The grisly history behind the site of Amazon’s proposed Gorham warehouse

A ruined farmstead sits on the 94-acre Gorham parcel where Amazon plans to build a 146,280-square-foot distribution facility. The site is where, in 1901, Clifford Mosher was clubbed to death by a man who some believe was Gorham’s first serial killer. The murder and its subsequent trial made national press. It was covered in The New York Times, the Montana Record-Herald, and the New Orleans States, among others. One story from the Arizona Republican cited the case as an example of an “unusually large number of murder and manslaughter cases” in New England. [](https://w2pcms.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Arizona_Republic_1901_05_12_Page_1-1.jpg) The Arizona Republican, May 12, 1901 (Image via Newspapers.com / The Arizona Republican) I first heard about the killing through a colleague, Bob Lowell, a veteran community reporter who covered the [Amazon controversy](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/04/28/gorhams-debut-amazon-warehouse-hearing-poised-to-be-contentious/) in Gorham. He also has a personal connection to the case. His grandfather’s sister, Josephine, was the wife of the man convicted of the murder, Edward Graffam, who was also convicted of assaulting Josephine’s sister, Almira. Not much is known about Graffam apart from what exists in old newspaper records, which makes Bob’s family history all the more interesting. Of that, his accounts are bountiful. Some weeks ago, I sat down to interview Bob for a short video. I cast him in dark “true crime” lighting, and then asked him to tell the story of the Mosher murder. He talked, uninterrupted, for 30 minutes. Here’s the short of it: Advertisement Graffam and an accomplice named Bill Hands broke into the Mosher home. They beat Clifford Mosher to death with a wooden stake while Clifford’s mother hid. She crawled through a snowstorm to seek help. Both accomplices were ultimately apprehended. Graffam was given a life sentence, but was paroled in 1953. Even then, more than a half-century after the Mosher murder, the fear of him remained. Lowell, 80, recalled a memory from that time. “ I was sitting at the breakfast table at home in Gorham. My father was reading the daily paper, either the Portland Press Herald or the Portland Evening Express, and all of a sudden he said something like, ‘Oh, no.’ I say, ‘What’s the matter?’ He says, ‘They’ve let Graffam out of jail.’” Graffam’s notoriety reached beyond his connection to the Mosher murder. Through archival research of other unsolved murders, local historians are piecing together what appears to be the fingerprint of an active serial killer. Advertisement The biggest headscratcher is the 1894 axe murder of Byron Coburn, a farmer who owned a lot down the street from the Mosher house. The Boston Globe [led its coverage](https://www.newspapers.com/image/430854762/?match=2&terms=%22byron%20coburn%22) with the graphic headline, “Head split open.” [](https://w2pcms.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/The_Boston_Globe_1894_12_14_5-copy-1.jpeg) The Boston Globe, Dec. 14, 1894 (Image via Newspapers.com / The Boston Globe) James Lewis, a farmhand on Coburn’s estate, was ultimately convicted of that murder. Lending to his conviction was the testimony of the property’s only other farmhand: Edward Graffam. Graffam and Lewis were both arrested for the crime, but only Graffam was found with a key belonging to the victim. He also possessed a bloody handkerchief; Graffam attributed it to a scuffle at a nearby barber shop. Yet Graffam testified that, in a private conversation, Lewis copped to the murder. In December 1894, only Lewis was convicted. The following year, the key found in Graffam’s possession was entered as evidence in Lewis’s appeal, whereafter he was acquitted. While Graffam was never convicted of the Coburn murder, its nearness to the Mosher murder was enough for the Portland Sunday Telegram to [refer](https://www.newspapers.com/image/846727529/) to that strip of Main Street, where Amazon now intends to plant its foot, as “a murder belt.” [](https://w2pcms.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/murder-belt.jpeg) Portland Sunday Telegram, Nov. 10, 1901 (Image via [Newspapers.com](http://Newspapers.com) / Portland Sunday Telegram) No one can say for certain who killed Byron Coburn. I don’t know how Graffam was able to shake suspicion and stick it so successfully on his “[chum](https://www.pressherald.com/2021/07/15/gorham-notes-july-15/)” Lewis. The newspaper record is not clear on that. But Maddie Barden, a researcher and history graduate of the University of Southern Maine, sees a pattern. Advertisement “ Graffam’s family life was also very disturbed,” Barden said. “Before he went to prison for the murder, he did a five-year stint at the Maine State Prison. The actual crime was assault with ‘intent to ravish.’” The victim in that crime was Almira Lowell, sister to Graffam’s wife, and great aunt to Bob Lowell. [](https://w2pcms.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GRAFFAM_S-RELEASE-IN-1953_-Thomaston-Historical-Society_-1953-Warden-Allan-Robbins-hands-77-year-old-Edward-Graffam-his-parole-papers_-copy.jpg) Warden Allan Robbins hands 77-year-old Edward Graffam his parole papers (Courtesy of the Thomaston Historical Society via Maddie Barden). “He got out (of prison) in October of 1900,” Barden continued, “and three months later, he committed the Mosher murder. So it’s a pattern.” After Graffam’s imprisonment for the Mosher murder, there was a [scramble](https://www.newspapers.com/image/863318839/) to claim the reward money linked to his capture. Among the claimants: George W. Norton, editor of the evening edition of the Portland Press Herald; and Josephine Lowell, Graffam’s wife, by then divorced and living in South Portland. Both claims were [granted](https://www.newspapers.com/image/851522121). The old Mosher farmstead is now a pile of crumbled concrete, rusted rebar, and chicken wire. Amazon’s [site plan review](https://www.gorhammaine.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif4456/f/agendas/item_3_-_amazon_warehouse_sketch_plan_review.pdf) acknowledged the site’s archaeological significance but offered no indication of what it plans to do with the former farmstead.’ Copy the Story Link Tagged: [cold case](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/cold-case/), [crime](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/crime/), [maine crime](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/maine-crime/), [murder](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/murder/) [](https://www.pressherald.com/author/tyler-lynch) [Tyler Wells LynchStaff Writer](https://www.pressherald.com/author/tyler-lynch) Tyler Wells Lynch is a video producer and assistant web editor at the Press Herald. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Maine Magazine, Vice, HuffPost, Sierra Magazine, Yes! Magazine, and USA. [More by Tyler Wells Lynch](https://www.pressherald.com/author/tyler-lynch)