children - Maine Ghost Hunters

[1897] Shiloh: The Cult in Durham

Maine Ghost Hunters — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 12:27:43 +0000

What is Shiloh Temple?

Shiloh Temple was built in 1897, and was considered the largest bible school in the world at the height of its existence. It’s 4 stories high but with a 7 story aluminum (golden) crowned turret in the front, called the “Jerusalem Tower”. This main structure was completed by unskilled & unpaid labor in a period of 6 months, and is the only remaining Shiloh structure existing today.

When Shiloh was in full-swing this temple complex was a compound on a high point in Durham, called “Beulah Hill”, overlooking the Androscoggin River. The Shiloh compound was built in a U-shape around the main Temple building comprised of 500 rooms able to house 1,000 members. It was designed to be a school to train missionaries, who would leave Shiloh to spread the word of God according to The Holy Ghost and Us Society, or more commonly referred to as “Sandfordism”. There were 2 buildings built separate from the main complex that were used as a hospital and a school. The hospital, which was named “Bethesda” – meaning “house of kindness” – was a faith healing hospital; meaning there were no medicines used there, only praying, and healing from divine intervention. The other building was named “Olivet” and it housed the colony’s private school for Shiloh Colony children. This private school did not permit outsiders.

The land Shiloh sits on was donated by a Durham resident to Frank Weston Sandford, the leader of the Evangelical Christian movement known as “The Kingdom”.

The name “Shiloh” pays respect to an ancient city in the Middle East that was known as a sanctuary for Israelites during biblical times. Biblically speaking, the name “Shiloh” means “place of peace” and Sandford believed God meant for the epicenter of his Earthly operations to be conducted from right here on Beulah Hill – at Shiloh.

To a large degree, the Shiloh Community was meant to be self-sufficient. It was almost 1,500 acres, which is about 2 square miles, and within it, conducting day-to-day business was a fully operational – and full-time – print shop; a shoe shop – which provided repairs as well as new shoes; carpenters, coopers, and blacksmiths. There was a post office, bakery, and the private school system mentioned earlier. Striving for ultimate self sufficiency, the Shiloh Colony was primarily agrarian in nature. There were farms and plenty of animals, at least at the beginning stages of the colony’s rise. A 1906 Livestock Census documented 50 horses and mules, 81 sheep, 81 cattle, 32 goats, and 586 chickens & turkeys that produced roughly 12,000 eggs a year. The main problem planting-farmers dealt with at the Shiloh Colony was the substandard soil around the compound. Beulah Hill was a barren area of land when it was donated to Shiloh Founder Frank Weston Sandford. Shiloh farmers quickly realized it would be a struggle to depend on the land to produce food due to the sandy nature of the soil; a realization which would haunt the colony in later years and potentially aid in its eventual downfall.

Shiloh Temple still stands but it’s no longer associated with Frank Weston Sandford’s established vision. In 1998 Shiloh Temple became its own independent non denominational Christian-based community church serving a small number of local families with worship services and Sunday School.

Frank Weston Sandford

Frank W. Sandford was an Evangelical Christian born in Bowdoinham, Maine in 1862. Early on in his childhood it was noticed he had this knack for capturing the attention of people by the way he spoke. His peers knew him as a go-getter; always the captain of the teams, or the coach. He was a natural born leader. His father died when he was 14 and by 16 he was a teacher at a local school. He had this gift that drew people toward him and a way of mesmerizing them into his world-view. He was educated as a young child in Bowdoinham and then went on to Nichols Latin Prep school in Lewiston before enrolling in Bates on a scholarship. At Bates he was a standout student; representing his class as “Class President”, giving the commencement speech at his 1886 graduation in which he graduated with honors, and making such an impressive name for himself as a catcher on the school’s baseball team (which he also coached) that he was heavily – and seriously – scouted by professional organizations. Despite the many offers he had to play professional baseball he decided the calling to do God’s work was more appealing, and this is when he started on the road that would eventually lead to Shiloh.

After college, he joined a church in Topsham and became ordained as a Free Will Baptist clergyman which led him to various missionary experiences. He traveled the world visiting Christian mission outposts in Japan, India, China, and Palestine where he developed this understanding that more people were being born than were being exposed to the glory of the word of God. Meaning, non-Christians were outnumbering Christians and the only way to really address this was to bring God to those who were either non-believers, or currently unaware of Christianity.

This mindset he developed was thrust into high gear when he named himself “Elijah II, The Living God” – the incarnation of Elijah and King David, from biblical times. Sandford had performed an exorcism on a friend and shortly after claimed to have heard the voice of God warn him about “Armageddon”. This was only one of many times Sandford claimed to hear the voice of God, directly. One particular incident when he heard this voice was so influential to him he completely altered his life direction. He claimed God told him “blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled” from the Gospel of Matthew. This single quote, he believed God spoke to him, was the catalyst for him abandoning ‘academic religion’ and setting out on a mission where he was in direct contact with God. Meaning, from that point on he would derive his spiritual and religious directives, not from biblical interpretation, but directly from the voice of God.

Early Shiloh Days

After this revelation Sandford received from God (that he was to receive the word of God directly from the source itself) he set out on his evangelical mission to spread God’s word worldwide. He and his very supportive wife liquidated their assets and hit the road to evangelize the state of Maine, spreading the word of God at tent revival type set-ups, anywhere he was welcome, but eventually focusing his efforts around the coastal areas of the state for reasons that supported his livelihood. All this evangelical work cost money – money he didn’t have, and so he and his wife went without. They very often found themselves completely destitute, broke, homeless, starving – all while Sandford was preaching the word of God without asking for anything in return. He had a solid belief that God would provide for him to continue this most important work, and eventually it would appear as though, to Sandford, that this support was materializing when people started donating to his cause without being asked. He started receiving support in the form of housing, money donations, and gifts of land and property. The hill The Shiloh Colony was built on was donated to Sandford by a Durham farmer who had no use for the land because the soil was not fit for planting or grazing – it was too sandy. So with 3 cents in his pocket, an old spade someone threw out, and a borrowed wheelbarrow, Sandford broke ground on what we know now as “Shiloh”.

For a couple of years directly prior to this Sandford had evangelized coastal Maine towns, on the regular, as a locally renown faith healer, and he even printed his own magazine in which he encouraged others to join him and his ministry. This led to him opening “The Holy Ghost and Us” bible school – a tuition free experience that offered no courses, no teachers, no course materials or books, and no building to hold classes; just Sandford and a bible. It was from these students, and calls for help printed in his magazine, that Frank Weston Sandford elicited his first construction project – done with free labor, and donations of materials, goods & monies.

