This Sheet Music had One Heck of a song to Sing!
In the Spring of 2020 my son purchased a house in Veazie, Maine and naturally found things in the attic when he cleaned it out! I remember we were at his house for dinner when he said, “Oh Mom, I found this bag full of sheet music in that house I just bought. Do you want it?” What a silly child! Of course I wanted it! What made it even better is the owner of the sheet music had written her name on several copies. That, along with the address of the house led me on a quick search where I was able to track down living members of her family and contact them. They no longer lived in Maine but were located out of state. As I do with a lot of things I have found over the years, I want to return the items to the family. This woman’s great grandson was absolutely thrilled to receive the sheet music as his own son had recently begun taking piano lessons!! I was more than happy to ship the leather bag, and it’s contents, to them. But before I did so I asked for permission to photograph two newspaper clippings that I had also found in the bag. I explained to the great grandson that I had done considerable research into not only his great grandmother’s family but also into the individuals mentioned in the clippings. I could find no connection whatsoever between his great grandmother and these men, so I’m not sure why the clippings were saved with the sheet music. He told me to just keep the clippings, he did not want them.
Here are the transcripts of the clippings as seen in the photograph above.
#1 SERIOUS CHARGES AGAINST BREWER MEN
The arrest of two Brewer girls in this city (Bangor) on Friday, the details of which were published in Friday night's Commercial, has resulted in the lodging of several complaints against Brewer business men and two of these men, Charles Rand and Howard Seeley, were arrested Saturday afternoon by Police Inspector Golden and brought to the police station in this city. Rand, who is said to be 65 years of age is the proprietor of a Brewer lunch cafe. Seeley is a Brewer stable proprietor and said to be 60 years old. The complaint in all four cases was made by Chief of Police Knaide. The cases will be heard in the Municipal Court Monday morning.
#2 BREWER MEN PLACED UNDER HEAVY BONDS - NO DEFENSE OFFERED
Judge Butterfield held a busy session in the Municipal Court Monday morning, there being 23 cases to occupy his attention. Ten of these cases were the result of a gambling raid Sunday night by the police at the Chaison hotel annex on Exchange St. known as the Victoria. Eight cases were connected with the confession to the police department on the part of two young Brewer girls in regard to their relations with the three Brewer men, while the other five cases were the ususal collection of weekend drunks. A capacity crowd filled the court room Monday morning, unusual interest being manifested in the various cases.
Presper Bourbon, Charles Rand and Howard Seeley, the three Brewer men against whom serious charges were lodged as the result of the arrest by the local police of two Brewer girls, were held under heavy bonds by Judge Butterfield after a hearing in which the testimony for the state was presented and no defense offered. Bourbon was held under $1,000 bond on one charge and given a jail sentence of 60 days on the other. The latter sentence was appealed and the bonds placed at $500.
Seeley was held under $1,000 bonds on two different charges, while in the case of Charles Rand, the same procedure was taken as in that of Bourbon, $1,000 bond being placed in one case, a 60 day jail sentence given in the other and bonds placed at $500 on appeal. Bonds were furnished by all three respondents.
The two young Brewer girls, one age 15 and the other 17 were placed on probation for six months under City Missionary Jennie Johnson.
There were no dates on these clippings, but with one of the men involved having such an unusual name, Presper Bourbon, it didn’t take long for me to track them down. The alleged crimes had occurred in April of 1923. Although Charles Rand and Howard Seeley’s ages are listed, one being 65 and the other 60, I had to do a bit of digging to learn that Presper was 66 at the time. What were three men in their 60’s doing with two teenage girls that got them all arrested? I guess I probably don’t need to tell you. Sadly, despite the high bonds (bail amounts) levied against all of these men at the time of their arrests, a month later they were all found guilty of fornication, charged a $50 fine ($893 today) and off they went back to their lives. I’m certain though, that the girls were never the same.
Because I do what I do, I naturally had to follow these men through the pages of history. Having grown up in Brewer myself, the surnames of Rand and Seeley were recognizable to me. But it was Presper Bourbon that captured my imagination and I needed to know more about him. What I found was the tale of a sad man’s life, which in no way excuses him for the crime he committed, but does add another dimension to his personal history that was left unsaid in the newspapers of 1923.
