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Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 32
(The Life of Henry Mitchell, Indian Canoe Maker)
(Az usual, henry was finishing up his work for the day at the island
school where he is the janitor when I got over there.)
Mrs. Mitchell: "I think the Indians nowadays eat about the same foods
that the whites do, and prepare them in about the same way, but of course
in olden times they didn't. There's a process of hull"ng corn, though, that was
used by Indians long ago that we use even now. I prepare some every year
and we like it very much here. You put some hardwood ashes in water on the
stove to boil, and when the ashes (it may have been the water, but I think
she said the ashes) turn yellowish, the water can be drained off into an-
other kettle and the oorn is put into that and boiled until the kernels come
out of tLe hulls. Then after the kernels are washed many times they can be
heated up for the table. They're especially good cooked with beans that
have been soaked and parboiled. I think the hulled corn they sell in the
stores is prepared with soda.
"They used to have a may of cooking bread in hot ashes, too. They would
mix some flour and water together and let it ferment in the sun, and they'd
use some of that mixture with salt, soda, and more flour in making loaves.
They used to put these loaves in hot ashes and they'd rise and bake to make
a very nice bread. I've eaten bread cooked in that way and it tastes very nice.
"They used to use bone marrow in place of butter, and Ivy leaves to make
tea. They muld out MDOSO meat with the grain and hang it up in the hot sun
over a fire to dry and smoke. Fish was dried in the same way. Berries were
preserved by putting a layer of them on a piece of birch bark, and then making
alternate layers of bark and berries."
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town -34
*That trip111 cost the Redskins quite a lot if they go to Atlanta. If
ten of them go it's goint to cost them $1000.00 for the trip. What Sam Gray
ought to do is to buy that team and call them the Old Town Canoeists, and
give them a check for $1000,00 to go to Atlanta. The only 'lard part for Sam
would be parting with the check." (Gray, who runs the Old Town Canoe Shop,
isn't highly regarded by Henry')
"I can't remember anything unusual that happened when I vent to school
here, but I remember something about the school. It was only as large
as it is now, and they had red benches four feet long instead of the desks
they have mow. They had an old fashioned box stove, that took a stick two
feet long, instead of the furnace they have now. We used to take turns as
janitor: one boy would work for one week, and another boy the next. Some
of the bigger boys out holes in the floor when they had the janitor job, so
they could spit tobacco juice through the floor.
*When I was thirteen years old my brother and I drove a pair of horses
for my father. We were so small that we had to stand on boxes to harness the
horses. My brother was lame so the hardest part of the work fell on me. One
of those horses was named Gingerbread, and the other Dandy,and they weighed
about 1600 pounds apiece. We hauled wood in the winter time, and sometimes
it was hard work for the snow was four feet deep in places. That was govern-
ment mood that was supplied to members of the tribe. We got it on the upper
end of the island and sometimes on Organ Island.
*We were haulint some wood once for John ielson and when we were comint
up the hill here our sled slipped off the road and got bogged down in the snow.
Dandy fell over and we couldn't get him up. We saw Peter Susep up at the top
of the hill with his team of oxen, and we hollered to. him to come land help us
out. He unhooked his oxen and drove them down, and he managed to get Dandy up.
Maine
Living Lore
Old Sown 35
He hooked his oxen on in front of our horses and gave them a lick with a long
stick he had. They started up that hill at a great rate, but our whiffletrees
stuck out at each side beyond our sled, and one of them hooked into a leg of
old Susep's overalls and the oxen dragged him to the top of the hill before
he oould stop them. I never heard suoh swestria before or sine... Old Susep
was swearia in Indian and &Inglis:h. It was funny, but we didn't dare to laugh
or Susep would probably have scalped us he Was EC mad. 14 had hollered to him
to look out for the whiffletree, but he was so deaf he didn't hear us.
*We used those horse tot, to plow for the Indians. 14 were always
pretty tired at night after that. work because we did J4 after school hours.
We snared rabbits when we were kids, with picture wire, but that wouldn't be
allowed now on at:mount of the law. What I liked to do most when I was a kid
was to play football and baseball. Sometimes I got a liekia from my mother
when I got home late from playin2 ball after sahool if I had MY clothes .torn.