Life at the Shiloh Colony

The Shiloh Colony was built to house 1,000 missionary students. Days consisted of mandatory bible classes, devotions, chores, and prayer; prayer that could be scheduled or unscheduled. Meaning, if a sudden need to pray was requested by Sandford then everyone would stop what they were doing and pray, sometimes for hours on end. Life at Shiloh was dedicated to receiving the word of God and acting on it. If The Holy Ghost requested prayer at some random time of night or day, the entire colony would pray. It was understood everyone at the Shiloh Colony existed to serve God on God’s timeline, not their own. They didn’t fit God into their daily routine. God would make it known when prayer was needed and Sandford was to lead his followers to answer that call on God’s timeline – not simply when it was convenient for members of his flock. Life under the spiritual leadership of Frank W. Sandford was strict, rigid, and demanded unquestioning loyalty to Sandford himself. He was the self-proclaimed incarnation of Elijah and King David and he believed himself to be in direct contact with God, so he expected everyone under his watch believe the same. In order to be accepted into the Shiloh Colony new converts needed to give all of their earthly possessions to The Holy Ghost and Us Society, or “The Kingdom”, as It was also called. If they had a home they were to sell it and give all the money from the sale to The Kingdom. When they entered the colony they were penniless in every realistic way, which became as problematic as one might imagine when people decided the Shiloh Colony experience wasn’t working for them. One of Sandford’s primary reinforced beliefs was that God would provide what was needed. If necessities weren’t being met it was justified that the flock wasn’t suffering or sacrificing enough to deserve God’s good will. So, when hard times hit, Sandford would rationalize harsh discipline – such as whippings, long periods of fasting, and extended periods of solitary confinement, even and especially for children – as necessary exhibitions of the Colony’s devotion to God. Sandford demanded complete and total obedience from his flock. It was his way or the highway, and nobody was immune to this treatment, not even his own children. These practices were known to all in-coming converts and every person within the flock signed a contract – a 10 foot long scroll titled “Pledge of Loyalty” – attesting, in explicitly worded detail, to that fact. Meaning every new member of the Shiloh Colony joined knowing this was a faith healing evangelical community whose leader demanded complete and total obedience as God’s chosen one here on Earth. He was convinced he was the incarnation of Elijah, King David, and referred to himself as The Living God – and his flock believed him without question. This blind loyalty led to cult-like reverence which, in turn, led to storied accounts of very bad times within the colony, and later on, out on the open seas. Once someone became a member of the Shiloh Colony they lost their identity and were trapped within its walls. Their only way out was to escape. At Shiloh, every single member of the flock was there to serve God through Frank Weston Sandford. So when something questionable was being demanded of them, even if it was clearly wrong, even if it was going to bring harm to another person, the flock would just let it happen, justifying it as God’s Will because Sandford was Elijah, The Living God. I’ll speak more on this, in depth, later. There is much to tell about how this unquestioned adoration and blind obedience led to the darkest of chapters within The Holy Ghost and Us Society; far too many instances to mention in this short video, but we’ll review some of the most controversial happenings and explore them in terms of how they led to the eventual downfall of Frank Weston Sandford’s Shiloh Colony.

Controversy, Discord, and Lawsuits

Throughout the building of the Holy Ghost and Us Society lawsuits were not entirely uncommon. People would prepare to move their assets into Sandford’s name, as was required for admittance into “The Kingdom”, and family members would take legal action to stop them – many times seeking legal recourse to declare these relatives insane. Severe treatment of children led to a child abuse case against him; the charges being ‘child cruelty’ toward his 6 year old son John, who Sandford forced to fast – without food or water – for what turned out to be 72 hours. Little 6 year old John was punished for speaking to fellow members of the Shiloh Colony his father did not approve of. His punishment was a whipping. While the whipping itself was not actually done to him, John had finally given in at the 2 day mark. He’d been secluded in his bedroom for 2 days, with food and water in plain sight; the only barrier between his lips and life sustaining water was his own acceptance of being whipped before drinking it. He cried a lot, which didn’t help his situation, and he begged – over 75 times – for permission to drink the water. After he submitted to his fate and asked his father for the whipping his father told him Jesus suffered for his sins and had taken the punishment for him, but he was forced to continue the fast through a 3^rd day. The only redeeming aspect of this scenario is, there was a doctor who visited Shiloh to diagnose – but not treat – ailments within the colony. This doctor cleared the way for John’s fast to continue, saying he was healthy enough to withstand a 3^rd day. The State of Maine disagreed and found Frank Weston Sandford guilty of child cruelty.

Another case involving a juvenile resulted in the death of 14 year old Leander Bartlett. Young Bartlett had been secretly planning to escape the Shiloh Colony shortly before he was struck with diphtheria, and Sandford had found out. While Leander was suffering of diphtheria in Bethesda, Shiloh’s faith healing hospital – he was being denied every manner of medical assistance to help him heal and recover. The Holy Ghost and Us Society believed in faith healing as much as they did “the will of God”, so medicines were strictly forbidden.

A different ‘case in point’ to reinforce this notion would be the tragic death of one Mrs. Maria Lombard, an older lady who had become sick and developed pneumonia. A doctor was allowed to diagnose Mrs. Lombard’s condition, and she was even provided bottles of medicine to help in her recovery, but after the physician left – the Bethesda ‘faith healing” Hospital staff, sent to her home to help her, dumped out the medicine and continued on with their prayer-based healing methods, and so she died. Her family blamed the Shiloh Colony staff but the doctor who prescribed the medicines refused to be a party to legal charges.

Fourteen year-old Leander Bartlett was suffering from diphtheria within the walls of Bethesda during a particularly trying time within the Shiloh Colony. Sandford had declared an extended period of fasting called the “Fast of Nineveh” which was a mandatory period of 48 hours without any food or water for all members of the colony, including the sick, animals, and children. Leander was being tended to by a Mr. John Swart, who testified during a trial proceeding that Sanders proclaimed in the chapel he would willingly see young Bartlett laid out dead before him and did not care to offer the child any prayers for his well being, as he had disobeyed God’s directive by planning to run away and if God demanded his punishment is death, then so be it – essentially. Prayer, according to the beliefs of The Holy Ghost and Us Society is as powerful a force as medicine, for the sick. Bethesda did not deal in medical treatments. The medical treatments offered at Bethesda were prayers. Sandford denied Leander Bartlett food, water, medicine, and prayer. Frank Weston Sandford’s grip over his flock was so strong outsiders and those who had left, fled, or escaped Shiloh called it a cult and claimed Sandford had a hypnotic power over his subordinates. Leander Bartlett’s mother did very little to disprove these theories when she testified that she was in control of Leander’s care and that he was never forced to fast nor was he ever deprived of food or water during his ill health. And, that he received as much health care as she wanted him to receive. Her testimony was in complete opposition to the testimony of Mr. John Swart, who was her son’s nurse and direct health care provider during his final days.

