Admit it, when the word “Devil” is in the name the whole subject becomes instantly more intriguing.  No more qualifiers are needed. “Devil” does all the heavy lifting; all the head-turning and eye-widening. But – if there’s a story behind the name, well – now we’ve got ourselves a whole other ballgame; A level of depth added to the mystique that entertains the reader as well as educates. And lucky for us here in Maine, we’ve been gifted by our ancestors, more proper and local monikers with the word “Devil” in them than you can likely shake a stick at. Not all have backstories, and all I really discovered for why certain places don’t have backstories is that their names pre-dated the Maine historic record.   So, when any one of us asks a ‘local’ why a nearby place with “Devil” in the title is named ‘that’, and they say they aren’t really sure, “it’s just always been that way”, they’re probably being more factual than historically poetic. Places like Devil’s Bog, Devil’s Back Trail, Devil’s Hopyard, and Devil’s Limb may not have origin stories, or even stories associated with their respective creepy designations, but they still offer us the allure.  The allure of knowing that ‘this place’ was once such a difficult space to occupy, for any length of time, the locals branded it something that really needed no explanation to understand the troubles it could bring. Once you heard the name, you knew.

A few places I found in my search for Maine locations with the word “Devil” or “Devil’s” in the title came with some really neat stories associated. Some were simple, like “Devil’s Elbow” on either land (Farmington), or at sea; which was usually associated with a sharp turn, in the route ahead, that can’t be negotiated without the risk of becoming another statistic of its unforgiving bend.  Then there’s a lesser known, lesser discussed “Devil’s Oven” out on Diamond Island in Casco Bay.  How this giant hole in the rock face of Diamond Island’s shoreline came to be known as “Devil’s Oven” remains a mystery, so I can’t tell you why it was named that, but what I can tell you is there’s supposedly treasure buried out on the islands in Casco Bay, which has yet to be found.  This legend had already been attracting treasure hunters for decades before a specific 1885 tragedy left one such hunter dead.  Technically, his body was never found, only his little boat and some of his gear.  His name was “Skinner” and he was very well known as a fisherman and active treasure hunter among the islands in Casco Bay.  Folks knew who he was and what he was up to – it was common knowledge.  So it was generally agreed upon by the locals that it was Devil’s Oven that got him. Why? Because Devil’s Oven at Diamond Island drowns at high tide.  It becomes completely filled and engulfed with water when the tide comes in.  If Skinner was in that cavern when the tide came in, it might be the reason he was never seen or heard from again.  This is just one of the many unusual rock formations known by local Mainers as “Devil’s Oven” and I’ll talk, in depth, about another one a bit further on in this entry.  Finally, there’s Devil’s Half Acre, in Bangor; an area of the city that was so dangerous during all times of the day and night, a local religious leader named it “Devil’s Half Acre” because he deemed it had been overtaking by sin.  With outrageously rampant rates of theft, assaults, and murders in this area of the city the rest of Bangor seemed to embrace the moniker, and so it stuck.

But none of those are origin stories, and that’s really what we’re after. We want to know how, why, and for what reasons any specific place here in Maine has the word “Devil” associated with it.

Even though most origin stories were never formally documented at the time they were born, they continue to offer us the closest connection we’ll ever get to the time, place, and circumstance something so locally-historic took place ‘at this one specific spot’ or ‘in this one specific region’ that it’s been branded as a harbinger of the ominous.

Lucky for us, in the ‘here and now’, we have copious volumes of historical data and anecdotal oral histories available at the push of a button or a quick visit to a local library or historical society where all these stories now live.  We don’t have to search so desperately for the narratives behind how certain place-names containing the word “Devil” came to be.  Like the infamous “Devil’s Footprints” on the coast in Machiasport, which were said to be set into the large rocks that line the coastal waters of this small town by the Devil itself, who rose out of the ocean “surrounded by a sulphurous light and with a heavy pack upon his back”; a story written and published in Lewiston, Maine’s Sun-Journal on Saturday December 4, 1897.

The strides between the ‘footsteps’ left behind were so far apart it was determined impossible to be man-made, so of course it had to be the devil who created them.

Then there’s “Devil’s Oven” at Mount Desert Island, a cave roughly 10 feet high which the natives of the area determined to be inhabited by someone, or some-thing, inhuman pre-dating the invasion of the region by European settlers. Devil’s Oven can be seen from the ocean and the sight of it isn’t entirely inviting.  It’s said to look like a human skull from a distance, and the fact that longstanding tradition insists this cave has been known to emit the glow of unexplained lights from within, gives us no reason to view it without intense curiosity.  The Native Americans local to the area of this specific Devil’s Oven on MDI used to view it as a direct portal to the underworld; “hell” if you anglicize the story with a Christian twist.  So, when Indian skirmishes took place and blood was shed they’d capture European settlers and essentially chain them to a spike in the beach-floor inside this cave knowing the tide would come in and drown the ‘white man’ within.  Devil’s Oven has a legitimately terrifying history. This source credit goes to Matthew Marchon, owner of the ‘Leave The World Below” blogspot blog which focuses on histories associated with New England hiking trails.

There’s another Devil’s Oven located at Small Point just off Phippsburg which is said to have been used by pirates “back in the day”.  Pirate-business being associated with evil-doings may have led this hidden little spot within the rockface of the shoreline to be gifted such a foreboding name.  In modern times, folks take this place so seriously it’s a popular picnic destination according to a Lewiston Sun-Journal article published on Saturday June 30, 1923.

And finally, as much as I loathe telling the same stories, and rehashing the same legends, lore, and myths the average paranormal enthusiast has already been exposed to, seemingly with unending redundance (as these stories simply won’t die), I’ll take this opportunity to revisit the tale of the “Devil’s Footprint” at the North Manchester Meetinghouse Church.  This is one legend that’s entertained the locals for generations, at least as far back as the early 1900’s.  The earliest published mention of this story, that I could find, was in 1948 in the Lewiston Sun-Journal.  The piece told a basic story most locals have heard too many times to count; that a roadway construction worker sold his soul to the devil if the devil would only move this one specifically large boulder that had all-but-stopped his progress in completing this stretch of road. The article, Sun-Journal published Saturday June 5, 1948 explained how the man made the bargain, aloud, in frustration.  The next day the boulder was moved off to the side of the road and the man vanished without a trace, never to be seen again. Oh, right, and the most important part of the legend – there were 2 different sized footprints imprinted into the boulder which is now a part of the cemetery wall that’s situated just off to the side of the Meetinghouse Church.

All these stories are as fascinating as they are entertaining, and they’re among the many.  There are over 25 place-names in the state of Maine alone, incorporating the word “Devil”.  And while we’ll likely never know why most were given the names they were, we’re equally as likely to be assured that the Mainers who named them were confident future generations would heed the intended cautionary warnings, sight unseen if they just added a little ‘evil’ seasoning to the titles; a bit of ‘spice’ to cause one to heed immediate warning, so to speak.  Nowadays, with modern engineering, science, and advancements in transportation technologies most of these place names are seen to serve in some sort of entertainment capacity; a curiosity more than a concern.  But then again, there will always be people like you, and me, who look at a name and location on a map and think, “I wonder why they called it that?”.