ALPHA
Let me tell you a story, a true story. It is one of adventure and discovery, of mystery and doubt. At some moments it can be quite inspiring, and at others truly horrific. The unknown, the undead, the real and the supernatural all combine forces to create an unforgettable tale. A tale that began with a farmer and his land.
In the late 18th century, just after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, a man and his wife move north from their small home in Boston to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (what is now the State of Maine). Their family name is Cox. In search for land, the couple approaches the local magistrate of the town of Minot to help them. His name is Christopher Young. He informs the Cox’s of a new spot of land that has just come under his jurisdiction and offers to sell it. He even proposes to restore the old dirt road that cuts through the land. Although they are surprised at Young’s willingness to sell his land so quickly, the Cox’s make no effort to address the matter but instead are quick to secure the
deal. Young had but one demand, that the new road be named after him. The Cox family happily agreed. And so it was that Young’s Corner Road was founded, a spot of truly peaceful land, and where the Cox family made their new home and started their family.
Their first born son, Joseph, arrived just after the beginning of the 19th century. The farm continued to prosper, harvesting hay and dairy from cattle, meat from pigs and utilizing the might of the many horses in the area to help plow the land. In 1820, the State of Massachusetts strikes a deal with Congress and agrees to transform its Commonwealth into a free state. Now a state, the former Commonwealth is given a proper name, Maine. By this time, the Young’s Corner farm is one the best producers in the county. In 1826, Joseph Cox, now owner of the family farm, has his first son. He names him Christopher, in memory of the magistrate who sold his father the land.
The farm continues in its success. It is so successful in fact, that a bidding war broke out between the towns of Minot, where the farm was located, and Auburn, an up and coming mill town. With the completion of a new dam and several textile mills, Auburn was now in a position to purchase the land so it could come under its own jurisdiction. Minot, unable to compete with the growing textile mills, made a deal with Auburn’s town council to sell the spot. A
uburn accepted, and in 1842 the town boarder was extended to include the Cox Family Farm on Young’s Corner Rd. The family was surrounded by success. Everything seemed so peaceful, so tranquil. But slowly and with gaining intensity, politics began to flair and war loomed on the horizon.
While the rest of the civilized world had abolished the practice of slavery, young America was still too stubborn to do so. But animosity sparked between the states and soon the nation was divided, North from South. On April 12, 1861 the Confederate Army attacked Union Soldiers at Charleston, South Carolina and began the destructive conflict known as the Civil War. News of the event was widespread and it eventually came to Auburn and to Young’s Corner.
BETA
By this time, Christopher Cox had taken over operations at the Cox Family Farm. In the years preceding the war, he had become quite taken by one of the farm’s laborers. She was a descendant of the Pejepseot Indian tribe that once occupied the land of Auburn. While her native name has been lost, her Christian name has survived. She was Libby, and just before the outbreak of war, she became Christopher’s wife. But with the call for volunteers to serve in the Union A
rmy, the newlywed’s were soon separated. Christopher, at age 35, joined up with the 9th Maine Infantry on September 22nd, 1861. And so, waving goodbye to his wife, he felt the first truly heartbreaking moment of his life. For, Libby was already five months pregnant.
Christopher served his country well. For almost a year, he fought bravely and managed to survive unscathed. However, on July 18th, 1863, he was badly injured at the battle of Fort Wagner, South Carolina. Medical records indicate that Christopher shouldn’t have survived. But he did. He fought for another year, only to be injured again on June 26th, 1864 at Petersburg, Virginia. The bullet wound was deep, but within a week, Christopher was back on the front. It was a sensation. In a war in which disease killed more soldiers than bullets, and only a few were able to survive more than a year, Christopher was an amazing exception. The Union saw fit to muster him out because of his heroics. On August 27th, 1864, Christopher left the front and started his journey back to Maine and Young’s Corner.
It must have been a journey fraught with great anticipation; he was going home to see his child for the first time. He carried with him a letter from his wife that he received when on the front. It said their child was born on February 16, 1862 at the family farm. It was a boy and his name was Christopher Jr., after his father. He was a beautiful boy and loved to splash his mother when they went to the lake during the summers. But the home that Christopher Sr. returned to was not a happy one. For despite his heroic effort in the war, he was not rewarded with a family. He had come home to a dead son.
