The Sage of Silverton

TWD_bookThe Davenport Project is pleased to announce the release of Timothy Woodbridge Davenport: The Collected Works, from Liberal University Press. Compiled mainly from papers written for the then-new Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, this new collection offers a unique and forgotten aspect of the Oregon Country, through the writings of this forgotten Oregon Statesman and Pioneer Philosopher.

Timothy Woodbridge Davenport (1827-1911) is known today as the father of W.R. Hearst political cartoonist Homer Davenport (1867-1912). “T.W.” was born on July 30, 1826, in Columbia, New York. His family moved frequently until settling for over a decade near the town of Woodstock in central Ohio, where his father Benjamin had a medical practice. In the spring of 1851, the Davenport family emigrated to Oregon, arriving that autumn in the Waldo Hills several miles south of present-day Silverton.

Over the next half century, Davenport was personally involved in the new state of Oregon politically, serving in numerous capacities, including Special Indian Agent, County Surveyor, State Representative and Senator as well as being appointed Oregon’s first State Land Agent.

The last decade of his life saw a flurry of written essays, covering a wide range of topics; both observations and personal recollections. Most of these were printed in the new Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society. Now for the first time, they are presented in a single volume, allowing researchers, history buffs and others a unique view of late 19th century Oregon, through the progressive pen of one of this State’s leading pioneer intellects.

The book will be available online for $25, as well as locally through the Silverton Country Historical Society.


T.W. Davenport; Indian Agent

twd_mug01On January 28, 2014, The Davenport Project heads over the Cascades again to present a talk entitled “T.W. Davenport: Experiences of a NE Oregon Indian Agent” at the History Pub. The free presentation will be held in the Father Luke’s Room at the McMenamin’s St. Francis School in Bend. It focuses on Silverton pioneer Dr. Timothy Woodbridge Davenport (right), father of the famous political cartoonist and his experiences serving as a temporary Indian Agent at the Umatilla Agency during the Civil War, as well as other encounters with Native Americans he had over the years. Taken from his own extensive four-part series first published in the Oregon Historical Quarterly in 1907, Dr. Davenport’s recollections are an incredible glimpse into an often unknown era.

An abolitionist and charter member of the Oregon Republican party, Dr. Davenport, was a very remarkable person. He was a medical doctor, pioneer farmer, surveyor, Indian agent, store owner, state legislator and state land agent. He was born on July 30, 1826, in Columbia, New York. The Davenport family left New York and settled in Ohio for several years. In 1851, the family headed out to Oregon Territory by wagon train. They arrived in the Silverton Country, in the fall of 1851, and established a donation land claim in the Waldo Hills South of Silverton.

Dr. Davenport gave up his medical practice to concentrated on surveying, a skill much in demand in the pioneer Willamette Valley. In his later years, he took to writing. He was a distinguished member of Silverton’s community leaders, earning the nickname, “The Sage of Silverton” for his incredible intellect and humanity. Over a period of several years in the early part of the 20th Century, he contributed over a half dozen papers to the then-new Oregon Historical Society.

“Recollections of an Indian Agent” of which this talk is based, as well as the two-part “Slavery Question in Oregon” are long-lost gems of historical perspective from Civil War era-Oregon, eloquently written by someone who was there. And Dr. Davenport  found time to raise a family, that just happened to include William Randolph Hearst’s leading political cartoonist, Homer Davenport. A collection of Dr. Davenport’s writings converted to Adobe Acrobat files are available from “The Homer Page.” As you will soon discover, the Davenport family story is both wide and deep.

Presented by The Davenport Project’s Gus Frederick, this highly visual presentation will take you back to the Oregon of the Civil War era. Doors open around 6:00 with the talk starting at 7:00. The Old St. Francis School is located at 700 N.W. Bond Street in downtown Bend, Oregon, and is sponsored by the Des Chutes Historical Museum, Oregon Historical Society, and the Oregon Encyclopedia.


In Sack-Cloth & Ashes

SFChronMasthead

When he moved to San Francisco in 1892, Homer Davenport worked first—after a brief stint at the Mark Hopkins Art School—for Hearst’s Examiner. He was let go, apparently due to his “lack of artistic skill.” He then found work, at a higher salary, on Michael de Young’s San Francisco Chronicle, before eventually being re-hired by the Examiner, (at Hearst’s personal request) for an even higher salary in 1894.

This period has been lacking, not only in content, but in relevant facts relating to this period, which included a brief stint in Chicago drawing horses for the Herald during the 1893 World’s Fair, before returning to the Bay Area and de Young’s Chronicle.

I discovered “Fold3,” an outstanding online historical archive, that had relatively high resolution scans of each and every page of that San Francisco publication. I discovered a number of examples of Davenport’s work, hereto unseen for over a century. Many include dramatic outdoor scenes of horses and hunting.

One series stood out, and represents some of his earliest published work. It contains five illustrations by Davenport that were published in the February 19, 1893 edition. A seasonal column, it was titled “In Sack-cloth and Ashes,” and featured a tongue-in-cheek overview of how various noted citizens observed (or not) the Christian fast of Lent.

These pieces employed a “silhouette” technique. He also used this effect in the only surviving comic strip he didfeaturing himself as the foil, with pigeons in Venice’s St. Marks Square. The quality of course is what would be expected from online reproductions by way of archival microfilm, but still shows the gist of his illustrated jests. With one exception, his Chronicle work was signed with his initials, “H.D.” like some of his previous work on the Portland Oregonian. It could be assumed that newspaper artists had to earn the right to even have their initials included, so there may well be more images he drew that remained un-signed. Most of the “cuts” are anonymous, and were similar in form and function to our current concept of “clip-art.”

The author of the column is unknown, perhaps by design, as the tone and tenor of the article could conceivably be interpreted as border-line blasphemous by some. This would not have deterred Davenport however, having been raised by “intellectual infidels” in Silverton, Oregon. Below are the original captions, with relevant passages from the original column.

lent_hdA: Louis Lissak runs to eating because it disagrees with him. “That’s just it; I am careful of my stomach for ten months and a half during the year, and when Lent comes I let loose and eat everything my depraved and gluttonous appetite calls for. I get sick then. That is my penance.”

B: Bob Grayson makes penance by eating a tough steak. “Bob Woodward is a better man than I at almost any stage of life,” he acknowledged in his own modest way, “and he quit the table right after the fish was eaten. But I think I did more penance than he will in the balance of this season by trying to chew through the steak they served me. The weight of that leather boot top, with a fine French sauce, I swallowed is resting now with a deadly weight right under my chamois chest protector.”

C: Eddie Dunn comes 3000 miles from New York to eat rubber doughnuts. Dunn has been a little wild in his day, and decided he would leave the tempting haunts of New York, travel 3000 miles and repent during lent by feeding upon one of the lunch counters of a first-class saloon in this city. The tank was more than he could stand when he discovered that the cold pig’s feet and brown rounded doughnuts were some of the most perfect products of the rubber company.

D: Johnny Byrnes ends his mortification in wine. “I refrain from intoxicants the whole year round,” he says, “because they do not agree with me. When I cover myself with sackcloth and ashes I start in the day before and drink beer, topping it off at night with wine, and the next morning I feel that I am buried in the debris.”

