doctor – 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.

[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.

[1884] The Murder at Fort Western

Maine Ghost Hunters — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 22:03:35 +0000

[1884] The Murder at Fort Western

On a cold November night in 1884, tragedy struck the city of Augusta, Maine when Police Officer Rufus R. Lishness, a dedicated servant of the law, was shot and killed while attempting to apprehend a suspect for disturbing the peace at a tenement called “Old Fort” on the east side of the Kennebec River (the old Fort Western). The perpetrator, Harry Burns, was apprehended an hour later and brought to justice. Officer Lishness left behind a grieving wife and four children, robbed of their husband and father by this senseless act of violence. The following is an account of “The Murder at Fort Western”.

Harry Burns and Rufus R. Lishness

At the time of the incident, Harry Burns was a 65-year-old man who was a prior patient at the National Soldiers Home at Togus and was addicted to the use of liquor. On November 11, 1884, he shot and killed Augusta Police Officer Rufus R. Lishness, as previously mentioned. Officer Lishness was responding to a disturbance call with another officer when they went to arrest Harry Burns. When they couldn’t gain access at the entrance, Officer Lishness shoved an unlocked window open and was about to climb into Harry Burns’ bedroom when Burns fired a shot at him, striking Lishness in the head. Lishness was able to walk to the police station with the help of another officer but soon afterward became unconscious, later dying of his wounds. His last words were “I did my duty, didn’t I?” It is unclear what led Harry Burns to murder Rufus Lishness, but his addiction to liquor may have played a role. Dedicated husband and father of 4, officer Rufus R. Lishness was a 45 year old, highly respected, man in the community. He was a table smoother, by trade, but had been put on the overnight police duty in the spring of 1883.

Brief History of Fort Western

Fort Western was built in 1754 during the French and Indian War as a British Colonial Outpost. It was built and maintained by the Howard Family. The fort was primarily built to encourage settlement along the Kennebec River region and to provide stores for the storehouse at Fort Halifax. Fort Western was commanded by Captain James Howard who had a unit of 23 men, including his four sons. In 1969, Fort Western was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and in 1973 it was listed as a National Historic Landmark. By 1767, the military had no use for Fort Western and it was decommissioned. In 1769, Captain James Howard bought Fort Western and 900 acres of surrounding land. He and his sons remodeled it into a residence and trading post. Fort Western was a central meeting point for early residents as far away as Hallowell. On September 23, 1775, Benedict Arnold and his troops stopped at Fort Western on their way to invading Quebec. They spent a week repairing the fort and loading supplies before continuing north. In 1810, William Howard, one of Captain James Howard’s sons, died and the fort was sold out of the family. It was made into a tenement house and the surrounding area became known for illegal activity and low-class behavior.

Breakdown of the Murder

At 3:00am on November 11, 1884, Mrs. Randall, a tenement renter in Fort Western, went to the police station to ask for help. Neighboring tenant, Harry Burns, had been making noise all night and her sick son was trying to sleep. She had already addressed the matter with Harry, but he had rudely dismissed her.

Officers Rufus R. Lishness and Arthur S. Baker accompanied Mrs. Randall back to the Fort. They tried to enter through the front door on the Bowman Street side, but it was locked or blocked. From inside, they heard Harry Burns say “Don’t come in here, Warren!” Warren Bruce was a cop who worked the day shift and was not present that night.

This is a great spot in the story to mention that it was pitch black ‘dark’ outside. It was 1884 and there was no exterior lighting present. Officer Lishness realized the front door was latched so he shimmied over to the window on the right side of the door, opened it up, and quickly popped his head and upper body inside. Without any warning whatsoever, he was shot and fell out of the window onto the ground with blood pouring out of his head.

Officer Arthur S. Baker ran to help him and asked if he’d been shot. It was so dark outside it made seeing the significance of the injury he’d just incurred, almost impossible. He helped Lishness get up off the ground and walk back to the police station. Lishness managed to walk without assistance for much of the way, but soon began to exhibit the effects of being shot in the head at close range. His face and right side of his body became paralyzed.

The last words Officer Lishness uttered before dying were “I did my duty, didn’t I?” A doctor was called and determined that a blood clot was causing issues. Lishness needed to get home as soon as possible, so a carriage was called to take him to his residence at Cushnoc Heights.

Officer Warren Bruce and Marshal Frank B. Farrington were called to arrest Harry Burns. They arrived, kicked in the outside door and then the interior bedroom door. They immediately saw Burns in bed with a gun pointed at the door. They wrestled him hand-to-hand to get the gun away while Mrs. Burns snuck out of bed and out of the room.

Harry refused to get dressed and officers said he was out of his mind with drunkenness and likely hallucinating. They put him in jail.

Officer Rufus Lishness died at 3:40pm the following afternoon.

Harry Burns’ Story

On Saturday, November 8, 1884, Harry made a plan to go to Boston on the following Monday, November 10th. He had plans to see a ‘Dr. Williams’ in Boston and was awaiting a letter from Togus giving him the go-ahead as he was still considered an “inmate” – or ‘patient’ – of the National Veteran’s Home (aka “Togus”). He needed a furlough to go to Boston and it had to be mailed to him. Harry asked Mr. Story, a local shopkeeper in town, to write a letter to Harry’s sergeant asking for the furlough.

Mr. Burns prepared for the trip by getting a haircut at a local place called Gannet’s where he told the barber about his plans to go to Boston, and then to Lowell to spend time with family before returning home to Augusta. He then went home and laid out his ‘good clothes’ in anticipation of the arrival of the requested furlough letter. But the letter didn’t arrive and he was panicking, stressed and anxious. He put his money in the pocket of a pair of pants that he hung on a chair near the window in his bedroom. He also set out a gun to give as a gift to his nephew in Lowell at that same window.

