DIGGING history

DIGGINGO, HISTORY: Victoria, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 You’ve Been UNCOVERINGDuped! HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME DIGGINGA bi-monthly publication HISTORY of Digging History Media Web Site: www.digging-history.com Contact Us: [email protected]

In this issue O, Victoria, You’ve Been Duped! Haints, Hoaxes and Humbug 1 It Was a Victorian Thing Get me out of here … I’m not dead yet! 23 13 friggatriskaidekaphobia and the Thirteen Club 30 BOOK CORNER: May I Recommend . . . 36 Essential Tools for the successful family researcher 40 Don’t Be Duped . . . genealogical fraud has been around a long time 44 In a Dead Woman’s Eye 52

Ocular Explosions 57

Fashionably Ways to go (or stay) in days of old 61

Ezekiel William Pettit (1837-1922) 68

BIBLIOGRAPHY and Photo Credits 72 but first, a word from the editor, researcher, writer, graphic designer and publisher . . .

I hope everyone had a great summer. I don’t know about you but I’m looking forward to cooler temperatures! This issue features stories from my favorite historical era – the Victorian Era. There’s nothing I like better than combing through newspaper archives of the nineteenth century! I’m always on the lookout for intriguing headlines. “In a Dead Woman’s Eye” was intriguing enough to write an extended article about a crime- fighting theory pursued at various times throughout the 1800s. What if a murder victim’s assailant could be identified by examining the victim’s retina not long after death? Might the retina have the criminal’s visage imprinted there? Photography had been introduced and some thought the same principles might apply for the human eye. This issue also features an extended article highlighting the many hoaxes perpetrated throughout the 1800s. “O, Victoria, You’ve Been Duped: Haints, Hoaxes and Humbugs in the Age of Acceleration” covers everything from ghosts and the rise of Spiritualism to the King of Humbug, P.T. Barnum and one of the biggest humbugs of that century – phrenology. October is Family History Month and “Don’t Be Duped: Genealogical Fraud Has Been Around a Long Time” is a reminder for genealogists regarding “hints” which sound too good to be true. Proceed cautiously – it may very well be the product of nineteenth and early twentieth century genealogical fraud. The last two months have been filled with many distractions and unexpected detours with Mom’s extended hospital stay and adjusting to new caretaker duties. So, carving out time to write took a little longer this time. Still, I hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as I enjoyed putting it together. I always learn something and I hope you do as well!

Until next time I’ll be uncovering history one story at a time, Sharon Hall, Editor, Researcher, Writer, Graphic Designer and Publisher O,Haints, Victoria, Hoaxes and You’ve Humbug In Been the Age of Duped! by Sharon Hall For Americans it seems a strange misnomer to label a significant portion of our own nineteenth century history as Victorian. After all, Queen Victoria, who ascended to the British throne in 1837 at the tender age of eighteen, was not our ruler. America was no longer under British rule, yet Britain still dominated the world. America progressed through a number of eras of rapid change during the nineteenth century – the Second Great Awakening, Manifest Destiny, Industrial Revolution, Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction and the so-called Gilded Age. Perhaps it has become more convenient to enfold our own “age of acceleration” into the so-called “Victorian Era”. Save for global military power, there were rather striking historical similarities: Queen Victoria of England reigned over a vast British empire from 1837 until her death in 1901. During her rule, England rapidly transformed into a modern, technologically-based economy exercising global military and cultural power, roiling with class and racial conflict. Victorianism extended far beyond the boundaries of Britain and informed international movements of the same period, including in the . Queen Victoria’s name signifies not only her era as a distinct time period in world history, but also a particular aesthetic sensibility in design, literature, manners, and morals. Victorian-era objects and buildings were often highly decorated and ornate. Victorian writers and intellectuals celebrated “sentiment”—feeling, emotion, affection, and passion— that found diverse expression in abolitionism, paternalistic colonialism, social reform, and celebrations of romantic love or mourning. Values defined as “Victorian” included moral responsibility and restraint as well as domestic propriety and gentility. At the same time, the Victorian era was marked by rigid gender and class hierarchies seen in elaborate codes of conduct, etiquette, and social rituals. Anxieties about science, religion, and race undermined many Victorians’ prosperity and moral certainty. The material objects, buildings, and texts arranged in this primary source set illustrate the variety of Victorian design while revealing some of the unique cultural characteristics of the period.1 I have long been fascinated with the nineteenth century, what one friend called “the century of acceleration”. During the 1800s Americans conquered and traversed land west of the original colonies by horse and wagon. By the century’s conclusion the so-called “horseless carriage” was making headlines. A careful study of this accelerating century points to an unprecedented array of scientific, medical, transportation and industrial innovations, most of which laid the groundwork for twentieth and twenty-first century technology. In this regard it has always fascinated me that despite an era of progressiveness and sophistication, this century – much of which encompassed the vaunted “Victorian Era” – produced some of the most stunning dupery in human history. Victorians were among the

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 1 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME most hoodwinked and hornswoggled to Despite fervor which served to benefit have ever inhabited planet Earth. For evangelical denominations, other religious purposes of this article I have divided the movements arose, both during and after the era into three separate (yet overlapping) Second Great Awakening. Joseph Smith vignettes, more for alliteration rather than lived in the “burned-over district” and chronological purposes: Haints, Hoaxes founded the Mormon movement around and Humbug. 1828. Other religious movements included: HAINTS ● The Millerites. Led by William Miller, this movement preached the Second When America officially became America Coming of Christ would occur precisely following the American Revolutionary War, on October 22, 1844. In some respects one of the first (actually the very first) Miller’s movement morphed into principles set forth by the Founding Fathers Adventism. was what has become known as “separation of church and state”. By eschewing state- ● The Shakers. This communal movement sponsored religion, America would not established in the 18th century stand in the way of any one person’s experienced a revival of its own during freedom to exercise their personal religion this period. beliefs. ● The Oneida Society was one of several The largest denominations were offshoots short-lived Utopian experiments of the of early immigrants: Congregationalists 18th and 19th centuries. Its founder, John (Puritan), Anglican (Church of England, Humphrey Noyes, taught adherents the later known as Episcopalian) and Quaker. concepts of Complex Marriage (polygamy The First Great Awakening, an Evangelical and free love) and a form of eugenics revival, swept through the colonies and called stirpiculture which purported to Britain in the 1730s and 1740s (and into the create “perfect children”. 1750s), led by fervent sermonists like George Whitefield, John Wesley and By far the most fascinating movement Jonathan Edwards. Methodism arose from emanating from this region was started by the ministries of Wesley and Whitefield. a couple of young girls in Hydesville, New York in 1848. What started as a prank Following the Revolutionary War yet morphed into what rapidly became known another revival, the so-called Second Great and practiced as Spiritualism (or Spiritism). Awakening, was marked by a rapid membership increase in both the Methodist The youngest children in the household of and Baptist faiths. Charles Finney, a John and Margaret Fox, Kate (born in 1837) Presbyterian minister, was one of this and Margaret (born in 1833), described by period’s leading revivalists, prominently so Reuben Briggs Davenport “as full of petty in central and New York. devilment as any two children of their age ever were”,3 often teased their mother and The region would become known as the played tricks on Elizabeth, daughter of their “burned-over district”. In his 1876 older sister Leah. autobiography Finney coined the term “burnt district”, referring to an area set on John and Margaret Fox became estranged fire by revival. After a time the region “had following the birth of their first four been so evangelized as to have no ‘fuel’ children (Leah being the oldest) when John (unconverted population) left to ‘burn’ struggled with alcoholism. In the early (convert).”2 1830s he returned to Margaret a changed

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 2 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME man, having converted to Methodism Sister Margaret wanted to try, “Now, do just (perhaps during the Second Great as I do; count one, two, three, four,” striking Awakening). Margaret took him back and one hand against the other at the same time, they soon added to their family their two and the raps came as before”. Mrs. Fox youngest children, Margaret and Catherine decided to test the spirit by asking to have (Kate). On December 11, 1847 the family her children’s ages rapped out. And, of moved into a house in Hydesville and course . . . almost immediately mother Margaret began to hear strange sounds at various times Instantly, each one of my children’s ages throughout the night. was given correctly, pausing between them sufficiently long to individualize them until Even before the move the sisters had the seventh, at which a longer pause was already devised a plan to frighten Elizabeth made, and then three more emphatic raps by “bobbing apples up and down on the were given, corresponding to the age of the floor in their bedchamber”. By tying strings little one that died, which was my youngest to the stems and letting the apple hang child. down beside the bed, then dropping them quickly to the floor, “resembled almost Mrs. Fox continued probing the spirit by anything that the imagination chose to liken asking whether “it” was human or spirit. it to, from raps on the front door to With two raps the presence of a “spirit” was slippered foot-falls on the narrow stairway.” confirmed. By the time she had finished Of course, if an adult was to investigate the testing the spirit, she ascertained that “it noises they would quickly pull the apples up was a man, aged thirty-one years; that he into the bed.4 had been murdered in this house; and his remains were buried in the cellar; that his Margaret (mother) later described the family consisted of a wife and five children sounds: two sons and three daughters, all living at the time of his death, but that his wife has Sometimes it seemed as if the furniture was since died.”5 moved; but on examination we found everything in order. The children had That’s a whole lot of rapping! One wonders become so alarmed that I thought best to how these young girls could keep from have them sleep in the room with us. On bursting into peals of laughter! Would the the night of the first disturbance we all got spirit continue to communicate if friends up and lighted a candle and searched the and neighbors came to listen? Why, knock- house, the noises continuing during the knock (yes), of course! time, and being heard near the same place. Dropping apples was an easy way to make Now that the girls were sleeping in the same such noises, although the girls discovered room as their parents the “rappings” took a they could make similar noises with their suspenseful turn. On the night of March 31, fingers and feet by (loudly) cracking the 1848 (April Fool’s Eve you could say) the joints. girls also “heard” the rappings and tried to emulate the sounds with their fingers. Word spread and neighbors did indeed come-a-calling, treated to their own “rap Kate proceeded to call out, “Mr. Splitfoot” session”. The girls apparently knew more (aka, the devil), commanding him to “do as about their neighbors than anyone I do”. She clapped her hands a number of imagined since they always seemed to give times and Splitfoot obliged with the same the correct number of raps. Taking the idea number of raps. of a man having been murdered in the very

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 3 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME house in which they lived a step further, the and the revelations which it makes daily, implication surfaced that $500 was also are astonishing the multitude. A pamphlet buried in nearby Ganargwa Creek. The girls has been published, containing a great had a good laugh – all that was uncovered number of certificates from individuals was the skeleton of an old horse. residing in that neighborhood, who have heard the mysterious knocking, and have As the saying goes, “practices makes propounded to his ghostship a variety of perfect”, when the girls soon dispensed with questions, all of which have been answered bobbing apples and instead became highly by raps. The occupant of the house is proficient in joint-cracking. Just how “full named John D. Fox, who formerly resided of devilment” were the Fox sisters? in Rochester, and himself and his wife both According to Kate, John, by then a good make a certificate in regard to the Methodist, would kneel by his chair for mysterious thumping. morning prayers and suddenly open his eyes wide as knocks sounded and the chair They state that they first heard this noise vibrated. However, when he stopped about the 30th of March, in the evening just praying so did the jiggling. (Margaret after the family had retired to rest, and that disagreed, saying he never once opened his it has continued from that time to the eyes). present. The ghost not only answers all questions put to it, but readily gives the age While the girls were finding new ways to of each child in the family, and of others in prank their family and neighbors, their the neighborhood, but the “spirit’s” history mother, a woman of faith, was becoming of its own affairs is altogether the most increasingly anxious, “praying often and marvelous. The “story of its wrongs,” runs fervently.”6 John Fox was not swayed, somewhat thus: however, according to the sisters’ later accounts, always showing “the utmost It states the body it once inhabited was that repugnance to it, and a perfect contempt for of a pedlar; that it was 31 years of age, and the weakness which could lead one into it.”7 was murdered about four years since by In fact the sisters later admitted their father the then occupant of the house, by having was greatly annoyed. Despite the obvious its throat cut with a butcher knife; that it effect these pranks had on their mother and left a family of five children, two sons and John’s open distaste for such foolishness, three daughters, who are not leaving in the sisters continued to scheme, taking the Orleans county; that its wife died about fraud a step further by letting sister Leah in two years since; that the amount of money on their charade. taken was $500, besides a trunk and pack of goods; that the wife of the man who By the time Leah heard of the strange committed the murder had gone away that goings-on, a pamphlet had already been night, as well as a girl who worked there, printed, detailing the “wonderful named Lucretia Pulver [Culver]; that it performance at Hydesville”. By late April was murdered on Tuesday night at 12 and early May a near-breathless account o’clock; that the first letter of its given name began to appear in newspapers (the secret was C., and that its sir-name was B., But it was out!): refuses to give the entire name (a very considerate ghost!). THE GHOST OF GANARGWA. “MURDER MOST FOUL!” The excitement in reference to the The manner in which these questions are mysterious knocking in a house at said to be asked and answered, is this: For Hydesville, Wayne county, still continues, instance, when they wish to ascertain the

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 4 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME first letter of its name, the questioner goes which are still underneath the building, are through the alphabet, and when the right discovered, and the residents round about letter is called, it raps. So also of the county have made a vow that his ghostship shall where its children now reside. On calling be attended to just as soon as the water in over the list, when the one it wishes to the cellar will permit. We await further designate is named, it manifests by revelations with a good deal of interest. In rapping. In this way, all the answers have the meantime we trust that the been given. Sometimes there had been as neighborhood will keep “cool,” and that the many as two or three hundred persons at ghost of the murdered pedlar may continue the house at a time, and it is said that all to make all needful and proper suggestions have distinctly heard the noises. Some in reference to the matter.8 fifteen or twenty of them certify to the fact over their own signature. Thus, Leah, upon hearing of these strange goings on, “hastened thither at once” to In the course of their questions, it was Hydesville. Davenport later surmised that asked who committed the murder, and “some idea of the profit which could be each individual was named who had derived from awakened public interest in the occupied the house from its erection. No matter, seems to have come to her very knocking was heard until the name of a promptly.” By that time the family had very respectable man now residing at moved into the home of David, the oldest Lyons, Wayne county, was called, when it brother. made three knocks louder than common, and the bedstead jarred more than it had Margaret would later relate how Leah done before! It states that the murderer wasted no time prodding her sisters. Upon cannot be punished because there were no arrival one of the first things she did was witnesses of his crime, and yet so many are take Margaret and Kate to another room and the absurd stories about the matter, that ask them to undress so they might show her the individual has felt constrained to “the manner of producing the mysterious procure a certificate of good character and noises.” The girls were happy to oblige and respectability, signed by some forty or fifty in no time at all Leah herself was attempting of his former neighbors. to duplicate the same joint-cracking noises. However, Leah, being over twenty years Thus the matter stands, and what renders older than her sisters, “found great difficulty it still more remarkable is the fact that in producing the same effect . . . as the joints individuals who have resided there of her feet were no longer pliable as in previous to the present occupant taking the childhood.”9 premises, now come forward, and over their own signature certify that they too Thus, Leah had problems making even a heard these same mysterious noises when faint sound. Later, when the sisters began they occupied the premises! According to conducting séances, Margaret, as she would the unquiet “spirit’s” story it was buried ten later admit, was mortified at Leah’s meager feet under ground, in a particular part of efforts to “produce even moderate the cellar designated, and that since, on ‘rappings’. . . It required every bit of my skill account of the body affecting the water in and my best tact to prevent them from going 10 a neighboring well, it was removed from away convinced of the imposture.” At its resting place, and buried on the bank of best, Leah was a rather mediocre medium “Mud Creek,” more recently known as the compared to her younger sisters. Still, they “Ganargwa.” It says that it shall keep up all became known as America’s first the rapping until its remains, a portion of authentic mediums, inspiring thousands

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 5 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME more to take the plunge and discover their it not only as faith, but science as well. own hidden “gift” of communicating with Reverend S.B. Brittan, a Universalist the other worldly. minister, went so far as to liken the messages relayed to the Fox family to a sort From the outset skepticism abounded, yet of “spiritual telegraphy” (telegraph service the idea of communicating with spirits had just been introduced). Brittan took it captured the public’s imagination as one step further and mused about the Spiritualism became one of the fast growing possibility of the telegraph becoming a religious movements ever seen in America. means whereby the present and spirit This, despite the fact the Fox sisters’ worlds might communicate someday.12 “imposture” was exposed (something they wouldn’t actually admit to for years to Brittan began publishing a newspaper called come). In the spring of 1851 an article (what else) The Spiritual Telegraph in 1852, appeared in several newspapers, a brief a publication “Devoted to the Illustration of exposé which claimed one member of the Spiritual Discourse”. By 1858 it became Fox family had “spilled the beans”: known as The Spiritual Telegraph and Fireside Preacher before ceasing An exposé of the Rappings. Mr. Burr who publication in 1860. recently favored our citizens with several lectures, exposing the most monstrous Ministers warned about spiritualism and its delusion known as the “Spiritual offshoots (mesmerism, magnetic healing, to Rappings,” last week visited Hydesville, name a few). The Adventist Church warned Wayne county, where the spirits first its adherents to be especially wary: manifested themselves. There Mr. Burr was put in full possession of all the facts But it may be said that the church as a body connected with the history of the imposture. does not believe in the spirit A relative of the Fox family residing there manifestations. Very well; six years since – a lady of unimpeachable character – told they were not known. And for two or three Mr. B. in the presence of witnesses, C.G. years after the rappings were first heard, Pomeroy, M.D. and Rev. D.S. Chase, how almost everyone looked upon it as a the rappings were produced by the Fox deception, and called it a “humbug.” But family, viz: by the toes and knees; that she as Spiritualism has rapidly advanced for a was taught by one of the Fox girls how to year or two past, there have many more produce the sounds; that the secret was ministers embraced it than any other class given to her on the promise that she too, of professional men, and church members should become a medium, &c. We form a large portion of the body of 13 understand Mr. Burr will soon give this Spiritualists. matter to the public. While his entire truth Were the faithful being deceived en masse? cannot be doubted, it most effectually Over one hundred spiritualist newspapers disposes of the whole humbug. The lady sprang up in the years following the first who gave Mr. Burr the information is Mrs. spirit rappings. Once the Fox sisters were 11 Normal Culver, of the town of Arcadia. joined on the lecture circuit by the likes of As Peter Manseau points out in his book, Andrew Jackson Davis (magnetic healer), The Apparationists: A Tale of Phantoms, their “new gospel . . . extended from the Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who hinterlands to urban centers, redrawing the Captured Lincoln’s Ghost (reviewed in the map of the nation as a topography of “May I Recommend” column of this issue), ghosts.” Boston soon became Spiritualism’s those who embraced Spiritualism embraced undisputed capital.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 6 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME In the 1850s Boston’s leading medium, “The Messenger” or “The Message Fannie Conant, regularly held séances for Department”. There he would publish the faithful, journalist William Berry among Fannie’s messages which had been dutifully them. In 1857 he and Luther Colby founded recorded for all to read. the Banner of Light, by far the most popular spiritualist publication. Perhaps a bit At certain times Fannie would become “so timidly, the magazine was introduced as thoroughly depleted of vital force by reason “Forty Columns of Attractive Reading, of her ministrations” that the only way in comprising Capital Original Stores; Off- which communications could be given hand Sketches of Life; Historical Pictures; through her was to allow her to fall into a thrilling Adventures; Home Circle; Ladies’ deep slumber and then place a pen in her and Childrens’ [sic] Department; hand.” The “spirits” would then write the Agricultural Facts, Mechanical Inventions, message with Berry “moving the paper as 16 Art, Science, Wit, Wisdom, the Beauties of fast it became necessary.” Poetry, and a General Summary of Political 14 What types of messages might one find in and Social News.” Hardly a description “The Messenger”? which would set it apart in the Spiritualist world. Thomas Wakefield Meanwhile, Fannie was holding séances at I have more power in communicating the Banner of Light office. As a former physically than mentally, therefore pardon Baptist (and a strict one at that), she not all mistakes I make. My name is Thomas only claimed to speak to spirits, but they Wakefield. I have been dead four years, spoke through her. The third issue of the and came to the spirit world by accident. . newspaper dropped all pretense and . I was killed on the cars. I have proclaimed: communicated through various mediums, but never in this way. I can give you as SPIRITUALISM many physical manifestations as you call INCREASING INTEREST – NEW for, if you give me a proper medium. . . ARRANGEMENTS Aunt Betsey to Massa Lindsey The great and rapidly increasing interest I should like to speak. I’se got a message. existing in the public mind in relation to the Old massa and missus is here and can’t subject of Spiritualism, and matters talk, and sends me to talk to young Massa collateral thereto, and the marked Benjamin. I’se live in Massa Lindsey’s attention which has been called for the and family long time. They’se good to me, and directed to it by the publication of such now old massa and missus is here. Aunt articles as have already appeared in our Betsey is here, too – that’s me. columns, has induced us to render this feature of our paper yet more prominent Young Missa Georgie wants to send and attractive.15 message to young massa. Wants him to hear her when she come nights to make They would begin by devoting two pages to sounds, and wants him to go to medium to the subject, known as “The Department of hear from old Massa Benjamin. . . Heaps Spiritualism”. Fannie became quite a of love I want to say, too; I never speak medium, sitting in a trance state for hours, before, this way; I speak something to holding forth before an increasingly large Massa Lindsey when he’s all alone, but he audience. In response, Berry decided to create another section for the newspaper:

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 7 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME don’t hear me; now I speaks for old massa Spiritualists, Dr. H. F. Gardner (he had and young Miss Georgie. Good bye.17 earlier introduced the Fox sisters to Boston). Gardner was convinced of the image’s “other Whether these messages meant anything to worldly” characteristics since the chair could readers of the newspaper is debatable – be “seen distinctly through the body and unless one was a “true believer”. Not arms, also the table upon which one arm surprising, the Civil War engendered rests.”19 heightened interest in Spiritualism. Northern Spiritualists were concerned Gardner took the Confederate mediums might be passing photograph and Mumler vital information to Lee. Apparently, some went back to engraving. believed these mediums could invade the One week later he received minds of Union generals as well, “able to get a copy of Gardner’s New into their thoughts and swindle them out of York City Spiritualist their plans.”18 publication, Herald of Progress in which much Another means of communicating with the was made of his “spirit dead would be “discovered” by another photograph”. Bostonian in 1862. William Mumler, an engraver by trade, decided to try his hand Mumler was quoted as saying he believed at photography, a relatively new technology the form bore the likeness of a “spirit cousin” at the time. He made the acquaintance of (from the back of the photograph): Hannah Stuart, owner of a photographic studio, who also happened to be a medium This photograph was taken of myself, by (he would later marry her). After spending myself, on Sunday, when there was not a a good deal of time at the studio he living soul in the room beside me – ‘so to eventually felt comfortable enough to take speak.’ The form on my right I recognize as his first picture, a self-portrait. my cousin who passed away about twelve years since. – W. H. Mumler20 He placed a chair where clients normally sat to pose, checked the lighting and prepared Spiritualists were enthralled at the prospect the photographic plate. When everything of not just communicating with the spirit was in order he removed the black cloth world, but the uncanny – and yet to be from the camera and quickly stepped over explained – possibility of capturing a ghostly to the chair and struck a pose, standing image of a dearly departed loved one. perfectly still for a full minute. Mumler If this phenomenon in spiritual mani- proceeded to the darkroom to develop the festations be genuine, it is the greatest and negative, only to be surprised to see not only the best yet given to outside perception in himself posing by the chair, but the image the catalogue of a long variety which bear of a young girl sitting in the chair. incontrovertible evidence of the truth that Mumler first presumed he had made an spiritual communications are what they amateur mistake, neglecting to properly claim to be, viz: actual manifestations of prepare the plate – or perhaps it had been the “dead” to the “living.” This new phase an old glass which hadn’t been properly is to be a link that shall tangibly connect the cleaned for re-use. Hannah thought it was two worlds, the material and the spiritual, most definitely the portrait of a spirit, to the palpable recognition of sensuous however. Mumler decided to show the perception. It shall be evidence that photograph to one of Boston’s leading philosophy cannot impeach, and that the

