The Winslow mail., 1899-09-21
LEGEND OF BULL HILL.
maine Settlement Founded Wy .
man Named Hussey and a BarrcA
of Bull Beef.

of Bull Beef.
IL the residents of Bull Hill settlement
look east they see the broad surface OF
Grand Pond. In the opposite direction
their vision climbs the steep side OF
a mountain which hides its top among
clouds in the daytime and talks with
the stars at night. There are IA houses,
a general store, a hotel, blacksmith
shop and diminutive schoolhouse in
the village. Beyond these are trees and
crags, tenanted by many wild animals
and haunted by the ghosts of the men
who perished years ago while trying
to solve the mystery of a barrel of bull
beef. The village of to-day has not
changed in 40 years, except that
schoolhouse has been put up on the
spot where grogshop was burned by
a mob in 1866. The schoolhouse is the
smallest institution of learning in
Maine. 1t is 12 feet wide and 16 feet
long. Five pupils for every school day
is the average attendance. When the
boys start for school in the morning
everyone takes dry stick of cordwood
on his shoulder and saws it into stove
lengths before beginning his lessons.
The name of the man who founded
Bull Hill was Hussey. His act was
wholly involuntary. In company with
three other men he started from Am
herst in the autumn of 1888 to take an
oXload of supplies to lumber camp il
Greenfield plantation. AS they mount
ed the shoulder of Bull Hill the men
walked on ahead, leaving Hussey to
WELD the goad stick and guide the team.
At the very top of the hill the rope
binding of the load parted, and bar
rel of salted bull beef rolled off to the
ground, from which point gravitation
took it over the brow of the hill and
carried it out of sight.
''Pll get that barrel of beef" said
Hussey, with an oath, cor I'll never
come back
The men laughed at him, telling him
they believed he was fond of bull beef
because his teeth seemed to be made
for the purpose of chewing tough food.
AS Hussey had large teeth, which he
never housed day or night, summer or
winter, the taunt made him mad
eff l find that barrel of beef, " he cried,
"Fll stay until eat it all up or I'll
starve to death trying"
He took his AK, gun, ammunition and
a few other needful articles from the
oxcart and went off down the hill,
while the men continued their journey
to Greenfield camp. Hussey didn't
show up at camp that winter, though
the foreman needed him badly and
looked for him every day. On their re-
turn to Amherst the men expected to
find Hussey at home, but when they
learned that he hadn't been seen since
he went away the autumn before, his
friends grew frightened and began to
make up searching parties. After a
time reports about a man lost in the
woods reached Bangor and Old Town,
and men who wanted an outing for hu-
manity's sake with a prospect of plenty
of rum and molasses on the side made
frequent journeys to Great pond in
quest of Hussey and his bull beef. Many
of these well-meaning seachers came
to grief A canoe containing three men
and a boy was overturned on Great
pond in May, 1889, and nobody lived to
reach the shore. The following month
a party of four men took refuge under
a fallen hemlock to avoid a sudden
downpour, and everyone was killed by
a thunderbolt. Three months later a
party of six was overtaken by great
forest fire, in which two lost their lives.
! One man was lost in the woods and his
body was torn to pieces by wild ami
mails.
In spite of hardships and disasters
the hunt for Hussey and his beef was
kept up for ten years, and though evil
dence that he was still alive was dis
covered at several times, he remained
unknown to the world until 1852, when
James Clinch and Arthur Penney pad
died into a cove on the side of Great
pond one afternoon and saw Hussey
sitting at the mouth of cave watching
handsome squaw at play with her
three half-breed children.
my wife, my babbies, said Hussey
introducing his family. 'Glad ter see
yer, boys. Stop and have a snack"
After supper the men questioned
Hussey and asked him why he had
never come out to the clearing in all
the years that had gone.
1--WE bin wantin' to many's the time,''
replied Hussey, ''but [ took my oath
that I'd never come back till the bull
beef was ct up" He paused here long
enough to point out barrel in one
corner of the room, and added: ''And
it amt all gone yit.'
Current report has it that Hussey
ate bull beef until the day of his death.
After he was gone his children married
and settled near their old home, so in
a few years the side of Bull Hill held
small village, resting among the
rocks and reaching up the road over
which the founder chased barrel of
bull beef.-N. Y. Sun.
Day Ahead of the Almanac.
An interesting circumstance Incl
dent to Magellan's circumnavigation of