Christopher Jr. had died on February 18th, 1864, just two days after his 2nd birthday and only five months before his father returned home. It was the second heartbreak for the Cox family. His wife, Libby, was overrun with emotion upon seeing her husband again. She needed him to help bring the farm back to order but more importantly, she needed him for consolation and comfort. Disaster had finally struck the Cox family. Ever since their arrival in Maine, the family seemed destined for greatness. The land, incredibly fertile and productive, was practically given to them. A local herd of horses emerged from the woods and served to help till the land. The Cox’s didn’t have to pay a penny. The farm became a lucrative business. The luck continued for Christopher Sr., who miraculously survived two trips to the infirmary in one of bloodiest wars of American history. Every time he returned to the front he couldn’t help but think that he was blessed. The fortune of the Cox family seemed limitless. But all fortunes come to end. They always come to an end.
GAMMA
Christopher could tell that Libby was worried. When he inquired about her fears she had a grave story to tell. Her ancestors, the mighty Pejepseot tribe, once owned all this land. Within the man
y fields surrounding the Northern Woods were their mighty horses, galloping wherever they pleased. And within the woods themselves, the tribe built their homes. But with the exploration of Maine by the Europeans during the French and Indian War, much native land was colonized and seized from the local tribes. During the Revolutionary War, one such tribe was forcibly removed by a wealthy English magistrate. His name, Libby revealed, was Christopher Young. The same man the Cox family had looked to for safety and protection! They had even named their son’s after him! But now the truth could be told, and the reasons for Young’s eagerness to sell the land were clear – this land was unrightfully taken, and the Indian spirits had planned for revenge.
The death of their son was only the first of the curses. Within a year of Christopher Sr.’s return, the farm land that was once so healthy and green, began to dry and crack. The horses that had come so freely out of the woods to serve the Cox family and help till the land, disappeared. Money evaporated as the family now had to buy work animals and hire more hands to keep the remaining good land farmable. Realizing that the farm was collapsing before their eyes, Christopher and Libby sell the farm but keep ownership of the forest. They use the remainder of their fortune to build a new home down the road from Young’s Corner. The house sat upon a hill overlooking Lake Auburn, the lake little Christopher loved to play in. Construction of the house finished in 1875. It was a grand house, but despite its luxury, it did not provide the Cox family with the happiness they were looking for. Even with the birth of their new child, Abilene, in 1878, the Cox’s became ever more reclusive.
Libby knew what she had done to unleash her ancestor’s anger so greatly. Her blood was of the true and proud Pejespeot tribe, a tribe who acted as masters of a mighty heard of horses and ruled all the land that is now Auburn. That is, before the arrival of the Europeans. By the time Libby was born, that tribe and its true lands were all but gone, taken from the wealthy magistrate
Christopher Young. Young must have realized his mistake. Perhaps he was even threatened by surviving members of the Pejepseot tribe to relinquish his lands. It explained why he was so eager to sell the land to the first Cox family. However, knowing her ancestry, Libby unwillingly made herself a servant of the land, working for the white man on land that once belonged to her people. She ignored her true inheritance and instead became a slave to her captors. Libby would like to think otherwise, for it was on the farm that she found her true love, Christopher Sr. But the anger of the ancestors is not so easily pacified by fanciful visions of love. She had betrayed her people. She owns a farm that enslaves the local animals and serves only to make a profit. The reasons behind the curses are just, but how far will they go?
DELTA
At the turn of the 20th century, the Cox Family Farm is under new ownership. Christopher Sr., at age 73, died in 1899 leaving Libby and their daughter Abeline, or Abby as they liked to call her, to live quietly in their house on the hill. The next year, Abby, now a grown woman, marries a wealthy man whose family had just recently immigrated to Maine from Germany. Her husband’s name, was Jonathan Kannegieser. Their family was unknown to all, and l
ike the Cox’s, they preferred to keep to themselves. They lived in a large Victorian house on Hotel Rd., a house that now no longer exists.
As a wedding dowry, Libby offered her daughter the house on the hill so that she and her husband may have a home and so Abby can still care for her mother. Abby and Jonathan happily accepted and agreed to take care of Libby, who was coming to the last of her years. A year later, the newly weds celebrated the arrival of their first child, Michael Kannegieser. It was a sight to behold for the grandmother Libby who took great care in helping her daughter raise the boy. Peace at last was returning to her shattered heart. And in 1905, the couple gave birth to their second child, a daughter. They named her Norma. The baby served to give Abby great comfort, for not a month after her birth, Libby passed away. The grandmother died knowing her daughter would be more blessed than herself. At least, that’s what she hoped.