The case of manslaughter for the death of Leander Bartlett plagued Frank W. Sandford for quite some time. He was made to go to trial 3 separate times over the matter, twice with the result of “disagreement” among the jury and once with the result of “guilty”. However, the ‘guilty’ verdict was overturned on an appeal. During this same period of time Frank Sandford was also facing numerous additional “cruelty to children” charges.

Global Missionary Work

After the Leander Bartlett manslaughter case was over Sandford, his family, and 30 chosen Holy Ghost and Us Society members boarded a yacht, within Shiloh’s fleet of boats called “The Kingdom Fleet”, to realize his ultimate goal of spreading the word of God on a global scale.

The truth is, Sandford’s Shiloh Colony was incredibly successful, thriving in population and new membership, until sickness and death became commonplace among the commune. Frank Weston Sandford had received notoriety across the country for being a renown faith healer, so when Shiloh Colony members became sick with smallpox, typhoid, diphtheria, and/or died – the cult he was leading started falling apart. People began leaving the sect in numbers so large he had to ‘stop the bleed’, so to speak. This is right around the time he was given this revelation from God that he needs to take his mission-work to the open ocean – to spread God’s word globally by means of a fleet of Yachts.

Every single chosen member of this crew would have obeyed the self-titled “Elijah” to a fault. They would have died for him, and as time would eventually tell – some of them did. They all signed the Loyalty creed and they all lived by it, without fault or failure and if they did happen to falter they accepted the consequences on Frank Weston Sandford’s terms because he was the embodiment of “Elijah” and “King David”. He was “The Living God”.

The Holy Ghost and Us Society was incorporated at the very start of the Shiloh Colony endeavor as “The Kingdom Corporation”. Frank Weston Sandford had a vision of proselytizing the world with a fleet of yachts he would sail under the flag of “The Kingdom Yacht Club”. The fleet was comprised of a number of sizeable sailing vessels as well as a small fishing boat named “The Ripple”. Among the larger of the yachts were; The Wanderer, which was an almost identical replica of a slave trading ship with the exact same name; The Kingdom – a barquentine schooner (meaning it had at least 3 masts) that could easily accommodate 60 crew and a bulk of the supplies necessary to support the global mission at hand of the entire trans-oceanic fleet; and The Coronet – which was a world renown racing yacht, the flagship of the entire fleet, and the yacht Frank Sandford and his family called ‘home’. The Coronet was able to carry 30 passengers comfortably. The size difference between The Kingdom and The Coronet would be akin to comparing a Tractor Trailer Truck to a Ferrari. The Kingdom was a beast, able to accommodate large amounts of people and supplies simultaneously, but she was not fast. The Coronet was really fast but she wasn’t able to hold as much. That said, Sandford made sure she was decked out with a large harp he was learning to play, a bunch of taxidermy accessories for his planned hunting and fishing endeavors, and a taxidermist to make use of these accessories.

The undertaking to spread the word of God was an unusual one by normal missionary standards. Frank Sandford’s vision was to sail along the coastline of specific islands and countries, but not to make landfall at any. Instead, the crew aboard each vessel would essentially partake in the practice of “intercessory prayer”. Meaning, the people on board would pray for the people on land to receive the word of God and to be moved in a way that would provoke conversion. Simply put, The Kingdom Yacht Club fleet would do drive-by’s of coastal communities around the world, blaring music they played on brass instruments from their respective yachts, and praying for those on land to find their way to God through these efforts.

There were ‘Holy Ghost and Us Society’ land-based missionary outposts in a small number of places around the world, one of which was in Jerusalem, Palestine. From this Jerusalem outpost, during the time The Kingdom Yacht Club was sailing the world, word was received that Shiloh member Florence Whittaker, the wife of one of the missionary ministers, wanted to return to the U.S. with her children, regardless if her minister husband wanted to return with her. So Sandford ordered the Barquentine Kingdom to pick up everyone from the Palestine mission outpost and bring them home to Maine. Mrs. Whittaker had no complaints about her experience aboard The Kingdom until it arrived at the Maine coast and she was not allowed to disembark. Sandford refused to let anyone off the yachts and demanded she get back together again with her husband. She and her children were kept as prisoners aboard the Kingdom until a court order demanding her release was put in place.

This was only the start of Sandford’s “Kingdom Fleet” legal disasters.

After the release of Mrs. Whittaker and her children she pursued legal action against Frank Sandford on the grounds of ‘forcible detention’. In response, he sailed away and avoided being served by refusing to come close enough to land for the authorities to hand him the legal papers necessary to begin the process of holding him accountable. The news of his evasion – like much of Sandford’s history with Shiloh and The Holy Ghost and Us Society – made headlines in newspapers across the country.

This is a great time to highlight that Shiloh was the largest bible school in the world. Sandford sought out new students and members from all over the globe and he’d been doing so for many years by this point. He wanted the attention because he needed to get the word out to every corner of the globe that God made Shiloh to be the epicenter of his work here on Earth – and to send donations to help him achieve that goal, of course. News media followed Sandford. People wanted to know what was going on with the Shiloh Colony and its leader. In his time, Frank Weston Sandford was a celebrity.

In his quest to flee from the law he decided to send The Kingdom to Africa to set up a missionary outpost and he would lead The Coronet to Greenland to do the same. So, he gathered 70 members of his sect and split them among the two yachts. The Coronet could only hold around 30 people comfortably so the rest were sent aboard the Barkentine Kingdom; that slower bulkier member of the fleet. Bad times hit fairly soon after their journey began when The Kingdom crashed off the coast of West Africa and Sandford had to race The Coronet down to where the crew was. Long story short, all stranded members of The Kingdom were boarded onto the Coronet – and this is a decision that could very well be considered “the beginning of the end”.

There were too many people on board the Coronet – double the maximum capacity of the racing yacht – and not enough provisions to keep everyone healthy. Food and water became scarce very quickly but Sandford claimed to have heard the voice of God tell him to “Continue” so that’s what he did; he pointed The Coronet back toward Greenland despite all of the hardship the crew was facing when that decision was made. On the way to Greenland The Coronet passed numerous ships that could have helped with providing food, water, meat, and vegetables – necessities to keeping a crew healthy. Sandford refused to stop and refused help all but one time, when a passing ship was able to offer food, but not fruits or vegetables. Scurvy soon set in and people were, literally, starving to death. Sandford told the crew God told him he was not to stop at U.S. or Canadian ports, not mentioning as a part of his messaging – that he was a wanted man in the U.S. due to the “forcible detention” case of Mrs. Whittaker and her children, at the very least.

