film (200 ft.) : si., b&w ; 16 mm. print.

1915

Collection contains "St. Croix Bridge, Vanceboro," a single newsreel story distributed by the Hearst-Selig Company, about the arrest of Werner Horn, a German saboteur accused of blowing up the Vanceboro bridge between the United States and Canada. There is no reenactment of the saboteur's arrest in this film.

Elizabeth Low donated this film to NHF. Her father, Stillman Armstrong, was sole owner of the Armstrong Theater, Vanceboro. Mrs. Low's husband, an engineer at Eastman Kodak, worked on acetate safety film in the 1950s. "St. Croix Bridge, Vanceboro" is the earliest newsfilm made in Maine known to survive. It may have been shot by Louis de Rochemont, a young newsreel cameraman in 1915, or by a competitor. After the bridge was blown up, it is said that de Rochemont persuaded Sheriff George W. Ross to re-enact the arrest scene. De Rochemont is famous as founder and producer of "The March of Time" series. The Hearst-Selig News Pictorial was a weekly release begun in 1914. Original footage is 35 mm. film.