Mr Smallwood was a portly antiquities dealer from Bangor, Maine in the late 1960s. One afternoon, he visited Elizabeth Collins Stoddard at the great house known as Collinwood in Collinsport. Smallwood frequently purchased old cast-off items that had been cluttering the family attic for years. Once, he discovered a yellowing drawing from the year 1910. The artist’s name was Barnabas Collins and it was a depiction of a young woman named Paula Jennings. Elizabeth decided not to sell the keepsake, much to Mr Smallwood’s chagrin.