The following was received in an e-mail from Alta Flynt (altaf@world-net.net). The tale of the Airline is delightful, and anyone who has travelled Route 9 has fond memories of it, or, at the least, memories.

I am a volunteer who is transcribing some audio tapes of meetings of the Alexander - Crawford Historical Society. I have their permission to share the contents of the tapes, and will post them as I finish them. Alexander and Crawford are adjoining towns in Washington County, Maine. The Historical Society was founded in 1980.

The first tape is from May 5, 1981. The speakers I've been able to identify are Jane Dudley, Pliney Frost, and Jack Dudley. They were all residents of Alexander, Maine. Pliney Frost read two newspaper articles written sometime in the past by Ned Lamb for the Calais Advertiser. No date was given for the articles. I believe Ned Lamb was Harry Edgar Lamb, son of Oramandal Lamb of Calais, Maine and Emma Strout of Alexander, Maine.

I have tried to be as accurate as possible in the transcription, but some names, and a few words here and there were difficult to understand. My best guess for these is in italics. John Dudley of the A-CHS proof read the transcription and provided me with definitions of some local expressions. These are in parentheses. If anyone can add anything to the history of the Cone Stable or any of  the people or other businesses mentioned, I would love to hear about them. Please share with all of us.

Airline Stage Route, Washington Co, Maine

This is the second half of the audio tape of the Alexander-Crawford Historical Society meeting of May 5, 1981. Names and other words that could not be transcribed are in italics. Comments, explanations, and additional names are in parentheses. The speakers here are Jane Dudley, Pliney Frost and Jack Dudley. Pliney Frost read a second article written by Ned Lamb for the Calais Advertiser. Again - no date for the article.

"Martin Cone and the Wolf Route. As we expected the story of Cone's stable did bring out other stories and here is an interesting one of Martin Cone and the Wolf Route. Martin Cone came from Houlton and we were told that he didn't have any father or mother, so perhaps we'd better say that Martin was an orphan. He drove stage from Houlton to Mattawamkeag. There were a number of stages out of Houlton and some of the stage drivers got wealthy. Some of them got a little start by carrying something liquid for the satisfaction of the male passengers when the drive proved too invigorating. They drove through long stretches of timberland and they knew many of the owners so some of them invested in timberland and became wealthy.

The first stage route between Bangor and Calais was of course along the shore road, but there was a man by the name of George W. Spratt of 43 Essex Street, Bangor who got an idea that what we call the Airline was a shorter route and if he could show the government that the mail could go quicker that way he might get a contract to carry the mail. He came to Calais, got a team, drove over the Airline, pulled a few strings, and got a contract to carry the mail at $5,000 a year. The stage left Bangor at 9:30 in the evening and in 18 hours reached Calais. They changed horses at Clifton, Aurora, Bedington, Wesley and Alexander, probably stopping at Ben Strout's at the fork of the road in Alexander. Down at the foot of the hill where the road turns to the right to the four corners and to Wesley was a blacksmith shop where repairs could be made and horses shod. Martin Cone enlisted in the army. Among his great friends was Weston Haycock who persuaded Martin to come to Calais and he got a job of driving on the Airline. A early list of drivers (few mumbled words that can't be transcribed) Martin Cone, Dan Gardner, and Albert Metcalfe.

Now comes the story of the Wolf Route. The proprietors of the stage line along the shore road did not like competition so they tried their best to keep passengers form patronizing the new line. They told how the wolves chased the stages on the new route through the woods and published a picture to prove it. A copy of the picture is still in existence. It is a crude wood cut which would take about three columns of The Advertiser and shows the stage rolling along with a four horse hitch, the driver with the long lash of his whip a-play over the backs of the horses, a passenger with a gun sticking out of the window, a guard up behind with a gun, and a pack of eight wolves, one of them dead in the road and the others in a cluster chasing the stage as if they were sure of their dinner. This was contrary to nature but it made good reading and in the course of time it did scare timid passengers from that route, but after a while it became a very good ad for the stage because men wanted to see wolves and get a chance to shoot them. They say they never did. And, so the old Airline became the Wolf Route. After a while Martin Cone and his friend, Weston Haycock, got into the livery stable business in Calais and Dan Gardner went into the hotel business."

In the discussion after the reading, Pliney Frost said that Ben Strout's place where the stage coach probably stopped in Alexander was where the Stagecoach Motel was in 1981, and Jane Dudley commented that is "where the Cooper Road comes in."

Neither Pliney Frost nor Jack Dudley had ever seen a wolf around Alexander, and Jack Dudley added "Unquestionably at one time probably there were a few wolves in this area but I don't believe they ever went around chasing the stage. I think that was all just story. Matter-of-fact, I've never seen the original of that picture, but I've seen copies of that picture."

