Macabre Memorials Part #1 - Josie Langmaid

In 1875, seventeen year old Josie Langmaid began her morning walk to school in Pembroke, New Hampshire. She never arrived. A search ensued, and by that evening her murdered body was found in the woods near Pembroke Academy. It was a murder for which local woodchopper Joseph LaPage was arrested and three years later executed.

This is a terrible and sad story but not unheard of even for our small towns in New Hampshire, and after 140 years one might expect a memory like this to have mercifully faded away. Perhaps it would have, if not for the well-intentioned but misguided efforts of the Pembroke townsfolk, who soon after the murder erected this 15-foot memorial for Josie.

And on it inscribed the following messages:

Erected by the citizens of Pembroke and vicinity to commemorate the place of the tragic death and memory of Josie Langmaid...

That was the front of the memorial and okay, so far so good.

Then the left side:

Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flow'r of all the field.

Thoughtful words again, and certainly nothing unusual.

But then comes the right side of the memorial, and the reason why people like me are still searching it out 140 years later:

Body found 90 ft north at stone hub, head found 82 rods north at stone hub

Josie had been decapitated and her head was found over 1,000 feet from her body (a rod is a unit of length equal to just over 16 feet). In 1875, the townsfolk somehow thought it a great idea to carve these details in stone as a way to honor her memory. They even went a step further and installed stone posts where each of the body parts were found.

I can't know this for sure, but I suspect there's a reason why Pembroke no longer upkeeps the bushes that are steadily growing around and obscuring this memorial.

Madame Sherri's Castle

While caught up in an Internet wormhole one day I came across a picture of an arched, stone staircase, standing alone in the woods. The stairs led nowhere. In fact, that was the title of the picture ... Stairway to Nowhere. The stones were somewhat deteriorated but the structure looked intact enough to climb. It was right out of a fairy tale, and when I realized it was located right here in New Hampshire I knew at that moment I'd visit those stairs someday.

Madame Antoinette Sherri was a fashion designer from New York, and she built this vacation home in West Chesterfield NH as a place to hold extravagant parties during the roaring 20's. If you believe the rumors, and I most certainly do, there might even have been some brothel activity going on up there. Sherri herself was a risque character known to do things such as drive around town wearing nothing but a fur coat. At some point her fortune withered and she neglected the property, however, and it fell into disrepair and vandalism before burning down in 1963. Left behind are the stone foundation, lower part of the fireplace, and the famous stairway. Madame Sherri died soon after, in 1965.

These remnants sit within the 513 acre Madame Sherri Forest,which was a gift to the Forest Society - caretakers of the site - by Ann Stokes. Out of simple love for the area Stokes purchased the property soon after Madame Sherri's death. From the parking lot you will first pass a man-made pond, then the ruins are a short walk uphill. As usual, Logan was first to spot our destination and sprinted the final distance.

We each took turns climbing the stairs and having our picture taken, then we all went up for this group shot which now hangs in our living room.

The rest of our time was spent exploring the foundation and other remains. This section of stone Madison is standing inside was originally built to wrap around a tree, one of two that lined the entrance.

A section of cellar remains accessible through the back side, and goes all the way through if you don't mind doing a little crawling.

In addition to the ruins there are trails leading up the mountain, but unfortunately we went during early Spring and ice still covered much of the ground. We decided it wasn't worth risking a broken tailbone. And doubly unfortunate, I learned later that a mine shaft exists on the far side of the mountain that you can enter with a little bit of climbing. Had I known that at the time I would have definitely risked my tailbone, but since I didn't it makes for the perfect excuse to revisit the site someday.

If you're anything like me, I don't need to recommend that you make a trip to explore Madame Sherri's Castle. You would have seen the pictures above and already made the decision to go.

Links:
Photo Album
Madame Sherri Forest - Forest Society

Rutland Prison Farm

Getting arrested for petty crime in the early 1900's didn't always mean you'd end up sitting in a jail cell. If you were of the non-violent type or otherwise a low risk criminal - perhaps one of the local drunks or vagabonds - you just might find yourself tending animals and working the fields at the Rutland Prison Farm in central Massachusetts.

Not unlike the highway chain gangs I got used to seeing during family vacations in North Carolina, this farm was a way for prisoners to occupy themselves and at the same time give back to the community they'd wronged. Potatoes were grown and shipped to the Massachusetts state prison, and enough milk was being produced to sell to the nearby city of Worcester.

* Photo courtesy: Town of Rutland 

Built in 1903 on a 900+ acre plot of land, the farm operated until the 1930's when it was closed and abandoned due to being located on the drainage area of the local water supply. Today, the land remains open for public visitation and walking trails are throughout the complex. The entrance itself - a gated dirt road with parking for a handful of vehicles - was easy enough to find, and from there we began our trek down a dirt road and soon began finding remains of demolished buildings.

