Sitting on a box, tied to a pole in the middle of a store he’d just robbed the day before – James Cullen brazenly told them all he had no remorse. He’d taken an axe to the deputy & cohort who came to arrest him the night before, and the fatal blows weren’t committed in the heat of the moment. With eagerness he confessed his only regret was that he didn’t have time to kill more people, and leaving 2 witnesses behind to live another day was a mistake he wouldn’t make again. Onlookers chided him, and he chided them right back. In the eyes of townsfolk from Mapleton and Presque Isle justice wouldn’t be served nearly as righteously by anyone other than themselves.
Whether the lynching of James Cullen was an exercise in community-based self-preservation, a message to people ‘from away’, or a straight-up act of revenge, the vigilante spirit of the event was preached, practiced, and proscribed all in the breadth of a 24 hour cycle.
So what brought all of this about? What was it that caused northern Mainers to do something never done before, and had become such a chilling example of frontier justice that the vibe of that entire event became an actual part of the community’s underlying consciousness?
James Cullen was a man not really known well in Aroostook County. He’d crossed the border from New Brunswick into Presque Isle around 1870+/- and set off to make his fortune as a Maine woodsman from there. The specific region of New Brunswick he hailed from directly before coming to Maine was actually a sort of limbo between Canada and the Maine border. It was a region of Canada called “Rogue’s Roost”, known for harboring ruffians and hard-edged folks who had trouble abiding by the law. If a Canadian wanted to disappear, or go somewhere they might not be found, they might well consider Rogue’s Roost as a hideaway. Cullen’s family was from Peel, New Brunswick, formally, but he and his brothers had somewhat of a reputation regarding ‘the law’, so moving to Rogue’s Roost, and then jumping the border altogether seemed to make sense.
Unlike his brothers, James didn’t appear to have any sort of reputation worth mentioning prior to the murders. At least one of his brothers had already spent time in the Houlton jail by the time James was lynched, and another went to prison for murder some time after. But, as far as criminal records go, James was clean. So, to say that ‘murder’ was a path Cullen had been on for a long while, as parts of the legend suggest, just wasn’t true. He wasn’t. The events which transpired were an anomaly regarding his expected nature. What struck me about his story is how James Cullen didn’t become a man worth mentioning, let alone a legend, until after he had committed this double-homicide, which led to his lynching.
The way the murders went down, and how Cullen was apprehended were both pretty direct affairs. James was wanted for a break-in and robbery of David Dudley’s store in town, in Mapleton, where he and Rosellah and their 2 kids lived. The reason he robbed the store is because he’d been kicked out of his own house by the boy-toy Rosellah had been seeing while he (James) was out working in the woods all winter. Rosellah was quite the character. The reason she and James were even living (illegally squatting) in this house in Mapleton, in specific, was because she was living there with her husband John Twist, and their child before she cheated on him with James (Cullen). She and James wound up running away together to his home region of New Brunswick for the farming season, as he did every year til that point, and when they returned in autumn for his woodsman job, they discovered her ex - John Twist - had long gone. So, they moved back into Rosellah’s old digs and carried on, illegally squatting, as husband and wife. They got married (it wasn’t legal because she was still married to John Twist) and had a child. Unfortunately, that child was born deaf and so, callously, history only remembers him by the monikers “Dummy Cullen” or “Dummy Twist” – both absolutely abhorrent connotations that do nothing but reinforce how cruel ignorance can really be.
So, the affair that Rosellah had with William Thomas Hubbard resulted in James Cullen losing his family, and his house – his home - because Hubbard literally, not figuratively, bought it out from under them. The Cullens were squatting illegally on this land and in this house, and while James was slaving away out in the woods to provide for his family, Rosellah was back at home getting jiggy with Hubbard. One might be able to imagine how James Cullen could be brought to the brink of madness the night he took an axe to Hubbard’s head.
The day James came into the knowledge of the affair and the purchase of his home by his wife’s lover he fled the property. But,, before doing so he went into the barn and stabbed Hubbard’s horse. After this, Cullen made his way to David Dudley’s store in Mapleton, broke in, and stole about $25 worth of goods. He then made his escape to the camp of John Swanbeck about 7 miles away in Chapman, a little cedar‑shingle operation that locals would later nickname “Bloody Half Acre.” This is where the law caught up to him.
The day after Cullen robbed Dudley’s store both Hubbard and Dudley traveled together to Presque Isle (next town over) to seek a warrant from a judge for the arrest of James Cullen for the things he’d done; stabbing Hubbard’s horse, and robbing Dudley’s store. While there they happened to speak with a young shop owner by the name of Granville Hayden, who also did double duty as a sheriff’s deputy. He volunteered to track down Cullen and hand him the warrant. So, all 3 of them headed back into Mapleton together where Dudley returned to his shop. William Thomas Hubbard and Deputy Hayden ran into Minot Bird, a 15 year old kid who was pretty good friends with Cullen. Bird told them Cullen was out at John Swanbeck’s shingle camp (John Swanbeck produced cedar shingles) in Chapman, so they all slapped on some snowshoes and trudged through feet of snow for miles before finally reaching the camp well after dusk. Everyone hung out and ate dinner together, and after dinner Deputy Hayden pulled Cullen aside and told him about the warrant. But, he also told him he was going to let him leave town so long as he didn’t return. It was an option if he’d rather do that instead of getting arrested. This was common practice, especially in the frontier regions of Maine. Cullen agreed that would be in his best interest, so they all bedded down for the night and that was expected to be that.
