From the Notebook

The Background

This is the seventh in a series of articles written for The Atlanta Journal in 1890 and 1891 by W.W. Goodrich, an architect who practiced in Atlanta between 1889 and 1895.

Americans have an innate infantile tendency to mythologize that which they destroy, like the toddler who squishes a bug and then babbles endlessly about how pretty it was. The prime modern example is the suburbanites who herd into treeless residential developments named — take your pick: Oak Manor, Cherry Ridge, Deer Valley, or what have you.

As they gaze over a barren landscape primped and manicured within an inch of its life, the ground drenched in cancerous chemicals to keep their exotic grasses artificially green and free of animal life, they lament their disconnect from nature and pine for a visit to the nearest state park.

The same sort of nonsense was happening in the 19th century, when White Americans suddenly became fascinated by the culture of the native tribes whom they had all but eliminated through genocide, or — for those who are too delicate to face uncomfortable truths — “removal”.

Goodrich gives his own opinion of the indigenous people here: “…they will never be quiet until the last one is made a good Indian, ‘that is a dead one.’” A charming human being, no?

This article is a self-indulgent mess of a creative writing exercise, even for a cut-rate fabulist like Goodrich. Here, he describes the land around Mount Baker and the Nooksack River in what is now the state of Washington, although his descriptions are largely inaccurate.

Goodrich also weaves in an “Indian legend” that appears entirely invented, throwing in bits of Chinook Jargon that are often incorrectly used and misspelled, and absurd names that could have been concocted by a child.

The only accurate name is Nez Perces, a tribe whose territory originally encompassed 17 million acres in portions of what are now the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Utah. By the 1890s, the tribe had been confined to a reservation of about 750,000 acres in northern Idaho, which still exists today.

Goodrich bounced around the Western territories for several years, and no doubt picked up bits and pieces of Native American lore — he certainly created lore of his own. In 1879, he moved to Denver,¹ leaving Colorado in 1881 after he was arrested for check fraud and larceny.²

He briefly practiced in Boise, Idaho, in 1882³ before spending 6 months in Seattle,⁴ reappearing in San Francisco in 1883, where he presented himself as “recently from New York”.⁵ That same year, he was arrested in both Los Angeles and Boston for check fraud,^{6 7 8} before moving to Oakland, California, in 1885.⁹

Given his brief stint in Washington, his reputation for falsity, and the flimsy claims made here, it’s likely that Goodrich never actually visited the places he described.

Among the notable inaccuracies in this article:

• This is Goodrich’s second use of the characters, “Queen Wyltwyck”, Boston and Pilchickanim. Wyltwyck, of Dutch origin, was the original name of Kingston, New York, where Goodrich may have been raised and practiced architecture from 1875¹⁰ to 1878.¹¹
• The 365-foot natural bridge “of solid marble” on the Nooksack River never existed.
• Nooksack Falls is 88 feet high, not 400 feet, as Goodrich claims.
• The Tsiatko were considered forest spirits, not human ghosts.
• “Nika tilakum” is a mangled spelling of the Chinook Jargon phrase Nika tilikum, meaning “my people”.
• “Uyuck”, “Pilchikanin” appear to be entirely invented names.

Other Chinook Jargon terms used in this article include:

• Tyee – leader, chief
• Sahale – mountain
• Kloshe – good
• Kloochman – woman
• Markook – trading house or store¹²

Goodrich also uses a word from Chinook Jargon that is now considered offensive and will not be reproduced here. The term has been replaced with the [omitted] tag.

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Land of the Indian.

The Wonders of Nature That Abound
In the Native Home of the Warrior
Some of the Wonderful and Awe-Inspiring Scenery Viewed and Described by an Atlanta Man – One of the Indian Legends

Written for the Journal.

Wonders of nature face the traveler as he journeys over the lands of Queen Wyltwyck.

On each hand there are certainly some of the greatest natural curiosities to be found on the earth.

Forests of gigantic spruce, cedars and firs two and three hundred feet high, at three feet from the ground forty feet in circumference, is no uncommon sight.

In the dense forests lie great mountain giant cedars that have grown to enormous heights, and by the fierce storms have fallen over, we have counted five growths thus lying across each other making a total thickness of forty-seven feet.

