Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1898 — MIRACLE OF BO PEEP’S GRAVE. [ARTICLE]

MIRACLE OF BO PEEP’S GRAVE.

Dire Prophecies of a “Canuck” For-tune-Teller Have Come True. Every French-Canadian resident of Maine believes that a miracle has been performed over the grave of Paul Beaupre, who died and was buried in the woods above Grindstone Falls four years ago. Beaupre, or Bo Peep, as he was called by his acquaintances, was a fortune teller and peddler of snakeskin charms, who traveled from camp to camp in winter selling his amulets and preying upon the credulity of his countrymen by pretending to reveal future events. Four years ago he was taken 111 with pneumonia while staying at a camp on the east branch and died inside of a week. Before his death he expressed a wish to have his body taken to Montreal for burial, pronouncing a fearful curse upon thosb who neglected to obey his last request. Among other catastrophes that were to follow a denial of his wish were the sudden death of the camp foreman, the loss of the year’s cut of logs, and the burning of the camp. He also said that if he were buried In the woods a living cross would grow’ up from his grave which should serve as a perpetual warning to all unbelievers. Beaupre died In November, 1894. His body was sewed up in new’ blankets and carried to a rocky point above Grindstone, where the bearers placed it under the roots of a great yellow birch tree which had lately been overturned in a gale. When the remains had been duly disposed in the stony opening, one of the men choped off the fallen tree trunk wdth an ax, allowing the stump to fly back, thus filling the hole and burying the body under tons of earth. Two weeks later the camp boss was killed by a falling limb. The following spring the logs were hung up for want of waiter, and while they were lying on the shore waiting for rains, a forest tire swept through the woods, burning the logs and the camp where the men had worked. This fall a party of Frenchmen who had been hunting deer stopped at Bo Peep’s grave and were surprised to find that the yellow birch which covered his remains had sprouted from the stump, sending up three shoots which had Interlaced so as to form a cross about ten feet tall. When they saw that the last of the dead man’s predictions had been fulfilled, they came out and circulated the story all over Eastern Maine, since which time the grave has been visited by scores of French-Cana-ddans, all of whom believe that a miracle has been wrought above the dead.