A newspaper clip from 1896 caught my eye a while back: a grave robbery, it seems, might have taken a relative to parts unknown.

So far, I haven’t found a direct connection on our family tree. But the surname is Pooler (Dad’s paternal grandmother’s maiden name) and the location is Waterville, Maine. We’ve got a lot of kin from that part of the Pine Tree State.

Augustus was born in Waterville on January 15, 1849, the son of Ephraim and Mary Lessard Pooler.

It was Mary who accompanied Augustus to fame and headlines many years later.

It seems ever since Mary died in 1890, her devoted son tended her grave. He did his best to beautify the family plot. Six years after her death, though, Augustus had quite a shock.

After his shift working as a car inspector for the Maine Central Railroad, Augustus arrived at the cemetery, only to discover his mother’s body was missing.

Not only was his mother’s body missing, there was a “For Sale” sign posted on the lot by a local undertaker.

As can be imagined, Augustus was furious.

It took about a week to straighten it all out.

Thankfully, the undertaker, Mr. Valle, remembered that he’d purchased a lot “from a man who’d gone West.”

Continuing from the newspaper article:

Mr. Valle being a responsible and reputable citizen above the business of robbing graves and stealing burial lots, Mr. Pooler was in a great quandary as to what he should do to ascertain who the man was who sold Mr. Valle the lot, as the latter could not remember the man’s name. He being no detective and desiring counsel, what more natural than he should go to his pastor.

After considering the matter the reverend father paid a visit to the cemetery accompanied by Pooler, taking along a chart of the lots. It was shown conclusively that the body of Pooler’s mother had been removed from the family lot and while visions of ghoulish thieves and the consequent results of their infamous work flitted across the maddened brain of the bereaved son, the clergyman chanced to think that a man living now in Vassalboro whose family lot joined that of Pooler, had intended to remove the body of his father from the cemetery in this city, to Vassalboro, and that it was possible that he had made a mistake, an uncommon one to be sure, and had removed the remains of Pooler’s mother instead of those of his own father.

My, my – that’s some fancy journalistic writing there!

Thankfully, poor Augustus didn’t have too long to fret.

Within a week it was discovered that the “thief” was certain the body he moved from the cemetery was that of his father, whose name was on the coffin plate. The gentleman, Daniel Keith, visited the cemetery with Augustus. They quickly realized the mistake was on the part of the accuser.

That’s right, all those years, Augustus had cared for a stranger’s grave, leaving his mother’s untended.

When he was finally convinced of the mix-up, Augustus had another question: Why are there three graves on my lot? Who are the other two people buried next to my mother?

That’s another story for another day.

Meanwhile, Augustus lived another quarter of a century. He died at age 73, just a year after retirement, when it was revealed he’d only once taken a vacation. And his first job? At the tender age of 11, he “went to sea and traveled the world.” He served as a cabin boy on the transport McClellen during the Civil War.

From a Civil War steamer to a half-century of trains, Augustus was always on the move. But never more than when he investigated what turned out to be his own error, a grave mistake.

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