Hey everybody! Have any of you ever pulled an April Fools’ Day prank? When I was a kid, my father switched my mother’s sugar with salt, and she put a few teaspoonfuls into her morning coffee! I cannot imagine that it tasted very good. This month, I have a couple interesting stories from the 1910s again, this time relating to the railroad (believe it or not, Farmington once had two rail lines). Before we begin with the stories, can you guess why Depot Street and the Narrow Gauge Movie Theatre are named how they are?
The first story involves Byron Small, the Clerk of Courts for Franklin County (this is someone who performs duties for the county court and works with the judge). He received a phone call saying that a strange woman had been camped out along the railroad tracks in West Farmington, and that the sheriff needed to be told right away (the caller also says that he’s speaking for Conductor Pinkham of the Maine Central Railroad). When the sheriff was alerted to this matter, he looked over to his calendar and saw that it was April 1st, 1915. He contacted Conductor Pinkham personally, who said that it wasn’t true.
About a year later, in April of 1916, two boys left Farmington to find work in the big city of Boston (the boys were Ernest W. Wyman and Ellery Luce). Being unsuccessful, they bought tickets at North Station to travel back to Farmington via railroad. Unfortunately, they lost the tickets (the tickets were in their pocketbook, along with $2 – around $50 today) and got into big trouble when the ticket man came to them. They had to report to Judge Bates when they arrived in Portland. The judge believed their story, and the boys were able to arrange transportation home to Farmington.
I hope you all liked this story. If you want to know more, you should check out the full version, which is also in this week’s Franklin Journal. Goodbye for now! -Mr. Nason (Stories sourced from the Franklin Journal).
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