E: J. B. Casserly neither borrows nor lends during lent. “I am mortifying my friends,” he said, “more than I mortify myself. During the penitential season I neither borrow nor lend—especially the latter.”


Cleveland’s Concert

J.C. Smith, L.C. Russell, Irwin Geer, Charles Ramsby, Ralph Geer, Tom Riches, Harvey Allen (Leader), Homer Davenport, R.D. Allen, Henry Clymer, Jasper "Jap" Skaife, Tim Allen, George Mack. Johnnie Porter. Taken at 151 First Street, Portland, Oregon, Aug., 1884 (Photo courtesy Silverton Country Historical Society)

151 First Street, Portland, Oregon, ca. 1884 – Courtesy Silverton Country Historical Society

In 1884, Presidential Candidate Grover Cleveland apparently visited Portland, Oregon during his campaign to become the first Democrat elected since since before the Civil War. As part of the celebration, the Silverton Trombone Band was invited to participate, and this event was documented by Homer Davenport, the band’s snare drummer, in his 1910 autobiography, “The Country Boy.” This would be Davenport’s first brush with national politics. Fielding “Uncle Jake” McClaine was the other half of the Coolidge-McClaine bank, and other various business and civic endeavors, including community benefactors—they gave Silverton its City Park. Davenport’s mention of the “barytone” refers to the instrument known as a “baritone horn” similar to a euphonium, and commonly known in brass band parlance, simply as a “baritone.”

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)

There was but one Democrat in Silverton, and he was one in every sense of the word. He hadn’t said much for years—just paid his bets regularly every four years without much back talk—but that fall when Grover Cleveland was elected for the first time, Jake McClaine’s voice lasted about half an hour. Then he wrote what he wanted to tell you on a slate. He wrote to the leader that he wanted to defray all of the expenses of the entire band to Portland the next Saturday night, where they were going to give Cleveland a big Democratic rally, and have electric lights. Of course, we accepted, as Jake McClaine had paid more toward the new instruments and uniforms than any other man in town.

We had to leave Silverton at three o’clock Saturday morning, and go in a “dead-ax” wagon twelve miles to Gervais, so as to catch the morning train on the main line of the Southern Pacific. I rode directly over the hind axle and lost the only gold filling I ever had up to that time. We got there at daylight and had breakfast that had been specially prepared for us, for which Uncle Jake paid.

UncleJake

“Uncle Jake” McClaine

He wasn’t an uncle, but like “Aunty” McMillan, was fat, so everybody called him in Silverton, “Uncle Jake.” We took the Albany local, and by eight o’clock were in Portland, forty-seven miles from Silverton. It was the first time I was ever there without some one holding me by the wrist, and it seemed great. The uniforms kind of made us brave, and Uncle Jake marched ahead and we played as we marched up the main street, which was First Street. On the bass drum was printed in red letters, “Silverton Trombone Band,” and people would yell “Hurrah for Silverton!” while Uncle Jake would answer them by yelling “Hurrah for Cleveland!” Uncle Jake frequently sold cattle to the butchers there, so before we knew it we had stopped in front of a butcher shop, and were playing while he was in the back end of the shop selling cattle. From one butcher shop to another we went, playing all the time, and many of us marching in new shoes on the first cobblestones we had ever seen.

Finally in the afternoon we bought a box of apples for lunch. The day was dark and cloudy. In front of one shop Uncle Jake brought a butcher, who he said had bought more cattle than any of the rest, and he wanted us to play for this man, number eighteen in the new book.

Eighteen in the new book was the one piece of classical music which we bought when we got the uniforms. The only difference that it bore to the other quicksteps was that it didn’t go quite so fast, and about the middle of the piece it had sixteen bars rest for everybody but the barytone player, and from long and careful training we had reached a stage where we could play up to within a few feet of this sixteen bars’ rest and almost all of us stop simultaneously, at which point the barytone player would run a little scale that was called a cadenza, and we would all watch the leader’s head and when he nodded we would join in and finish out the piece. It was a pretty thing, and we told Uncle Jake we were holding it for the reviewing stand, where we wanted Cleveland to hear it; so he said all right, he would have the butcher there to hear it also.

tcb_bandAfter marching all afternoon and having our photos taken, the big parade started at eight o’clock. After marching in the parade until nearly midnight it came our turn to stop and play before the reviewing stand. Most of us were so sleepy we could hardly keep our eyes open, and the horn blowers were a sorry lot. Between their new shoes and their lips, they were about done up. Their upper lips hung out far and were purple. They looked like they had all got into a bee’s nest and had been stung on the lips. The leader cautioned each member that the supreme moment of our lives was upon us; that all the other bands were present, and that he thought Cleveland himself was.

He said, “Whatever you do, don’t play when you get the sixteen bars of rest; and you, there, with the snare drum, don’t roll out into that open space as you have always done before.” It was an awful moment. Uncle Jake was still to be heard bragging to everybody what a piece it was.

Finally, with the greatest difficulty, the piece was started. I thought I had a pioneer idea that they didn’t need me, and for fear of being accused of breaking down the piece in case they made a fizzle of it, I would quit as soon as we got started—and did. I just made motions without hitting the drum; but it wasn’t a new thought, as nearly every other member had done the same thing, so when we approached the sixteen bars’ rest the only one player was the leader himself, and he had the tremolo stop out. He stopped just as a large skyrocket went up. We hadn’t been used to fireworks—that is, big ones—and the only barytone solo anybody heard was the barytone player yelling to the man next to him, “Look quick, Tom, at that skyrocket!”

Uncle Jake directed the butchers he had brought down to hear number eighteen, to the fireworks, and we never resumed the piece, and never saw each other until we met the next day on the train bound for home. Aside from that one piece the trip was a great musical triumph, and Uncle Jake was the hero.


Mary Delle’s Missed Trip

Nancy H. Rose

Historic research is full of surprises. In the course of tracking down facts, often more facts are discovered, which sometimes greatly exceed the original facts that set off the initial search. In this case, I was intrigued by comments Homer’s niece and Silverton Country Historical Society (SCHS) benefactor Mrs. Nancy Havens Rose (right), made in a 2009 “Living History” video produced by Carolyn Hutton for the SCHS. This was the tale of how her mother, Mary Delle Davenport (1885-1965), was invited by her brother Homer to go to Europe on one of his lecture tours. However, she apparently contracted scarlet fever and had to stay behind in New York City, in the brownstone home of Homer’s mysterious girlfriend, Zadah Howard Reakirt, and her young son Robert Hastings Reakirt, who was similarly afflicted.

In 1907 after years in an unhappy marriage, Homer and his wife Daisy agreed to a separation. Eventually this led to Homer filing for divorce, and a budding romance with Mrs. Reakirt—a divorcee “of means” that shared Homer’s interest in art and Arabian horses—ensued. It was after this period that the story Nancy recounted of the missed European trip had to occur. I myself had not found anything in the material I have examined, so I was left to examine the facts, as slim as they were. Mary Delle’s trip East and her stay with Zadah were strong clues, as they indicated a period between 1908 to 1911.

