Magic, Myths, and Stories that are Probably True

Being a Main-ah through and through, the very first story I wanted to share is one that took place a mere 25 miles from where I took my first steps. It is a story everyone in my region grew up on, but even here, there have been variations handed down through the decades. I can only tell it the way I heard it growing up and it is a little different than what I am seeing on the internet today.

Bucksport is a picturesque little mill town that now-a-days has no mill. It does, however, have a thriving business center of mostly local folks running small restaurants and shops. and is proudly looked over by Fort Knox; an amazingly intact fort built to protect Maine waters from a possible British invasion in 1844.

Colonel Jonathan Buck, founding father, devout Christian, and Justice of the Peace, was born in Massachusetts and found his way up the coast in 1775 when he was appointed by the 5th Regiment of the District of Maine Militia to man Fort Pownall. Fort Pownall was a wooden fort that once adorned the Penobscot River near Buckstown (now Bucksport) was to became a fledgling town.

Now, this is where the story gets a little murky. The internet will tell us that the good Colonel condemned a witch to burn and the witch cursed him by saying that she would dance on his grave. End of story. This was generations after the Salem Witch Trials and I have never heard what it was that led Buck to such a conclusion.

The other version has a little more meat to it. The way I heard it was that Jonathan Buck had the occasional secret tryst with one Ida Black.

Ida lived on the edge of town with a deaf boy who helped her with her small farm. Ida and Buck carried on their illicit affair for quite some time until Ida discovered Buck had another mistress as well. From there, Ida became the woman scorned and for Jonathan Buck; she became a liability.

With trumped-up witch craft charges, a powerful Jonathan Buck was able to rile up the townspeople and they showed up at Ida’s home as an angry mob ready to arrest the witch. When Ida would not come out and face justice, someone in the jeering crowd lit the house on fire. Still, Ida and the boy remained hidden.

Ida’s screams could be heard above the roar of the fire and when they finally died down, someone spotted the poor deaf boy running through the field carrying the leg of Ida; the only part of her to escape the flames.

Years later, when Jonathan Buck finally breathed his last breath he was buried in the cemetery in the town he had helped create. Mourners erected a monument and then, years later, people began to observe a bizarre stain in the exact shape of a leg had appeared on the stone.

The stone was scrubbed clean several times. It was scrubbed until it gleamed, but the stain always returned. At least two times, descendants of Colonel Buck have replaced the marker only to have the same stain show up in the same place. Eventually, the tomb, the stain, and the little town of Bucksport were on the map of strange stories that Maine has become quite famous for.

Is it true? Well, it’s true that Colonel Buck lived here, founded the town and died here. It is also true that there is a bizarre stain that is clearly visible when you’re driving by the cemetery. As for the rest? It is anyone’s guess.

As a footnote to this story, it is also said that a small broken-heart shape appeared on the other side of the gravestone. I can’t vouch that it is there as the cemetery is usually locked to keep outsiders from being too nosey.

My grandmother once told me that the heart appeared on the stone when the deaf boy that had run away from the fire that day had also died and the broken heart was a symbol of his sorrow at losing the one person who cared about him.