Ghostly apparitions, a supernatural logger and buried gold — a horror film? Nope. They’re all part of Aroostook County’s chilling lore.
County native Dick Curless’ famous song “Tombstone Every Mile” describes ghostly encounters in the Haynesville woods. Then there’s the story of three men who recounted being abducted in the wilds of Allagash.
But there are other eerie echoes in The County. Many are creepy old tales, perfect to be told around campfires. Others could make you look over your shoulder on a dark night.
The Hunter’s Moon, so called because it’s big and orange, will peak on Oct. 28, according to the Farmer’s Almanac. It’s a perfect time to explore a bit of Aroostook’s unknown. Read on, and you just might feel a chill up your spine.
Deadly deals in Dyer Brook
There was a spot in Dyer Brook where people could meet the devil, according to Boston author Peter Muise on the website New England Folklore.
One story says a logger named Jack met the devil, who warned he’d die if he drove logs downriver the next day. Jack didn’t heed the warning, and while driving logs saw a flaming axe appear before him. He jumped to shore and, though others died in a logjam, he was spared.
Fellow loggers noticed weird things about Jack after that, Muise wrote. They could hear two axes chopping when only Jack was around. They heard him conversing with no one else visible. Once he embedded an axe with such force the handle broke, but when he pulled the axe out, the handle was whole again.
Fearful coworkers sensed the supernatural and named him Jack the Ripper. One day Jack was cleaning a large forested area, a job that would take days. He finished in two hours. No one would work with him after that, and Jack left, never to return.
Supernatural farmhouse
“The old Flewelling house was haunted. There was no doubt about it,” Suzanne Reynolds wrote in the 1940 book “Tales of Aroostook.” She interviewed 90-year-old, pipe-smoking Aunt Betsy Walters about a house near the Aroostook River, somewhere between Fort Fairfield and Limestone.
Betsy and her husband, Walter, moved into a vacant farmhouse. Mischief started happening. Quilts were yanked off the family’s beds at night, the bars on the door kept sliding open and there were sounds of footsteps upstairs.
One night Aunt Betsy took a candle and decided to confront whatever was up there.
“But when I reached the top of the stairs I could go no farther. I stood there on the top step and all the rest of the house had vanished. The candle showed no light when held before me,” she told Reynolds.
From then on people shunned the house, Reynolds wrote. A tree fell on it and caved it in, then another fell from a lightning strike and burned, leaving only ashes and a stump where the house and its trees once stood.
Guardians of the gold
Presque Isle historian and author Dena Winslow features this tale on her website aroostookhistory.me. The article comes from a late 1800s newspaper clipping by an unknown writer, according to Winslow.
In the 1830s, Matthias Black of Miramichi, New Brunswick, arrived on horseback and settled in Washburn. In saddlebags, he had $20,000 in gold, which he buried on his property. Black left at the start of the Aroostook War in 1838, and locals saw him leaving without the saddlebags.
He never returned, but disaster struck those who searched for his gold. One man’s face turned permanently black. Another was pelted by gravel and saw two enormous hands emerge from mist holding a large piece of rock, with a “spook” biting off pieces and hurling them at him.
Decades later another man brought a block and tackle and two helpers to lift a large rock he was sure covered the gold. As they dug, the bushes started to shake. The helpers fled and the tackle glowed with fire. The man fell into a deep sleep and awoke to find the ground filled in as if never touched, and only ashes remained of his gear.
No one could get the better of the spooks that guarded the gold, the story goes.
Strange steps on the dance floor
Old buildings seem particularly suited to strange phenomena, like this one in Presque Isle.
The former R.W. Wight & Son Furniture store on State Street dates from the early 1900s. Once an opera house, the building’s second floor had what remained of a ballroom, said Kim Smith of the Presque Isle Historical Society.
The Wight family also sold caskets at the furniture store and created an embalming room in the basement, Smith said.
The Wintergreen Arts Center once occupied the lower floor. One night a staff member, working late, heard the footsteps of children running across the ballroom floor above, Smith said. Knowing there were apartments upstairs, she thought nothing of it.
She later found out she was the only one in the building that night.
Now the building is owned by C and C Rentals. Lotus Lounge is on the bottom floor, and nothing remains of the ballroom. The space is partitioned and being made into apartments, rental company staff said.
No humans here
Some abandoned places are horrifying because of why they were built.
Bunkers and underground tunnels stored nuclear weapons at the former Loring Air Force Base. Decades ago a bunker called Building 260 was sealed, according to writers Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger.
The two visited the site, now part of the Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge, in 2020 for their podcast series “New England Legends,” and saw remains of a cement guard tower and building. A former base security staffer told them he’d heard about an accident where radiated victims died and were sealed inside the building.
The building got the name “the vampire house” and drew a lot of government attention, particularly after a team investigating it before the base closed were exposed to high levels of radiation. Authorities said it was radon. Rumors said monsters lived inside.
Whatever happened there, or didn’t, is lost to time, the podcasters wrote.
Valley headhunter
From Abenaki legend arose a creature whose name meant “Great Devil,” according to “Strange New England” writer Tom Burby, a Caribou native.
“He would play morbid tricks on those foolish enough to seek him out in his remote campsite on Musquacook Mountain next to the Allagash River, leaving lost souls to haunt the dark nights in the farmlands and forests of Aroostook County,” Burby said in his podcast “Madahodo: The Headhunter of Aroostook County.”
In one tale, Dr. John B. was in search of a shrunken head and a decorated skull, so he went to Madahodo. But Dr. John and his guide intruded on Madahodo, who wove dark spells indeed. He turned the guide into a skull that talked and sang, and shrunk Dr. John’s head “down to the size of an apple,” Burby wrote.
Legend has it that Dr. John with his tiny head wandered local woods for decades.
So if you’re feeling brave, venture out as the moon grows full. When shadows fall, what will you see?