The Coronet had weathered a significant number of really bad storms and because of that she was battered and in super rough shape. Her hand-powered water pump needed to be manned 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For the longest time, Sandford himself did not help out with the manning of this pump. It was always a bunch of other men. Men who were expending energy they didn’t have by burning calories their body was not taking in, and without a dependable water source to keep them hydrated. This was a disaster through and through. The entire crew – all members except Sandford and his family – were severely rationed from what food was available on the yacht, and were forced into fasting whenever Sandford deemed it necessary.

Sandford, on the other hand, made sure his family ate at least twice a day – and always food that was different than what the crew ate. He and his family had their meals prepared and served to them while all other members were starving, suffering from scurvy, and wasting away by the day. He did, however, join the water pump crew toward the end of his time on The Coronet after 6 crew members, all men, died of either scurvy, starvation, or both. When on land, 3 more succumbed to their battles with scurvy and starvation.

Before the Greenland excursion was finished there had been at least 1 “quiet mutiny” aboard, and it’s important to mention because George Hughey, one of the men who developed scurvy during this trip and who was aware of his impending death, begged Frank Sandford – Elijah, The Living God, the reason George was aboard The Coronet spreading the reach of God’s messaging to all points of the globe their little yacht could carry them… the one person on the face of the Earth with direct communication to God itself – to please ask God to heal him so he may continue on with this missionary work. He knew he was dying. He knew Frank Sandford as a genuine, bona fide, world renown – by this point – ‘faith healer’. He was begging for Sandford to ask God to spare his life – and Sandford’s response was that George had offended Sandford, and in doing so, offended God; it was out of his hands, and God will deal with him harshly, just as he deserves.

George Hughey died shortly thereafter.

Sandford’s death toll at sea was 6 but 3 more were eventually transported off The Coronet – a couple by legal force – to the closest marine hospital where they eventually died of scurvy and complications of starvation. One man, John Bolster, who was a member of The Holy Ghost and Us Society for over 11 years, 5 of them at sea, had weighed 165 pounds on a normal day, weighed only 85 pounds on the day of his death.

The End of Shiloh

The end of Frank Weston Sandford’s reign came when he was convicted of manslaughter for the death of George Hughey. Sandford refused legal counsel, so he represented himself during his trial. He spent almost no time cross examining any of the prosecution’s witnesses, and he made it clear he was relying on God to give him the judgment he deserves – which wound up being 10 years in a federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sandford was found guilty of manslaughter with points being made that he refused to seek help or to accept help when it was available to his crew during their time of need. He refused to anchor at visible land during many points along the journey telling his captain “how can we make port with these traitors on board?”; and, just as in Leander Bartlett’s case, he refused to offer prayer to help George Hughey during his final days. Shiloh was a faith-healing community. To members of the Shiloh Colony prayer – healing directly from God – was far more powerful than medicine. George Hughey was treated with the utmost cruelty in the clutch of his dying days.

Shiloh changed hands many times over the years after Sandford went to prison, eventually detaching from the church he founded, completely, in 1998. It’s now a completely independently functioning non-denominational church serving local families within the community.

Sandford eventually separated himself, physically, from his own creation and settled in a rural area of New York where he spread the word of God to a much smaller audience. He died without notice from the news media and he’d been buried in an undisclosed location for a few weeks before word was let out publicly that he had passed on March 4, 1948.

The post [1897] Shiloh: The Cult in Durham first appeared on Maine Ghost Hunters.

[1835] The Last Execution in Kennebec County

Maine Ghost Hunters — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 22:24:56 +0000

Joseph J. Sager and Phoebe Sager

Joseph and Phoebe Sager were a middle aged couple residing in the city of Gardiner when the unfortunate incident involving Phoebe’s death, occurred. Phoebe was a 48 year old milliner and dressmaker at the time of her death, and 36 year old Joseph was a saddle and harness maker, and a shop worker. While Phoebe was often sick, she was also known to have a drinking problem that wasn’t at all under control. On the day of her death she fell violently ill after drinking a wine and egg mixture Joseph prepared for her, to have with her breakfast. A local doctor was summoned to help her, but despite his best efforts to help her over the course of the following 6+ hours, he could do nothing to alleviate the excruciatingly painful episodes of unstoppable vomiting, including “bloody vomit”, and she eventually died; the date of her death was October 5, 1834.

Phoebe repeatedly told people who were present with her, during her final few hours, that her husband made her drink the wine concoction. He insisted she drink it, and finish it. This caused the physician to become immediately suspicious. He then noticed a white powder residue in the wine decanter she drank from that morning, and also in the container that held the cream that was added to the wine. His suspicions would eventually lead to a startling discovery.

Another very important person in the murder case against Joseph Sager was a young woman named Ann Rafter. Ann Rafter was a Catholic servant of the Sager household at the time of Phoebe’s untimely passing. During this time in Maine’s history anti-Catholic sentiment was at its height. Catholics were persecuted, ostracized, vilified, and openly discriminated against.

Irish Catholic, Ann Rafter, became the principal witness in the case.

Joseph Sager accused Ann, their house servant, of poisoning Phoebe and there was rumored to be an actual confession by Ann, herself, to that effect but it was never found in any of the documentation or evidence.

But… … another compelling rumor was floating around that she never went to confession again after the trial.

Determining Phoebe was murdered

After Mrs. Sager died her body was sent off for an autopsy. The Doctor present at the time of her death had collected the cream container that had the white residue in it and requested the medical examiner send the contents of Mrs. Sager’s stomach to be analyzed, along with the residue, to Professor Cleaveland at Bowdoin Medical School.

Both contained arsenic.

Trial and Execution

The case of the ‘State of Maine vs. Joseph J. Sager’ started on Tuesday October 23, 1834 when Sager pleaded “not guilty” to the charges of murdering his wife.

The facts of the case were presented as follows;

Joseph Sager, aged 36, was accused of killing his 48 year old wife – Phoebe – by poisoning part of her breakfast – a drink he prepared for her made of wine, an egg, and white sugar. The visiting Dr. sent to treat Phoebe noticed the wine carafe she drank from at breakfast had a white sediment in it. The cream container on the dining table also had this sediment in it so the Dr. saved it and had it tested. The sediment was found to be arsenic, leading to a charge of murder against her husband Joseph.

Two Judges presided over the trial simultaneously, as Maine law at the time stated if the life of a person was at stake during a trial it was to be done with 2 Judges sitting on the bench. The 2 Judges were; Chief Justice Nathan Weston and Judge Albion Paris, who had also served as Maine’s 5^th Governor.

Prosecuting attorneys on behalf of the state were; Attorney General – Nathaniel Clifford (a future Justice of the US Supreme Court) and County Prosecuting Attorney – James W. Bradbury (a future US Senator).

