Shadows

Residents of Stewartstown, NH say that things like this don't happen there. The "this" would be the The girl disappeared last week; her body was found on Monday in a river near her home. 

Police are calling the death “suspicious.”  An autopsy was performed yesterday.

I would like to say that the “this” doesn’t happen in Easton, the community that one of my Facebook friends, who grew up in Lexington, and who has often visited family in Easton, calls “Mayberry.”   But, of course, over the past few years alone, we have seen some awful and terrible things happen here. 

I don’t explore much the bad and evil in my columns.  I like to populate them with the positive and “warm and fuzzy.”  And, when writing about Easton today and in the past there is positive and warm and fuzzy in abundance.  I don’t have to dig hard or deep or often to find smiles, sunshine, and uplift. 

But we have what History of Easton author, Rev. William Chaffin, would call “shadows.”   In The History of Easton, Rev. Chaffin begins the chapter, “Shadows,” with these words:

No picture is perfect without shadows or contrasts.  It is not, however, for artistic reasons that the writer has introduced them into his picture of Easton life of the last two centuries; it is for the sake of correct impression.   It would be pleasanter as well as more gratifying to town pride to omit all reference to the darker side of the subject but this would not conduce to the only end we have kept in view, – the production of an accurate historical sketch.

Among the sins of Easton discussed in the chapter are slavery, thieving, and “pauperism.” 

As for pauperism, in the late 1700s and into the 1800s, those who could not support themselves were auctioned off at town meeting to the person who would agree to provide for the pauper at the lowest sum that the town would pay.   

Among these paupers were those who had severe mental limitations, and others who were mentally ill.  Paupers were subject to brutal treatment by some of the people who “cared” for them.  It appears that an Alby Willis ran a particularly terrible and horrific private house for the poor on Bay Road.   In 1821, alone, six “inmates” died at his house.  Finally, the town decided that Willis’s bids for paupers would no longer be taken. Fittingly, Willis spent his final days as an inmate at an almshouse. 

In the years after Chaffin’s book was published, some shadows in Easton may have been removed in a manner that is, let’s just say, “off the books.”  I'm talking vigilante style.

One of the old-timer Swedes in town, who came of age in Easton in the early 1900s, once said, "Back in the day, here in town, we sometimes took care of our own problems.  If you don't believe me, go check the bottom of Fred's Pond."

This reminds me of the Stephen King short story in which in a small Maine town a man sexually assaulted a child. Before the pedophile could be arrested, he was found dead at the bottom of a cliff.   Reading the story, you understand that men in town took care of the “problem” themselves, without bringing in the cops or justice system.

Yes, Easton has plenty of shadows – many of which aren’t on record. 

A former teacher in the Easton school system related to me how in the late 1980s he was talking with a woman who had recently been at to watch her granddaughter graduate from

On that day, the woman spoke briefly with a man she recognized from a long time back. The man didn’t recognize her.  But how could she forget him?  For 50 years before, in that very park, he had raped her.  

I appreciate that on top of, not far below, and way down under, the surface of Easton is a complex heritage in which one can find the most estimable of human qualities and virtue – and also extraordinary pain, darkness, and evil.

Yeah, we have it all.   

When the skull and other human bones were found alongside Shovel Shop Pond in April of 2010, many locals thought of Judy Bleiler, a resident of the Unionville section of town, who was 18 years old when she disappeared on a morning 33 years ago after her mother dropped her off in Brockton to catch a bus for her job at Knapp Shoe. 

Judy Bleiler has never been found.

Earlier in the 1970s, my friend, Ronny Scott’s mother, Hildame Scott, who lived with her husband and children on Randall Street, disappeared. She was never found. 

Three months after the bones were discovered at Shovel Shop, police said they were human – and most likely from a school or medical office or medical collection. 

There are other shadows in town – things not to be talked about and discussed in a public forum – and I will abide by the prohibition. But for those of us who have been here a while, we know about them. 

Easton is a beautiful and wonderful place in which to live.

But it is not perfect. We have our shadows.