She also mentioned a “Western Trip with Colonel Roosevelt,” in which Homer and his father, T.W. Davenport were on. That is a different, yet exciting story in its own right, and occurred in August and September of 1910. One of Homer’s other sisters, Adelaide Davenport Armstrong, alludes to this trip in her outline of Homer’s biography, that she started, but never finished. In it she notes cryptically: “Traveling West with the Roosevelt party – The Cheyenne ‘Round Up’ – On to Oregon.”

In researching this trip, I found other clues within the Roosevelt archives. Of importance to this subject, is from the book “Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt,” a biography of the Colonel by Lawrence F. Abbott, and written in 1922. In the third chapter, he recounts Roosevelt’s return to the United States after more than a year abroad. T.R. went first to Africa on safari, then on an extended lecture tour of Europe, before returning to his home at Oyster Bay. In it, Abbott recounts how he and T.R. attended a shipboard “Chalk Talk” by Davenport, (see below).

But when did Homer leave? This bit of information’s arrival like much in the Davenport saga, was of the serendipitous nature. I had talked to Ms. Sieglinde Smith at one of my lectures, and gave her my card. In the course of her own research, she forwarded me an obscure reference to Davenport she had found, that filled in that gap somewhat. It was from The Pacific Coast Architect, a professional journal targeting Northwest architects, dated April, 1911. Under the heading “Address of E. M. Lazarus Before Portland Architectural Club,” Mr. Lazarus recounts meeting up with Davenport at sea the previous year.

What follows are these two published accounts, that while not specific on where Davenport went on his lecture tour, both nevertheless offer an interesting glimpse of Davenport’s character as reported from several different sources: A prominent Portland, Oregon architect, a journalist-turned presidential biographer and the Ex-president himself! And, even more additional information has turned up to add yet another angle to this twisted tale, of an Arabian horse nature.

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The Pacific Coast Architect
Volume 1 / Number 1 / April, 1911
Address of E. M. Lazarus Before Portland Architectural Club

E.M. Lazarus

Edgar M. Lazarus

Mr. President and Gentlemen or, rather, Chere Colleagues: I thank you for the honor of calling on me for a traveler’s tale, and were I skilled in the art of oratory or could command Dickens’ gift of telling a tale, I should feel more at case in the limelight of this platform. As it is, you will have to make amends accordingly … Sailing from New York late in May last, I crossed over with a fellow Oregonian. Homer Davenport, whose love of Oregon, and Silverton in particular, has been instrumental in heralding its fame from the land of where rolls the Oregon to the Bedouin tribes in far Arabia. For where his cartoons are known and admired, so is his love for his home town.

Davenport’s versatility is remarkable. In mid-ocean he invariably spent two or more hours every day making cartoons in the salon, and on a certain eventful day lost his purse containing all his available cash. A few hours later, on hunting him up, I found him finishing a pen and ink sketch in which he was the central figure with beads of perspiration dropping from his brow, the captain standing at his side gesticulating his inability to account for his loss, and with the salon steward standing by with an expression vacant as atmosphere, eyeing the flight of the purse, to which Davenport had affixed a pair of wings, as it vanished in the distance; a cartoon that was afterwards auctioned off at the end of the voyage for the Seaman’s Mission for a good round sum.

Davenport and I were determined to go to Epsom Downs to see the Derby run, where a vast concourse of approximately 260,000 persons had assembled to see the race. We reached London at 3 o’clock on the morning of the race, and were up at 8 o’clock hunting for seats on a coach bound for Epsom Downs. The journey to the track and the track itself was a sight never to be forgotten. The endless string of vehicles on the high road to the course, the costers and their diminutive donkeys and carts, with their wives and sweethearts mingling with the more pretentious equipages, enlivening the time with passages of their Cockney wit with their fellow travelers was a great sight, as was the gamins of the gutter, turning handsprings from mile end to mile end to the old refrain:

The Epsom races have begun.
Now is the time to have some fun;
Throw out your moldy coppers —

And throw them out we did. With a vengeance.

_____________

vistahouseEdgar Marks Lazarus (1868-1939) was a Portland, Oregon architect, who designed numerous public and private structures throughout the state. One of his more famous buildings is the Vista House (right), at Crown Point, overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. Edward Teague of the University of Oregon has studied his life extensively, and has quite a bit of background on him. And like Homer Davenport, Mr. Lazarus was an avid fan of horse racing.

Besides the trip to the Epsom Downs Derby, the only other media reference to Davenport in Europe was a brief notice in the London Times of June 8, 1910, about a dinner of the London Poets Club, where Sir Owen Seaman gave a talk on the power of parody. At this time, Sir Owen was editor of the British satirical journal “Punch.” Two days later Davenport boarded the S.S. Kaiserin Auguste Victoria in Southampton, and sailed back to New York. Also on that same ship, was Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, returning to the United States after over a year aboard. This included an extended African safari and lecture tour of Europe. That portion of the trip was documented in part by Lawrence F. Abbott in his previously mentioned Roosevelt biography.

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Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt by Lawrence F. Abbott, 1922
Chapter III – The Progressive Party

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

When Roosevelt emerged from the African wilderness in March, 1910, I met him at Khartum in the desert on the edge of the jungle, fifteen hundred miles up the river Nile from Cairo … In this vein Roosevelt said to me: “My political career is ended. No man in American public life has ever reached the crest of the wave as I appear to have done without the wave’s breaking and engulfing him. Remember Dewey.”

In reply I told him I did not think the two cases were at all parallel; that the American people knew him, Roosevelt, after thirty years of trial in the whitest kind of light; that his acts, achievements, and character were tested and understood; and that the people had taken him into their confidence and affection permanently, for better or for worse. On the other hand, I argued that Dewey had suddenly been seized upon as a kind of idol by the American people, not because they knew him very well, but because of one great dramatic episode; and that when he did something which they disliked they discarded him, although unjustly, without any wrench or sense of personal loss. “No,” insisted Roosevelt, “I am going down like Dewey.” More than once during our journey through Europe he referred to this assumed parallel in his career and that of the hero of the Naval Battle at Manila.

“Remember Dewey” became almost a slogan or shibboleth in our political conversations, although Roosevelt used it not loosely but very seriously.

Coming back on the steamer from Southampton to New York in June of that year, the usual entertainment given in the saloon, for the benefit of some seamen’s fund or other, took the form of a “chalk talk” by the late Homer Davenport, then one of the foremost of American newspaper cartoonists. The passenger list of the ship was a very large one, many people choosing this particular steamer because Roosevelt was on it, and the saloon on the evening when Davenport spoke was crowded to its extreme capacity. Davenport’s “chalk talks” consisted of a series of stories, usually humorous, each one being illustrated by a picture or a portrait which he rapidly drew with black crayon on a very large-sized pad of brown paper placed on an easel in sight of the audience. On this particular evening the last story which he told was one about Admiral Dewey. The story, somewhat condensed, ran about as follows:

Lest We Forget

“Lest We Forget” – Nov. 25, 1899

“At the time when Admiral Dewey was being bitterly attacked in the newspapers, and criticized throughout the country because of the disposition which he made of the house presented to him in honor of his victory at Manila, I published in one of the newspapers a cartoon in his defense, (‘Lest We Forget’ left – click for detail). I thought the Admiral was most outrageously treated, and I rather laid myself out to make the cartoon a striking and effective one. A few days after it was published a friend of mine who knew Dewey met me on the street in New York and said: “Dewey has seen your cartoon and wants to see you. Will you go over to Washington?” “Sure,” I replied. We went over, and my friend took me to the Admiral’s house.

