So last month we were at the Used book store & Trent picked up two movies I had never heard of (but they were on his "list" to see). A couple days later he said pick one to watch & I picked "Weight of Water" not knowing anything much about it. It was good--a fiction with some non-fiction stuck in the middle. The non-fiction was a double murder in a small island community called Smuttynose (hehe). Good movie. Sean Penn playing a decidedly different character to Harvey Milk.
For Christmas, Trent's older brother sent me a book I had tried to get the last two times we were up. "They Lynched Jim Cullen" by Dena Winslow. I became obsessed (a little) about it since Jim Cullen lived (in the 1870's) in the house across the street from the house where Trent grew up. (He has a fun ghost story about peering in the window when the family across the street was away). So the upshot is the only lynching to occur in all of the New England states happened in little Presque Isle...to a guy who (murdered two people) lived in Mapleton (well, Castle Hill actually).
SO, this morning I'm reading the book which starts with a chapter about lynchings in general...and about what lynchings have in common...and New England justice--and it mentioned the Smuttynose murders. Seems they occured March 6th 1873...and were reported in the Presque Isle newspaper March 16th...and Jim Cullen was lynched April 30th--so the lack of justice in Smuttynose indirectly led to Jim Cullen's hanging.
And we just happened to watch that movie (made in 2001) right before I started reading this book...woooo!
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