The Legal Defense Attorneys on behalf of Joseph J. Sager were; the Honorable Peleg Sprague, who was the Primary Defense attorney and a current, sitting, US Senator from Maine, at the time; Frederick Allen; and George W. Bacheldor. Court proceedings were held in the old South Church in Augusta, Maine. Oliver Bean of Readfield was the jury foreman.

Joseph J. Sager was found “GUILTY” of the murder of his wife Phoebe Sager by a jury of his peers on Monday October 27, 1834, just 22 short days after her passing. Judge Weston sentenced Sager to death by hanging with the date of the execution to be carried out on Friday January 2, 1835 at the corner of State Street and Winthrop Street in Augusta.

The Trial was a full-house sensation every single day. The courthouse was mobbed with people and no seat was left open. The balcony was full, too.

Joseph J. Sager collapsed into his chair when the “guilty” verdict was read. He was sweating, shaking, and sort of hyperventilating. His representation filed a motion for a new trial based on the claim that material evidence had been suppressed at the trial but the motion was denied

The day of Joseph Sager’s execution, Friday January 2, 1835, was a very cold, snowy, and windy one.

The hanging took place at the gallows in Augusta on the corner of Winthrop and State Streets near the Southwest corner of the jail. Sager was Llkely walked from the jail, across the street to “Winthrop Street Square” where the gallows was erected.

His very last words were “Gentlemen, I am innocent” with a little hitch in the word “innocent” when they tightened the rope around his neck.

The Controversy

The controversy surrounding Joseph J. Sager’s execution had a lot to do with his persistent claims of innocence. Sager claimed his innocence until the very end, even blaming Ann Rafter, the family’s Irish servant for the murder of Phoebe; anti-catholic rhetoric was all the rage among certain political groups during this time, and so blaming an Irish Catholic girl was seen as quite the tactic of desperation. His claims of innocence persisted even though he had been caught pre-meditating his wife’s death on a number of occasions. One example of this was when he told a Kennebec River Steamboat crew member he knew that he’d be a widow soon. Not only did he say this with an odd sort of exciting anticipation, he actually handed this friend a hand written list of women he thought he might be interested in once his wife passes.

Another curious bit of circumstantial evidence that didn’t bode well for his case was that Joseph encouraged Phoebe to drink all of the liquid mixture he mixed for her, telling her “the goodness being all at the bottom” in the carafe the arsenic was found. The only witness to this act, however, was by their servant, Ann Rafter which, of course, Sager had a vested interest in discrediting. Another subject of controversy was that most newspaper articles and historical documentation said the Dr. who tended to Phoebe, as she lay dying, took a container with the arsenic in it with the intent of having it tested and studied by proper authorities, but curiously, there was also the rarer mention that it was Ann Rafter who was said to have carried out this deed. And one doesn’t likely need to be told how much of a conflict of interest it would be if Rafter actually *was* the one in possession of the carafe with the white powder in it, as she was considered the prosecution’s star witness and her influential testimony led to the hanging of Joseph J. Sager.

The Hanging of Joseph Sager

The gallows was constructed near the Southwest corner of the Kennebec County jail. There were between 8,000 and 12,000 people present to view the hanging. To give you a rough idea of what this might look like, in person; in 1830 the population of Augusta was 3,980. In 1840 the population of Augusta was 5,314. This was 1835. So, this singular area of the city of Augusta was a convergence point of 8,000 to 12,000 people – which is easily two, to three times, the population of the entire city at the time – all standing in one small space at the same time.

That day the weather was horrible – snowy, windy, cold, and raw. The crowd was belligerent – men were drinking until ‘plastered’ and treated this execution like it was some sort of entertainment. There were also lots of women, elderly, sick, and children present. People traveled from great distances and spent the night to see the hanging.

There were armed soldiers present – the Augusta Light Infantry – surrounding the gallows. The day was chaotic and at many times, a dangerous place to be. A sea of 8,000-12,000 people pushing forward toward the gallows, to the point the soldiers had to get under the platform for safety. In one instance, someone hollered “FIRE!” which caused the mob to panic.

Militia situated themselves to guard the gallows and then the Sheriff and 2 deputies went to Sager’s cell to bring him to the hanging spot. The Sheriff saluted Joseph Sager at his cell – it’s said to make him feel better about this situation. Joseph didn’t put up any kind of fight and when they led him to the gallows he was carrying the noose on his own right arm.

When this all started just 3 and a half months earlier in October of 1834, Sager was ‘built’ physically. He was a man with physical stature. But, by the day of his hanging he’d lost so much weight he was almost unrecognizable.

Sager’s last words proclaimed his innocence. He wrote them down but had to have been in a state of utter panic when doing so, and so the words were just a mash-up of incoherent gibberish basically pleading for his life. They were read by Reverend Benjamin Tappan who then turned to the crowd and warned them, basically, not to live a life that would lead to this. To look at Joseph Sager and to understand that life choices can have serious life consequences.

Joseph Sager’s mother was in the courthouse begging Governor Dunlap and his advisors to stay the execution, to no avail. Where they were situated inside the courthouse offered them a vantage point with a good view of the gallows when the execution was taking place. Joseph firmly believed his mother’s pleas would save his life.

A Quaker from The Society of Friends in Fairfield also made his way into the Governor’s presence to beg for Sager’s life but the Governor was too busy watching the crowd and the gallows that he didn’t even make eye contact with the gentleman.

George W. Stanley was the Kennebec County Sheriff at the time, and he was responsible to drop Sager where he stood on the platform.

Stanley led Sager to the platform, let his last words be spoken, then put a black hood over Sager, adjusted the noose, took his hand and humanely said “goodbye”. When Sager proclaimed his innocence Stanley told him “this is now a matter between you and your god”. Stanley then walked down the gallows steps and slashed the rope holding Sager in place.

When the trap door was released the words “sickening thud” were used to describe the ‘drop’ and it’s thought he died instantly.

Sager dropped over 10 feet and then just hung, twirling around lifeless, as people gawked – for 20 minutes before his friends and family were allowed to cut his body down and carry it off to be given a proper burial. Dr. Franklin Gage declared him dead. He was lowered onto a horse sled and driven as fast as possible to Hallowell.

The Mystery

Joseph Sager’s body was rushed off in a hurry, to Hallowell, where his friends had a master plan of electrocuting him back to life. The concept they planned to use on him was a much misunderstood version of “galvanism”. Galvanism is named after an Italian doctor named Luigi Galvani – a man who hooked up a dead frog to an electrical charge, and witnessed the legs moving. It was the basis for the plotline in Frankenstein when the mad scientist brings the monster to life by electrocuting it into reanimation.