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 8 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME pretences of religion shall see beauty in, Instead of altogether giving up, the and scorn no more.21 Mumlers decided to move their operations to . Working at the studio of By the time Banner of Light published an W.W. Silver (near Mathew Brady on extensive account of this new Broadway), Mumler printed cards “development”, a number of photographs advertising (without Silver’s knowledge) his had been taken at the request of some of services as a spirit photographer. There Boston’s most ardent Spiritualists. While would be plenty of customers, burdened no one, especially Hannah Stuart’s regular with grief, who would come. Critics and photographer, had any idea how these spirit skeptics alike called it a “manifest humbug”, images appeared, image after image yet no one had been able to expose it.22 revealed a similar scene – the subject sitting for the photograph with an accompanying In the end it was a “manifest humbug”. “spirit”. Mumler was dragged into court in 1869, accused of fraud. No one, however, could Despite his own initial misgivings, William prove the case for fraud and Mumler was Mumler was about to embark on a new found not guilty and released after a career as a “spirit photographer”. Once he rigorous, much-publicized (around the and Hannah married they were domestic, world) trial. Knowing he would never gain as well as professional, partners – and any sort of foothold in New York, business boomed despite efforts to discredit legitimately or otherwise, the Mumlers his work. However, other photographers returned to Boston. observing him work, side by side, found no hint of deception. Subdued, Mumler continued his work as a spirit photographer. After all, he now had At first Mumler claimed to have no control a reputation to defend as he continued to over whether a spirit would appear in the advertise and sell spirit photographs by photograph. However, once business was mail. No one ever discovered exactly how booming and he was receiving $15 to $20 he was able to produce them. Peter per photograph, he and Hannah decided to Manseau surmised: advertise spirit photos by mail. All one needed to do was send information about Mumler had found new ways to control the the dearly departed, accompanied by $7.50 chemical reactions on which all and in about three weeks time they could photography at the time depended. The receive their very own spirit photograph ultimate fruit of his mastery of without having to travel to Boston. manipulation was a method of printing images directly from photographs to They were inundated with requests, even as newsprint. The “Mumler process,” as it attempts to discredit them continued was known, allowed printers to forgo the unabated. The undisputed king of usual step of having a photographic plate “humbug”, P.T. Barnum, was one inquirer copied by hand by an illustrator or wood (he later become their nemesis). engraver, revolutionizing the ability to Eventually, even some in Boston’s reproduce images by the thousands.23 Spiritualist community began to doubt the veracity of Mumler’s claims. Perhaps the His most famous spirit photograph was whole thing was deceptive after all. Even produced in 1872 when Mary Todd Lincoln, Dr. Gardner turned his back. By war’s end as yet dressed in mourning black, walked in 1865 the spirit photography business had into Mumler’s Boston studio. all but dwindled away.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 9 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Twelve years later, following a short illness, Their mediumship is probably played out Mumler died in 1884. and now they expect to make money by writing and lecturing against spiritualism; that is all there is to it.24 In Boston Margaret’s lecture “turned the hall into a perfect pandemonium with their interruptions and shouts of disapproval.” Margaret entered a “spirit cabinet” and demonstrated just how resounding her toe-cracking sounded in that echo chamber. While some Boston Spiritualists attempted to dissuade her claims, most in the audience were having none of it. Dr. C.M. Richmond of New York, a decided non-believer, accompanied Margaret to the Boston lecture. The much-utilized “slate- writing act” was performed to demonstrate the sheer “shallowness of Spiritualistic science.” To punctuate his claims Richmond offered $5,000 to anyone “who By then interest in Spiritualism was on the could induce the spirits to write even a line wane, perhaps prompting the Fox sisters to an inch long on the closed sides of a slate.” finally unburden their souls. With a lecture Of course, there were no takers.25 entitled “The of Spiritualism” Margaret Fox Kane began informing the This particular hoax had inspired an entire public in the fall of 1888 of her family’s long religious movement, more than likely ago imposture. Ardent spiritualists were having much to do with potential financial appalled. gain to be made by deceiving the public. IT ASTOUNDED THEM HOAXES Chicago Spiritualists Dumbfounded There was no shortage of nineteenth at the Attitude of the Fox Sisters century hoaxes. Here are a few: The news had “fallen with the force of a The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 thunderbolt upon the teachers and disciples This one appeared to have been devised to of the mystic science in Chicago”. Finally, boost newspaper circulation rates. the Fox sisters were uniting “in the assertion that spiritualism is an arrant piece of In retrospect we might refer to The Great humbug and has been nothing but a gross Moon Hoax as a “War of the Worlds” hoax deception from the beginning until now.” of the nineteenth century. On August 25, 1835 a series of articles began to be Spiritualists were quick to assume the old published in the New York Sun, purporting, girls just didn’t have it in them any longer among other things, that evidence of life on – and perhaps they could make a living the moon had been discovered. The Sun railing against the movement they had long had been established in 1833, “one of the been credited with starting: new ‘ press’ papers that appealed to a wider audience with a cheaper price and a

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 10 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME more narrative style of journalism”26 -- a The surrounding country is fertile to sanitized way of describing sensationalized excess: between this circle and No. 2 yellow journalism. (Endymion), which we proposed first to examine, we counted not less than twelve Perhaps it was a ploy to increase circulation, luxuriant forests, divided by open plains, since in the opening days of the series which waved in an ocean of vendure, and circulation numbers rose to fifteen were probably prairies like those of North thousand. By series end the number was America. In three of these we discovered 19,360, as editor Benjamin Day would numerous herds of quadrupeds similar to proclaim his newspaper had the largest our friends the bisons in the Valley of the circulation in the world! Competitors Unicorn, but of much larger size; and started to panic a bit and began printing the scarcely a piece of woodland occurred in series in their own papers, pretending they our panorama which did not dazzle our had the same access as The Sun. visions with flocks of white or red birds upon the wing.28 The articles implied that a well-known astronomer, Sir John Herschel, was the Day four described “life” on the moon: author (completely false). We counted three parties of these creatures, Herschel had traveled to Capetown, South of twelve, nine and fifteen in each, walking Africa in 1834 to build an observatory erect towards a small wood. . . Certainly housing a powerful telescope. The article they were like human beings, for their was attributed to the Edinburgh Journal of wings had now disappeared and their Science as the original source, although the attitude in walking was both erect and publication was by then defunct. Dr. dignified . . . About half of the first party Andrew Grant, an associate of Herschel’s, had passed beyond our canvas; but of all had purportedly relayed the story to the the others we had perfectly distinct and Journal. Grant was later found to be a deliberate view. They averaged four feet in fictional character. height, were covered, except on the face, with short and glossy copper-colored hair, On day one of the series The Sun printed a and had wings composed of a thin detailed description of the telescope which membrane, without hair, lying snugly Herschel had reportedly built, including its upon their backs from the top of the enormous size and magnification power: shoulders to the calves of their legs. The weight of this prodigious lens was The face, which was of a yellowish color, 14,826 lbs. or nearly seven tons after being was an improvement upon that of the large polished; and its estimated magnifying orang outang being more open and power 42,000 times. It was therefore intelligent in its expression, and having a presumed to be capable of representing much greater expansion of forehead. The objects in our lunar satellite of little more mouth, however, was very prominent, than eighteen inches in diameter, providing though somewhat relieved by a thick beard its focal image of them could be rendered upon the lower jaw, and by lips far more distinct by the transfusion of article light.27 human than those of any species of simia The public was hooked after the first day genus. In general symmetry of body and and each succeeding day provided more limbs they were infinitely superior to the vivid (and unimaginable) detail. On day orang outang; so much so that but for their three the following description was long wings they would look as well on a provided: parade ground as some of the old cockney

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 11 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME militia. The hair of the head was a darker The Great Hoax of 1872 color than that of the body, closely curled but apparently not woolly, and arranged This story, without a doubt, has to be one of in two circles over the temples of the the most cunning and crafty hoaxes ever forehead. Their feet could only be seen as perpetrated on a group of learned men they were alternately lifted in walking; but which included bankers, financiers and from what we could see of them in so mining engineers. It reads more like a transient a view they appeared thin and Hollywood script (Death Valley Days very protuberant at the heel.29 featured the story in a 1968 episode entitled “The Great Diamond Mine”) than actual Not only were rival newspaper editors fact, but all true and, as hoaxes go, quite interested in getting a piece of the action, fascinating how it was pulled off. the Journal of Commerce expressed interest in wider distribution by had already made news around reproducing the entire series in pamphlet the world when extensive deposits were form. This was when the whole affair was found in South Africa near the town of exposed as a hoax. Richard Adams Locke, Kimberley in 1869. Ninety-five percent of a reporter for The Sun at the time, confessed the world’s diamonds would soon be mined to having conjured up the story, and there over the next twenty years. In late Benjamin Day finally admitted on 1871 rumors of an diamond field September 16 to being aware of the hoax. began circulating in American newspapers. Whether anyone else was complicit is ARIZONA DIAMONDS unclear. Even with the admission, The Sun continued to maintain its increased Have We a Diamond Field at Our Door? circulation levels. Perhaps their readers The Bulletin, harking back could laugh at themselves for having been to Cortez “and his hard-hitting, pious and so gullible. plunder-loving followers” and Coronado Around the same time Edgar Allan Poe had and De Soto’s quest for Cibola, mused about published an article entitled “Hans Phaall the possibility of finding diamonds in – A Tale” in the June 1835 issue of Southern Arizona. After all, gold and silver were Literary Messenger, one which he intended being mined and Aztecs had told of precious to be a hoax drawn out in a series of articles stones found there centuries ago. Allegedly, much like “The Great Moon Hoax” would rubies and emeralds had been discovered at play out in the coming weeks. Poe later one time and diamonds were “generally claimed he stopped work on the series after found in a country producing the ruby and he had been out-hoaxed by Locke, although emerald”, according to the Bulletin.30 some would argue Poe had come up with his Perhaps and his cousin John after Locke (hardly seems possible, given Slack had read that article before strolling publication dates). into the Bank of in San Francisco Whatever the reason, or the possible in February of 1872, carrying a canvas bag connection Poe had to The Great Moon and purporting to be prospectors who Hoax, the nineteenth century certainly had wanted to deposit their treasures in the its share of hoaxes. Perhaps inspired by bank’s vaults. The bank’s astute cashier Locke’s hoax, Poe wrote one of his own in demanded to see the contents of the bag, 1844 – “The Balloon Hoax” and published and when the bag was opened discovered it in the sensationalist Sun. The hoax lasted hundreds of uncut diamonds, sapphires, but two days before being retracted. emeralds and rubies. The bank’s founder,

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 12 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME William Ralston, was called to check out the By summer’s end at least twenty-five other deposit – intrigued, he wanted to know firms joined the venture, increasing more. capitalization to an eye-popping quarter of a billion dollars. At first it appeared Arnold and Slack were too shy or frightened to share details, but In the meantime Ralston solicited the were finally coaxed to admit they had opinion of famed jeweler Charles Tiffany, suddenly, after months of prospecting, sending two lawyers to New York for discovered a hill where these precious Tiffany’s personal assessment. Tiffany was stones were scattered. The location was sufficiently impressed, convinced the stones some distance from San Francisco, although were indeed real and the samples he saw they declined to name the exact location. were said to be worth $150,000. Ralston The Kentuckians claimed the bag they went a step further and hired mining brought to San Francisco was only a small engineer Henry Janin, an eminently portion of what they had actually found. qualified geologist who had surveyed They boastfully claimed jewels were so hundreds of mines and had never once been abundant, implying there would be no need wrong. for expensive mining operations – only a boot kick or two would dislodge untold Janin, Harpending and two other wealth. gentlemen were taken to the site by train (with the shades down), blindfolded and Arnold and Slack were pressed to reveal taken by mule to the remote location in late more details and finally agreed to take two May. Janin observed the diamond fields diamond experts, blindfolded, to the were on the north side of a cone-shaped location for inspection. The experts were mountain – somewhat of an oddity in an sufficiently impressed, declaring that otherwise flat landscape. He camped there diamonds were found in cracks of rocks and for about twenty-four hours before deciding glittering in dry stream beds. They brought the mine was indeed genuine. In his back another bag of jewels equal to the first personal opinion, investors in the company to deposit in the bank, assuming the value would reap a fabulous financial windfall – was perhaps close to $250,000. he had also been given one thousand shares in the company and $2,500 in cash as Banker Ralston was no fool (at least not yet) payment for services rendered. and he quickly formed a company – the San Francisco and New York Mining and Investors far and wide wanted to seed their Commercial Company. He persuaded money into the company – Lord Rothschild several of the city's most prominent of London was so intrigued that he offered businessmen to plop down $80,000 each to to buy the company. Curiously, after capitalize the new company to the tune of Ralston opened up offices for the upstart $2,000,000. When word began to spread company, Phillip Arnold and John Slack around the country, normally rational suddenly decided they would rather have people went crazy with the prospect of guaranteed cash and walk away, leaving untold wealth via a mine in a yet financial machinations to Ralston and his undisclosed location. Ralston formed a board of directors. board of directors which included General George B. McClellan, late of the Civil War In exchange for the super-confidential map and a financial “adventurer” by the name of to the mine location, they were able to . negotiate hefty sums – $100,000 to Slack and $550,000 to Arnold.31 As Simon

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 13 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Winchester, author of The Men Who United became more certain as to where the mine the States, put it, “This last was purest was located, or at least reasonably close. cheek. For there would be no profits, nor would there be a company.”32 It was October in and the weather had turned cold. King and his group Stories swept the nation – the world, for encountered adverse weather conditions. that matter – speculating on the mine’s After about a week they reached the location. Perhaps based on the San border and noticed a cone-shaped Francisco Bulletin article, some were hill in the distance. A sign nailed to a tree, convinced it was Arizona. One article signed by none other than Henry Janin, was included the offer of a route to the diamond posted claiming water rights to a nearby fields (presumed to be in Arizona). stream. This must be the place. The diamond field stories piqued the A short time later while walking along the interest of one noted geologist, Clarence ridge of the cone-shaped hill, they began to King, who had not long before finished an find several gems. Curiously, they didn't extensive geological survey of the West. find many diamonds but by the next King had never heard of all three precious morning they had found amethysts, spinels stones (diamonds, rubies and sapphires) and garnets. King then found a diamond occurring in the exact same location – not perched precariously on a slender rock – that it couldn’t happen, but it was highly how in the world could the stone have unlikely. King needed more details so he remained perched for hundreds of years? interviewed Henry Janin in San Francisco, One dubious story emerged that one demanding to know what the weather was engineer, upon finding a diamond which like during the trip to the mine and once on had been cut, cried out, “Look, Mr. King, the mules (Janin was blindfolded) which this diamond field not only produces direction did he perceive they were heading. diamonds, but it cuts them also.” Janin informed King the weather was hot Upon further observation King and his and miserable, and once traveling on the group discovered every anthill on the ridge mules the caravan headed south. King had a series of tiny holes, perhaps eight simply could not believe the location was in inches deep and made with a stick or some Arizona because the train ride was at least other instrument. At the bottom of each thirty-six hours from San Francisco, and hole was a precious gem, obviously then required a two-day mule ride to reach fraudulently “salted” there by whoever dug the mine. Since King knew the West’s the holes. The bankers, financiers, mining topography, geology and climate intimately, engineers and even renowned jeweler he deduced the train probably went to Charles Tiffany had all been duped! Cheyenne, Wyoming before the two-day mule trek. Philip Arnold and John Slack had traveled abroad to London and Amsterdam and Janin had also mentioned the cone-shaped purchased rough cut stones and rejects from mountain, a landmark vaguely familiar to unsuspecting gem dealers in Europe with the geologist. King took the train to their own investment of $25,000, modest Cheyenne, and by interviewing various when compared to their “take” from this attendants who had observed small parties cleverly devised hoax. Newspapers around of men who would arrive in Cheyenne and the world picked up the story, splashing then head south on horses or mules, he sensational headlines:

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 14 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME THE DIAMOND FRAUD in his book, San Francisco: A History of the Pacific Coast Metropolis, laid out the case The Greatest Swindle Ever Exposed for Harpending having been involved all in America along, in cahoots with Arnold and Slack. The Sharpest Men in California Lose This particular hoax was clearly a get-rich- Nearly $2,000,00033 quick scheme, just the kind someone like Harpending would be involved with. He had THE SALTED JEWEL FIELDS earlier been involved in a scheme to convince California to secede and join the The Sun (New York) had a field day with this Confederacy. story now that Clarence King had exposed the fraud. Philip Arnold was found in , arrested and charged, but Kentucky refused What has been styled the most splendidly to extradite him to California for trial. He conceived and executed of all frauds, the was able to negotiate (yet again!) a deal recently disclosed diamond swindle of the whereby he paid back half of the money in West, has brought into world-wide notice exchange for dropped charges. He decided a select circle of gentlemen who appear as to open his own bank with the money left victims or victimizers. Among those of the over, but was shot by a jealous rival and died first class is Gen. George S. Dodge, who from the wound. John Slack, mysteriously, paid $50,000 gold for a reserved seat, and was never found.35 found his ticket almost worthless before the orchestra had finished playing.34 Clarence King, as would be expected, was lauded for his detective work. When the By November the stock, so hastily snapped U.S. Geological Survey was created in 1879, up, wasn’t worth the paper it was printed King became its first director. Some years on. Henry Janin had wisely sold his shares later his life took a strange, strange turn. before the fraud was exposed (possibly after having his serious discussion with King in San Francisco). Charles Tiffany’s reputation didn’t suffer much it appears. An Airship’s Doings: The Great Kansas Cownapping Hoax The whole scheme did, however, eventually bring financial ruin to William Ralston. The October 2018 issue of Digging History After paying back his investors the bank Magazine featured an article about the UFO collapsed, and the next day his body was craze of the mid-twentieth century (“Those found in the San Francisco Bay on August Dang Saucers are Everywhere”). In 1952 27, 1875. Some have speculated Asbury Americans were seeing flying saucer – UFOs Harpending was involved in the hoax all as they would become known – everywhere. along. In the late 1890s, specifically 1897, airships were very much in the news. That year, they As Harpending points out in his book, The were everywhere – Kansas, Omaha, , he actually was Michigan, Cripple Creek, San Francisco, acquainted with Philip Arnold. Some Missouri, Iowa – or were they? Was it truth historians believe he wrote the book to cover or myth? up his involvement and repair his public image. The book is quite an interesting, Mythical or not, the citizens of Ellinwood, although somewhat boastful, read. He Kansas were “greatly agitated over the wasn’t necessarily thought of as such an occurrence and it form[ed] the chief topic upstanding citizen by some. John P. Young, of conversation” in early February 1897. On

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 15 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME the evening of February 5 two people on mysterious air ship only hovered and then their way home heard a hissing noise disappeared suddenly – that is, until an coming from above. What they saw directly April night when a cow disappeared! over the town, “an immense airship”, was moving south at about forty miles per hour. The airship appeared to have two huge wings or arm, lighted by electricity, and had been visible for fully ten minutes – they couldn’t possibly be mistaken.36 Another Kansan, a railroad employee who worked nights, saw his own strange sight Alexander “Alex” Hamilton was an early and could only suppose it was the same Kansas pioneer, one of Woodson County’s airship seen in Ellinwood. Only after most esteemed citizens. In 1857 he attended reading of the Ellinwood airship did he have the state legislature, participating in the the nerve to even mention the incident. founding of Woodson County and appointed county clerk. Alex Hamilton was The Ellinwood Leader weighed in, setting a busy and prosperous man as lawyer and the record straight, after the story had made owner of a large mercantile and later a its way into eastern newspapers. No one major stock dealer handling thousands of had actually been “found here who claims cattle. As a citizen of the county Alex to have seen, heard or dreamed of such a Hamilton had “always taken an active thing, and the whole story seems to have interest in public affairs, pertaining to the originated in the imaginative wheelhouse of welfare of his community”, holding the some would-be smart Great Bend offices of postmaster, justice of the peace correspondent.”37 and county sheriff.41 Before the month of February ended No one would doubt either his word or another airship was spotted over Valley honor as various officials and county Falls. On February 26 “all the railroad residents averred: “We, the undersigned, telegraph operators in northern Kansas and do hereby make the following affidavit that Southern Nebraska were on the lookout for we have known Alexander Hamilton from it.”38 Many claimed to have seen it around one to 30 years and that for truth and 10:00 p.m. – a most unusual sight, although veracity we have never heard his word perhaps not quite so distinguishable as questioned and that we do verily believe his Valley Falls it was traveling at a speed of statement to be true and correct.”42 sixty miles an hour. Alex Hamilton walked into the offices of The While Kansas newspapers were mildly Farmers Advocate (Yates Center), mocking these so-called sightings – “You “look[ing] as if he had not entirely recovered are not strictly up to date unless you get out from the shock” of seeing one of his cows on the prairie by yourself and see that disappear. It was quite a fantastic and airship”39 – many reputable citizens of detailed story he told: Oakland, California were seeing “flocks of airships”.40 Last Monday night about half past ten o’clock we were awakened by a noise “Sightings” continued throughout the early among the cattle. I arose, thinking perhaps spring of 1897 in Kansas and Nebraska, my bull dog was performing some of his most described as similar to the Ellinwood pranks but upon going to the door, saw to sighting in February. Typically, this my utter amazement, an airship slowly

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 16 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME descending over my cow lot about 40 rods Alex didn’t sleep well that night and early from the house. Calling Gid Heslip, my the next morning mounted his horse and tenant, and my son Wall, we seized some went looking for his missing heifer. Upon axes and ran to the corral. Meanwhile the returning to town he found a man who lived ship had been gently descending until it nearby who had found a hide, legs and head was not more than 30 feet about the in his field. The man thought perhaps the ground and we came up to within 50 yards cow had been butchered after being stolen, of it. It consisted of a cigar-shaped portion “but was greatly mystified in not being able possibly 300 feet long with a carriage to find a track of any kind on the soft underneath. The carriage was made of ground.”44 Such a puzzlement! panels of glass or other transparent More like, such a tall tale! The story made substance, alternating with a narrow strip the rounds in Kansas and other parts of the of some other material. It was brilliantly country, playing itself out after about three lighted within and everything was clearly months. Local residents would recall it and visible. There were three lights; one like an occasionally letters would be received immense search light and two smaller, one inquiring about the “cownapping” incident. red the other green. The large one was When Alex Hamilton died in 1912 there was suseptible [sic] of being turned in any nary a mention in his extensive obituary. direction. It was occupied by six of the strangest beings I ever saw. There were Fast forward several decades to the 1950s two men, a woman, and three children. and 1960s at the height of the UFO craze – They were jabbering together but we could so-called “ufologists” wanted to investigate not understand a syllable they said. Every the claims. By that time the Kansas part of the vessel which was not cownapping incident had become UFO lore, transparent was of a dark reddish color. but after such a long time could they We stood mute in wonder and fright, when uncover new information? Certainly, access some noise attracted their attention and to newspaper archives of the 1890s would they turned their light directly upon us. have come in rather handy. Whether these Immediately upon catching sight of us, they investigators had access is unclear. turned on some unknown power, and a great turbine wheel about 30 feet in They did establish Alex Hamilton as a real diameter which was slowly revolving person, as were all the people who signed below the craft, began to buzz, sounding the affidavit. In fact, they discovered precisely like the cylinder of a separator, Hamilton’s granddaughter, Elizabeth and the vessel rose as lightly as a bird. Hamilton Linde (Wall’s daughter), was still When about 300 feet above us it seemed to alive and able to provide a few details. pause and hover directly over a three year Apparently, however, the hoax had been old heifer which was bawling and jumping, debunked years earlier. apparently fast in the fence. Going to her In 1943 a weekly Kansas newspaper, the we found a cable about half an inch in Buffalo Enterprise, featured an article thickness, made of the same red material, which in turn brought a response from Ed fastened in a slip know around her neck, F. Hudson, editor of The Farmers Advocate one end passing up to the vessel and in 1897. Of course, he remembered the tangled in the wire. We tried to get it off incident well – better than most – and for but could not, so we cut the wire loose and good reason: stood in amazement to see ship, cow and all rise slowly and sail off, disappearing in I had just bought and installed a little the northwest.43 gasoline engine, the first I believe to come

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 17 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME to Yates Center, using it to run my them all and the Hamilton family went machinery replacing the hand-power on down in history.”47 the old County Campbell press and kicking the job presses. I invited many of my Had ufologists known about the “mystery friends into the back shop to see the engine airship craze” of the 1890s perhaps it never work. Hamilton was one of them. He would have made it into the annals of UFO exclaimed, “Now they can fly,” hence the lore in the first place. In November 1896, airship story that we made up. After we months before the cownapping incident had published it, the story was copied in (and numerous other “sightings”), the San many of the largest newspapers in the Francisco Call had whipped up public country, England, France, and Germany, frenzy about a “mystic flying light”. On some illustrating it with pen-drawn November 22 the newspaper provided a imaginings by their staff artists. There depiction. were also hundreds of inquiries from every part of the globe. Soon afterwards there came the various experiments in flight, but I have always maintained that Alex Hamilton was the real inventor of human flight.45 Perhaps Alex had ‘fessed up way before that, however. One Kansas newspaper made a tongue-in-cheek jab in September 1897: Alex Hamilton, the Woodson county farmer of air ship fame, sold a bunch of cattle last week, bought himself four suits of clothes and a bran [sic] new conscience.46 Another long-time Kansas resident recalled the cownapping incident – heard it from Alex Hamilton himself. Ethel Shaw, ninety- Cigar-shaped - check. Lights - check. three years old at the time, remembered as Carriage underneath - check. Sounds like a fourteen-year old girl she was visiting the Alex had seen the California airship! Just home of her friend Nell Hamilton, Alex’s one more silly nineteenth century hoax daughter. Alex came in the door and which could also be generally filed under immediately began relating to his wife how “humbug”. he “fixed up quite a story and told the boys in town and it will come out in the Advocate HUMBUG this weekend.” Humbug! No one seems to know exactly the Mrs. Shaw related how “Hamilton and a few origins of the word. One of the first uses of his cronies had a club they called Ananias may have been Ferdinando Kilgrew’s book, or a liars club. They would get together once The Universal Jester, published in 1754 and a week and try to top one another's tall tales. subtitled “A choice collection of merry Said Mrs. Shaw, ‘Well, to my knowledge the Conceits, facetious Crolleries, humorous club soon broke up after the ‘airship and Waggeries, smart Repartees, pleasant cow’ story. I guess that one had topped Jokes, Clenchers, Closures, Bon Mots, and Humbugs; comic Stories, notable Puns, witty Quibbles, and ridiculous Bulls.”