There are several natural bridges spanning certain canyons which are almost true arches. A natural bridge across the Nooksack near Mt. Baker is far down in the canyon’s depths, and hence has seldom been seen by a white man. Gliding under it in a canoe, it is seen to be one massive arch, which is 365 feet across, and far below the arch runs the river of Buttermilk chuck. Among the ragged rocks and projecting crags it windows its circuitous way to the salt chuck.

While above, rising in sheer perpendicular ascent, tower the granite cliffs of the canyon 2,000 feet or more in the air, showing seams of coal, iron, fluorspar, quarts carrying gold, galena carrying gray copper, with threads of native copper, inaccessible to man, but which can be found in the river’s bed. Beautiful agates, crystals and amethysts are everywhere in more or less profusion. Under each end of the arch are beautiful marble shafts, polished by the winds and drifting sands, of uncut native and natural art. The great architect of nature has here shown that the art of man is insignificant and puny in comparison to the wondrous works of Sahale Tyee. The bridge itself is of solid marble, of wondrous purity and richness. Below the bridge are the upper falls and rapids which take a plunge of nearly 300 feet in succeeding short falls, with a final plunge of 400 feet to the canyon some nine miles from the bridge, from which point the waters are placid for several miles.

The Indians give the bridge a wide berth. They are extremely afraid of it. Tsiatko; at the merest mention of this word, they tremble in terror.

A Kloshe [omitted] sought the bridge as a way across the canyon, and was never more heard from. She was a most beautiful squaw, brave and true. When the chilling blasts come through the canyon from above the bridge, and the winds whistle through the trees, they imagine they see her tsiatko, or ghost, walking across the span.

A peculiarity of the apparition is that at from noon to about 1:30 p.m., clear, cold days, a shadowy figure does promenade always one way – from the east to the west. The apparition is only the sun’s rays reflecting on the smooth walls of the canyon, producing in a marked degree, almost a human form. Above the bridge to the glaciers the current is swift, with sunken rocks to swamp the canoe, should its handler not be careful. Salmon and trout are plentiful. The salmon are easily speared, and a salmon broil over a bed of coals is a delicacy that must be partaken of to be known in its intrinsic advantage over the false so-called modern cooking by grease of any kind. With a hard tack and a hat full of salmon berries it is a feast of natural and delicate food easily digested, and hungry for more is the dyspeptic’s actual cry. He soon finds his dyspepsia is a thing of the past, his insomnia has disappeared, and he can sleep like a log, figuratively speaking, that even the caterwauling of a mountain lion fails to awaken him from his sound sleep. And a mountain lion’s cry is not to be sneezed at, to use a street expression.

Our guide Uyuck, a tall sinewy [omitted], with iron nerves that never flinched in mortal combat with man or beast, trembled as he beheld this majestic bridge, with its graceful sweep and arching curves.

The arch itself is stupendous. A clear span, over the river from the top of the bridge to where it springs from the fall of the side wall is nearly one hundred feet, while its thinnest part at center of span in the center over the river is only eight feet, with a width for a foot-path only, and above the water nearly one thousand feet.

The river below looks like a thread of frayed cotton flying in the winds, so great is the tossing about of the water in the center of the rapids. Truly a great view from the bridge. To the north, is Mount Baker, clad in eternal snow, its ever moving glaziers [sic] of ice glistening and flashing reflecting rays from peak to peak, from canyon to canyon, from range to range. To the east the Rocky Mountains; to the south the west Puget Sound region; to the west old ocean, pacific when it pleases. But in its bosom there lurks a danger that man cannot overcome. We have seen it quiet and restful, its long, gentle roll, upon which, with sportive play, leaped the fur seal, after its meal of salmon; the leopard seal after its prey; the great whale with jaws open, and rushing through the water, when of a sudden it closes its jaws and it has its catch of fish, as it spouts and sprays us with water. Again we have seen it in its anger, when its fury was let loose, and we, like the Indian, trembled at its majestic grandeur, and arching waves that over-topped our yard arms and descended upon our ship’s decks with a thunderous thud, that made every timber creak and tremble. Yes, we, too, have said “Sahale tyee, sahale tyee, nika tilakum.”

Ascending the river still further toward the glaziers, our guide points out to us various points of interest.

Upon a level plain, several years before, was fought an Indian battle of remarkable fierceness.

