Bangor was once known as a “wide-open” city where a multitude of prostitutes inhabited the numerous dives and seedy boarding houses along the waterfront and back streets. The most famous madam, of course, was the harlot of Harlow Street, Fan Jones, the subject of song and story right up to our own day.

If you were a University of Maine student, male of course, or perhaps a weary log driver without the wherewithal to make it all the way to the bright lights of the Queen City, however, another madam was equally well known. The official keepers of area morals had been watching Harriet Foyer’s activities for some time. One dark December night, a squad of Penobscot County deputy sheriffs boarded the electric trolley in downtown Bangor bound for Aunt Hat’s notorious “road house,” near the railroad tracks on the old Shore Road overlooking the Penobscot River just over the city line in Veazie.

“Deputy sheriffs attached to Mr. Gilman’s staff found time rather dull on their hands Tuesday, and for a little relaxation they thought they would jaunt out to a somewhat renowned and frivolous hostelry near the somber shades of Mt. Hope, known as Hotel Foyer,” the police reporter for the Bangor Daily News wrote on Dec. 13, 1905 with the cynical wit common in newspapers then. “Mrs. Harriet Foyer, as renowned as the hotel, who looks like the president of some philanthropic organization, is the president, vice president, general manager and treasurer of the corporation. She was not overjoyed at the sudden arrival of the guests.”

After getting off the trolley, the deputies tramped through the snow following a long string of twinkling electric lights down to the river. But when they got to the big house, “the piano wasn’t going and the lights were out. However, the ‘girls’ made their appearances after awhile – rouged and defiant, in imitation silks of the clinging variety….” After being served “a little blue document” charging her with being the proprietor of a house of ill fame, Aunt Hat and three of her girls were arrested

Harriet Foyer was already under heavy bonds from the Supreme Court for maintaining a nuisance, the reporter explained. “This is the first time in the history of this famous road house that the whole ‘outfit’ has been arrested. Liquors have been taken, but never the unfortunate inmates.”

The next day the newspaper reported that Mrs. Foyer, doubtlessly arrayed in one of her trademark big plumed hats, was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to the charges in the private office of Judge Chapman. She made bond for herself and the three women who had been arrested with her.

A quick check at the Maine State Archives in Augusta of court records between 1905 and 1909 revealed Foyer was indicted several times for maintaining a house of prostitution and selling liquor. She was sentenced to serve time in jail and to pay fines. The outcome of all the legal finagling is difficult to decipher today without a legal background.

Aunt Hat was 67 years old a century ago. She was nearing the end of her career. She had been practicing her trade in Veazie for a few years before she built the big house down by the river in 1898 with “room enough for 10 beds,” according to Jean Hamilton in her history of Veazie. She also had “a new stove, two new 112-piece dinner sets and nine toilet sets.”

But there must have been a lot more than 10 beds. Foyer was running a big operation. There were 22 people living at the Foyer place, according to the 1900 U. S. Census. They included her two sons, a grandson and a granddaughter as well as 11 boarders and six servants. The boarders included eight women between the ages of 19 and 30. By 1910, the number had shrunk considerably, indicating that Foyer’s career may have been curtailed by her legal tribulations, if not her age.

Aunt Hat had a reputation for being kind to men down on their luck, which may explain the presence of several males living in her pleasure palace. “A man off the drive or out of the woods who got drunk was likely to get rolled for his money. On the other hand she would take care of men who were down and out or sick until they were back on their feet,” recalled 82-year-old Odillion Turner in 1977 during an interview with one of professor Edward “Sandy” Ives’ folklore students at the University of Maine.

Turner’s account of the most famous story about Aunt Hat is preserved at the Maine Folk Life Center: Aunt Hat had a “waiting room,” a small building about 6 ft. by 8 ft. outside her house. One night a group of whooping, hollering UMaine students with a railroad hand car rolled by, picking up the building and carting it back to the campus where they deposited it by the tracks.

“That afternoon, Aunt Hat got out her horse and buggy… and went up to the campus. She went directly to the president and told him what had happened. She persuaded him to get in the carriage and go down with her to identify her waiting room. Evidently, it was all set up. On the way from his office to the waiting room, a student snapped a picture of the two of them, with the sun shining brightly in their faces,” Turner told the interviewer. He said he’d seen a copy of the photograph, and he’d been told it was published in “the local paper,” but he wasn’t sure. I’m not sure either.

Thanks to Sandy Ives for showing me Aunt Hat’s gravestone in Fairview Cemetery and to Allen Thomas for showing me the spot where Aunt Hat’s house is believed to have been located in the first decade of the 20th century.

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