Badger Bart
Sr. Member
- Mar 24, 2005
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http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/2383463.shtml
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Excavation yields safe with jewelry
By AMY CALDER
Staff Writer
Copyright ? 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
WATERVILLE MAINE -- It has all the makings of a Nancy Drew mystery, complete with a rusty safe containing jewelry, unearthed during excavation work in an old city neighborhood.
It could be called "The Mystery of the Buried Safe" -- if it were fiction, that is.
But workers excavating recently near Kennebec Savings Bank on Main Street really did discover a safe containing all sorts of jewelry from the 1800s, including gold and gold-plated necklaces, bracelets, pins, and hair clips -- even a gold pocket watch.
David Roy, the bank's regional vice president, set out to solve the mystery of its origin.
"It tumbled down into the hole, 10 to 12 feet," Roy said Monday of the safe, dug up by Sheridan Corp. workers and presented to him by their foreman, Galen Estes. "Some of the jewelry came out and the workers pawed through the soil and found it."
Also in the safe was an old wooden drawer containing bits and pieces of newspaper articles, including one about a Winslow High School sports team from 1840, and another about events that occurred in 1779, according to Roy.
"It was a big safe -- about three-by-three," he said. "It was in really bad shape. There was really nothing in there -- no clue as to who owned it. My whole mission was to find the descendants to present them with it."
First, Roy enlisted a bank customer, Todd Violette, to appraise the jewelry.
"He said the age of the items were probably from 1870 to 1890," he recalled. "There's not a lot of monetary value there. It's more nostalgia."
Then Roy turned to David Cosgrove of the Cosgrove Agency at 230 Main St. next door for help in identifying the safe's owner. The agency is located in a large old house that will be torn down to make way for the bank expansion. Cosgrove said he would talk with Lucile McMullen-French, who lived in the house prior to Cosgrove's purchase of it in the 1980s.
McMullen-French, now 94, remembered not only the safe, but also the fact that it was buried in the back yard many years ago. It had belonged to her grandfather, Edward Livingston Webster, a selectman in Caratunk who owned and ran the Webster Hotel, also known as Clark's Hotel. The old building still stands on U.S. Route 201 in that town.
When Webster died, his wife, Abby -- McMullen-French's grandmother -- moved to Waterville, bringing the safe with her, around 1906, according to McMullen-French, who lived there herself from 1912 through 1938 and again from the 50s until the house was sold. McMullen-French was married to Clifton "Cy" McMullen, who worked at the Morning Sentinel. After he died, she married Dwight French, also a Sentinel employee.
"The safe was there for many, many years, in the front hall," McMullen-French recalled Monday at the bank. "Nobody had the combination for it, nobody wanted to pay to have it opened or moved. As far as we knew, there was nothing in it but an old gold watch. It was just in the way."
Roy on Monday presented McMullen-French and her daughters, Faith and Margaret McMullen, with the jewelry, carefully laid out on a black velvet tray. Faith and Margaret McMullen remembered playing with the safe when they were children.
"Everyone tried to open it," Margaret McMullen said. "That was a big thing when you were a kid."
Her sister recalled it as being a "big, clunky safe that was in the way."
"But we don't remember who buried it," she said.
The sisters also recalled that family members always talked about a ghost they believed lived in the house -- a friendly ghost. They wondered light-heartedly Monday whether he might be their grandfather, Edward Webster.
The three women marveled at the found jewelry and thanked Roy for returning it to the family. They said they will enjoy looking at old photos to see if their ancestors are wearing any of the jewelry.
"It means a lot because we think a lot of family," Lucile McMullen-French said. "We've always been a family that has kept in touch. We'll just enjoy watching over it, seeing it, having it around."
Margaret McMullen said they might even wear it.
Thumbing through a booklet entitled "The Sesquicentennial History of Caratunk, Maine," Faith McMullen opened a page with a large photo of her grandfather, Edward Webster. On his necktie was an 4-pointed Masonic pin -- quite clearly the very pin discovered in the safe.
Excitedly, she compared the photo with the actual pin, sure of its connection. She said the family is delighted to have the safe's contents, and a bit of their history, given to them.
"We're thrilled and very grateful to the bank, that they would do this," she said.
"It's a happy ending," her sister added.
Roy said if the owners were not found, the bank planned to somehow display the jewelry in the bank or give some to the Waterville Historical Society.
"But this is better," he said.
