John Sepich did the research for all the novels you have listed and
has published a book on his references and methods. Its a very good
read, just about as good as the novels themselves.
Sepich notes that John Glanton, David and C.O Brown, and Sarah
Borginnis, among others, are actual historical figures, and has traced
Judge Holden to Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession, which relates
Chamberlain's adventures with the Glanton gang.
John Sepich has undertaken extensive historical archeology in an
attempt to map McCarthy’s references and has unearthed but this single
reference to any Judge Holden, though Sepich acknowledges that other
larger-than-life figures from other narratives of early Texas and the
Mexican-American War, especially John Russell Bartlett’s 1856 Personal
Narrative, might have provided for additional--if fuzzier--appearances
of Holden in the historical record.
http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/journal/Moos/MoosPage2.htm
http://bibliosophia.homestead.com/files/Dan_Moos__Representation_and_History_in_Blood_Meridian.htm
Notes on Blood Meridian by John Sepich:
Sepich hunted down obscure references by the score, source material
that's been out of print for a century and a half, authors of critical
works, unpublished dissertations, you name it. It's all here.
http://www.jp41.dial.pipex.com/R172.HTML
While this is a very short answer for your money it is as accurate and
"Positive" as I can find. The other historic figures that you have
mentioned "could" be the Judge, but aren't. The Judge is the Judge,
though the articles in the Texas Monthly are very interesting. I
highly recommend the book listed above for further reading. Copyrights
keep me from posting the several extensive notes on the Judge from
that book.
Some very interesting conversation pertaining to this topic can be
found on this web site
http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/archives/intertex.htm
I would love to post from that last link here, but really you should
read the entirety as it is and perhaps subscribe to the forum. I will
say that there is another account, a text to refute Chamberlain, Life
Among the Apaches by John C. Cremony. John Cremony was the interpreter
to the U.S. Boundary Commissions sent from 1849 to 1851 to determine
the new American Border after the Mexican American War. This book has
a different account on the demise of the gang. John Sepich however did
appear to take this into account. For his purposes, it probably didn't
mean much since he continued his search on the Judge Holden trail.
The follow up research in that forum is quite extensive and lead me
out on some wonderful reading adventures. You'll probably see me in
there more than once during the next few years.
Links of Interest
The Cormac McCarthy Home Pages
http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/
John Glanton
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Scalpin/heads.html
Queries
Goetzmann +"Judge Holden"
Webber +Judge
"John Sepich" +Webber
"John Sepich"
"Judge Holden" +"John Sepich"
"Judge Holden" +Sepich
+"Judge Holden"
+"John Glanton"
+"John Glanton" +"Judge Holden"
+"Joseph Rutherford Walker"
+"Charles W. Webber"
webadept-ga |
Request for Answer Clarification by
historyscout-ga
on
17 Jul 2002 22:43 PDT
Unfortunately, that answer gives me nothing I did not already know. I
have long been a poster in the HISTORICAL JUDGE thread at the McCarthy
site. As soon as I posted the question here, my next stop was to the
McCarthy site to activate and declare the reward there and alert Sid
Grover and the other researchers that I was posting a reward for an
answer to the question here. I am Richard L. Pangburn, a member in
good standing of the Cormac McCarthy Society and of course well aware
of Sepich's masterful work which was published by the Society.
Sepich came up short on several points, one of which was the
identification of the Chamberlain's Judge Holden. His research on
this does not pretend to be definitive. I think that Judge Holden was
Charles Wilkins Webber, but we have no proof, but proof one way or the
other might yet be out there.
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
historyscout-ga
on
18 Jul 2002 00:01 PDT
The question is still unanswered. Info to help researchers out:
The day I posted the question, I posted this info at the Holden
Genealogical Forum, <a
href="http://genforum.genealogy.com/holden/messages/1971.html">here</a>.
and at this the McCarthy forum, <a
href="http://genforum.genealogy.com/holden/messages/1971.html">here.</a>
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
historyscout-ga
on
18 Jul 2002 00:07 PDT
<a href="http://www.discussionontheweb.com/cormacmccarthy/getthread.asp?mydate=10&recordnumber=4353&UserName=&UserPassword=&threadnumber=788&threadname=McCarthy%27s+Western+Novels&threadtopic=Historical+Judge%3F">Historical
Judge Thread at McCarthy site</a>
|
Clarification of Answer by
webadept-ga
on
18 Jul 2002 12:05 PDT
Hi, let's break this down.
Q1. Seeking positive identification of the historic Judge Holden, a
filibuster featured in Samuel Chamberlain's MY CONFESSION:
RECOLLECTIONS OF A ROGUE, and elaborated on in Cormac McCarthy's
gothic masterpiece, BLOOD MERIDIAN.
A1. Identification of target question noted. Elaboration, is a light
word to use for McCarthy's construct of the Judge Holden in his books,
but for this moment we let that go.
Q2. Prof. Wm. Goetzmann suggested that he might have been Joseph
Rutherford Walker (subject of Bil Gilbert's WESTERING MAN).
A2. There is no currently known information that brings this
suggestion past the level of conjecture to possible fact. The
Westering Man" by Bil Gilbert. This Joseph was the first white man to
see Yosemite Valley, blazed the trail through Walker Pass to
California, camped at Yosemite on Nov. 13, 1833. He emigrated to
Missouri in 1819. He later went to CA. Had a ranch across the bay
from San Francisco. Traveled through the same area (with lots of men
most of the time), hunting for mining sites until he retired from this
purist.