Norma was raised in a loving home. If such curses did exist, her mother strove to reverse them by simply being what nature required of her, a good mother. The family still had ownership o
f the Northern Woods and they spent much time hiking the old trails. So that the family could enjoy the woods ever more, Jonathan had three cabins built on top of the forest hill. This served as a great place of comfort for Norma who spent much time traversing the old trails and tending to the horses that had returned. She even cared for them when they were sick, using the top medicines available. This love for nature was in her blood, the blood of the Pejepseots. By 1925, her brother Michael had moved to Boston for business. Norma remained at home and to her mother’s delight, she bore an uncanny resemblance to her Native American grandmother Libby. Abby believed this was a sign of approval from her ancestors. Norma had the Pejepseot face and it caused quite a stir in one man’s heart.
While shopping one day in Auburn’s town center, a man dressed in full military regalia approached Norma to give her a flower. His name was Lucas Jameson and it was lov
e at first sight. Lucas was a soldier in the Corps of Engineers and had served his country in WWI. Born and raised in Maine, he had been an engineering enthusiast since he was very young, always carrying around the latest ‘Popular Mechanic’ magazine in his pocket. But there was another childhood fascination of Lucas, a much stronger one. His affinity for Native Americans. It seemed it was a family trait. Lucas’ great-grandfather left his home in England and came to America during the French and Indian War. He too was fascinated by the Indians and desired to study them. While traveling in Maine he came upon a tribe in 1761 - The Pejepseot Tribe. His curiosity soon turned to love, and the old man was accepted into the tribe to live with them. To the locals, he was known as the Old Hermit, always wandering in the fields amongst the herds of horses. Dressing in long blue robes and along with his long white beard, he could have been mistaken for a wizard.
EPSILON
Lucas inherited this natural affinity with Indians and so was drawn to Norma. By 1926, they were married and lived in Norma’s home on the hill and took care of her mother Abby. They even had a dog, a golden retriever. Once again, the descendants of the Cox family were surrounded with success. With most of their fortune in stocks, the roaring 20’s provided a safe and secure bank account. But on October 24th, 1929, otherwise know as “Black Thursday,” the stock market crashed and signaled the beginning of the end for America’s wealth. The Jameson’s got as much of their fortune out as they could, including the deed for the Northern Woods which was now kept safe in a security deposit box in Auburn’s town bank.
The Great Depression was difficult for everyone. By 1932, Abby had passed away at age 54. Norma and Lucas struggled to keep their house on the hill, but with arrival of FDR in the White House, matters were soon set straight. However, by that time yet another war loomed on the horizon. The Nazi’s were spreading their empire across Europe at an alarming rate. The United States refused to take action until that infamous day, December 7th, 1941 when the empire of Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Lucas should have been preparing for war, he should have been filled with patriotism and eager to return to the front, he should been all these things, but he wasn’t. He was dead.
No one knows how it happened, but at age 41, Lucas Jameson passed away at his home in Auburn, Maine. He was a prominent member of the community, and the people were suspicious. How could a man die at such a young age? A police investigation was begun but no answers could be found. Some started to suspect the wife, Norma. With her husband gone she could no longer support herself in such a large house. And with her name in the presses, the attention was too great to remain on the hill. She decided to move to a place where she always felt comfortable, a place of her childhood – the Northern Woods.
She wanted to hide and she had to move fast. She went to the Auburn bank to retrieve the deed for the woods. With her she brought a small leather bound book with a hundred pages. Her husband, a genealogy enthusiast, had printed this book which contained a history of the Jameson family stretching back all the way to the 17th century. Written on the only two pages with text was the number of the security deposit box: 50-51. With her key in hand, Norma opened the box and took the deed.
Within a
week she had gathered all her family’s heirlooms: clothes, her husband’s ‘Popular Mechanics’ collection, books, and the original Cox family farming equipment they obtained when the farm was sold. And in 1945, Norma, with her dog and all her possessions packed away in large wooden chests, brought her life into the woods. This land was where the Pejepseot’s lived and where the wild horses roamed. But the horses had now gone, and the tribe has long disappeared. Norma was the last of her kind and she could feel the spirits rejoice at her arrival. The Pejepseot descendant had returned and the land once again belonged to the tribe.
