Close by the country road on the outskirts of the sleepy old seaport town of Bucksport, on the Penobscot, down in Maine, is a small family cemetery. Within the inclosure, with its high iron fence, in the quiet and almost gloomy shade, sleep the Bucks, the blueblooded and aristocratic clan which first settled the town and bequeathed it their name—and a legend. Of the many moss grown tablets and monuments the largest and most conspicuous is a tall granite shaft in plain sight of the highway. On one side is the inscription:

    On the other side is the single word “Buck,” and also something not wrought by the marble worker. On the smooth surface of the pedestal is a curious outline, irregular and describing that which can easily be imagined to be the form of a foot of normal size. Some people say that it is a foot, but those are of the superstitious town folk who believe the legend which has been choice stock in Bucksport for many years.
    They that delight in perpetuating this story say that Colonel Jonathan Buck was a very stern and harsh man and the leading spirit of his day and generation. His word was law in the community. He was the highest in civil authority and his decision as immovable as the granite hills that loom up in the haze of the northern horizon.
    He was most Puritanical, and to him witchcraft was the incarnation of blasphemy. Thus, so the story goes, when a certain woman was accused of witchcraft, at the first clamorings of the populace Colonel Buck ordered her to be imprisoned, and later, after a mere form of a hearing, she was sentenced to be executed as a witch. She pleaded to Buck for her life, but as to a heart of stone.
    The day of the execution came and the condemned woman went to the gallows cursing her judge with such terrible imprecations that the people shuddered, but the magistrate stood unmoved and made a sign to the officers to hasten the arrangements. All was ready and the hangman was about to perform his grewsome duty when the woman turned to Colonel Buck and raising one hand to heaven as if to direct her last words on earth pronounced this astounding prophecy:
    “Jonathan Buck, listen to these words, the last my tongue shall utter. It is the spirit of the only true and living God which bids me speak them to you. You will soon die. Over your grave they will erect a stone, that all may know where your bones are crumbling into dust. But listen ! Upon that stone the imprint of my feet will appear, and for all time, long after your accursed race has perished from the face of the earth, will the people from far and near know that you murdered a woman. Remember well, Jonathan Buck, remember well!”
    Then she turned to her executioners and another act, one of the forever ineffaceable blots, was made a part of American colonial history.
    The “witch’s curse,” as it was called, and to this day, was almost forgotten until many years afterward, when the monument was erected to the memory of Bucksport’s founder. It had been in position hardly a month when a faint outline was discovered upon it. This gradually grew more and more distinct until some one made the startling discovery that it was the outline of a foot which some supernatural draftsman had traced on the granite. The old legend was revived and the Buck cemetery was for years the Mecca of the superstitious and curious for miles around.
    The “witch’s curse,” had been fulfilled, they said. An attempt was made to remove the stain, but all efforts tended only to bring the outline out in bolder relief. The stain or whatever it was seemed to penetrate to the very center of the stone.
    The hinges of the big gate have creaked for the last time to admit a Buck. The last of the race has been laid to rest beneath the oaks and maples, and the setting sun throws the shadow of the once mighty colonel Jonathan Buck’s monument athwart the double row of mossy mounds, as if still exerting his authority, and the same rays light that mysterious tracing held up to the view of all that pass and repass along the dusty turnpike.
    The imprint of the foot is a fact, and is there today as plain as ever. The legend of the “witch’s curse” may or may not be a fact. The fanciful defend the legend, but the practical point out the apparent discrepancy between the dates of the era of witchcraft persecution and the regime of Colonel Buck. They say that the stain is simply an accidental fault in the granite, and that the legend was made to fit the foot and not the foot the legend. But the foot it there.—Philadelphia Inquirer.

From— Barre Evening Telegram. (Barre, Vt.), 11 Sept. 1901. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.