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MISS GUILFORD’S VOW OF SILENCE
She Said She Wouldn’t Speak for Fifty Years, and Didn’t. And Now She Can’t Talk.
[Welland Tribune, 23 July 1897]
East Bluehill, Me., June 29- The people in the southern part of Hancock county are deeply interested in a peculiar malady which afflicts Miss Experience Guilford, an aged woman of this place, who has not uttered a word or any audible sound for fifty years. The original reason for Miss Guilford’s speechlessness was anger because she could not marry the man of her choice. When she was nineteen years old she fell in love with William Simson, the village schoolmaster. They were to be married on June 18, 1847. One of Miss Guilford’s rejected suitors told tales about the schoolmaster, and Miss Guilford’s parents stopped the wedding. Miss Guilford thereupon said:
“I swear I will not speak a word, though I live for fifty years, unless I marry this man.”
She kept her pledge. Her parents died, and she went to live with her married brother. When he died she made her home with her sister, and after her sister’s death she went to a camp in the woods and kept house for a brother, with whom she is now living. All this time she performed her share of the household work, and did not show any regret for having made the vow. When the fifty years of silence expired, ten days ago, she was visited by a large number of relatives and friends, who went to the camp for the purpose of being present when she was at liberty to speak. Soon after the midday meal Miss Guilford dressed herself in the garments which she had worn for half a century. At 2 o’clock she stood up before the people, smiled and opened her mouth to speak; but though she tried hard, and got red in the face in trying, she could not utter a sound. Her vocal muscles had become atrophied from long disuse and refused to work.
When Miss Guilford found that she could not speak, she sent to Bangor for a physician and took to her bed. The doctor gave no hope of recovery, but suggested that she be sent to a Boston hospital for treatment. As soon as Miss Guilford gets strong enough to take the journey she will make another effort to regain her speech. Her father left her a good sum of money at his death, which has been growing every year in a savings bank, so she is well able to obtain the treatment she requires.
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