Morse's sauerkraut

At Morse’s we start celebrating with Oktoberfest and don’t stop until we ring in the new year! From sausages, charcuterie & German beer to Nürnberg Lebkuchen, Stollen & giant chocolate coins, we stock your favorite holiday treats.

This season, relax & take the drive to Morse’s where you’ll find the unique gifts and personal service that make holiday shopping a joy!

with which someone had almost decapitated him.

Law officers arrived, investigated, and asked questions. Evidence indicated the killer was familiar with the property. Always kept sharp, the ax was stored with two others in a special storage area in the woodshed, so only an “insider” would know where to find the weapon. And a particular latching mechanism opened the back door; only an “insider” would have known where to find the latch’s exterior knot in the dark.

Investigators found footprints leading from the barn to a nearby bridge.

Neighbors suspected James F. Lowe, two years younger than his murdered brother. But James had an alibi; he and his wife, Sadie, had spent Friday at the four-story New England House (later the City Hotel) in Portland.

James and Sadie told detectives they had spent the entire night at the hotel.

Investigators pursued clues and ar- rested the Lowes at 5 p.m., Friday, November 28. James was charged with murder, Sadie for accessory to murder. He apparently staged a meltdown, and she boo-hooed the night away after the Lowes’ prompt arraignment in Portland’s municipal court.

Cumberland County Attorney Thomas H. Haskell dropped the charge against Sadie and declared her just a witness. Asked how he pleaded to his murder charge, James responded, “Guilty.”

Surprised investigators exclaimed, “Wow!”

Cumberland neighbors of Joseph Lowe had first sicced the law onto James. He always had a volatile temper, even from childhood, neighbors claimed, and he hated Joseph. Before dying in March 1876, their father George had, in agreement with Abigail, willed the farm to Joseph, and the thoroughly ticked off James married Sadie and moved to Nova Scotia.

The Lowes returned to Cumberland and lived on the family farm. James and Joseph quarreled violently, with Joseph “thrashing” his brother, and this time James and Sadie left for good.

Before arresting the Lowes, Portland City Marshal Bridges had conducted a good cop-bad cop scenario in which he befriended James, who suddenly started hanging around the Portland police station after the murder. Bridges brought in Oxford County Deputy Sheriff Wormell to play the “sleuth-hound of justice,” often turning up where James could see him and talking like he was close to cracking the case.

At 1 p.m., Friday, November 28, James was chatting with Bridges at the police station. “James, I must see your wife,” Bridges confidentially said. “Wormell has the strongest evidence against you, but she and I may be able to arrange matters.”

James sent Sadie to meet with Bridges. “Wormell has got his evidence (cont. on page 6)

(cont. from page 5) solid against your husband,” the marshal said. “Now, Mrs. Lowe, I cannot save him, but if you are innocent, it is for you to save yourself. You can only do it by telling all the truth.”

Sadie did. Stating that James left the New England House about 8 p.m., September 27, she said he returned around 4:30 a.m., Saturday. “I asked him where he had been,” she recalled.

“Don’t ask me. Time will tell,” James replied, according to Sadie.

After the Lowes were arrested, police put them in adjacent cells. Bridges and Wormell hid around the corner and listened as the couple talked. At Wormell’s urging, Sadie cried sufficiently and repeatedly urged James to tell her that he had killed Joseph. However, James would not confess to her.

On Saturday, November 29, James told Bridges, “I done it, but my wife knew nothing about it and had no hand in it.” He signed a written confession on Sunday, November 30.

Afraid that he would wind up a pauper, James had decided to commit a felony so he would be sent to the state prison. Leaving the hotel on September 27, he walked the 12 miles to his family’s farm — he described the exact route — opened the house’s back door, figured Joseph was at the fair, and then found the ax in the woodshed.

Waiting until Joseph took the horse into the barn, James walked silently inside and chopped him. Joseph never saw his killer or the death blow coming.

James walked back to Portland and reached the hotel around 5 p.m. He got his “three squares a day” after a judge sentenced him to the state pen.

The distraught Sadie went free.