"Several times during the vacation seasons I worked on the boom raftia logs
for fifty mints a day. 14 had a chance to save wood there besides. There MSS
always a lot of drift wood, stumps, and short pieces of logs that were no good
to the mills that came down with the drives and got mixed up in the jam at the
boom. On long drives there were places where the lcgs got hung Up in ajam,
and they had to blow them with dynamite. Those blasts always spoiled some
waste stuff into rafts, and on Sundays we'd float it down home to the island.
"I was up there once when a circus came to Old Town, and my chum asked me
to go with him. Ho said he intended to take his own girl, and he promised tO
get one for me. A fellow named Alfred was the paymaster, and we borrowed some
of our pay from him, and got permission from Gene Mann to go down to for the day.
I'd been wistaria calked shoes all week, of course, at my work, and when I came
to look for my regular ones, I found that some one had stolen them. My chum
says, 'Never mind, I'll let you take a pair of mine.' He let me take &.poir
Maine
Livi4g Lore
Old 'own
of his shoes, but they were two sizes too small for me and I could just about
get them on. Nobody was goin' down in a boat that morning, and we waned
all the way from Nebraska to Old Town. (For some reason one of the booms
was named "Nebraska"). That was eleven miles, but it seamed more like 111
to me with those tight shoes. 14 left at seven in the morning and we got
down around noon.
"My chum couldn't find his girl, but after he got Bettie down in that
circus tent he saw her with some one else. I told him he was a nice one to
get a girl for me when he couldn't even keep his own. We had to get along
without girls, but we ate a lot of olanuts that day.
"That was an awful walk back. I had to carry my shoes in my hand most
of the may, and we didn't get back to Nebraska until four the next morning.
!Mile we were waitint for a boat to take us over (Nebraska boom was on an is-
land) we fell through the rafted logs we were standint on and got soakinv wet.
(Sometimes the "swings" of rafted logs were tied up at the opposite shore to
await a time when the mills could handle them.)
*We had just an hour's rest in our bunks before it was time to turn out
for breakfast, and we were so sleepy that day that we had to take turns raftin'
eaoh °thorn logs while of us laid down back in the bushes to rest. Gene Mean
cams along once when I was comin' out of the bushes to take my turn and he
says, 'The circus don't seem to agree with you, Henry."
"The enly bad accident I can remember didn't take place when I was working
anywhere, but it happened when I was out for a good time. There were some U.S.
mar vekeels down at Bar Harbor, and a friend of mine, Frank Loren, and I went
down on an excursion train to see them. There were a lot of people on that
train, and I told Frank that veld better get up ahead so that we'd be among
the first to get on the ferry boat. Frank and I were right in front on the
slip whe the boat pulled in, and we two and a girl I didn't know jumped or
it. Just as we jumped I heard a crash behind me and the end of the slip went
Mains
Living Lore
Old Town 37
U p so that we all slipped and fell on the deck of the boat. That old wooden
slip had broken and all of a hundred or more people went down into the water.
There was no chance of any of those people swimminf back under the pier be-
cause it was all boarded up where the slip was. There were a hundred people
men, women, and children damn in that hole, fightin' and soreamint and oryint
I always thought that Robbins that used to be the publisher of the Enterprise
(Old Town Weekly newspaper) was just a big blowhard, but he certainly played
the hero thstday. He got a rope around his waist and got people to lower him
into that hole so he could help people to get out. He saved a lot of them.
There were a lot of the down underneith, though, that nobdoy could reach and
they were drowned. Some of those people when they got then out were naked
even their shoes were gone. There must have some awful fightint down there.
They have to make those ferry slips of iron now so an accident like that could-
n't happen. I sew sixty wooden boxes, with dead people in them, staoked up on
the wharf like oordwood. Before that the dead had been laid out in rows, and
people vent around among them to see if they could indentify any of them,
That hap end at Bar Harbor about thirty years ago.
"I never oared much about reading when I was a young fellow. My amusements
were playiu' ball, fishinl, wwimmint, and skatinl, About all I read now is
the Portland Press. That's a better paper than the News. (Bangor) I used to
r,ad a few books anlisagazines like the Saturday Evening Post,aboUtnothing worth
mentionin'.
'My mother killed a deer ones with an ex. It WOW about this time of the
year (late in February), and the saw a young but* over by a fence, near her home,
in some deep crusty snow. She went over with an ax from
Just us young people were home and we helped her to drag
and dress it. A little while after we got through three
along, Frank newell, Charlie Damien, and Charles Imam.
the shed and killed it.
it over to the house
Indian fellows came
They told us that they
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 38
had wounded that deer and that they had been ahasint it all day. They asked
my mother if she wanted the skin and she said all we wanted was the meat.
