1908

DEAD DRUNK

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Q: What lubricant would prevent a man from being crushed to death beneath a locomotive turntable? A: Wood alcohol, apparently.

A gentleman who tippled overmuch found himself in the Railroad Square area one evening in 1908, looking for a place to have a bit of a lie down. The big turntable used to turn around the California Northwestern steam locomotives looked like a cozy spot, so he crawled underneath. The next thing he knew, he was dead.

Or so thought the train’s crew, at first bewildered as to why the turntable stopped moving, then alarmed to find a lifeless body gumming up the works. As they were waiting for the Coroner, the former corpse began twitching and moaning. The man rose, asked the crew for the direction of Sebastopol, and tottered off into the night. When the police arrived, they told the skeptical officer, “He is not here, but when we called for the patrol he was dead.”

BONUS 1908 DRUNK STORY: An inebriated man became so enamored by a poster of a pretty actress appearing at a Petaluma theater that he “began to make violent love” to the billboard (the Press Democrat just meant kissing, unless “kissing” was a euphemism for something not to be mentioned in a family newspaper). Believed to be insane, he was arrested and taken to the county jail in Santa Rosa. The next morning he appeared before the Lunacy Commissioners and convinced them that he only puckered up because he was liquored up.

KISSES AND A BOOZE AND NOT INSANITY
Frank Hatton Discharged by the Lunacy Commissioners on Charge of Insanity Here Thursday

His love promptings fired, it is said, buy an over indulgence in “high balls” and “cocktails” in Petaluma, Frank Hatton, a San Francisco man temporarily stopping in the southern city, began to make violent love to a lithograph displaying the attractive face of a theatrical star appearing at a Petaluma theater. It was charged that he kissed and kissed again the picture on the bill board and his conduct was that of an insane man in the eyes of a number of people. He was violent and was finally captured and brought to the county jail in this city.

When brought before Judge Seawell on Wednesday he appeared to have recovered his senses and the effects of too much booze had vanished. Thursday morning when he appeared before the court and Lunacy Commissioners J. W. Jesse and P. A. Meneray he was questioned and admitted his foolishness in over indulgence and his osculatory assault on the picture on the wall. He was discharged and possibly his experience in a cell set apart for insane people will do him good. The doctor agreed that it was a case of too much liquor.

– Press Democrat, June 19, 1908
THE CORPSE GOT UP AND WALKED AWAY
Man Apparently Killed in the Turntable at the Depot Last Night–Coroner Sent for by Train Crew

A corpse at the Northwestern Pacific depot Monday night would not wait the arrival of an undertaker or Coroner Frank Blackburn, the just walked off into the night without as much as giving any name. Incidentally Engineer James Ahern, Fireman Goodman and Brakemen McPeak and Ferguson were given the scare of their lives.

After the arrival of the last train from San Francisco Monday night the big locomotive was run onto the turntable for the purpose of being turned around. The motive power for moving the turn table was furnished by the members of the train crew whose names are given above. They had the table and the great iron horse on top of it turning merrily when all of a sudden the thing refused to go any further.

“Hold on boys,” cried Engineer Ahern, “someone must have got down underneath the table.”

The torch was brought and to their horror the men discovered that the body of a man was wedged in under the turn table, and that it had stopped its further movement. A hasty examination was made of the man’s body, but there was no sign of life.

“Go up town and send in a message to the Coroner,” said Engineer Ahern, “we must get the body out of there as soon as possible.”

The messenger started up town to call the Coroner, and the other members of the train crew stood around in silence, as they supposed in the presence of death, feeling mighty glum at the gloomy ending of the day’s work.

Suddenly there was a twitching of the hitherto motionless body, followed by a groan.

“Get a doctor and not the Coroner. Call the ambulance. Do anything, but he is come to life again,” shouted Ahern, and he at once knelt beside the man and commenced to rub his chest. This treatment improved his condition rapidly, and before the patrol wagon could arrive he stood up, rubbed his eyes, said he would use some wood alcohol out of the bottle he carried in his pocket, and which did not break in crushing process, upon his sore head and chest, inquiring the way to Sebastopol and struck out.

