The Great Gold Swindle of Lubec, Maine

In1897, a stranger named Reverend Prescott Jernegan arrived in Lubec and made abold claim: he could extract gold from seawater. To do so, he used so-calledaccumulators of electrically charged rods in iron pots. Fooling many, heactually hid the gold beneath a wharf in the Bay of Fundy during the night. He andhis accomplice, Charles Fisher, preached with fervent enthusiasm as they builttheir factory and encouraged inspections, which reversed doubters to greedyhigh-stakes investors. Hundreds of laborers accelerated factory expansion untilJuly 1897, when Jernegan and Fisher fled. Although residents of Lubec attemptedcivil and criminal action, both men relocated, and fantasies of gold wealthflowed away. Relive the excitement, disappointment and anger ofturn-of-the-century Mainers in this collection of accounts about the Lubec goldhoax.