“For four generations the Field family has lived at the foot of Bloody Hill. The original barn built by Henry Field, a homesteader who came from Boston in the middle of the last century, still stands. The ruins of a sawmill sit beside a stagnant pond in a nearby field.
“A modern, brown-shingled ranch house sits on the site of the first farmhouse which burned in 1960, occupied by the third and fourth generation descendants of Henry Field.
“Daniel Field … says Bloody Hill Road ‘was just named that by local folks. … It’s just a road. It used to be the Old Greene Road,’ Field noted, ‘until about the turn of the century (when) they built a way around.’ The Fields, Mrs. Louis Field and her husband Douglas, now deceased, have never had an address on Bloody Hill Road. They use a post office box.
” ‘What my father used to say,’ Daniel remembers, ‘was that there was a pig farm up there’ on the top of Bloody Hill, ‘and when they killed the pigs, the blood used to run down the sides of the hill.’
“No gruesome murder lies buried in the history of Bloody Hill, at least not so far as any Field knows. The gory days of the slaughterhouse have passed into iniquity (sic), but said Daniel: ‘The whole hillside is lined with old skulls and bones. There’s an old pig graveyard. It don’t bother me. There’s no ghosts. Least none that I know of.’
“At the other end of the road, at 432 Old Greene Road, Lorraine Lacroix said, ‘Well, I never noticed any skeletons. But kids found all kinds of stuff, old broken bottles.’
Her semi-circular driveway is part of old Bloody Hill Road … ‘I think it’s probably called Bloody Hill Road because there were so many accidents here,’ Mrs. Lacroix … declared. ‘It’s a rocky road. I’ve never seen any ghosts.’ “
“A walk in from the far end of the road across from the grassy tracks of the City Raceway, doesn’t turn up much more than an old car graveyard, a swampy pond with a dozen old, rubber tires, and a beautiful view from the tree line above the utility lines which cross Bloody Hill.
“A crinkled topographical map shows two houses on that hill and two beside the dark print of the names beside marked dwellings obliterated by time. The name Field is still legible, handwritten beside a set of buildings at the foot of the hill.
“An old family Field album, bound in soft tan leather, pictures those buildings, a house and a two-story sawmill, their image tinted in brown and gold, but there are no photographs of the pig farm.
“Old-timers around town recall a pig farm on that hill, however, but more by the (stories) than by memory. Ruth O’Halloran teaches the history of Lewiston at the school (and) remembers that pig farm from her childhood.
” ‘You could smell it for miles,’ Mrs. O’Halloran recalls. ‘Being kids, we always held our noses when we went by in the road you know. The whole area was perfumed.’
“Nobody seems to know just who owned the notorious Bloody Hill farm way back. Lewiston history books don’t list the farm owners alongside the names of the founding farmers.”
To read the entire article, visit http://tinyurl.com/q7hrc93/.
Use the QR code to go to Sun Spots online for additional information and links. This column is for you, our readers. It is for your questions and comments. There are only two rules: You must write to the column and sign your name (we won’t use it if you ask us not to). Please include your phone number. Letters will not be returned or answered by mail, and telephone calls will not be accepted. Your letters will appear as quickly as space allows. Address them to Sun Spots, P.O. Box 4400, Lewiston, ME 04243-4400. Inquiries can be emailed to sunspots@sunjournal.com, tweeted @SJ_SunSpots or posted on the Sun Spots facebook page at facebook.com/SunJournalSunSpots. This column can also be read online at sunjournal.com/sunspots. We’ve joined Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/sj_sunspots.
Send questions/comments to the editors.