These efforts failed, of course, and Sager was buried in a secret location on an island in one of the ponds in Winthrop. 50 Years later, January 2, 1885 a newspaper article printed by the Daily Kennebec Journal specified Joseph Sager was buried on Horse-Shoe Island in Cobbosseecontee Pond.

But still, there were people who persisted in their belief that he was brought back to life and ushered out of the state by friends & family, escaping to Texas to live out the remainder of his natural life.

Some say if you go to the spot Sager was hung and you ask aloud “Sager, for what were you hanged?” a voice would reply “nothing”. So this question of his innocence or guilt was clearly in the collective conscious of the local community.

This hanging bothered people and was ultimately the last execution ever conducted in Kennebec County.

The post [1835] The Last Execution in Kennebec County first appeared on Maine Ghost Hunters.

The Haunting of Ghost Road

Maine Ghost Hunters — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:08:57 +0000

The Haunting of Ghost Road

Introduction
This cemetery has a history so haunted it’s actually on a road called “Ghost Road”. We’re taking you with us as we explore Springfield, Maine’s Cushman Cemetery.

Why it’s called “Ghost Road”
The history of this haunting isn’t exactly clear. No one is really sure why it’s haunted, or who haunts it, but there have been too many experiences by too many people to deny something weird happens out here.

First – we have the name of the road it’s on and how it got it’s name. The Ghost Road came into its name, it’s thought, because of this little blond haired girl that went missing and her body was never recovered.

There are 2 versions of this story floating around. The first is that the little girl was playing out near the road and a woman known by townspeople as the “Green Eyed Witch” stopped her horse and carriage to talk to the child. She beckoned the child to come closer and asked her get into the carriage. The little girl told the old lady she wasn’t allowed to go off with strangers and ran home, telling her parents when she got there. Her parents warned her to stay away from the woman, known as “The Green Eyed Witch” but some time later the girl was outside playing in the area of the road again, and when it was time to come home, she was nowhere to be found.

She and the “Green Eyed Witch” disappeared forever.

The other story goes like this – The little girl was out playing on her bike and the “Green Eyed Witch” drove up to her in a car and asked her if she wanted a ride home. The girl kindly refused, but a short time later, playing out on that same road, the girl went missing, and the “Green Eyed Witch” was never seen again, either.

The older generation will tell you they see an apparition of the girl, always on the road, and always at a distance. When she’s approached she disappears before anyone can make contact with her or talk to her in any way.

Reports by people in more recent times say she’s a blond haired little girl who’s seen riding her bike on the road. But the same thing happens when she’s approached. You can’t get too close before she disappears.

The Haunting of Cushman Cemetery

Cushman Cemetery has quite a haunted history, and while no one really knows why, there are few who have been here who have witnessed the weirdness who can deny it has a paranormal edge to it.

One of the earlier accounts of odd happenings occurred in the 1960’s when some of the civil war graves were unearthed. The townspeople say the graves were mysteriously opened, but a more logical assumption was that someone dug up the bodies to retrieve Civil War artifacts the soldiers may have been buried with, such as guns, bayonets, or medals. There was never any definite conclusion as to how the graves of these soldiers were opened, so the mystery remains to this day.

That said, there have been personal experiences documented by a wide range of witnesses who claim this cemetery is definitely haunted.

The first was the experience of 2 young boys who accidentally found the Cushman Cemetery off the side of the road. In a state of disrepair and really overgrown, it was in pretty bad shape. So they decided they’d clean it up.

They returned at a later date and brought garbage bags and rakes and things to clean up the area to make it look nice. At one point they came across this teddy bear over a grave. It had been there so long it was tangled in a mess of plants and weeds. They tugged it out of the entanglement and set it off to the side while they continued to rake and pick up trash. When they left, they forgot to put the bear back where they found it. When they returned the next time they looked for it, first thing, so they could return it to the grave site, but quickly realized it wasn’t where they put it.

When they went over to the grave they originally encountered it, they found it in the exact same position and circumstance they had seen it the first time. Entangled in weeds and plants, sitting beside this gravestone like it hadn’t been touched or moved in ages. After seeing the bear in this position, and knowing they had moved it the last time they were there, it freaked them out. They ran out of the cemetery area and out to the road. Just as they were making a mad dash for the road they heard a voice holler out from the cemetery “Help Me!”

They never went back.

Another account is of an older gentleman who was charged with conducting a land survey with a bunch of other men. Each member of the survey crew was assigned a specific area in and around Cushman Cemetery.

One man, in particular, was in charge of the area just off to the side of the cemetery and out of sight of the others. As he was doing his work he noticed the wind started to pick up and a storm was coming in fast. Before he knew it he was completely overwhelmed with darkness and leaves blowing around, the wind whipping things up from the ground, and branches flying all over the place. Clearly it was time to get back to the work truck.

So he headed out of the area and the closer he got to the road he noticed the storm was making its way out of the area.

When he reached the other guys on the job he commented about that quick storm that had just passed through, and they had no idea what he was talking about. They told him it’s been just as bright and sunny a few minutes ago as it was right then.

And for a more recent encore –

There’s a report of a witness account within the past few years where a couple of women were out hunting for gravestones for a genealogy project they were working on. We’re not sure if they found what they were looking for but when they came back out onto the road, after they were finished, one of them looked over into the brush and saw a little blond haired girl watching them.

They attempted to talk to her, but she didn’t talk back. She just watched them.

Noticing the girl was dressed in clothes that seemed a bit dated, they grew increasingly uneasy about the situation. After several attempts of trying to communicate it became clear there was something not right, here, and they fled the area in a very quick way, convinced they had just been in the presence of the ghost of the little girl said to haunt “Ghost Road”.

That’s basically what we know about the Cushman Cemetery on Ghost Road in Springfield, Maine.

There have been accounts of people hearing a little girl crying, and hearing their names called out by unseen people, but you can basically get the gist of why folks find this cemetery to be so haunted.

If you’d like to visit the Cushman Cemetery we ask that you do so with respect. Be curious, but be respectful, first. A haunted cemetery is not a paranormal playground. It’s sacred ground where people are buried, and we ask that you keep that in mind above all else.

The Ghost Road is located on Route 6 in Springfield and the cemetery itself is set off the side of the road. Not entirely obvious, but if you look, you can find it.

The post The Haunting of Ghost Road first appeared on Maine Ghost Hunters.

