{"id":587,"slug":"davidson-ghost-town-davidson-maine","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Maine Memory Network's circa-1908 photograph holds the whole biography: a winter view of Davidson, west of Stacyville — sawmill at left, the large white clothespin factory with its boiler room at right, a cone-shaped waste burner between them, a rail line crossing the foreground, houses fading into the trees behind.","The catalog text supplies the town's arc. Ora Gilpatrick, a Danforth-born lumberman and president of a Houlton bank, bought the entire township and founded Davidson in 1901, building the mills, his own large house, and houses for his sons. For three decades it functioned as a complete company town: B&A Railway station, post office, general store, blacksmith, church, town hall, a hall for movies and dances, a dairy, separate boarding houses for men and women, and wooden sidewalks."]},{"heading":"What the record allows","paragraphs":["The town was sold in 1929 and faded through the 1930s; fires took many buildings, and what remains is foundations and metal scrap. The catalog warns that the roads in are grown over or blocked — access 'difficult, if not impossible' — while noting that trains still sound the whistle passing through Davidson.","The research notes hold the file to the catalog excerpt: the founding and fading dates come from the photograph's own record text, not inference, and coordinates, county and visitor access remain unverified. Nina Way Lord's book 'Ollie's Davidson' preserves the community's memory; the dossier files it as a documented ghost town with no haunting claim."]}],"name":"Davidson Ghost Town","aliases":[],"type":"GHOST_TOWN","type_label":"Ghost Town","cats":["GHOST_TOWN","FORMER_INDUSTRIAL_SETTLEMENT"],"groups":["ghost-towns"],"desc":"Former community west of Stacyville documented by a historic photograph.","full_desc":"A ghost town in Davidson, Maine, Davidson Ghost Town is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Former community west of Stacyville documented by a historic photograph. HauntHunt files it with ghost towns and former industrial settlements. The dossier holds 1 documented fact — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. It stands abandoned — what remains is the shell and the record.","address":null,"city":"Davidson","county":null,"state":"Maine","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":null,"lon":null,"coord_kind":null,"status":"ABANDONED","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Catalog search excerpt only: full record returned 403. Do not infer construction, abandonment date, coordinates, county or visitor access from the photograph date. Next obtain record 105916 sawmill catalog and county maps.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":41.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.55,"identity_confidence":0.45,"historical_confidence":0.55,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.35}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"Maine Memory Network’s photograph catalog identifies Davidson as a once-thriving community west of Stacyville with a clothespin factory. The town's documented rise and abandonment is the record the rest of the file stands on. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The record appears in 'Ghost town, Davidson, ca. 1908'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Ghost town, Davidson, ca. 1908","url":"https://www.mainememory.net/record/108671","publisher":"Maine Memory Network / Maine Historical Society","type":"LIBRARY_ARCHIVE","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Ghost town, Davidson, ca. 1908","url":"https://www.mainememory.net/record/108671","publisher":"Maine Memory Network / Maine Historical Society","type":"LIBRARY_ARCHIVE","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":0,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}