AUTHOR’S NOTE

I the fall of 1953 several newspapers in the northeastern United States were host to the following learned query: “For a book on secret societies: Requesting information-substantiated or anecdotal-regarding the disappearance of a group of men known as the Broumnage Club in western Maine in the winter of 1896-1897.”

The address given was that of a small midwestem college, and the scholar making the request was a professor whose fascination with secret societies (and the Broumnage Club in particular) stemmed from his involvement with a WPA project in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1939. It was then that the brownstone that once housed the base of operations for the Broumnage Club was converted into an apartment building and a small trove of the order’s papers was discovered in a trunk in a corner of the attic.

Henry Irvine, then working his way through college, rescued these documents and kept them at his parents’ home in Springfield, Massachusetts. Irvine’s work on this (admittedly esoteric) subject and his formal education were interrupted by a lack of funds, then by the war, but after returning to the States in 1946, he finished his degree on the GI Bill. His pet project continued to be delayed, however, for the sake of teaching and family. After his unexpected demise in 1964, the “Broumnage Papers” were inadvertently destroyed.

For our purposes, however, the above query says it all, and one cannot help wondering about the efficacy of a thousand-year-old curse, written in Norse runes upon a stone in Skowhegan, Maine. Any good Yankee would tell us to “Take it with a grain of salt,” or perhaps “Just because it’s carved in stone…”

Another document tells a different story entirely. It is a letter, dated July 5, 1906, and runs thusly:

Dear Dad,

The celebration here at Hiram was fine. I joined in several events, including the three-legged race with Mr. Plainway, which we won. The prize was the biggest watermelon. I thought that Mrs. Plainway would burst she laughed so hard, and Mr. Plainway grinned like a young boy when we returned to our place at the picnic, though he was out of breath. Nothing seems to please him more than what pleases her. I had a moment to watch them together, sitting on a blanket overlooking the village and the river, she in her white dress and hat, he in his white suit, and very little could be more ideal, with the flowers in the field and the two of them laughing. Their love for one another is so keen and so conspicuous that I would have been embarrassed if I didn’t love them so myself.

Today we went to the cemetery and the house…

The letter does continue at some length and includes the writer’s “strange sensation of walking into the scene of a play or the page of a book, but certainly not into a place that had affected my life.” The envelope enclosing the letter is addressed to Wyckford O’Hearn; the return address bears the name of Bertram O’Hearn.

Wyckford Cormac O’Hearn did play baseball again, though he never returned to the glory days of his past and never again played in a professional capacity. His greatest accomplishment may have been forming some of the earliest boys’ baseball leagues in the towns of Veazie and Orono. Of interest to readers may be one of the last lines in Bertram’s letter. “Tell Mom and Grandma that I have presents for them. (And one for yourself.)”

If in the preceding narratives, Bertram (that is, Bird) seems something of a cipher, then it is in keeping with the observations of those who knew him. Though well liked and admired throughout his life, Bird (as I like to think of him) became a man of few words and occasional surprises. Always a good and loyal friend-and that to many-he was perhaps only truly known by Wyck and one other person. In later years he reappeared in the annals of the Moosepath League in a very different role.

Eustace Pembleton (his real name was none of those by which he was known in this story) spent twenty-two months in prison for his role in Bird’s kidnapping as well as other charges but was released for humanitarian reasons and boarded in a private hospital for the mentally ill. His care and room were paid for by an anonymous benefactor. As a young man, Bird visited Pembleton at the hospital at least four times a year (except in 1918-1919) until Pembleton’s death in 1924. Mister Walton did visit with Bird once and was impressed with the young man’s kindness and Pembleton’s amicable responses. Bird always brought Pembleton popcorn balls and dime novels.

As stated in the narrative, Christopher Eagleton did not recall the business of the silver cross until he stumbled upon the December 5, 1896, entry of his journal months later. He and his fellows were much amazed by it all.

In Moosepathian circles, the events of that December are variously thought of as “the Adventure of the Holiday Haunting,” “the Adventure of the Three Legacies,” and “the Adventure of the Mother’s Eyes.” It might also have been called “the Adventure of the Three Clubs.” The twenty-first of December is always the league’s tree-decorating day in memory of this exploit. St. Nicholas’s Day is also observed, so if you ever see boots outside a hotel room on the eve of December 6, they are not waiting for the bootblack.

To my knowledge, the Broumnage Club was never heard from again.

In the years to come, Aldicott Durwood, Roderick Waverley, and Humphrey Brink-the Dash-It-All Boys-occasionally deviated into the path of the Moosepath League, and something worth noting always seemed to occur from these encounters. In 1920, the year of National Prohibition, a club called the Dash-It-All Boys was formally founded in nearby Falmouth, coincidentally dissolving in 1933, when Prohibition ended. The minutes of their meetings are difficult to read.

The false card placed ill Joseph Thump’s coat pocket by Aldicott Durwood had extraordinary consequences for the Moosepath League, though the possible (if imaginative) implications of that article did not fully accumulate in Thump’s mind till the following May. In the resultant bewilderment, the Moosepath League would meet the half-mad and thoroughly engaging Benjamin Granite Gunwight, and the brief era of the club’s beginnings would end in the wake of a letter from Mister Walton’s sister. Rumors concerning Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump and “the woman in room 12A” are universally considered capricious. This page in the history of the league is generally styled by Moosepathian historians as “the Adventure of the Pasteboard Card,” though some in the league prefer to remember it as “the Adventure of the Startled Ascensionist” or “the Adventure of the Widow’s Brigade.”