The Nez Perces had crossed the range to avenge an insult, as they said. A Nez Perces buck had abducted a [omitted] Kloochman. In taking the female over the range to his tribe he was overtaken. His ears were cut off, and he was turned adrift to go to his tribe as he had come. The Nez Perces are a war-like people, and have caused Uncle Sam already many men and much money to keep them upon their reservation: but they will never be quiet until the last one is made a good Indian, “that is a dead one.” The chief of the Nez Perces sent over the range several hundred of his best warriors and fiercest fighters. They were met at this plain by the Queen of the Wyltwick tribe. With her eagle feathers in profusion and dressed in a lion’s skin, she led her bucks in person as Tyee Wyltwyck was sick nigh unto death. She left him at the Markook with Pilchickanin and Boston and the squaws and papooses. The fight raged for three days, day and night, and when the last of the Nez Perces was exterminated and she was triumphant, and her dead braves had been laid to rest upon the platforms of the dead that were hastily made, and not until then was there such an Indian dance for joy at the extermination of a foe, as the Rocky mountains before or since have ever seen. Her dead braves were mourned and wailed for at the sail house, incantations for their journey to the happy hunting grounds in successive eras of prosperity were prayed for, and after weeks of mourning and moons of wailing, all again was as quiet as the placid waters of the lake.

W.W. Goodrich¹³

References

1. Advertisement. Rocky Mountain News (Denver), May 24, 1879, p. 2. ↩︎
2. “Held to Answer”. Rocky Mountain News (Denver), March 26, 1881, p. 2. ↩︎
3. “Architect”. Idaho Tri-Weekly Statesman (Boise, Idaho), March 14, 1882, p. 3. ↩︎
4. Advertisement. Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer, September 29, 1882, p.2. ↩︎
5. “Brevities”. Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer, July 25, 1883, p. 3. ↩︎
6. “A Worthless Check”. The Boston Herald, November 27, 1883, p. 1. ↩︎
7. “Operation With Checks”. Boston Daily Advertiser, November 27, 1883, p. 8. ↩︎
8. “An Old Fraud Heard From”. Los Angeles Herald, March 16, 1884, p. 4. ↩︎
9. “A New Architect”. Oakland Daily Evening Tribune (Oakland, California), July 23, 1885, p. 2. ↩︎
10. Advertisement. The Daily Freeman (Kingston, New York), October 5, 1875, p. 1. ↩︎
11. Advertisement. The Daily Freeman (Kingston, New York), December 9, 1878, p. 2. ↩︎
12. Gibbs, George. A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon Language, or Trade Language of Oregon. New York: Cramoisy Press (1863). ↩︎
13. Goodrich, W.W. “Land of the Indian.” The Atlanta Journal, November 1, 1890, p. 3. ↩︎

The Background

This is the sixth in a series of articles written for The Atlanta Journal in 1890 and 1891 by W.W. Goodrich, an architect who practiced in Atlanta between 1889 and 1895.

I’ll be blunt: this article is unreadable garbage.

Here, Goodrich concocted a tale set in the state of Washington that begins with an ill-fated hunting excursion by “Wyltwyck, the haughty queen of the Nooksacks”.

Wiltwyck, of Dutch origin, wasn’t the name of any Indigenous person in Oregon — it was the original name for Kingston, New York,² where Goodrich may have been raised and practiced architecture from 1875³ to 1878.⁴

For a mythomaniac, Goodrich’s storytelling skills were atrocious: after reading this article multiple times, I still don’t know what the hell it’s about. My best guess is that he started writing one story, and when he couldn’t figure out how to advance the plot, decided to jam an entirely different one into it.

As if the article weren’t incomprehensible enough, Goodrich packed it full of Chinook Jargon and outright gibberish. Terms like Sahale Tyee, Nika tilakum, and kloochman are accurate,⁵ but much of the text reads like the speech of a babbling toddler.

Sample sentence: “Loved by the tribe and by her Ikt man kwon esum mit lite kopa ikt kloochman.” Da fuq?

Despite his own grade-school writing ability, Goodrich audaciously derided the intelligence of Indigenous people, noting “the simplicity of [Wyltwyck’s] nature” and later referring to “the simple-minded Indian”.