“We entered the drawing room; I was presented to Mrs. Dewey; and just as the Admiral came forward to give me his hand, he burst into tears and threw himself upon a sofa in a paroxysm of weeping. Mrs. Dewey apologized and said: “You must excuse the Admiral, Mr. Davenport. He has been wrought almost to a pitch of nervous prostration by the unjust attacks made upon him. We had decided to go to Europe, never to set foot on American soil again, and had actually packed our trunks when we saw your cartoon. It was the first ray of light, and made us change our minds, and we have decided to remain in America, although some of our trunks are still upstairs just as we packed them for our departure.”

Davenport thereupon rapidly sketched a portrait of Admiral Dewey and his talk or lecture was finished. There were calls for Mr. Roosevelt. He rose:

“Mr. Davenport,” said he, “may I ask if the story you have just related of Admiral Dewey is accurate in all its details, or have you taken the pardonable liberty of an artist and put in a little color?”

“No,” answered Davenport, “the incident is just as I related it, in every detail.”

Whereupon Mr. Roosevelt paid an eloquent tribute to Dewey, defending him from the attacks that had been made upon him, and, after thanking Davenport, sat down. I happened to be next to him, and immediately on taking his seat he turned to me, and—recalling the numerous times in the month or two preceding in which he had remarked that he was ”going down like Dewey”—said, sotto voce, “Lawrence, they may treat me like Dewey, but I’ll tell you one thing, I shall neither weep nor shall I go to Europe!”

Unhappily first the country and then the Government did treat him like Dewey, but he neither wept nor did he abandon his country. He did not even show resentment or disappointment, but kept up his fight to the very end, in the greatest good spirits. His buoyancy, his capacity to rise superior to all external disappointments, was, I think, one of his greatest qualities.

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What is interesting about this exchange, that occurred at sea on or about June 15, 1910, was that it foreshadows T.R.’s 1912 Progressive Party candidacy. This campaign actually started two months later, with an extended trip through numerous Western states in late August and early September. This trip was seen by many as The Colonel “testing the waters” for what became known as the Bull Moose campaign. It included an embedded journalist under contract to the Publisher’s Press—a news service not unlike, and apparently in competition with—the Associated Press. This journalist was Homer Davenport, late of Silverton. And according to Nancy Rose, the journalist’s father was along as well! But that is another story…


The Colonel Visits Oregon

He's Good Enough for MeOf all the famous personages that Homer Davenport knew and called friend during his brief years in the limelight, perhaps none was more influential than the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. Davenport’s respect and enthusiasm for “The Colonel,” as he preferred to be called, supposedly was the reason Davenport left Hearst in 1904. This year he also created one of his more famous cartoons, the influential He’s Good Enough for Me (left), with Uncle Sam’s arm resting on T.R.’s shoulder.

Many have said that this single cartoon elected a President. Whether or not that’s true, the facts are that two years later at Davenport’s request, President Roosevelt directed the State Department to initiate contact with the Ottoman Empire, for the purpose of importing Arabian horse breeding stock. This acquisition expedition was a success, and today the Davenport Arabian Horse is the offspring of that one cartoon.

Colonel Roosevelt has remained a household word over the years, and even boasts a head on Mt. Rushmore. So much so, that in mid-May of 2013, the Oregon Historical Society with sponsorship by Wells Fargo Bank hosted a week-long “Roosevelt Roadshow” featuring Theodore Roosevelt re-enactor Joe Wiegand. They visited numerous Oregon communities, culminating with his last performance at the OHS Annual Membership Meeting in Portland.

I figured it might be a good gesture for The Davenport Project to present the Colonel with a framed reproduction of the He’s Good Enough for Me cartoon. I assumed that I could walk up after his talk and present the cartoon and maybe get a picture. That was the plan anyway. As it turned out, I arrived too early for the festivities, so I killed some time exploring the Museum.

The Colonel plugs Davenport

The Colonel plugs Davenport

While in the USS Oregon/Spanish American War room door stairs, I encountered a familiar character who immediately struck up a conversation with me, introducing himself as Theodore Roosevelt. I shook hands and said “A pleasure to meet you, Colonel.” to which he exclaimed that “My friends call me Colonel! I detest Mr. President.” He asked where I was from and if anyone of note was from there. I answered that I was from Silverton, Hometown of one of his old friends. I then gave the “Homer Davenport” elevator speech and mentioned the famous cartoon.

I then presented him with the framed copy I was carrying. The Colonel was obviously impressed. He was quite well acquainted with this particular cartoon, but was apparently unaware of Davenport’s Oregon roots. He said it was the best gift he had yet received during this trip. I included a letter with a brief bio of Davenport and his T.R. connection. He then asked me if he could incorporate the picture into his talk, and the rest was a delightful presentation of history, complete with a rather robust tribute to Davenport and Silverton! And as Homer could attest, even this “T.R.” put on a great show!

“Theodore Roosevelt is a humorist. In the multitude of his strenuousness this, the most human of his accomplishments, has apparently been overlooked. There is a similarity between his humor and Mark Twain’s. If Colonel Roosevelt were on the vaudeville stage he would be a competitor of Harry Lauder. At Denver, at the stock-growers’ banquet during his recent Western trip, Colonel Roosevelt was at his best. He made three speeches that day and was eating his sixth meal, yet he was in the best of fettle. You couldn’t pick a hallful that could sit with faces straight through his story of the blue roan cow. He can make a joke as fascinating as he can the story of a sunset on the plains of Egypt.”

—Homer Davenport. Philadelphia Public Ledger, October 23, 1910


A Cousin’s Memories

Frank S. BowersHomer Davenport was known around the world as a former citizen of Silverton. His friends are erecting a monument to his memory in Silverton, where he was buried. He was a cousin of Mr. Frank S. Bowers (right—from the Silverton Appeal-Tribune, August 5, 1982), who has written the accompanying article. As Mr. Bowers is a cartoonist of national fame, he is able to speak with assurance on his subject.—Murray Wade; Editor & Publisher, Oregon Magazine, 1924.

Laying all blame for this article on the shoulders of the editor, at whose instigation I am at­tempting it, I will only make this one apology—”I am not a writer.”

So much has been published regarding the boyhood and life of my cousin, the late Homer Davenport, that anything one might say along that line would simply be needless repetition. Therefore I shall simply endeavor to give the reader of the Oregon Magazine, as faithfully as I can, a short account of Hom­er and his works as it has impressed one who has always been more or less vitally interest­ed in the line of endeavor that made him famous. Cartoons. Al­low me to say that I consider him Oregon’s one outstanding nation­al character.

