What a great way to start the New Year!
I was in complete boredom yesterday and in surfing the net, I ended up at the Adirondack Museum's website where I learned that Craig Brandon was scheduled for a lecture on January 15th. Craig Brandon is the author of many fine books, three being, Murder In The Adirondacks, The Love Letters of Grace Brown and The Prison Diary and Letters of Chester Gillette. I've got them all. The last book I mentioned, Brandon co-wrote with Jack Sherman who had the book signing of the Prison Diary book on the 100th year anniversary of Chester's electrocution. The presentation started out in a small room upstairs and had to be moved downstairs to a larger room as it was a huge turnout, in a museum in Auburn NY as Auburn was the city in which Gillette was incarcerated for the drowning death of Grace Brown back in 1906. Bill and I went to this packed house book signing and very much enjoyed the presentation from Mr. Sherman, him being a lawyer who has studied the case, written the books and even went as far as to write murder mystery dinner theaters! I bought the book which I eagerly read. I'm always giving people the benefit of the doubt but after reading the book, I was totally convinced of Gillette's guilt thus my song Boom Town was written. I recorded the song with Reyna Stagnaro and Steven Skollar on mandolin and Jimmy Wunderlich on guitar in Jimmy's studio and Colgate University's studio.
So! After going to Craig Brandon's website and obtaining his contact info, I emailed him with a link to my website where my song Boom Town could be played in its entirety and told him about my obsession with the Grace Brown/Chester Gillette saga having played at the Big Moose Inn for a few summers and reading all the newspaper articles about the case framed and hung on the walls through out the Inn. Reading the old articles thrust me into the purchase of any book I could get my hands on. Bob Hankey the owner of The Big Moose Inn at the time, would put me up at his camp when the Inn was full. His camp, the most beautiful camp in the world just happened to be across the lake where Grace Brown's body was found in her water lily grave. One night after playing at the Inn and purchasing the book, The Love Letters of Grace Brown. I drove the twisty, moonlit mountain road to Bob',s camp, curled up in my Indian Princess, log cabin room with the book and read, filling my head with Grace's painful, lamenting letters to Chester begging him to come and take her away, saving the reputation of her and her family as she was pregnant with his child. Something you just didn't do back in the early 1900's. Chester took her away alright. They hopped a train in Deruyter, and after learning of no wayward homes in Utica for unwed and pregnant mothers to be, they headed north to the remote, Big Moose Lake, where He put her in a skiff, with camera and a suitcase with a tennis racket tied to it, rowed her out to the South Bay and conked her over the head. He then swam to shore and hoofed it back to Eagle Bay village to later go hiking up Black Bear Mountain with friends the little f--ker! Had he gone back to the Glenmore where he rented the skiff and reported the whole thing as an accident. He would of gotten away with murder. So Chester got what he most definitely deserved.
The next morning at Bob's camp, the strangest thing that ever happened to me…did. I awoke to the cry's of a loon and a crow. All I could think was that the crow was attacking the loon's chic and the loon was at war with the crow trying to save her baby. I jumped out of bed like a woman possessed and in my pajamas ran down to the shore where my kayak was, pushed off and paddled out to the middle of the lake. By then the crying of the birds stopped and there I was, on this strangely peacefully morning lake with the steam rising out of the water. Suddenly. pop, pop, swoosh, pop, at least 10 loons came up out of the black water and just floated all around me and my yellow boat. It was the most beautiful sight and experience I'll never forget.
It was as if the crow was Chester and the loon was Grace and she was calling to me to save her.
"Chester Gillette it was a tragic mistake, leaving two hearts broken at the bottom of this lake, Grace's Ghost, Grace's Ghost." A line from my song Grace's Ghost.
Once you read the books and know Chester and Grace's story. It never lets you go.
And now with a new feather in my hat because thankfully Mr. Brandon linked my website with my song Boom Town to his. He liked it! And I will never forget the cries of that loon and crow.
