"That Ugly Old Son Of A Gun, Clem McCobb"
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Barbara Rumsey
The research I do was really set in motion because of two McCobbs -- members of the now locally-extinct family -- and the Milton Giles family. In December of 1985 I first went in the historical society with my son Keith Hartford who had a school project. Alden Stickney, in charge that day during Christmas vacation, encouraged me to volunteer and I became a regular in the spring. Not too much time elapsed before I found out about a never-ending task that was part and parcel of local history. Letters, calls, and (now) e-mails arrive constantly out of the blue, some wanting family information, some wanting vessel information, a fraction wanting something outside those two fields, but all usually deserving thoughtful answers.
Housemoving McCobbs and Gileses
After a few months volunteering in a general way, I offered to answer my first inquiry, one from a summer man by the name of William A. Gifford of Georgetown. He wanted information on Clement McCobb, a circa 1900 Boothbay house-mover who had moved a number of houses on Georgetown. Knowing members of a local housemoving family, the Milton Giles family -- in the 1980s everybody still said, I figured it would be a snap to call Milton's son Lincoln, get all the facts, and write a response.
I talked to Lincoln and his older brother Red Giles in early December 1986. Even though Lincoln was born years after Clem died in 1912, he'd heard a lot of stories about Clem; and Red, born the year Clem died, added a few more. But it didn't end there. They suggested I see Hazel McCobb Poore who was a first cousin once removed to Clem. And they told me to see Clem's stepgrandchildren, Mary Hasson, Ethel Hardwick, and the closest thing to stepgrandson Ken Merrill, his widow Helen Merrill, and so it went on and on as I built up a picture of Clem.
It wasn't a pretty picture -- Clem was universally called "that ugly old son of a gun Clem McCobb.'' Some newcomers may be unaware that ugly means bad-tempered. And "gun" was a euphemism for another commonly-used word. Only when the older people got comfortable with me over time did they drop that euphemism. There's no doubt that Clem could be unpleasant, but being bad makes for good stories, so... Clem stories follow.
Clem was born in 1849 on McCobb's Hill at the head of West Harbor Pond, an only son with four sisters, two who died young. The family land, which Clem inherited, extended a mile over to the Barters Island Road near current Camp Knickerbocker. He spent his life moving buildings, doing foundation work, and stone work. The Registers of the 1870s, 1880s, and right up to 1912 constantly mention Clem moving buildings in and out of town.
Clem Moves a Well
Clem's most famous exploit was the moving of a well, which he did when a property dispute reared its head. Because the event took place long before the storytellers were born, the accounts vary at times. Ethel Hardwick heard that two neighbors didn't get along and that the one without a well had Clem dig a well, then tunnel toward his neighbor's well and drain it into his. Mary Hasson claimed he used dynamite to change the course of the water to no longer fill the pre-existing well.
Hazel Poore explained in more detail the origins of the well conflict. Two people with adjoining properties had shared a well for many years. Eventually they had a falling-out, and the one without a well was forbidden to use the heretofore joint well. The water loser asked Clem what he should do, and Clem dug his a well just this side of the property line, going a foot lower than the old well. The water flowed into the new well and Clem rocked it up.
Once telegraph, phone, and power lines were run around town on poles, housemoving was made more complicated and expensive. Red and Lincoln told me that Clem had a commitment to move a barn, and the phone company was supposed to drop two phone lines at 7 a.m. to have the way clear for Clem's operation. When they didn't show up at the appointed time, Clem moved the barn anyway, hauling the wires down with it.
Red and Lincoln also told me that a woman sued Clem for chopping down one of her trees. She identified him in court (which at that time might have been the law office of a local judge, such as Cyrus Tupper), but he denied having chopped it down. The judge decided to view the scene of the crime. When he got there, he found that the tree had been sawn, not chopped, and threw the case out.
Revenge at West Harbor
Clem got along well with his stepgrandson Ken Merrill, and when Ken was young, he used to watch Clem's moving operations when he could. Ken told his wife Helen an 1870s story she repeated to me. There is always opposition to change, even if the change will ostensibly improve the economy. Before 1880, West Harbor Pond was a saltwater arm of the sea called Campbell's Cove. It had a great alewife run that the town protected and regulated since 1789, and it had good anchorages nearly at the foot of McCobb's Hill. Clem's uncle Dan McCobb used to anchor there, up at the head of the Cove, and walk the mile to his house, now Jim and Dolly Rollins's house on the Barters Island Road.