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 18 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Merriam-Webster defines it as “something possess a modicum of truth) so as to attract designed to deceive and mislead” or “a interest and, therefore, line his pockets. willfully false, deceptive, or insincere “Humbug” would become his trademark. person.”48 Ebenezer Scrooge famously (and repeatedly) uttered the line “Bah, When Joice Heth died in February 1836 Humbug!” in the Charles Dickens classic, A Barnum arranged a public exhibition of her Christmas Carol. The word has a unique autopsy, hosted at a bar (of all places), and connection with the nineteenth century, a charged fifty cents admission. Perhaps he century of acceleration and discovery, and shouldn’t have made such a public spectacle the Victorian Era (1837-1901). P.T. Barnum – autopsy results revealed Heth to no more was a master at humbug – you might call than eighty years old. Ha-ha! The joke was him the King of Humbug. on the public! Phineas Taylor (P.T. as he was better Although he would later become an known) Barnum was born in 1810, named abolitionist, it’s clear the exploitation of after his maternal grandfather, Phineas Joice Heth had racial undertones. Taylor. Phineas was a lottery broker, whose Newspaper articles regularly pointed out job it was to oversee public lotteries, so-called “ethnologists” had discovered how ostensibly used in early America to raise much black people and primates had in infrastructure funds to avoid imposing or common. Phrenologists claimed the power raising taxes. A broker would handle ticket to determine black people as intellectual sales, advertising and payout of funds inferiors by reading bumps on their heads. collected. Advertising, of course, was “the Phrenology, or “bumpology” as it was flash to bring the cash”. P.T. may have come colloquially known, was one of the by his flair for showmanship and promotion nineteenth century’s greatest “scientific naturally. humbugs”. Barnum’s first foray into showmanship was Learned men should have known better his acquisition and exhibition of a woman when in 1845 Albert Koch brought a “sea whom he claimed was the 161-year old monster” to New York City. Koch, German former nurse of none other than the father by birth, had been “engaged for several of the country, George Washington. He years in exploring the southern and western acquired the rights to put her on display and parts of the United States in search or set about advertising his incredible “find”: organic remains.” By the early 1840s he had allegedly discovered “the fossil skeleton of the Missourium Theristocaulodon, or Leviathan Missouriensis, the most gigantic inhabitant of the antediluvian world” near the Osage River in Missouri. Of course, it was the only one of this particular species – and “nearly quite perfect.”49 The skeleton, which Koch called “Hydrarchos”, was later exposed as pure humbug. As a 2010 National Geographic article pointed out: For Barnum it was never whether or not his claims were actually true. Rather, it was It was also a monstrous hoax. The about whether or not he could convince Hydrarchos skeleton did not belong to any others his claims were true (or at least one animal but to several, and much of its

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 19 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME skeleton represented an animal that had jackass to comprehend that two and two been described years before. . . make four.51 Phrenology, too, would turn out to be a Not at all surprising, The American different sort of scientific humbug, but the Phrenological Journal disagreed with author of the 1846 article [American Russell Jarvis, Esq. “The character of this Phrenological Journal] was certain of his article is such, that we consider it entirely “science.” If the mentality of humans could unworthy of notice in our pages.”52 be deduced from looking at lumps and Nantucketers weren’t taken in with the bumps on the noggin then the same rules “science” of “bumpology” either. Humbug, would apply for animals, and the notoriety or what some called “Yankee cuteness” of Hydrarchos made it too difficult to resist (meaning clever or shrewd), was well mapping what its manner would have been 50 understood by New Englanders. When a like based upon its skull. noted Scottish phrenologist “made his Some learned men did know better, well appearance among the Coffins, Starbucks, aware of the spirit of the age: Macys, &c., . . . [and] opened a ‘gratuitous lecture to begin with, and the Nantucketers ON THE so thoroughly laughed down his ridiculous quackery, that he did not stop to ‘finish his HUMBUG OF PHRENOLOGY course’”.53 This is the age of humbug; the age in which Mark Twain was fascinated with phrenology some set or other of ignorant and arrogant and while in London in 1873 stopped by the pretenders are continually attempting to office of American phrenologist Lorenzo cram the public with some absurdity, Fowler. Lorenzo and his brother Orson (the which they nickname science, or to ridicule Fowler brothers) began their careers in the every real science which they do not mid-1830s. Orson also edited The comprehend. Of these philosophers (!!!) American Phrenological Journal. Their whom nature has spoiled in the making up, New York office, a museum of sorts, was by forgetting to put in brains, the most filled with portraits or busts of famous impudent, intolerant, and intolerable, are people’s heads. those who believe, or affect to believe, in phrenology. Now, every man of sense One of the stranger specimens, apparently knows that phrenology is an absurd, ordered post-mortem, was a cast made of ridiculous, indefensible humbug, fit only to Aaron Burr’s head following his death in amuse those who can never keep within the 1836. Phrenology involved examining the limits of common sense . . . I insist that bumps on a person’s heads, and based on phrenologists are fools of the first where bumps were found, an expert magnitude, and their pretended discoveries “bumpologist” claimed to able to identify are a tissue of absurd assumptions . . . certain personality traits, which in turn were linked to certain organs. What is this humbug which the numskulls who defend it, call phrenology? It is the For instance, the Fowler brothers science – what a word for such a thing! – discovered “that Burr’s organs of the science of determining the character “Secretiveness” and “Destructiveness” were from the bumps on the head . . . This is all – not surprisingly – far larger than those of sheer nonsense; and I will prove it to the the average person.”54 satisfaction of every one whose mind is sufficiently above that of a gander or a

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 20 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME The Fowlers also saw another trait, a much publicized and well-known one. Aaron Burr is famously known for killing Alexander Hamilton. Certainly villainous enough, but he was also, as one historian phrased it, “an immoral, sexually dissipated man.”55 A side-by-side comparison made by Orson Fowler demonstrated his point, comparing Burr’s “over-developed bump” in the area of amativeness (sexual drive, eroticism, etc.) to that of an “old maid”.

In an era when medical science had, at best, only a rudimentary knowledge of how the human brain functioned, the pseudoscience of phrenology served as a way to explain man’s maladies. Medical doctors had little else to work with at the time, even if it wasn’t on the most solid ground scientifically. Phrenology may have actually assisted medical doctors in understanding the strange behavior of Phineas Gage, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

HORRIBLE ACCIDENT. Phineas P. Gage, a foreman on the Rutland Railroad at Cavendish, Vt., was preparing for a blast on Wednesday last, when the powder exploded, carrying through his head an iron instrument, an inch and a fourth in circumference, and three feet and eight inches in length. The iron entered on the side of his face, shattering the upper jaw, and passing back of the left eye, and out at the top of his head. Singularly enough, he was alive at two o’clock the next afternoon, in full possession of his reason, and free from pain.56 Subsequently, astounding details indicated the velocity which with the iron bar had entered and exited his head – on exit the bar flew across the road over twenty-five yards! Although “the skull was fractured in every direction around the opening made by the bar”, Gage walked several yards to a cart and rode to a local tavern where doctors attended him. Everyone was astonished – it seemed impossible that he should survive.57 People wondered even after over three weeks if he could recover. By then the cheek wound had healed completely and the top of his head was showing signs of healing. Still, it was a miracle he had lived that long. One correspondent called it “one of the strangest occurrences on record” – something doctors would talk about for years to come perhaps. “We live in an eventful era, but if a man can have thirteen pounds of iron in the shape of a pointed bar, thrown entirely through his head, carrying with it a quantity of the brain, and yet live and

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 21 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME have his senses, we may well exclaim, What an epileptic seizure. Thereafter, these next?”58 episodes increased in frequency and severity until his death on May 21 during an Other than appearing bewildered at times extended epileptic episode. Gage was able to recognize acquaintances and carry on a coherent conversation. By As it turned out, Sizer’s “diagnosis” wasn’t 1850 Phineas Gage had indeed become of far off the mark, although doctors didn’t yet great interest to physicians as his case was understand the area of the brain which presented in the July 1850 issue of The would become known as the “prefrontal American Journal of the Medical Sciences. cortex”, where expressions of personality It was a case which would be debated well and social behavior are moderated. into the next century and beyond. Still, phrenology was “humbug” and by the Despite surviving the 20th century “had lost any shred of scientific accident and coming authority, except among a few diehards.”60 away with speech and In Gage’s case it just happened to very reasoning intact, his nearly coincide with later discoveries in temperament, once that neuroscience. of a kind, gentle man, One of the most insidious aspects of changed dramatically. phrenology was its influence in yet another He was “argumentative, pseudo-science (and a dangerous one at irresponsible and prone that) – a kind of “eugenic genealogy” which to cursing so vilely that was used to prevent people considered women were warned ill-bred (feeble-minded or otherwise not to remain in his considered mentally deficient) from presence.” Phrenologist reproducing offspring. All one need know Sizer examined Gage by comparing about eugenics – Adolph Hitler embraced the exit wound (at the top of his head) with it. a phrenological chart (like the one on the previous page). The exit had occurred in an area near “Benevolence” (kindness) and “Veneration” (respect or reverence).59 Phineas Gage most certainly had his life cut Patent medicines were another big humbug short despite his miraculous survival. of the nineteenth century. On and on … Unable to reclaim his railroad job, where such a fascinating era! One of these days I’ll else could someone with a story like his – in get around to writing about quackery (and that era of humbug – find employment? In eugenics) . . . stay tuned! a decidedly Barnum-esque way he became a curiosity, working as a living museum exhibit for a time until he left the United States for South America. After spending several years in Chile driving a stagecoach and caring for horses, his health declined and he returned to San Francisco in 1859 where his mother and sister then resided. In February 1860, while sitting at the dinner table, he experienced

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 22 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME It Was a Victorian Thing Get me out of here … I’m not dead yet!

Merriam-Webster defines fear as “an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation of awareness of danger.”1 When fear becomes exaggerated, inexplicable and illogical it escalates to the level of phobia. While it isn’t uncommon for human beings to fear death, Victorians had a decidedly good reason for a heightened sense of dread in regards to life’s inevitable conclusion. A September 20, 1963 article in LIFE magazine suggested this peculiar phobia was perhaps inspired by the nineteenth century master of creepy stories, Edgar Allan Poe.2 Indeed, stories like “The Premature Burial” or “The Fall of the House of Usher” were themed with heightened paranoia. In a time before embalming became standard practice the fear of being buried alive (taphephobia) seems to have been palpable. Why else would there be a need for “safety coffins” or “grave signals”? Was it rational? If so, why? Victorians began to address this particular dread via invention, but the fear of being buried alive had been around for quite sometime. Some of the earliest newspaper accounts were published before the mid-eighteenth century: A Milkwoman’s Daughter at Endfield was lately buried alive there. When she was going to be interr’d, some People at the Funeral, thought she looked fresh, and taking a Looking- glass, and applying it to her Lips, they fancied they perceived a Dew on it as from Breath; but the cruel Mother mock’d and reviled them, and swore she should be buried, and so she was; but this coming to the Ears of a near relation, he got the Grave dug up, and the Coffin open’d, when she was found with her Knees drawn up, and the Nosegay in her hand bitten to pieces, struggling for Life. A Surgeon was sent for to bleed her, but it was then too late.3 John Frohock, Esq., Counsellor at Law, who died last Week at Ipswich in Suffolk, having always had a terrible Apprehension of being buried alive, has ordered by his Will, that the Lid of the Coffin in which he is to be put, shall be made with Hinges to open easily; and that four Persons be appointed continually to attend his Corpse, not only before ‘tis bury’d, but for eight Days after Interrment in his Vault; in which time, if he should happen to come to Life, he intends to rap against the Coffin Lid, and his Attendants are in such case to furnish their proper Assistance.4 The story of someone almost being buried alive appeared in a Maryland newspaper in 1754: Dublin, August 31. We have an Account from Cork, that a Gentlewoman swooned away, and to all Appearance seemed to be quite dead, insomuch that she was washed and stretched; but some Time after a Sprig of Holly, which had been hung up in the Room directly over where she lay, happening to fall upon her Face, brought her to Life. It is said, her

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 23 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME dead 12 hours; the Fear of being buried alive has occasioned this Legacy.7 An Englishman in the early nineteenth century proposed a rather unique (and sensual) way to ensure he wasn’t buried alive: Mr. Fransham, of Norwich, who died lately, was so apprehensive of being buried alive, that repeatedly and earnestly before his decease, he requested that his body should be laid before a fire, that wine should be offered to his lips, and the arms of a young woman clasped round his neck, before he was given up as irrecoverable.8 A helpful suggestion for undertakers? Undertakers should never neglect to ascertain, by plunging a knife into part of a corpse, whether life is extinct. This practice would prevent the horrible fear of being buried alive.9 Numerous references of “buried alive” or “coffined alive” can be found in nineteenth century newspapers. During epidemics of diseases such as cholera or yellow fever these types of stories would appear, a reminder yet again that one of life’s greatest fears wasn’t death itself, but the fear of being buried alive. Newspapers began providing detailed accounts, some quite horrifying and sounding like fiction.

BURIED ALIVE – ALMOST, NOT QUITE. The New Orleans Picayune says – A scene strange as any founded on fiction occurred in this city on Sunday last. We will give it in the words of the gentleman who furnished us with the fact. His veracity and its truth may be relied on. It appears that a young Spaniard was lying in the last stages of yellow fever, next door to the printing office of Mr. G., in Chartres street. The physician, Dr. B., was sent for, but before his arrival, the young man had ceased to live, according to the

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 24 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME opinions of those in the house, so that when coffin while her parents rode in the he arrived he found his patient covered passenger coach. About an hour from their with a white linen, and reported as dead. destination “a loud, unearthly shriek was That very evening they washed and heard, and in a second the young girl was cleansed the young man, and having put prostrate upon the floor in a swoon.” on his burial dress, they laid him on his bed Several people rushed to the scene and were until the morning. In the morning a coffin also “nearly paralyzed” by what they was got, and all the necessary witnessed. “The supposed corpse of Charles preparations were made. He was then Hueston was living, moving, breathing. The taken and put into his coffin, but no sooner head was thrust above the coffin, and the was he dropped in it than he jumped up and face, with its deathly pallor, presented a asked where they were going to place him. weird and ghastly spectacle. The young man They then conducted him in a carriage to was evidently amazed at his surroundings, a colored nurse woman’s house. He is yet and the first returning gleams of very sick, but may perhaps live. It appears consciousness found him in a position of that he was in a state of lethargy.10 bewilderment. Loving hands and kind hearts devoted themselves to the care of the This incident apparently drove a man’s man who had, as it were, so suddenly risen sister into a sort of catatonic state: from the dead, and of the young girl who so COFFINED ALIVE suddenly had been brought to the very portals of the grave.” Supposed Death of a Young Man of Forest, Ohio – He Recovers and His Charles was expected to fully recover, but Sister Loses Her Reason his sister had “not had one moment of consciousness since the wild shriek which In January 1877 twenty-two year-old she gave in the car at the dreadful spectacle Charles Hueston “with a disease supposed which met her eyes. It is feared, indeed, that be a congestion of the lungs” was her reason is permanent dethroned.”11 pronounced dead after remaining unconscious for approximately two hours. The most disturbing stories, of course, were Of course, his family was devastated as they instances of a coffin being opened after hadn’t arrived in time to see him before his someone either heard a noise (and ignored untimely death. it) or a family member fearing their loved one had been mistakenly buried alive, only Charles’ body was laid out to begin to find evidence of an escape attempt. preparations for burial. While the barber was shaving the corpse the razor slipped In 1877 a man who had gone to California and brought forth “a jet of deep colored for his health had died and was being blood”. Some bystanders proposed that shipped back East in a metallic coffin. In perhaps he wasn’t dead after all, “but little Ogden, the corpse was signed over to heed was paid to these speculations”. the care of express messenger Frank Preparations continued as he was dressed Burgess. In western Nebraska Burgess and placed in the coffin, “but as a heard sounds coming from the coffin, precautionary measure the lid was not leading him to believe the dead man had screwed down.” come back to life. The coffin was placed on a passenger train, Again the noise was heard, and the accompanied by his family. His sister, attention of the messenger was riveted to however, determined to remain with his the coffin, and the horrible possibility that

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 25 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME the dead might be alive thrust itself upon fine brass and woodwind instruments. Many the messenger so forcibly that he called the American fifers serving during the War of attention of other employees to it, but, after 1812 were equipped with Eisenbrandt’s fifes. listening a moment, they merely laughed at him. The convictions of the express Besides his reputation for finely-crafted messenger, however, were so strong that musical instruments, Eisenbrandt became he had heard moans from the coffin that he known for his “Life Preserving Coffin, In had the case opened when the train made Doubtful Cases of Actual Death”. its next halt. The weather was very cold, The American Institute Fair, established in and upon the inside of the glass plate of the 1828 “to promote improvements in the coffin there had accumulated a thin film of mechanic arts; to encourage American frost, such as might have been deposited by industry in agriculture, manufactures, and the breath of a person confined in such commerce; and to sustain such a system of narrow quarters. The face was also drawn policy, as will protect the great national up against the glass plate, and other interests of our country”,13 began holding disturbances indicated life. While Burgess its annual fair in New York City in 1829. The had no doubt the man, though dead then, fair’s spacious location where visitors “had had been alive in the coffin, the other ample room and verge enough to gratify the employees explained an accumulation of appetite for the ingenious, the beautiful and frost on the glasses the natural exhalations the marvelous”14 was filled with the latest of the dead body, and the disturbances of innovations – more or less a precursor to the the corpse as due to the movements in World’s Fair established later in the shipping. nineteenth century. Once the coffin arrived at its destination it Perhaps the most talked about invention was opened, revealing “unmistakable proofs highlighted during the 1843 fair was of the terrible truth”. The now for-certain Eisenbrandt’s recent invention. As one deceased man’s “hands were clinched, the journalist noted, a group of ladies passing lips bitten, and the mouth filled with bloody 12 the exhibit expressed alarm at such a device, froth.” prompting the journalist to “examine the beauty of this latest receptacle of humanity, and the appropriateness of its descriptive Necessity: The Mother of Invention label”. Eisenbrandt’s premise: One of the hallmarks of the 1800s – the In a warm climate, ours in the summer, “century of acceleration” – was an explosion where the dead are obliged to be buried soon of innovation, invention and medical after disease, as for instance, during the advancements. Faced with challenges, prevalence of yellow fever, and at other Victorians sought ways to circumvent them, times, instances of have been known of although some of their inventions were persons having been buried before life was more than a bit ill-conceived. Such was the really extinct; to guard against which the case with devices like safety coffins, life inventor of this coffin has contrived an detectors and grave signals. arrangement of springs and levers, on its inside, whereby its inmate, by the least Christian Eisenbrandt notion of either head or hand acting One of the first patents addressing the fear thereon, will instantly cause the coffin lid to of being buried alive was granted to fly open, a circumstance which will entirely Christian Eisenbrandt, a German maker of remove all uneasiness of premature

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 26 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME interment from the minds of anxious one who may not really have departed this relatives. life may by the slightest motion of either the head or hand acting upon a system of The inventor would advise all families or springs and levers cause the instantaneous communities who may feel disposed to opening of the coffin lid.16 make use of his Life Preserving Coffins, so constructed as to give persons deposited Franz Vester therein a chance for life, by placing a lock on its door that will open either from the Eisenbrandt’s invention inside or outside also with a bell, and with had obvious design and openings to admit pure air, and into which practical usage flaws no other coffins are admitted, and a key since it only worked which should be placed inside to allow any above ground, but in one who may be resuscitated egress, until 1868 it was reported by decomposition actually takes place, when The Spectator: they may be removed, and finally deposited A German of the name of Franz Vester, in the ground, thereby keeping the vault living in the United States, has actually free from the accumulation of foul air. been good enough to invent the safety Obviously skeptical, the correspondent coffin, the merit of which consists in its concluded, “Of its practicability the reader enabling any one who happens to be buried may judge for himself.”15 alive in such a coffin, in his usual state of health and nerve, to rectify the mistake when he discovers it by either climbing out through a sort of chimney, or if he be not equal to that gymnastic effort, by ringing a bell for the sexton to come and help him. The “safety coffin” is higher and bigger than ordinary coffins, so as to admit of the free movement of the body, and under the head is a receptacle for wine and refreshments. A box about two feet square rises from the head of the coffin to about a foot above the ground, and in this box there The coffin was crafted in such a way so that is a sort of ladder by which a person the slightest movement would cause the interred alive can climb out, if he is spring-loaded lid to pop open. All of which vigorous enough. A spring inside enables begs the question, did it work after being the occupant to ring a bell and, as we buried underground. The answer was “no” understand, to unclose the external lid of it only worked while the coffin was above the chimney, which cannot be unclosed ground in a vault. Still, Eisenbrandt seemed from outside. rather sure of himself as the patent description indicates: Vester buried himself alive in one of his coffins and after being “interred” for more I . . . have invented a new and useful than an hour, emerged within a minute of improvement in coffins, which I term a giving the signal “with no more perceptible life-preserving coffin in doubtful cases of exhaustion than would be caused by walking death . . . the inventor of this coffin has two or three blocks under the hot sun.” contrived an arrangement whereby any

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 27 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Well and good for Vester, but someone presumed then to have actually died, actually buried alive probably wouldn’t be case/lid closed! “springing” out! Or, as The Spectator cheekily concluded, “unfortunately, persons Albert Fearnaught are not buried alive in a state of nerve and Buried alive? Fear not! No kidding, that bodily vigour that would enable them on was the man’s name. Albert Fearnaught of awaking unexpectedly in the grave to search Indianapolis was a photographer with a for and consume lunch, touch springs, and “new and useful improvement in Grave climb a chimney, even if they could hope to Signals”. The casket would be equipped make more sure of being buried by their with tubes, springs and stoppers, and a cord friends in a properly appointed ‘safety connected “to the wrist of the supposed coffin’ than of not being buried alive at all.”17 corpse.” Theodore A. Schroeder and Hermann Wuest These two chaps from Hoboken, New Jersey had ideas of their own, filing a patent on December 5, 1871 for “a new and useful Improvement in Life-Detectors”. The device, looking much like an ear trumpet, was purported to be an improvement “in means for detecting the recurrence of life in persons that have been buried in a state of trance or apparent death.”18 Schroeder and Wuest believed that “an instant admission of air at the moment of recurrence of symptoms of life” was not at all overrated. Not only would the lid of the tube be adapted to open, allowing air, it would warn of the need for assistance. They believed it would truly be a life-saving invention. The battery-operated device was designed After the casket was closed two other tubes to create a circuit were put into position and, should it turn inside the coffin. If a out the once-thought deceased person was corpse stirred, the merely in “suspended animation”, the circuit would be slightest movement of the hand (voluntary broken, a bell would or involuntary) would cause two stoppers to ring and fresh air pop out. (These devices seemed to have would rush into the involved a lot of “popping out” didn’t they?) coffin. If the lid In turn, a spring released which threw up remained closed for the signal flag and at the same time three or more days established a circuit whereby air could after burial, the tube circulate from the outside, providing would be withdrawn – the person inside ventilation until someone noticed the flag and rescued the person who was formerly

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 28 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME in “suspended animation.” Patent #260379 interment that she was in fact still alive. It was granted on July 4, 1882.19 continued to bother her but her family was skeptical. Still, she persisted until the The parade of patented grave-signaling family, to satisfy her, had the grave opened. devices continued and as the nineteenth Virginia by that time was indeed dead, but century was nearing its close electric there was clear evidence she had been switches and dry cell batteries were being buried alive. The body was “lying on the employed. One device invented by side, the hands were bitten and there was Frenchman M.C.H. Nicolle in 1899, every evidence of premature burial.”22 involving hammer and glass, seemed rather ill-conceived. Another woman, dancing at a ball, swooned and doctors pronounced her dead. Her A hammer would swing down and break a husband wanted her buried with all the glass window that was positioned directly finery and jewels she was wearing at the over the corpse’s head, allowing ventilation, ball. The undertaker, thinking it a waste of if any corpse movement was detected. His money, proceeded to take the jewels for device and others were specifically designed himself. You just know what happened for people who had been buried in a trance. don’t you – as he was taking the rings from Waking up from a trance, only to find her fingers, the woman awoke and “was broken glass in your face, doesn’t seem at afterward restored to health.”23 all useful does it? Another incident cited by Dr. Felix In the early 1900s electrical devices were Hartman, who wrote about premature invented and one, a sort of “telegraphic” burials, involved a man whose pulse had signaling device, was invented by Monroe stopped and appeared to have ceased Griffith of Sioux Falls, Iowa in 1901. The breathing as well. He was placed on an hands and feet of the corpse were wired in autopsy table and when the knife was order to signal movement. However, unlike applied he jumped from the table and ran earlier devices that might ring a bell, sound out of the room. According to the Daily a buzzer or raise a flag, the wires came out Eagle, “the operating surgeon died of of the grave and would be connected, for apoplexy, but at last accounts the lively instance, to “the home of the cemetery corpse was still enjoying the best of 20 sexton or police station.” health.”24 Bizarre? Definitely. Necessary? Maybe. After embalming fluid became more widely The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported in 1904 used to prepare the body for burial, these that medical records of years gone by cited concerns and fears became less of an issue. numerous alleged instances of being buried Still, these inventions, bizarre though they alive. The article pointed out a number of were, were innovative for the times. medical conditions which might have However, these inventions were designed mimicked death, including “conditions of to more than likely fail simply because they trance, catalepsy human hibernation, self were so complicated. induced sleep, fainting fits, intense cold and narcotic influence.”21 Give them an “E” for effort though! One such incident had occurred in Brooklyn when a young woman named Virginia McDonald was interred in the city’s Greenwood Cemetery. Her mother had a premonition shortly after her daughter’s