After extensive research I learned that Presper Bourbon was born in June of 1857 in Quebec Canada. Presper, who's orginial french name was Prosper Bourbonnais, appears on the 1871 census for Lancaster, Ontario Canada. He's employed as an apprentice blacksmith. Lancaster, Canada is only 42 miles from Brushton, New York, which is where he next appears on the 1880 census, still working as a blacksmith. Records show that in 1882, at the respectable age of 25, he married Clara Howe of Brushton. It would be eight years before the birth of their first child, Hazel in 1890. By the time of the 1900 census Presper has moved his family to Altamont, New York. Presper now lists his occupation as an engineer in a saw mill. He has a wife, a child, a better job even owns his own home. Life is good for Presper at this snapshot of a moment.
Unfortunately his daughter Hazel dies in 1908 at the age of eighteen. Followed just four years later by the sudden death of his wife Clara in 1912 while they are in Waterbury, Vermont visiting her sister, a notice of which appeared in the local newspaper. Both Clara and Hazel are buried together in Brushton New York. The engraving on the gravestone lists Clara and Hazel’s names, birth and death dates. Presper's name and birthdate are also engraved on the stone, however there is no death date engraved. After the death of his wife Presper, the man with such an unusual name, drops from the historical record for over ten years. He no longer appears on census records or city directories. He does not marry again, so therefore leaves no marriage record to trace. He does not show up again until he is listed in the newspaper after being arrested in Bangor Maine in 1923. Where has he been for eleven years?
If it weren't for his unusual name I would not have connected the Presper Bourbon listed in the newspaper clipping with the man from Canada and New York. But I could not find anyone else with that name anywhere in the United States or Canada. He appears to have no surviving family in Canada, nothing left for him in New York except the gravestone of his wife and daughter with his name engraved on it. And he is a perfect candidate to be in the Bangor area with skills in working a sawmill given Bangor’s lumbering history. In addition, after his arrest in 1923 at age 66 he remains elusive again for another sixteen years, until he appears in a 1939 Brewer City Directory. An absence that would later be explained in his obituary. In 1939 he owns a machinist shop, which would have been a natural trade for someone with a blacksmith and mill industry background. In that year, his final year, he is living in an apartment at 6 State St. in Brewer. Ironically I grew up on State St. in Brewer.
On September 18, 1939 Presper appears for the last time in the newspaper, this time it’s his obituary. He died in a Brewer hospital after an illness of several months. According to what is written he was a native of New York and had been in Brewer for 20 years. It states that he had been a mill superintendent and in his earlier days had built and installed machinery in many mills in this country and Canada. This more transient work life would explain his absence from the historical records for large chunks of time. His obituary, written by an unknown friend or associate, states that he was regarded as an expert workman by his employers and he had many friends. He has no immediate family and will be interred in his family plot in New York.
Recorded history is full of snapshot moments. Similar to when an archeologist opens an ancient gravesite. What they find is what was left in one moment in time. The artifacts that survive there may show an interest or some likeness to the person at that moment. Recorded history, the things people write down whether in legal documents, newspapers or personal journals, are also just moments in time. Recorded at the moment they happened or as a memory. But that’s all history is really, just moments. Humans don’t live for just a moment. Their lives are made up of many moments. Some of them great and marvelous and some of them awful and wretched. We need to remember this about ourselves and others. Everyone’s life is more then just one moment in time.
The mystery as to why these clippings were saved and found among the sheet music of a young woman, who was in her 20’s, at the time they were clipped, will remain just that, a mystery. I found no connection what so ever between her and the men involved. Neither was there any connection between her parents and these men. Her neighbors and these men. Or anyone that she associated with even later in life. Was she somehow connected to the two unnamed teenage girls? Possibly. That connection we may never know unless it surfaces in someone’s private journal some day. It’s also possible that this young woman didn’t cut these clippings herself. They may have been cut by someone else and over the years scooped up and stored in the leather bag merely because they were made of paper like the sheet music. Or it’s possible that the bag contained sheet music she may have received from some one else and the clippings could have tucked inside one of those. As with most things in history, finding a few answers just leads you to more questions.