Back a few years ago, from about 1980 onward, Halloween time in Woodsville was an attraction for those who liked to throw eggs and string T-Paper around the neighborhood.
During this time of eggs and paper, the Haverhill Police Department was kept busy confiscating cases of eggs and many rolls of T-Paper that had found their way into some area cars and pickup trucks.
It was not unusual to have a little group of teens roaming around the streets of Woodsville Village on their candy-seeking missions, chucking eggs at storefront windows and stringing miles of T-Paper in trees and fences.
There were also the older folks who came into town, many well out of their teens and into their 20s and 30s, stumbling around doing the same thing. No one saw any Halloween humor in those activities. And it could get expensive.
The consequence of getting caught by police throwing a raw egg at a store window or a house, or seeking out an even juicier target, such as a Haverhill Police cruiser, was most always an expensive littering ticket. The court set fines for littering, and most minor littering offenses, like throwing an egg, fell within a $100.00 range.
This did happen on many All Hallows eves, and as the sun set low. The darkness thickened on the night of what was supposed to be for child goblins, little tyke skeletons, and other things scary for a youngster, some of the area's older folks came here, for example, from Bath or Bradford or wherever to enjoy themselves hurling eggs.
During some of those years, the main street of North Haverhill was littered with T-Paper so thick it looked like a snowy morning when the sun shone brightly on the mess the next morning. But there was never any other type of malicious pranking or tricks going on.
Before the egg-throwing Halloweens ceased in Woodsville, a cruiser wash station with water hose, brushes, and wipes was set up at a private home in the area of Butsonì where the egged cruiser would pull in for a quick wash down of the slop and shells.
It was in continuous operation throughout the night, usually up until 10 PM or so, when the folks roaming the streets either ran out of eggs or went home to sort their candy. Like magic, the sidewalks were rolled up, and everyone went back to where they came from.
As official recreational activities increased, children were entertained at school parties or town- or church-sponsored programs, and stores closed earlier in the night. The banks did not operate after 5 PM, Woodsvilleàtraffic lightened, and the attention of egg throwers was directed elsewhere.
At one point, it got so bad during Halloween patrols that police drove junky used vehicles borrowed from an area car agency to avoid having the department's cruisers egged. And although the price for a dozen eggs at that time in the 1980s was less than $1.00 per dozen, the cost of a littering ticket was about $100.00 per event, and I remember some egg throwers leaving town with as many as three littering tickets to pay and all their eggs launched into the night.

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