A born democrat and humorist—understand when I say democratic I make no reference to the party-type of political democrat. He was democratic in every tendency and in his work.

It was this quality in him, I feel, that gave him the love and admiration of a host of friends ranging in the social scale from pauper to millionaire.

At Homer’s birth, his father, who was an ardent student and believer in phrenology, looking at him said: “If he lives to manhood he will he a humorist,” and to be a humorist must one not also be democratic?

This quality of humor and his gift of character was plainly exhibited in his earliest attempts at drawing. While just a toddler he covered all the available white paper that came within his reach such as fly leaves from a lot of old patent office re­ports that had been sent to our grandfather, R.C. Geer, with drawings mostly of animals. These drawings showed a skill that did credit to one much older than he. He had the faculty at that early age, to draw a monkey so you knew at once that it was a monkey, and other animals were depicted with equal faithfulness. Each animal was however, caricatured just as were his men of later years.

We have all heard the expression—“More Natural Than Life.” If that was ever true it could be said of his character studies. They were unmistakable exaggerated likenesses—a gift of his at which he excelled any man before or since his time. Added to this likeness they depicted the subjects character. Something that never shows in a photo­graph nor in life to the eye of the casual observer. On a visit to the National Capital, I sat in the press gallery and recognized about half of the U.S. Senate from Homer’s sketches. His work was full, not only of human interest but also of humane interest. His pencil was possessed of a brutal frankness that caused him to be feared by some who came under its point.

Richard Croker

R. Croker

CrokerismTake for instance his gorilla cartoon (left—from “Cartoons” 1898click for detail) of Richard Croker, who was depicted as a gorilla clasping the form of a woman labeled democracy, in one great hairy arm while lifted in the other hand was a stone to crush out her life. The face of the beast was all gorilla and at the same time unmistakably Croker.

This cartoon was taken from a famous European statue (“Gorille enlevant une Femme” by Emmanuel Frémiet in 1887. The arrow labeled “George” is in reference to politician, writer and economic theorist Henry George). From underneath the base of the statue protruded the tail of a serpent on which was lettered the name of a Croker henchman. [Thomas F. Grady (1853-1912)]

The next day Croker, whose impenetrable crust had turned the shafts of New York editors as a two inch plank would turn straws, was heard to tell that particular henchman that he must drop him as the papers were making it too hot for him.

Homer was the closest observer of small details of any of the world’s cartoonists. If a man’s coat tails were inclined to turn up, turn up they did in his drawings.

He was without art school training. In his early San Francisco days he tried studying art at the old Mark Hopkins Art school. After making numerous sketches of some casts of horses heads and a few unflattering likenesses of instructors, he made the fatal mistake by telling one of them of his ambition to cartoon—getting this reply: “Get a wide brush and a straight edge and you are as good as any of them.” That was when he graduated from Art School. He also in those days, had an ambition to rival Frederic Remington on horses.

I think perhaps one of the strongest features of his work was that he never shot over the head of the public in general. Even those who were not of the reading kind read his pictorial editorials, and either loved or hated him for them. In not shooting over the heads of the public he has been credited with pretty much demolishing the political heads of a number of men whom he has opposed.

In one of our eastern cities stands a monument to George Dixon for so long light weight champion boxer of the world built by his admirers.

In marked contrast to this is the final resting place of Homer at Silverton, Oregon. Will Oregon be content to let this be so? To let her one real big National character to go without some memorial of esteem?

It need be nothing pretentious. A dignified massive rugged stone, typical of the West, with a huge tablet telling future generations who Homer Davenport was and what he did.


In Clover at Last

Orison Swett Marden

Orison Swett Marden

In 1904, the New York-based “Success Company” published a book entitled “Little Visits with Great Americans or Success Ideals and How to Obtain Them.” It was edited and written by Orison Swett Marden (right), who is described by Wikipedia as “…a spiritual author in the New Thought Movement.” This volume contains numerous sketches of successful folks of the era, comprising a wide range of backgrounds. “Successful” authors, politicians, actors and even cartoonists, had short interviews or biographical sketches of them.

What follows is Marden’s interview with a now very successful Homer Davenport, at his home in East Orange, New Jersey in the Roseville neighborhood. Of interest is the reference to Homer’s sister, who could have been either Alice or Adelaide. Davenport’s own self-depreciation enters in also, as he relates getting fired from various newspapers, but lands other jobs on other papers for more money. Of particular note is his comment that he worked for the Oregonian for “…just a day.” Davenport researcher Barry Bernard uncovered a steady-stream of Davenport illustrations from March through September, 1890 in the Oregonian archives. The interview and images are from Google Books, the great new research resource.

Rebuffs and Disappointments Fail to Repress a Great Cartoonist’s Genius.

Homer C. DavenportTo-day Homer C. Davenport is the “first cartoonist” of America, and yet he is but thirty-five years old. Mr. Davenport has a small place in Roseville, on the outskirts of Newark, New Jersey.

He is a tall, handsome man, with large, humorous eyes, beneath heavy eyelids, that give him an expression of perpetual thought.

“I suppose you want to see my studio?” Mr. Davenport said. We went upstairs.

“This is it,” he said, with a chuckle. It was merely a small, square room, with a few framed pictures on the papered walls, and a desk in the corner. There was no easel in the room, but I saw a drawing-board under the desk.

Davenport’s Unique Studio.

“You work on that board, when on the desk?”

“Yes.”

“You are disappointed,” said his sister, with a smile. “It is not what you expected.”

It wasn’t. I had expected to see a typical studio, with unfinished cartoons, and the usual artistic surroundings.

Mr. Davenport laid an unfinished cartoon on the desk, representing a chariot race, and laughed when he explained what it would be and mean; and this told me that he enters heartily in whatever he draws, which is requisite to success in art as well as in other things. Then we adjourned to another room and sat about a wood fire.

“Tell me of your beginning,” I said.

“Well, I was born in Oregon, thirty-five years ago, on my father’s farm. As a child, I was perpetually drawing, and to my father I owe much, for it was he who encouraged me, my mother dying when I was very young. I would lie flat on my stomach, and draw on the floor, if I had no paper. As I spent hours this way, the habit became injurious to my digestive organs, so a flat cushion was made for me. I was a hopelessly poor student, doing more drawing on my slate and on the margins of my books than studying. To sit in school for any length of time made me sick and nervous, so my father called on the schoolmaster and gave instructions that, whenever I got tired, I should be allowed to draw, or to go home.”

He Drew Cartoons in School.

“This was rather demoralizing to the school, for even then I drew cartoons. Finally, I was taken away, and my father painted a blackboard, four feet high by fifteen feet long, on the side of a room in the farm­house, where, with plenty of chalk, I drew to my heart’s content. I would draw all day.”

“And you received no instructions in drawing?”

“I never had a lesson in my life. It was my father’s ambition for me to become a cartoonist. When, in later years, I did anything that he considered particularly good, he would carry me off to Portland, and I would submit it to the Portland ‘Oregonian,’ where my attempts were always laughed at. Then, much crest­fallen, I would return to the farm.

