Every community has its legends, and there is one legend told to me by a few longtime community members. The current site of the Marathon Gas Station was originally the location of Seth Paine's House, which he donated for use as a meeting hall. The building was used variously as a school, church, lodge hall, and newspaper offices, before becoming a farmhouse. In 1907, the Young family purchased the property and opened the Maple Leaf Hotel. This legend is about the large Horse Chestnut tree in front of the hotel.

Legend tells that a sickle was put in the tree by the son of the farmer who owned the property. During the Civil War, the farm hands were out working the fields, when the mother called for everyone to come in for lunch. They came in from the fields, equipment in hand. One son hung his sickle in the crook of the Horse Chestnut branches, and went into the house for lunch. At this moment, troopers recruiting for the Union army pulled up in front of the home and asked for all eligible young men to enlist. The son volunteered and left that afternoon. When the boy's mother went to remove the sickle, her husband stopped her, saying, "When he comes home he can remove it himself." The son never returned, and the sickle remained in the tree as a testimony to the family's grief.

By the 1930s, the branches of the Horse Chestnut had grown around the sickle, but it was still poking out from the tree approximately eight inches. When road expansion of Route 22 took place, the tree was removed. But the legend of the boy who left for the Civil War and never returned remained.