Wells | Comments (1)

Less than 100 families lived in Wells when blacksmith, Louis Allain arrived from France around 1684.  The colonists probably received him with some trepidation, given the alliance between his countrymen in Canada and the Indians that had plagued them, off and on, for a decade.  Little did they know that Allain would one day use their acquaintance to spy for the Governor of l’Acadie.

French Protestants or Huguenots fled religious persecution in France during the reign of King Louis XIV, many of them settling in New England.  Louis Allain’s indentured apprentice, Anthony Coombs, was a Huguenot.  Louis, himself may also have represented himself as such to the people of Wells.  He would later prove his loyalty lay in his pocketbook. 

At thirty years old, Allain was already a man of means.  He purchased ½ of Samuel Storer’s Cape Neddick-built brigantine, Endeavor, in August of 1685.  A month later, he purchased a mill on the western bank of the Little River, lots on both sides of the river and the home of William Frost. 

Territorial tensions grew between the colonists from France and England and between the Indian tribes allied to both monarchies.  Allain decided to move to Port Royal, Nova Scotia, leaving Anthony Coombs behind to protect his Wells property.  In 1687 he obtained permission to build windmills along the river that has since been known as Allain’s River.  He raised a family there and his fortunes grew. 

Within a few years Louis owned a grain mill, a saw mill, a store and several coasting vessels that made regular trading voyages to the English city of Boston.  He and his partner shipped lumber and flour from their mills in Port Royal and brought back Boston goods to sell to their Acadian customers.  Andre Faneuil, the wealthy Boston Huguenot whose fortune financed the building of  Faneuil Hall, traded regularly with the Acadians, even as Governor William Phipps burned Port Royal in 1690.  When the legality of their trading arrangement was questioned, Allain and other Acadian businessmen declared their allegiance to the English King.  At the same time they were supplying the French Navy with mast timbers.   

Indians attacked the villages along the York County coast in 1703.   It was a horrible year for Wells.  Thirty-nine of her inhabitants were either killed or made prisoner.  The following Spring Colonel Benjamin Church led an expedition through Penobscot, Passamaquoddy and the Bay of Fundy, collecting French prisoners and Indian scalps for bounty along the way.  Under orders from Massachusetts Governor Dudley, he left Port Royal unscathed.  Some people of Massachusetts, including Puritan minister Cotton Mather, suspected that Dudley was trying to preserve illegal trade between Boston and Nova Scotia. 

Feeding prisoners of war became expensive for both the French and the English and an agreement was made to exchange prisoners in 1705.  Allain and his business partner, who were fluent in English and familiar with Boston, were sent to seal the deal.  According to the September 10, 1705 issue of the “Boston News-letter”, Allain arrived in Boston on the 20^th of August under a flag of truce, with the signed agreement.  He returned to Port Royal at the end of September carrying a few French prisoners back as a show of good faith.  A January 1706 report in the same paper indicates that he sailed again for Massachusetts a few months later.  “On Thursday last the 26^th day of December there arrived at Nanguncket [Ogunquit] near to Wells in the Province of Maine, A Flag of Truce from Port-Royal with 34 English Prisoners. 

E.E. Bourne writes in his “History of Wells” that Lewis Allen came to Wells under the Flag of Truce and was authorized to trade prisoners.  The people of Wells were immediately suspicious of the Frenchman’s motives and searched his pocketbook.  In it, they found incriminating instructions for Allain to report to the French Governor of Acadia any efforts underway to fortify Wells against the Indians.  “If any enterprise was afoot that he should join L.A. the two first letters of his name, close together.  If it was only in agitation, place them at some distance; but if nothing was in motion, then to sign a cross.” 

Allain was clasped in irons and sent to Boston to be dealt with.  In a surprising twist that Bourne does not reveal, Governor Dudley released Allain.  He made some excuse about owing Louis his life and sent him back to Port Royal to continue his lucrative lumber and flour trade.   

Anthony Coombs, whose indenture expired, had long since deserted Allain’s Wells mill on the Little River.  Louis hired his “trusty and well-beloved friend Lewis Bane of York,” [who had represented the English in treaty negotiations at Port Royal] to recover his title to the Wells property.  Bane eventually bought the property from him in 1720 and Louis boldly appeared at the courthouse in Biddeford to acknowledge the instrument May 9, 1733.  When he died in Port Royal several years later Louis Allain was one of the richest men in town.