“‘Now, my boy,’ my father would say, ‘that is good enough to be printed,’ and off I would go again.

“At length, the news spread that I had a job on the Portland ‘Oregonian.’ The whole town became interested, and when the day arrived for my departure, the band of which I was a member, and many of the towns­people, escorted me with due honor to the railroad station.”

His First Disappointment.

“‘Well, I heard some say, ‘I guess we will never see him again. He’s too big for this place.’

“I was on the Portland ‘Oregonian’ just one day.

“’What’s the sense of this?’ I was asked. ‘You can’t draw,’ and back I went.  ‘I had before me the mortification of meeting the righteous disgust of my friends. On my way back to Silverton, I heard that they were short of a brakeman at the Portland end, so I beat my way back to Portland, and, walking into the office, offered myself.

“’What!” said the man. ‘What do you know about braking? I would like to know who sent you on such a fool’s errand?’ and he raved and stamped, and swore he would discharge everyone on the train. But on the next train, I went out as head brakeman. All the elements got together, it rained and snowed and froze, and when I got to Silverton, almost frozen, I slipped from the train and tramped home, a much disheartened young man.

“But just to show my father I had something in me, and wanted to make my way in life, I asked to be sent to an institution of learning, where I stayed just one week. Then I got a place attending to the ink roller in the local printing office, where the town paper was published, which, to this day, I do not think can be beaten,” and Mr. Davenport laughed in his hearty way.

At Ten Dollars a Week.

“Finally, my star rose on the horizon. I went to San Francisco, and was taken on trial on the ‘Examiner.’ I remember the day well,—February 2, 1892. For one mortal week, I simply hung around the office. Then I was put to work at ten dollars a week. But I proved unsatisfactory. I drew the man over me aside.

“’Look here,’ I said, ‘I can’t draw. I want you to write to my father and tell him what a failure I am, and that his belief that I am an artist is the delusive mistake of a fond parent. He sat down to write, and, as he was doing so, my fingers, always itching to draw, were at work with a pencil in sketching horses, on a piece of paper on the table.

“’When did you do that?’ he asked, picking up the paper.

“I did it just now,” I replied, sheepishly.

“’What? Do it again.’

“I did so. He looked at me curiously.

“’Wait a bit,’ he said. He took the paper into the office. ‘Come in here,’ he said, ‘the boys won’t believe it. Do some more.’

“’Davenport,’ said the manager, ‘you are too old to strike a path for yourself. You must put yourself in my hands. Do nothing original, not one line.’ If the manager caught me doing so, he tore it up.

“I remember one time, Ned Hamilton, a star writer on the ‘Examiner,’ some others, and myself, were sent to a Sacramento convention. I drew what I considered very good likenesses, and that night, when I retired, with a fire burning brightly in the room where we all bunked, I fairly kicked my heels in delight, in anticipation of the compliments of the ‘Examiner.’ I was awakened by the tearing of a paper that sent the cold shivers up and down my back. Ned Hamilton was grumbling, and throwing my labor into the fire.

“‘If you can’t do better than that,’ he said, ‘you ought to give up.’

“I almost wept, but it took any conceit I might have had out of me, and the next day I did some work that was up to the mark.”

He was Discharged in Chicago.

“But my walking papers came in due time, and I went to the ‘Chronicle.’ It almost took my breath away when they offered me twenty dollars a week. Before I was discharged from there, I had risen to a higher salary. I went to Chicago, and got on the Chicago ‘Herald,’ at thirty-five dollars a week. I was there during the World’s Fair. It seemed to me the principal thing I did was to draw horses. But the greatest blow of all was when the Chicago ‘Herald’ discharged me. It seemed as if everything were slipping from beneath my feet. I went back to San Francisco and got on the ‘Chronicle’ again. It was then, and not till then, —1894, —that I was allowed any freedom. All that I had been asking an outlet for found vent, and my cartoons began to attract attention.

“William R. Hearst, of the ‘Examiner,’ asked, in one of his editorial rooms: ‘Who is that Davenport, on the ‘Chronicle,’ who is doing us up all the time?’

“‘Oh, we bounced him; he’s no good,’ was the reply.

“’Send for him!’ said Mr. Hearst.

“No attention was paid to the order. Mr. Hearst finally sent for me himself. I was engaged at forty­five dollars a week. Then a thing happened that I will never forget, for no raise before or since ever affected me to such a degree.

“I drew a cartoon of Senator ‘Steve’ White and his whiskers. The whiskers so pleased Mr. Hearst, that he called me in and said that my pay would be raised five dollars a week. I went home that night, and woke up my wife to tell her the glad news. She fairly wept for joy, and tears trickled down my own cheeks, for that increase meant appreciation that I had been starving for, and I felt almost secure, —and all on account of Senator ‘Steve’ White’s whiskers.”

Here Mrs. Davenport, who had brought us two large books, in which she had fondly pasted all of her hus­band’s work, said:­

“Yes, no subsequent increase, no matter how large, has ever equaled that five-dollar advance.”

In Clover at Last.

Mr. Hearst, as soon as he bought the New York “Journal,” telegraphed to the “Examiner:” “Send Davenport.” He is now receiving a very large salary, and his work is known throughout the world.

Two years ago, Mr. Davenport went abroad and drew sketches of the members of the houses of parliament, and Mr. Phil May, the English artist, became his fast friend.

In Washington, Senator Hanna insisted upon meeting Mr. Davenport, and shaking him by the hand. He was the first to immortalize Mr. Hanna, with that checkered suit of dollar marks.

Such is the man and artist, Homer C. Davenport, who, in 1894, had not drawn a public cartoon, and who, today, has a world-wide reputation, and the esteem of even those whom he has caricatured, and who cannot help enjoying their own exaggerated portraits. Davenport’s success has come rapidly, but not until he had sustained reverses that would have discouraged any man of a less resolute character.


Chief Joseph’s Interview

Chief Joseph, 1903

Chief Joseph, 1903. Photograph by F.T. Cummins, from the First People Website.

In 1903 Nez Perce Chief Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, also known as Chief Joseph, visited President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. Apparently he first visited New York City, where he was interviewed by the media of the day. One such interview was performed by fellow Oregonian, cartoonist Homer Davenport, then working for William Randolph Hearst’s New York American. Davenport was a “value-added” artist, who often wrote his own features that he likewise illustrated. And once again, another unique glimpse is offered into the background of this “simple country boy.” Like the fact that he was apparently semi-fluent in “Chinuk Wawa,” the Chinook jargon. His reference to his Uncle John Davenport is also interesting. The town of Davenport, Washington is named for “Uncle John.”

Chief Joseph, a voice of conscience for the West and his people, died less than a year after Homer’s interview, still in exile from his homeland, according to his doctor “of a broken heart.” This piece of Davenport trivia comes to the Project courtesy of Davenport researcher Barry Bernard of Portland. It was reprinted in the Morning Oregonian, on Saturday, October 10, 1903. The photo of Chief Joseph was taken around the same time as the interview in 1903, by F.T. Cummins, (from the First People Website). Davenport’s portrait comes from a second generation Xerox copy printed from microfilm. And since this was manually transcribed, (by me!) from the a fore mentioned Xerox copy, I may have gotten some characters scrambled, especially in the Chinook passages.