The late 1870s marked the beginning of the local ice harvesting boom, and wealthy out-of-towners wanted to jump on the bandwagon by damming Campbell's Cove to create an ice pond. Some residents along the banks of Campbell's Cove, especially the mariners, were resentful that they would lose their access to the sea. Clem, whose house was at the head of the cove, was one of those who was dead set against Campbell's Cove being dammed.
Clem set out to take revenge on the person he held responsible for the plan to dam Campbell's Cove for the ice business. He wanted to inflict punishment just this side of going to jail, so he asked a lawyer or judge, "How bad can I hurt a man and not go to jail?'' Clem was told that if he broke someone's wrist, he would be fined but not imprisoned. So, the story goes, he did just that -- broke a wrist.
I tried to check the court records, but after much searching in the courthouse and sheriff's office, I concluded, as had others before me, that many of the old county criminal records had been improperly destroyed. The only brief record I could find was Clem's being charged with assault (the victim unidentified) on February 5, 1877. It is conceivable that the assault took place against one of the dam planners. The incident was not carried in the Register.
"That Ugly Old Son Of A Gun, Clem McCobb", Part II
Barbara Rumsey
Last week I told a few stories about circa 1900 building mover Clem McCobb who died in 1912. He was famous for his bad disposition, moving feats, and his ability to exact revenge. Aside from building moving, he also farmed, as did most people, and performed stone work.
All the stories told to me were just handed down in families; none of the storytellers ever met him, Clem having died and gone off the scene before they had a chance. Now all those people who told me the Clem stories in the late 1980s are dead too: Hazel Poore, Red and Lincoln Giles, Mary Hasson, Ethel Hardwick, and Helen Merrill.
Breaking Up the Towns and Housekeeping
Hazel McCobb Poore told me the story about Clem's reaction to the 1889 breakup of the towns. Many people were bitterly opposed to the Harbor's leaving Boothbay, and that bitterness lives on today among many residents in both towns. The arguments were fed by the underlying class division between local businessmen and fishermen, farmers, and laborers.
According to Hazel: Clem, a laborer, was "mad and ugly" that not only about a third of his property became part of Boothbay Harbor in 1889, but his house's location fell within the new town of the Harbor, making him an unwilling resident of that town. He solved his problem immediately by moving his barn to the other end of his property on the Barters Island Road and building a new house there. That property is now the Sproul place called "McCobb Farm.''
The house Clem left up on McCobb Hill fell down during the time Dr. Phil Gregory owned it, maybe 60 years after the breakup of the towns. Hazel and I went up to look at the site one day many years ago, and she pointed around to the vanished features of the property. She showed me the house location, the barn foundation, the cattle stile site, and where the flagpole had been on that 150-foot hill, a flag that could be seen over at Blinn's Hill in Dresden. A lot of such great vantages are now lost all over the region with the present density of trees cutting out the lines of sight.
On the Outs with the In-laws
Hazel told me that Clem was married twice, and that the first marriage ended in divorce, a rarity at that time -but with Clem's reputation, not totally unexpected. Hazel said the son of that marriage was farmed out to an Edgecomb family and the boy's name was changed because it was so similar to his new last name. Her inability to remember the name made the search a little difficult, but eventually I found in various records that, sure enough, Clem McCobb and Susanna Monroe had married in 1873; and, sure enough, their son Clarence was adopted by David and Judith Lawrence of Edgecomb, and his name was changed to Frank.
Clem then married Mary Isabel Reed, widow of Silas Reed who had drowned. Mary already had three Reed children: Lyman, Bertha (Merrill), and Evelina (Pennington). Being young children, they all lived with Clem, but not for long. As Clem's step-granddaughter Mary Pennington Hasson said to me in 1986, after hesitating for a spell, "Might's well tell it like it is.''
Mary went on to say that, "Clem was never called anything by anyone but 'that ugly old son-of-a-gun' -- he was so cross and hateful that my and Ethel's [Hardwick] mother, Evelina, left home at 14.'' The McCobb children that Clem and Mary had, Lewis, Marie, and Wilbur, all died in their late teens of TB -- it was before the time of pasteurized milk. The prescribed cure for tuberculosis then was fresh air; Hazel remembers seeing the tent one of the boys stayed in outside in all kinds of weather, and feeling so sorry for him. Lewis died in the arms of Ella McCobb, Hazel McCobb Poore's mother. This is all leading up to something!