Tags: Biddeford, Cape Neddick, Colonial, Indians, Military, Ogunquit, Politics, War, Wells

Sharon Cummins @ January 5, 2010

A royal disappointment in 1860

Posted in: 2009 Old News Column, Kennebunk | Comments (0)

Queen Victoria had little inclination to appease her Canadian subjects who, throughout the 1850s, clamored for a royal visit. She was even less inclined to acknowledge the hoodlums that populated “those United States.” But her husband, Prince Albert, believed a royal visit would be politically prudent.

Meanwhile, Victoria’s teenage son Albert, the heir apparent, embraced the frivolity of youth. He exasperated his mother by indulging affections for wine, women and cigars, not necessarily in that order. The Queen once wrote to her eldest daughter, “I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder.”

By early 1860, Victoria wanted the boy out of her sight. She killed two birds with one stone by sending her 18-year-old son across the pond for an extended diplomatic tour of North America.

After spending two months in Canada, the Prince of Wales danced with the ladies of Detroit, Chicago, St Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington, Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. The average-looking teenager didn’t exactly live up to the American fantasy. Harpers Weekly magazine published an illustration captioned, “The Prince; Ideal & Real.” Albert’s imagined regal visage, slaying a dragon, felling a giant and winning a jousting tournament, appeared on one side of the page. On the other side, the rumpled boy was realistically depicted being carried across a tiny stream on the back of a servant, falling ineptly on the dance floor and sleeping through a public appearance. A reporter for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper wrote that “dressed like a Prince” was a phrase that would never again be used in America to signify anything very significant.

The British Royal Squadron sailed into Portland Harbor on Oct. 16, 1860, to carry the future King Edward VII back to England. Exactly 85 years earlier on Oct. 16, 1775, a British fleet had entered the same harbor and destroyed the city. This coincidence was not lost on local reporters.

Trains were added to the schedule to accommodate the thousands who travelled to Portland to see Albert off. Merchants capitalized on the royal fever, selling hand-held British and American flags. “Two Princes in our City,” one opportunistic Portlander advertised, “The Prince of Wales and the Prince of Peddlers.”

Officials of the Eastern Railway fitted out a special three-car train for the final leg of Albert’s American tour. Its interior walls were draped in red and gold silk. The car ceilings were covered in rich blue silk, pleated and powdered with silver stars. Outside, a platform extended off the back of the train from which His Royal Highness could present himself to the eager citizens gathered at every station along the route to Portland.

The train left Boston shortly after 10 a.m. on Oct. 20, 1860. The prince was accompanied by his entourage, as well as, the governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the president of Harvard, the mayor of Boston, Sen. Charles Sumner and a few railroad officials.

In Kennebunk, children were let out of school for the royal visit. Everyone in town showed up at the station expecting a day-long celebration. When the royal train finally pulled into West Kennebunk depot it barely stopped. The prince waved briefly from the platform then hurried back into the car. The people of Kennebunk, who had decorated the station with buntings and dressed in their finest ensembles, were bitterly disappointed.

Back in the car, the defiant teenager plopped down on a velvet sofa. According to a report in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Albert turned to the governor of Massachusetts, “will you take a little wine, or is the Maine Law in force here?” he asked. “I’m out of my own jurisdiction,” the governor replied, “and I’ll take the consequences.” The strict Maine liquor law had also been set aside in Portland the night before at a champagne reception for the officers of the royal squadron.

Albert’s train arrived in Portland at half past one. He toured the crowded streets in an open horse-drawn carriage on his way to the docks, where a barge was waiting to take him out to the screw battleship Hero. Two large steamers, the Lewiston and the Forest City, sold tickets for a voyage to accompany the royal squadron out of the harbor at 4 p.m. The little prince stood on the poop deck waving his hat at the cheering crowds while a 21-gun salute was fired, casting a haze of gun smoke across the harbor. A few minutes later he was gone.

Tags: Kennebunk, planes trains autos, Politics, War

Sharon Cummins @ January 5, 2010

Presidential visits to Biddeford Pool

Posted in: 2009 Old News Column, Biddeford Pool | Comments (0)

The people of Biddeford began preparing for a Presidential visit as soon as William Howard Taft was inaugurated on March 4, 1909. The first lady’s sister, Eleanor More, had a summer cottage at Biddeford Pool. Her husband, the noted evolutionist, Dr. Louis T More, told the local press to expect an August visit by the first family.

Unfortunately, Nellie Taft suffered a stroke soon after moving into the Whitehouse and the family’s vacation plans were curtailed. Mrs. More stood in for her convalescing sister at all official events and accompanied her to Beverly Massachusetts for the summer. By the end of July Eleanor felt confident enough about her sister’s condition to slip away to her cottage at Biddeford Pool for a few days. To facilitate the trip, the Presidential yacht, “Sylph”, was placed at her disposal.

