Rev. Kadir E. Davis Frantically Calling in Lithographs That So Advertise Him
Rev. Kadir Edward Davis, pastor of the Central Christian church, of Oakland, is frantically busy calling in advertising lithographs scattered throughout California announcing that “Rev. Kadir Edward Davis, popularly known as ‘The American Oscar Wilde,’” would appear at a certain date and deliver a lecture. It is a ticklish time for the aesthetic clergyman. He no longer wears a sunflower and is struggling with the temptation to cut his long hair. He has had new plates prepared for his display lithographs and hereafter he will be proclaimed merely as “the versatile gentleman.” For years Mr. Davis traveled over the United States, announcing himself as the “American Oscar Wilde,” a designation given him by an eastern paper. “I am at a loss to know just what to do,” said he to a reporter. “It is true that I have been a great admirer of the author of ‘Dorian Grey‘ and ‘A Woman of No Importance.’ I believed in aesthetics. I think a preacher should be a leader in dress as well as thought. The day for preachers to garb themselves in camel’s hair and leathern girdles is past. I took Oscar Wilde as my model. I think he is a man of great genius. Now I am not afraid of criticism and while my methods may be considered bizarre by more conservative Christians, I feel that I am pursuing a proper course in appealing to the curiosity, artistic sensibilities and even the humor of the people. But I am not going to pose any more as the American Oscar Wilde. I don’t just know how I am going to get the public to drop the title. On my lithographs my title henceforth will be the ‘Versatile Gentleman.’”
“camel’s hair and leathern girdles” is a reference to Mark 3:4 which describes the attire of John the Baptist.
S. N. Behrman, Oliver Herford, President Clinton, Mark Twain, Richard Hovey, and Jonathan Ames are all mentioned on the web as being an or the American Oscar Wilde, and all for different reasons.
Whether it’s for quick wit, legal troubles, aesthetic sense or flashy ways, Mr Wilde had a lot of aspects that one may assume in (or have assigned to) one’s character.
Bill points out that 1895 was the year that Oscar Wilde first went to court to sue Queensbury for libel.
Rev. Davis has unfortunately faded into history.
As an aside, I thought a Google Sponsored Link for “Aesthetics Trucker Hat” was amusing. Term: aesthetics
Gus Teeler, of Kirwin, Mo., fell off a windmill tower and saved his life by falling on his two porkers. It killed the hogs.
Poor piggies!
No mention of Mr Teeler’s saving anywhere on the web but here, folks. No mention of “Kirwin, Mo.” either. Perhaps they meant Kirwin, Kansas? Or perhaps there was once a town named Kirwin, Missouri that was so small that no one has bothered to mention it on the web… Well, there’s a mention of it now.
The Chicago Interior publishes a letter from Mr. Nichols, of Tecumseh, dated May 18th, and declares him to be “a man of conscience and understanding.” He says:
“Our village and vicinity constitute a scene of special interest just now, on account of an ancient fossil recently brought to light. A few days ago, as some men were cutting a ditch through a piece of low land, some four miles northeast of our village, they came upon some huge bones, which, on further investigation, proved to be the bones of a Mastodon. They were imbedded in a stratum composed mainly of clay and sand, of yellowish complexion, overlaid by about two or two and a half feet of black muck, and having a stratum of very moist and more thoroughly digested vegetable matter underneath. Directly over the principal remains stood an oak tree of some eighteen inches in diameter and having fifty-five concentric circles.
“The skeleton, as a whole, was very imperfect, both as to the number of pieces and in respect to preservation. Some of the parts, however, to wit: vertebra, part of the jaw, a portion of a tusk, several molars, leg bones, etc, were in a very natural state. From the worn state of the teeth it is inferred, very naturally, that the animal was old. The bones also, being much dispersed about over an area of some thirty feet diameter, would seem to indicate that the creature was not inadvertently cast in the mire, but that it had, through weakness, caused by time or disease, laid down upon the ground, died, and been torn to pieces by surviving and devouring wild beasts.
“As to the dimensions of the animal, Professor Winchell, of the University of Michigan, having examined the remains, thinks that it must have stood some twelve or thirteen feet in length. The main tusk, of which a section, about one yard in length, is in tolerable preservation, is ascertained to have been, when entire, about nine and a half feet in length. This conclusion is reached by measuring the matrix in which it reposed, and which, from the clay of which it is mainly composed, is in a remarkable state of preservation. Its diameter in the middle is nearly or quite four inches, and the curve, which was upward, was very gentle and graceful. But, alas, a prodigious weapon to contend with!”
The Chicago Interior was published by the Western Presbyterian Publishing Co. from 1870 to 1910. Thanks to the Chicago Hisotrical Society for the clue. It seems to have been a new paper when the Argus picked up this story, but I don’t know enough about the Newspaper Industry in the 19th Century to know how they may or may not have been connected.
The Michigan Argus [Argus was the many-eyed guardian of Io] started in Ann Arbor in 1835. I don’t know when they stopped publishing, or if they have anything at all to do with Argus Cameras [also originally from Ann Arbor], but in our Item collection they seem to have the most “weird stuff”.
In fact, more than one of the Argus articles posted by Bill on an old version of his website (the first incarnation of this project, before Notional Slurry and Odd Ends) have been copied numerous times on Fortean-style websites without acknowledging his effort at all. That leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, and I wasn’t even the one who found the articles and typed them in (not the oldest ones on Slurry, at least). It’s not the taking of text–its the lack of courtesy even to say they’d taken it, and then putting their own names as “contributors” to the sites. Hmph.
End of rantlet. More of a whine, really. Back to the real annotation…
Professor Alexander Winchell was the State Geologist of Michigan, Professor of Geology and Paleontolgy at the University of Michigan, Chancellor of Syracuse University, and has a mountain in California named for him. He published a paper in 1864–”Notice of the Remains of a Mastodon Recently Discovered in Michigan.” American Journal of Science 38: 223-224.–that may or may not be this find [Thanks Calvin College]. It’s hard to say, since the area along now-US-12 from Saline towards Tecumseh is part of the “Mastodon Trackway“, and mastodons are apparently not uncommon in the state. There is a difference, though, between 6 years (1864 to 1870) and “a few days ago”.
Alexander Winchell. What a fascinating man. One of the reasons he’s so prevalent on the Web is not just that he was a famous geologist and paleontologist–he named the Mississippian (Lower Carboniferous) strata of rocks–; he’s often cited with respect to creationist theory. I don’t know if his views were the same as the creationsists, or perhaps there is simply an affinity for those blending Science and Christianity. One of his books: Preadamites; or A Demonstration of the Existence of Men Before Adam; together with a Study of Their Condition, Antiquity, Racial Affinities, and Progressive Dispersion Over the Earth got him kicked out of Vanderbilt. Some websites say that it was because he was promoting evolution (men before Adam) but others say it was just university politicking. Since I haven’t read the book I can’t say what it’s about, but apparently its pretty racist in tone.
Another other book of Winchell’s that’s commonly cited on the Web is Theologico-geology, or, The teachings of Scripture, illustrated by the conformation of the earth’s crust, an address delivered before the Bible class connected with the Methodist Episcopal church, Ann Arbor, Michigan, by A. Winchell. You can read it on the Web at the Making of America website. I merely skimmed it, but I noted that he thought there was a bridgeable gulf between “the student of science and the student of the Bible” and declared that Science is “a knowledge of what God has ordained to exist.” Sounds like a proto-IDer to me.
