Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - October - 2008 Issue
Strange and Fascinating American Pamphlets from Garrett Scott, Bookseller
Monument to Lost Children of the Alleghenies, circa 1910.
Alfred P. Schultz came up with one of the better arguments against evolution in his The End of Darwinism, published in 1911. Schultz notes that since culture has been going downhill ever since the time of ancient Greece, how could evolution, which is based on advancement, be true? Touché. Item 352. $50.
After all this weighty stuff, here is something more mundane: Manuel for Elevator Operators: The Herpolsheimer Company. Remember when elevators were run by elevator operators, rather than push buttons? That's a job which ended up having a 100% unemployment rate. Among the phrases the elevator operator was taught to use were "Step back in the car, please," and "Face the front, please." As for Herpolsheimer's, it was a department/discount store in Grand Rapids at the time these instructions were printed (circa 1940s). The future Betty Ford was a fashion coordinator for Herpolsheimer's when she met future President Gerald Ford. Herpolsheimer's was taken over by Lazarus Stores and renamed in the 1990s, which was in turn taken over by Macy's. Item 348. $35.
Item 26 is a sad tale of long ago: The Lost Children of the Alleghenies, and How They Were Found Through a Dream. The lost children were George and Joseph Cox, aged 7 and 5, of rural Pennsylvania (near Pavia). One day in 1856 they wandered out after their father, but became lost in the wilderness. When they did not return by afternoon, a search party was sent out across the countryside. Starting with a few hundred, eventually as many as a thousand searchers participated, but no trace of the boys was found. For a while, the boys' parents were suspects, but a thorough search of their property yielded no bodies. Nor could even a psychic or a dowser locate the boys. Then, on the tenth day, Jacob Dibert, who lived a dozen miles away, began having dreams. He dreamed he was searching for the boys and located them under a tree across a stream. He reportedly also pictured a dead deer and boy's shoe along the way. After three days of intensifying dreams, he determined to set out for the place, though he did not know the area well. Fortunately, his wife grew up nearby, and Dibert, with his brother-in-law, followed his dream. Reportedly, the two first saw a dead deer, and then a shoe, before crossing the stream to a birch tree with a broken top he had seen in the dream. There they found the boys' bodies, dead for three or four days. They had evidently starved after days of wondering the wilderness. No one had thought to look in the area as they did not believe the children could ford the stream, but they had crossed in an area where fallen trees provided a bridge. Dibert died in the Civil War, and a monument was erected to the lost boys at the place they were found 50 years after they disappeared. This book, by Charles R. McCarthy, was not published until 1888, though it may be the first account of this story in book form. Earlier this year, Alison Krauss released a song about this sad occurrence entitled "Jacob's Dream." $40.
Garrett Scott, Bookseller, may be reached at 734-741-8605 or garrett@bibliophagist.com.