The impressive 123 foot vessel was anchored near the mouth of the Saco River on the evening of July, 30, 1909. As an entrepreneurial venture, Captain Earnest Vinton of Saco offered a moonlight excursion to closely view the Presidential yacht from his motor launch, the “Item”. Twenty-nine tickets were sold. Captain Vinton had to borrow extra life preservers from the Captain of the “Nimrod” to comply with federal safety regulations that he carry one for each passenger aboard.

It was reported in the Boston Daily Globe that the overcrowded little launch set out from Island Wharf at twilight. After rounding Wood Island she approached the illuminated “Sylph” and passengers gathered on her port side to get a closer look. The little party boat heeled dramatically with the shifting weight. Following an instinct to compensate, the passengers all “jockeyed about” causing the “Item” to suddenly “turn turtle” near Sharps Rocks, spilling her human cargo into the inky water.

Commander of the Presidential Yacht, Lieutenant Roger Williams, heard some of the women cry for help as they struggled to stay afloat in their heavy layers of clothing. He immediately ordered the “Sylph’s” tender, with a five man crew, to the scene of the accident and trained his searchlight on the overturned party boat.

The launch “Nimrod” was the second boat to reach the scene. She carried all the rescued passengers to Saco and Biddeford; all but Mrs. Eugene A. Cutts who had sustained internal injuries when she became entangled in the gearing of the power boat. Mrs. Cutts was taken to the McBride cottage where she died the following day. As the capsized “Item” was towed to Basket Island and beached, the body of a 19 year old Biddeford girl, Miss Katie Lynch, who had probably been trapped inside the cabin, washed ashore on the island. Her companion, Miss Margaret Harvey, 25, was later reported missing but her body would not be recovered until two weeks later.

The accident was investigated by the County Coroner’s office. Benjamin Jackson of Biddeford Pool, who had built the “Item” in 1903, testified that she was designed to carry an engine weighing over 2 tons. A few months before the accident, Vinton had replaced her original engine with one that weighed only 10% as much. While examining the “Item’s” seaworthiness one juryman stepped down from the wharf into the boat and as he did she heeled over very suddenly. “We find from the evidence and from inspection that the said boat “Item”, owing to its form, is unstable, easily capsized and entirely unsafe for the carrying of passengers,” reported Coroner Walter Dennett. Captain Vinton had fulfilled the only existing safety requirement of carrying a life preserver for each passenger so no charges were filed but the loss of three lives rocked the towns of Saco and Biddeford.

At the time of the tragic accident, President Taft was in Florida witnessing Wilbur Wright’s record breaking 10 mile flight, during which the homemade plane reached amazing speeds in excess of 42 miles per hour. Mr. Taft was a big fan of new-fangled modes of transportation. He was finally persuaded to spend one night in Biddeford Pool in 1910. He arrived on an even larger official yacht, the 275 foot “Mayflower”. After enjoying a motorcar ride through the Pool he gave an informal speech at the Abenaki Country Club. The President spent the night at his sister in-law’s cottage and sailed away on the “Mayflower” at 10 o’clock the next morning.

Taft quietly returned to the Pool to visit his family once again just before Woodrow Wilson won the Presidency away from him in 1912. Even in Biddeford, William Howard Taft came in a distant third, after Wilson and Taft’s predecessor, President Theodore Roosevelt.

Tags: Biddeford, Biddeford Pool, Politics

Sharon Cummins @ December 11, 2009

Cape Porpoise in the American Revolution

Posted in: 2009 Old News Column, Kennebunkport | Comments (0)

The people of Arundel were for the most part in support of American independence from Great Britain. King George III had levied taxes that threatened Arundel’s maritime trade economy. When 400 buildings at today’s Portland were burned by Captain Henry Mowat on October 18, 1775, the threat of war was too close to home to be ignored.

More than a month before the declaration of independence was signed Arundel citizens voted to “engage their lives and fortunes” to support independence. And that they did. Arundel boys were lost at Quebec, Halifax, Valley Forge and Lake Champlain as well as in the disastrous Penobscot Expedition of 1779.

Coastal Cape Porpoise residents, who were engaged in seafaring trade with merchants from Essex County Massachusetts, were particularly vulnerable. In October of 1780 three vessels were captured just outside Cape Porpoise Harbor and their captive crews were carried to Penobscot. The following year three more vessels met the same fate just outside the harbor though a few crewman made it to shore.

