Guy Stover had a flourishing poultry farm at the corner of Link Road and Peterborough Road. At one time he needed additional housing for his laying hens. The Town Fathers were offering the old tramp house for sale, tramps were no longer wandering through Hancock as they used to do. So Guy Stover bought the old Tramp House and fixed it up with roosts and nests for his hens.   Included in the purchase was the town coffin which for one reason or another was always kept in the tramp house. This coffin for many years had supplied a temporary resting place for the newly deceased until after the funeral when a permanent haven for the worldly remains of the heaven-bound departed could be found.   Now Guy Stover had acquired this coffin which he quickly converted to a grain box for food for his hens. Ruth Johnson, for many years Town Historian, heard with dismay of the depths of utilitarianism to which the former town coffin had sunk. Wishing to save it from its degradation, she decided to rescue it. Her husband Willis made a grain box for Guy Stover's hens and Guy gave the coffin to Ruth.   The coffin was a handsome pine box, long and commodious enough for a six foot four airline pilot who tried it out for size, but of course, quickly jumped out!   Ruth Johnson's idea in acquiring the coffin was to present it to the Hancock Historical Society. Ruth told Willis that if they would not accept it, he would have to make it into a coffee table, but that she would be darned if she would have it in her living room. Fortunately, the Society accepted the gift and the coffin now occupies its final resting place in the Hancock Historical Society Museum, thanks to Willis and Ruth Johnson. Author/date unknown Submitted by Gloria Neary to the November 2001 issue of Hancock Happenings

 

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