[Ads-l] Birth of Paul Bunyan?

[Jonathan Lighter]

TL/DR.

Wiki-P offers the "first known reference to Paul Bunyan in print" as a
Michigan newspaper reference of 1893, without context, to a "Paul Bunion"
[sic}, apparently a real logger, apparently not a giant.

The name "Paul Bunion" appears occasionally in newspapers around 1900, but
not in reference to a giant lumberman. "Paul Bunyon" appears even less
often, and ditto.

The character "Paul Bunyan" gained prominence for the first time, at least
in print, in 1904, with ref. to the "year of the blue snow."

So what do we make of this:

1885* Ohio County News* (Hartford, Ky.) (Apr. 15) 3 [Newspapers.com]:

“Paul Bunyan is the name of an infant son of Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Gordon, of
Sutton, who is quite a remarkable chap. He is not quite seven months old,
weighs twenty pounds, can sit alone, say papa and momma and is noted for
his great strength. He lifted a six pound flat iron up the other day with
one hand and put it in his lap. His mamma then gave him an eight pound flat
iron and he lifted that up with ease. She then gave him both irons, one in
each hand and he lifted them both up off the floor at the same time. Who
can beat this baby?”
Hartford had a population of about 700 in 1885.

Pro-Paul:
1. This is the sole appearance of the name "Paul Bunyan" [sic] I've found
in Newspapers.com before 1900.
2. The point of the story is the infant's great strength and large size. (A
seven-month-old boy in the 1880s might be expected to weigh 17 or 18
pounds.)

Anti-Paul:
1. Hartford, Ky., seems not to be in a region noted for logging.
2. Hartford, Ky., is far from Wisconsin, where the first Bunyan stories
were printed.
3. Maybe the kid was named for St. Paul and John Bunyan.
4. Or for a relative named Bunyan.

Yet if the factual story of a weight-lifting baby named Paul Bunyan
began circulating in 1885, he might have mutated into a folkloric grownup
giant by 1893 or later.   The "Pocahontas Times" of Marlinton, W. Va. (July
4, 1901), p. 3 (GenealogyBank) mentions a logger whose name, " 'Paul
Bunyan' " [sic] appears to be a nickname or pseudonym - names like "H. R.
Warner" and "Fred Beard" appear without the inverted commas of  " 'Paul
Bunyan,' " but the obvious nickname " 'Old Smoke' " also bears them.
("Paul" is said to be "sharpening six axes and going to see six girls.")

FWIW, "Bunyan" has always been a very rare surname in the US, according to
Ancestry.com, with fewer than 300 American Bunyan families in 1880.

Food for thought, if not much else.

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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