A bold attack inside Cape Porpoise Harbor was described in a New-England Chronicle article on October 3, 1782. On the morning of August 8, 1782 sheep and cattle were grazing on the islands as usual and two Newbury Massachusetts vessels were safely anchored in the harbor. One was a large sloop loaded with lumber and fitted out with a canon to protect her cargo. The other was a wood schooner that sailed with her.

An enemy brig of 16 guns suddenly appeared outside the harbor. She sent in a boat with 3 dozen men to capture the armed sloop but the men were surprised by the sloop’s American canon and landed the boat on Goat Island instead. The brig then sailed into the harbor and fired upon the Newbury sloop while an enemy top-sail schooner fired at her from just outside the harbor. The sloop’s crew was forced to evacuate and the enemy took possession of the two American vessels, sending the schooner off to Penobscot. The sloop was driven ashore by a sudden breeze as she left the harbor and was burned by the enemy where she lay at the southwesterly point of Goat Island.

James Burnham Jr., Captain of the Arundel militia, called his men to Trotts Island. From there he successfully advanced on the enemy, still at Goat Island, by ordering his men to wade across the channel under a hail of fire from the top-sail schooner. Wind and tide conspired to keep the Brig from escaping the harbor but she managed to get out just before nightfall by towing and warping her way. The Arundel Militia exchanged fire with the enemy for five or six hours and suffered the loss of one life, that of Captain James Burnham who at the close of the engagement took a musket ball to the chest. According to a witness whom the enemy had taken some time before, and who was on board the schooner during the battle, over 25 of the enemy were killed.

When Charles Bradbury wrote about the battle of Cape Porpoise in 1837, he relied heavily on the memories of his older neighbors to piece together the harrowing events of August 8, 1782. Some of his details varied from the contemporary account and he added a personal story. “Samuel Wildes, who was partially deranged” wrote Bradbury “paddled into the harbor in a small canoe and ordered them to give the vessels up and leave the port.” When he refused to board the brig he was fired upon seven times causing him an injury that lamed him for the rest of his life.

Regardless of his mental health, Samuel Wildes, Sr. had a right to be incensed by the enemy. He knew that his 16 year old son, a privateer crewman, had been imprisoned in England for 15 months. What he didn’t know was that Samuel Wildes, Jr. was at that moment two days out of Marblehead, Massachusetts. Benjamin Franklin had negotiated the release of all American prisoners and they were on their way home.

Most of the British forces had already left Penobscot by August 1782 but the loyalists stationed there were infamous for raiding coastal Maine harbor towns for sheep, cattle and coasting vessels laden with badly needed supplies. Most notable was Loyalist, Richard Pomroy and his 16 gun Brig Meriam.

A few weeks after the attack at Cape Porpoise, the Meriam was cut out of her anchor at Penobscot by Captain George Little in his American Navy sloop Winthrop. The Brig Meriam was triumphantly sailed into Boston Harbor on Sept 16, 1782 along with 3 other prizes. Among them were, privateer schooner Hammond commanded by a Penobscot Loyalist named Doty and an unnamed Newbury wood schooner that was a recent prize of the Brig Meriam.

A letter from the Governor, published in the Massachusetts Archives, relates to the success of Little’s six week cruise. It says “I considered that he had most essentially prevented the depredations on that coast by capturing & sending into this Port near the whole of the armed force they possessed at Penobscot.”

Definitive proof that Cape Porpoise was attacked by loyalist brig Meriam and schooner Hammond, has not been found but if the Governor was correct in his assessment of the remaining Penobscot forces the circumstantial evidence is strong.

For sources see www.mykennebunks.com/revolution.htm

Tags: Arundel, Cape Porpoise, Captain, Colonial, Kennebunkport, Military, War

Sharon Cummins @ November 25, 2009

Civil War Chronicle of the Ogunquit built brig “Betsey Ames”

Posted in: 2009 Old News Column, Ogunquit | Comments (0)

Barak Maxwell was the richest, most influential man in Ogunquit.  Before the American Civil War he was heavily invested in shipbuilding and the rum/molasses trade with Cuba.  In 1855 Maxwell had a 265 ton brig built at his Ogunquit shipyard and named her the “Betsey Ames” in honor of his beloved wife.  Captain Richard C. Bartlett owned a 1/8 share of the Ogunquit brig and furnished her captain’s quarters comfortably enough to entice his wife Hannah to accompany him on many voyages.  

Hannah Bartlett was aboard her husband’s vessel on October 17, 1861, when the commissioned Confederate privateer schooner “Sallie” fired 12 pound canon shot in her direction.  The Betsey Ames was carrying a cargo of machinery, apples, onions, cabbages and corn meal from New York to Cardenas, Cuba in spite of the military threat to all merchant vessels during the Civil War.  She also had several passengers onboard including a young Scotsman and his American bride.  The Scotsman recorded the attack for posterity.  