Amy Calder -- 861-9247
[email protected]
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Excavation yields safe with jewelry
By AMY CALDER
Staff Writer
Copyright ? 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
WATERVILLE MAINE -- It has all the makings of a Nancy Drew mystery, complete with a rusty safe containing jewelry, unearthed during excavation work in an old city neighborhood.
It could be called "The Mystery of the Buried Safe" -- if it were fiction, that is.
But workers excavating recently near Kennebec Savings Bank on Main Street really did discover a safe containing all sorts of jewelry from the 1800s, including gold and gold-plated necklaces, bracelets, pins, and hair clips -- even a gold pocket watch.
David Roy, the bank's regional vice president, set out to solve the mystery of its origin.
"It tumbled down into the hole, 10 to 12 feet," Roy said Monday of the safe, dug up by Sheridan Corp. workers and presented to him by their foreman, Galen Estes. "Some of the jewelry came out and the workers pawed through the soil and found it."
Also in the safe was an old wooden drawer containing bits and pieces of newspaper articles, including one about a Winslow High School sports team from 1840, and another about events that occurred in 1779, according to Roy.
"It was a big safe -- about three-by-three," he said. "It was in really bad shape. There was really nothing in there -- no clue as to who owned it. My whole mission was to find the descendants to present them with it."
First, Roy enlisted a bank customer, Todd Violette, to appraise the jewelry.
"He said the age of the items were probably from 1870 to 1890," he recalled. "There's not a lot of monetary value there. It's more nostalgia."
Then Roy turned to David Cosgrove of the Cosgrove Agency at 230 Main St. next door for help in identifying the safe's owner. The agency is located in a large old house that will be torn down to make way for the bank expansion. Cosgrove said he would talk with Lucile McMullen-French, who lived in the house prior to Cosgrove's purchase of it in the 1980s.
McMullen-French, now 94, remembered not only the safe, but also the fact that it was buried in the back yard many years ago. It had belonged to her grandfather, Edward Livingston Webster, a selectman in Caratunk who owned and ran the Webster Hotel, also known as Clark's Hotel. The old building still stands on U.S. Route 201 in that town.
When Webster died, his wife, Abby -- McMullen-French's grandmother -- moved to Waterville, bringing the safe with her, around 1906, according to McMullen-French, who lived there herself from 1912 through 1938 and again from the 50s until the house was sold. McMullen-French was married to Clifton "Cy" McMullen, who worked at the Morning Sentinel. After he died, she married Dwight French, also a Sentinel employee.
"The safe was there for many, many years, in the front hall," McMullen-French recalled Monday at the bank. "Nobody had the combination for it, nobody wanted to pay to have it opened or moved. As far as we knew, there was nothing in it but an old gold watch. It was just in the way."
Roy on Monday presented McMullen-French and her daughters, Faith and Margaret McMullen, with the jewelry, carefully laid out on a black velvet tray. Faith and Margaret McMullen remembered playing with the safe when they were children.
"Everyone tried to open it," Margaret McMullen said. "That was a big thing when you were a kid."
Her sister recalled it as being a "big, clunky safe that was in the way."
"But we don't remember who buried it," she said.
The sisters also recalled that family members always talked about a ghost they believed lived in the house -- a friendly ghost. They wondered light-heartedly Monday whether he might be their grandfather, Edward Webster.
The three women marveled at the found jewelry and thanked Roy for returning it to the family. They said they will enjoy looking at old photos to see if their ancestors are wearing any of the jewelry.
"It means a lot because we think a lot of family," Lucile McMullen-French said. "We've always been a family that has kept in touch. We'll just enjoy watching over it, seeing it, having it around."
Margaret McMullen said they might even wear it.
Thumbing through a booklet entitled "The Sesquicentennial History of Caratunk, Maine," Faith McMullen opened a page with a large photo of her grandfather, Edward Webster. On his necktie was an 4-pointed Masonic pin -- quite clearly the very pin discovered in the safe.
Excitedly, she compared the photo with the actual pin, sure of its connection. She said the family is delighted to have the safe's contents, and a bit of their history, given to them.
"We're thrilled and very grateful to the bank, that they would do this," she said.
"It's a happy ending," her sister added.
Roy said if the owners were not found, the bank planned to somehow display the jewelry in the bank or give some to the Waterville Historical Society.
"But this is better," he said.
Amy Calder -- 861-9247
[email protected]