Chief Joseph and the Artist
Homer Davenport Interviews the Famous Chief of the Nez Perce in New York

In 1879, I was in Colfax, Washington, at that time one of the thrifty towns of the Northwest, a town threatening to be a city, a center in those days for all the Indian trade of the Palouse District. This day I have in mind was a perfect day. The sky was apparently a million miles high and the blue was that of the Mediterranean. A breeze was blowing, but I don’t recall which way.

Anyway, the day was perfect, and about noon my uncle, then the leading merchant of that place, called my attention to a great cloud that was visible up the valley some three miles or more away. He said, “What is it?” and after some moments gaze I pronounced it a storm cloud. “No,” he said, “It’s some Indians bring two or three hundred wild horses in for me to see, and that’s the dust they are raising.”

The old Indian sat on his pony facing a spotted stallion. On him he kept his eyes for a few moments, as this horse was a leader, and when he became quiet, all were quiet, or where he went all others would follow. Uncle John was very mad. They had torn through Mr. Cooper’s garden in mistake for a street, and as a result Cooper’s garden was now a street and nothing more. Uncle went up to the old Indian, who was all smiles, and said, “Platote, confound you! I thought I told you not to bring these horses in. Keep them away. I never want to see them again, or you either.”

The old Indian, still smiling, shifted in his saddle and said, “Now witka now witka, hias skookum tennas cultan,” meaning “I understand, I understand, but I wanted to show you the fine little colts.”

“I know,” said uncle, “but don’t bring then in any more. They tear down fences, break the sidewalks and some day they’ll run over some child, and then they’ll hang you. If you love me take them back to Snake River and keep them there.” At this point I saw uncle drop a $5 gold piece quietly into the old Indian’s prepared hand as quick as you would tip a policeman. Then uncle left in disgust and went to the store, while I remained with the old Indian.

I always remembered the name of old Platote, though I never saw him but that once. Yesterday I had an appointment with the management of Madison Square Garden to see and have an interview with Chief Joseph, the greatest chief the Nez Perce (Pierced Nose) ever had, and more than likely the greatest Indian chief now living, the greatest war general, greater than Geronimo, because Joseph never considered cold-blooded murder warfare.

The gentleman who arranged my interview with the chief said the old man couldn’t talk, and he disliked interviews. I came at the appointed hour and brought a child along to see if children meant anything to this Indian. [No doubt one of Davenport’s own children.]

As we entered his room in the Garden, the old chief arose from a blanket on the floor alongside of a bed; he had been resting, as the bed evidently tired him. As he arose he grew more and more in a dignified way, like an old Indian Hamlin Garland once told me of that grew in his estimation till he looked 17 feet high, and so as Chief Joseph straightened and reached out his long right arm to be shaken, he looked like a great Roman senator in bronze. He frowned with his brows, but his lips smiled, that he might make me feel more at home.

If you were going to interview a President that would be easy. You could say that you were leading a strenuous life and were in favor of good citizenship, and that would lead up to something, but to this man that meant nothing. He had done that all his life. If you were to interview an actor you could say that you saw him in his last play, then he would do the rest.

Chief Joseph, drawn from life by Davenport

Chief Joseph, drawn from life by Homer C. Davenport, 1903

But to draw and talk to a solemn old chief, 85 years old, made doubly melancholy by the presence of tall buildings instead of tall mountains, who had closed up tight as a clam, was something not at all easy. I thought of a chance. I remembered my uncle had bought his [Chief Joseph’s] horses, and that in his general merchandise store he had trusted all of the Indians over which this man had once ruled. Perhaps he might remember, so I asked him in jargon, “Do you know John Davenport, at Colfax?”

The old chief quickly lifted his head, his eyes lit up with a bright twinkle. “Now witka, hias skookum John Davenport. Skookum, skookum, skookum, hi youtl potlatch quitan, hi youtl potlatch quitan, hi youtl potlatch chickamen, sluh Colfax.”

In my joy I happened to think of old Platote, and I asked if he knew Platote.

Instantly the old chief, who had again become a boy, stood up. “Platote,” he exclaimed over and over, in loud, deep tones. Then he asked if I knew Platote, and I told him yes. He shook with laughter. The other Indians in the room all laughed and said Platote. Finally from a roll of red blankets that lay on the floor in the corner of the room came a grunt and the muffled words, “Charley Platote, hi youtl quitan.”

Gayety reigned for many minutes. Indians laughed that hadn’t smiled since they left their tepees in the far Northwest. The old Indian peeked out of the blankets that he might see the old friend of Platote. I asked if Platote was still alive. “Yes” the chief said, “and he is still herding horses.”

I was in the midst of a drawing by this time of the old chief’s face, when he burst into a noiseless laugh. Turning to Chief Red Shirt, he talked in a different language about a minute, and the only word I caught that I understood was “Platote.” I asked the interpreter what he said. He said to Red Shirt, “What kind of world is this? We come away from Indian country and come through mountains, then pass more Indian country and come through days of great wheat fields, then come where everything is corn, and pass through some big cities, and then come way here among these high buildings and find a man who knows Charley Platote, the Nez Perce horseman.”

The expression on the chief’s face changed noticeably into that of deep melancholy. He was more dejected than he was a few minutes before he had been so happy. He stood up over six feet and trod back and forth with bowed head. He was a grand sight, although a dejected person.

Chief Joseph, a pure Indian of the Nez Perce tribe, is past 85 years old, but looks 50. His skin is a s soft as satin, though his flesh is hard and firm. He is the type of man and art where the work of A.B. Frost stops and where that of Frederic Remington begins. On the other hand, you get melancholy when you see a great, broad-minded man like Chief Joseph. You see a man representing a race that were not dealt with as they should have been. This prisoner of war was never charged with cruelty. The only charge against him was that as he was ordered from his home and the hunting ground of his ancestors before, he said, “I don’t want anything the white man has. I only want to be let alone and let live in the beautiful Wallowa Valley, where my ancestors lived and died, and where my boyhood days were so happily spent.”

Notwithstanding this simple plea from a just and honest Indian, the troops came to take him to a reservation and he naturally fought, and when he fought, he fought in a manly, dignified way, and had he had as many warriors as we had he would have caused our Generals to blush. As it was, he proved almost a Napoleon. He rightly figured that the whites and the progress of civilization might have spared to him the beautiful little valley at the junction of the Wallowa and Snake Rivers, in Eastern Oregon. There he could live as he had always lived at the head of his tribe, a well-behaved band of Indians.

The buckskin smell and the odor of a wilder country had made me homesick and blue, and as I started to leave the room, as I passed the dignified old Chief to say goodbye he said that I had made him feel very bad, but he was here where the houses are “slah, slah,” pointing to the sky, and at the railroads were “slah,” and that the mention of old Platote had made him homesick. “Hi youtl homesick.”


