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February 23, 2018
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Robbinston recalls two black families’ lives
by Susan Esposito

 

     As the nation recognizes Black History Month as a time to reflect on their central role in U.S. history, residents of Robbinston are reflecting back on the lives of two African-American families who lived in that community 150 years ago and the ways in which they impacted the community.
     Some may be unaware that the two African-American families settled on the Ridge Road and raised their families there because all their graves are unmarked. It is town historian Helen Brooks' hope that she can remedy this situation by marking at least one of the graves of one these African-American families, namely that of Alexander Bush, who gained fame for his excellent horse racing skills as well as his kindness to people and animals.
     Brooks remembers Bush working for her great-uncle Cleland, and during her childhood he became a fixture as a harness horse racer in West Pembroke.
     "Alex could do anything with horses, and his hands were always doing good work. He bought me my first ice cream when I was five or six at Howard Fisher's store," remembered the late John Brooks, while the late Melva Morrell added, "Alex was excellent with animals."
     "I know his family had come up from the South on their way to Canada so, as a little girl, my big ears imagined they had come through on the Underground Railroad," notes Helen Brooks.
     Although after his death in September of 1958 a friend said, "Alexander Bush will be in mind as long as there are people to remember," Helen wants to help that cause by raising enough money, about $500, for a small headstone. "People can mail me checks that are in memory of Alex Bush to my P.O. Box 76 in Robbinston."
     Alexander Bush was actually the third member of his family of that name to live in Robbinston. Back in 1860, his 45-year-old grandfather Alex Bush and his wife Louisa had children Thomas H. and James Edward, all born in Nova Scotia, as well as Alexander Jr., William B. and Ruth S., who had all been born in Maine.
     According to an 1850 census, the Bush family moved from Perry to Robbinston and listed as living with the William Jackson family. In 1870, the census noted that the family consisted of Alex Sr., Louisa, Thomas H., George, William, Robert, Rosana, Charles and Mary.
     In the meantime, the Griffin family, consisting of Joseph, Jane, Israel, John and Susan, had moved from Halifax and were neighbors to the Bushes, according to the 1870 U.S. Census. James Edward Bush, known as Ed, and Annie Griffin married in 1874 and built a small farm set back from the old Machias Stage Road where Alexander was born on February 18, 1874, followed by William, John, Charles and their only daughter, Louise.
     "The children went to the Ridge School with the other children living along the hill section of the Ridge Road," recalled Earl McInnis in the article "Written in Hill Dust," which was published in Down East magazine in 1966. "From the books and lessons the children brought home with them, Ed and Annie Bush learned to read and write along with their children. Many a winter afternoon they pored over lessons together until the winter dark compelled the family on the Bush farm to retire early to their warm beds."

A family shows kindness
     Alice (Maker) Seeley, who lived with the Bush family from 1916 to 1922, recalled, "I lost my mother to cancer in October 1914, and because I was lame from polio no one seemed to want to be bothered to care for me until Louise Bush took me home to Robbinston because she thought her mother would love to have me for company, and I'd have the whole farm to play in."
     "So on March, 20, 1915, Louise took me home to Robbinston with her. I was a bewildered little girl for awhile, with them all colored and me white, but after awhile other white people came, and I didn't mind it so much."
     "Their son Edward was named for his father, and both died before I went there on March 20, 1915. Louise died in the Fairfield sanitarium in January 1917 when she choked to death while eating her dinner."
     "None of the boys were married," she adds. "Ma Bush said that she would not allow it."
"Alex, the oldest, was always with the Cleland man at the cove tending a fish weir. Billy had a college education but spent his life farming," she notes. "He did most of the farming, and there were many times after school that I would help him bring the cows home. Louise was a dress-maker with her mother. I remember they made Madge McNutt Boyden's [Ray] wedding dress."
     "Johnny liked to sing. The Quinn girls and I enjoyed singing with him," recalled Seeley. "He went to Presque Isle to work in the woods. He died in his 30s and was found at a camp there. Billy brought his body home."
     "Charles went to Cambridge, Mass., to work in a soap factory," she added. "He seldom came home. He wanted to marry a white girl, but his mother would not allow him to marry her and told him, 'If you do this, there will be no happiness in it for you.'"
     "[Ma Bush] made sure I did right for the lesson I'll never forget, as all the children knew how mean Mrs. Jones was," recalled Seeley. "She had an apple tree across the road from the house. It was near the road, and all the children use to pick an apple to eat. I guess Mrs. Jones sat in the window every day and watched when we came home."
     "One day I picked one up in the ditch. A week or two later on Saturday Ma Bush said to me, 'After you get your cleaning done I have a job for you.' So I hurried to get done my Saturday job. Ma said, 'Put on a clean dress and go to the apple orchard and pick seven nice red apples, and you take them to Mrs. Jones and tell her you are sorry you picked up her apple.'"
     "You can understand how I felt, but when I knocked on her door, she was all smiles, asked me in, and made tea," she recalled. "I had a lovely time, but I never took any more apples."
     "Ma Bush died on February 4, 1921, five days before she was 75, and Billy died around Christmas time in 1946."
     "I can never forget this family," stressed Seeley. "It was the only place I could call home, [and Ma Bush] taught me to cook and sew, knit and crochet."
     "I always told Ma Bush how good she was to help me when I needed a family, and she said to do this," recalled Seeley. "Please speak to the colored folks. Be kind to them, for God made us both.      Our blood is [as] red as other folk, whether they are white, red or black."