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 29 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME friggatriskaidekaphobia and the Thirteen Club Do you suffer from friggatriskaidekaphobia (and you say, “I don’t even know how to pronounce it, so how could I be afflicted with it!?!”). Maybe not, but it may affect up to ten percent of Americans. According to the Mayo Clinic, in clinical terms a phobia “is an overwhelming and unreasonable fear of an object or situation that poses little real danger but provokes anxiety and avoidance.” This particular phobia, as it relates to a certain calendar date, may only be experienced one to three times per year. Although it haunts millions of people no one seems to know definitively when and where the notion of “” being an unlucky day, or for that matter the number “13” being associated with misfortune and bad , originated. Historical newspaper evidence suggests that the day (Friday) itself was considered unlucky: The people had begun to feel safe again, when, on Friday last, (unlucky day) . . .1 MEMORANDA OF A WEEK . . . Thursday pleasant waggons [sic] loaded with goods passing in every direction – better to move the last of March on Thursday, than the first of April on Friday; why? Because Friday is an unlucky day.2 The notion of Friday as an unlucky day appears to have been a matter of faith: Friday was regarded by the Norsemen as the luckiest day of the week; among Christians generally it has been regarded as the unluckiest, because it was the day of Our Lord’s crucifixion, and is a fast-day in the Catholic Church. Mohammedans (among whom Friday is the Sabbath) say that Adam was created on a Friday, and legend has it that it was on a Friday that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and on a Friday that they died. Among the Buddhists and Brahmins it is also held to be unlucky; and the old Romans called it nefastus, from the utter overthrow of their army at Gallia Narbonensis. In England the proverb is that “a Friday moon brings foul weather,” but it is not, apparently, unlucky to be born on this day, for according to the old rhyme, “Friday’s child is loving and giving.”3 By the early 1800s the notion of “unlucky Friday” had been around for ages, but one “philosopher” was challenging it as folly in 1830. It had become such a nuisance as to disrupt everyday business and life: Friday. The Pagan connected with Friday, still retain their existence among us, and, with other delusions, show too plainly that the progress of knowledge is not so great as some people imagine. There are many persons in this county, who could not be induced to set up the frame of a building, begin a journey, commence spinning, or engage in any new business on a Friday. This is all folly. Friday is neither better nor worse, neither more nor less unlucky than Wednesday or Thursday; and one Friday is just as good as any other Friday. Those who adhere to the silly notions of former times, say that Friday is an unlucky

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 30 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME day, and that whatever is commenced then, retired from the Army on August 13, 1863 will prove disastrous. It is wonderful that and leased the club’s headquarters on the such a stupid notion should so long have 13th day of the month, later founding the been retained among a Christian people. Thirteen Club. Everything purposefully fell “Let me ask the observers of Friday,” says into place – down to the minutest detail an intelligent writer, “whence you came by (almost): the opinion that this is an unlucky day? Did New York City has a “Thirteen Club”, the you learn it from your bibles? Has God members of which are supposed to anywhere informed you that when, in the especially hold in contempt the popular course of the six days of creation, that day about that number. The first first appeared, and when he pronounced dinner of the club was given January 13th, his productions of that day ‘very good’, he, at the Knickerbocker, 454 Sixth Avenue. notwithstanding, designed the day itself to There are 13 letters in Knickerbocker, and be very bad? Surely you will not charge the sum of 4, 5, and 4 is 13. The dinner was God foolishly. If you believe that some evil given in room 13, and the members on agent busies himself in mischief of that day, entering passed under a ladder with 13 and relinquish your lawful pursuits rungs, decorated with an old American flag through fear of him, you do homage to the with 13 stars and 13 stripes. At the second devil. Ye worship ye know not what.”4 dinner Captain William Fowler, in whose Theories abound regarding the notion of name are 13 letters, solemnly led the way tacking on “13” to the historically unlucky into the banquet hall, which was lighted by day of Friday, including those who believe 13 gas jets. There was some trouble in it dates back to hundreds of years before finding a waiter free from superstition, and Christ in 1780 B.C. when Code of the diners had to put up with one who Hammurabi was enacted without a wouldn’t carry out the 13 idea. He refused thirteenth law (but, then again, there was to bring in 13 plates of soup, and brought no numeration in the text either).5 Some in 12, and poured 14 glasses of wine and 14 point out that the number 12 signifies cups of coffee, drinking the extra one. He completeness and evidence abounds for this also refused to pass under the 13 rung theory: 12 Zodiac signs, 12 months in a year, ladder. The club is an excellent one for Jesus had 12 disciples, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 those who have leisure for such elaborate hours on the clock, just to name a few. Of fooling.6 course, there is the exception to that rule – Captain Fowler began a “baker’s dozen” always refers to one extra planning his club in 1880, donut or pastry (yum!) added to the order, after “something occurred making it thirteen. in his place one night that As time went on the notion of “unlucky 13” roused his latent disgust for became more prevalent in the nineteenth superstition of all sorts, and century – until someone decided to directed its whole force challenge it head-on. against that popular hallucination as to the The Thirteen Club unluckiness of thirteen people sitting down to table together.”7 On January 13, 1882 William Fowler was well-acquainted with the first meeting of the Thirteen Club the number 13, it having been “strangely convened in New York’s Knickerbocker woven” with his life. Fowler, a Civil War Cottage at 7:13 p.m. All dinners were held veteran, had served in thirteen battles, with thirteen members around each table.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 31 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME William Fowler, whose name of course had I am in full accord with your society, so far thirteen letters, led the procession for the as it tries to expel superstition in regard to second dinner which was held in the No. 13, or Friday, or anything else. For banquet room lighted by thirteen gas jets. fifty years I have, so far as possible, made it a point to start my enterprises on Successive meetings of the Thirteen Club Fridays.9 were always held on the 13th of the month. On March 13, 1882 the meeting convened Primarily, the club was challenging “the at 8:13 p.m. at the thirteen-letter superstition that the seating of 13 at table Knickerbocker in Room 13 and each table will be followed by the death of one or more seated thirteen members. The New York of the party within the year.” That notion, Times described it this way: combined with all the other ways the club dared to thumb their noses at silly Each table was lighted by 13 colored superstitions, was challenged and mocked candles, and prominent on each were big during monthly meetings. April’s meeting platters of lobster salad, moulded into included a large cake surrounded by coffins, surrounded by 13 little craw-fish, thirteen lilacs with a figurine of an old and bearing “13” on the coffin plates. The woman on a broom chasing a . The menu cards exhibited the mournful motto: whole affair, intentionally no doubt, “was Morituri te Salutamus [Translation: “we funereal, and suggested a feast at which who are about to die salute thee”].8 undertakers only were bidden”.10 During the business session, following a It was certainly an “odd organization”. The thirteen-course dinner served by thirteen club’s secretary went so far as to send a waiters, several honorary members were letter to New York’s Governor Porter, elected, including President Chester A. “requesting him to use whatever influence Arthur. Presidents Grover Cleveland, he can to remove the superstition from Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Friday as an unlucky day by inducing Theodore Roosevelt would later join the Judges to select some other day than Friday Thirteen Club as honorary members, as did for hangings.”11 P.T. Barnum, who lent his wholehearted support: On September 13, 1882 the Thirteen Club was officially incorporated with the express P.T. Barnum on Superstitions. purpose of combating “by argument, by essays, literary articles and example, the If the proposition of my name as an prevalent superstition against ‘Fridays' and honorary member of the Thirteen Club will against thirteen at a table – superstitions aid in the smallest degree in removing the believed to be at variance with the ridiculous and shameful superstition which enlightened intelligence of the present exists in relation to number thirteen, I shall century.”12 feel honored in being so proposed. In my autobiography I dedicated a chapter to No. The club continued to expand and charter XIII, and showed by a letter from my other branches. By April of 1884 there were clergyman what a fortunate and honored 338 members, or “twice thirteen times number it is. It is humiliating that in this thirteen”,13 and by 1887 membership had nineteenth century the superstition still risen to about five hundred. These were lingers among intelligent persons. No essentially men’s social clubs, although person ought to be hanged on Friday for some branches allowed women to join. the next fifty years. Some referred to it as a “strange club”:

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 32 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME TREACHEROUS THIRTEEN suddenly stopped and counted the number present. “That’s an unlucky number,” he MEN WHO PLAY WANTON WITH said, and refused to sit with them. He then SUPERSTITION accompanied John Matthews to a A Strange Club in New York, Whose restaurant on Third avenue. Here he found Aim in Life is to Slop One Over the another group of his friends numbering Round Dozen – Now Dinner is Served Thirteen, and he refused to remain. He 16 for the Eccentric Old Baldheads – went home and committed suicide. Peculiar Invitations Nevertheless, very few members had An Atlanta Constitution correspondent had resigned, for after all they had a “jolly good the opportunity to meet none other than time” at each meeting by relating anecdotes Captain Fowler, “one of New York’s most that exposed, mocked and debunked jovial and good-hearted men” at the October popular superstitions of the day. 13, 1882 meeting. included a depiction of Were Atlantians too superstitious to join? the menu card, noting the club’s last After all, it only cost one dollar and thirteen meeting had featured a “handsome cents for the initiation fee, $13.13 for the rosewood coffin, in which rattled the bones charter, monthly dues were thirteen cents of a delicious and well proportioned female and lifetime membership for only thirteen 14 skeleton.” dollars. They were impressed with Fowler, When asked whether any misfortune had yet wary of the club’s unusual orthodoxy, befallen any member of the club since its cautioning that although an interesting founding, Fowler answered, “No, not to any club, “and if it does not lead to dissipation member, though there have been a number – and dissipation is far worse than 17 of accidents and deaths which have been superstition – it may do much good.” attributed to the unseen influence of our club. You know that none of these would have occurred if our organization had not been in existence.”15 Fowler was certain of his claims and had a number of newspaper notices to prove it:

On the evening of the 14th [sic] of January, while the members of the “Thirteen club” were seated at their first dinner, a collision occurred on the Harlem railroad, in which thirteen persons were killed, and thirteen coaches wrecked. On the same evening Caroline Richings [well-known opera singer] died, after celebrating the thirteenth anniversary of her marriage by a dinner, at which thirteen persons were The Thirteen Club may have encouraged present. . . another “eccentric and silly” club in 1884. The Jerusalem Club had recently met in Some time during the summer an actor, Boston where “seventeen of its members sat named Billings, went out with a friend in down the other night to a dinner of dog the evening. He was invited to join a party meat. It was not surprising to learn that of comrades. At first gave his consent, but they highly enjoyed it.”18

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 33 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME More than three years since its founding the On account of severe wounds, he was club continued to flourish, at least thirteen forced to resign his commission Aug. 13, members showing up for each dinner. But, 1863, and on the 13th of the following month how were they doing at challenging the he took possession as owner of the old- superstition about thirteen people seated fashioned house, which he christened the around a table? “Thus far no member has Knickerbocker Cottage. . . died within the year prescribed by superstition as the allotted time of life after Capt. Fowler belonged to thirteen secret dining in a party of thirteen.” One member, and social organizations. He was a thirty- however, had died within fifteen months of second-degree Mason, and had been an his last dinner at the club and one ex- officer in all the lower bodies of the order. member who had never attended died.19 He was also thirteenth on the membership roll of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. William Fowler passed away unexpectedly in 1897 (no where near the 13th of the In 1880, being impressed by the singular month). His obituary was extensive and recurrence of the number thirteen in his provided additional details about his life life, Capt. Fowler threw down the gauntlet and how the number “13” was “strangely to fate and set about to organize the interwoven”: Thirteen Club. It took him one year to secure the requisite number of members. The number 13 was strangely interwoven Only well-known men were asked to join, with Capt. Fowler’s life, and as he grew old and while, of course, they laughed at the this fact and his good fortune made him popular superstition against thirteen, regard it as a mascot rather than as a when it came to enrolling their name in the numeral of ill . He was born in the proposed club, they made excuses. old Seventh Ward in this city, Oct. 7, 1827, and spent his life here. He was graduated Thirteen men of the requisite nerve finally from Public School No. 13 when thirteen agreed to meet, and Sept. 13, 1881, was years old, and became a printer’s fixed for the first banquet of the club. apprentice, but soon left that employment Twelve of them arrived early. The banquet to become a builder, with John D. Trimble, hall was arranged to defy superstition. the architect, as a partner. Everything on the table was arranged in a series of thirteen; spilled salt was The firm erected thirteen public buildings everywhere, and to enter they had to pass in this city, among them the old Bowery under crossed ladders. What made eleven Theatre, the New Bowery, the Broadway of them more uncomfortable than anything Theater at the corner of Pear Street . . . else was a motto prepared by the Captain When Capt. Fowler was twice thirteen and suspended on the wall. On a red years [26] of age he was chosen to the background, in white letters, was: “Nos command of the “Old City Blues” of the Morituri Te Salutamus” (“We about to die Twelfth Regiment of the N. Y. S. M., and salute you.”) was at the head of this company until April Long the twelve waited for the missing 13, 1861, when he, as Captain of 100 Union member. When the hour grew late and it volunteers, went to Washington. For three seemed the banquet would be a failure a years he was a soldier, and he was proud happy idea struck the Captain. One of the to relate that during that time he was in colored waiters, the whites of whose eyes just thirteen great battles. were already showing, was drafted. Trembling like a leaf, he was dragged to a

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 34 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME desk and told he should become a member. Despite his howls he was put through the first rites of initiation, and was just being shoved through the ladders when the missing guest arrived.20 A most unusual obituary full of history of a different kind! Despite the club’s rather morbid motto, members insisted the mortality rate of their club was no different than that of other organizations or associations, for they themselves were mere mortals after all. The Thirteen Club remained steadfast in its guiding principles. In 1907 they traveled to Washington, D.C., a “trysting place of city and country bred superstitions”, a place where “the wiseacre and the soothsayer amalgamate and hybridize.” The reason for the trip was clearly unwavering: “The mission of the Thirteen Club is to open the dark portals of the mind and the hatchways of the soul for the double purpose of letting in light and expelling the darkness and the gloom therein.”21 Still, some questioned whether the club (or others established elsewhere) was successful in debunking the notion of “unlucky thirteen”. Whether they ever did or not, the fellows (and ladies, beginning in 1891) had a jolly good time, although by the mid-1920s these types of clubs were becoming passé. Friggatriskaidekaphobes, fear not! There is help (and they seem to have a “jolly good time” as well!): https://www.friggatriskaidekaphobia.com/

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 35 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Terrified at the prospect of pregnancy, Vinnie forbade her husband Charles from May I Recommend . . . ever touching her intimately. Charles and Vinnie were totally caught up in Barnum’s ability to fool/foil the public, even going so The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb far as to pose as parents (who eventually lost their “child” to brain fever). Before she became Mrs. Charles Stratton, aka Mrs. Ms. Benjamin’s book is an entertaining look Tom Thumb, she was at nineteenth century Victorians and their born Mercy Lavinia propensity to be taken in by hoaxes and Warren Bump (“Vinnie”), humbug. Vinnie and Charles, along with described by the New their friend Phineas, milked it for all it was York Times in 1862 as “a worth. small but precious parcel”. She had just arrived in the city, the latest “discovery” The Thunder of Giants of the undisputed master of humbug, Phineas Taylor (P.T.) Barnum. Ostensibly, this historical In truth Barnum hadn’t “discovered” her so novel by Joel Fishbane is much as snagged her before someone else about Anna Haining Swan, saw her potential to enrich. the Nova Scotia giantess who gained notoriety during the One book reviewer called her “a tiny person Victorian Era as she toured with the soul of a giant”. There didn’t seem the world, including a stint to be anything Vinnie couldn’t do if she put with P.T. Barnum and his her mind to it. After a short stint as a school American Museum. Fishbane, however, teacher in her hometown of Middleborough, takes the narrative a step farther by Massachusetts, she was enticed to join a juxtaposing another story of the early river boat troupe during the years leading twentieth century in order to emphasize the up to the Civil War. It was her first taste of challenges faced by Anna Swan and others show biz and she never looked back. who, through no fault of their own, were Thenceforth, it was her life. considered to be “freaks of nature” to be Life on the river was unsavory at times, and ogled. after being forced to return home Vinnie The two main characters are Anna Swan made the bold decision to continue a life in (real) and Andorra del Alandra (fictional), show business, hopefully with the help of and while their paths were not parallel one P.T. Barnum. The rest, as the saying goes, can grasp how painful, both emotionally is history. and physically, these women struggled. Author Melanie Benjamin, a virtuoso of Neither would claim a “real” profession historical fiction, never disappoints. Her because to them merely being a sideshow book, labeled as historical or biographical exhibit, or playing a monster bride in a fiction, nevertheless covers vast amounts of Hollywood film, was not at all fulfilling. In factual details about Vinnie’s life, from her a way it’s a sad story. close relationship with her friend Mr. Still, it’s definitely an interesting way to Barnum (as she always called him) to her bring to light a piece of little-known history, strange life (as it turned out) as Mrs. Tom Thumb.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 36 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME which is, of course, the purpose of most Manseau has written an extremely well- historical novels. documented account of this fascinating era of both American and Victorian Era history. Anyone interested in either early The Apparationists: A Tale of Phantoms, photography, the Civil War, or spiritualism Fraud, Photography and the Man Who will find it an interesting and compelling Captured Lincoln’s Ghost read. This book by Peter Manseau is a fascinating (and true) tale, Snow-Storm in August: Washington encompassing the early days of City, Francis Scott Key, and the photography when it was Forgotten Race Riot of 1835 referred to as the “black art” through the Civil War era. More This book (with an intriguing than a few photographers, title, “Snow-Storm in August”) Mathew Brady most notably among them, highlights a unique piece of made considerable amounts of money American history and the documenting the war and its grisly struggle to justify slavery years aftermath. before the Civil War, especially in the nation’s capital, Brady displayed his work (which in truth, Washington City (later was largely the work of his team of Washington, D.C.) where by 1835 freed photographers who received little or no blacks outnumbered slaves. The story takes recognition), offering prints for sale as place at a time when both Congress and cartes de visite at his studio located at 785 President Andrew Jackson, who had already Broadway in New York City. The years instituted the mass exodus of Native following the Civil War’s end were Americans (the so-called “Trail of Tears”), particularly profitable for at least one were considering a rather radical solution photographer of questionable repute. to slavery – exporting slaves back to Africa By trade, William H. Mumler was a jewelry (Liberia). engraver who accidentally stumbled his way The book’s central character, Beverly Snow, into the “art” of what became widely known from which the title is derived, was a as spirit photography. Then, he decided to successful Washington City restaurant peddle his “art” to those seeking to make owner who also happened to be a freed spirit connections with deceased relatives. black man. His livelihood, dependent on Families of dead Civil War soldiers were members of the white middle and upper especially vulnerable. His most famous classes of the city, was interrupted after race “ghost” was produced for Mary Todd riots arose in the summer of 1835. Lincoln. The story is an intriguing one, providing a Mumler’s timing was perfect, given the rise window into Andrew Jackson’s presidency, of spiritualism in America. Boston (his his administration, and the city’s district hometown) was central to the movement. attorney, Frank Key (more famously known Eventually, however, Mumler (along with as Francis Scott Key, author of “The Star spiritualism itself) was exposed as Spangled Banner”). Author Jefferson fraudulent. Morley has written a well-researched book about a rather obscure event which manages to enlighten readers in unexpected ways.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 37 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME While the book’s title was certainly proposed three hundred and sixty-mile intriguing, I didn’t expect to learn so much canal. A system of locks would become about the history of Washington, D.C., necessary to accommodate those variances. Andrew Jackson, and especially Francis Scott Key. Although the book does Many mocked the idea but on October 26, eventually drag on a bit, it is still worth a 1825 the canal opened for business. Along read for anyone interested in early the way, however, there were other events American history and how the nation dealt of note occurring along the canal some with early race issues. would call “Heaven’s Ditch”. The book’s subtitle says it all: “God, Gold and Murder”. Author Jack Kelly writes a compelling Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold and narrative of not only the challenges of Murder on the Erie Canal building this historic waterway, but in the spirit of my favorite authors wrote about the A friend once wrote an article other events which grabbed headlines in the about his ancestors and how as early years of the nineteenth century as the the nineteenth century canal was being built. Not the least of these dawned lifestyles began to events is what has been called “The Second change. Before the 1800s life Great Awakening” which swept through was much the same through western New York. generations of families, no one challenging the status quo. Charles G. Finney made his mark on this Then, the nineteenth century – what my era, as did many other fiery preachers of the friend called “The Century of Acceleration” gospel. The area would come to be called – dawned and with it rapid change from “The Burned Over District” – with so much beginning to end (and beyond). fervent evangelization there seemed to be no one else to convert. During this era America had just concluded its war for Joseph Smith’s family was struggling to independence and many were looking to the make ends meet and he would have a series west to expand beyond the confines of the of visions, out of which came the tenets of a eastern seaboard and the original thirteen denomination who would call themselves colonies. One of the major challenges the Latter Day Saints, or Mormons. expanding nation would encounter was better ways to transport goods back and I have to admit I didn’t know a whole lot forth from the established urban and rural about Mormon history, but found Kelly’s areas of the east to those who chose to narrative informative and compelling. Two venture to the west. Yes, roads could have other “hot topics” of the era were been carved through the mountains and interspersed throughout the book: Masonry forests, but what about a waterway to and the rise of Anti-Mason sentiment and convey those needed supplies? the abolition of slavery. These two topics in particular would begin to shape political Many had thought of building a canal battles of the nineteenth century and system, but Jesse Hawley, who took it upon beyond. himself to survey the Mohawk Valley, was the man who finally got it done after Yet, as some reviewers have pointed out the petitioning the New York State Legislature book is more “heaven than ditch” with more and gaining the support of Governor DeWitt emphasis on the spiritual revival and the Clinton. The challenges were great with journey of Joseph Smith becoming the varying altitudes and rises along the leader of a mysterious, and often maligned,

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 38 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME religion. It wasn’t that surprising, however, to learn of the early push for abolition given that when it was finally confronted head-on with a civil war after years of infighting and bickering in the halls of government. Kelly points out that anti-Mason sentiment would later propel other causes such as the temperance and women’s suffrage movements. In this book the anti-Mason sentiment arises when a western New York man mysteriously disappears after When the Irish Invaded Canada: The threatening to publish a book about the Incredible True Story of the Civil War Masons and their secret society. Veterans Who Fought for Ireland’s Presumably, William Morgan was Freedom, by Christopher Klein. murdered as a result (although his body was 1812: The War That Forged a Nation, by never found). Walter R. Borneman. I found it a fascinating read – but I usually The Song of the Jade Lily, by Kirsty find any history book on the nineteenth Manning. century fascinating! If you are interested in learning more about the early history of Dawson’s Fall, by Roxana Robinson. America following its independence and its march westward, you will also find this a Light Changes Everything, by Nancy E. compelling read – just be aware it’s “more Turner heaven than ditch”. Barnum, by Robert Wilson The Impeachers, by Brenda Wineapple The Women of the Copper Country, by Mary Doria Russell

