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The Gilded Age, Dakota and “Phocion” of the Chicago Times

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2010

Lewis O. Saum
Lewis O. Saum
Affiliation:
University of Washington-Seattle
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Extract

Published in 1873, Mark Twain's and Charles Dudley Warner's The Gilded Age went on stage two years later. By the book and the play, Colonel Mulberry Sellers became, at least to some, a dramatic illustration of what was afoot in that era. In March, 1875, the Chicago Times carried an entertainment notice for the opening of that play in that city. This account told that the author of the book and the playwright had envisioned Lawrence Barrett for a role in the play; but it dawned on them that someone with more of a comedic inclination would do better. Perhaps an intimation of that change of tone can be seen in a change of name. The colonel of the novel had a biblical first name, Beriah (Genesis 46–17). That colonel now became Mulberry Sellers, and a humorous actor, John T. Raymond, entered the scene for which Lawrence Barrett had been considered. As this Chicago Times writer put it, the play, with Raymond, had created a “sensation” in New York City, in a run of 120 days. Now Chicago would share the excitement.

Type
Essays
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , October 2004 , pp. 321 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2004

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References

1 Chicago Times, March 7, 1875. This 1875 depiction of the play and of the novel has some things that bear noting. First, it contains no mention of Mark Twain's collaborator, Warner. It is simply “Twain's novel.” Also, that interplay of Barrett and Raymond intimates something now easily overlooked. Consideration of that tragedian Barrett betokens the fact that grimness abounds in that book, the memorable character of Colonel Sellers notwithstanding. Perhaps related to that is the fact that this 1873 novel has an abundance of material set in pre-Civil War America. The “Gilded Age” has largely prevailed as an identification of late nineteenth-century America, though, in recent years, the almost fetishistic use of the descriptive Victorian has intruded upon Gilded.

2 Chicago Times, March 7, 1875. Wolff, David A., “No Matter How You Do It, Fraud is Fraud: Another Look at Black Hills Mining Scandals,” South Dakota History 33 (Summer, 2003): 93–119Google Scholar, has some general aptness for the present effort, and it opens by invoking Mark Twain. It quickly turns, however, to episodes later than 1875. As an over-view of the mining excitements of the late nineteenth century, Paul's, Rodman W. last chapter, “Culmination in the Black Hills,” and the full book, Mining Frontiers of the Far West, 1848–1880 (Albuquerque, 1963)Google Scholar, are excellent. As a full book, Parker, Watson, Gold in the black Hills (Norman, OK, 1966)Google Scholar, includes much newspaper coverage, but apparently none from the Chicago Times. Eriksson, Erik McKinley, “Sioux City and the Black Hills Gold Rush 1874–1877,” Iowa Journal of History and Politics 20 (July, 1922): 319–47Google Scholar, has intense coverage of the 1875 developments as they appeared in Sioux City papers, and in nearby locations. It seems not to treat the likes of “Phocion.”

3 Chicago Times, March 7, 1875.

4 Ibid., March 8, 1875.

5 Ibid.

6 Crouthamel, James W., “Wilbur Fiske Storey,” American National biography 20, 885–87.Google Scholar For a fuller treatment, see Walsh, Justin E., To Print the News and Raise Hell: A Biography of Wilbur Fiske Storey (Chapel Hill, 1960).Google Scholar

7 Chicago Times, March 20, 1875.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid., March 11, 1875.

13 Ibid., March 20, 1875.

14 Ibid., March 13, 1875.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid., March 11, 1875.

17 Ibid., March 20, 1875.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Walsh, To Print the News and Raise Hell, 244.

22 Chicago Times, April 10, 1875. One can only surmise that this was Phocion's work. The photocopy used by me had almost the full column, but not the full last paragraph. One assumes that it had been torn away in the original that had been photocopied, so the nom de plume was gone. It has come to my attention that the photocopy at the Chicago Historical Society has that same part missing.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid., May 21, 1875.

25 Ibid.

26 See, Emmons, David M., Garden in the Grasslands: Boomer Literature of the Central Great Plains (Lincoln, NE, 1971).Google Scholar

27 Chicago Times, May 21, 1875.

28 Ibid., May 29, 1875.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 Don Russell, Introduction to Cox, John E., Five Years in the United States Army Reminiscences and Records of an Ex-Regular (1892, repr. New York, 1973), vii.Google Scholar In fact, in the 1892 original, Cox recounted that “Phocean” wrote for the Inter Ocean (28), and Russell seemed to credit that, though hedging that mistake with “Presumably.”

32 Chicago Times, May 29, 1875. Gordon slipped into inconsequentiality, but he left a mark on the land. A few miles from where his party was apprehended, there came his namesake, the Sheridan County, Nebraska, town of Gordon.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid. Both of Phocion's last two reports—sent on May 18 and May 25—appeared in this issue of May 29.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid., May 21, 1875.

39 Ibid., May 29, 1875.

40 Knight, Oliver, Following the Indian Wars: The Story of the Newspaper Correspondents Among the Indian Campaigners (Norman, OK, 1960), 223.Google Scholar

41 Howard, Phocion, “A Reminiscence of Stanton,” Chicago Daily News, July 20, 1886.Google Scholar It seems fair to assume that Eugene Field of the News prompted Howard to write this piece, as the two men—one a strong Republican, the other a strong Democrat—had become fairly good friends. This reminiscence of accompanying political leaders on their mission moved from President Lincoln to Secretary of War Stanton.

42 Russell, T.H., “A Returned Gold Hunter,” Chicago Inter Ocean, June 18, 1875.Google Scholar One assumes that this was Thomas H. Russell, an active publicist and participant in these Dakota developments, as shown in Parker's Gold in the Black Hills.

43 Cox, , Five Years in the United States Army, 28.Google Scholar

44 Knight, , Following the Indian Wars, 220.Google ScholarGray, John S., Centennial Campaign: The Sioux War of 1876 (Fort Collins, CO, 1976)Google Scholar is a fine work which has several mentions of Howard, without comment on his character.

45 Knight, , Following the Indian Wars, 328–30.Google Scholar