Bootleggers, Lobstermen & Lumberjacks: Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of Hardscrabble New England

Introduction

1. Pilgrims Progress

A rough Atlantic crossing is followed by frigid temperatures, scurvy, starvation, and death. . . . Welcome to the New World. (1620)

2. Dungeon Rock

In a cave near Lynn, Massachusetts, pirate Thomas Veal guards his treasure—until the Great Earthquake of 1658 buries him alive. (1658)

3. The Great Swamp Fight

The Narragansetts are attacked deep in Rhode Islands Great Swamp by a force of 1,200. Three hundred children, women, and old people are shot, bludgeoned, and burned to death. (1675)

4. The Candlemas Massacre

Five hundred Abenakis raid York, Maine, killing, kidnapping, and burning. Jeremiah Moulton sees his parents get scalped. He doesnt forget . . . or forgive. (1692)

5. A Crushing End

During the Salem witch trials, 150 people are imprisoned on charges of witchcraft, twenty-nine are convicted, nineteen are hanged, and five die in prison. Giles Corey is not so lucky. (1692)

6. A Mothers Anger

Hannah Duston of Boscowen, New Hampshire, kills and scalps her sleeping captors . . . to avenge their brutal murder of her baby. (1697)

7. Boon Islands Curse

A midwinter wreck strands fourteen sailors on this barren rock six miles off the coast of York, Maine. Only ten survive for twenty-four days, without fire, by eating what meat is available. (1710)

8. Pirate Treasure

“Black Samuel” Bellamy captures the treasure-laden Whydah. But as the crew nears its home port of Cape Cod, a tempest strikes, and the ships timbers begin to crack. (1717)

9. The Brutality of Ned Low

Vicious pirate Ned Low captures a Boston whaler, tortures the crew, steals their food, and sets them adrift to starve. But hes still not satisfied. (1723)

10. The Meetinghouse Tragedy

The frame of the new Wilton, New Hampshire, meetinghouse collapses, dropping fifty-three workers three stories to the ground—followed by tons of trusses and tools. (1773)

11. Ann Storys Cave

A falling tree kills her husband, and Indians burn her cabin, but Ann Story stays on her hard-won Vermont land, living in a riverbank cave and helping capture Tories. (1775)

12. Bunker Hole

Mainer Jack Bunker hijacks a British ship full of food stolen from colonists. The British give hard chase, so he runs it into a hidden cove, cuts the masts, and waits. (1775)

13. The Knox Cannon Train

Colonel Henry Knox leads eighty yoke of oxen, dragging fifty-nine cannons, three hundred miles in fifty-six days over mountains, lakes, and swamps . . . in winter. The British siege is soon broken. (1775)

14. A Manly Showing

During Connecticuts battle of Ridgefield, Colonel Benedict Arnolds horse, shot nine times, falls on him. A charging redcoat demands surrender, but Arnold refuses. (1777)

15. Revolutionary Woman

Dressed as a man, Deborah Sampson is wounded fighting for the Continental Army. She pries a musket ball from her leg with a knife, but a second ball is lodged too deep. (1782)

16. She-Pirate!

Rachel Wall lures innocent rescuers to their deaths at the hands of her concealed crew. But the game wears thin . . . and piracy in Massachusetts is a hanging offense. (1782)

17. Tough Times, Tough People

In February, Seth Hubbell and his family trek one hundred miles on foot to the raw wilderness of northern Vermont. His livestock and crops die. Then life grows difficult. (1789)

18. The Wild East

Mrs. Graves of Brookfield, Vermont, spends all night lunging with a pitchfork at a bear intent on savaging her swine. But as she grows wearier, the bear grows angrier. (1800)

19. The Black Snake Affair

A century before Prohibition, an illicit load of potash instigates animosity, mayhem, and murder between smugglers and the federal militia on Vermonts Winooski River. (1808)

20. The Legend of Skinners Cave

Smuggler Uriah Skinner is trapped on his secret Lake Memphremagog island by federal officers who take his boat—and leave him no way off the island. (1808)

21. Runaway Pond

A Glover, Vermont, mans plan for more water works too well: Mammoth trees, boulders, buildings, bridges, and livestock are ripped free and carried for miles. (1810)

22. “1800-and-Froze-to-Death”

Killing frosts in each month of the year across New England result in crop failures, starvation, disease, and mass exodus—all the makings of a famine. (1816)