OMEGA
As for the house on the hill, it passed to Norma’s brother, Michael. He never lived there. Instead, after moving back to Maine from Boston with his wife Suzanne, he built a home in downtown Auburn. In 1955, they
had a son, Tom Kannegeiser. The house on the hill fell into a state of despair and slowly became overgrown with vines. The Cox family farm was now divided into 4 plots, and each soon had a home built upon them. The largest plot contained their barnhouse. It is where my cousins now live. Another house was built in a long ranch style and lay across from the Cox Family graveyard. It is the house that I was raised in. Michael Kannegeiser never spoke to his sister now living in the woods, in fact, he never even knew she was there. Over the years he used the cabins as a storage dump for his and his wife’s old keepsakes. Their wedding outfits, unused clothes, toys and drawings from their kids, old furniture, etc. And in all that time, amazingly, he never saw his sister. The Old Woman lived so simply that she left no traces of her existe
nce amongst the cabins. Michael nor anyone else would be able to tell if someone lived there. The cabins, like the house on the hill, continued to fall apart.
But that changed in 1965 when a new family arrived in Auburn. They, a family of 7, had moved from Boston and were in need of a large house. They found the house on the hill and it suited them perfectly
. With some remodeling, it soon looked just like new. The area of Young’s Corner was entering a new age. But one can never truly escape the past. The owners of the house on the hill had heard stories from the neighbors, stories of a suspicious death, and of the disappearance of the previous owner decades before. The husband was a military man they were told, and his great-grandfather used to roam these lands with the local Indian tribe dressed in a blue robe. The wife, they said, enjoyed the outdoors, far too much for the neighbor’s liking. But no one thought they were truly gone. Sometimes one could hear the marching of soldiers boots coming from within the house. Other times, one could see a dim blue light moving from room to room, limping as if it was tired and old.
And so we come to our time. The inhabitants of the house on the hill, my family, have experienced the Legend of Young’s Corner. In 1972, my mother was visited by the blue Old Man, now known to be Jameson’s Great-Grandfather. He used to be a caretaker for these lands and was joyful to see the house, the place of his descendant’s death, once again in use and cared for. That same year, my Aunt visited the Northern Woods when she was very young. There she encountered Norma, the Old Woman, and her dog too. 20 years pass and my Aunt, with her husband, make the old Cox family farm on Young’s Corner Road their new home. It is here that Little Christopher makes his first appearance. He approached my Uncle and asks him which way to the lake
, the lake he remembers playing in with his mother. Christopher Jr., who had never known his father, was eager to fill the void. But the dead cannot live with the living and he disappeared. 2 years pass and my mother, father, brother and I move into the ranch house across the street from the barn. The two siblings that experienced visions of Young’s Corner’s lost history, my mother and my Aunt, have now been drawn to live here. As a child I watch the Old Woman walk through our field with her dog, who must have been in its early fifties. I attempt to contact her with my friends in 2001, but we find no Old Woman in the cabins. Instead we find all her heirlooms, her memories of a distant past. A list of names of those she knew, but who she has outlived. Like her brother Michael, we assumed she was dead and thought the place to be abandoned. But we were wrong, for Bobby saw her on Hotel Rd. soon after. Perhaps she truly does disappear when you approach the cabins, or perhaps we were just lucky. And finally, in 2004 Little Christopher appeared again, to my cousin Sarah. Was he trying to scare her? I don’t like to think so. He was looking for a friend, a friend he never had because he died so young.
I’d like to thin
k that the curses were over, that peace was finally restored to the forest and that the land that was taken by Christopher Young was returned to the Pejepseot tribe. Norma gave back to the land its true blood. And the ghosts were never there to hurt us, but to thank us. Always creating a sense of calm in their presence, and always appearing with that smile on their faces. But last year the land of the Northern Woods was relinquished by the Kannegeiser’s, a family with a strange and old history, and given to the Tardiff’s. No one felt right about this, this was a disturbance. Our suspicions were proved correct when they begun building a house, inside the forest. The cabins of Norma were demolished, pushed aside in disregard for history and respect. In their place is now the Tardiff’s gargantuan, arrogant home, deep within the wo
ods.
And what of Norma, the Old Woman? She must be 100 years old by now. How she could have lived in those cabins for over fifty years, I do not know. When I saw them, I knew they were in no shape to be considered inhabitable. But with them gone, there is no place for the Old Woman to stay. Some like to think she has finally passed on. As for me, I know she’s still out there. How do I know? Well that, my friends, is another story…
THE END 
The Legend of Youngs Corner
The Legend of Youngs Corner