A map we had to go by was an old hand-drawn one, and using these foundations as landmarks we soon found the first of several structures.

From there we started coming to the good stuff. This colorful place was listed on our map as the "Old New Boston Schoolhouse" and described as a pre-existing building taken over and used by the prison. That didn't sound exciting enough for us, so we instead dubbed it "solitary confinement" due to its several small rooms.

Another location that needed some embellishment was the root cellar, which we instead designated the prison gallows. We told each other tales of many doomed criminals who met their fate in this dark and foreboding cave. Here is an original picture from 1934.

* Photo courtesy: Town of Rutland

And here it is in 2016 after a paint job by some local artists.

Embellishment wasn't needed inside this cellar, however. It was plenty creepy as is.

Additionally we found remains of the pump house, silos, hen houses (aka torture chambers), and a hospital that was added in 1907. Not much remained of the hospital other than the lower frame and these support posts we raced each other to climb.

Although a successful adventure, there were at least two places we somehow missed during our exploration. Apparently I didn't do my homework well enough. One is the graveyard which holds the remains of 59 prisoners, and the other is a long drainage tunnel that I've seen pictures online of people walking through. It was both bad and good news that we didn't find either of these spots. Bad news of course because we didn't get to see them on this particular day.

And good news because we now have an excuse to go back and explore the Rutland Prison Farm all over again.

Links:
Photo Album
Town of Rutland

Lincoln Caverns

After a 10 hour drive from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania that included 3 separate stops plus a half-hour scavenger hunt to find beer (sadly, convenience stores in PA cannot sell alcohol, you need to find an authorized dealer), all we wanted to do was relax on our hotel's balcony and enjoy the Sam Adams that some nice distributor had re-opened his business to sell us. Our plan was to sleep late the next morning so we'd be well rested for that afternoon's scheduled bike ride.

Then we found a brochure for Lincoln Caverns, a cave in nearby Huntingdon PA, and decided that some things were more important than sleep. We set our alarms to get up early and the next morning made the trip over.

This cave was discovered in 1930 during construction of a nearby highway, and just over a year later the owner began touring to the public under the name Hi-Way-May Caverns. It changed hands a few years later, changed names a few times, and eventually settled in as Lincoln Caverns under the ownership of Myron Dunlavy. Myron's life ambition was to own his own cave, to the point that he would put out advertisements in newspapers looking for anyone with a cave to sell. This is something I may or may not have tried myself on Craigslist.

In those early days before nuisances such as safety regulations, visitors would park on the other side of the highway and walk across both lanes of traffic to enter the cave through a doorway cut into the rock. That entrance has since been sealed and this new one created, now accessible from an adjacent parking lot.

One day per year, however, on the caverns anniversary, the staff offers a special tour which includes going through the original entrance. This special one day a year anniversary date? Just the day we happen to be visiting. Here I am standing alongside the highway, looking in at the precise spot this cave was first discovered.

Also on this special tour, instead of having one guide take us through the entire system, the theme was that various guides were stationed throughout the cave playing the part of the original owner & staff. We would walk to each of them as they explained their area of expertise. Another cool thing - because we arrived so early that morning we were the only two people in our group, meaning we got to go entirely at our own pace and pepper each guide with all our questions. Here is one of them leading us down a winding stairway.

That was just one staircase out of many. I would have enjoyed seeing how this tour was done in the old days prior to their construction.

And although it's not one of the larger commercial caves, Lincoln Caverns has some impressively tall ceilings, such as this winding hallway.

And what cave wouldn't be complete without at least a small pool of water at its lowest level?

The bonus of all this? After exiting Lincoln Caverns there's a part two to the tour into a second cave called Whisper Rocks, the entrance to which lies just a few hundred feet from the original cave. This bonus cave is nearly as impressive as the first one.

Workers have yet to find a way the two caves connect, but they believe they somehow meet and exploration continues to this day. Additionally, newer cavities have been found in Whisper Rocks which are in the process of being excavated so that someday they'll be added to the tour.

Lincoln Caverns was not only a fascinating cave to visit, but the staff was friendly, informative, and very patient. This was advertised as a one hour tour, but with all our poking around and asking questions nearly an hour and a half passed before we were wrapping up with our last guide, and not one of them I felt rushed us along. That's a business doing something right.

Some people go to work as people greeters after retiring in order to stay busy and contribute to society. Me, my post-retirement career is going to be underground working as a tour guide in someone's cave.

That is, unless I'm able to buy my own cave first.

Links:
Photo Album
Official Website