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 39 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Essential Tools for the Successful Family Researcher

by Sharon Hall Yearbooks GALORE! The September 2018 issue of Digging History Magazine provided a link of updated yearbook collections at Ancestry. If you still can’t find a particular yearbook, try other sources like eBay where you can find over half a million, many of them quite rare. For instance, this one from 1917 might have a picture of a World War I ancestor. If a young man had the misfortune of giving his life abroad it might very well be the only picture (and certainly one of the last) ever taken. While this particular yearbook is priced to sell for $11.99 some yearbooks may cost considerably more. For instance, another 1917 yearbook labeled “rare” is listed for $199.95 (these are all “buy it now” so there is no bidding). If you type “yearbook” in the search field you will receive well over half a million results! That is obviously (way too) overwhelming to sort through. However, if you scroll down the page a bit on the left-hand side of the page you’ll see “Item Location” where you may narrow results a number of ways, including proximity to your location. Although this doesn’t guarantee you’ll find what you’re looking for on the first try, it will narrow your choices considerably. You may also search by yearbook name and/or date and combine with a distance range. For instance, I typed (in quotes) “El Rodeo” and specified a distance of 200 miles from my zip code (79423) and received 23 results for “El Rodeo” (the yearbook for Big Spring High School), the oldest published in 1939. You could, of course, just type (I recommend quotes) the school name. Internet Archive is another repository of yearbooks, although its collection isn’t nearly as vast as either Ancestry or eBay. Type “yearbook” in the search field and you will receive over 37,000 results, narrowing as needed using date ranges, language and so on. Many of these appear to be small college (community and junior college) yearbooks. Of particular interest are those published in the early twentieth century where one might find biographical information (sometimes presented tongue-in-cheek) and a photograph. The Erskiniana (Erskine College, Due West, South Carolina) is a good example.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 40 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME student at Harvard, although his obituary stated he was attending school in Chicago (his World War I draft registration record specifically mentioned Harvard, however). He had volunteered to serve at an army training camp attending victims of influenza when he contracted the disease and died. Scrolling through Google search results a bit more I found an extensive article written in memoriam in the American Annals of the Deaf (Volume 66) in Google Books, which highlighted the life’s work of William K. Argo and also clarified that Billy was Besides providing his legal name, this entry attending Harvard at the time of his death. provides the name which most people knew him by (important if you are conducting A life cut short, and sadly his brother Robert newspaper research). Bill was born on died in 1920 of influenza as well. One little November 20, 1888 in Gastonia, North yearbook snippet yielded a wealth of Carolina and he attended a military information about the family, including the academy prior to entering Erskine College. fact (via Find-A-Grave) that William K. Argo’s parents were both deaf. Even more The 1914 issue of the Colorado College tragic, the entire family was gone by 1922, Nugget (Colorado Springs) provided short William K. dying in 1921 and his wife in vignettes which also included a hometown, 1922. All were buried in Colorado Springs. or in some cases a physical street address. This one for William Chenault “Billy” Argo Ancestry Magazine lists his address as “School for Deaf and Blind, Colorado Springs”. Speaking of Google Books, a valuable genealogical resource is now available and totally free. Beginning in January 1994 through early 2010, Ancestry.com published Ancestry Magazine. Even if you subscribed to the magazine at the time, and may still have print copies, you might want to check out these digital copies and toss the print ones to save space (plus digital means searchable!): https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks &hl=en&q=Ancestry+Magazine I wondered if Billy might have been deaf even though the vignette made no mention. Alabama Research However, a quick Google search revealed a Find-A-Grave entry, and a sad one at that. I’ve been working recently on some research Billy, a victim of the Spanish influenza and chart projects and discovered some epidemic (1918-1919) was the son of Dr. great Alabama resources. The Alabama William K. Argo, superintendent of the deaf Department of Archives and History and blind school. At the time of his death (ADAH) has been digitizing issues of on September 22, 1918 he was a medical Northeast Alabama Settlers (a quarterly

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 41 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME which began publication in June 1962) and http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/l making them available for free: andingpage/collection/quarterly http://neags.com/northeast-alabama- Alabama, Surname Files Expanded (1702- settlers-quarterly-digitized-alabama- 1981) department-archives-history/ This collection available at Ancestry.com ADAH is a valuable repository of all things was started in 1901 by staff members of Alabama, including many collections ADAH. Files are ordered by surname and organized by county which, of course, may include obituaries, newspaper benefits genealogical research. Here are a clippings, family histories, donated research few examples: and more. Alabama World War I Service Records https://www.ancestry.com/search/collecti ons/alabamasurnameawap/ This collection of index cards provides vital information for research, including name, The Historical Atlas: More Than Maps race, age, date and place of birth, home address, when inducted and service records. In conjunction with recent research and chart design, I came across a great http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/l genealogical resource which features maps, andingpage/collection/p17217coll3 maps and more maps! Alabama Civil War and Reconstruction While searching by county I began to notice Newspapers that historical atlases of the late nineteenth century (and perhaps early twentieth) Again, this valuable genealogical resource included not only county and township is organized by county and year of maps, but county history and illustrations. publication (1861-1877). Many of these are Many of them include pictures of that small town newspapers which can’t be particular county’s prominent citizens. A found at sites like Newspapers.com. good example is the Randolph County, http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/l Illinois 1875 historical atlas, published by andingpage/collection/cwnp W.R. Brink & Company. WPA Alabama Writers’ Project The atlas is an excellent resource for maps and includes county history and about forty Anyone researching ancestors who lived in pages of illustrations which depict various Alabama may find this Depression-era scenes, homes of prominent citizens, program a valuable resource, divided into pictures of various citizens and more. This the following categories: Ex-Slave Tales, county is of particular interest since my Folklore, Life Histories, Short Stories, third great grandmother Mary Jane Songs. (Hooper) Hall was born in Kaskaskia in 1842, so these illustrations gave me a sense http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/l of the area’s geography. andingpage/collection/wpa If you love maps as much as I do, you will The Alabama Historical Quarterly find this a great place to spend some time browsing (map prints are for sale): This collection of 119 issues, the majority of which were published from 1940-1982, http://www.historicmapworks.com/ may hold clues for Alabama ancestors.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 42 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Where There’s a Will . . . Just a few things to consider. Remember, where there’s a will, there may be confusion. As the old saying goes, where there’s a will Clarify relationships and terms before there’s a way. For genealogists, where making solid conclusions. there’s a will there might be a clue or two. Locating a will and the ability to decipher the scribble often leads us to discover, for instance, the names of some of our great aunts and uncles – or so we assume. I recently attended a webinar sponsored by the Southern California Genealogical Society. The lecture, “How Do I Know That’s My Ancestor?”, was presented by genealogist Amy Crow. The lecture was divided into a number of topics, but the one entitled “What Are Your Assumptions?” caught my ear. She began by challenging us with the question, “are you reading the record accurately?”. If so, do you understand the terminology. In regards to wills Ms. Crow pointed out the following: ● The term “heir” or “heirs” doesn’t always refer to children of the decedent. When I look at other people’s trees to study clues for my own project I sometimes see names and dates that don’t make sense. It makes me wonder if someone found a will record and just jotted down names, found dates and attached them to the family tree without verifying their actual relationship to the decedent. Heirs might be a niece or nephew, a grandchild, a close friend. ● We assume the word “infant” means a baby, a small child under the age of two. However, in “will-speak” it may also refer to a minor (older than one or two). ● The term “brother” may not refer to a blood relation who shares the same parent(s). The term “brother” is used broadly and could mean, for instance, a close friend, a fellow member of a fraternal society, a fellow soldier, or member of the same church.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 43 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Don’t Be Duped . . . genealogical fraud has been around a long time by Sharon Hall October is Family History Month and a good time to again remind family history researchers to be aware of genealogical fraud. I wrote an extensive article in the February 2018 issue of Digging History Magazine, but in order to share with newer subscribers I’ll share highlights, as well as include a few more instances I’ve run across. New England was a logical place from which both genealogical fascination and fraud emanated. After all, that’s where America began! Evidence suggests our European forbears were deeply interested in what has become one of the world’s most popular hobbies, as mentions of “genealogy” began appearing in newspapers of the early 1700s. A 1739 obituary printed in The Virginia Gazette is one example: Dr. Herman Boerhave was born on the last day of December 1668, about one in the morning,at Voorhout a village two miles distant from Leyden. His father, James Boerhaave, was Minister of Voorhout, of whom his son in a small account of his own life, has given a very amiable character, for the simplicity and openness of his behaviour; for his exact frugality in the management of a narrow fortune; and the prudence, tenderness and diligence, with which he educated a numerous family of nine children. He was eminently skill’d in history and genealogy, and versed in the Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages.1 The English and French expressed great interest in the topic as first mentions of the term “genealogy” began appearing in early eighteenth century newspapers. Americans may not yet have been concerned with such things, at least while they were being unfairly taxed, as reflected in an unsigned 1767 letter to “the Printer of the Pennsylvania Chronicle”. The writer had recently been in the presence of a group of well-bred ladies and gentlemen, at least they appeared so to the correspondent until one man began prattling on about ancestry (“I supposed ten thousand times, an elogium on his family and connections, the place from whence his ancestors sprung”). The correspondent wasn’t impressed and had little regard for whether someone descended from a prominent lineage. It seemed inappropriate to boast about one’s pedigree when most people – “few, very few, can trace genealogy higher than the third generation.”2 Perhaps coinciding with establishment of various historical societies – most notably, the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) in 1847, along with its venerable journal, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register – interest in American history and curiosity of one’s forbears would accelerate. NEHGS began advertising availability of its journal in newspapers around the nation in 1847: The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. No. 3, of this valuable work is published, containing a Memoir of Gov. Endicott, with a Portrait, and a great variety of other curious matter. It is published under the direction of the New England Genealogical

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 44 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Society, quarterly, at $2, by S.G. Drake, Some families strove to preserve their Boston. In this number we have genealogy, keeping it as unblemished and genealogies of the Minot, Wolcott, and “perfect” as possible: Parsons families.3 Family Meeting. A meeting of the The American public began expressing descendants of the late Holland Weeks, of interest in the genealogy of its leaders Salisbury, Vt., was held on the 22d of during the early years of the nineteenth September. Eighty of the family attended, century. Did fascination with George who are all the descendants of John Alden, Washington, the “Father of our country”, the first Pilgrim whose foot touched spur the movement on? Plymouth Rock. These meetings have been held occasionally for more than a century; Ancestry of George Washington. We and one of its objects is to keep the observe a laudatory notice in one of our genealogy perfect from the landing of the exchanges of the genealogy of Washington Pilgrims in New England to the latest emblazoned by a heraldist, a very pretty posterity.5 affair, which we recollect one to have seen, tracing up the ancestry of Gen. Washington Americans were proud of their heritage, and to nobility, and thence to royalty, until we rightly so. think it established very plainly that no less In 1879 Henry F. Parston signed his than three crowned heads had contributed editorial missive as “A Britisher”, puzzled their celestial blood to fill the veins of the over why the suggestion of erecting a statue first Republican President. to Major Andre, a British Army officer We confess that until we saw this hanged as a spy in 1780, would be so genealogical tree, it had never occurred to unfavorably received by “Americans who us to inquire, whether the “Father of his are the riffraff and descendants of the scum country” ever had a father himself, much of Europe”.6 Those were fighting words and less a grandfather, and least of all, whether “Britisher” was swiftly tongue-lashed: he was of plebeian or aristocratic descent. “BRITISHER” BERATED It was enough for us to know that America had given George Washington to mankind, DECENT ENGLISHMEN DEPLORE HIS SPIRIT. and in contemplating that simple and Mr. Henry F. Parston . . . would have us sublime character of which the world has believe that he is an Englishman, but he never yet produced an equal, it could add can’t pass. It is not the lion’s roar, but the nothing to our reverence to learn that this ass bray that we hear.” monarch of nature, bearing on every lineament of soul, mind and body, his seal ANOTHER MONUMENT SUGGESTED. I read of regal majesty, was the descendant of with disgust a letter in this morning’s men who had won the bauble of a crown, Herald signed “A Britisher,” in which he and wielded an iron sceptre over unwilling talks of riffraff, scum, &c. Now, dear sir, I minds.4 would like to ask this Mr. H. F. Parston, through you, what is he doing in this OK, that was a little over the top. Still, an country? Surely we can get along without awareness of one’s potential legacy – and him. I advise him to go back to aristocratic that of his family – took shape in the early “Hold Hengland” as quick as possible, or nineteenth century, spurring on the the scum of Europe may “corrupt his good movement which today has become the morals.” I am willing to start a world’s second most popular “hobby”. subscription list to raise money enough to

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 45 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME erect a monument in honor of the In the nineteenth century genealogical prejudiced Britisher by the name of Henry fraud was uncovered on both sides of the F. Parston. AMERICAN. pond. POTS SHOULDN’T CALL KETTLES BLACK. If Harriet de Salis Americans are “riffraff” and “scum,” as “Britisher” said through your columns Harriet de Salis was a British authoress yesterday, what are Englishmen? Are (publishing under the name “Mrs. de Salis”) Britain’s royal rulers of English blood? of numerous books in the late nineteenth From what nation did her Prime Minister century. She was well known for a variety come? How about the Danish pirates from of published cookbooks and it appears she whom many Englishmen are descended, fancied herself an expert on an array of the thievish Norman conquerors . . . other subjects such as raising dogs (Dogs: HISTORICUS.7 A Manual for Amateurs, 1893) and poultry (New-Laid Eggs: Hints for Amateur Prickly pride in one’s country and heritage Poultry-Rearers, 1892). Her book, The aside, genealogical problems began Housewife’s Referee, was a “treatise on surfacing – some much earlier than others. culinary and household subjects”. What entices some today (and often skews our research) is apparently the same Mrs. de Salis also had a rather short career problem early genealogists experienced – in the field of genealogy. In the 1870s she the all-too-human tendency to erroneously began sharing tidbits of genealogical attempt to link one’s lineage to that of “research” which came to be recommended someone famous (or infamous, for that by one of the most distinguished resources matter). Genealogical fraud had been for early American ancestry, The New around a long time. England Historic Genealogical Society. Harriet had formerly worked with Joseph An early (and blatant) incidence of Lemuel Chester, who although born and genealogical fraud was mentioned in raised in America, left the country and regards to one of the French Revolution’s settled in England in the late 1850s. leaders, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just. Saint- Just, along with other leaders, was Chester embarked upon a career in guillotined in July 1794. In an article genealogical research after receiving a entitled “Character of St. Just” the commission from the United States revolutionary was accused of having government to research wills recorded in “contrived, therefore, to derive his origin England prior to 1700, thereby contributing from the ancient family of Rovere St. Marc, vital research data concerning early which was extinguished long before his American ancestry. Chester was the person birth. A man dexterous at forging deeds, who revealed the de Salis deception after well known at Avignon, by the name of Pin, she confessed to him she had fabricated at fabricated a genealogy of St. Just, which least two wills. By 1880 Mrs. de Salis’ made him descend from that ancient genealogical career was over and eventually family.”8 Another account implies another her fraudulent claims were corrected. man had done much the same by utilizing the services of a man named Pin of Avignon, Horatio Gates Somerby “graft[ing] himself on that illustrious Meanwhile, back in America, Horatio Gates 9 house.” Somerby (1805-1872) was subtly perpetrating a similar fraud. As Paul C. Reed noted in his 1999 article published in

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 46 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME American Genealogist, Horatio Gates less back in the forgery business. Anjou Somerby was “not necessarily better at began developing a mail-order business, fakery than Mrs. de Salis”.10 Somerby targeting wealthy American families who probably thought he could get away with it were willing to pay $9,000 for their family because records were far less accessible history. That was a lot of money and today than they are today. would probably equate to well over $200,000. Still, Somerby had “an enviable reputation on both continents as an antiquarian”. Just Coal baron Josiah Van Kirk (“J.V.”) months before his death in London in Thompson ended up paying Anjou over November 1872, Somerby had thwarted $50,000 to research several family lines he efforts by “supposed American heirs” to was interested in. Thompson had declared claim “British gold”. Quite succinctly, as the voluntary bankruptcy in 1917 and began accompanying headline implied, it was “A devoting himself to genealogical research, Bubble Burst”.11 with hopes to compile his research, publish it and make a tidy profit. In 1930, before an Nevertheless, any researcher coming across Orphan’s Court, defending himself against a reference to Somerby (also known as H.G. contempt charges, Thompson admitted to Somerby in newspaper accounts) or any paying the considerable sum to Anjou. other known or suspected fraudster , should regard the genealogical information lightly Anjou would travel – his obituary cited until you locate actual records to back up some sixty trips to Europe and several his nineteenth century research. One such around the world – to “research” his clients’ example is a long editorial published in 1873 ancestries. He would place various noble regarding descendants of Thomas Chase. and royal ancestors on their family trees, The family had employed the services of often using made-up European parishes and Somerby to investigate English records.12 forging wills and vital records. Many of these genealogies would be published, The King of Genealogical Fraud reprinted several times and distributed to Google “genealogical fraud” and the top the genealogy collections of large libraries. results you receive will, without a doubt, Not content to forge his clients’ genealogies, include a charlatan whose life’s work still Anjou forged his own as well. According to affects genealogy research today. Much has Robert Charles Anderson, author of an been written about the man known as article entitled “We Wuz Robbed!”, an Gustave Anjou, although that wasn’t his Anjou genealogy would typically consist of birth name. He was born in Sweden, the four recognizable features: illegitimate child of Carl Gustaf Jungberg and the family housekeeper, Maria Lovisa ● A dazzling range of connections among Hagberg. dozens of immigrants (mostly to New England). After serving a prison term for forgery in 1886, he changed his name to Gustaf Ludvig ● Many wild geographical leaps, outside the Ljungberg. Following his marriage in 1889 normal range of migration patterns. Anjou took his wife’s maiden name and changed the spelling of his first name to ● An overwhelming number of citations to Gustave. documents that actually exist, and actually include what Anjou says they After immigrating to America in 1890, include. Gustave was up to his old tricks – more or

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 47 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME ● Here and there an “invented” document, garner more clients – making his fees and without citation, which appears to services “within the reach of many”. support the many connections as noted However, he made no guarantees as to the in the first item.13 accuracy of the genealogies provided. One can imagine what all the fakery could An article appeared in the December 12, lead to – estate fraud stands out as one of 1927 issue of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the most damaging. Someone basing their sounding like the editors might have figured claims, even if unknowingly, on a fraudulent out that Anjou was mostly a fraud, mildly genealogy would have themselves been mocking the “gullible with social aspirations committing fraud. . . . trying to convince themselves that there may be something after all” to Anjou’s It wasn’t uncommon either for so-called mail-order offer. For only $250 they might “confidence men” to pepper advertisements receive a complete list of “forefathers throughout American newspapers running back to the Crusaders.”15 searching for “missing heirs”, the prospects of which were “ripe for the picking” on the Of course, Anjou’s mail-order catalog unsuspecting (and gullible) general public. included glowing testimonials like this one: Newspapers like the Boston Evening Transcript and the New Orleans Times- I am delighted at what you have Picayune began running genealogy columns accomplished in regard to our line, and am in the late nineteenth and early twentieth really amazed at it, as all clews back of my centuries. Because “Dr.” Anjou was grandfather seemed obliterated and considered an “expert” his work was shrouded in oblivion. I consider you quite 16 sometimes cited as a resource. a genius in this particular work. Of course, Gustave Anjou wasn’t a Anjou conducted his scam from an office genealogist, but rather a forger of building on Staten Island. He was described genealogical records. Somewhere along the as “a well-groomed man of 60 with gray way he “obtained” a Ph.D. apparently as The hair, a waxed mustache with turned-up ends New York Times reported on November 17, and he speaks with a foreign accent.” He 1905 that “the library of Gustave Anjou, could not promise royal ancestry, however, Ph.D., an extensive collection of American the caveat being that many “noble families history and genealogy, was sold.” The did not have stamina enough to become 17 collection consisted of “privately printed or ancestors of our sturdy immigrants”. locally published family and local histories Gustave Anjou died on March 2, 1942 and of America, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and his obituary, published in several England”, which unknowingly at the time newspapers across the country, was a little were likely based largely on falsified short on details of his life (or maybe not – 14 records. since after all this was what he was known In 1921 an article appeared in the Baltimore for): Sun, stating Anjou was willing to pay $100 Gustave Anjou, 78, genealogist who made for information about the Jack/Jacques 60 trips to Europe and several around the family. Was Anjou about to be exposed and world, tracing lineages of wealthy families perhaps he decided to establish some sort at a price of $9,000 a pedigree, died of legitimacy? Although it’s unclear as to Monday night.18 why, by 1927 Anjou had dropped his fees considerably as he spread the net wider to

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 48 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME It would take years, however, to uncover the Jacob’s diary, yet without much in the way blatant fraud following Anjou’s death. of documentation and footnotes. Another Some newspapers would cite his research historical reviewer, Alfred P. James, agreed. for years to come. Meanwhile, false information continued to be propagated The first part had been easy, merely a and other fraudulent genealogies were verbatim recitation of Jacob’s diary entries. uncovered in the meantime. Such was the The problems Boyd saw were in the section case of the Horn Papers. aforementioned, written by W.F. Horn in essay fashion where he appeared to take Don’t Be Hornswoggled considerable license with known historical facts. Today, we might refer to such writing Anyone who has (allegedly) spent countless as “historical fiction” – some basis in fact hours transcribing, writing and editing a with fictional “filler”. voluminous work like The Horn Papers would welcome a glowing review. That Julian Boyd was a vocal critic, although wasn’t going to happen for this particular other scholars didn’t agree with his harsh author as his work was quickly and viciously analysis. Doctors Paul Gates and Julian attacked: Bretz, renowned and professional historians who specialized in frontier history, didn’t This publication is an extraordinary see outright fabrication, but a publication concoction, a brew of many ingredients “badly edited by amateurs whose chief sin varying widely in kind and in quality. It was lack of scholarly training.”20 definitely requires, not a short review, but an extended critique involving hundreds of What to do when a situation like this one hours of research, many dollars of expense, presents itself, when two sides of experts and thousands of words of print. However, disagree? Form a committee, of course! in a brief review, it may be said that it is a Clearly, a thorough investigation was in most remarkable compound of good and order spearheaded by Dr. Guy Stanton Ford, bad perspective, of relevancy and editor of The American Historical Review. irrelevancy, of authenticity and inauthenticity, and of accuracy and Historical societies in Pennsylvania, inaccuracy. Its sponsors, editors, and Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia were authors are lawyers, genealogists, and asked to appoint representatives to the local antiquarians, greatly serious but committee. As far as Julian Boyd was inadequately founded in the niceties of concerned there were essential questions historical criticism and historiography, a which required answers: Were The Horn shortcoming for which no blame attaches Papers authentic? If proved inauthentic, to them.19 which parts were true and which were fabricated? Secondly, if the committee Julian P. Boyd, Princeton Librarian and found clear instances of fabrication, what renowned authority on western was Horn’s motivation for publishing Pennsylvania history, was not impressed by something of such dubious scholarship and Horn’s voluminous work. Boyd (and authenticity? others) found a large section of the three volumes (about 350 pages) to be of dubious One of the initial challenges, as one 1947 scholarship. Unfortunately, this reflected scholarly William and Mary Quarterly badly on William F. Horn, great grandson article pointed out: of Jacob Horn, who had written a series of Every historian has heard of fake essays spanning this noted section based on Washington signatures or of Lincoln letters

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 49 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME sold for the pecuniary advantage of the in September 1939 was conducting research faker; but clearly this was a case of a to uncover the location of a “missing” fort. different sort. At no time was there any He had just discovered a few artifacts on hint that The Horn Papers were printed privately owned land, explaining it was no with intent to defraud anyone or to make accident that he found evidence of the fort money for anyone. It was equally clear which had theretofore evaded excavation. that the Papers were not intended as a hoax or a mischievous prank.21 Horn had only to point “with pride to certain historical papers handed down to W.F. Horn of Topeka, Kansas transcribed him and specifically telling the exact and edited Jacob Horn’s records related to location of the fort.” The stockade had been western Pennsylvania, southeastern Ohio, built in 1747-48 by the French during the western Maryland and northern West French-Indian War on Mount Calm, the Virginia history. Horn began writing to highest point in what became Fayette editors of various newspapers throughout County. So confident was he that Horn those regions, attempting to convince them predicted “his documents may slightly upset to print articles based on these historical certain long-established details of Fayette papers. county’s earliest known history.”23 Horn explained and briefly highlighted By this time W.F. Horn fancied himself an dates, characters and locations related to expert, having relocated to Pennsylvania for local history. Heretofore, he hadn’t a time. Several articles had been published published anything, admitting that much of in local newspapers in 1933-36 and it agreed with another noted historical generally well-received. account, although his information would “clear up many things”. Horn was offering However, not long after the papers began to to share his family’s history via articles be published, opposition arose claiming submitted to regional newspapers (quote is Horn’s information was contradictory when verbatim, notwithstanding punctuation and compared to other historical records. Some spelling errors): incidents reported in the papers appeared to be fabricated, but when Horn was asked Now if the “Observer” feels that the people to document his findings, with more hubris of present Washington County, will be than may have been warranted given later interested in obtaining a fairly clear challenges, he replied that since the papers knowledge of the “first days” in the came from three times great grandfather settlement of the County from these Jacob no other proof was needed.24 records, please let me know soon, and I will prepare the article stating only varified The historical societies of Pennsylvania, [sic] facts, with Charts, notes, and dates of Maryland, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia all events which the records Mentions in began to investigate the papers’ findings references.22 and eventually concluded in 1946 that The Horn Papers were indeed largely It would have been hard for local historical inauthentic, having begun their analysis societies to ignore Horn’s family papers “with an impartial mind.” It didn’t take long since, as it turned out, they did contain for committee members to discover valuable evidentiary material which helped evidence in the first two volumes which had solve more than a few historical mysteries. raised the hackles of Julian Boyd in the first place.25 For instance, W.F. Horn served as historian of the Greene County Historical Society and