They told her then if she'd let them take the deer home so they oould get
the skin to make snawehoes they used to make a lot of snowshoes around
here they'd bring back the meat. That was quite a while ago, but I haven't
seen any of that meat yet."
Mrs. Mitchell: "Henry or I aren't superstitious, but the old Indians
were. I remember a story my mother told me about an old woman they saw in
the street wasn't that before the cholera epidemic ma?" (I forgot to
mention that Mks. Mitchell's mother had dropped in fora visit while we were
talking.)
Mother: "Yes, but it was at Eastport they saw the old woman."
Mrs. Mitchell: "Oh yes. That old woman was seen walking up and down
the street, they said, crying to herself. She wouldn't let any one some near
her, and nobody knew who she was. The next day the cholera struck and a great
many of the people died. I remember forewarnings coming as sounds in the sky.
can't give you the Indian word for that, but it means, Something Coming from
Nowhere."
(Mrs. Mitchell's brother, Howard, who is something of an authority on local
Indian folklore told me a lot of Indian folklore tales last summer when I was
getting material for the Maine Guide. Some of those could he used in this study,
I suppose. Henry and his wife don't seem to know any of them.) R.G.
Henry had always disclaimed the idea of any personal ambition, but with
the idea of discovering one I disoussed with him the radio program known as
"If I Had The Chanoe." "Henry,"I said, "If you were on that program and the
gentleman in oharge asked you the question he asks every one, 'What would you
do if you had the chance?' What mould you say?"
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 39
Henry: *Well, 'If I had the ohance, and plenty of money, I'd like to
start a basket factory right here on the island and employ only Indians.
I'd like to help my people in that way."
N.G.: *What about a furniture factory/ Some one that Henry Buxton in-
terviewed told him that a furniture factory would do well in Hancock County
because there is plenty of hardwood there. Furniture is sold all over the
country."
Henry: *Well, baskets are too. A lot of baskets are sold in this country.
They even bring them in here from Canada. I don't think veld have the experience
to make furniture, but we do understand basket makIng., There are factories run
by whites where they make baskets: we could do just as well if we had the money
to get goin'. It's hard to get the right kind of wood here, though. 14 use
brown ash in our baskets, and sometimes we have to send seventy miles to get it.
"If my wife had been feelin' welL and the walkin' wasn't so bad, we would
have gone over to see that picture at the Strand today. What was the name of that
picture, Eva?"
Mrs. Mitchell: "It was *Idiot's Delight,' with Norma Shearer and Clark
Gable."
Henry: "Oh yes, Say that must have been an awful *elk for you across
that ice tonight. (The ice was covered with water and half frozen slush. I
told Henry that if I'd known what it was like I would have stayed home.) There
was a fine picture there last week Jesse James. You should have seen it.
Some people wanted to run a railroad across 4411013 land, and when JIMO2 wouldn't
sell or get out of the way, those people threw a bomb into his home and killed
his mother. That's what started him as an outlaw. All the folks around there,
though, liked hiisbeoause he helped them out with the money he stole from people
who could afford to lose it.
*We heard Bette Davis sing on the radio the other night.- She's a fine ac-
tress and she won an award for givint the best performance in the pictures last
year. She and Who was that?"
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 40
R.G.: "Spencer Tr:toy,*
Henry: "That's the fellows Spenoer Tracy. This Bette Deris was on the
Kate Smith hour we call her Aunt Kate. She wouldn't sing at all, but she
told Kate that she always wanted to song on her hour. She sang a few verses
and Kate says, "That's fine, Bette.'
"They used to have parties over here, but they don't seem to now. They
usually played forfeit games. If you lost you had to kiss some girl, stand
on your head, 'measure ten yards of ribbon,' or something like that. 'Spin
the Pan' was one of those forfeit games. Some one would spin a dishpan or a
big metal cater on the floor, and then they'd call a nyMber. If your number
was called you had to jump out of the crowd and grab that pan or cover before
it went flat. If you didn't you had to pay a forfeit. If the forfeit was
measuring ten yards of ribbon, the boy and the girl had to put their hands to-
gether and go through the motions of measuring ribbon. That always caused a
lot of fun because every time they measured alard their heads would be drawn
together.
"The old Indians used to have a game something like 'Pick Up Sticks,v but
they used sticks six inches long sake in the shape of paddles, oars, guns, arrows,
and so forth. The game was to pick out one at a time without disturbint the pile.
