As told to Wade Eisner by Alden Torrey

Dead Duck Inn

 

Alden Torrey lived on the old Victor Junkins Farm property at Junkins Lane later renamed Hammond Lane with Freda Junkins and her children Roland Jr. and Faye from the early 1940’s until his death in 2008.

 

Roland Junkins Jr. aka “Bud” was Alden’s best friend at the Eliot High School .

 

My home at 10 Hammond Lane was built in 1873 by Lyman Hammond, son of Joseph Hammond who lived in a garrison house located to the southeast of the lilac bush still standing in the clearing at the Eliot Boat Basin . Sylvester had a daughter Mary Hammond (born in 1869).  Mary would later marry Victor Junkins. Victor and Mary had two children Roland Junkins and  a daughter whose name I can’t recall. The entire 25 or 30 acre farm that included my property, Alden Torrey’s property, the Atlantic Gas Company property and the Eliot Boat Basin property was commonly known then as the Victor Junkins Farm.

 

Roland Junkins and his sister inherited the Victor Junkins Farm upon their parents death around 1950. They had to sell some of the property and a sale of Victor and Mary’s home and the Eliot Boat Basin property was made to “George Varney and Carl Durgin” who had formed the Duva Land Company.  During the process of transferring title to the southeasterly portion of the former Victor Junkins Farm; Roland Junkins walked the boundaries and viewed the structures on the property with the buyers. There was a small red roofed camp (photo attached) located approximately 30 feet from the top of the riverbank about midway between the top of the existing concrete stair and the upriver tree line of the park property.  When the three men approached the camp there was an inverted box or bucket by the corner of the building. Someone in the group tipped up the box or bucket for whatever reason. Underneath there was a dead duck. Roland Junkins, having quite a sense of humor, first looked at the dead duck and then looked up at the two men and jokingly said:    Well…. It looks like you fellas just bought yourself a “DEAD DUCK INN.”