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 50 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME For instance, the use of certain terms like Genealogical research is aided by web sites “hometown”, “race hatred” and “frontier like Ancestry, Family Search and more, but spirit” cast doubt on authenticity simply you can still find references to these because those terms wouldn’t have been in inaccurate and fabricated genealogies as usage during the eighteenth century. Also family researchers may be a bit over-eager of note were references to “virulent to find a connection to someone “famous” opposition on the part of Jacob Horn and (or “infamous”). In our instant society, we his fellow pioneers to the king, parliament, want everything NOW and shows like and the royal government of Virginia”, Finding Your Roots and Who Do You Think something which would not have likely You Are? often leave some with the occurred during the 1740s and 1750s since impression that you can sit down in a matter colonists were still “dependent on British of hours and map out your family history. power to defend them against the French and Indians.”26 If you’ve relied heavily on “hints” that lean more to conjecture rather than solid It is curious that The Horn Papers were still historical facts and records to fill out your installed in various library historical family tree – and one or more of your family collections despite obvious flaws. George lines is on “The Anjou List” (included as a Swetnam, journalist for The Pittsburgh special supplement to this issue) you might Press railed against them in 1958 and again want to do a little more research to ensure in 1972, calling them “History’s Biggest you aren’t perpetuating any myths and Hoax”. Forty years after W.F. Horn offered hoaxes, and as the saying goes “barking up his expertise in solving historical mysteries, the wrong (family) tree.” Swetnam was still incensed over the “horrible fiasco”.27 The problem, of course, is the propagation While researching this article I of sketchy history as factual. The long-term came across a number of heir scams effects extended far beyond the boundaries in nineteenth and early twentieth of western Pennsylvania and surrounding century newspapers. These are actually environs. In 1980 an Edmond, Oklahoma quite fascinating both from a historical and resident sent an inquiry to a genealogy genealogical standpoint. It’s almost certain column, “Our Keystone Families”, some of them have potential to affect published in The Daily News of Lebanon, twenty-first century research. Look for Pennsylvania. She had discovered frequent more stories in future issues. mentions of her ancestors in The Horn Papers, but had also heard they were “not accurate in all respects”. If true, “how can one verify things published in them?”28 If there ever was a case of caveat investigator, this is prima facie evidence. By all means utilize historical texts which may point the way to clues about your ancestors, but also back it up (which means digging on your part) with records, especially if those are not readily cited.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 51 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME In a Dead Woman’s Eye by Sharon Hall

This intriguing headline appeared in The Sun (New York) on December 27, 1894, followed by an even more intriguing subtitle:

THE SUPPOSED IMAGE OF HER MURDERER SEEN IN THE RETINA1 First of all, was this even possible? In the late nineteenth century the idea wasn’t as far-fetched as one might think. The possibilities had intrigued scientists for some time, especially since photography was invented in the 1840s, although amazingly the idea had been around since the 17th century when a Jesuit priest, Christoph Scheiner (also a physicist and astronomer), claimed to have noted an image on the retina of a frog he was dissecting. Was the faint image he observed perhaps the last thing the frog saw upon death? Nevertheless, the idea had been introduced and would eventually play a role in the evolution of photography. It wasn’t much of a leap to realize the concepts of photography and the inner workings of the human eye were related. In May 1863 Mr. Warner, a London photographer, wrote a letter to the Photographic News (later reprinted in other newspapers) after reading an account of a young woman’s murder. He had immediately written a letter to the detective in charge of investigating the crime, informing him “that if the eye of a murdered person be photographed within a certain time after death, upon the retina will be found depicted the last thing that appeared before them, and that in the present case the features of the murderer would most probably be found thereon.”2 Warner was sure it was possible, since four years earlier (for reasons unclear) he had taken a photograph of the eye of a calf not long after its death. Upon placing the negative under a microscope he found what he believed to be an image, imprinted on the animal’s retina, of pavement lines on the slaughterhouse floor, which he assumed must have been the last scene viewed by the animal prior to death. Unfortunately, the negative had since been broken and the pieces lost. With the permission of detective James F. Thompson he proceeded to share his photographic discovery with colleagues. Warner considered “the subject is of too great importance and interest to be passed heedlessly by, because if the fact were known through the length and breadth of the land, it would, in my estimation, tend materially to decrease that most horrible of all crimes – murder.” Thompson agreed the possibilities were of the “greatest importance”. However, in the case of Emma Jackson’s murder it was “unavailing in this instance” since he had first seen her body forty hours after the crime and her eyes had already been closed. A post mortem examination had been made and she had already been buried earlier that week. Thompson had been informed by an “eminent oculist some four years ago” that a decedent’s eyes must be photographed within twenty-four hours of death. Otherwise, whatever object might have been imprinted would have vanished “in the same manner as an undeveloped negative photograph exposed to light.”3 French journalists picked up the story which

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 52 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME eventually made its way to the United Upon entering the house her two youngest States, at the time embroiled in the Civil daughters ran to her and told Louise how War. two men had cut them with an axe. In September stories began appearing in I then discovered the oldest girl, daughter United States newspapers about a reported of my sister, lying on the floor in a pool of attempt to solve a horrific crime near blood. I picked up the girl, who died in my Evansville, Indiana by examining the arms; the boy lived till evening, but neither retinas of a murdered German family. of them spoke. My little girl told me that two men, one big one and one little one, had Horrible Homicide! A Father and come to the house; the little one stayed 4 Three Children Murdered! outside, and the big one went into the house On August 29 a German man named Henry and turned everything over. They then Herke and some of his children were went out around the corner and returned. brutally murdered. Herke’s wife, Louise, The big one staid [sic] outside, and the little was away at the time, having gone to market one picked up the axe and “chopped them earlier in the day. When she returned home down.” I saw the axe on the porch. It was around 11:00 a.m. a horrific, bloody scene bloody and had hair on it. My little boy awaited. showed me the axe as the one he was killed with [apparently before he died]. . . My All victims had been brutally murdered – neighbor, Carl Hines, came by the fence, first reports indicating they had been struck and discovered my husband’s body. I went by an axe, their heads nearly severed from and saw him, all bloody, and the axe by him their shoulders. Neither the cause nor the on the fence.5 identity of the perpetrator(s) was known to authorities, although neighbors had The newspaper account of the first day’s observed two men exiting the home earlier proceedings made special note of the that morning around daylight, headed defendants’ heights – Crow being about 5 toward a nearby swamp. The house had feet, 4 inches tall and Roberts about 5 feet, been ransacked. 8 inches tall with a moustache. In addition, other details following their arrest certainly The sheriff and several deputies, plus a seemed to incriminate the two soldiers. group of citizens who formed a posse comitatus, were soon scouring the area in Tracks leading away from the house had search of the murderers. The following day been discovered and upon arresting the two two soldiers were arrested at a nearby the sheriff had taken them to the tracks and hospital, one named Crow and the other “found that the shoes fitted exactly in the 6 H.C. Roberts. prints; they were army shoes.” Additional tracks suggested the perpetrators had been Justice was, of course, swifter in those days. running away, and in one track they found A preliminary trial commenced on the the imprint of three nails which morning of September 2. Louise Herke was corresponded with the nails in their shoes. the prosecution’s first witness. She had gone to market that day with her oldest son The following day a photographer named and left five children with Henry, one of Joseph Adams testified that a photograph them her niece. When she arrived home of Henry Herke had been taken by his father she found the gate open, although the house [unclear if Adams’ or Herke’s father] from door was closed. which Adams produced a magnified picture. Adams claimed (and presented it as

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 53 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME evidence) that it showed “the figure of a man moustache was plainly seen, and also the in the eye of the victim. He testified: direction of the eyes, which seemed to be looking at some object sidewise. One of the The outlines are dim; moustache blacker eyes was as clearly seen as the eyes in a and heavier from effects of chemicals used common ambrotype or fenotype.9 in magnifying; looks to me as much like one man as another; you can observe high Perhaps dead men did tell tales. Still, it cheek bones, a moustache; think the chin wasn’t C.S.I., Victorian-style. had no beard on; looks to me like a crazy, wild or drunken man; seems to me no sane In the 1870s the idea was pursued once man in a state of excitement could look that again by two German physiologists, Franz way; in my mind, picture should not Christian Boll and Wilhelm Kühne. Boll convict any man, it is too indistinct; bears discovered rhodopsin, a light-sensitive no resemblance to prisoner, Roberts, except protein retinal receptor which facilitates the ears and high cheek bones.7 absorption of green-blue light. He found the pigment in the rods of the retina and Despite Adams’ admission that the when exposed to light would “bleach”, yet supposed image was too indistinct to serve could be restored in the dark even following as proof, and the favorable testimony of death. several witnesses for the defense, Crow and Roberts were bound over for trial. However, Kühne saw potential in Boll’s in late October the two were released, “the research and believed it “could Grand Jury having failed to find bills against be used to preserve images in them.”8 the eye from the moment of death, as the images would Nevertheless, Joseph Adams had caused remain etched into the pigment quite a stir and continued to investigate and unless exposed to light.” If a experiment, although some thought his process could be developed whereby the last claims quite incredulous. Still, one noted retinal image could be preserved, then much member of the medical profession, Dr. J.P. like the image projected on a photographic DeBrueler, who was also a member of the plate, it could be analyzed. medical faculty at the Medical College of Evansville, took a painstakingly close look The process was called optography and for himself and saw a human face. Kühne continued to pursue the possibilities of advancing forensic science by finding a Subsequent newspaper accounts provided way “to pry these last images from the eyes additional details of Adams’ experiment: of the dead and develop them, just like a photograph.”10 He truly believed it He had taken an ambrotype picture of the possible to develop a method whereby eye of the deceased, and then rubbing out heinous crimes could be solved using his everything but a single object apparently research. in the centre of the eye, this was placed under an ordinary magnifying glass. At His first experiments were the first glance the object appeared blurred with animals – and, of course, and indistinct, but, getting the proper the animal had to be killed, focus, the outlines of a human face were at decapitated and its eyes once distinguishable. The image was removed, the quicker the apparently the face of a man with better. His most promising unusually prominent cheek bones, long result occurred in 1878 when the removal nose, and rather broad forehead. A black and dissection of a rabbit’s retina yielded an

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 54 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME image of a barred window. Kühne had so that photographs of their eyes might be purposely turned the rabbit so it would be taken to determine if someone else had staring at the window. Further committed the murders. The father’s eyes experimentation proved inconclusive and showed nothing and surmised that he had images were often indistinct and blurry. been killed in the dark. However, experts The goal, of course, was to produce an image claimed to have observed images on the from a human retina and Kühne got his little girl’s retina. chance when a man was executed by guillotine on November 16, 1880 for Shockingly, the two objects were believed to drowning his young children. be Clark and his mother. In late 1879 another witness had come forward who Following the decapitation Kühne was implicated the mother, alleging she had allowed to immediately retrieve the man’s conspired with another woman to kill her left eye to begin dissection of the retina. husband. The plot thickened! While he observed what he thought to be the blade, his findings were later disputed Authorities were hopeful of finding proof – the man had been blindfolded at the time, and arrested the mother, the supposition so perhaps the last image was the steps being Clark and his mother had killed the leading to the executioner’s blade. father and the little girl had seen the crime Inconclusive results did not deter Kühne, before she was killed. Clearly, “the whole nor other researchers. case reads like one of Edgar Allen Poe’s romances of crime and mystery”, one Families and some members of law newspaper opined.12 enforcement continued to hope it would somehow be able to solve violent crimes via The topic came up yet again in conjunction optography, although more than a few with the infamous “Jack the Ripper” crimes medical experts cast aspersions. In early after a British newspaper suggested the 1880 one Manchester, England doctor came possibility of an incriminating image forward immediately and threw cold water imprinted on the retina of victim Annie on a reported theory: “The theory expressed Chapman. in this morning’s paper is quite erroneous. PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE It is quite impossible to form any judgment WHITECHAPEL MURDERS from a photograph so taken.” Although complimentary of Kühne’s research, it had Commenting on the fact that Dr. Bagster yet to be proven possible for a human retina Phillips, the police-surgeon who was called to produce an image. Still, the doctor was as a witness in reference to the murder of hopeful more research would bring Annie Chapman, was asked as to the optography “to a much more perfect state.”11 possibility of obtaining a clue to the murderer by photographing the eyes of the The topic would come up from time to time dead woman, and that he gave no hopes of over the years, although one wonders what any useful result, the Photographic News was to be gained in the case of the Brown says – Although we may pretty confidently murders which occurred in September 1879 say that photographs of the eyes of the in West Winchester, Ontario. Clark Brown, murdered woman would have been useless, the oldest son, had been found guilty of there can be no doubt whatever that a brutally murdering his father and sister. series of photographs of the body and of the mutilations ought to have been taken, and Clark Brown was hanged for the deed, but in the face of these it would have been in January 1880 the bodies were exhumed difficult to conceal essential facts. It is to

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 55 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME be hoped that even now the camera will be Optography was eventually debunked as brought into requisition, especially as there nothing more than pseudo-science at best, are several experienced anatomists who despite renewed attempts in 1975 to once are also competent photographers.13 again explore the possibilities. Today, it’s merely discussed as an obscure oddity. The possibility of solving crimes with optography came up more than once in Speaking of obscure oddity, I’m always on ensuing years as references were woven into the lookout for intriguing or unusual works of fiction. Rudyard Kipling inserted headlines (like the one which entitles this the idea of taking an optogram of a dead article). A few years ago I came across man’s eye “with a Kodak camera”14 in his headlines like “Glass Eye Explodes”. short story entitled, “At the End of the Whatever did that mean? Turn the page for Passage” (1891). Jules Verne and James a “Believe it or not, stranger things have Joyce would also utilize the concept in early happened . . . .” look at this strange (but twentieth century writings. real) phenomenon. So prevalent was the lingering hope that one day someone might discover a way to extract an incriminating image from a victim’s retina, it became common practice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to photograph the eyes. Police weren’t taking any chances and perhaps criminals didn’t either, at least as long as the hope for breakthrough persisted. In 1927 Constable P.C. Gutteridge was shot and killed in the East End of London. After discovering shots had been fired through each eye, Scotland Yard investigators wondered whether the murderer had done it out of superstition to ensure the man’s retina would not reveal incriminating evidence to police. Thus, in 1894 the headline “In a Dead Woman’s Eye” wasn’t at all unusual. Jamestown photographer Fred Marsh took credit for the idea of examining Mrs. Shearman’s eyes. Subsequent reports indicated with the assistance of a powerful microscope “an apparently big man [was] presented, with bushy whiskers, and wearing a long overcoat. The trousers appear[ed] to be badly wrinkled.” Unfortunately, no distinct, identifiable features were observed – “no impression was discoverable”.15

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 56 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Ocular Explosions by Sharon Hall

In June of 1932 a column appeared in newspapers across the country, entitled “Questions and Answers from Washington”. Apparently it was a chance for everyday citizens to ask a burning question which was answered by someone in Washington, D.C. The questions ranged from “How is Italian salami made?” To “Can fleas be trained?” – and everything in between. One question posed was “Can a glass eye explode?”. The answer: “A glass or porcelain eye might explode due to some chemical change in the material used, but the recorded occurrences are extremely rare.”1 Hmm . . . tell that to Frank R. Minner, an Allentown, Pennsylvania building inspector whose glass eye exploded, “with a report like a pistol shot.”2 Very few who knew Minner were aware he even had a glass eye after losing his left eye in a building accident twenty years before the freakish accident in 1911. The man who was receiving a building permit was shocked to observe Minner remove his hand from the eye and see him bleeding profusely. Minner was in shock and fainted. Dr. Eugene M. Kistler had no idea what caused the glass eye to explode, nor could the original optician. Minner remained in shock but was expected to recover unless tiny splinters of glass had been blown back into his brain. Allentown doctors and scientists were truly baffled as to what caused the exploding glass eye. This wasn’t the first time, nor the last, an exploding glass eye made headlines. According to a column3 by Dr. Van Dellen, glass eyes were first produced in the sixteenth century, although some believe the practice dates back to the fifth century B.C. when Egyptians crafted ocular prostheses called Ectblepharons.4 These were made from painted clay or enameled metal, attached to a piece of cloth and worn outside the socket. Ambroise Parê, a French surgeon, is most often credited as the father of artificial eye design in the sixteenth century. The first ones weren’t particularly comfortable to wear, however, causing the eyelid to protrude. The term “glass eye” was mentioned in a 1743 British weekly newspaper, advertising the services of surgeon Joseph Baker who claimed adeptness at his profession: “He likewise infallibly cures deafness, takes out teeth with a touch, and puts in ivory teeth, also artificial glass eyes, so as not to be discernable.”5 In the mid-1800s German glass artisans developed a technique for making the artificial prostheses and German immigrant ocularists are credited with bringing them to America. American ocularists continued to make their own, but the material (kryolite) was imported from Germany.6 One story surfaced during the Civil War of a soldier with a glass eye who had enlisted and was discharged twelve different times. He was referred to as a “bounty jumper” because he would repeatedly enlist, pass the physical, get his bounty and then convince the camp doctor

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 57 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME he should be discharged due to defective somewhere out there was a fourth W.H. vision. This occurred repeatedly, but when Johnson with a glass eye, “that is, unless he Everett Babett attempted it a thirteenth happens to be the wrong W.H. Johnson with time that proved to be the unlucky one a glass eye.”11 apparently. Denied a discharge, he deserted, Of course, men weren’t the only ones to was captured and sentenced to be shot, utilize glass eyes, but one man in Rochester, although one source reported his sentence New York was unnerved to the point of was commuted and he would be banished seeking a divorce over his wife’s glass eye to the Dry Tortugas (Florida) for three 7 which was inflicting “unendurable torments years. upon him.” His specific complaint was the In 1869 glass eyes were made of enamel, a fact his wife slept with her glass eye wide type of glass, designed to last, at the most, open at night. The New York Times only a year.8 In late 1869 it was reported sympathized, albeit tongue-in-cheek, with that six hundred men were employed in the him: manufacture of glass eyes in America, not At first sight this may seem a trivial matter, surprising since many soldiers lost eyes 9 but a little reflection will lead us to deeply during the Civil War. sympathize with the aggrieved husband. I love browsing through nineteenth century It is not unpleasant for a man to return newspaper archives. You never know what home from a political meeting at 2 o'clock stories and headlines will pop up. Much in the morning, knowing that however like, “Saved by Her Corset” or “Killed by Her softly he may remove his innumerable Corset” (May-June 2019 issue) and “Saved boots, or however skillfully he may avoid by His Collar” or “Killed by His Collar” (see tumbling over the chairs on which he had page 61 of this issue), stories about glass deposited his hats, the sleepless glass eye eyes began to appear in the 1870s: of his wife will gleam in the light of the two bedroom candles, and follow his A gentleman from the East experienced wandering movements with a pitiless something unusual in November of 1872 glare. The most sober of men cannot while visiting Wichita, Kansas. A gust of awake in the stillness of the night and feel wind blew his glass eye right out of his head! quite at ease when he finds a glass eye “He wants to know if we have a blind asylum watching him as sternly as though its in Kansas, and if that zephyr was unusually owner knew all about his rash bet on the heavy for this latitude.”10 election of Mr. Tilden, and was waiting to explain how a man who had refused to buy “A singular story of coincidences”: In 1873 a new parlor carpet could justifiably throw Boston police were searching for a man by away his money in gambling.12 the name of W.H. Johnson who reportedly had a glass eye. They found a W.H. Johnson The man had tried everything he could think in Bangor, Maine with a glass eye, but he of to keep his wife’s eye closed, but to no was the wrong man. Another man, totally avail. While expressing a sort of mocking innocent, with the same name and a glass sympathy, the Times hoped that he would eye was located in Salem, Massachusetts. lose his suit since it would cause the courts A telegram reported that a W.H. Johnson to be overwhelmed with others seeking with a glass eye was arrested in divorces for similar reasons. They surmised Newburyport, Massachusetts, and “he that a court could grant a separation for a likewise proved to be the wrong customer.” wife who found out her husband wore false Authorities were baffled, knowing that teeth or a divorce over a wooden leg.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 58 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Clearly, the Times had a little fun with that appear. It did seem rather curious and story. comical in some instances. Women may have been a bit self-conscious, One of the first articles appeared in 1910 however, about wearing a glass eye. A when, coincidentally, a man was walking up “street-car mystery” was reported by the stairs for an appointment to visit his eye Detroit Free Press in 1877. Four women specialist. It just suddenly burst with a and a man were riding together when one “loud report” with, quite fortunately, no of the women sneezed. The man discovered injuries reported.16 For a period of several a glass eye under a parcel and asked “who years, these types of headlines would appear sneezed her glass eye out?” The women with all-too-similar stories: turned either red or pale and cast sly glances. One by one each of the women HIS GLASS EYE EXPLODES. denied having sneezed out her glass eye and A man in Austin, Texas experienced the exited the trolley, leaving the man to wonder “most peculiar accident on record” when 13 why the woman hadn’t claimed it. Arthur Nichols’ left glass eye exploded while Several hundred glass eyes were reported to he was sitting at the supper table in early have been sold annually, and eventually 1914. Slivers of glass were embedded in his animals would be fitted with the artificial face and an oculist removed them. As it prostheses, the demand for them “much turned out, Nichols had not one glass eye 17 larger than most people would imagine.” but two for he was totally blind. While dogs and horses were most frequently GLASS EYE EXPLODES WHILE fitted with glass eyes, the result of accident FARMER READS. or disease, cats might also be candidates.14 M.C. Canterberry, a Huntingon, West Glass Eyes. Their Manufacture, Sale Virginia farmer, escaped without a scratch and Ruse when his glass eye exploded while reading By the 1880s the operation for replacing a the morning newspaper. With his good eye natural eye with a glass one enabled skilled he had espied an article of interest, and surgeons to fit the glass eye on a stump leaning forward to get a better look, the following amputation of parts of the eye, artificial eye exploded and fell onto the allowing the glass eye to move naturally, paper. He described it as similar in nature and presumably appear less “creepy.” to an electric light bulb bursting, albeit on Clearly, some people were self-conscious, a smaller scale. One doctor believed it may disguising the fact they were wearing one by have been caused by a muscular utilizing a glass eye for daylight hours with contraction. Canterberry had heard of hogs a small pupil and one for night with a larger blowing up after eating dynamite or men pupil “to offset the dilation”.15 injured by exploding golf balls and doubted the veracity of those stories – now he said Suffice it to say that glass eyes were he would believe anything!18 becoming more common as articles mentioning them abounded in newspapers GLASS EYE EXPLODES AFTER 15 across the country. A story might mention YEARS WEAR. someone’s glass eye shattering as the result In Boulder, Colorado a man was reclining of it falling out or being knocked out, but on the courthouse square when his glass eye never until the early twentieth century did suddenly exploded. Fortunately, the glass the headline “Glass Eye Explodes” begin to eye exploded outward and he only suffered

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 59 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME minor cuts. An eye specialist believed a Cleve Willis was awakened one night by a small amount of celluloid in the glass eye sharp report and feeling blood stream down and the heat from his body caused it to his cheek thought he’d been shot. His glass explode.19 eye had shattered while he slept.23 HIS GLASS EYE EXPLODES. GLASS EYE EXPLODES INJURING GOOD ONE While the nation was on pins and needles awaiting news of whether Woodrow Wilson A Novel Accident Charged Against had been re-elected, a New Jersey man was the Cold. watching an automobile go by when his glass eye suddenly exploded. An elaborate A Ranger, Texas man had stepped outside theory held that “a sunray from the of a warm house during near freezing automobile wind shield, or perhaps the weather when his glass eye apparently headlight reflection, created a penetrating exploded due to the sudden temperature flash which generated enough heat to cause change.24 the explosion.”20 It seemed more often than not the cause of HIS GLASS EYE EXPLODES WHEN exploding glass eyes was blamed on sudden HE LOOKS AT A PIE temperature changes, although in 1931 a North Carolina man blamed his doctor and Farmer is Made Unconscious by sued for $15,000 in damages and lost Miniature Blast as He Eats in wages.25 The “glass eye explodes” stories Restaurant. began to taper off, however, in the 1940s. An Indiana farmer had days earlier received World War II brought about difficulties in a glass eye after losing his natural one as a importing kryolite glass from Germany, and result of a dynamite explosion. “Just as he necessity being the mother of invention, was gazing with interest yesterday at a piece scientists began developing other materials. of pie, F.K. Cosgrove’s glass eye exploded The Department of the Navy began and he fell from his chair to the floor in a developing medical grade acrylic plastic for restaurant. He was soon revived.”21 use in making artificial eyes. Technology gradually improved until today most ocular GLASS EYE “EXPLODES” WHEN prostheses are made of acrylic. HE GETS BAD NEWS. Still, it’s curious that after years of wide- Tony Sara of Freeport, Long Island had spread usage, those “Glass Eye Explodes” previously injured his eye with a headlines started popping up around 1910. screwdriver and had a glass eye inserted. Things that make you go "hmm". In September of 1921 he received news that his brother had been struck while riding a Oh, and by the way, according to “Questions bicycle and injured. Upon hearing the news, and Answers from Washington”, it is Tony’s glass eye exploded, apparently from possible to train a flea, but that’s a “believe internal stresses in the glass (or perhaps his it or not . . . stranger things have happened” own “internal stress”?).22 story for another day! GLASS EYE EXPLODES Indianan, Awakened By Report, Thought He Had Been Shot).