Mt. Hunger Massacre [1848]

Maine Ghost Hunters — Tue, 20 Mar 2018 16:57:28 +0000

Mt. Hunger Massacre [1848]

Introduction

We’re heading out to the mid-coast town of Edgecomb, Maine. Population 1,200, give or take. There’s a ton of history in this sleepy little community and while most of it’s celebrated, there are some events the locals have lost through time. In this case… have lost on the side of a mountain. A gruesome massacre leaving 6 dead, buried in graves that were dug before the murders took place. These days the story is scarcely remembered by the older generation, but the rumor about town is the killings were done with either a gun or a knife. We’re about to take you back to the 1800’s and tell you exactly what the press and first person witnesses had to say happened at the top … of Mount Hunger.

Historical Information

Mount Hunger is more of a hill than a Mountain, but since it’s the highest point in the area it’s known by the locals as “Mount Hunger”.

Mount Hunger was settled during at time when England needed masts for their ships, so they dropped people off in the New World to cut timber and serve the crown. People originally landed, quite literally, in a place called “Salt Cove” here in Edgecomb, but they quickly made a permanent settlement of houses up on the highest peak in town, and that’s on top of Mt. Hunger. Actually “Salt Marsh Cove” (I added this fact later, on 11-7-2017)

Up on Mt. Hunger there was very little tillable soil. As a matter of fact, when settlers started building houses up here there were no basements dug because they couldn’t get that far down into the dirt before they hit something hard and impenetrable. The people who settled the top of Mt. Hunger were a sort of 2^nd generation settler in this region. By the time they got here there was no more land available to buy down by the water, so they had to buy wherever was available and whatever they could afford. These people were foresters and farmers, and that’s important because they’re used to living off the land. They probably weren’t used to making a living off other people, other than selling what they grew or cut.

These are the people that wound up with the land on top of Mt. Hunger.

As already stated, the land lacked planting soil, and so you can bet there weren’t any big trees up there either. This is where the tragedy starts to form.

The earliest settlers landed here by order of King George – be it George II or George the III. The point is, they were here before the Revolutionary war. Which means well before 1776.

By the time this next generation of settlers of Foresters and Farmers had arrived, the plantable land was taken, and all the large pines had been cut and sent off to England to be used as masts in the King’s Navy. So, the people who bought land up on Mt. Hunger were either highly capable at some sort of trade or business that allowed for them to sustain themselves by the work of those in the lower lands, say, for food as an example – since this area *is* called Mt. Hunger – or they were very poor and sustained themselves by means that never really allowed them to get comfortable, let alone “get ahead”. They were always in a life or death game of survival up here by the time the mid 1800’s rolled around.

It’s these circumstances that brought 1 man to commit a travesty unto his own family that was so horrible we’re sure it’s left a permanent mark on this land.

The Tragedy

On May 11, 1848 George W. Pinkham took an axe to his wife and his 4 children. The oldest was 11. The youngest was 1. George’s mother is the one who found them all. They were all in their beds. The children’s eyes were closed and they were all pretty much decapitated. Their heads were still connected, but just barely. Their eyes were all closed, which made the investigators think they were all sleeping when they were struck. They never saw it coming.

George’s Wife was found half dressed, laying in bed in the same general condition, with her head nearly severed – but her eyes open. George was found dead also, having slit his own throat from ear to ear with a razor blade.

The Reason(s)

You’re probably asking “Why”. Why would someone do this to their family?

Some say they were starving to death up on Mt. Hunger. Some say George, and for that matter, his wife Lydia both had ongoing issues with mental instability. Others held firm to the notion that both George and Lydia were firm believers in a “Second Coming of Christ” religion known as “Millerism”.

Accordingly, they would have believed that suffering here on Earth meant a sure place in Heaven, and George was making martyrs of his family by moving them into the afterlife before Christ arrived on this Earthly plane – giving them eternal salvation.

The Neighbors

It was a tight little community up on the hill… and after reading these religious claims in the newspapers, as the reason for the murders, Pinkham’s neighbors – from the Free Will Baptist Church – came out in droves to denounce the notion, fully and emphatically.

They adamantly stated that not only was he not a believer in Millerism, he wasn’t a believer in anything. He was, as they said, “an infidel”. They even went so far as to voluntarily write a sort of Affadavit to attest to the fact that he was not, at all, an Adventist, which is a believer in the second coming of Christ. But that he was, in the past few years, not himself – claiming him to have been having fits of insanity for stretches of time.

Back then people were involuntarily committed to mental institutions for acts of insanity, including for holding opposing belief structures and denying the bible – which Pinkham did, publicly and without remorse. So we have to wonder just how truthful the “insanity” claim really was, considering they were all Baptist, themselves.

They also cleared up some more misinformation in the original telling of the murders as was printed in various newspapers.

George was originally stated to be a ship carpenter, making it seem as though he worked under someone else. But this was not true. He was, as the neighbors stated, a “Ship Master” – which we’re assuming to mean “Captain”, since documentation and genealogic research has him titled as “Captain”.

George was a prosperous Captain and Lydia came from a highly respectable family.

They weren’t starving up on “Hunger Hill”, as some call it today. At least not because they didn’t have a choice. They were eating a very strange and strict diet because George had taken to believe that the “regular” foods people eat cause depression and ‘destroy’ us. So his options were to starve or be destroyed by the food he and his family were forced to eat – because he couldn’t easily obtain the foods his strict diet required – or to take their lives himself. And, so that’s what he did.

The Wife

Somewhere along the line it was proposed that both George and Lydia suffered from bouts of insanity over the course of the last few years of their lives, but no examples of insanity were given And the reasons for suggesting insanity could be as simple as “George changed his diet and decided he didn’t believe in God or the bible anymore”.

Lydia was known to be a God Fearing “perfectionist”. Worshipping the Lord as was her duty to do so.

One member of Edgecomb’s selectboard actually suggested that George was fine until he married Lydia, and that his instability was caused by her religious fanaticism. Further suggesting he committed this heinous act of murdering his entire family because Lydia led him to do so.

Did Lydia give her permission for her own death, and the slaughter of her family?

A suicide note was found at the scene of the crime, and the first part was determined to have been written in a woman’s handwriting. The note wasn’t signed but those involved believed it to be the handwriting of Lydia. The last part was signed by George. The letter stated: [READ SUICIDE NOTE which is attached]

So, why are we blogging about this hill?

We’re blogging about Mount Hunger because, for years, hunters have heard strange sounds of screaming and crying from – what sounds like – little kids, and women.

People have walked the trails and woods up here and have had strange encounters with strong feelings of being watched, or having feelings of dread, suddenly and without apparent reason.

We have even been told of one person having a direct sighting of a strange looking apparition which happened ahead of them on the trail. The apparition appearing solid but looking not fully formed – something between a person and something else… something they couldn’t really describe. They stood an uncomfortable distance apart from each other and after being distracted by their dog, to look away, when they looked back, the figure was gone.

Conclusion

We hope you found our presentation of Edgecomb’s Mount Hunger to be informative and we encourage you to walk the River to River trail and experience these woods for yourself.