When the train crew had recovered their composure, “No. 21” was given the merriest kind of a ride around the turn table and the men went off to their supper. Engineer Ahern said later in the evening he never was so surprised in his life to see a dead man come to life.

It is supposed that the man went asleep at the turn table, and possibly may have taken a “night cap” before laying down to what miraculously did not mean the last, long sleep for him. He was a short, rather heavy set man, and was quite well dressed. No doubt today he will feel rather sore from the pinching given him in the turn table Monday night.

Police Officer Nick Yeager responded to the call for the ambulance and hurried to the turn table with the wagon, and when he got there the “dead or dying man” was not in sight. “He is not here,” said the trainmen, “but when we called for the patrol he was dead.”

“Sounds mighty fishy,” quoth Yeager, somewhat disgruntled and out of breath. “But hurrah for the corpse, anyway.”

And the casket rode back empty on the floor of the patrol.

– Press Democrat, November 17, 1908

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PLEASE DON’T BURY ME

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

The married couple accepted that he was dying, but they just couldn’t agree what to do with his body afterwards. He wanted his remains cremated; she couldn’t stand the idea. So a deal was struck: For six months after his death, the mortician would hang on to his corpse. If she still opposed his wishes at the end of that time, she could bury him.

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION

Given the historic prominence of the Oates and Comstock families, it’s usually easy to find a “6 degrees of separation” link to Comstock House. This route, however, is a bit unusual:

Dana L. White (I) was a member of the Shaker community at Harvard, Massachusetts, from about 1838-1863.

In 1843, when he twelve, a utopian commune called “Fruitlands” was established nearby. Founding members included the family of Louisa May Alcott (II), who was about a year younger than Dana White. Although the commune only lasted a few months, it is possible that the children met, given that Fruitlands was based partially on Shaker principles and that the fledgling community had to trade handmade goods for food.

Around 1862, Alcott adopted a 4 year-old boy named Francis Edwin Elwell (III) who became a noted sculptor.

His son, Alcott Farrar Elwell (IV) married Helen Chaffee (V) and in 1907, Helen and another young woman were the guests of honor at a fancy soirée held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Wyatt Oates, where a little orchestra was tucked behind potted palms in the library.

Cremation was still a pretty exotic affair back in 1908 America, outside of the the San Francisco Bay Area. There had been only about 48 thousand cremations nationwide since record-keeping began in 1876, and nearly 1 out of 3 was performed in this area.* (Two crematories were operating in San Francisco since 1895, and one in Oakland followed in 1902.) Strongly opposing cremation were Catholics and other orthodox christians whose belief system demanded that a corpse be buried ready and waiting for a physical resurrection on judgement day. Someone who wanted cremation was probably a “free thinker,” a member of the Masons or Odd Fellows, or belonged to a religious group such as the Quakers. And that was the background of Mr. Dana L. White, who had been raised as a member of the “United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing,” also known as the “Shakers.”

White was probably an orphan when he taken in by the Shaker community at age seven. The movement was then at its peak, with about 6,000 members. That figure may seem small and cultish today, but it was a lot of people around 1840; today it would be the equivalent to a good-sized California city such as Richmond or Ventura (or any other cities with a pop. of about 103k, such as Wichita Falls, South Bend, or Cambridge). The Shakers viewed death as a dust-to-dust proposition. In their monthly journal, “The Shaker Manifesto,” letters and essays can be found calling for “rational burials” and ridiculing the notion that someone’s “never-again-to-be-animated form” would actually rise from their graves as “distasteful,” “false theology” and “idiotic.”

In the end, however, Mr. White did not win his post-mortem debate with his widow. He is buried in the Stanley section of the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery.