23. The Worst Mistake Ever Made

Threat of a crushing landslide forces Samuel Willey, his wife, their five children, and two hired men from their home in the heart of Crawford Notch. Big, big mistake. (1826)

24. Massachusetts Bay Man-Eater

Angler Joseph Blaney attracts the attention of two great white sharks in the middle of Massachusetts Bay. They are considerably larger than his dinghy. (1830)

25. Vortex of Doom

As their mother watches from shore, two brothers in a schooner are sucked into the gaping maw of the Old Sow Whirlpool, off Eastport, Maine. They arent the first . . . or the last. (1835)

26. Rebels . . . in Vermont!

A Rebel raider and his gang attack a town on the Vermont-Canadian border, robbing banks, setting fires, and forcing hostages to swear allegiance to the Confederacy. (1864)

27. Aroostook Lynch Law

When he steals a pair of boots, Big Jim Cullen never dreams hell be the star of New Englands only lynching. (1873)

28. The Hartford Disaster

The engineer of the night express from White River Junction works to make up time, though winter track conditions are dicey, especially on bridges over frozen rivers. (1887)

29. North Woods Freeze-Up

Across northern New England, weeks of 40-below temperatures force loggers to kill their horses, cut off their own frostbitten digits, and fight like caged rats. (1887)

30. The Great White Hurricane

In March, a noreaster wallops the coast, dumping fifty inches of snow, whipping up fifty-foot drifts, and wrecking two hundred ships. It takes weeks to tally the dead. (1888)

31. The Last Vampire

To ward off vampiric spirits of the recently deceased, a young Rhode Island girls corpse is exhumed, her organs are burned, and the smoke is inhaled by family members. (1892)

32. . . . And with an Axe

In Fall River, Massachusetts, thirty-two-year-old Sunday school teacher Lizzie Borden opens her parents heads with a hatchet—and is never convicted of the crime. (1892)

33. Lobstermen Fisticuffs!

In December 1894, tensions cause Cape Porpoise lobstermen to sink boats, threaten lives, and brawl in the streets. The arrests instigate conservation practices still in use today. (1894)

34. North Woods Ice-Out

A spongy lake, a load of logs, two horses, one teamster, and an unscrupulous clerk are a recipe for disaster in Vermonts northern forest. (1895)

35. The Portland Gale

An unexpected noreaster drags the steamship Portlands 192 passengers and crew out to sea. The waves increase, the boilers grow cold, and the vessel weakens. (1898)

36. King of the River Hogs

A New Hampshire line-house full of drunken rivermen, a big bouncer with arms like tree trunks, and a wiry little drive boss named Jigger Johnson. Guess who wins…. (1905)

37. The Human Shingle

A Berlin, Vermont, farmer takes advantage of a fair winter day to fix his barn roof. But his aging joints stiffen, the day grows cold, and he freezes to the roof. (1907)

38. Malaga Island

The mixed-race residents of Maines Malaga Island are evicted, and all traces of them are removed from the island. Even the bodies in the cemetery are exhumed. (1911)

39. Logjam from Hell

The last great log drive on the Connecticut jams 65 million board feet of logs, flooding homes, barns, bridges, streets, and railroad tracks in North Stratford, Vermont. (1915)

40. Rocket Ride

Two young men climb aboard illegal slideboards to descend Mount Washingtons Cog Railway tracks in mere minutes. But without brakes, their trip is quick—and painful. (1919)

41. The Boston Molasses Disaster

A massive storage tank bursts, and two million gallons of molasses pulse outward in a forty-foot-high wave. Its lunchtime, and people are out enjoying a warm winter day. (1919)

42. Rum-Running Lobstermen

One Maine island lobsterman doesnt like strangers nosing in his traps—which happen to hold bottles of illicit booze—but a shotgun blast solves all sorts of problems. (1924)

43. Queen of the Border Rumrunners

Shes the brains of a border-hopping band of bootleggers, and one night, with five hundred clanking bottles aboard, Hilda Stone is tailed by agents . . . and her smokescreen fails. (1925)

44. Kingdom Death Ride

Winston Titus needs to make a bootlegging run from Canada through Vermonts Northeast Kingdom. But the smiling teen doesnt count on two border agents—or their guns. (1927)

45. Black Ducks Big Night