They turns, and whoever got out the most sticks, won. There was another
gams I don't knw the name of, but they played it with a large dish, or bowl.
That bowl had a lot of things like buttons in it that were flat on one side.
On the other side each of them hat a design representint a bird, animal, a snake,
or a fish. There would be crows, chipmunks, beavers, bear, deer, and so on.
To play the game they put a pillow on the floor and they ill eat around it.
Eaoh one of them would take the bowl in turn and lift it up and bring it down
hard on the pillow. Those buttons all had different values and only the ones
with the design showin0 counted. They had no pencil or paper then, but they
kept score with pebbles of different sixes.
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 41
"Games like those wouldn't be fast enough for the young folks nowadays:
they want something with mor3 speed to it. Fifteen or twenty years ago they
made a lot of canoes in the canoe shop and very few motor boats. Now they make
a lot of motor boats, and most of the canoes they sell can be fitted with out-
board motors."
Nts•Mitohell: "They're up to date enough over here to play contract bridge,
and sometimes the young people play postoffioe, but they seem to have forgotten
all about the old fashioned party games."
Henry: "Bridge is something I can't talk with you about. I never played
it and I don't know the first thing about it. (I told him that I didn't, either)
"Father used to have a camp up above Olamon on Sebois Stream. We used to
paddle up there ilkmnoes and it teok us all day. It's about thirty miles from
here to Sebois. They can go up there now in a oar in less than an hour."
Mrs. Mitoehll: "On one trip we started from here in the afternoon and slept
overnight on a beach near Howland. The42ext morning we worried the canoe around
the dam at Howland and went on to Sebois."
Henry: "I remember once we come back down past Passadumkeag where there's
a long stretch of rips. The women got out and walked down along the shore. I
was polint down the rips and when I got down a ways I looked back to see how my
ehum was makie it. He was up to. his waist in water and welkin' along those
slippery rooks with his canoe on his back. He carried his 0113100 nearly all the
length of those rips. When we got by I asked him why he didn't use his pole and
he siid he broke it when it got caught between two' rocks."
ire. Mitohellt "We took my grandmother up to Sebois once and she had a
oodfish that she wanted to keep fresh so she tied it the a thwart of the canoe
and let it trail in theleater."
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 42
Henry: "That was about the worst canoe trip I ever was on. We had a tent
near my father's camp, and a day or two after we got there I was standin' near
the tent flap and a red fox run out of the woods and came pretty near up to the
tent. He j,ist stood there a few minutes lookint me over, and then he turned and
ran back into the woods. I guess he knew I didn't have any gun. They told me a
fix comin, around the camp was a sure sign of bad luck. That night --,he tent
blew over and the next day the old lady was taken down with appendicitis and we
had to bring her back to Old Town. We made the trip down in the canoe in twelve
hours. They say if you hear a fox howl in the woods it's a bad sign.
*Me never go berry pickint here. Some of the Indians do, and they even
COM over here from the other side to pick berries, but I wouldn't know where
to look for them."
Mrs. Mitchell: "I always get mine from thethores or from the children
thst sell them."
Henry: "You see in the summer and early fall we're pretty -busy over here.
That's our busiest time. Tourists come over then and we sell a lot of baskets.
No time for berry pickint then.
"I thought of two old Indian traditions the other day. Two Indians were
out huntin' and one night when they were asleep in their camp one of them woke
up feelint something wrong. He looked over to *lore his companion was lyint
and he saw something leanin' over him and suckin' his blood. That figure was
transparent and when the Indian woke up it started for the door. The Indian
picked up his bow and arrow and shot at the thing when it was goint out the
door, but the arrow passed right through it. They said that was a forewarning
of the cholera epidemic that came to this reservation. It was somethint like
the forewarning of the old lady, crying in the street up on that reservation
nesr Eastport.
Mein*
Living Lore
-014 Teen 45
"Another of those old stories was about a well up here in the woods
near Lover's Leap that they call the flitedieine 'When they had the
Cholera here an old man was welkin' up the street with a bucket to get some
water from a well. He saw ahead of him another old man who beckoned to him
to follow. This old man led the old Indian to the well we're taikin" about
and pointed to the well and the bucket. The water was kind of milky lookins
but the old Indian filled his bucket and brought it back to the village.