He wrote, “About 9 am she fired at us, her shot falling short about a quarter of a mile.  Captain Bartlett then ordered all sail to be made, but the breeze shortly after died away, and the now suspicious schooner made upon us and fired another shot which also fell a little short of our vessel.”  The fourth shot passed alarmingly close to the side of the “Betsey Ames”.  Captain Bartlett realized he could not outrun his opponent and ordered the sails taken in. Henry Lebby, the privateer’s captain, boarded the Ogunquit brig around noon with a motley 7 man prize crew to sail her to Charleston.    

They made the South Carolina coast in 6 days but spent another 4 days tacking in circles trying to locate Charleston Harbor.  Finally another crew was sent from Charleston to pilot the prize brig in.  The lady prisoners were detained at a local boarding house and men spent a few hours locked up at the Charleston city jail before being released.  

Brig “Betsey Ames” was condemned and sold to John Frazer & Co, a Charleston commercial enterprise.  She was renamed the “Mary Wright” and Henry Lebby was appointed as her master.  On the following March 2, she successfully ran the Union blockade made for Liverpool England, arriving at Liverpool April 2.  Through some covert arrangement with Bushby & Co. of Liverpool the “Betsey Ames”/”Mary Wright” was registered as the British brig “Lilla” on April 24, 1862.     

Great Britain was officially neutral in the American Civil War but it was well known to the Union that she secretly supplied the Confederacy through the port of Nassau in the Bahamas, without regard to their blockade.  

U. S. gunboat, steamer Quaker City captured the brig “Lilla” off the Bahamas on July 3 1862 and sent her into Boston for investigation.  She was bound for the City of Nassau, loaded with a cargo of saltpeter, copper and 37 packages of medicine.  An Englishman presented himself as her captain but it was later revealed that Henry Lebby of Charleston, SC had acted as her master until the gunboat came into view.  

Convoluted paperwork found onboard the Brig “Lilla” was composed to obscure the fact that Charleston parties actually still owned her.  Representatives of the British Busby & Co. could not or would not show evidence that they had ever paid for the vessel and the “Lilla’s” first mate testified in court that the crew’s wages had been paid in advance by Fraser & Co. of Charleston. 

The First Circuit Court of the United States finally ruled that Bushby & Co. of Liverpool had tried to deceive the court.  The “Lilla” and her cargo were condemned as a legitimate prize of war.  Claim for the vessel, her tackle, apparel, and furniture was filed July 30, 1862 by Barak Maxwell of Ogunquit on behalf of his interest, that of Richard C Bartlett and the Mercantile Mutual Insurance Company.  The brig “Lilla” was sold by the U. S. Marshalls to a Samuel Knight for $9275.  Proceeds were restored to the Ogunquit parties after the deduction of a salvage fee to be paid to the crew of the gunboat “Quaker City.” 

Business at Barak Maxwell’s ship yard had already declined by the beginning of the Civil War.  In 1855, the Betsy Ames was built for about $34/ton.  By 1860 the same size vessel cost more than $65 /ton to build.  Business did not improve after the war and in 1880 Barak Maxwell dismantled his steam saw mill and sold it to James Buffum.  Tourism became the principal industry in Ogunquit as it did in many of the shipbuilding towns on the Maine coast.

Tags: Captain, Military, Ogunquit

Sharon Cummins @ November 9, 2009

The King Kleagle of Maine’s Ku Klux Klan was an opportunist

Governor Percival Baxter dismissed the validity of the Ku Klux Klan in 1922.  “I do not believe that any level-headed citizens of Maine will allow themselves to be influenced by such an organization,” he told a reporter.  Two years later Baxter’s gubernatorial successor, Ralph O. Brewster, was swept into office by an army of White [...]

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Early bathers at Goose Rocks Beach

Goose Rocks Beach was already a summer resort in 1873 when the Kennebunkport Seashore Company subdivided Cape Arundel to make way for opulent shingle-style “cottages.”  From the beginning, Goose Rocks was a casual place for parents to relax while their children discovered the meaning of life.
Daniel Dow of Newton, MA built the first summer cottage [...]

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Mainers engaged in the slave trade

An act of Congress made foreign slave-trade illegal in 1794 and a federal law passed in 1820 made it a capital crime of piracy but some Maine mariners managed to profit from the abhorrent business in a shell game of Brazilian intermediaries and falsified documents. 
 Juries were reluctant to convict traders while slavery was still legal [...]

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