Obl. Believe-it-or-Not footnote: Although he died in 1908, Mr. White might be another victim of the 1906 Santa Rosa Earthquake. The article below notes that he returned to town just a week before the disaster, and “was an invalid, and was nearly always bedfast” from that point on. He suffered from acute asthma for much (or all) of his life, and a man who lived about three blocks away died of pleuritis a few days after the quake, his lung problems presumably exacerbated by the great clouds of dust kicked up by the collapsing buildings and the fires that burned for two days. (Mrs. White was listed in the 1908 city directory as living at 914 Santa Rosa Ave, which would have been directly south of the modern Highway 12 overpass.)

*pg. 450, British Medical Journal, February 25 1911

DEAD MAN’S WISH PREVENTS BURIAL
Widow Opposes Cremation; Body Lies in a Vault Until Decision is Made as to its Disposal

The body of D. L. White, who passed from life January 30, reposes in a private vault at Stanley’s Cemetery. Mr. White himself favored cremation as the correct disposal of the remains of the dead, but his wife viewed that with disfavor. When he knew that death approached, he discussed the matter with the woman who was soon to be widowed, and the two agreed that when he had passed away he should placed in the vault for several months, and taken out when the window felt reconciled to incineration of the body, or, if her feelings remainder the same after a half a year’s reflection, she still opposed cremation, she should then dispose of it by burial.

Although Mr. White had lived many years in Santa Rosa, he was not well known here. Much of the time he was an invalid, and his acquaintances were consequently few. Those who knew him and had great admiration for his character. Studious, well informed, and possessed of high intellect, he was a charming companion for those who did know him. He was born in Boston, 77 years ago. At the age of seven he was placed in a Shaker community at Harvard, Massachusetts, and remained there until he was 32 years of age. He received a thorough education in literature, and was trained as a druggist, also as a botanist, the Shaker medicament being purely botanical. At the age of 32. He left the Shaker settlement. Much regret at parting was felt, both by himself and by those he left behind. He was an Indian Territory pioneer, and also a pioneer in Idaho. He was a miner in the latter territory and for a while had 180 men working for him. Although he prospered greatly while in good health, he saved no fortune; for he was a lifelong sufferer from asthma, and had frequently to abandon work and business, and spent large sums in travel and for treatment. After six years in Idaho he came back to Santa Rosa. For two years he was a partner of Jack Atkins, an old-timer now passed away.

Mr. White was married in Santa Rosa in 1873, to Sally Ricklifs, daughter of the late Peter Ricklifs. After a few years here, Mr. and Mrs. White removed to Truckee. He was in the drug business there seven years, and then went to Fruitvale. They again returned to Santa Rosa just a week before the great disaster of April, 1906. During all of his last residence here, Mr. White was an invalid, and was nearly always bedfast, with his wife as his constant and devoted attendant. His end was peaceful, painless, and calm. Deeply religious, and confident of the future, he had no fear of eternity.

– Press Democrat, February 8, 1908

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1923burbankcactus

THE PRICKLY LUTHER BURBANK

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Luther Burbank was clearly peeved when the reporter asked for comment on whether his greatest achievement was actually a failure.

At issue was a government pamphlet released a month earlier, at the close of 1907. The topic was the prickly pear cactus, also known as genus Opuntia, also known as Burbank’s most profitable plant creation ever. The government experts were envious, Burbank told the reporter, because he had beaten them in developing a fast-growing spineless variety that had ten times the nutritional value of the regular plant.

(RIGHT: Luther Burbank with his spineless cactus. Photo from the Sept. 1908 issue of Overland Monthly)

The spineless cactus was Burbank’s moon shot – an odyssey with the goal of creating a hybrid that would be as important to mankind as his namesake potato. Worthless deserts would become valuable pastures and croplands; the fields once used to grow animal fodder like alfalfa could now feed the world’s hungry. It was his longest running project (a photograph in the Library of Congress collection shows Burbank tending a cactus seed bed c. 1890) and one that he called “soul-testing.” In his authorized Methods and Discoveries book series, he revealed uncharacteristic emotion:


…[T]he work through which this result was achieved constituted in some respects the most arduous and soul-testing experience that I have ever undergone….For five years or more the cactus blooming season was a period of torment to me both day and night. Time and again I have declared from the bottom of my heart that I wished I had never touched the cactus to attempt to remove its spines. Looking back on the experience now, I feel that I would not have courage to renew the experiments were it necessary to go through the same ordeal again.”