They said that every one who drank that water got over the cholera. Sonny
(to the boy), come over here next summer with your brother, and we'll paddle
up there and you can see that well and Lover's Leap."
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 44
(The Life of Henry Mitchell, Indian Canoe Maker)
(Friday evening when I called at the Mitchell house only their young
daughter was at home. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell had gone over to the Strand
Theater to see Gunge Din. They had left early so as to be sure of a seat.
Saturday evening when I got over to the island I met Henry coming down the
street. lie told me, however, that he was merely going to get a bottle of milk
and that his wife and daughter were at home. He said to go right over and he
would be back in ten minutes.)
Mrs. Mitchell: "I guess you'll have to excuse me. I said I'd have the
Indian names of those two games for you the next time You came over, but I
didn't get them. (I've forgotten the name of her daughter) go over to
your grandmothers, will you, and ask her to write on this paper the names of
that 'Toss the Ball' game and that one played with a bowl and cushion? (I
advised against that, saying it was vary icy on the streets, but the girl said
she didn't mind that.)
"Did you see in the papers where the Indian representatives to the state
legislature were trying to get an increased salary. The other representatives
get $600.00, but the Indians get only $200.00. They say it's because they don't
serve on committees, and so don't have to do so much work, but they're there all
the time and they have to pay their expenses back and forth. Leo Shay says he
doesn't have muoh left when he get through, and that while he's out there he
can't do anything else. Leo could do that committee work just as well as any
one, but the Indians aren't allowed to have a voice in state affairs because
they aren't voters. All they have to do out there is to look out for the inter-
ests of the Indians. Just why the Indians shouldn't vote is something I can't
understand. One of the Indians went over to Old Town once to see some official
in the city hall about voting. I don't know just what postion that official had
over there, but he said to the Indian, Me don't want you people over here. You
have your own elections over on the island, and if you want to vote, go over there.
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 45
"The Bangor News had something about the Indian legislators the other
day. I don't know whether you saw that or not. (She went into another room
to get two clippings from the News. One of these told about the efforts of
the Indian representatives to get increased pay. The Indians, the clipping
said, were likely to get an increase of $200.00 rather than the $400.00 asked
for. The other clipping from the G. and S column, said that the solons at
Augusta had said that the Indian legislators didn't do as much work as the
others and consequently didn't deserve as much pay. G and So however, said
that considering the sort of work the other lawmakers were doing, the Indians
ought to get a salary of $10,000.00 a year, and vacations in Florida thrown in.)
"Leo (Shay) said there were only four people out there that were against
that increase. All the others were in favor of it, and rather than vote against
him, some of them walked out."
(The girl returned here with the two following Indian 11=1861
01-la-day-hum-a-gan, Su-buck-ta-he-gun. The first of these, Ws. Mitchell
said was the name of the Indian Dish Game, described in a previous interview;
and the second, Subucktahegun, was the name of the game in which a ball, attached
by a oord to a pointed stick, was tossed in the air, Each player had eight tries,
and the winner was the one who could impale the ball on the stick the greatest
number of times.)
"I remember an old Ctmadian folk lore tale my father told us when we were
small.
"There was a girl up there who lived in a small village, and she was al-
ways dissatisfied with things. One night there was a dance in the village hill
and she had no one to takekher and no way of getting there. She stamped her
foot on the floor and said to her mother, 'Oh I wish there was some one to take
me to that dance tonight: I'd be willing to go with the devil himself.'
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 46
"Then they heard the sound of sleigh bells outside and a sleigh stopped
at the door. There was an awfully handsome man in that sleigh oh he was a
handsome man. He knocked at the door and asked the girl if she would go with
him to the dance.
"There was a good crowd there and very good music. That man danced with
nobody but the girl, although a lot of the other girls tried to get his atten-
tion. By and by she noticed that people were looking down at her feet as she
danced. The other couples began to draw away and aviod them. They kept on
dancing, though, and by and by all the couples exoppt themselves had left the
hall. Then the girl looking down discovered that her partner's shoes had
changed to cloven hoofs, and when she tried to get away from him she saw that
he had changed into a horrible looking person with horns growing from his fore-
head. Then, according to the old legend, the building sank down through the
earth leaving a big hole where it had been."
(Henry returned here with the bottle of milk and told us about three
drunken Indians he had seen while he was out. They were the same ones I had
seen, earlier in the evening, in Old Town.)
Henry: "I saw three young fellows, pretty well soused down at the landing."