What happened, however, was James Cullen waited for everyone to go to sleep. He got up, kicked the logs in the fire to make sure no one would be roused by the sound, and then took an axe off the wall and brought it over to bunks of Deputy Hayden and William Thomas Hubbard. Their beds were at the wall across from the door, whereas Swanbeck and Bird’s bunks were near the door. So, when Cullen swung the axe into each of his sleeping victims a sound was made, loud enough to wake both Swanbeck and Bird across the room. Depending on which source you read you’ll see that one of them ran out into the freezing cold, snow-covered yard, and hid out behind obstacles that allowed him to see the camp but not be seen from the camp. For the purposes of this blog entry let’s say that it was Swanbeck who ran out into the freezing winter cold with nothing on but his underwear and socks. After a short time, Cullen was seen emerging from the camp entrance with Bird by his side, carrying on light conversation. Later it was discussed between Cullen and Bird whether or not Swanbeck could be trusted to say nothing about what he’d seen Cullen do, and Bird assured him Swanbeck was no problem at all. He was nothing to worry about. Cullen agreed to believe them and let them go so long as they helped him burn the camp and the bodies. Cedar burns hot and fast so the camp went up in record time and the bodies were reduced to a small enough bunch of remnants that the remains of both men fit into a ‘salt box’. So, I guess it could be said that the furor of this town was packed like a powder keg disguised as a salt box.
Circumstances were already pretty bad for Cullen when the town found out he killed Granville Hayden. Hayden was really popular in Presque Isle. He was young, handsome, intelligent, a business owner, an active member of the Masons, and a Sheriff’s Deputy. That powder keg was just looking for a reason to explode, and finding out the remains of these 2 victims fit into something the size of a ‘salt box’ was the straw that broke the camel’s back. By the end of the day, when officials were finally preparing to move James Cullen from Mapleton to Presque Isle it was so well known he wouldn’t make it there alive that a newspaper reporter in town wrote part of the article documenting the event before the event even happened. The next morning, after the killing, the story was sent out by horseman on a forty‑three‑mile ride to Houlton, where it was telegraphed to the ‘outside’ papers.
This lynching was happening.
Everyone knew it.
The way the lynching went down seemed to be direct, well organized, and super efficient. Cullen was transported in a pung, pulled by at least 1 horse, and surrounded by an escort of law enforcement and transport guards. A pung is basically a boxed-in sleigh, or a wooden box like a hay wagon, but set on sleigh blades. So, people can toss their stuff (shovels, produce, hay bales, etc..) into the pung to be carried - wherever. Cullen was bound, hands and feet, with rope and put into this transport. The rope secured him to the bench he was seated on and passed through 2 holes in a loose wooden floorboard his feet were settled. To offer a clearer mental image - he had a seat on a bench, but someone had also drilled a hole on the left side and another on the right side of where his feet were placed, and the rope he was bound with was strung down through one hole, and then up through the other, in order to bind him to the floorboard. This aspect of his binding is important to mention because when he was pulled out of the pung that one single floorboard he was attached to was yanked off with him. It was dangling from his feet when they hung him.
The scene was simple and the hanging, a very quick ordeal.
When the pung stopped one of the men in the roadway wasted no time jumping into the box, loosening up the ropes and giving the ‘all clear’ signal to the others to pull Cullen to the ground and to drag him to the hanging tree, which was a short distance from the roadway. They strung him up until the deed appeared to be finished and then they called a physician over to examine the body. The physician declared Cullen dead but told the men they might want to hang him a little longer just to be sure. So that’s what they did.
The thing about James Cullen’s crime is that it really changed the emotional landscape of Aroostook County for quite some time. Even now, if you’re a Mainer from outside The County you just have this innate knowledge that they take care of their own up there, and they’re respected for it. Not feared. Respected.
Cullen was just another woodsman making his living like a lot of migrant Canadians did. He was generally unremarkable in every way – until the day after the murders. After the murders took place, all sorts of incredible “larger than life” character traits and flaws started emerging. James Cullen went from a relatively unknown persona, to a wild red haired six-odd-foot lumberman with an Irish temper, and prone to destructively irrational behavior as his criminal history clearly denotes (this was all fabrication, of course). As a matter of rumor, according to legend, he twice escaped the Houlton Jail – once, by bending the metal bars in his cell window. The truth of the matter was, more than likely, exactly as his surviving brothers said it was, and that’s that James Cullen was the best of them all, because he hadn’t ever done a day of time in jail. Despite him sitting bound to that pole in Dudley’s store, antagonizing angry onlookers that he’d escaped jail before and he’d do it again without a problem, he had no criminal record to speak of.