Goodrich also made the character of Wyltywk an adherent of Christianity — because of course he did — describing her recitation of the Lord’s Prayer to “the Great Jehovah, or Great Spirit”. As a compulsive liar and criminal fraud, you can be sure Goodrich was an exceptional Christian.

Incidentally, the translation of the Lord’s Prayer is mostly accurate — Goodrich copied it from George Gibbs‘ Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon.

The only value in reproducing this article is to show the kind of pure bullshit that the United States has built its myths on — moronic fantasies spun by narcissistic infants who lack experiential knowledge and are desperate to prove their superiority by portraying other people as weak and inferior.

If you think there’s a shred of truth in this cultus wauwau, grow up and read a history book.

Goodrich used a word from Chinook Jargon that is now considered offensive and will not be reproduced here. The term has been replaced with the [omitted] tag, and trust me, it doesn’t make the article any worse.

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Wyltwyck.

Written for the Journal.

[Note.–For the definitions of the Indian words in this story, see the end of the article.]

The cold, gray clouds were drifting over Mount Baker. Occasionally a rift in the moving mass of snow would reveal the glaziers in the canyons, and the rugged ridges of rock protruding from the ice in uneven peaks. The stillness of death reigned everywhere. Flake upon flake, at first floating silently by, would be raised from the crust to again mingle with the storm’s ever increasing determination to bury all surviving life under its revengeful mantle. Upon a projecting crag overlook a precipice, whose depth was many hundreds of feet, was Wyltwyck, the haughty queen of the Nooksacks. Tall, straight as an arrow, with knotted muscles, in silent determination she waited, with bow bent, the spring of the mountain lion, that terror of the northwest, which was crouched, ready to spring upon her as its victim for its evening meal. Cat-like, with stealth, crawling slowly, its hair raised and tail in gentle twirl, it crouched for a spring. Instantly was heard the hiss of the speeding arrow, straight and unerring. The beast had been hit in a vital part and was mortally wounded. It snaps at the arrow in its fury rolling over and over in the snow. The proud queen of the Nooksacks mockingly laughs, taunting it with expressions of ridicule that a [omitted] Kloochman should have dealt this noble beast in its own home its death blow. The snow is crimson from the warm blood of the beast; in its final agony it makes one desperate jump at the squaw, only to be met with the dagger’s blow, severing the jugular vein. The death dance over an enemy in all its peculiar quaintness and picturesqueness, in the solitude of the mountain’s fastness, with no mortal soul to witness the ceremony and in the storms of relentless fury, made the heart of Queen Nooksack bound with intense delight. Such is the Indian’s desire for solitude. Sahala Tyee, Sahala Tyee, Nika Tilakum Wyltwyck was alone, and in calling up on the Great Jehovah, or Great Spirit, she in the simplicity of her nature acknowledged the beneficience [sic] of God Almighty, as the saviour of the human soul, and for her safe return to her people Stepping to the edge of the precipice overlooking the deep recesses of the canyon, looking for salt chuck, as her bearing to the Boston, she realized she was lost and had become separated from her tribal relations in the hunt. With hands uplifted towards the unseen God, who lived upon the mountain top she prayed and in the fervency of her prayer and anguish the words echoed and re-echoed from peak to peak, from canyon to canyon, but the Lord’s Prayer never sounded sweeter to the Saviour nor came nearer the throne of grace than did the prayer of this lone Indian squaw several thousand feet above the sea Nepika Sahale Tyee Klaxta Mitlite Kopa sahale Koshe Kopa nesika tumtum mika mem. Kloshe Mika tyee Kopa Konaway tilikum Kloshe Mika tumtum Kopa illahe kahwka kopa sahale potlatch konaway sun neiska muckamuck pee kopet kumtuks konaway nesika mesache kahkwa nesika mamook kopa klaska spose mamook mesahche kopa nesika marsh siah kopa nesika konaway mesanche. KLOSHE KAHKWA.

She had not eaten for many hours as her muckamuck was gone Hyas til Nika, and wrapping her pasee about her, she was soon asleep in the Tkope snass.