We think the burial plots of the 6 deceased are up there on the his hill somewhere. It’s not a family tomb as requested in their suicide note, and it would take some searching around to locate the graves, but if you find them, please take photos and video and reach out to us. Let us know where they are so we can pay our respects.

Remember to honor the dead in this area. They lived in a time, and with hardships, we cannot imagine. Their deaths are a testament to that fact. There is no judgment for what was done. That time has long past and it isn’t our place to do so.

The post Mt. Hunger Massacre [1848] first appeared on Maine Ghost Hunters.

Sarah Ware and the Haunting of Silver Lake

Maine Ghost Hunters — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 17:11:02 +0000

Sarah Ware and the Haunting of Silver Lake

Introduction
Over 100 years ago a murder took place here that was so brutal its victim has never been able to rest. Today we tell you the story of Sarah Ware and the haunting on the shores of Silver Lake.

The Story
On the night September 17, 1898 Sarah Ware was making her way home by foot through the fields and streets of the tiny town of Bucksport when tragedy struck and she was never seen alive again. 2 weeks later she was found in an open field. She had been so beaten and brutalized her head fell off her body when it was picked up to be put into a wagon to be transported into town.

Although there were suspicions that one of the local men in town was a prime candidate for Sarah’s murder, the case against him took so much time to bring to trial that key evidence was lost and witnesses recanted their stories against him. The case against him was dropped and Sarah’s murder was never solved.

Who was Sarah Ware?
Sarah was a 59 year old divorcee in 1898, a time when failed marriages were blamed entirely on the wife. She had grown children who had married and moved away, an ex-husband and his extended family – all who still lived in the same town as her, and no family support structure to help her through the hard times of being a single, financially destitute, woman with no established means to support herself.

Life was very hard for a single woman with limited means. Sarah depended on her neighbors in a tiny town where everyone knew each other, during a time when being associated with someone who was divorced wasn’t exactly great for their social reputation.

Sarah moved to Maine from Nova Scotia and her ex-husband’s family was actually from the town of Bucksport, and highly regarded within the community. So even though she had lived there a number of years, raising their children, reestablishing herself as a single woman was doing so among her husband’s peers, more than her own.

That said, Sarah made her way as best she could. She took odd jobs cleaning people’s houses and providing childcare services to whoever would hire her.

Mysteries of the Murder
Who killed Sarah Ware? That’s what everyone wants to know. Who killed this woman and why?

If you read write-ups in blog entries or websites that tell her story, you’ll likely read that Sarah was a “woman of the night” or a “prostitute” but in historical documentation this isn’t supported all that strongly – or at all, for that matter. In highly researched documentation you’ll find that Sarah was a hard working woman who was prone to getting taken advantage of financially, and being stiffed for the jobs she’d done for people in town – mostly men.

On the night of her murder it was thought she was out and about collecting payment for the work she’d done in the previous week, and she’d arrived at one particular residence where she encountered trouble. This was the Treworgy residence. It was the home of a divorced father whose ex-wife left him and left their 2 young girls behind for him to raise. Sarah had worked here, at length, before quitting for not being paid, and some say, because the man of the house kept hitting on her and she wasn’t interested.

William Treworgy was known to be a guy with a really short fuse, a hot temper, and he would have been the last stop on Sarah’s way home. He also became “Suspect Number 1” when a bloody hammer with his initials were found with a bloody tarp, and witnesses came forward and told police he paid them to move Sarah’s body.

The Haunting of Silver Lake
So why would Silver Lake be haunted?

One of the more obvious reasons this lake might be haunted is because it’s man-made and was put into place after a cemetery had already been established on the land that’s now covered with water. The graves were supposed to have been removed and reburied up on a hill overlooking this lake in the 1930’s, but there’s been this undying rumor that all the grave markers were moved, but not necessarily all of the bodies.

That said, more to the point of this blog entry; Sarah Ware’s murdered body was found not too far from the water’s edge, and you can walk a trail from Silver Lake that leads you closer to the exact location. But more importantly, her headless body was originally buried in a pauper’s grave at Silver Lake.

The story is that her body was moved along with all the others, and placed in Oak Hill Cemetery in town, to rest for eternity behind the graves of her mother-in-law and father-in-law in her ex-husband’s family plot, along with their daughter. But not everyone is convinced this actually happened, since her original place of burial was less prominent than those with headstones and clearly visible grave markers. There have been many witnesses who have come forward over the years who have stated they’ve seen her wandering the edge of the lake, or simply gazing out over it, still waiting for her killer to be brought to justice.

Conclusion
Sarah Ware’s murder has been officially, and legally, considered unsolved, but the facts of the case still stand:

William Treworgy was the prime suspect because;

He knew Sarah Ware very well, given that she worked as a sort of live-in nanny for his children for an extended period of time, and they didn’t part ways on particularly amicable terms.

After her body was discovered, a bloody tarp was found next to a bloody hammer with his initials carved into it. And since Sarah’s head was clearly struck repeatedly with a blunt object, the hammer became a primary piece of evidence.

Witnesses came forward and told the police that he paid them to help him move Sarah’s body

By the time the case against him went to trial – years later – the sheriff and undertaker had already died, and a bunch of witnesses had either moved or had died.

A couple of those key witnesses were even thought to have been murdered before the trial. One was actually beaten to death.

Sarah’s head was of the utmost importance to the case so it was kept as evidence in a lock box and basically forgotten about for the next 80 years. Someone came across it in evidence lock-up and the discovery caused quite a stir amongst the present day population. It was finally allowed to be reunited with her body in her final resting place. The trouble is, Sarah’s head is thought to have been buried in the wrong location – a original place her body was buried – in a pauper’s grave. But, it’s thought her body was moved to another location within that same cemetery and her head was actually buried in a family plot in a completely different cemetery.

It’s no wonder why Sarah Ware might not be at rest, and why she could be haunting the edge of Silver Lake.

If you’d like to visit Silver Lake to try and catch of glimpse of Sarah for yourself, THIS IS HOW YOU GET THERE:

Put 362 Central Street – Bucksport, Maine into your GPS.

The road to Silver Lake Trails can be found just before this building.

DIRECTIONS

From Main Street in Bucksport, turn onto Central Street (beside MacLeod’s Restaurant and across from Fort Knox Park Inn). Follow Central Street approximately 1.8 miles and turn left into the parking area of Bucksport Public Works (362 Central Street). Follow signs for Silver Lake Trails to the left of the blue buildings and down a dirt drive to the parking area for the trail network. A kiosk with a trail map marks the trailhead.

The post Sarah Ware and the Haunting of Silver Lake first appeared on Maine Ghost Hunters.