Unsolved Murder Mysteries Historian Author Peter M Pettingill - Historical Novelist Peter Pettingill | The Murder Of Mattie Hackett

“The historical novel exposes the reader to the inner lives of people across time and place and in doing so illuminates history’s untold stories, allowing the reader to experience more complex truth.”

The Murder of Mattie Hackett

In this nominally fictionalized tale, the author brings us through the fated evening, the ensuing days, weeks, months, and years through the trial of Elsie Raymond. Using in depth research, the author uses the actual facts and characters to take the reader to 1905 – 1912 Kennebec County, Maine to witness the events and experience the personal moments of those involved.

The murder of Mattie Hackett came to the attention of the author while researching his first book concerning the December, 1905 murder of David Varney in Porter, Maine. The story of Mattie Hackett remains high on the list of Maine’s unsolved murder mysteries. While many essays, news and magazine articles, and even a song!, have been published, The Murder of Mattie Hackett by Peter M. Pettingill is the first full length narrative of the tale.

The people of Readfield are not perfect. While they work together when needed for the benefit of the individual, family or community, and worship and play together, they are also capable of harboring some of their Puritan ancestors’ less admirable characteristics of judgment, condemnation, and gossip.

Excerpt

The Murder Of Mattie Hackett

Porter: The Murder of David Varney

Porter is a nominally fictionalized story about the 1905 murder of David Varney, the ensuing search for, arrest and trial of his grandnephew, Wesley Chick. But there is more to the story than that.

Porter, Maine in 1905 is not as pastoral as one might think. There is clear distinction between the educated and the uneducated, the literate and the illiterate, the wealthy and the poor, the farmer and the manufacturer, the worker and the supervisor. The further we move from the center of commerce in the village of Kezar Falls the harsher life becomes in Porter. Many of the country folk have been content to live on their small farms and subsist on what they can grow and trade for. As the twentieth century dawns on Porter, others lust for more: more money, more material, more modernity, and more love. But they are not certain how to attain it. They have not been taught.

Alice Shrugged: The Mysterious Death of Charlie Northey

Rumors of an adulterous relationship between Mrs. Alice Cooper and her husband’s former apprentice Charlie Northey flourished in the Maine villages of South Windsor, North Whitefield, and Coopers Mills during the summer and autumn of 1905. Then on a summer-like October Tuesday afternoon, twenty-one-year-old Charlie was found mortally wounded in Mrs. Cooper’s dining room with a revolver by his side while a hysterical Mrs. Cooper was witnessed on her front lawn alleging Charlie shot himself.

Before twenty-four hours had lapsed, the thirty-three-year-old mother of three readily admitted that she purchased that revolver the day before to protect herself from Charlie but contended he wrested it from her, took two shots at her as she fled, and then turned the .32 caliber revolver on himself. The investigators and prosecutors including State Attorney Hannibal E. Hamlin and the Kennebec County grand jury believed the matter would be best sorted out by a jury of Mrs. Cooper’s peers.

I have known Peter Pettingill for several years and his dedication to his profession when he worked full time has shown through it this first book. He is one who will take no short cuts in putting forth a novel that tells in great detail all that is needed for readers to have an honest . His books will prosper as he is a true professional. The book was very detailed and that is precisely what this subject matter needed. Well done Peter- I look forward to reading your next book, then the third....

A must read if you love history! Mostly true with a little bit of fiction. VERY well written. Don’t judge the book by it’s cover, the inside is much more interesting! Get it!!

Peter M. Pettingill

Peter M. Pettingill is an amateur genealogist and historian living in New Hampshire. Growing up, Pete’s father and aunt gave him a love for Maine genealogy and history. He grew up in Nassau County, New York, served three years in the United States Army Military Police Corps, completed a BA in English at SUNY Stony Brook, and spent his career in the commercial insurance claims business 1985 – 2022 when he began to research and write full time. Pettingill uses Ancestry.com and multiple other resources to understand the individuals he researches often traveling to New England towns to visit sites, meet with historical society members, rummage through old books and records, or interview descendants of characters.

Peter M. Pettingill

I see a distinct difference between a historical novel and historical fiction. Historical novels take the characters, the actual facts and their actual words, and creates a drama. Historical fiction imbeds fictional characters and circumstances in a real time and place. I avoid fictional characters unless I really need them or am using them to represent a point.

It is impossible for me to visit a cemetery and not think “biography.” It is impossible for me to find a cellar hole or another remnant in the New England woods and not envision the people, the families, that once existed there. People think we have it so hard. That everything we are going through in 2023 is so tough. They have no idea what tough looks like without knowing history. I desire to transport the reader to another time and place and not only contrast the differences but to have them see that human nature has not changed at all.

The Murder of Mattie Hackett

Porter: The Murder of David Varney

Alice Shrugged: The Mysterious Death of Charlie Northey

Peter M. Pettingill

Peter M. Pettingill

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