Hospital Bed Endowment

Thomas NastIn a testament to cross-checking in research, I have uncovered a media account involving Davenport and his inspirational mentor, cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902). Homer’s mother, according to Davenport family lore, asked her husband on her deathbed to encourage Homer’s art so that he might become another Nast. This occurred, and then some. By 1901 both men were successful and living in New Jersey. Nast, on the downside of an incredible career; and Davenport almost midpoint into his.

But did they ever meet each other? The closest reference that I found was a short piece in the New York Times in 1903, about six months after Nast died of Yellow Fever in Ecuador. It recounted a lecture Davenport held in Nast’s hometown of Morristown, which at the end he pledged to help raise funds for a commemorative statue of Mr. Nast. The Nast archives are likewise silent of any mention of Davenport. However, Nast was not known as a letter writer, according to his biographer Albert Bigelow Paine.

Now, I have uncovered a media account of Davenport and Nast, leading to an interesting tale of a Hospital Bed Endowment Fund, “Florodora” Girls, Baseball and ultimately fraud. It all started with Ebay.

I purchased nine pages from The Strand Magazine, an arts and literary periodical from Great Britain. This particular article detailed elsewhere in these pages, include short biographical sketches of Davenport and three contemporaries. Two I was familiar with, but the other, Mr. R.C. Bowman, I had never heard of before. So I started Googling…

Rowland Claude Bowman (1870-1903) was a political cartoonist from the Minneapolis Tribune, and who had published a couple of books prior to his untimely death at 33: Several volumes of his work for the Tribune, and one book of children’s verse entitled “Freckles and Tan.” The first edition, published in 1900, featured illustrations by Bowman himself. However, a second edition, published a year after his death, was illustrated by one F.Y Cory.

Fanny Young Cory (1877–1972) was unique for her time, a highly talented and successful artist in her own right. She went on to illustrate numerous books, (including early editions of L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series) and several comic strips over the years. She lived a long and productive life, working from her and her husband’s Montana ranch. Her book of paintings and verse, A Fairy’s Alphabet is still in print. Turns out, she had a similarly talented brother, John, who was a New York political cartoonist who lived in New Jersey.

John Campbell Cory (1867-1925) doubled as a strip and political cartoonist. He eventually wrote The Cartoonist’s Art in 1912, as kind of a “how to” manual for aspiring young cartoonists. He also worked for Hearst’s New York Journal during the same time Davenport did.

A cross check with “Cory” and “Davenport” yielded a delightful link to “The Strippers Guide” a blog by historian Allan Holtz dedicated to comic strip artists. A feature on Sydney B. Griffin, a strip cartoonist from this same era, recounted the details of a short article from the New York Sunday Telegram.

The September 22, 1901, story reported the upcoming charity baseball game between actors and artists to be held at the New York at the Polo Grounds on October 7. The goal of the game was to raise money to endow a hospital bed for newspaper artists. The list of players was a veritable “who’s who” of the New York political art scene: Besides Syd Griffin, the group included Richard Outcault, Louis Dalrymple, James Swinnerton, and J. Campbell Cory. Outcault was manager, Davenport is listed as pitcher, with Jimmy Swinnerton as shortstop.

A final paragraph notes that “…Miss Lillian Russell from the first accepted the position of official scorer, and the veteran [cartoonist] Thomas Nast will be her associate in that delicate but important office…” This would have been just over a year prior to Nast leaving for Ecuador, having been appointed Consul General by President Theodore Roosevelt. Lillian Russell (1860-1922) was an famous actress the era, and friend  of the Davenports, having attended several of the exotic Barbeques hosted there.

So I started scouring the papers for late September and October in hopes of finding more details about the game. Keyword “Nast” brought up a short piece from the New York Times, dated September 26, in which Mr. Nast the sent a congratulatory cartoon to the Times, in honor of that paper’s fiftieth anniversary, (right).

The next hit came from the New York World, run by Hearst’s arch rival Joseph Pulitzer. This article, dated October 7, the day of the game recounted the practice game held the day before. Obviously written by a member of the World’s dramatic staff, it only mentions the names of the actors playing, which included members of the cast and chorus line of the hit Broadway musical production of “Florodora.” Indeed, the “Florodora Girls” as they were known were to be the major draw.

The next day, The World ran a rather lengthy account of the game itself. It included an illustration, no doubt by one of the World’s staff cartoonists, (below).

There appears to be a “G” in the lower left corner of the cartoon, possibly representing Syd Griffin. Again, no artists were mentioned by name, although many of the actors were. The illustration however did include an apparent caricature of Jimmy Swinnerton running, (Upper-left, “When an Artist saw a ball coming.”).

In the lower right corner, an “artist” is painting the scene with easel and paint tray. The artist, while looking rather stereotypical of a bohemian type: Goatee beard and western-style hat, had the main attributes of Mr. Nast. Indeed the self portrait from September 26 Times piece was very similar to the “artist” in the cartoon.

The final score was 31 to 12, in favor of the Actors. The article even included the entire score broken out by innings. The World reported that “A small crowd saw the game.”

The umpires were listed as Eugene O’Rourke, P. Wilder, Christy Mathewson and “Rube.” Of these folks, Eugene O’Rourke (1863–1917) and Marshall P. Wilder (1859–1915) were both actors, although Wilder was also an artist.

Christopher “Christy” Mathewson (1880–1925) however was a Major League pitcher with the New York Giants at the time. “Rube” might have pitcher Charles Edward “Rube” Waddell (1876–1914) who was at the time of this game ostensibly playing for the Chicago Orphans, but notoriously bouncing around quite.

O’Rourke had started out playing third base, but “retired” to the umpire position. At which point, vaudevillian comic actress Marie Dressler (1868-1934) stepped up to the plate and volunteered. The article reports: “After a consultation between Louis Harrison, Dan McAvoy, Eddie Foy and Burr McIntosh, it was decided that the gentlewoman could do more effective work as a mascot.” Dressler went on to an extensive career in films, eventually winning the Best Actress Oscar in 1931.

Then a final clue. From the Monday, October 12 edition of the New York Dramatic Mirror, also from “The Strippers Guide” site. The Mirror reported that the frosty weather kept the attendance low and official scorer Lillian Russell and the chorus girls away. After five innings the game was called. As it turned out, Davenport did not pitch because he had left for Oregon to see his ailing father. So Nast may well have been on scene, but Davenport, Lillian Russell and the Florodora Girls were not.

One final article from the New York Time, dated October 15 recounted how several “solicitors” were at the game, supposedly collecting funds for the Hospital Bed Endowment, but were in fact fraudulent operators. The article included a notice of a reward of $100 for “…information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons representing themselves as newspaper reporters who solicited or obtained subscriptions in the name of the Actors and Artists Hospital Bed Endowment Fund.”

The contact for the game and charity was listed as “A. Stone,” with an address in the N.Y. World Building. This would have been Abram Stone, one of the principals involved in the New York School of Caricature, of which Mr. Cory, Syd Griffin and Lou Dalrymple were also involved. No further word as to the outcome of that investigation however.

In the long run, one of those research dead-ends. But an interesting story nonetheless! The search for the Nast / Davenport connection will continue elsewhere it would appear.