Major Enoch Adams

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

Although I suspect what we are reading here is a private and cryptic joke, it still makes for entertaining copy. The following was found in the March 28, 1871 Port Townsend Weekly Message:

A POVERTY STRICKEN INTELLECT.

“–We commend the following extract from Donn Piatt to the prayerful and serious consideration of our old and very particular friend Major Adams, of the Vancouver Register. Donn says: ‘To get hold of a name and distort it– to shake and worry it as a pup would an old boot, is an indication of a mean and poverty stricken intellect.'”

“Do you remember, minor Adams– for you are no Major– the evening in Olympia when, in the presence of a respectable family circle, you asked the host for his private key, to the confusion of the ladies and disgust of the gentlemen? You disreputable old bird! Don’t you bandy words with us, else you will find the ‘Julius Caesar’ will relate an episode of your boyish life which will account for your vulgar obscenity and profane scurrility. Do you know the meaning of Mephitis Mephitica? It is your prototype. Look in the natural history of your native State and see from which you sprung. Like it, no one can approach you, even in friendship, without the whole community being overpowered by the disgusting effluvia and suffocating stench which you emit at all times and without any provocation. When you ring any more changes like an old poll parrot on ‘Julius Caesar’ you only prove your poverty stricken intellect.”

To save you the trouble of looking it up, a Mephitis Mephitica is better known as the skunk.

Major Adams was Enoch George Adams born in 1829 to “Reformation” John and Sarah Adams in Bow, N.H. He graduated from Yale and developed an interest in poetry, writing work for publication for the rest of his life.

During the Civil War Adams fought in the Union Army and was wounded at Williamsburg in 1862. After recovering he returned to the field and was sent in command of Rebel POWs at Fort Rice, Dakota Territory in an unusual arrangement. If the Confederates served in the Union Army in the hostilities against the local Native Americans, the prisoners could earn their freedom.

During this time period Adams also published a newspaper, The Frontier Scout, which included, of course, his poetry. He was discharged with the rank of Major.

Major Adams made his way West and by the early 1870s was editing the Vancouver Register. He had also been appointed to the Land Office. During the time the above article was published, a petition had been circulating to remove Adams from the government position on grounds of incompetency. Adams’ response in print was to ask why anyone would “wish to deprive an old bullet-pierced soldier of the small pittance doled out to him after long years of hardship and danger …”

Adams later moved to St. Helens, Oregon to edit the Columbian. He moved to Berwick, Maine in 1887 and concentrated on farming and poetry. Upon Adams’ death in 1900, Washington Standard editor John Miller Murphy, who had made fun of the poet’s creations whenever he had the chance, commented that the deceased was “an eccentric character, but a man of good record nevertheless.”

The Vancouver Register from 1865-1869 is available in digital form, courtesy of our Digital and Historical Collections Unit!

[Attached: Adams during the Civil War; Adams later in life]

Join Washington State Poet Laureate Kathleen Flenniken, and West Region National Student Poet Miles Hewitt, as they share their talents in an evening of conversation and poetry sponsored by the Washington State Library.

The free 90-minute gathering, sponsored by the Washington State Library, starts at 6 p.m. in the Legislative Building’s Columbia Room (located on the first floor), on the Capitol Campus. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m.

Gov. Gregoire last February approved Flenniken’s appointment as State Poet Laureate.

Flenniken grew up in Richland. Later she worked at Hanford as an engineer. Her book, Plume, in which she reflects on Hanford, was recently chosen for the Pacific Northwest Poetry Series and is a featured book for the State Library’s Washington Reads program.

Hewitt recently was named West Region National Student Poet. He is one of five students across the nation to receive the honor. Hewitt is a senior at the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics. A writer since the third grade, he eventually turned to songwriting, penning over 100 songs.

Miles is among the first inaugural group of 5 student poets who are recognized as National Student Poet. He represents the West Region of the U.S. and we are very fortunate that he is from Washington State.

The National Student Poets Program, a signature initiative of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, honors, promotes, and celebrates young people as makers and doers who can inspire their peers to achieve excellence in their creative endeavors.  More information on the National Student Poets Program can be found at www.artandwriting.org/NSPP.

Students interested in being selected as 2013 National Student Poets can submit their work now for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in poetry, the exclusive pathway to receiving this honor—the nation’s highest for young poets presenting original work.

For more information about the event, you can contact the State Library’s Marilyn Lindholm at (360) 704-5249 or [email protected]. For more information about the Washington State Library, visit http://www.sos.wa.gov/library.

Random News from the Newspapers on Microfilm Collection: The Missing Mayor, a Puzzling Death, and the Interstate Bridge Ghost.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

While skimming through WSL microfilm issues of The Evening Columbian (Vancouver, Washington), this short little bit on the top of page 1, November 12, 1920, caught my eye and curiosity:

PERCIVAL IS BELIEVED TO HAVE PASSED KALAMA, WN.

 RALPH PERCIVAL UNABLE TO FIND FURTHER TRACE OF FATHER, HOWEVER

“Kalama, Nov. 12.–R.G. Percival, son of Mayor G.R. Percival, of Vancouver, who has been missing for several weeks, was in Kalama this week investigating clues that have led him to believe that his father passed this way and went on farther.”

“A barber here was almost certain that he shaved the missing man Tuesday following his disappearance.”

“Young Percival in conversation here said that his father apparently did not strip himself of all means of identification and that prior to his departure he did nothing unusual.”

——————————–

“The son is visiting all farm houses along the road hoping to find a place where his father may have stopped.”

“Ralph Percival today declared that he had been unable to identify the man thought to be Mayor Percival as the missing man. While a stranger answering the general description of the mayor was in Kalama on the day mentioned, Percival declared, he was unable to find further trace of him.”

For a sitting mayor to vanish without a trace or any warning is intriguing. Grover Reed Percival was born in Ohio, Feb. 18, 1860. He arrived in Vancouver in 1902 and made his living as an attorney. His civic service included serving on the City Council. He was elected Mayor in 1918 and was about to finish his term when he vanished October 17, 1920.

WSL has a strong run of The Evening Columbian (an ancestor of today’s Columbian), and it didn’t take much browsing ahead to find news of with a sad result concerning the missing Mayor.

Percival’s body was discovered November 22, 1920, hanging in a clump of trees on the Oregon side of the Columbia, about 100 yards from the Northbank Railroad Bridge. Later accounts would place the tragic discovery on Hayden Island.

I recently did a post on the loss of the “Spokesman Review”, however, I am happy to report that we still have many newspapers in the library to provide a touch of home for our patrons. As newspapers can be very expensive we cannot purchase all of them that are published in Washington, but we do our best. To that end we carry the larger metropolitan areas (excluding Spokane). This includes Olympia, Seattle, Yakima, Tri-Cities, Everett, Tacoma, Wenatchee, Vancouver, and usually the local paper for the area the prison is located.

All of these cities are still mailing out their newspapers and I hope they continue. If they don’t, the inmates will lose one of the few touches of home that is still available to them. Newspapers not only provide news of their local areas, but also a connection to a community. This connection can provide listings for jobs and housing which is important for the inmates releasing back into society, but it also provides the stories that make it a community.

Since local news is not the only interest of our patrons, we also carry newspapers that appeal to different cultures and lifestyles. To meet these needs we carry El Mundo, La Opinión, Smoke Signals, Indian Country Today, and Seattle Gay News.

The wave of the future may be the Internet, but here’s to hoping that some things remain in print.