New at Old York
Myths that won't die and more about York
By Scott Stevens
OYHS Director
Is this the grave of a witch? The members of York Brownie Troop 257 know the answer. Pictured here, Anne Poubeau shares the true story of Mary Nasson's gravesite with the girls during a recent visit to the Old York Historical Society. Read on to find out about this and other York legends.
Photo by Juanita Reed
Try this quiz about historic York:
1. How do you pronounce "The Old Gaol"?
2. What does "Agamenticus" refer to?
3. Where is "the Witch's Grave"?
4. Where is Snowshoe Rock?
5. What side does our Civil War statue represent?
6. If you have an old house, does the Old York Historical Society have any authority over what you do with it?
Answers:
1. "Gaol" is the traditional English spelling of "jail," and is pronounced in the same way. One often hears "goal," as in a soccer score or an objective, but incarceration was no one's goal!
2. "Agamenticus" is an English attempt to spell the Native American name for the area by the mouth of the York River. It meant roughly "at the narrow opening." Early settlers adopted the name for the town, and were so attached to it that when Massachusetts took over Maine and renamed their village, some people wrote "Agamenticus, so-called York" on subsequent deeds.
3. There is no witch's grave and there is no known historical record of witches in York. This is one of the "Myths That Won't Die." It originated sometime in the early 1800s, and has been perpetuated more recently by people wanting to believe in "the Old Religion" or witchcraft. The granite slab laid across Mary Nasson's grave, in the Old Burying Ground adjacent to the Emerson-Wilcox House, is a "wolf stone" in contemporary terms, meant to keep roving dogs and pigs from digging there.
4. Snowshoe Rock is probably a large outcrop in the woods east of Chases Pond Road and south of Old Scituate Road. The rock on a mown patch of grass enclosed with a stone fence right on Chases Pond Road was the result of a prank played on Elizabeth Perkins, Old York's major benefactress, by two local men, according to one of their daughters. The real rock is much larger, virtually a small hill where the raiding party of Abenaki Indians from Canada who nearly destroyed York in 1692 probably assembled and may have spent the night before the attack. It was a defensible position had they been discovered, and may have been a landmark with which they were familiar.
5. Our Civil War statue is not a Confederate. This is another "Myth That Won't Die," started in the 1950s. People have wrongly pronounced the soldier's bedroll, broad-brimmed hat and facial hair to be characteristically southern, when, in fact, they were common to soldiers in both armies. One can see "_SA" from the ground on his belt buckle. Since Union soldiers had only "US" on theirs, this is thought to indicate "CSA". In fact, a look from the bucket of Lee Tree's truck showed there to be a "U" before it. The statue carver simply wasn't exact about such details.
6. Old York is a private organization with authority only over the buildings it owns or manages. People sometimes confuse us with the Historic District Commission, a town committee charged with protecting the character of certain legally-defined areas. Owners of buildings in historic districts can do whatever they want to the interiors, but must obtain approval for structural changes to exteriors. Most historic buildings in York are privately owned and may be altered or destroyed as the owners wish. Old York encourages preservation, but cannot require it of anyone. We can help people identify historic features and offer advice on how best to maintain them.
Please send your reactions or comments to this column to oyhs@oldyork.org.
