[Ads-l] Birth of Paul Bunyan?

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The same story appeared in another Kentucky newspaper on April 29. The
newspaper acknowledged the "Herald".

Date: April 29, 1885
Newspaper: The Times-Gazette
Newspaper Location: Bowling Green, Kentucky
Article: Who Can Beat This Baby?
Quote Page 1, Column 5
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
Paul Bunyan is the name of a baby
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 mamma 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 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?
-Herald
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Sun, Nov 16, 2025 at 5:04 PM Jonathan Lighter
<00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> 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."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org