BETHEL — More than 100 years after his death, Bethel-area citizens celebrated Puzzle Master Edwin Ruthven Briggs with a bean supper in a restored Grange hall not far from his family home in West Bethel.

Briggs (1841–1923) was ostensibly a farmer but was best known as a prolific puzzle maker and editor. He used his middle name, Ruthven, as a pseudonym and served as puzzle editor for seven magazines and newspapers, including the Portland Transcript for 21 years. Notably, he edited Ballou’s “Mystifications” column in Boston for 19 years.

Museums of the Bethel Historical Society (MBHS) Executive Director Will Chapman, along with Pleasant Valley Commons owners Celina Adams and Cameron Wake, hosted the sold-out event on Thursday, June 5.

Following the reading of a poem by Carolyn Hardy the great-great-granddaughter of a Grange member, Will Shortz—one of this century’s most notable puzzle masters—delivered a video tribute. At Indiana University, he studied word puzzles of the late 19th century, “which is how I know about Ruthven,” said Shortz.

Cameron and Celina Adams have been restoring the former Pleasant Valley Grange—now called Pleasant Valley Commons—over the past few years. Wake said they did most of the grunt work themselves but brought in contractors as well. Of the shiny ground-level floors, Wake said, “Celina and I spent a romantic three-day weekend sanding these floors.”

Larry Glatz, who wrote about Ruthven in Goose Eye No. 5, titled “West Bethel’s Enigmatic History,” began his presentation with a slide of a photo believed to be Briggs. “We think this is Briggs, because the photo was taken by his son … he’s holding a magazine, we’re guessing he must have won a prize for a puzzle.”

The photo was the first of many puzzles that night.

Glatz spoke about the growing popularity of magazine puzzles during Briggs’ childhood. “Ruthven” got his start writing very specific puzzles called enigmas. Rows of hints helped readers solve the puzzle. One of Briggs’ solutions to an enigma was “Gould’s Academy Bethel Maine.”

Ruthven was also skilled at creating enigma offshoots like anagrams, acrostics, and charades. Only anagrams resemble the modern meaning of the word. While living in Mason, he walked four miles daily to the West Bethel Post Office to mail his puzzles to the various publications he worked for—at times as many as eight simultaneously.

He began writing puzzles in 1856 and became an editor by 1871. According to Glatz, Ruthven was an inspiration to future puzzle writers around the U.S., too.

In later years, Briggs was the West Bethel correspondent for the Oxford Democrat. He wrote cleverly, including lines like, “The season for slaying of deer is over but the sleighing of deer has just begun.”

Many local residents can claim a connection to Briggs, who was born in Woodstock, spent his childhood in Locke’s Mills, and lived as an adult in Mason Township and West Bethel. Several members of the Smith family of West Bethel, who lived at the Smith Farm and in other homes along The Flat Road near the Briggs’ ancestral land, attended the event.

Crossword puzzles began their rise in popularity just after Briggs died in 1923 and soon became a national craze. Said Glatz, “Briggs’ life fits perfectly within the world of very first edited [puzzle] columns in newspapers in the 1870s to the very end of that old-timey world.”

People lingered outside as the crowded room emptied. Not a bad turnout for someone from the turn of the last century.