Working downward in time for our old house history meant starting with Anna M. Baskerville, the subject of a Dec. 4, 2002, post here.
We finally met her son, Reggie, and learned much more than we had already gleaned.
He and his mother came from Yeadon in Delaware County, Pennsylvania — suburban Philadelphia. Landing in Eastport was nearly accidental. His first wife had a friend who skied in Maine, and on a lark, they visited the coast, including Eastport.
That led to buying the property in rundown condition, as he says, in November 1996 to use as a vacation house. As he notes, the house wasn’t habitable beyond that but you could buy homes in town dirt cheap. His words.
Somewhat of a handyman, he set to work. The cellar was prone to flooding, two to three feet, and its sump pump, like many in the neighborhood, fed into a line that had been cemented shut on the other end. The city finally corrected that. So it wasn’t a septic problem, exactly, but definitely storm infiltration, with water shooting dramatically through the cellar walls. Somebody definitely curbed that problem before we took over. Reggie also installed covered the cellar floor with plastic sheeting topped by gravel to reduce water infiltration and make walking easier. By 1999, the house was improved enough that his mother could move in. He and his wife and their two small children also lived here a few months before moving to their own home nearby. Like ours, it was old and needed lots of work. Credit Reggie for learning to do better work than many of the local tradesmen.
As he tells it, Anna had worked hard from age six in the South, where a Black child could be hired out. From that point on, she was always at the service of others, including a large family. Once Eastport came on her horizon, she declared this would be her house. For once in her life, she could sleep as late as she liked, eat whenever she wanted, and come and go as she willed. And she pretty much did.
Eastport’s the kind of small-town community where people know where you live not by your address but by the last name of a previous owner. Give them a street and a number and they take a moment to try to determine which house you’re in., even when you tell them it’s on the corner and briefly describe the exterior. Give them the family name, though, and they immediately light up.
To everyone we’ve met, ours is the Baskerville House and likely to remain so.
I love the literary allusion, of course, to Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles (and the fact it takes place largely in Devonshire, which plays into so much of my history of Dover, New Hampshire, where we previously lived.). Hound/house are, of course, nearly homonyms. Beyond that, there’s also the fact that Baskerville was a basic serif typeface back in the letterpress days when I entered journalism. The high school newspaper I edited used it for the body type. It’s an old style that largely didn’t make the leap to digital, though I see it has recently joined my Windows options. (Not so for my beloved Caslon of the same era.)
What we liked about the place, besides its location and TLC potential, was the fact it felt good inside. Close-your-eyes good, even when the room’s chilly. I’ve certainly felt comfortable in extended solitude and all the writing that’s come within it.
Something that struck me after moving to New England was how often people — even highly rational professionals — calmly asked new homeowners if their place had ghosts. I’m not kidding. And Maine seemed especially prone to that.
Nobody’s asked us, though. Instead, they confirmed that ours always felt good to them, too.
The Baskerville at the heart of this period of ownership was Anna, arriving in Eastport as a retired Black nurse.
From what I’m told, she was stout, had red hair, and loved to sing — especially in all of the churches, where she was always welcome. And she, too, found this place hard to heat but stayed in it and loved it.
When I said we’ve sensed no ghosts but the place feels good, others piped up that’s likely Anna’s presence or spirit. I’ve known similar imprints elsewhere, especially in old Quaker meetinghouses.
Naturally, we want to know more about her.
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One story I heard was about her introduction to the town. She had a longstanding fear of deep water, and because her new residence was only a block from the ocean, the family arranged for her to arrive after dark and get used to the house first. Maybe they figured they could deal with any distress better in the morning.
So, as I’m told, when Anna M. Baskerville awoke and opened the blinds and saw the expanse of water, she inhaled and, as she proclaimed later, “I knew I was home.”
Yes, we know the feeling, too. And we still want to know more.
She was fond of sitting in front of the wood fire in the kitchen cook stove and singing gospel songs and spirituals. In warmer weather, she’d open the front door and sit behind the storm door, basking in the sun.
She had raised a large brood, ruling with what Reggie calls a firm hand and a low tolerance of nonsense. She was also a woman of few words. Typical was the time the Commons gallery was opening. During an open house, when the guests were conversing and eating, she began singing without any preamble. The room fell silent as she delivered “Bless This House” in her rich, deep voice. She was described as warm and supportive.
She was also a very devout member of the Congregational church in Eastport, as a fellow parishioner told me.
Everybody we’ve met who knew her has had only positive things to say. That in itself is a rarity.
In the meantime, we’re trying to keep our renovations in line with what we hope she would have approved. There are good reasons to respect the past.
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So, at Registry of Deeds in Machias, I found the most recent entry by using the property plot number, the one to us in December 2020. No surprise there.
It led to the Baskervilles, of course, but before them, the Tennesseans.
Jnana's Red Barn 