Post by Joanna on Jan 1, 2015 22:10:14 GMT -5
Ghost Hunters Search for Grave of Mary Howe
Mary Howe was a Damariscotta medium with a reputation for slipping into a trance and snapping awake with a message from the other side. Until one day, 132 years ago, when she didn’t. She just lay there. And lay there. And lay there. For 12 days. This, according to Sally Lobkowicz, is when things got really interesting.
Lobkowicz operates Red Cloak Haunted History Tours in which she guides ghost enthusiasts in seven Maine towns while carrying a lantern and wearing a red cape. On these tours, she tells true ghost stories interwoven with tall tales. She helped her husband, Greg Latimer, research his new book, Haunted Damariscotta, Ghosts of the Twin Villages and Beyond. The work got them interested in the longstanding local legend of Mary Howe and wondering if they could be of assistance – two centuries later. “A lot of people traveled from different parts of New England to go to her séances,” Lobkowicz said. “Sometimes her trances were a couple days. Her brothers took care of her. They often would warm stones in the fireplace to put in bed with her to keep her body temperature up.”
Back in December 1882, by the sixth day of her latest trance, there was gossip around town. By day 10, people were alarmed. Yet, her brothers insisted Mary was fine. Nonetheless, the town doctor paid a visit. “There was no rigor mortis. There was no lividity, where the blood puddles down to the bottom of your limbs,” Lobkowicz said. “But at the same time, he couldn’t really find a pulse or determine if she was breathing or not.” On day 12, against her brothers’ protests, the doctor declared Howe dead.
“The local cemetery would not have her because they believed she was alive,” Lobkowicz said. “Local gravediggers refused to dig her grave for the same reason.” So the doctor and Lincoln County sheriff did the deed themselves, burying Mary Howe in an unmarked grave outside town and telling no one where she lay. They didn’t want townspeople digging her back up. We thought, ‘This poor lady.’ Whether she was alive or dead, she never had a stone; nobody knows where she is.”
She and Latimer plan a different sort of digging this winter – through historical records – to figure it out. They’ll raise funds for a gravestone once they ascertain her final resting place. “We’re hoping by spring to have an answer, but of course, we don’t know if we will,” Lobkowicz added.
Sources: Kathryn Skelton, The Sun-Journal, December 12, 2014; and Yankee Magazine.
