Tag: Maine

JUNE 2, 1855: GIVE ME A MARTINI OR GIVE ME DEATH

Posted on by Richard Daybell

In the early 1850s, the city of Portland, Maine, with a population of 21,000 might be called a sleepy little burg. But that was about to change thanks to a Maine law enacted in 1851 outlawing the manufacture and sale of alcohol anywhere in the state, except for medicinal and mechanical purposes.

Portland Mayor Neal S. Dow was an outspoken prohibitionist who fully supported the law, so much so that he was dubbed the “Napoleon of Temperance. ” However, Dow had authorized a large shipment of “medicinal and mechanical alcohol” that was being stored in the city vaults for distribution to pharmacists and doctors (authorized under the law). The good citizens of Portland got wind of this cache of alcohol and suspected the worst, that Dow was a hypocrite and a secret sot.

The Maine law had an interesting little clause allowing any three voters to apply for a search warrant if they suspected someone was selling liquor illegally. Three men did just that, appearing before a judge who issued a search warrant.

On the afternoon of June 2, a crowd of several hundred people, already irate over the law coming between them and their Harvey Wallbangers, gathered outside the building where the alcohol was being held. The crowd grew larger and surlier as it became obvious that the police were not going to seize the booze. As the crowd swelled, jostling became shoving, and the hurling of angry words became the hurling of rocks. The infamous Portland Rum Riot of 1855 was in full swing.

Police were unable to control the mob, and Mayor Dow called out the militia. When the protesters ignored the order to disperse, the militia, on Dow’s orders, fired into the crowd killing one man and wounding several others.

Dow was widely criticized for his strong-arm tactics during the incident and was later prosecuted for improperly acquiring the alcohol but was acquitted. The Maine Law was repealed the following year.

 

 

 

AUGUST 20, 1976: DROP YOUR PANTS AND SAY AH

Posted on by Richard Daybell

The Allagash incident was the Big Daddy of alien abductions, celebrated not only by UFO groupies but on television’s Unsolved Mysteries (and we all know As Seen on TV is the ultimate bona fides).

The Allagash Waterway is a scenic 65-mile long river flowing through the North Woods of Maine, celebrated by Henry David Thoreau.  It was August on the Allagash (that’s got to be a song, composers), and four young men, students of the Massachusetts School of Art, were in Maine to do a little canoeing and fishing. There were Jim and Jack who were twin brothers and their friends Chuck and Charlie who were not. They had paddled to a remote lake where they intended to spend the night. The fishing was lousy during the day, and they were low on food (being artists they didn’t trouble themselves with proper provisions), so they determined to try some night fishing. They built a huge campfire to guide them back to shore, then headed out in their canoe.

After a time on the lake, the four suddenly saw a light, a luminous sphere too big to be a star, too far above the trees to be their campfire. The sphere moved toward them, changing colors as it approached.

As it came closer, they saw that this flying sucker was over 80 feet in diameter, and they began to worry about its intentions. A brief debate on what to do next resulted in frantic paddling toward shore. The sphere was having none of it; it sent out a shaft of light beckoning them into its ghostly glow. When they didn’t respond, it just gobbled them right up.

The next thing Jim/Jack, Chuck and Charlie knew, they were standing on shore, staring at the sphere, as it gave them a goodbye wave of its beam, and disappeared with a Cheshire Cat grin into the nighttime sky. All this within a matter of minutes. But wait, their once roaring fire was now nothing but ashes, and the light of dawn was erasing the darkness. How could this be?

They evidently chalked it up to the beer or perhaps the pot, because each man went back to his own normal world. But then came the nightmares. Strange beings with long necks, large heads, and lidless metallic eyes that glowed performed inappropriate physical examinations, their insect-like hands with four fingers poking here, there and I beg your pardon! Each dreamer, Jim/Jack, Chuck or Charlie, had the same dream, and each being an artist, rendered a depiction of the encounter, though each presumably in his own medium.

Psychiatric examinations showed Jim/Jack, Chuck and Charlie to be mentally stable (as stable as an artist can be), and they all passed lie-detector tests. Did something from “out there” come down here on August 20, 1976? Will we ever know? And what about that night a few years later when Jim (or Jack) was parking with his girl friend in the Allagash woods and the next morning discovered a hook caught in the door handle of his car?

 

I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.  – Stephen Hawking

 

So That’s What They Were Drinking

For folks in Maine who occasionally like to partake of a brew, Allagash is not so much an “incident” as it is a brewery in Portland featuring such selections as Allagash White, Tripel, Curieux, Barrel & Bean, and the oh-so-appropriate Allagash River Trip.  You can visit them at https://www.allagash.com/beer/.  Tell them Wretched Richard sent you and maybe I’ll get a free beer out of it.

 

JUNE 2, 1855: GIVE ME A MARTINI OR GIVE ME DEATH

Posted on by Richard Daybell

In the early 1850s, the city of Portland, Maine, with a population of 21,000 might be called a sleepy little burg. But that was about to change thanks to a Maine law enacted in 1851 outlawing the manufacture and sale of alcohol anywhere in the state, except for medicinal and mechanical purposes.

Portland Mayor Neal S. Dow was an outspoken prohibitionist who fully supported the law, so much so that he was dubbed the “Napoleon of Temperance. ” However, Dow had authorized a large shipment of “medicinal and mechanical alcohol” that was being stored in the city vaults for distribution to pharmacists and doctors (authorized under the law). The good citizens of Portland got wind of this cache of alcohol and suspected the worst, that Dow was a hypocrite and a secret sot.

The Maine law had an interesting little clause allowing any three voters to apply for a search warrant if they suspected someone was selling liquor illegally. Three men did just that, appearing before a judge who issued a search warrant.

On the afternoon of June 2, a crowd of several hundred people, already irate over the law coming between them and their Harvey Wallbangers, gathered outside the building where the alcohol was being held. The crowd grew larger and surlier as it became obvious that the police were not going to seize the booze. As the crowd swelled, jostling became shoving, and the hurling of angry words became the hurling of rocks. The infamous Portland Rum Riot of 1855 was in full swing.

Police were unable to control the mob, and Mayor Dow called out the militia. When the protesters ignored the order to disperse, the militia, on Dow’s orders, fired into the crowd killing one man and wounding several others.

Dow was widely criticized for his strong-arm tactics during the incident and was later prosecuted for improperly acquiring the alcohol but was acquitted. The Maine Law was repealed the following year.