8 posts from July 2007

HAUNTED MAINE THE BOOTHBAY OPERA HOUSE BOOTHBAY HARBOR, MAINE

THE BOOTHBAY OPERA HOUSE

The Boothbay Opera House building was originally constructed back in 1894 and for many years, it housed the local headquarters for the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal order in line with the Freemasons. Later on, the building was turned into a theater and has hosted every story of entertainment imaginable for this small Maine town, including minstrel shows; plays; movies; town meetings and basketball games.... and if you believe the stories, it has also played host to a ghost.

No one knows who this resident spirit may be, although some have an idea, but he is said to haunt the second floor room that was the meeting place of the Knights of Pythias. Since 1949, visitors to the building have spoken of a strange presence in the room. It is usually said that the piano that is located here will play by itself, as if some spectral piano player is manipulating the keys. Different witnesses also recounted the same thing happening in 1957, during a town celebration and again in 1977.

Some believe that the ghost may be that of a man named Earl Cliff, who played the instrument for programs in the theater in the early 1900’s, but no one really knows for sure.

Boothbay Harbor is located east of Brunswick, Maine on the southwestern coast.

Copyright 1998 by Troy Taylor

FARMINGTON - Robert Brackley Jr. believes an old beehive discovered in a house he and his crew are dismantling was man-made and built into a wall of the structure, which he suspects was built in the late 1800s.

Brackley, of New Vineyard, the owner of Brackley's Nostalgic Restorations, is dismantling what was known as the Thomas House on the campus of the University of Maine at Farmington. The wood flooring, bricks and other material from the old house, which is located behind the Psychology House, a former church on Main Street, will be used in Brackley's restoration projects.

Brackley climbed up the stairs to the second floor of the house Thursday, sweat dripping from his face. He set up a ladder on a piece of wood spanning several floor joists before he climbed up next to the formerly active beehive built between wall studs near a chimney.

When they had started to tear the roof off the building, Brackley said, they found some boards that had some honeycomb on them. He began to wonder if they had bees, since he had raised them before and this was a tell-tale sign.

With more boards removed and more light let in, they could see what looked like a built-in hive.

He believes the house was built between 1870 and 1890.

All the evidence points to the beehive being built into the wall. It was active more than a hundred years ago, he said.

It was so symmetrical it looks like it was man-made, Brackley said.

There is a wooden plug near the bottom of the hive, firmly set in the hole Thursday, that would have been how the bees entered the hive, Brackley said. Honeycomb was still on the outside of the hive before it was torn down.

"It seems bizarre," he said, but it looks like the people built it into the wall and when they wanted honey, they would go up and get it.
Maine Gal's Blog

Body part a hand-me-down, police told

WALDOBORO — Contractors working on an old house
found a human hand that police later confirmed was severed 50
to 80 years ago, but it's still unclear whose hand it was and why
it was there.

Painters working for Bo Jespersen, who renovates and sells old
homes, discovered what appeared to be a man's hand in June.

"They called me and said they'd been losing sleep over
something they'd found," Jespersen said. When he saw the hand,
Jespersen was struck by its size, with fingers about an inch and
a half longer than his own.

"It's huge," he said. "And he didn't cut his nails."

The wrist portion appeared jagged, Jespersen said, as if the
hand had been removed violently, and 6 to 8 inches of what
appeared to be tendons were looped around it.

The mysterious body part was discovered by Derek Levasseur of
Clinton while he was painting what's known as the Depot Road
house, which was built in 1910. During a break, Levasseur was
in the garage looking at a small wood-burning stove, which
Jespersen had agreed he could have.

On top of the stove was a box, which Levasseur opened. At first
glance at the hand, Levasseur and his brother concluded it was
not real. It had a look of dried rawhide.

"We thought it was a prop," he said. "I touched the fingers on it,
and I thought, 'It can't be real.' "

Levasseur photographed the hand with his cell phone camera
and e-mailed the image to his wife, who works in Waterville at
the district attorney's office. While she was looking at it on her
computer, a retired Maine state trooper saw the image and said
he thought it was a real hand.

Levasseur called Jespersen, who contacted the woman who had
owned the house. He also called the state police, who came to
the house, tested ashes in the stove and interviewed the former
owner.

Police concluded that the hand had been ripped off 50 to 80
years ago. They also seized the hand because it's illegal to
possess such a body part.

The previous owner claimed she had gotten the hand from a
man down the road, who is now in his 80s and remembers his
father having the hand.

"She had heard it was from a farming accident," Jespersen said.