R.G.: "They must have been the three I saw over in front of Lunt's store.
They had their arms around each other's shoulders. One of them had curly hair."
Henrys "That curly haired fellow seemed to be more sober than the rest.
He wept tryint to get the other two home. If they don't get out of sight pretty
soon, that new copIll get a hold of them. I don't know haw they ever got across
that ice."
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 47
Ws. Mitchell: "Do you know/ I think we'd be better off without that
PWA over here. I don't like to speak against my pwn people but I don't think
we need that. The ones that ought to have the work aren't getting it, and a
lot of young, unmarried fellows are working on there. There are six young
fellows over here that are getting that work and two of them are Canadians.
When they get they pay they go and wend it all for drink. They aren't sup-
posed to sell that stuff to the Indians, but thqy get all they want just the
same.
"Howard Ranco over here has a job as welfare agent for the island that he
get $20.00 a week for. Then he's the superintendent or whatever they call it
on the project, and he gets #25.00 a week for that. They might give one of
those jobs to some one else. Jimmie Lewis he used to Pe governor here has
a job taking sick people down to the hospital, and he has two other jobs besides."
Henry: "I'd like to have a couple of more jobs to go with this little one
of mine. There are three or four people workin' on IPA jobs over here that have
oars. They aren't supposed to have oars on that job. My boy, Edwin, tried to
get on there but they wouldn't look at him list because I have this little job
as janitor. I see Roosevelt is tryinl to get a billion and a half more for MPA
and if Congress wont give him that, they may lay off all the white collar workers.
That means fellows like you, I suppose. I see Harry King (overseer of the poor,
in Old Town) has a new car that he rides arouhd in. (The ear is r ally an old
model, second hand oar.) I wonder if the taxpayers have to pay for that. I'll
bet that fellow has a cellar full of federal foods him and same more people
over there. They got rid of him ones and put Hurd in there, but when Hurd died
they put Harry right back on the job. They tell me he's lookinl ahead to the
time when they get a new mayor there and they finally, kick him off the job.
He's tryint to get that job of Indian agent. I hope he doesn't: he might be
as crooked on that as he is On the one he has now."
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 48
Mrs. Mitchell: "Did you see in the paper where they said there was scurry
up in the Saint John Valley? Do you think that really was scurvy?"
B.G.: "The medical examiner seemed to think it was."
Mrs. Mitohells "Yes, that old doctor that resigned has had a lot of ex-
perience, and I think he knew what he was talking about."
Henrys "Barrows didn't like that very well: it gave his administration
a.blaok eye. There's a lot of people up there not gettint enough to eat. Those
republicans up there would rather see the people starve than to have it said
that federal food was coming in there. That Barrows would like to cover that
stuff up if he could. Every time I pick up a paper I fee a picture of him sane
where in it. He crowns a new potato queen every day, and when he's not doinl
that, he's addressin' some old ladies' club."
Mrs. Mitohell: "Every one hates him out in Augusta."
Henry: "He's always sure of enough votes to elect him, though, from the
potato queens he's crowned. The Republicans are knot:kin' Roosevelt, but I °malt
see where Barrows is anything to brag about. He's gettin' a good salary, but
he'd hate to see the Indian representatives get $600.00 a year.
"There are people right now that aren't gettint enough to eat over in Old
Town. They threw a lot of hams away once over there. I saw those hams myself
on the city dump on Main Street. Old Horace Burnham was takint care of it then.
They night have given those hams away to people, but they kept them until they
spoiled. They had some sheepskin jackets, about big enough for this little
fellow here, a few years ago and they got burned up in that fire that destroyed
Keith's shoe store."
(While Henry was talking Mrs. Mitchell had got a strip of wood, such as is
used to make baskets, from another room. She out and bent this wood into a num-
ber of trinkets for the boy: horses, figures to ride them, dogs, tables, and
chairs. She made them, I think, at the rate of about one a minute.)
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 49
R.G.: "I saw some Indian doll:, over in a store window in Old Town. Were
they made over here!"
Henry: "No, those are machine made. They make thlm in Japan, I guess,
for a lot less than we could afford to make them for. I tell you what, though,
fatty, (to the boy): when you come over here next week you can see a doll my
wife is making for a lady. That Indian will have a big hat made of feathers;
a buckskin coat, with a belt; some chaps, something like you ski pants; and
moccasins on his feet. (Henry had a lot of fun explaining to the boy how to
use the little figures Mrs. Mitchell had made.)