The [omitted] Sail house was east of the Boston town of Nooksack on the Nooksack river at the foot of Mount Baker, whose great and majestic grandeur must been seen to be appreciated. On its sides are five glaziers moving constantly and steadily to the plains and valleys below, from under which are heard dense crunchings and loud reports and moans, caused by the ice and rocks gravitating to the lower levels and melting in a higher temperature. All of these sounds are a constant source of terror to the simple-minded Indian, who imagines these noises are devils and demons in mortal combat, each arrayed against the other, and that the smoke from the peak is caused by their firing their respective hells with each other’s bodies, as a burnt sacrifice to allay the wrath of the defeated chief devil, acknowledging that even devils have an affinity for some sort of a patched up friendship.

The homes of these people were built of bark, skins and rifted cedar thatched with wild grasses. At the apex was an opening for the egress of smoke; their muck-a-muck was game dried and jerked. Salmon were speared, halved, salted and dried and then smoked. To soften them a pointed stick was run through the thick part of the tail and then the fish was pinned to the bed of the river under water to freshen and soften preparatory to cooking and eating, a sure and speedy way.

They raised yesolth and few vegetables, and were a dreamy, superstitious and quiet people, only going on the warpath when repeatedly insulted, and never giving in till the foe were entirely wiped out of existence even to the last papoose.

A Boston man came among them to purchase skins and barter for gold. He built a marmook and lived in simple style and readily took to the native ways. His goods were brought from Linden, the head of navigation in the [omitted] Canum. Tyee Wyltwyck, and his Queen were carefully and courteously treated, and their daughter, Pilchickanim, their only child, was a Hyas Kloshe Tenas Kloochman, the handsomest female of the several tribes with hosts of suitors. She was tall, stately, her piercing black eyes penetrating as an eagle’s, her long waving, straight black hair, fine as silk, trailing on the ground, a veritable queen, and set off with trinkets and jewelry of Boston made her a picture in nature never to be forgotten. Boston was envied by all the young bucks, and many a one was felled to the ground by Boston in fights with the girl’s lovers.

With her cedar canoe she could out-race any two of the tribe, and many a deer and bear fell an easy victim to her arrow and spear-thrust as they swam the river. Boston loved Pilchickanim. His love was reciprocated by the girl in her Indian way–coy, shrewd and distant. His was love as only a Boston can–affection for this maid of the forest, in his manly Boston way. To see the two in her canoe as she speedily paddled the river with or against the current one would not suspect that the were lovers. She never betrayed an emotion, but when Boston was sick she nursed him back to life. When he was assailed by any of her tribe she fought like a mountain lion with her dagger. Her own tribal relations, and always routed the young bucks.

The sun was setting over the salt chuck. Its brilliant rainbow colors now soft and subdued, rose and fell with the long rook of the ocean. From the northwest came that brilliant glare and with beautiful vibrations lurid and distinct of the auroborealis [sic]. The tribe were with the Tyee Wyltwyck at the Sail house, fearful of an impending fate, when into their midst walked Boston without hesitation. He addressed the chief, Nika Tikeh Malleh Pilchicknin. The Tyee arose and, brandishing his dagger, swore, never! Instantly Pilchicknin, with the stately bearing of her princely birth, advanced to the side of her lover, Boston. Ah, ha! ws Tyee Wyltwyck. The simple Indian ceremony was soon over, and with her husband, she went to live at the Markook house. Loved by the tribe and by her Ikt man kwon esum mit lite kopa ikt kloochman.

The run of salmon had been light; game was scarce; the season had been too cold for yeosolth, and supplies at the Markook were at an ebb, when a great hunt was planned by the tribe, following up the Nooksack to the glaziers [sic], from under which the buttermilk chuck was constantly running. Suddenly a Hyas skookum cly Hyas mowich, the moose sank into the snow as a shower of arrows went hissing on their deadly mission. Tyee Wyltwyck rushed forward to end the career of the moose should it not have been killed by the arrows. But in the snow lay Queen Wyltwyck wrapped in a moose skin, unharmed. She had seen her people in search of her, and surmising that they would take her for a moose, as she was clothed in a moose skin, dropped in the snow. She had subsisted for several days on the moose, and brought the lion skin as a memento.

W.W. GOODRICH

DEFINITION OF INDIAN WORDS

Sahala Tyee, Sahala Tyee (great Jehova or Great Spirit), mika tilikum (I want my tribe, I want to go to my people, literally).