The life of Alex Bush
     "In whatever this tall man said he did as a gentleman, and always lurking in deep brown eyes there was a waifish, elusive unforgettable humor," recalled Earl McInnis in "Written in Hill Dust." "Alex Bush seemed to be in love with all humanity."
     "Alex also loved horses and harness racing, and Alex's fame as a man possessing a miraculous way with animals spread through the region. It made no difference to Alex whether it were day or night, if a sick animal whimpered and he knew of it, he would go at once. Many a horse was made well and beautiful again by his loving, understanding hands, [and] many a young farm girl had Alex to thank for assisting a cat in having a perennial batch of kittens the poor are so rich in."
Bush's family demanded most of his time, so he found little time to harness race, but when his last living relative, brother Billy, passed away in June of 1947, he was left alone at age 73. "At an age when most men would not be censored for accepting defeat and a seat on the warm side of the kitchen stove, Alex embraced his continuous love of harness racing, and during the racing season, thereafter, the aging man lived on the racing circuit, returning winters to the old Ridge farm."
A man in Pembroke "who at 80 looks carved like one of his many antique furniture pieces" mused to McInnis, "It was the Fourth of July. The race up at the fairgrounds was tight as a pair of Sunday school pants. Alex got so excited he rammed his pipe into his coat pocket. The coat caught fire. It made quite the sight of the smoke and flames stretching behind Alex as he rammed down the homestretch a winner."
     "That was the same race in which his sulky was extensively damaged by another sulky, and when someone in the racing crowd circulated a feed bucket, it became half filled with coins and given to Alex, which the man accepted with gratitude," wrote McInnis who stressed, "As Alex grew older, he became more loved."
     Alex was racing in the last contest of the season at the West Pembroke Fairgrounds, and he and Stout Signal won  "the happiest man and horse in the race. There was another strangeness that wonderful day. The drivers who lost the race to Alex were the happiest losers in all of the racing world."
     "Late that night at the West Pembroke Fairgrounds Alex remarked to Hale Rose as each turned in for the night, 'This is right where I want to be, with my horse.'"
     "In the early morning when Hal went to awaken Alex, he found Alex dead in his little fairgrounds room full of leather and horse smell," McInnis wrote. "The church on top of Robbinston's highest hill was full to overflowing. Roland Chaffey, pastor of Eastport's Baptist church, preached a moving eulogy."
  "Alex, last of his family, is buried with them in the Ridge Cemetery, [and] on the record of Alex's birth certificate is written something no one who knew him ever thought about or even considered: Alexander Bush; Born February 18, 1874; Color, Dark."
     "And thus the testament of Alex Bush began and ended within a few forest miles but spanning the unknown continental vastness of the human soul, which is neither dark nor white."

 

 

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