Burbank declared success in 1907, a year after making a deal for Australian rights to five varieties – a sale he credited for allowing him to build his fine new house – and he published a cactus catalog (a later version can be found here). The improved spineless cactus would mean “a new agricultural era for whole continents,” he boasted, and “in importance may be classed with the discovery of a new continent.” Most of the public, however, probably already knew of Burbank’s latest marvel from magazines and newspaper Sunday sections, which had been churning out gee-whiz photo features for a couple of years. Then came a widely-reprinted speech he delivered at an agricultural convention. Where the catalog offered grandiose visions of desert paradise, his speech read like a salesman’s list of can’t-refuse bullet points: Yield is 200 tons of food per acre; grows in the very worst conditions; cattle and other animals prefer it to everything else. How many would you like to order, at $2.00 each?

Cactus mania continued ballooning through the end of 1907 as it became publicized that Burbank would receive a staggering $27,000 – by far, the biggest single payday of his life – from a Southern California company for rights to some varieties. Eager to get in on a Sure Thing, investors and farmers besieged government ag field offices seeking more information about these spineless wonders, which led the Dept. of Agriculture to write a pamphlet. And that’s what brought the Press Democrat reporter to ask Luther Burbank whether his cactus was actually a “failure.”

At first read, it’s hard to understand why Burbank knocked the pamphlet and its authors. It doesn’t mention him at all; the 67-page report simply documents the wide variety of prickly pear cacti and how they are consumed in Latin America. Even the title, “The Tuna as Food for Man,” is perfectly clear about the author’s objective, as “tuna” is the Spanish name for this cactus. Some of the fruit described was inedible or tasteless, but a few varieties, such as the Amarilla, was delicious; other varieties were dangerous or plain weird, such as the Tapona (“plug”), which was said to cause such severe constipation that death could ensue.

The Ag. Dept. bulletin also noted that some prickly pear, which had been cultivated by native peoples for generations (probably millennia) were naturally spineless, a fact that Burbank wanted rarely known. Although he would simply answer “no” when asked directly if he had bred the smooth variety from the prickly sort, he wanted the public to believe exactly that. George Shull, the botanist from the Carnegie Institution who studied Burbank’s methods for years, later wrote of his dismay that Burbank set up a display intended to be “misleading to the uncritical:”


Just inside his gate at his Santa Rosa experimental Garden, he had planted a bed, some 15 feet square, with a sprawling, thorny cacti from the desert. In the midst of this forbidden looking culture, he planted a single specimen of Opuntia Ficus-Indica of the spineless variety, in most striking contrast with the thorny cacti around it. Mr. Burbank’s visitors, who often came in droves, would look over the fence at this striking demonstration and comments to one another [on] the amazing wizardry which “created” the smooth fat-slabbed cactus from the sprawling thorny ones.*

It may seem odd that the government would produce a 1907 pamphlet all about the prickly pear yet not mention the 800 lb. Burbank in the room, but this undoubtedly was the wisest decision. One reason is that Burbank was a polarizing celebrity, beloved by the public and viewed as something of a charlatan by the many in the scientific community, as discussed in the first “Burbank’s Follies” essay. Any explicit praise or criticism would be sure to raise someone’s hackles. Another reason is that Burbank simply hadn’t shared samples of his hybrids with government researchers – and according to an article in the Jan. 10, 1909 Los Angeles Herald, Washington was still waiting over a year later to see a Burbank cactus. A few sentences in the pamphlet’s introduction, however, took a very cautious aim at deflating a few of his claims:


Enthusiastic magazine writers would revolutionize conditions in arid regions by the establishment of plantations of prickly pear without spines, those converting the most arid deserts into populous, prosperous communities. Experience teaches, however, that the spineless varieties of cultivation are not hardy under natural desert conditions, that all of the valuable spineless species which produce either fruit or forage in economic quantities require considerable precipitation at some time of the year, and that economic species are not known which thrive under a minimum temperature of less that 10°F [Ed. note: In a later pamphlet, the author changed the cold-weather threshold to 20°F].