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Nepika (our) sahale (Father) klaxta (who) mitlite (art) kopa (in) sahale (the spirit) kloshe (good) kopa (in) nesika (our) tumtum (hearts) mika (be thy) mem (name) kloshe (good) mika (thou) tyee (chief) kopa (among) konaway (all) tilikum (people) kloshe (good) mika (thy) tumtum (will) kopa (upon) iliahe (earth) kahkwa (as) kopa (in) sahale (the spirit) potlatch (give) konaway (every) sun (day) mesika (our) muckamuck (food) pee (and) kopet-kumtuks (remember not) konaway (all) nesika (our) mesache (sins) kahwka (as) nesika (our) mesache (sins) kahkwa (as) nesika (we) mamook (do) kopa (to) klaska (them) spose (that) mamook (do) mesahche (wrong) kopa (to) nesika (as) marsh (put away) siah (far) kopa (from) nesika (us) konaway (all) mesahche (evil). Kloshe kahkwa (amen).

Hyas til nika (I am very tired). Tkope snass (the snow). Sail house (tent). Yesolth (corn). Pilchicanim (I want to marry you golden beauty). Hoyas skookum cly (a great shot). Hyas mowich (big horse). Tossee (blankets). Boston (a white man). Muckamuck (food). [omitted] canim (Indian canoe).⁶

References

1. Fox, Catherine. “Folk Art Parks Downtown”. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 26, 1996, p. F1. ↩︎
2. Kingston, New York – Wikipedia ↩︎
3. Advertisement. The Daily Freeman (Kingston, New York), October 5, 1875, p. 1. ↩︎
4. Advertisement. The Daily Freeman (Kingston, New York), December 9, 1878, p. 2. ↩︎
5. Gibbs, George. A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon Language, or Trade Language of Oregon. New York: Cramoisy Press (1863). ↩︎
6. Goodrich, W.W. “Wyltwyck.” The Atlanta Journal, October 11, 1890, p. 7. ↩︎

The Background

The following anecdote, attributed to W.W. Goodrich, was published in The Atlanta Constitution just 9 months after Goodrich moved to Atlanta in 1889.¹

Nearly everything in this story about an Oregon gold rush town appears to be a lie. It’s plausible that Goodrich passed through the location at some point, but he couldn’t even get its name right.

According to the Oregon Encyclopedia, Amelia City “boomed for a short time and quickly declined”, appearing on maps from 1876 to 1890. The article adds that the town’s “…peak population was likely a few hundred…”

So much for Goodrich’s description of a “town of thirty thousand miners…”, including some who “…had not seen a baby in twenty years…” And surely with thirty thousand horny men around, the town’s two young women would have been popping out babies like firecrackers. Oh, c’mon, you know the “old lady” was really a madam.

Even the story of Goodrich’s 1700-mile journey from Salt Lake City to Pendleton, Oregon, is a lie. In 1882, Goodrich lived for 6 months in Boise, Idaho,^{2 3} before moving to Seattle.⁴ That was when he could have passed through Amelia City, which was located on the route between Boise and Seattle, southeast of Baker City.⁵

Incidentally, the distance between Salt Lake City and Pendleton, Oregon, is less than 600 miles, but who’s measuring?

The only difference between an architect and a con artist is that an architect believes their own bullshit, and Goodrich seems to have straddled the fine line between the two his entire life, constantly running from one location to the next when his lies caught up with him, leaving scant architecture of merit in his wake.

In 1890, the Deep South was virgin territory for Goodrich, and it was no doubt easier for him to get away with his tall tales at a time when the telegraph was the fastest mode of communication, and long-distance phone service was nonexistent.

Travel to the other side of the country was also costly and precarious, and there would have been few people in a backwater like Atlanta who would have been familiar enough with the Far West to call Goodrich’s bluff. Still, you’d hope someone was astute enough to notice the ripe whiff emanating from his outlandish stories.

Notes by the Wayside.

Mr. W.W. Goodrich, the architect, has traveled very extensively. In 1882 he traveled seventeen hundred miles by private conveyance with his family, going from Salt Lake to Pendleton, Oregon. At Amelia, Oregon, he found a town of thirty thousand miners, and in the entire population there were but three women–an old lady and her two daughters.

Mr. Goodrich had along his little baby six weeks old, and the baby created a sensation in the camps. Some of the miners had not seen a baby in twenty years, and they crowded about and handed the baby from one another.