R.G.: "De you folks know how Sunkhase Stream got,its name?"
Henry: "No, I don't. Oak Hill, on the island here, has been called that
a long time. When I was a boy I used to get a lot of acorns up there. They
must have named that on account of the oak trees. Right across from here, on
the Milford side, there's a big grove they used to call Hawthorn's Grove. I
don't know why it was called tha't. (It was. named for the man who awned it.)
M.: *Whet about the 'Cook' up here? Mike Pelletier said that was named
for a fellow who used to tote wangan stuff up that way to the drives."
Mrs. Mitchell: "I don't think that is right. I think 'Cook' oomes from
an Indian went IT& Cook,' but I don't know what that means. Then there is the
Jo Pease Rips. I used to ask my mother how that hapened to be called 'Jo Pease,'
but I forgot whet she told me. I'll look those names up, and the next time you
come over I oan tell you."
Henry: "There's a lot of Indian names in Maine. 'Penebsoot' means 'Long
River.' Up near Passadumkeag there's a gravel bank that runs nearly across the
river. That's what Passadumkeag means 'shallow water, gravel bottom.' This
°lemon up here: they call that 101emcn, out the Indian word is 101amon.1 That
was named for the vein of tolamonl that the Indians found in the earth there..
The °lemon was a kind of red ochre that the Indians used for war paint and to
make themselves more attractive to the women. 'he women used it on their foreheads
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 50
after a mourning period was over. If a woman's husband died she remained in
mourning for nine months. At the end of that time she put a little spot of
this olamon on her forehead so people would know the mourning period was over."
Mrs. Mitchell: "How did your name get changed to 'Mitchell,' Henry: your
family name used to be ISwassin.""
Henry: "It used to be a long time ago, but I don't know haw they came to
change it. Old grandfather Sookalexis used to go -around here doctoring, and
he had a boy that worked over in a drug store in Old Town. Right where the
bank is now there used to be a drug store run by a fellow named Folsom, and
across the street, where the First National store is n9w, next to Parlin's,
there used to be a drug store run by a fellow named Marsh. Old Sookalexis
left the recipe for a cold remedy at Marsh's, where his boy worked, so when
he gave any one a prescription for it, they oould get it filled there. when
Marsh died the stock was sold and old Ballard up here got a hold of all the
books and papers. That Ballard's Golden Oil that he puts out now is really
the old Sookalexis Indian Cold Remedy."
R.G.: "Ballard mode some money out of that."
Henry: "Well I guess he did. You remember that fellow they used to call
'Charlie Daylight' that used to run the ferry boat? He was an uncle of mine
and his right name was 'Mitchell.' He had a brother named John Mitchell who
worked up in the woods some. They called him 'Daylight,' too. The first
year he worked up there he said he used to go around to the wangan to see if
there was any mail for him, but they always said there were no letters. Just
before he acme down they found out his name was 'John Mitchell' and they handed
him a whole batch of mail. He had been askinl for letters for 'John Daylight.'
Maine
Living Lore
Old Town 51
"That 'Daylight' wasn't a nicknames it was the English transalation of
John's Indian name 1Chawandis.' The Indians used to get names like that
on account of a custom they had of naming children for the first thing the
mother saw when she left the wigwam. It might be a flower; a deer, a bear, a
cloud, or almost anything. That is hew Indians got such names as 'Red Cloud,'
'Laughing Water,' 'Yellow Flower,' etc. There was a fellow out at Carlisle
named 'Jesse Youngdeer.1 I used to know a fellow from out west. named Arthur
Cornsilk.' Some of the Indians got some funny names out of that. Take that
fellow out in Oklahoma. He's got a lot of money: they found oil on his land.
His name is John Cucumber."
lila.: *Well, I suppose we'll have to be getting home. You people will
probaely want to listen to the basketball gams tonight."
Mrs. Mitohells
"No, we don't care about that: we've grown up."
Henry: "Oh I might listen to it a little while later on: it's Winslow
and Cheverus, isn't it?"
Mts. Mitchell: "The next time you come over I'll have those names for you."
R.G.:
nI thought last week I was about done coming here, for a while any-
way, on account of that ice."
Mrs. Mitchell: "I guess if this weather keeps up you wont have to worry
about that ice. When my girl was born that was seventeen years ago a lot
of anchor ice had backed up above the dam, and they had to out a channel through
it so the doctor could get across. And that was in Mayl"