Pliney Frost said there is a copy of the wood cut in Bailey's "History of Early Baileyville." He went on to tell what he knew about Ned Lamb, "I think he was born in Calais. According to an article - a memorial wrote about him by Ed Boyd he was born in Calais. His grandfather (Benjamin Strout) lived in Alexander at the fork of the road where one goes to Cooper and the other goes to Wesley along to Bangor. His mother was born and raised in Alexander and for a number of years, I believe was a pianist at the Methodist Church. At one time at least one Lamb family lived here in Alexander, but whether they were any connection to Ned or not, I wouldn't have any idea. I've never seen any indication of them. The old Lamb place is much south of where Zeke Cousins now lives in between the Godfrey place and the old Scribner place. I believe there is an old cellar hole there. It's the old Lamb lot. It's been referred to as that always in my lifetime. Foster Carlow owns it now."

Pliney Frost also said he had been assessor in the area for 25 years and was a native of Alexander.

The Story of Cone Stable

"The story of Cone Stable goes back a long ways and some of it cannot now be learned. When the smoke of the big Calais fire on the hot Saturday afternoon of August 27, 1870 had cleared away, among the ruins was that of the livery stable of Haycock and Cone. The loss was set at $3,000 and insurance of $1,000. The loss seems to indicate that the stable was not very large and that the horses and at least most of the equipment was saved. This would not be so very difficult as it would only have to be taken up toward Washington Street as the wind was blowing the fire toward the river.

Martin Cone was well known and in 1900 he was living on Washington Street, corner of Germain with his wife, Thurza, his daughter, Carrie S. who was a school teacher and his son, Charles, bookkeeper at the stable. Just what Haycock this was, I have not been able to learn, but just as soon as the ashes were cold, we read that Masters, Haycock, and Cone had erected a large, spacious livery stable on the site of the one burned down, so this must be the date of the building you were asking about. At one time, Frank Hill was associated with Martin Cone in the place of Rideout. At the close of the last century there were nine public stables in Calais: George M. Agnew, Red Beach; Martin Cone, Main Street; E. M. Gardner and Company, Main Street; Frank C. Hill, North Street; F. S. Hartford Exchange Stable, Main Street; Boundary House; F. W. Hinckley, Mill Town; Andrew Arlin, Milltown; and George Sheahan, Golden Loo Hotel, Milltown; John A. Sprague, North Street. All of these boarded horses.

They came because people were coming into town by team, even for a day, and wanted some place to bait (local expression meaning to feed) their horses. Some of these had teams to let and furnished coaches to meet the trains and boats and for funerals. It was no cinch here to drive a coach to a funeral, especially in the wintertime. The driver was exposed to all kinds of weather. If the minister was long-winded, he would almost freeze when waiting. He was so wrapped up for his work that it was hard for him to climb down and up again. He would trot the team around the block to keep the horses warm. There were always drummers to have their big trunks taken to the different stores or perhaps themselves were driven to another town. One or two of these stables had a barge that would hold a number of people and especially in the wintertime with two or four horses would take crowds into the country or give the school children a ride around the four towns.

Of course they had horses to let, nice rigs for their good customers, but some old hacks for others especially to go to the Pembroke Fair. Sometimes the drivers would get drunk and on the way home would race other teams and lash the horses all the way. When Martin Cone died, his son, Charlie, succeeded to the business, and he was a horseman all of his life. Some of these stables took pride in having a pretty good goer and Charlie Cone was no exception. The St. Stephen Fair, the Princeton Fair, the Pembroke Fair all gave him a chance to exercise a love for the high trotters, and soon they were farther afield. Transportation has always depended on internal combustion engines and when the gasoline burner began to take the place of the hay burner, the stables struggled along the best they could but garages took their places. At one time the Cone stable was turned into a miniature golf course with the floor covered with thick bunk and the walls with murals that were another course in the Grant Anderson store near the bridge. Both of these lasted quick (local expression meaning over quickly) and the old stable was turned into a storing place for autos and trucks. But, old age kept taking the toll and it was often spoken of as a fire menace on account of the old dry lumber. This summer it has been taken down and it was a queer site to see the old carriage tops and the pungs taken to the dump and listen to the many stories and traditions of the old horse and buggy days. If, P. J., you want to learn more about the stables just listen to some of the old people when they read this."

There was discussion following the reading of the article. Jack Dudley told about his memories of the stable. "The old Cone stable was on Main Street directly across from now where the Murphy Restaurant is where they sell ice cream cones, just up river from the Alexander Buick Garage. There used to be a harness shop in there, too. Steve Wilder had a harness shop there, either right above the Cone stable or right below it." No one in the group remembered when the stable was a miniature golf course.

A Washington County Election Bet

Over-recording section of the May 5, 1981, meeting:

Man: Well there was a Republican, and they put up a bet on the presidential election. I don't remember which one it was. The bet was that whoever - the fellow who lost the bet would have to get in the hearse. Charlie Cone had a hearse then at the stable.