It came about that Clem's stepson Lyman Reed and Clem's first cousin, Dan McCobb Jr. (Hazel Poore's father), sued each other over some of the land above West Harbor Pond in the early 1920s -- family land. It was obvious, talking to Hazel, Ethel, and Mary in the late 1980s, that there were still hard feelings between those particular Reed and McCobb branches 65 years later. Perhaps the case started because Dan, who lived in Clem's post-1889 house, and Lyman, who lived at the head of the pond below McCobb's Hill, quarreled over some of Clem's land. Judge Brackett drew a plan (now at the historical society) of the McCobb and Reed land for the case.
Secret Agent Man
At any rate, the day in court came for Lyman Reed and Dan McCobb. Hazel told me, "A man in an expensive soft gray suit came to the house at the time of the hearing and said he was Clem McCobb's son by his first wife and had been adopted by an Edgecomb family.''
He then explained to Hazel, who would have been his second cousin, about his name change and the reason for it. The man, Frank Lawrence, said he could testify to the bounds of Clem's property and that he was a secret service agent who had, in his breast pocket, a dispensation to reveal his identify for the good of the family. Hazel was awestruck by the man, and gravely promised not to reveal his true job.
According to Hazel, when her father Dan went into court and said he had Clem's son waiting in the wings, Lyman dropped the suit. Who knows now if the man was pulling Hazel's leg or if he was truly a bigger-than-life mystery man who'd been to faraway places and had knowledge that helped decide the situation.
The Death of Clem
Clem was said, by Ethel Hardwick, to have had dropsy and to have gone off his rocker toward the end. She said he used to go down cellar and stick his feet in a barrel of salt pork. Hazel also said that Clem went a little crazy, ran down cellar with an axe and jumped in a barrel of salt pork, saying he would kill anyone who came near him.
Five men went down later; some distracted him while others disarmed him and pulled him out. Hazel thought Clem must have had diabetes and that the pain and water retention in his legs might have compelled him to bathe in brine in a barrel. My grandmother told me to gargle with warm salt water when I had a sore throat; you soak your sore feet in Epsom salts; why not soak your legs in a barrel of salt pork? Actually a little medical book I consulted advised diabetics to not soak their feet in Epsom salts, so maybe a doctor told those men to get him out of the pork barrel. . . It's a little late in the day to get everything to gibe together.
Clem died in April of 1912, and though none of the people I talked to ever met him, they sure heard a lot about him. I regret now I did not write down all the stories. He, for all his flaws, was a great introduction to hands-on local history to me.
Maybe the stories are larger than life, but Clem was the kind of guy that engendered those kinds of stories. Small-town, old-time stories -- you've got to pick and choose those parts that seem believable, but they each have a kernel that gives you a bit of the flavor of turn-of-the-century Boothbay.
"The Very Last Boothbay McCobb"Barbara Rumsey
Hazel McCobb Poore, who died May 3 at 89, was a great help to me over the last twelve years, telling me countless stories of earlier times in Boothbay. In a sense, Hazel, along with Red Giles, were the main reasons that I got led into the deep end of Boothbay history. I went to see her regularly for a decade; toward the end she kind of lost her bearings and my visits became fewer and shorter. Bedbound in her room, about blind and unable to read her Louis L'Amour books, uninterested in watching TV or listening to the radio, she hallucinated about long-dead people while her daughter Mildred cared for her. I guess I'd hallucinate too if I'd been in her place. In the last years I usually visited when Mildred thought she was doing pretty good. I'd go down and Hazel would snap back into the fullness of life for a while and we'd reminisce our way through some of the old stories she'd told me over the years. Picture: Hazel and her family, circa 1925
It all started late in 1986. I'd been helping out at the museum in a peripheral way since spring 1986, but I'd never done any research. In late December 1986, the Historical Society received an inquiry from Georgetown about some of the houses that were moved by Boothbay housemover Clem McCobb over there at the turn of the century. I offered to answer the letter, my first one, because I knew the Giles boys. They'd done a lot of work for my family, and I knew they'd moved houses; as had their father Milton and his brothers, the earlier Giles boys; and their father Frederick before who also worked with his brothers at times.
