There is nothing like letters from the NEWS’ family

PALM DESERT, Calif. – Back in the dark ages of World War II, when mail call was the day’s highlight, nothing quite matched the joy of a “letter from home.” The same joy is experienced when letters come pouring forth from good neighbors who make up the Bangor Daily News family.

Lately, I would have to say, the two columns telling of a renegade poacher-lawbreaker named Pete Fontaine brought the fountain pens and typewriters into action. My file on Fontaine has been lengthened and enriched.

In particular, one letter got my total attention. It came from Hubert Templeton, Box 1131, Greenville, who’d prefer I not use his name, but if I did, well, go ahead.

He wrote:

“Your columns pertaining to Pete Fontaine were interesting to me in so much as the Templeton mentioned was my uncle. However, your article’s facts did not coincide with what was told me by my uncle.

“Warden Ed Lowell did not enter the picture until after Fontaine was shot. There is a picture in the Moosehead Museum showing Fontaine and Lowell together – a notorious poacher and game warden.

“The way matters developed, I was told, Fontaine had taken a shot at Herman Templeton the summer before, while he was paddling across a pond. Just the fact that he dipped his head while taking a stroke with the paddle, saved his life. The bullet made a crease across the back of his neck.

“When Templeton and Houston approached the cabin Fontaine was in, no shot was fired at them. Templeton went to the door, opened it and when Fontaine went for his gun, Templeton shot him in the shoulder. He should have shot him, Templeton said later, so that there would be only one story told about it.

“The two men, Templeton and Houston, put Fontaine on a moose sled and hauled him into Canada for medical attention. He recovered and for some reason, became friends with Warden Ed Lowell. The shooting of Fontaine caused severe criticism in the Bangor Daily News while the Bangor Evening Commercial backed the game wardens. My family subscribed to the Commercial for years after.

“In 1888, two game wardens were killed by poachers. The poachers were jailed, but so much comment was made in their favor, the pair’s sentence was reduced.

“Fontaine was a fearful figure. One guide told me that they made a habit of leaving food at a campground for him, believing this insured a safe passage on a river trip. I have talked to people in Canada (Beauce County) and was told that Fontaine was a man to stay away from. He wasn’t the only one to cross the boundary line between Maine and Canada to trap, fish and hunt. I knew several of them who did, regularly. One man told me he sneaked across the line in the summer and spent the night in the woods. On waking up in the morning, he was surprised to see a truck going by on a road that wasn’t there the year before. Poachers still come across the boundary. Very few are caught. I remember one year when 27 deer were shot in one woods operation and taken back to Canada.”

“This was wild country in the very late 1880s and early 1900s. Two game wardens were killed by poachers in 1888. Then, poachers were jailed but so much comment followed in their favor, the two’s sentences were reduced.”

Hubert Templeton’s letter gets a place in my Pete Fontaine file, and my thanks to him, of course.

Like I stated at the outset, this reading family of ours is a very special one. Mail call from “home” has kept me posted on matters back in the homeland: April W. Gray, 146 North Brunswick St., Old Town, the married daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lance Wheaton, Forest City, who writes so affectionately to say how she misses her grandfather, the late Woodie Wheaton, the grandest of departed Maine guides. Mrs. Maude E. MacKenzie, 112 4th Ave., N.E., St. Petersburg, Fla., who wrote a million and more words as Orono correspondent for the long-dead Bangor Evening Commercial. Dana Tucker, Box 93, Hulls Cove, who collects baseball autographs. Harold E. MacRae, RR 1, Box 1787, Brewer, who says he enjoyed reading the Pete Fontaine doings. Wallace M. Harvey, Box G. 9 Main St., Patten, asks if I’ll drop by and spend an evening with members of the United Methodist Church Men’s Club, and in the near future, I will. Jane I. Thomas, RFD 1, Box 56, Surry, requests the formula for a home-made chimney cleaner that I wrote about several years back. Eddie Franco Jr., 32 Halsey Rd., Woonsocket, R.I., corresponds that he’s recovering from a shock he suffered two years ago, forcing him into early retirement. And there are others, a couple of dozen, requiring answers on such important matters as how to smoke salmon to recommending what the correspondent describes, “a good and inexpensive trout rod.”

So much for Tuesday’s mail call.