PRODUCERS OF SLATE FLOOR TILE, FLAGGING, STRUCTURAL SLATE AND ROOFING, MONUMENTS, AND SLATE SINKS Monson, Maine 04464 207-997-3615 Middle Granville, New York 12849 518-642-1280 SHELDONSLATE.COM SHELDON SLATE is a family-owned business with four generation of experience. We mine and manufacture our own slate products from our own quarries. The range of our colors will complement any kitchen or bath. Our slate is heat-resistant, non-porous, and non- fading. It has a polished/honed finish and is very low maintenance. Let us help you design and build a custom sink, countertop, or vanity. Custom Inquiries are handled through the Monson, Maine, division. 102 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine House of the Month aware of the height. It isn’t grim– you feel as though you’ve walked into a miniature baronial estate.” But there’s a surprise at the top of the tower. “It goes to the open air,” Ab- by says. “As you’re going up, some people expect to find a roof over their heads, but they don’t. I’ve seen some people look as if they’re about to throw up!” Halfway up, these guests are in a quandary: “‘I’m afraid of heights, but I have to see what’s up here!’” For those who don’t choose to head up to the ramparts, “The living room and dining room are lighter spaces and pull you into the body of the house,” Whipple says. Raise the Portcullis! According to the Rhode Island So- ciety for the Examination of Un- usual Phenomena (riseupparanormal.com), Beckett was born in Portland to “Wil- liam and Grace (Blackmore) Beckett,” who sailed here from England. As a young man, “he took a voyage to the West Indies in the Bud, a sailing vessel; was shipwrecked; and his narrative of the event proved a thrilling experience.” Writing suited him. As a reporter, he filed stories for the Port- land Advertiser and Portland Bulletin; as a visionary, he promoted the Grand Trunk Railroad and Portland as a freight destination and was “one of the original projectors of Evergreen Ceme- tery.” As a successful publisher, his en- during gift to researchers is his annu- al Portland Directory, an indispensable street-by-street chest x-ray of life as it’s shifted and changed across the years in the Forest City. I n 1842, Sylvester “married Louisa Mills Davis, daughter of James and Elizabeth Davis, of Maine,” according to the site. “His wife left him a widower in 1857 and he never remarried. She bore him three children, two of whom, George Waller and Lizzie Grace, died in childhood. The eldest daughter, Augusta, married George W. Verrill, an attorney in Portland. “Mr. Beckett died at his home in Port- land on December 2, 1882, aged seventy