“If an artist could have painted the scene,” said Mr. Goodrich, “it would have been a most interesting picture. There were grizzly old miners with pistols in their belts and knives in their boots alternately crying and laughing as they passed the baby around. ‘God bless his little gizzard,’ said one fellow, as the tears streamed down his face.”⁶

References

1. “Comes Here to Live.” The Atlanta Constitution, September 18, 1889, p. 4. ↩︎
2. “Architect.” Idaho Tri-Weekly Statesman (Boise City, Idaho), March 14, 1882, p. 3. ↩︎
3. “Personal.” Idaho Tri-Weekly Statesman (Boise City, Idaho), September 19, 1882, p. 5. ↩︎
4. “Architect & Sanitary Engineer.” (advertisement) Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer, September 29, 1882, p. 3. ↩︎
5. Amelia City – Oregon Encyclopedia ↩︎
6. “Notes by the Wayside.” The Atlanta Journal, June 24, 1890, p. 3. ↩︎

The Background

This is the fifth in a series of articles written for The Atlanta Journal in 1890 and 1891 by W.W. Goodrich, an architect who practiced in Atlanta between 1889 and 1895.

Here, Goodrich tells a “true story” of an encounter with Abraham Lincoln in New York City during the Civil War, although the account is almost certainly fabricated.

Goodrich was a pathological liar of some magnitude,^{1 2 3} and it appears that he largely invented his own biographical details, with implausible stories that became increasingly outlandish throughout his life. By the time of his death in 1907, Goodrich was described in one obituary as “a personal friend of President Lincoln”.⁴

The truth, of course, was likely much more mundane. According to the 1860 census — just before the Civil War, and when Goodrich was 19 years old — a man of his name and age lived in what is now the Financial District of Manhattan, where he worked as an insurance clerk.⁵

It’s doubtful that an insurance clerk who became an architect ever worked as a bootblack, and the odds that he met Abraham Lincoln are slim to none. Goodrich at least shows some grain of truth by referencing City Hall Park, which is the largest public space in the lower portion of New York.

This fable is in the vein of other hagiographic tales about American “heroes” that were popular in the 19th century — the apocryphal story of young George Washington chopping down a cherry tree, concocted by Mason Locke Weems, is a prime example of the genre.

This is not a prime example, however, as Goodrich was about as skilled at writing as he was at architecture.

It may seem a little daring that an Atlanta architect would write such a glowing account of Lincoln for a Southern audience, but keep in mind that Atlantans in the New South era prided themselves on having swiftly moved on from the Civil War — or at least, that was the image the city’s leaders wished to project.

The Old Southern hatred and ignorance remained just beneath the surface — and does so to this day — but this was, after all, the city that feted General Sherman for 3 days in 1879,⁶ fourteen years after he partially burned it.

Still, Northern-born men like Goodrich who lived and worked in Atlanta in the years after the Civil War had to walk a careful line: Atlantans weren’t offended if a Northerner pledged allegiance to their homeland so long as that person gave a knowing wink to indicate that they, too, shared the cherished Southern values of racism and unmerited superiority.

Look no further than Goodrich’s article entitled “Educational Advantages North and South”, published in The Southern Architect in 1892.

As The Atlanta Constitution said of the article: “[Goodrich] views the negro as an incumbrance and a political nuisance, and hopes that the better elements of the north and west will seek homes here and stand by the Anglo-Saxon race.”⁷

It should come as no surprise, then, that Goodrich’s story includes caricatured and infantilizing depictions of Black people, using offensive and stereotypical language. Two explicit racist terms will not be reproduced here and have been replaced with the [omitted] tag.

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The President and Bootblack.

Characteristic Incident in the Life of Abraham Lincoln—A True Story.

Written for the Journal.

“Shine, sir! Shine Sir!” the usual cry of the bootblack trudging along day by day, half-starved, hope in a future better existence, where he can sit beside a table of generous roast beef, mashed spuds, the revivifying coffee, hot rolls and butter. How my memory goes back to those days when these good things were of the “sight and smell only.” A short time before the assassination of our Lincoln he visited New York City in company with that stern, hard-headed secretary of war, Stanton.