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 60 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Ways to Fashionablygo (or stay) in days of old Part 2 by Sharon Hall As noted in the May-June issue, we can file this article under something I like to call “It Was a Victorian Thing”. Part 1 focused on deadly and life-saving female fashion and Part 2 takes a look at the gents. Read any mid-to-late nineteenth century newspaper and you’re likely to find any number of ways people died, some rather gruesomely. About four years ago I started paying attention to some of them, although I don’t recall exactly how I came across these particular headlines in a number of newspapers across the United States. After stumbling across the “killed by her corset” or “saved by her corset” headlines I began noticing similar headlines – “killed by his collar” or “saved by his collar”. Again, what was that all about? Much like corsets, the issue was related to the material used to manufacture fashionable men’s high collars. Killed by His Collar Wm. Wood, 22 years old, of Morristown, N.J., on Saturday night came to his death in a very singular manner. He was employed as a gardener. On Saturday night he was found stupidly drunk on a sidewalk by a policeman and was taken to the station house. Several of his friends secured his release by promising to take him home. Instead they left him in an outhouse. In the morning he was found dead. Examination showed that Wood lay in such a position that his stiff celluloid collar had pressed against his windpipe and strangled him.1 KILLED BY HIS COLLAR. Celluloid Neckband Brings a Carbuncle to a Jersey City Policeman. The almost obsolete celluloid collar question has been revived by the death of Policeman Enoch Perry, in Jersey City. Policeman Perry expired from the effects of a carbuncle on his neck, caused, his relatives say, by a celluloid collar, which he was compelled to wear by order of the police authorities. Sometime ago an order was issued from police headquarters in Jersey City requiring patrolmen to wear white gloves and collars. White cotton gloves were specified and a regulation collar made of celluloid was named as the decoration for the police neck. There was much objection to the form of collar ordered. Patrolmen who had been comfortable all their lives with their necks encased in the upper works of a flannel shirt revived stories of the explosive qualities of celluloid and spread them. Within three days every policeman wearing a celluloid collar walked his beat in momentary fear that his head would be blown off. Perry was the loudest objector on the force, but being a policeman of 25 years’ experience, he wore the collar. A few days ago a carbuncle developed on his neck and Perry told his fellow policemen that it had been caused by the irritation of the celluloid collar.2

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 61 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Man Killed by His Collar which will stop respiration at once, and bring about asphyxia. Moreover, a collar At the inquest into the death of Alexander which hardly feels uncomfortable while the Alcorn, who was found dead a few days wearer is standing may draw much tighter ago sitting in a chair, the coroner’s when he sits down, and should he fall physician who made the post-mortem asleep in it, may produce congestion, coma, examination testified that he had found a and a fatal termination.5 ring mark about Alcorn’s neck made by the collar and that the man had accidentally As evidenced by these examples of “killed strangled himself to death while sitting by his collar” articles, the dangers of either asleep. a tight collar or the sharp points of an overly stiff collar presented a potential and deadly “The man was in a weak physical hazard, most notably if one happened to fall condition,” added the physician, “and the asleep while wearing a celluloid collar. As pressure of the tight collar on his neck was with corsets which “killed”, these collars sufficient to produce strangulation.”3 also “saved”, most notably from death by ALMOST KILLED BY HIS COLLAR murder. Baseball Player Throws Back His SAVED BY HIS COLLAR Head and Cuts an Artery in the Neck One of Those Derided Celluloid A stiff high collar nearly cost Edward Affairs Proves a Friend in Need Lateril his life yesterday while playing A celluloid collar was perhaps the means baseball. Running for a high fly, he threw of saving Thomas Randall’s life on Monday back his head to look for the ball, and the night. Randal is a peaceable-looking sharp edge of the high collar severed an Canuck who was sitting at a table in artery in the neck. He almost died from the George W. Rich’s saloon, No. 114 Main loss of blood before he could be taken to the Street, reading a paper early that evening Emergency Hospital and the flow stopped.4 when a laborer on the dock named Daniel Killed by His Collar McNerney, as the police report, came up and sat down. McNerney had been High standing collars are now exclusively drinking freely and began cursing at in vogue. The laws of health, however, Randall. The latter remonstrated and require that the neck should be left bare, or McNerney drew out a pocket-knife and nearly so, and unrestrained in its made a plunge at Randall. The side of the movements. Hence, the collar should be blow caught Randall in the neck, but its loose and turn-down. More than one case force was spent in passing through the has been recorded in which tight collars celluloid collar.6 have almost caused suffocation, the victims being revived with difficulty. Some two SAVED BY HIS COLLAR years ago, on the arrival of the train from How Mary Twopence Shot Her Nice at Paris, a rich American traveler was Husband, a Barber, at Orange found dead in one of the compartments – strangled as the inquest disclosed, by his Mrs. Mary Twopence of Orange, N.J., is in high collar, whose buttons had left its mark the County Jail for shooting her husband upon his skin. Nor is this at all an unlikely in the neck, says the New York Advertiser. accident, since there is a point in the throat Mr. Twopence is a barber, and has his shop close to “Adam’s apple,” pressure upon on Dodd Street. The Twopences are

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 62 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME colored. They have frequently quarreled. The wounds had been inflicted with a razor Mr. Twopence returned home yesterday and Berger says that if he had not had on afternoon at 5 o’clock. He and his wife had a celluloid collar which bore the brunt of their usual quarrel. He threatened to cut the last slash from the razor, he would have her heart out, and she said she would chill been killed. He said that when the men his blood. ordered him to throw up his hands, instead of obeying he seized one of the men by the The family ax was in the yard. It had a collar and was striking him over the head razor edge. Mr. Twopence rushed out into when the other man cut him with a razor. the yard, seized the ax, and, the wife says, shouted to her: “You black devil, I’ll cut you The first slash made a deep cut in the back deep!” of Berger’s neck. Another slash made a cut over the right ear. The third cut was the “You can’t scare me, honey,” screamed his deepest, and according to physicians, wife, who hurried upstairs and grabbed up would have caused his death had he not a 32-caliber revolver, which they kept in worn a celluloid collar. As it was the razor the bed-room. Husband and wife met at cut through the collar and only scratched the foot of the stairs. Twopence raised his the skin over the jugular vein.8 ax. As the gleaming blade was poised aloft Mrs. Twopence pointed the revolver at her SAVED BY HIS COLLAR husband. He dodged, turning his face away. A highway robbery and attempted murder in the populous suburb of Park Place was The next moment the woman fired. The prevented by a lucky accident last night. bullet struck Twopence’s collar, which was J.E. Biddle was on his way home when he very stiff, and, glancing off, imbedded itself was accosted by a highwayman. He in the fleshy part of his neck. showed fight and his assailant fired at him. A stiff collar deflected the bullet sufficiently “Don’t shoot any more! I’se got enough!” to prevent its plowing through Mr. Biddle’s yelled the barber. throat.9 “I’se done you, sho’ ‘nuff, nigger dis time,” What was it about stiff celluloid collars with said Mrs. Twopence. potential to shield or horrifically act as a Neighbors at this moment rushed in and type of “heretic’s fork” (a gruesome Mrs. Twopence was arrested. Dr. invention of the Inquisition to torture Chambers took the bullet from Twopence’s suspected witches and heretics)? 7 neck, and said the collar saved his life. Celluloid: Functional or Deadly? MAN IS SAVED BY HIS CELLULOID In 1862 Englishman Alexander Parkes, a COLLAR prolific inventor, developed the world’s first It Prevents His Being Killed by a plastic material, dubbing it “Parkesine”. As Footpad With Razor in Hand a self-taught expert chemist and metallurgist, Parkes had invented and With blood streaming from wounds on his patented a number of innovative processes head and face and gash on the right side of and materials. In 1850 Parkes “secured a his neck, Frank Berger walked into the patent for a self-acting calcining furnace, Harrison street police station early today and also a method of extracting silver from a fight with two hold-up men at Clark and metallic lead by means of zinc, a method Van Buren streets.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 63 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME known as Parkes’ zinc desilverising fifty of the city’s dentists. He demonstrated process.”10 by molding two sets of teeth, explaining how easily the substance could be manipulated. Thereafter, Parkes directed his ingenuity It was an excellent base for artificial teeth, toward discovering a substitute for “ivory, far superior to rubber and aesthetically pearl, amber, indiarubber, guttapercha, &c.” pleasing. Hyatt urged “general adoption” On October 22, 1855 he secured a patent for of celluloid.12 “using compounds of nitro cellulose with camphor, gums, resin, oils, and solvents.” The use of celluloid in the manufacture of He called it “Parkesine”.11 false teeth, billiard balls and piano keys was, of course, related to what the Smithsonian In America John Wesley Hyatt obtained called “the ivory problem”.13 Even though Parkes’ patent (later challenged in court not exactly factual, concerns arose over the unsuccessfully) and U.S. Patent No. possibility of ivory supplies being depleted, 105,338, dated July 12, 1870, was issued to at a time when the sport of billiards was John W. Hyatt, Jr. and Isaiah S. Hyatt rising in popularity. In response an (brother). By experimenting with Parkesine American billiard company, Phelan and Hyatt developed a material, quite by Collender, offered a $10,000 reward to accident, which came to be known as anyone who could invent a material to celluloid. replace ivory. One of Hyatt’s first inventions was a Parkes’ Parkesine came close, but Hyatt’s substitute for ivory in billiard balls development of celluloid was easier to developed in 1869, a combination of paper produce on a commercial level. The flock, shellac and collodion [used in early problem with celluloid, however, was its photographic processing to coat and flammability. Hyatt was well aware of the produce a photographic plate]. An problem, and not at all surprising, since the accidentally-overturned bottle of collodion main components of celluloid were sparked an idea as he observed the nitrocellulose, flash paper and gun cotton. substance solidifying. The discovery would How much more dangerous could this come to be both blessing and curse, the substance be? difference between life and death, as evidenced by articles cited above. Not long after the Celluloid Manufacturing Company was founded, fire broke out and In 1870 Hyatt established the Albany Dental destroyed part of the Albany plant. In Plate Company, producing false teeth, piano September 1875 a far more serious incident keys and billiard balls utilizing celluloid, occurred at the Newark facility. followed by the Celluloid Manufacturing Company in 1872 (moved the following year TERRIBLE EXPLOSION AT to Newark, New Jersey). Hyatt had already NEWARK discovered a number of ways to use A Celluloid Factory Blown Up celluloid, even as other businesses like the Celluloid Brush Company and the Celluloid Large Loss of Life and Property – Novelty Company were opening their doors Number of the Killed Uncertain – around the same time. Several Persons Believed to be Buried in the Ruins – One Dead One of the first uses for celluloid was false Body Taken Out – Thirteen Persons teeth. In 1874 Hyatt, as Secretary of the Badly Wounded – The Accident Celluloid Manufacturing Company, spoke Caused by Overheating Celluloid. at the New Orleans Dental College to about

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 64 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME A fire was discovered about 6 o’clock last run, and burying the players under the evening in the drying room on the second wreck of table and cues. Still worse would floor of the building of the Celluloid be the fate of a possessor of a set of celluloid Manufacturing Company in Newark. . . teeth who should, in a moment of Charles Burrows, the foreman of the forgetfulness, insert the lighted end of his drying room, in which the fire broke out, cigar into his mouth. The scene that would immediately turned on the steam, with the follow would make men and angels weep… purpose of extinguishing the fire, but he had hardly done so and reached the door, It is only fulfilling a charitable duty to when there was a terrible explosion, caused inform the possessors of celluloid teeth and by the overheating of a quantity of celluloid brushes that they are safe from the danger in process of manufacture.14 of actual explosion. Nevertheless, it is asserted that celluloid will take fire with The New York Times wondered whether the the utmost ease, and, having taken fire, will public should be wary of this new substance burn with great rapidity, giving off which might suddenly explode in someplace meanwhile a highly flammable gas. If you other than a manufactory plant? bring your celluloid hair-brush in contact with the gas-light, it will only be necessary EXPLOSIVE TEETH to drop it promptly in the water-jug and rush out into the open air. If you set your The recent explosion in Newark has made celluloid teeth on fire, the Fire Department many people aware, for the first time, of should be instantly summoned, and in the the existence of celluloid. That pleasing meantime the mouth and nostrils should be compound, which presents itself to the hermetically sealed, as are the hatchways ordinary eye in the guise of a white of a burning ship – for the double purpose substance somewhat resembling ivory, is of keeping out the air and keeping in the said to be composed of gun-cotton, inflammable gas. If these precautionary camphor, and a number of other articles measures are kept in mind, it may be quite which even the most sanguine and possible to use celluloid brushes and visionary elephant would never dream of billiard-balls and teeth without any very attempting to convert into ivory. . . great danger. At any rate, it is a comfort Now that a celluloid factory has blown up, to know that celluloid will not explode, and it is a matter of a good deal of interest to that a man can go to bed with a serene persons possessed of celluloid hairbrushes confidence that his teeth will not go off in and billiard-balls to know whether those the middle of the night with a tremendous article will explode. The hair-brush is a concussion, and without even giving the favorite tool of ladies who desire to drive knowledge – held by most people to be so nails into the wall, and who cannot thoroughly satisfactory – of what it was remember where they last laid away the that killed him.15 hammer; but surely a hair-brush which is The Times wasn’t alone in its concerns since liable to explode on sharply striking a nail, products made of celluloid continued to be and to blow the fair hammerer out of the manufactured and sold to public which may window, is to be regarded with grave or may not have been aware of the potential suspicion. No man can play billiards with dangers – “in total ignorance of the fact that any real satisfaction, if he knows that the they grind with celluloid with they masticate billiard-balls may at any moment explode their food, that they punch celluloid with a in a series of three closely-connected cue when they rattle festive balls, and that explosions, thereby spoiling a promising celluloid is [explosive] . . . Cigar smokers

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 65 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME and benzine consumers had better take matter running over the child’s face, notice because a fire engine is not always shoulders and arms.”19 handy, and it would be unpleasant, to say the least of it, to have the top of one’s head ● A Celluloid Comb Exploded. A young burned off, or a friend reduced to ashes woman in Edinburg, Indiana was severely from the action of an ignited billiard-ball.”16 burned when the celluloid comb she was wearing in her hair exploded after Advertisements for celluloid teeth appeared “holding her head too near a fire.”20 in newspapers around the country. “Some demented dentist” was perfecting a ● Exploding celluloid spread flames which “diabolical invention” – false teeth made of gutted a five-story building in New York celluloid. Claims of billiard balls igniting, City in 1901. The building housed several breastpins going off, “leaving their wearers businesses, one of them being a on their backs in convulsions”. “perfumery establishment”. The smell of “ordinary smoke was nothing by Did anyone really want to be on edge comparison to that laden with the wondering whether “his incisors or sickening smell of musk or even of high- biscupids” might explode at a dinner party. priced colognes.”21 It was one thing if a collar or knife handle combusted and quite another if a set of false ● A “little device utilized by women to hold of teeth exploded: up their lace collars – a piece of celluloid about two inches long and a quarter of an If they explode it only befalls that one’s ears inch wide, worth 5 cents the half dozen – are blown off or his fingers dispersed about cost the United States Laundry Company the dining-room, but in the case of an a fire loss of $90,000 and imperiled 200 appendage so intimate as a set of teeth a laundry workers” in Portland, Oregon in like occurrence would leave the wearer no 1910. The collar had been tucked away in organs wherewith to curse the inventor.17 another garment and hung in the drying room with hundreds of garments. When A grand announcement was made in 1890 hung close to heated pipes which lined the as the Celluloid Manufacturing Company, room the little piece of celluloid exploded the Celluloid Brush Company and the “and instantly the room was aflame.”22 Celluloid Novelty Company joined forces with a goal of creating a new “celluloid ● A Rock Island, Illinois police officer was combination”. Camphor had become near death after he used kerosene to start prohibitively expensive and it was, of a fire. His clothes caught on fire and then course, highly flammable. The new his celluloid collar exploded, severely partnership would focus on manufacturing burning his neck and shoulders.23 “a new incombustible plastic material”.18 ● In 1920 a man was willing to let his barber Unfortunately, it was a problem which was “give him the works” as long as he didn’t never solved as stories continued to appear have to take off his collar. “The barber in newspapers around the country for essayed a singe. Whoof! An explosion. several years, even into the early twentieth The collar was celluloid.”24 century: Despite these disturbing stories, collars, ● In 1886 a three-year old child was holding combs, and even children’s toys, continued a celluloid comb when it came into to explode and cause harm. In 1924, Mrs. contact with a gas flame, immediately Robert Cartwright of Brooklyn demanded exploding, melting and sending “flaming action, asking that all products made of

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 66 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME celluloid be prominently labeled as SAVED BY HIS COLLAR “combustible” in order to protect the public. Another woman had recently received It’s hard to imagine this man’s life was severe burns from “exploding celluloid spared by his collar after being run down by water wave curlers”.25 a locomotive. “He fell directly before the front wheels, but a projecting bolt caught By mid-twentieth century celluloid was his collar and held his head a few inches being replaced by synthetic polymers. above the rail while the locomotive dragged Today, celluloid objects are collector’s items him 300 feet. He was half choked and which should, of course, be handled with fainted when released by the train crew, but great care. As the Vintage Celluloid speedily recovered. Aside from a few Collectibles web site points out: bruises he is unhurt.”28 Proper handling of Celluloid items are very MAN BETWEEN 2 RATTLERS IS important considering its extreme SAVED BY HIS COLLAR flammability. Keep Celluloid items in a well ventilated room. Do not store Celluloid William Shoupe didn’t normally wear a stiff in tightly closed containers and keep away collar while on the job as an oil field worker from flames. It’s all about celluloid’s near Crystal Falls, Texas in October 1921. flammability.26 On his way to work his “flivver” broke down and he got and under the vehicle to fix the problem. Shoupe had been working away on his back for over thirty minutes when reaching for a pair of pliers he noticed a While researching this article I little peck on his neck. Must to his surprise came across a few astonishing he turned over and discovered a rattlesnake. headlines and stories related to He, of course, high-tailed it out from under collars and exploding teeth, although not the car. “An examination showed that the expressly mentioned as being made of snake had been pinned down and had not celluloid. The imagery alone . . . been able to reach a vulnerable spot of Shoupe’s body. His venomous darts could False Teeth Explode; Wreck Dental not pierce the oil worker’s collar. The snake Office was killed and was found to have four rattles.”29 Shenandoah Doctor’s Assistant Faints and Patient Nearly Swallows Rubber Sheet A set of false teeth had “behaved in a very improper manner” in 1914 in a Shenandoah, Iowa dentist office. Upon placing the false teeth in a vulcanizer to be boiled, the jar exploded, blowing out two window lights into the street, narrowly missing pedestrians. The dental assistant fainted and the patient “nearly swallowed the rubber mouth protector.”27

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 67 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME (Kentucky) and marched directly into Kentucky, a key border state Abraham Lincoln deemed essential to the Union cause. Lincoln believed if Kentucky was Ezekiel William Pettit (1837-1922) lost, “We would as well consent to separation at once, including the surrender of this capitol.”1 by Sharon Hall On January 26, 1863 the regiment was Ezekiel William Pettit was born on April 10, ordered to move with General Baird’s 1837 to parents Samuel and Polly Pettit in division to join the Army of the Cumberland the province of Ontario, Canada, not far at Nashville before moving to Franklin, from the United States border in the Tennessee to engage General Van Dorn’s township of Townsend (about 100 miles rebels. On July 22, the regiment became a west of Niagara Falls). It’s a bit unclear as mounted infantry and armed with Spencer to where Samuel and Polly were born as repeating (seven-shot) rifles. Thereafter, records vary. For instance, in 1900 the the 92nd was part of Brigadier General John record for Ezekiel indicates Samuel’s Thomas Wilder’s “Lightning Brigade”, so birthplace was “Unknown” and Polly’s was called because of the speed with which they “New York”. In 1910 and 1920 both parents had mounted and advanced to battle during were said to have been born in New York. the Tullahoma Campaign, part of “the most In 1851 the Pettit family, Samuel and Polly splendid piece of strategy I know of”, wrote and their eight children, were enumerated Abraham Lincoln.2 By April of 1864 the as Wesleyans in Norfolk County, Ontario, troops had advanced to Georgia and on May the entire family listed as being born in 7 the regiment entered the Atlanta “Upper Canada” (via a “ditto” notation for campaign. an entry above theirs). The family moved Years later, Ezekiel would boast of being one to Rockford, Illinois sometime after this of General William Tecumseh Sherman’s census, although unclear as to the exact “Bummers” and also meeting the General date. in person. The origin of the term There is an 1860 census record for an “bummers” is unclear although it appears Ezekiel Pettit in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a to have been in common usage during the laborer living in the Barnard House (a war. Whatever its origin or meaning, it was hotel), although this Ezekiel is 33, a term to be loathed and feared by indicating a birth date around 1827. Southerners. Nevertheless, Ezekiel enlisted on August 11, Sherman had a goal to “make Georgia howl” 1862 in the Illinois 92nd Volunteer Infantry, and then proceed to South Carolina, the Company H as a corporal. The 92nd was “hellhole of secession.”3 Foraging details mustered into service on September 4 and (the “bummers”) were sent out to find on October 11 the regiment left Rockford, provisions for Sherman’s troops, Illinois with orders to report to General empowered to take livestock and wagons, Wright in Cincinnati. although not officially allowed to trespass On October 2, 1862, just days before his on private property or use threatening departure, Ezekiel married Ella Elvira language. The bummers were supposed to Kendall in Winnebago County, Illinois. leave a reasonable amount of provisions for After his regiment reached Cincinnati they the family, but some disregarded the rules were assigned to General Baird’s division and instead became marauders, pillaging

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 68 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME and taking what they wanted. Whether continued on until I came upon something Ezekiel broke those rules is unknown. I hadn’t seen before – a petition from S. Boyd, attorney for Abram Parson, to the Ezekiel was slightly wounded during the General Land Office in Washington, D.C., Atlanta campaign and at some point had written sometime in late 1869 it appears. been promoted to Sergeant. On June 21, 1865 he was mustered out in Greensboro, The petition got right to the point, North Carolina. He returned to Illinois to requesting a hearing at the Land Office in continue his life together with Ella. The Lincoln, Nebraska in order to challenge how Find-A-Grave entry for Ezekiel, posted by a Ezekiel came to settle on the land in a friend of Ezekiel’s grandson, indicates they manner which sounded more or less like had five children, only three surviving to “claim jumping”, a situation where someone adulthood. takes illegal possession of a mining claim previously staked and paid for by another If census records are correct (and they party. certainly weren’t always accurate), their son William was born in Missouri in 1867 Apparently, Abram Parson had filed his according to the 1870 census. By 1870 the preemption at the Lincoln land office on family was living in Swan City, Saline December 15, 1868 for the quarter section County, Nebraska and Ezekiel was a farmer. of land Ezekiel was claiming. Parson made Three years later Ezekiel received a tract of improvements on the land, dug a well, land (just over 90 acres) obtained under the hauled timber onto the land for a house and Homestead Act of 1862 and in December of commenced to dig a cellar. In August of 1876 was granted another eighty acres. 1869 he contracted with two men to build his house. He also contracted with Ezekiel The 1873 land acquisition appears, however, to break seven and a half acres of land and to have been obtained fraudulently. At paid him for doing so. Fold3 I found land records which described how Ezekiel averred to having made actual Abram Parson was now challenging settlement on the land on September 14, Ezekiel’s claim to his land through a formal 1869 and had since resided there, made petition: improvements and cultivated the land. The document was signed on March 14, 1873. This Ezekiel Pettit appeared at the Lincoln Land office with two witnesses who swore Further proof was provided by Williams T. falsely and upon hearing their testimony Blackburn and Oscar A. Jacobson (perhaps erased his preemption and permitted this neighbors) as they too averred to the same Ezekiel Pettit to homestead the same. facts, adding that Ezekiel had built a one- story high, 12 x 34 foot sod and dugout How Ezekiel Pettit and his friends house which had doors and windows. He convinced the Land Office otherwise is had also built a stable, dug a well and unclear, since Abram Parson’s preemption planted and orchard. For purposes of wouldn’t actually have expired until proving intent to homestead, these facts December 15, 1869. were enough to guarantee the land would Parson was getting up in years and wasn’t a be permanently his. Or were they? rich man. All he really wanted was his land. The first time I researched this article I must Given the 1873 outcome it doesn’t appear have failed to continue scrolling through he was successful either. He had been these land records. While checking facts renting land and was living in Seward and references to refresh this article, I

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 69 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME County in 1870. He passed away in 1883 in of all, I don't believe there is any such place Saline County at the age of 64. as Carbunkle or Carbuncle, nor could I find any record of a mining disaster in Colorado Ezekiel and his family were on that date. However, Sidney Pettit did die enumerated in Beatrice, Gage on January 9, 1906 – at a gold mine near County, Nebraska in 1880 and Julian, California. two more children, a son named Sidney age 9 and a According to the January 10 issue of the daughter named Lottie Leavenworth Times, Sidney died by “a fall (Charlotte) age 3, had been of rock at the 160 foot level of the High Peak added to their family, along with Willie age mine”.4 Another man was injured but not 13 (who was recorded as being born in fatally. The entry at Find-A-Grave indicates Illinois – see what I mean about the his body was at the bottom of a silver mine census?). Sidney would have been born (in Colorado) and never recovered, but the around 1871 or so if the age is correct. newspaper record clearly states the facts and verifies the date of death. Further proof There is a bit of puzzlement, however, that not everything you find on the Internet regarding Sidney because the Find-A-Grave is true – especially Find-A-Grave (so-called entry (posted by the same person who “virtual graves” are a personal pet peeve!). posted one for Ezekiel) indicates Sidney was born in 1886 in Boulder, Colorado – all of News of their youngest son’s which begs the question, “who do you death must have been believe?” The census record is clear, that is devastating for the family. It’s unless the Sidney enumerated in 1880 died unclear whether Ezekiel and and another son was born in 1886 and given Ella had already moved to Santa his deceased brother’s name. As it turned Clara County, California by the out, finding out what really happened to time of Sidney’s accident, but that is where Sidney Pettit was quite a challenge. they were living in 1910. The family apparently did live for a time in They may have, in fact, been living there at Colorado. Mentions of Ezekiel can be found the time of the April 18, 1906 San Francisco in Colorado newspapers in the mid to late earthquake because a family friend 1890s. The 1900 census record for the Pettit indicated Ezekiel was the Commander of a family further muddled the family tree G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) post because there is no record of a fourteen from 1906 to 1912. In 1910, at the age of year-old son named Sidney living with the seventy-three, Ezekiel was a carpenter, a family in Everett, Snohomish County, profession he had perhaps taken up after Washington (this family certainly did get filing for his Civil War pension (as an around!). There was, however, a Sidney invalid, while living in Colorado) in 1893. Pettit matching the description of Ezekiel and Ella’s son living as a boarder in Curlew, Ferry County, Washington where he is employed as a “quartz miner”. Ezekiel’s Find-A-Grave entry is linked to Sidney’s entry, which states he was born in 1886 in Boulder, Colorado and died on January 9, 1906 in Carbunkle(??), Colorado, killed in a mining disaster. First

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 70 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME On October 2, 1912, Ezekiel and Ella celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary and on November 12, 1915, Ella passed away and was buried in Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto. In 1921, at the age of eighty-four, Ezekiel was admitted to the Pacific Branch veterans home in Los Angeles (Sawtelle, now considered West Los Angeles). His health issues were many, including hearing and vision problems, cardiac hypertrophy, arteriosclerosis and arthritis. Following his discharge on April 19, 1921 he was transferred to the Napa veterans home where he died the following year on April 26, 1922. Ezekiel was buried next to his beloved wife Ella, whose gravestone also included Sidney’s name (Sidney Ezekial), his birth date of September __ 1886 and death date of January 9, 1906. Again, this is an example of proceeding with caution when perusing web sites like Find-A-Grave. It is common to find grave stones depicted which have obviously replaced old, broken or missing ones which may or may not be accurate OR the person may not even be buried there (isn’t genealogy fun?!?). One more thing about Ezekiel which caught my eye was a reference to his religion as recorded at the veterans home in Los Angeles. Ezekiel was a “spiritualist” ... hmm.

DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 71 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME Footnotes and Sources

O, Victoria, You’ve Been Duped! Haints, Hoaxes and Humbug in the Age of Acceleration 1 Digital Public Library of America, “Victorian Era”, accessed on September 7, 2019 at https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era. 2 American History USA, “Burned-Over District”, accessed on September 7, 2019 at https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/topic/burned-over-district/. 3 Reuben Briggs Davenport, The death-blow to spiritualism: being the true story of the Fox sisters, as revealed by authority of Margaret Fox Kane and Catherine Fox Jencken (New York: G.W. Dillingham, 1888), 83. 4 Davenport, 84. 5 Davenport, 87-8. 6 Davenport, 99. 7 Ibid. 8 The Buffalo Daily Republic, May 2, 1848, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 8, 2019, 2. 9 Davenport, 102-3. 10 Davenport, 104. 11 Kenosha Telegraph, May 9, 1851, accessed at www.newspaperarchive.com on September 8, 2019, 2. 12 Peter Manseau, The Apparationists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), 35. 13 Silver Spring Advent Review, September 8, 1853, accessed at www.newspaperarchive.com on September 8, 2019, 6. 14 Banner of Light Archives, accessed on September 8, 2019 at http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/banner_of_light/. 15 Banner of Light, April 25, 1857, accessed on September 8, 2019 at http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/banner_of_light/, 4. 16 Manseau, 113. 17 Banner of Light, February 13, 1858, accessed on September 8, 2019 at http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/banner_of_light/, 7.

[72] 18 Boston Evening Transcript, April 8, 1862, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on September 8, 2019, 2. 19 Manseau, 54. 20 Herald of Progress, November 1, 1862, accessed on September 8, 2019 at http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/herald_of_progress_us/, 4. 21 Banner of Light, November 8, 1862, accessed on September 8, 2019 at http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/banner_of_light/, 4. 22 San Francisco Chronicle, March 26, 1869, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 9, 2019, 1. 23 Manseau, 305. 24 The Junction City Tribune (Junction City, Kansas), November 1, 1888, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 9, 2019, 1. 25 The Evening World (New York City), November 5, 1888, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on September 9, 2019, 3. 26 History.com Editors, “The Great Moon Hoax” is Published in the New York Sun”, accessed at https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-great-moon-hoax on September 9, 2019. 27 Richard Adams Locke, The moon hoax; or, A discovery that the moon has a vast population of human beings (New York: W. Gowans, 1859), 16. 28 Locke, 31. 29 Locke, 105-106. 30 San Francisco Bulletin, November 24, 1871, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on September 9, 2019, 1. 31 The Sun, December 9, 1872 , accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 10, 2019, 1. 32 Simon Winchester, The Men Who United the States: America’s Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible (New York: Harper Collins, 2013), 209. 33 The Sun (New York), December 5, 1872, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 10, 2019, 1. 34 The Sun, December 9, 1872 , accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 10, 2019, 1. 35 Winchester, 206. 36 Lawrence Daily Journal, February 8, 1897, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 10, 2019, 1.

[73] 37 Great Bend Beacon (Great Bend, Kansas), February 18, 1897, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 10, 2019, 4. 38 The Leavenworth Times, February 28, 1897, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 11, 2019, 1. 39 The Wichita Daily Eagle, March 2, 1897, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 10, 2019, 4. 40 The Evening Herald (Ottawa, Kansas), March 11, 1897, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 10, 2019, 2. 41 Lew Wallace Duncan, History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas : embellished with portraits of well known people of these counties, with biographies of our representative citizens, cuts of public buildings and a map of each county (Iola, Kansas: Iola Register, 1901), 715 (accessed on September 11, 2019 at https://archive.org/details/historyofallenwo00dunc). 42 The Farmers Advocate (Yates Center, Kansas), April 23, 1897, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 11, 2019, 5. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 “The Great Kansas Cownapping”, accessed on September 11, 2019 at http://www.spaceshipsofezekiel.com/html/misc-kansas-airship-cownapping.html. 46 The Neodesha Daily Sun (Neodesha, Kansas), September 10, 1897, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 11, 2019, 1. 47 “The Great Kansas Cownapping”, accessed on September 11, 2019 at http://www.spaceshipsofezekiel.com/html/misc-kansas-airship-cownapping.html. 48 “Humbug”, accessed at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humbug on September 11, 2019. 49 The Freeman’s Journal (Dublin, Ireland), October 22, 1843, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 12, 2019, 3. 50 National Geographic, “The Phrenology of a Monster”, accessed on September 12, 2019 at https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2010/02/18/the-phrenology-of-a- monster/. 51 Russel Jarvis, Esq., “On the Humbug of Phrenology”, The Gentleman’s Magazine, Volume 7 (July to December 1840), 62 (accessed on September 12, 2019 at https://books.google.com/books?id=Cp8LAQAAIAAJ&dq=phrenology+humbug&source=gbs _navlinks_s).

[74] 52 The American Phrenological Journal, Volume 2 (1840), 576 (accessed at https://books.google.com/books?id=8ThKAQAAMAAJ&dq=russell+jarvis+phrenology&sourc e=gbs_navlinks_s on September 12, 2019). 53 Brooklyn Evening Star, July 8, 1842, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 12, 2019, 2. 54 Minna Scherlinder Morse, “Facing a Bumpy History: The much-maligned theory of phrenology gets a tip of the hat from modern neuroscience”, Smithsonian Magazine, October 1997, accessed https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/facing-a-bumpy-history-144497373/ on September 12, 2019. 55 Thomas A. Foster, “Sex and Public Memory of Founder Aaron Burr”, accessed on September 12, 2019 at http://www.common-place-archives.org/vol-15/no-01/foster/#.XXrrUX97mM8. 56 Middlebury Register (Vermont), September 26, 1848, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 12, 2019, 3. 57 The St. Albans Weekly Messenger, October 5, 1848, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 12, 2019, 1. 58 The Biblical Recorder (Raleigh, North Carolina), October 21, 1848, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 12, 2019, 3. 59 Morse, Smithsonian Magazine. 60 Ibid.

It Was a Victorian Thing: Get Me Out of Here . . . I’m Not Dead Yet! 1 Merriam-Wesbter Dictionary, accessed at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fear on September 13, 2019. 2 Patricia Blake, “How the U.S. Funeral Has Grown”, LIFE, September 20, 1963, 107 (accessed at https://books.google.com/books/about/LIFE.html?id=T1IEAAAAMBAJ on September 13, 2019). 3 The Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), February 24, 1729, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 4. 4 Weekly Miscellany (London), April 28, 1733, accessed at www.newspaperarchive.com on September 13, 2019, 3. 5 The Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), November 21, 1754, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 1. 6 The Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), March 4, 1755, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 1.

[75] 7 The Derby Mercury (Derby, Derbyshire, England), July 29, 1768, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 2. 8 The Leeds Mercury (Leeds, West Yorkshire, England), August 31, 1811, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 3. 9 New York Daily Herald, April 27, 1837, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 2. 10 The Jeffersonian (Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania), October 20, 1841, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 2. 11 The Beloit Gazette (Beloit, Kansas), January 11, 1877, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 13, 2019, 2. 12 Ashtabula Weekly Telegraph (Ashtabula, Ohio), February 23, 1877, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 14, 2019, 4. 13 The Long Island Star, March 27, 1828, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 14, 2019, 1. 14 New York Daily Herald, October 12, 1843, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 14, 2019, 2. 15 Ibid. 16 U.S. Patent #US3335A, “Coffin to be Used in Cases of Doubtful Death”, accessed on September 14, 2019 at https://patents.google.com/patent/US3335A/en. 17 The Spectator (London: F.C. Westley, September 19, 1868), 1091 (accessed on September 14, 2019 at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015030334851&view=1up&seq=1). 18 U.S. Patent #US121666A, “Improvement in Life-Detectors for Coffins”, accessed on September 14, 2019 at https://patents.google.com/patent/US121666A/en. 19 U.S. Patent #US260379, “Grave-Signal”, accessed on September 14, 2019 at https://patents.google.com/patent/US260379. 20 U.S. Patent #US666605A, “Apparatus for signaling from graves”, accessed on September 14, 2019 at https://patents.google.com/patent/US666605A/en. 21 The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 28, 1904, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 14, 2019, 8. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid.

[76] Friggatriskaidekaphobia and the Thirteen Club 1 The Daily Commonwealth (Topeka, Kansas), February 12, 1870, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 2. 2 The Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), April 28, 1825, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 2. 3 Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1898), 388. 4 New England Farmer (Boston), January 8, 1830, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 6. 5 “Friday the 13th”, accessed at https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/friday-the-13th on September 3, 2019. 6 Buffalo Morning Express and Buffalo Illustrated Express, February 18, 1882, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 2. 7 Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York), April 3, 1884, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 2. 8 The New York Times, March 15, 1882, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 8. 9 The Des Moines Register, April 8, 1886, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 4, 2019, 6. 10 The New York Times, April 14, 1882, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 2. 11 The New York Times, May 7, 1882, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 12. 12 Detroit Free Press, November 19, 1882, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 10. 13 The San Francisco Examiner, December 27, 1884, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 4. 14 The Atlanta Constitution, November 12, 1882, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 1. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Reading Times, February 11, 1884, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 2.

[77] 19 Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York), April 3, 1884, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 3, 2019, 2. 20 The New York Times, July 7, 1897, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 4, 2019, 12. 21 “Washington Trip” (Thirteen Club), accessed on September 4, 2019 at https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-88a2-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.

Don’t Be Duped . . . genealogical fraud has been around a long time 1 The Virginia Gazette, May 18, 1739, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 31, 2019, 1. 2 Pennsylvania Chronicle, August 24, 1867, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on August 31, 2019, 1. 3 Vermont Chronicle (Bellows Falls, Vermont), July 14, 1847, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 1, 2019, 2. 4 New Orleans Weekly Delta, February 1, 1847, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 1, 2019, 6. 5 Vermon Chronicle, January 19, 1848, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 1, 2019, 4. 6 New York Daily Herald, January 3, 1879, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 1, 2019, 5. 7 New York Daily Herald, January 4, 1879, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 1, 2019, 4. 8 The North-Carolina Gazette (New Bern, North Carolina), November 22, 1794, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 1, 2019, 4. 9 Alph de Beauchamp, Lives of remarkable characters, who have distinguished themselves from the commencement of the French revolution to the present time (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1811), 205. 10 Paul C. Reed, “Two Somerby Frauds or ‘Placing the Flesh on the Wrong Bones’”, The American Genealogist (January 1999): 74. 11 Buffalo Morning Express and Illustrated Buffalo Express, July 8, 1872, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 1, 2019, 1. 12 The Daily Commonwealth (Topeka, Kansas), April 27, 1873, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 1, 2019, 3. 13 Robert Charles Anderson (1991). “We Wuz Robbed, The Modus Operandi of Gustave Anjou”. Genealogical Journal, Utah Genealogical Association, 19 (1 & 2) (1991): 47–70.

[78] 14 New York Times, November 17, 1905, accessed at https://tinyurl.com/yd5he9gt on December 13, 2017 (note: at the link download the PDF). 15 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 12, 1927, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 2, 2019, 3. 16 The Burlington Free Press, December 17, 1927, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 2, 2019, 11. 17 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 12, 1927, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 2, 2019, 3. 18 Des Moines Tribune, March 3, 1942, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 2, 2019, 3. 19 "Other Recent Publications." The American Historical Review 51, no. 4 (1946): 771. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1843941. 20 Middleton, Arthur Pierce, and Douglass Adair. "The Mystery of the Horn Papers." The William and Mary Quarterly 4, no. 4 (1947): 410. doi:10.2307/1919635. 21 Middleton and Adair, 412-413. 22 Middleton and Adair, 415. 23 Uniontown Morning Herald, September 15, 1939, accessed at www.newspaperarchive.com on September 2, 2019, 20. 24 Middleton and Adair, 423. 25 Middleton and Adair, 429. 26 Middleton and Adair, 431. 27 The Pittsburgh Press, October 8, 1972, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 2, 2019, 200. 28 The Daily News (Lebanon, Pennsylvania), December 4, 1980, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 2, 2019, 12.

In a Dead Woman’s Eye 1 The Sun (New York), December 27, 1894, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 7. 2 The Leeds Intelligencer and Yorkshire General Advertiser, May 16, 1863, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 3. 3 Ibid.

[79] 4 The Evansville Daily Journal, August 31, 1863, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 3. 5 The Evansville Daily Journal, September 2, 1863, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 3. 6 Ibid. 7 The Evansville Daily Journal, September 3, 1863, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 3. 8 The Evansville Daily Journal, October 27, 1863, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 3. 9 Fayetteville Semi-Weekly Observer (North Carolina), October 12, 1863, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 1. 10 “Last Sights of the Dead: The Weird Science of Optography”, accessed at https://anynewsbd.com/last-sights-of.html on August 27, 2019. 11 The Leeds Mercury, January 14, 1880, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 8. 12 The Allentown Democrat, January 21, 1880, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 1. 13 The Leeds Mercury, September 22, 1888, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 3. 14 Rudyard Kipling, Life’s Handicap; being stories of mine own people (New York: Macmillan, 1897), 265. 15 Greeley Graphic (Greeley, Kansas), December 28, 1894, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 7.

Believe it or not . . . stranger things have happened: Ocular Explosions 1 The Lincoln Star, June 24, 1932, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 19. 2 Allentown Leader, May 27, 1911, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 1. 3 Salt Lake Tribune, June 13, 1965, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 102. 4 Dallas Eye Prosthetics, “A Brief History of Ocular Protheses”, accessed at https://dallaseye.net/ocular-prostheses-history/ on August 27, 2019. 5 The Newcastle Weekly Courant (England), October 22, 1743, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 27, 2019, 3.

[80] 6 Dallas Eye Prosthetics. 7 Hartford Courant, September 16, 1864, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 28, 2019, 2. 8 Tri-Weekly Examiner (Salisbury, North Carolina), August 23, 1869, , accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 28, 2019, 1. 9 Detroit Free Press, November 29, 1869, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 28, 2019, 3. 10 Atchison Daily Patriot, November 19 1872, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 4. 11 Chicago Daily Tribune, February 10, 1873, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 5. 12 The New York Times, October 10, 1876, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 4. 13 St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 22, 1877, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 10. 14 The San Francisco Call, February 21, 1893, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 8. 15 Pittsburgh Daily Post, June 24, 1881, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 3. 16 The Concord Times (Concord, North Carolina), May 9, 1910, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 1. 17 The Indianapolis Star, February 16, 1914, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 5. 18 Portsmouth Daily Times (Portsmouth, Ohio), April 16, 1914, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 8. 19 The Charlotte News, August 11, 1914, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 10. 20 Allentown Democrat, November 9, 1916, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 1. 21 Chicago Daily Tribune, December 8, 1916, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 17. 22 New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania), September 30, 1921, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 8. 23 Cincinnati Enquirer, March 17, 1923, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 7.

[81] 24 Marble Rock Journal (Marble Rock, Iowa), April 19, 1928, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 1. 25 Reading Times (Reading, Pennsylvania), April 25, 1931, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 29, 2019, 17.

Ways to (Fashionably) Go In Days of Old (Part 2) 1 Columbus Daily Enquirer, November 12, 1886, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on September 6, 2019, 5. 2 Topeka State Journal, May 19, 1898, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on September 6, 2019, 9. 3 Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Virginia), December 9, 1906, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on September 6, 2019, 10. 4 Santa Fe Daily New Mexican, August 19, 1909, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on September 6, 2019, 2. 5 Wichita Daily Star, November 29, 1897, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 2. 6 Buffalo Weekly Express, December 1, 1887 , accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 5. 7 The San Francisco Call, August 30, 1891, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 7. 8 The Saint Paul Globe, August 18, 1903, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 1. 9 Boston Journal, August 17, 1906, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on September 6, 2019, 4. 10 Iron (London, England), July 25, 1890, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 16. 11 Ibid. 12 The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), March 7, 1874, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 1. 13 Kat Eschner, “Once Upon a Time, Exploding Billiard Balls Were An Everyday Thing”, accessed on September 6, 2019 at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/once-upon-time-exploding-billiard-balls-were -everyday-thing-180962751/#ZLqlIQCI5jJdxyzv.99

[82] 14 New York Tribune, September 9, 1875, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 1. 15 The New York Times, September 16, 1875, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 4. 16 Decatur Daily Republican, September 23, 1875, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 3. 17 New York Tribune, August 7, 1878, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 4. 18 Wheeling Register (Wheeling, West Virginia), December 29, 1890, accessed at www.genealogybank.com on September 6, 2019, 1. 19 The Weekly Wisconsin (Milwaukee), December 4, 1886, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 3. 20 The Indianapolis News, February 7, 1899, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 6. 21 The New York Times, December 23, 1901, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 2. 22 Sioux City Journal, August 11, 1920, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 2. 23 Quad-City Times (Davenport, Iowa), January 24, 1916, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 13. 24 Los Angeles Herald, March 5, 1920, accessed on September 6, 2019 at https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=LAH19200305.2.47&e=------en--20--1--txt-txIN------. 25 The Chat (Brooklyn, New York), May 3, 1924, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 6, 2019, 66. 26 “All About Celluloid’s Flammability”, accessed on September 6, 2019 at https://vintage-celluloid-collectibles.com/all-about-celluloids-flammability. 27 St. Joseph Gazette, June 29, 1914, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 7, 2019, 1. 28 Detroit Free Press, August 30, 1907, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 7, 2019, 3. 29 The St. Louis Star and Times, October 9, 1921, accessed at www.newspapers.com on September 7, 2019, 34.

[83] The Dash: Ezekiel William Pettit 1 Bruce Levine, The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South (New York: Random House, 2013), 110. 2 Stephen Z. Starr, The Union Cavalry in the Civil War: The War in the West, 1861–1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 234. 3 David Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen, The American Pageant (Cengage Advantage Books, 2012), 436. 4 The Leavenworth Times, January 10, 1906, accessed at www.newspapers.com on August 26, 2019, 1.

[84] Photo Credits

Page Citation 10 Mary Lincoln spirit photograph, Public Domain, accessed at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mumler_(Lincoln).jpg 18 San Francisco Air Ship, accessed at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mystery_airship_SFCall_Nov_22_1896.jpg 21 Burr’s bump, accessed at www.newspapers.com (The South Bend Tribune, December 31, 1972, 70). 21 Phrenology map, accessed at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/PhrenologyPix.jpg 22 Phineas Gage, accessed at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phineas-Gage 31 William Fowler, accessed at https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/thirteen-club-superstition-new-york. 33 Thirteen Club Invitation: Atlanta Constitution, November 12, 1882, accessed at www.newspapers.com, 1. 35 Theodore Roosevelt Thirteen Club Membership, accessed at https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/thirteen-club-superstition-new-york 54 Wilhelm Kuhne, accessed at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wilhelm_Friedrich_K%C3%BChne_(HeidIC ON_28859)_(cropped).jpg

[85] THE “ANJOU LIST”

Abbott Carter Elliott Henderson Adams Caryll Erickson Hinington Alcott Chalfont Everson Holliday Andrews Chaplin Faile Holmes Atcheson Child Farquhar Hopewell Auchincloss Church Farrell Hopper Auld Clark Ferte Hord Austin Claus Ficken Houston Backus Clement Fish Hudson Bacon Clise Fisher Hulbert Bagley Cluett Finley Hulbord Baldrey Cochran Fisk Hull Ball Cook Flanders Humbird Bannard Copley Flower Hungerford Barber Corbie Forbes Huntington Barbey Corliez Fordyce Hurd Bascom Corry Foster Hurlbert Beach Covard Frazier Hurst Beers Crane Freeman Hyde Bell Cram Fuller Ingrim Bennett Cravath Gale Jack Berbevin Crawford Gallaway Jacques Blaisdell Cunningham Galloway James Bloedel Daniel Galway Jewell Bodine Day Gasque Johnson Braman Deford Gilbery Jones Brooks Delafield Gill Kennett Brookin Dennis Goff Kernochan Broquin Dent Goss Key Brown De Ronde Grant Kingsley Bryant Devecman/devec Gross Kleist Buckner mon Hackley Klaus Budd Dickey Hager Knight Bull Dornan Halliday Knox Burham Doty Hall La Croix Burrell Duff Halls Lane Bush Douglas Hamilton Langauer Caldwell Dubois Hammond Langaer Campbell Duncan Hansen Langar Carr Dupont Hardy Langevin Carroll Duncan Harris Langier Caruthers Duryee Hay Langigar Caruthers Edwards Hayward Langjaer For more information: https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Fraudulent_Genealogies

Langelier Lanham Olcott Synnott Lee Old Taylor Leihau Ord Ter Bush Leman Ormond Thaxter Lenham Orr Thompson Lenman Packer Tilney Lewis Page Tomlinson Lille Park Tone Lilli Parker Topping Lillie Parson Traylor Lilly Partridge Traylour Lincoln Patterson Turner Lister Paul Van Der Goes Littig Perrin Van Horn Longar Phipps Van Meteren Longyear Preston Van Wasserburh Lothrop Pullman Walker Lovejoy Rand Walley McCay/McCoy Redburn Walton McCormick Reddy Ward McGaffrey Richardson Waterbury McGhee Roberts Weld McVickar Robins Welling Mantz Robinson Welles Mark Rockwell Wells Markle Rogers Welsh Marshall Ronde Wheeler Martin Root Wheelock Maurice Ross Whitman Miller Runk-runck Wilds Millikin Russel Willis Molette Schneider Wilson Mons (Mantz) Schuyer Witherspoon Moore Seaman Witmer Morage Sedgewick Wolff Movius Selby Wooley Mure Shapleigh Woolworth Murphy Snider Worcester Nicholson Shipley Work Nixon Smith Wyckoff Noell Sproull Novell Stone Nowell Stowell Ogden Swift