READFIELD'S OLD FORTUNE TELLER

 

In 1910 when anyone rode from Readfield Corner to Winthrop, about a mile out, they saw a two room early settler’s cabin that sat on a knoll in a lonely pasture.  Just beyond that was the impressive farm of James O. Butman. Research reveals the log structure was built by Samuel Mayhew about 1760. The cabin and land it sat on changed hands several times over the years until it became part of Butman’s holdings. By then all the cabin’s windows were broken and some openings were boarded up to prevent tramps from intruding on its occupant. Furnishings consisted of one chair, four boxes, a trunk and a small kitchen woodstove. 

Its inhabitant might have gone unnoticed except for one thing; come summer a sign appeared outside the door that read “FORTUNES TOLD Poor People 5 Cents. Those with more money 10 cents.”  The fortune teller’s name was Mary Jane Richardson.  “The rent here is very satisfactory...nit a month…cheapest rent in town…” she told a newspaper reporter in 1910. She also sang songs to “make a little extree” she said pointing to a sign on an interior wall that said - “5 cents for 3 songs. 10 cents for 3 songs and 3 hims.”

Richardson was born in Readfield to Asa and Sarah (Cottle) Richardson in 1828. She had become an eccentric old lady by the time that reporter discovered her.  She refused to tell her age – perhaps she did not even know her age? After all, she had been the sixth child of thirteen born between 1815 and 1837 so her parents surely had trouble keeping all those birthdays straight. Survival was their major concern. Some of the children had to be farmed out or sent off to work in the factories in Massachusetts, including Mary Jane. She worked in the textile mills in Lawrence and also in Manchester, New Hampshire where she made enough money to dress well and participated in social activities such as dances and shows. “If I hadn’t been so foolish as to try to keep agoing and wear so many fancy good togs when I was in the mills” she said, “I might have more money now. It cost money to swim in society.”

She remained single – in fact she was reported to be a “confirmed spinster”.  Sometime after 1870 she returned to Maine and for several years worked as a housekeeper for prominent families in Augusta, Brunswick and Gardiner. Then she found herself temporarily out of a job and her life took a different direction. She met a woman who taught her how to tell fortunes with cards and the very first week she made a little money using her new found skill. After that she just kept right on reading cards as her livelihood, but she did not bring in enough income to live on. Mary Jane ended up living at the Readfield poor farm near Maranacook Lake, where she became well known to locals as a fortune teller.

In 1888 the poor farm was sold to a hotel developer and Mary Jane was told she would have to move to the new one in the far western reaches of town. Enter George E. Coleman.

Two hotels sprung up on Lake Maranacook about that same time – the Sir Charles Hotel (Tallwood) near the site of the original poor farm, and Maranacook Hotel directly across the lake from the Sir Charles. A train station was built nearby to accommodate the out-of-state vacationers who flooded in by railroad.  Coleman was the station agent at Maranacook Station, and owned the aforementioned, uninhabited log cabin, which was fairly near Lake Maranacook. The entrepreneurial Coleman must have seen Richardson’s mystique as a potential attraction for summer visitors and he invited her to live there. She had never known anything but deprivation and hard work at the direction of hard task masters, so the idea of having her own home where she could also make a living, must have been a welcome relief.  Richardson took Coleman up on the offer. 

She lived very simply there, unlike her days of working in the textile mills. Richardson related that she ate little bread and subsisted almost wholly on crackers and water and occasionally some milk. She told the reporter she would not wear “boughten” stockings and knit her own hose and mittens. Come winter she sometimes returned to live in the shelter of the poor farm. A picture in the 1910 article shows Mary Jane standing in the doorway of her abode. Her face was serious and eyes glaring at the camera, one arm braced against the doorframe and the other at her side. She had large hands – like those of a working man one might say. Kerchief on her head, shawl over her shoulders, a checkered skirt covered with a tattered apron. One could almost feel her destitution while at the same time her contentment.

Word about the local fortune teller spread quickly among the summer people, with help from Coleman no doubt. They made their way to Richardson’s cabin where they confided to her their innermost secrets. Richardson told them things like who they would marry, how they would get rich, and whether they would die in the poor house. According to her there were hobgoblins all around her cabin and at one point she shushed the reporter, then went on to say “Do you know how much I made picking some people to pieces last summer? Well, I made $7.20. That ain’t so bad. And I’ve got it all in a bag in that box over in the corner. I wouldn’t put it into no bank. They break into banks, and the fellows in the bank run away sometimes.” She lived the way she chose and, by all appearances, the townspeople respected her choices.

Three years after the interview Mary Jane Richardson died at the Readfield poor farm, of heart failure. One must wonder if she saw her own demise in the cards.

This article was written by Dale Marie Potter-Clark who is the Historical Consultant for the Readfield Historical Society. She also offers community education about Readfield’s history, and organizes "Readfield History Walks".   FMI visit www.readfieldmaine.blogspot.com. 

(C) 2015 All Rights Reserved by Dale Potter-Clark

This article appeared in Lakes Region Reader 8/14/2015