While he certainly fit the bill for a large man with strong knowledge
in Geology, there is certainly nothing which ties him to the title of
Judge Holden or anything related to the Glanton's gang, except perhaps
in passing on or near the same trail a time or two.
Q3. It is also possible that he was Charles W. Webber, author of the
first gothic western (which was praised by Edgar Allan Poe) and a
filibuster who was killed in 1856 fighting with William Walker in
Nicaragua.
A3. Charles W. Webber, a Kentuckian who spent time in Texas in the
late 1830's and subsequently entered Princeton Divinity School before
moving to New York to work for the magazines. From 1844 to 1856,
Webber wrote numerous essays, articles, and stories. Webber's Old
Hicks, the Guide (1848)."Sam": or The history of mystery(1855) died
1856 age 37
Quote from Edgar Allan Poe "One of the happiest and best-sustained
tales I have seen, is "Jack Long; or, The Shot in the Eye," by Charles
W. Webber, the assistant editor of Mr. Colton's "American Review." But
in general skill of construction, the tales of Willis, I think,
surpass those of any American writer with the exception of Mr.
Hawthorne."
Between 1844, when his story "Jack Long; or, The Shot in the Eye" had
a sensational success, and 1856, when he met his death while
filibustering with Walker in Nicaragua, he wrote several books and
some two dozen articles, essays, and stories, many of them related to
his experiences in Texas. At times he used the pen name Charles
Winterfield
Q4. According to Chamberlain, Holden was with Glanton's gang of
scalphunters in Mexico in 1849, and Webber headed a filibuster
expedition in Mexico that year although I have no details of it.
A4. In 1849 Webber married in Boston and later that year organized an
expedition to the Colorado and Gila rivers of Arizona Territory. When
Comanche Indians stole the party's horses at Corpus Christi, however,
the venture came to an end.
This seems to put an end to the thought that Webber is the Judge,
Since he could not be in Boston getting married and in Arizona riding
with the Glanton gang at the same time, or Mexico for that matter.
Q5. Several other members of the gang have been positively identified
by the names that Chamberlain givens them.
A5. Which brings us to the crux of the problem. Before it is possible
to put another persona in the Judge's shoes it is necessary to remove
him from them. Chamberlain has not been shown to error in the names he
uses for the gang's company. So there is no doubt, currently, that
there was a man who went by the name of Judge Holden, which rode with
the gang during this time period. Those are the currently known facts
on the matter, which to date have yet to show any faltering other than
by conjecture.
The next documented record of Chamberlain appears at the Alcalde of
Los Angeles; on May 9, 1850 the survivors of the Glanton massacre, of
whom Chamberlain presumably numbered, arrived there and reported an
"Indian uprising" on the Colorado River.
This is not a reward system. It is a bidding system. We are
professional researchers who work on assignment for an accepted fee.
Since you had all of your research laid out on a single link, it would
have been good to let the researcher know this before taking the bid
and spending several hours in research, long distance phone calls and
library trips to obtain what you already have. Had you done so, it
would have been easy to realize that you were not after accurate
existing information, but information that doesn't currently exist.
But that is not the issue. Your question is answered. I researched
thoroughly, found all current and relevant information, stripped out
the misleading conjecture and gave you the basic answer. I researched
both of the two men you offered as possibilities for answers and found
them both unlikely subjects for the persona of Judge Holden, leaving
the only possible answer for the current standing of the "positive
identification of the historic Judge Holden" namely that he was a man
named Judge Holden and not someone else. This is the current amount of
data available on the subject for your answer.
Thank you
webadept-ga
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
historyscout-ga
on
18 Jul 2002 13:29 PDT
"Seeking positive identification of the historic Judge Holden, a
filibuster featured in Samuel Chamberlain's MY CONFESSION:
RECOLLECTIONS OF A ROGUE, and elaborated on in Cormac McCarthy's
gothic masterpiece, BLOOD MERIDIAN."
That's the question, the task at hand. It is still unanswered.
In order to positively identify the man as Judge Holden, we have to
cross-reference the name in other documents. We will have done that
when we can place him in a census, will, marriage record, family
bible, or newspaper account that can be cross-referenced with what we
have.
Right now, we are not certain that he was using his right name. And I
have seen more on C. W. Webber which conflicts with the information
you have seen, which leads me to believe that he might yet be our man.
When data conflicts, the scholar seeks additional information to
shore up one source or the other. But without actual identification
of Judge Holden, all information on Webber or Walker is simply
speculation and addendum to the question.
I suspect that the question will yet be answered, and probably by a
genealogist who approaches such questions differently than does an
historian. But the rules of scholarship apply. Positive
identification means cross-referencing Judge Holden to a primary
document.
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
historyscout-ga
on
19 Jul 2002 11:57 PDT
Well, since that's your final answer, I'd have to say that you did a
dismal job. You have revealed nothing that could not have been
gleaned with a simple search at the main Google site in less than 45
minutes.
You have not addressed the identification of Holden at all, except to
refer me to John Sepich who raised this identical question.
You list no source for Holden other than Chamberlain himself. Your
claim instead that earned your money by eliminating Prof. Goetzmann's
suggestion of Joseph Walker and my own suggestion of Charles W.
Webber, but you have not done either. The info you cite on Webber can
be found with a simple Google search to the Texas Handbook on-line
pages, and (and although it does not cite it, I already had their
source and it is second-hand and highly suspect).
In short, you have done nothing but spin your wheels lightly, going in
the wrong directions, drawing conclusions without evidence, offering
nothing of value to identify Chamberlain's Judge Holden, the question
at hand.
|