I had seen the president on several occasions and knew him by sight, as Mr. Lincoln always, and all times, had a quiet, natural greeting for everyone; even the humblest child could approach him and be assured of a cordial and true gentlemanly greeting.

As they were crossing City Hall park I ran up behind, and with sang froid, said “Shine, uncle, shine, sir?” Mr. Lincoln turned about with a bright, humorous smile, while the great war secretary, in half indignation, asked the president to come on, as time was precious, but Mr. Lincoln said, “Wait a moment, Mr. Stanton, let’s sit down.”

Seating themselves at the west of the old city hall on a settee Mr. Lincoln was in the act of placing his right boot on my box, when behind me arose a cry: “Massa Lincum, let me shine of dem boots? Smug, you go away from dar, den Massa Lincum make me free. You poor white trash no bizzness shining my Massa’s boots.” A good argument, even from the “duke,” as we called the colored lad. My nickname was “Smug.” Mr. Lincoln afterwards remarked: “I will let you both shine; each can have a boot.” A crowd was gathering about us, of boot-blacks, errand boys, news boys and pedestrians, all anxious to know what was up, but all soon knew who the distinguished gentleman was, and with repeated cries from the less fortunate boys of “Go in Smug,” “I’ll bet on the duke,” and other phrases, we shined as best we could, Mr. Lincoln amusingly telling us that he’d bet on the hoss that won, and I’ll pay the boy that shines the best for both boots, patronizingly patting us on the back. When we had nearly completed our pleasant task Mr. Lincoln said: “Boys, I am going to tell you a story. I have just come up from the front. Have been down with General Grant, looking over the battle-fields, going through the hospitals;” and a great tear rolled down his cheek as he mentioned the brave boys, with legs and arms shot off, and the lonely graves of the unknown dead, and thinking of the anxious ones at home, who would never see their fathers, brothers and sons again. How vividly he portrayed the scene. Finally he said: “Several evenings since, as I sat in a tent door, in conversation with General Grant, a colored woman came by the guard, and in her arms were two little colored children saying, as she approached, ‘Massa Lincum, I’se hab twins, boff [omitted]. One I’se named arter you, and de udder arter Massa Washington. Dey’s boff de berry picture ob yous. Now, Massa Lincum, seeing as how yous ben so good ter de [omitted], and dat yous has made us free, and as my ole man is at de front, shouldering his musket fighting for yer, I’se gwine to ask yer to help dese [omitted] to something to eat,’” and suiting his action to his words he took out of his vest pocket two one dollar bills, and gave us each one, saying “you [omitted] look as though something to eat would not be amiss.”

The boys gave Massa Lincum three cheers and a tiger. While I was putting up my brush and blacking, after receiving the bill, even before I was off the bended knee, he saw in box a book. “Smug, what is that book?” I reluctantly gave it to him. He looked at its well-worn leaves and read “Robinson’s Algebra,” looking at me quizzically, saying to himself “Robinson’s Algebra.” “What are you doing with an algebra?” I hesitated about telling him, but his pleased look drew out my story. Only a poor, struggling student, working and striving under every opportunity and at whatever occupation to get an education that would prepare me for the future and that better my condition, and that by knowledge. He manifested much interest, promising to keep a weather eye on my future, and in parting said, “As your shine is well done, do everything else in like manner. and you will soon shine in something better.”

W.W. Goodrich⁸

References

1. “Held to Answer”. Denver Rocky Mountain News, March 26, 1881, p. 2. ↩︎
2. “Probably a Sharp Swindler”. The National Republican (Washington, D.C.), November 27, 1883, p. 3. ↩︎
3. “An Old Fraud Heard From”. Los Angeles Herald, March 16, 1884, p. 3. ↩︎
4. “Capt. Goodrich”. St. John’s Review (St. Johns, Oregon), February 15, 1907, p. 2. ↩︎
5. United States Census, 1860, William Goodrich, 2nd District 7th Ward New York City, New York, New York, United States. ↩︎
6. “Two Receptions”. The Atlanta Constitution, January 30, 1879, p. 1. ↩︎
7. “Editorial Comment”. The Atlanta Constitution, May 14, 1892, p. 4. ↩︎
8. Goodrich, W.W. “The President and the Bootblack.” The Atlanta Journal, July 5, 1890, p. 12. ↩︎