1986 and Clem McCobb
I went right home and called Lincoln Giles, and he knew all about Clem although Clem, dying in 1912, was gone years before Lincoln was born. Between Lincoln and his brother Red, who was born the year Clem died, I ended up with what nearly seemed a book on Clem. But Lincoln said I'd better call Hazel Poore because she was born a McCobb and had grown up on the McCobb farm (now Sproul) on the Barters Island Road. The farm had been Clem McCobb's, then his cousin Dan McCobb's, Hazel's father.
So I went to see Hazel Poore (born 1909) in East Boothbay; I remembered her around town when I was a kid, knitting mittens at craft fairs and running Poore's, the roadside stand at Linekin, but I hadn't known her well. Like Lincoln and Red, she'd never met Clem McCobb but she could recite story after story about "that ugly old son of a gun Clem McCobb," the favored designation for Clem by everyone (though "gun" was a euphemism for another word). She rocked and knitted, surrounded by her school pictures of grandchildren and long-gone family ox teams; and she talked about Clem's parents up on McCobb's Hill above Campbell's Cove (West Harbor Pond).
I was dutifully quiet while Hazel talked, but ticked things off in my head. Finally I broke in, saying, "But you're talking about the 1840s -- how do you know all that?"
Hazel said, "I listened."
I was dumbfounded, and I guess I decided at that time that if people like Red and Hazel could listen to all those old stories going back 100 or 150 years and remember them for who knows what reason, somebody else should too. They needed to be carried along or they would just evaporate into thin air, just someday be gone as fast as you snap your fingers. So I kept going back to see Hazel on the Neck and Red up on Giles Hill and the other people I came to rely on in my 1980s historical wanderings, like Reuben McFarland, Cecil Pierce, Asa Tupper, Carroll Gray, Carl Webber, George Campbell -- all now dead.
The Last McCobb
The permanent settlement of what is now the Boothbay region took place about 1730. Approximately 40 families, principally Scotch-Irish, came here under the leadership of Samuel McCobb. McCobbs remained a large, influential Boothbay family through the following 200 years, and I rarely study local history without bumping up against them. But McCobbs starting dying out in the mid-twentieth century, and now the town has come to the end of them. Hazel was the last Boothbay person born with the name McCobb. With her gone, the name is truly extinct here in town, a thread back to the beginning snapped.
When I mentioned to Red once that Hazel was the last Boothbay McCobb, he objected, reminding me that she'd come from Alna when she was seven. I then reminded Red that her grandfather Captain Daniel McCobb had left Boothbay, retiring to Alna, and that his son Dan had brought the family back, so I figured she was still a Boothbay McCobb. Red never gave an inch; he'd just snap his jaw shut and fume with his eyes, so I don't know what he figured about my figuring.
Hazel
Hazel had a great memory, an ability to recall things exactly, and a blunt openness. Through her words a past way of life was laid out, and I loved to hear the oldtime expressions roll out of her. She always said "such a matter" for thereabouts, "scholar" for student, "commence" for start; and she often used antique phrases like "godfrey," "aye, yes, nor no," "high, wide and handsome," "to beat the band," and "more's the pity." She told me about some commotion in a courtroom once -- while testifying about shoddy workmanship, she said a hole in a storm door was "large enough to drive a horse and cart through." At that, a juror couldn't contain himself, came to life, slapped his knee, laughed, and said, "There's an old farm girl if I ever saw one!" A lot of things made her indignant -- she had a fiery temper -- and she expressed that emotion clearly in words and tone. I taped and made videos of her, hoping to capture some of her colorful language, but the minute I'd turn on, she'd clean up her speech and sound like a dignified radio announcer.
She told stories of all over: her grandfather Dan's encounter with pirates in Jamaica, his shipwrecks, how, on his deathbed, his wife promised him none of their children would go to sea; life on the McCobb farms in Alna, blueberrying on the plains or barrens, feeding and housing in the barn the Italians who built the narrow gauge railroad; farming on the Boothbay McCobb farm with her father, then with her brother Wave: plowing, furrowing, seeding, weeding, harrowing, haying, harvesting, milking, and the milk route; school days at the Center; early jobs of raspberrying, working at the Sawyers Island House and at Kenneth Pinkham's Southport casino, lobstering out of Little River, fishing for herring, using a .22 to drive off a brazen neighbor who was hauling her husband's traps, her husband painted for Luke's shipyard, working for Jackson's 1920s Boothbay Shores development, for Elbridge Giles, and on the state roads; and the characters on Linekin Neck, like "Miss Tappy-toes" and "Carriecadelia." I'm awful sorry to have Hazel gone.