In other words, never would the desert bloom in vast cactus farms. The spineless varieties were more delicate than the spiny forms, sensitive to cold and not as drought tolerant. They grew best only in places with year-around rainfall or with wet, mild winters and dry summers. Places like Santa Rosa, California, for example.

Other claims by Burbank and his agents crumbled under scrutiny. Often mentioned was that a crop would yield 200 tons of forage; less said was that it would take at least three years for the cactus to grow to that size. Burbank also stated that his cactus required only about a third the amount of water needed to grow alfalfa – although again avoiding mention that a crop took three years, thus bringing water use to a draw. Since his cacti were slow growing (though apparently faster than many wild forms) it was impractical for pasture grazing, yet harvested cactus paddles were bulky, hard to transport, so they had to be grown near where they would be used. Any way you looked at it, the Burbank cactus was a failure as a world-changing plant; it was just another Burbank garden novelty.

The author of the Agriculture Department bulletin was horticulturist Dr. David Griffiths, who went on to write several more bulletins on the prickly pear in following years, all available through Google Books. He never mentioned Burbank or his hybrids, and never found farmers or ranchers growing the cactus in places where it was not naturally found, such as southern Texas. And the more he investigated the prickly pear, he learned that all varieties improved with irrigation and cultivation, yet it only really thrived in very specific conditions: Not too cold or hot, not at high altitude or at sea level, not too damp or dry. See again: Santa Rosa.

The Burbank cactus bubble floated along until 1915, when Burbank’s sales company received an order from Mexico that was too large to fill, so they shipped regular prickly pear with the thorns shaved off, a deceit that was discovered as soon as thorny new growth appeared. The scandal nearly destroyed Burbank’s reputation, particularly because the fraud was conducted by the “Luther Burbank Company” and every plant came with a tag promising the “guarantee of receiving original Burbank productions.” But some felt that the fraud actually began years before, as Burbank began making irresponsible claims about a plant that had little more potential than its wild cousin. (UPDATE: The Burbank biographies that state a bait-and-switch fraud was discovered are probably wrong. See this discussion.)

*pg. 141, Peter Dreyer, A Gardener Touched With Genius (Luther Burbank Home & Gardens, Santa Rosa, CA) 1985

THE GOVERNMENT EXPERTS BELITTLE BURBANK’S WORK
Declare the Spineless Cactus a Failure
Noted Santa Rosan, However, is Willing to Let His Work Speak For Itself and Abide by the Result–Working on Seedless Variety

San Francisco, Jan. 23– Luther Burbank is reported to be considerably wrought up over the publication of a government bulletin which says the Santa Rosan over-worked the facts when he declared that he had produced a spineless cacti. The bulletin is called “Tuna as a food for Man, and is issued by David Griffith of the Bureau of Plant Industry, last month.

The Bulletin declares that the general belief and hope that the species that the spineless cacti would displace its wild sister on the deserts of California and Arizona to furnish food and a substitute for water to lost prospectors is doomed to disappointment and failure. Experiments go to show, declares the circular, that the cultivated variety is unable to withstand of the hardships of the desert and will be no more acceptable than the wild cacti.


Mr. Burbank, when seen last night regarding the bulletin by a Press Democrat representative, said he had seen the statement and declared that the government experts were piqued because they had been beat out by him by five years in securing the spineless variety. He said he was more than willing to let his success speaks for itself, and abide by the results. He had been able to increase the cacti productiveness four times and its food value ten times as with his spineless variety a yield of 200 tons per acre could be secured as against 20 tons from the wild, while the sugar and fat in the spineless was greatly increased. “The next move will be to produce a seedless as well as a spineless variety,” said he in closing.

– Press Democrat, January 24, 1908

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