Untimely death focused all eyes on roadhouse

Harriet Foyer operated the most notorious bordello in the Bangor area a century ago. Like Fan Jones, her famous predecessor, much romantic folderol has been spun about Aunt Hat, as she was known far and wide. But the trial of two of her hired thugs for manslaughter in February 1908 reveals that old Hat was less endearing than her popular image.

“The mystery of a dark and stormy night at a lonely roadhouse – the mystery of how Fred Bunker came to his death – was investigated in the supreme court on Thursday afternoon, and a great throng was present to follow the details,” the Bangor Daily News reported on Feb. 14, the morning after the opening of the trial of Hat’s bouncer, Frank “Frenchy” Parrent, and another employee, Wesley Collins, in Bangor.

Fred B. Bunker of North Sullivan had come to Bangor on Labor Day to celebrate with two friends. Each carried a quart of whiskey that he consumed as the day went by. All three men were granite cutters. Possibly they had marched in the Labor Day parade that morning. In the afternoon, they decided to take the trolley up State Street to Aunt Hat’s isolated place just over the city line in Veazie for supper and a night of carousing.

When they got off the trolley near Mount Hope Cemetery, they encountered Frenchy Parrent, a convicted criminal also known as Kid Doyle to local boxing fans. Parrent offered to guide them to the famed roadhouse on the Shore Road overlooking the Penobscot River. After being greeted by the venerable Aunt Hat, the group spent a few minutes in the parlor where one of them played a few tunes on the piano before they retired to the dining room.

That’s when the trouble started. For reasons never explained, Bunker, who was very drunk, took a swing at his companion, Wallace Springer, giving him a bloody nose. Springer jumped from the table and ran out the door.

Bunker either chased after him, or was physically ejected from the house by Parrent and Collins. Aunt Hat made it clear to her boys she wanted him out because he was drunk and troublesome. He had also failed to pay for his drinks even though he was supposed to be carrying a great wad of cash.

Parrent and Collins were observed by several witnesses, some as far away as the other side of the river in North Brewer, chasing and throwing rocks at Bunker until the granite cutter fell into the bushes some distance from the house. A great deal of inconclusive court testimony failed to determine how many rocks actually hit Bunker, or what might have happened after he disappeared from sight.

Aunt Hat forbade his friends from bringing him back to the house. “To hell with him,” she supposedly replied to Collins when he suggested they should go check up on him because he might fall in the river.

Later that night, near the Red Bridge district of Bangor about a mile south of Aunt Hat’s, Bunker’s mutilated body was found on the Bangor Railway & Electric Company tracks after having been hit by a northbound trolley. Had he been murdered or beaten unconscious and dumped on the tracks, or had he crawled there?

The condition of Bunker’s body was cited as evidence by County Attorney Hervey Patten that he had been beaten to death before his body was left on the tracks. “Old railroad men who have witnessed many accidents will tell you that when a man is killed – even though he should be cut in two – the flesh will quiver for some time. There will be some movement – some sign of vitality,” Patten told the jury. “But in this case the body was absolutely motionless, Furthermore the blood upon the face was dried, as though it had been there for hours.”

The prosecutor suddenly withdrew the manslaughter charge the next day, however. No one had actually seen Parrent and Collins hitting Bunker. No one had seen them drag his body to the spot on the tracks where he was found.

The most damaging witness for the defense was William Landry of Veazie, a passenger on the trolley. He testified he heard Bunker gasp as he lay dying on the tracks, and that someone else had said something about the man taking his last breath. Parrent and Collins were convicted of assault and battery. They were each sentenced to a year in the county jail, “allowances being made for their youth,” said the Bangor Daily News on Feb. 25.

On the opening morning of the trial Aunt Hat made what apparently was her only appearance at the proceedings. She was arraigned on a charge of maintaining “a common nuisance.” We have this description of her from a Bangor Daily News reporter: “With hair almost snow white and gowned in deep black, she hobbled on crutches to the prisoner’s box, where in response to the reading of the indictment, she feebly pleaded ‘not guilty.’ Then she was assisted to a seat before the judge’s stand, and while her bondsmen were being examined, her sobs shook the courtroom. The bail was satisfactory and Mrs. Foyer left the court with an attendant supporting her on either side.” The charges were later dropped, according to court records.

Aunt Hat had faced similar charges before. Her histrionics, however, may not have been completely insincere. In her late 60s, she was nearing the end of her career. The legal establishment was trying to put her out of business once and for all. She may still have been recovering emotionally from the death of her 9-year-old granddaughter, Hazel, who had been struck by a Maine Central Railroad train the previous June opposite the upper entrance to Mount Hope Cemetery.

The testimony of Ross J. Murphy, another of Hat’s employees, provides additional insights into Aunt Hat’s nature. Murphy, who had been brought in on a separate, unrelated assault charge, worked as a “spieler” and a ticket taker for Hat’s tent shows at fairs where her girls danced. The morning after Labor Day, Hat sent Murphy to the site of Bunker’s assault where he searched unsuccessfully for the money the granite cutter was alleged to have been carrying. Parrent and Collins, who told Murphy they had given Bunker “an awful beating,” claimed they did not have the cash.

Bunker’s fancy derby hat, with the initials F.B.B. on the hatband, had been retrieved from the scene earlier, and Aunt Hat gave it to Murphy, perhaps as a little bonus, telling him not to reveal where he got it. Murphy wore the hat at the fairs where he worked that fall before trading it for a cap at Chesuncook Lake when he went to work in the woods as a logger. Later it was seized as evidence by authorities.

One can conclude from this and other testimony that Aunt Hat probably ordered the attack on Bunker to obtain his money, which would have paid for far more than the cost of his drinks. While Hat may not have ordered Bunker’s murder, her callousness in neglecting the drunken granite cutter after he had received “an awful beating” at the hands of her thugs contributed to the events leading up to his death. The trial publicity no doubt did some damage to Aunt Hat’s business in its waning days.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.