A West Bethel Puzzler
The Enigmas of Edwin Ruthven Briggs (1841–1923)
Goose Eye No. 5 (2025)
A West Bethel Puzzler
The Enigmas of Edwin Ruthven Briggs (1841–1923)
Larry Glatz
This is a story of puzzles—from beginning to end. Some involve larger social and historical issues, others relate more to local and individual matters, while still others are mere games and diversions. But to begin with the enigma central to all others in this article: How could it be that a person, whose name and work appeared in the parlors and absorbed the attention of untold thousands of Americans through the latter half of the nineteenth century, remains virtually unknown in his hometown of Bethel, Maine, today?
Certainly part of the problem stems from the fact that the name by which he was known nationally—Ruthven—was not how the locals knew him: almost always simply as E. R. Briggs. A more serious difficulty is that his work was in the world of puzzling—a genre with the paradoxical quality of being at the same time both universally engrossing and exquisitely ephemeral. The critical factor, however, is that he practiced his art in the world BCC—that is, Before the Current Crossword, whose arrival in the second decade of the twentieth century soon rendered all previous puzzle forms antique.
Although the fellow was not the most well-known or creative puzzler of his day, he was certainly one of the most dedicated and productive. More importantly, his career spanned the entire era from the emergence in the mid-1870s of the puzzle editor as a recognizable figure in so many popular American publications to the virtual disappearance of the position some fifty years later when the syndicated crossword captured the field. For this reason alone, the man is worthy of more than mere local interest.
Moreover, since puzzles are based on obscurities and there appears to exist no other reasonably detailed view of a nineteenth century puzzle editor, why not begin untangling the thread here?
Yet another enigma: This photo taken by Briggs' son Elbert in 1908 is almost certainly of “the Veteran Puzzle Editor” himself. “Almost certainly,” however, falls frustratingly short of the exactitude Briggs would require of any of his own solvers. Curiously, the issue of the magazine appearing here includes a puzzle feature, but no contributors or prizes are mentioned in it.
Edwin Ruthven Briggs was born in the northwestern corner of Woodstock, Maine, on October 22, 1841. His parents’ farm was situated just north of Bryant’s Pond, on the town line of neighboring Greenwood. The Greenwood village of Locke’s Mills was only two miles distant, and about six miles farther to the west was the area’s central business community of Bethel. His parents, Luther and Bethiah (Swan) Briggs, were offspring of some of the earliest colonial settlers of the area, and his uncle, John R. Briggs, was a merchant and postmaster in the nearby village of North Woodstock.1
Although few today would recognize the name Edwin Ruthven, there was a legion of boys given that name in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The namesake character, as depicted in Jane Porter’s 1827 novel The Scottish Chiefs, was an intrepid fifteen-year-old freedom fighter and aide to the heroic William Wallace. The book went through numerous editions both in Great Britain and the United States, and as late as 1921, Charles Scribner’s Sons published a volume—now quite collectible—illustrated by N. C. Wyeth and edited by the Maine sisters Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith.
In March of 1847, when young Briggs was just five years old, his father purchased a lot in Locke’s Mills and began construction of what would become the first hotel in that community. Although the venture was not without risk, its rationale was sound. For several years all the talk in the area had been of a proposed railroad connection between Portland and Montreal. By the spring of 1845, it was known the route would run through Woodstock, Greenwood and Bethel before crossing into New Hampshire and proceeding northward to Canada. By that summer, surveys were completed showing the line would pass through Locke’s Mills, where a station would be located. It was obvious a public accommodation would be needed there.2
In addition to understanding the financial risks, Luther Briggs would also have known that a hotel in Locke’s Mills was likely to generate a degree of social controversy as well. Perhaps the only issue of the day which generated as much local talk as the railroad—and the weather—was that of temperance, and many of the “cold water brigade” in the area saw the town of Greenwood as desperately in need of salvation. A watering stop on the principal road between Portland and Bethel was in the village about six miles south of Locke’s Mills still known as Greenwood City. The village’s inns were notorious as dens of too great merriment for the young and too easy dissipation for the travelers. Years later, when the local historian—and evangelical teetotaler—William B. Lapham wrote in a local paper of the village of Locke’s Mills, he referred to Briggs’ establishment only as a “tavern,” while in a corrective response to the editor, E. R. Briggs held to the word “hotel.”3
By the time the first train steamed from Portland into the new Locke’s Mills station on March 10, 1851, the Alder River House—as Briggs’ inn was known—had been in business for over a year, hosting not only railroad workers and clients and vendors of John B. Locke’s busy mills, but local socializers as well. Young Edwin would have been exposed to more and different kinds of people than he had ever known before, and he would likely have access to numerous newspapers and magazines left behind by travelers. It is certain that by November of 1851, when the boy was just ten years old, the Portland Transcript arrived weekly at the hotel, since the paper’s records show that Luther Briggs took out a subscription that month. If Edwin had not been exposed to the developing world of puzzling earlier, the Transcript would certainly have introduced him to it.4