Second Man: Yes, I remember that.

Man: Big glass enclosed thing drawn by a pair of horses. Whoever lost the bet would get in there and stretch out and they would drive him up from Cone's stable up to the bridge and back. Charlie won the election.

Woman: Oh, marvelous.

Man: Matter of fact, I saw someone not too long ago - some pictures of Sammy Saunders.
[Does anyone know who Sammy Saunders was and who lost the bet?]

Hangings in Washington County, ME

Participants: Jane Dudley, Pliney Frost, Ethel McArthur, Jack Dudley, and Kay Church, May 5, 1981

Pliney Frost started the discussion by talking about John F. Sullivan who was hung at the Penitentiary in Dorchester, New Brunswick, for the Dutcher murders. One story that Pliney Frost had heard was that "he was arrested in a house that no longer exists which was the Sullivan house atop of Gooch Hill, later owned by Everett and Rowenda Bates." Pliney assumed the Dutchers were Canadian because Sullivan was hung in New Brunswick.

There was also a peddler who was hung on the Cooper Road in Alexander. Ethel McArthur told the story that the peddler was on his way through the woods from Meddybemps to Alexander and was hung in a tree on the Meddybemps Road. No one ever found out who did it.

Ethel McArthur added that it was said "they could hear him holler clear into Meddybemps." Jane Dudley said this took place in Cooper, Maine.

Drovers
The group discussed the cattle drives of the past, and Jack Dudley said that a cattle drover would be "given money by the people who ran the business in Bangor. He was sent up here to buy cattle and bring them back to Bangor to the slaughter house." These drovers possibly used the Alexander pound to keep their cattle in until they had collected a large enough herd to drive back to Bangor over the Airline Trail. This would have been prior to 1895 because the railroad from Bangor was opened in 1895.

Travel
Jack Dudley told about travel before the railroad opened. "Before that, all the big stuff, freight and passengers, of course, went by boat. People got on a boat right there in Calais or drive down to Eastport by horse and wagon and get on a boat and go to Boston or wherever he wanted to. When my father went to Bowdoin College, that was in 1891 or two, he lived in Pembroke. He went from Pembroke to Eastport by horse and wagon. He got on the boat in Eastport, and he went on the boat from Eastport to Portland, and then he went from Portland to Brunswick on the electric trolley. They had trolleys at that time that went clear back up into Lewiston."

Hanging
Jack Dudley continued the discussion of hangings in the area. "Merle Knowles told me this story, that there was this peddler. He did not have a horse and wagon. He was walking - pack on his back - and he sold jewelry and watches and things like that, small stuff. And, it was getting along toward dark and he was headed towards Cooper and he stopped over there at the foot of the hill at Stephenson's, and knocked on the door and wanted to know if they would put him up for the night. And Stephenson told him, no, they did not do that, but up on the top of the hill where Gooch lived, that Gooch - there was no question about it that he could spend the night there. So, he departed. And, the next thing, a week or two or three later, the peddler was found dead with his throat cut in the well up there somewhere near the Gooch place with no money, no pack, no nothing. And then according to Merle, that Mrs. Gooch when she was on her death bed....." [Part of another meeting was recorded over this tape which makes a break in the story of the hanging.]

Haunted House
After the "over-recording" Ethel McArthur said, "That's why the house is haunted," and an unknown male voice said, "Yeah. The one that I got was that Mrs. Gooch when she got real old and somewhat senile used to remark, "What would you think if you saw two men go down cellar and only one come up?" I never knew that the body was discovered. I assumed it was still in the basement."

Jack Dudley continued the story: "Rowena Bates bought the house. They used to live over there, she and her husband. They, this room in the house, they couldn't keep the door shut. They even tried to tie it with a rope, and then it would be found open. And, they finally must have heard of this story, and they figured that was the room he was killed in and the house was haunted and subsequently the house was torn down and they built a new one."

Pliney Frost added that the new house was modular home of some sort, and that this was done about 10 years previously. He added that the original house was the same one where John F. Sullivan, who was hung for the Dutcher murders, was arrested.

Kay Church said that she had heard that "someone didn't believe any of this about it being haunted and they used a rope - tied it to the door knob and then to the newel post in the hall and still in the morning when they got up the rope was there. It was not tied to the knob and the door was open."

Ethel McArthur said that her Uncle Herbert and Aunt Alice (Perkins) lived in that house for years, and brought up their family, Clayton and Leota.

(John Dudley, son of Jack Dudley, has supplied some of the history of the house. J. Gooch owned it from 1861 to 1881 when it was sold to W. Gillespie; sold in 1900 to H. Perkins; sold to H. Perkins' daughter and son-in-law, Leota and Les Worrell; then to Ed Sullivan; then to Frank and Bertha Dwelly, and to Everett and Rowena Bates about 1960.]