Harry’s reasoning for seeking help from a doctor in Boston was thought to be directly related to pain management regarding the battle injury he sustained during the Civil War, and to get help with detoxing from his alcohol addiction. However, having received no word from Togus that he could leave on furlough, Harry started drinking again at 4:00pm. He drank 2 gallons of his homemade brew between 4pm-12am and ate nothing throughout the entirety of this drinking binge.

At 7:00pm, Harry realized half his keg was gone because he drank it. So, he went to the store, bought 1 pound of hops and molasses and later went out again for tobacco. On the way back, he ran into a small bunch of rowdy teens. They had a verbal exchange regarding a recent election and things got heated. Harry was emotionally invested in this election so he was triggered easily by these kids who were taunting him. They threatened him with chants of “drag him out!” and he feared they would steal his money and kill him because they had threatened him physically during their interaction.

When he was done brewing his homemade beer, he moved the keg he just filled, from one part of the room to another, basically dragging it across the floor and making a ruckus. The sound roused Mrs. Randall in a neighboring apartment and she asked him to quiet down because her son was sick & sleeping. A couple of other close neighbors who shared either a wall, ceiling, or floor heard nothing or were completely unbothered. It was just Mrs. Randall who had a complaint.

By the time night had set in, Harry’s clothes were set out, his $24 was in his pants pocket draped over the chair in front of the window and the revolver was on the stand in front of that same window. Harry didn’t move these items away from the window and was acutely aware of their importance in his life if he were to make a successful trip to Massachusetts and back.

The shooting of Officer Lishness happened on Tuesday November 11, 1884 around 3:00am.

According to Harry, someone knocked on the door and he asked what they wanted. They said they wanted to come in. Harry responded “you shan’t tonight!” and claimed to have never said “Warren”. Harry was quick to clarify he knew Warren Bruce very well, but was also very clear in his messaging he never heard anyone say they were cops.

Harry swore he never thought the people at the door were cops. He thought they were the teenage boys coming to “drag him out”. Harry was scared to find someone opening his window and believed they were going to take his money – literally all of his money was in his pants pocket – which he needed to get to the doctor’s in Boston.

Harry testified he didn’t know Rufus Lishness was the person in the window. He fumbled at the window trying to push the person out and close it but the person grabbed him back, so Harry got away, grabbed for his gun, stumbled to his bed in a panic and shot at the intruder. Harry said he tried to push Lishness back out the window before grabbing his gun in the bureau drawer at the window. He said he shot Lishness while standing away from the window, 2 feet from his bed, not at point-blank range directly at the window.

Mrs. Burns woke up at the sound of the gunshot. It was pitch-black-dark inside, and outside, so neither party could identify each other and neither could see the extent of the injury inflicted on Officer Lishness.

Harry Burns knew Rufus Lishness and all of the other police officers personally. He’d been arrested a few times previously by all. He had never once tussled with the law – and had either paid his fine or did his jail time without any issue.

Harry and his wife had lived in the tenement for the last 5+/- years, or so. He admitted to making and drinking his own beer, which was not illegal. But he’d never been involved with the law outside of drunkenness. The defense – his legal team – reiterated he had never hurt anyone nor intended to hurt anyone in his life and if he would’ve known there were cops at his door he wouldn’t have fired his gun. The Defense was really focused on pushing the “self-defense” angle. However, another cop testified that when he was arresting Harry for drunkenness, not too long ago, Harry threatened to “fix” the next officer who would try to arrest him.

After he shot Officer Lishness, Harry went back to bed thinking he’d scared off the intruders. When Officer Warren Bruce and Marshal Frank B. Farrington broke in through the exterior door and then the bedroom door to Harry’s room, they saw Harry had his gun in his hand, ready to defend his life. The officers had lanterns this time and Harry said the moment he saw their badges he let down his guard. They said they had to wrangle the gun away from him and he was out of his mind with drunkenness, so because of this, he didn’t recognize their badges. Harry said he could have shot them if he wanted to.

Mr. Burns claimed the gun was not cocked, yet the police said it was. He also said his door was not locked but the cops say they couldn’t just open it even though they tried repeatedly, so they determined it had to be locked. Marshal Farrington said Officer Bruce tried to open the bedroom door but it was locked, so they shoulder-slammed it open.

Harry claimed, emphatically and repeatedly, that he hadn’t had a hard liquor drink for around 2 years.

Trial-Wise it’s important to make mention that Mrs. Burns was present when everything happened the night Officer Lishness was killed, but Legal Counsel for the Defense never called her to testify. She could have cleared her husband of accusations made against him if they were lies, or corroborated witness testimony on her husband’s behalf, but she was never given the chance.

After the Shooting and Arrest

The day after the crime, police went to the scene and spoke with Mrs. Burns, who explained that her husband Harry often drank a homemade “hop beer” to excess, sometimes consuming 2 gallons a day. She also mentioned that he’d been speaking loudly about the election before the shooting but by the time the police arrived – directly before the shooting happened – she had already fallen asleep. When police later spoke with Harry in his holding cell, they noted that his breath smelled strongly of alcohol, suggesting he had consumed something stronger than hop beer. Regarding the legal case against Mr. Burns for the murder of Officer Rufus R. Lishness; The jury started deliberations on Tuesday December 23, 1884 at 4:50pm and by 9:15pm it had returned with the verdict. Harry Burns had been found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to 7 to 14 years in Thomaston State Prison.