Someday it may be told.

I have had letters from folks who ask for a bibliography, and with that in mind I shall list some of the books that most affected this and the two preceding narratives. To my knowledge the following are still in print and highly recommended: Coastal Maine by Roger Duncan; Dawn over the Kennebec and other works by Mary R. Calvert; Maine in the Making of the Nation 1783-1870 by Elizabeth Ring; History of Ancient Sheepscot and Newcastle by Rev. David Quimby Cushman (reprinted by the local historical society); Sermons in Stone, the Stonewalls of New England and New York by Susan Allport; a Day’s Work, a Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs 1860-1920, annotated and compiled by w H. Bunting; Portland, edited by Martin Dibner with photographs by Nicholas Dean; Along the Damariscotta, compiled by Dorothy A. Blanchard; No Pluckier Set of Men Anywhere, the Story of Ships and Men in Damariscotta and Newcastle, Maine by Mark Wyman Biscoe; Old John Neptune and Other Maine Indian Shamans by Fanny Hardy Eckstorm; Wake of the Coaster by John F. Leavitt; Benjamin Browne Foster’ Down East Diary, edited by Charles H. Foster; Magnificent Mainers by Jef Hollingsworth; Saltwater Foodways, New Englanders and Their Food, at Sea and Shore in the Nineteenth Century by Sandra L. Oliver; Ancient Sagadahoc, a Story of the Englishmen Who Welcomed the Pilgrims to the New World by E.J. Chandler; Chras in America by Penne L. Restad; Madame Blavatsky’ Baboon, a History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America by Peter Washington; The Perpetual Almanak of Folklore by Charles Kightly; The Wordsworth Dictionary of the Occult by André Nataf; Rhyme’s Reason by John Hollander; a Field Guide to American Houses by Virginia and Lee McAlester; The American Language by H. L. Mencken; the Oxford and Bartlett’s books of quotations, the American Heritage Dictionary; the Oxford Universal Dictionary on Historical Principles; almost the entire range of Peterson guides to nature; and the Bible.

Many of the authors to whom I owe a debt are (to my knowledge) out of print, and these include: Romantic and Historic Maine by A. Hyatt Verrill; Mysterious New England, edited by Austin N. Stevens; Clipper Ships and Captains by Jane D. Lyon; Captains of Industry by Bernard Weisberger;

Maine Beautiful by Wallace Nutting; Confederates Downeast by Mason Philip Smith; The World of Washington Irving and subsequent volumes on American art and literature by Van Wyck Brooks; a History of Secret Societies by Arkan Daraul; Going Fishing, the Story of the Deep Sea Fishermen of New England by Wesley George Pierce; The Secret Country by Janet and Colin Bord.

Add to these the town historians whose works fortify the State Library and the writers (many anonymous) who contributed to the newspapers and almanacs of the day.

It hardly needs to be said that any errors or magnifications in the annals of the Moosepath League are purely my own.

Continued thanks to my agent Barbara Hogenson and her assistant Nicole Verity, as well as Jody Lipper. Continued good wishes, also, to Sarah Feider. Thanks to everyone at Viking Penguin who has worked on Cordelia, Mollie, and Daniel, including of course my editor Carolyn Carlson, and her assistant Lucia Watson, publicist Linda McFall and her assistant Hillary Thompson, and designer Jesse Reyes. Best wishes, also, to Michael Driscoll.

This past season I was a guest at numerous bookstores and in particular I would like to thank the folks at Port in a Storm in Somesville; Sherman’s in Boothbay and Freeport; Bookland in Brunswick and South Portland; the Kennebunk Book Port in Kennebunkport; Thomaston Books & South Hadley, Massachusetts; Borders in Framingham; Bickerton and Prints; Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vermont; Odyssey Bookstore in Ripley in Edgartown; and the Owl and the Turtle in Camden.

Most especially, thanks to Jane and Mark Bisco, Susan and Barnaby Porter, Penny and Ewing Walker, Pat and Clark Boynton, Joanne Cotton, Devon Sherman, Johanna Rice, Frank Slack, Hester Stuhlman, and Trudy Price and all my friends at the Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta.

Thanks to the Georgetown Historical Society and the Damariscotta-Newcastle Rotary Club.

Thanks to everyone who has communicated by mail their interest and encouragement. I hope that all you folks who have written from other parts of the country come to Maine soon, and please drop by and say hello at the Maine Coast Book Shop.

Regards and appreciation go out again to Michael Uhl, Nick Dean, and Jim Nelson.

Thanks to family and friends, and a terrific set of in-laws for their abiding support and good thoughts.

If all my efforts were to be dedicated to a single person, it would be to Margaret Hunter-Maggie-scientist, wife, mother, first-line editor of the Moosepath Chronicles, and patient sounding board for bouts of authorial angst. She does all these things well, rarely complains about being married to a writer, and remains an island of calm throughout. As growing codicils (if you will) to this dedication, may I add Hunter and Mary, who help keep things in perspective with laughter, innocence, and unbounded curiosity.

The injunction to the writer is often to “write about what you know,” and I have done so. The historical context, of course, is equal parts research and intuition, the geographical context is my home, the human context is my life. I have been blessed to know people who are as good and kind and wise as some of those in this book and its companion volumes. I am grateful, then, that I can write about what I know and in the process write about the generosity of spirit, the strength of compassion, and the gladness of laughter that I have endeavored to exemplify in Mister Walton, Sundry Moss, and the members of the Moosepath League.