His brothers had troubles of their own and it’s almost assured that the story of James Cullen even being in the Houlton Jail, let alone escaping it, was actually a story that belonged to one of them, and not him. James had never been a prisoner at the Houlton Jail. As a matter of fact, James Cullen had no criminal history of any sort before he committed this double murder. However, the fact he bragged he did, and added that he’d escaped before and he’d do it again – was all the townspeople needed to hear. Not only did they hear it, they believed it. It was like pouring gasoline on an open fire every time Cullen bragged about escaping from jail because the citizens wanted justice.
After the lynching had been carried out Cullen’s body was crammed into a ‘too small’ wooden box in the pung and transported to Presque Isle, as planned. On the way there, however, another massive crowd appeared in the roadway and stopped the escort to demand they hand over Cullen so they could have their way with him. This mob had plans to torture him first, and then hang him. The masked mass that actually lynched him earlier, knew this. I’m not sure if the word “humanitarian” belongs anywhere in this story but I’ll make a judgment call on this one and say that things could have gone a lot worse for Cullen, and he was gifted a quick death the hanging party didn’t wholly believe he deserved.
When the body finally made it to Presque Isle there was, of course, some inquiry into what happened, and why Cullen didn’t make it to his destination alive. The law enforcement escort gave the story and made it clear there was no way for them to identify anyone because they were all wearing masks over their faces. So, it was concluded Cullen was hung, but by parties unknown, and nothing more was done to pursue the matter or find the killers.
The town took a while to get back to normal, but once it did less-than-nothing changed regarding how much people spoke of the event. There was one incident where a young man approached an older fellow in town, mentioning that he saw him at the lynching – that he recognized him. The entire conversation was stopped before it started and it was made clear – no one is to speak of this event again. Ever.
The morning after the lynching had taken place Cullen’s brothers came into town to view aspects of the scene of the crime, and where he was ultimately caught. James had been apprehended within 15 minutes of returning ‘home’ to the house he shared with his ex-wife, Rosellah, before he was kicked out by her new lover, William Thomas Hubbard. When ‘the law’ came knocking on Rosellah’s door, asking if she’d seen James recently, she announced very loudly that he wasn’t there, while simultaneously pointing to the basement where he was hiding. A single man went down into the basement and extricated James, without incident, to be taken into town to face the charges of robbery and murder. At one point in the day the brothers, who were known rabble-rousers, were wandering aimlessly about the main street/business district, almost like they were looking for trouble. They wound up in one particular shop where the shop owner responded to their intimidation tactics by quietly unreeling a specific length of rope which he held, stretched out for his nervous customers to see, a slip hangman’s knot tied in record time - and asked super loudly if folks agreed with him that this was “enough rope for two”? The Cullen brothers decided it was time to leave and so they hoofed it out of the store and out of town, never to be seen or heard from again.
James Cullen’s body eventually made the trip to Presque Isle, where it was showcased at Perry’s Store on Bridge Street in a crude coffin-like box he didn’t really fit into very well. Townspeople were allowed to gawk at the corpse throughout the time it was there on display. There were people who got emotional when they approached Cullen’s remains; screaming at him, spitting on him, and stabbing him with long hat pins. It was quite the scene, and one that was never spoken of again. As a matter of fact, there was an in-town newspaper printer who printed a special ‘extra’ edition for release the day after the lynching took place. The editor of that paper was vehemently against the lynching and wrote about it in this ‘extra’. When word of this got to a certain person with enough sway to make the ‘extra’ edition disappear, that’s exactly what happened. The town of Mapleton didn’t want anyone outside of their domain to know, or speak, anything about this event. Ever. So the newspaper printer was responsible to not only stop further printings of this ‘extra’ but to track down and recover all of the copies that were already sold. The seriousness of the circumstance, from start to finish, was fully appreciated for all its frontier-justice vigilantism. It was a necessary evil so wholly agreed upon by everyone involved, directly and indirectly, that it became an original sin passed on to future generations through an inescapable legacy of being born in Aroostook County, the place they lynched Jim Cullen.
Cullen’s body was initially going to be buried in a proper grave but directly before burial responsible parties were made aware the citizens had plans to dig him up and burn his body. So he was eventually buried out in some swampy land just outside of town at what became known as the town dump.
Bibliography
Rowell, George S. “A Maine Lynching: The Violent Death of James Cullen at Mapleton, 1873.” Maine History 19, no. 4 (1980): 207–226.
Winslow York, Dena Lynn. “‘They Lynched Jim Cullen’: Story and Myth on the Northern Maine Frontier.” Maine History 40, no. 2 (2001): 126–136.
Bangor Daily Commercial. Saturday February 24, 1906. (Page 8) “Maine’s Only Lynching Occurred Many Years Ago. The one occasion when Aroostook farmers found the law too slow and hanged James Cullen near Presque Isle, his atrocious crime.”
