Hobart Donald Swiggett
James Oliver Curwood, Disciple of the Wilds
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066215842
Table of Contents
CHAPTER TWO A CHANGE COMES ABOUT
CHAPTER FOUR OWOSSO SCHOOLDAYS
CHAPTER SIX NEWSPAPER WORK AND EARLY WRITINGS
CHAPTER SEVEN WITH THE DETROIT NEWS-TRIBUNE
FOREWORD
This is the first biography written on the life of
the famous novelist, adventurer and conservationist,
James Oliver Curwood.
Although Mr. Curwood’s books are still widely read, the
younger generation knows comparatively little about the
life of one of the greatest conservationists of all time
and the man who knew the beautiful Canadian Northwest
better than any other.
It is hoped, therefore, that this volume will refresh the
memory of the past generation and at the same time bring
something new to the minds of our present young people.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My greatest obligation in the preparation of JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD: DISCIPLE OF THE WILDS is to Mrs. Ethel Greenwood Curwood, Mr. A. J. Donovan and Mrs. Fred B. Woodard, of Owosso, Mich., who aided me immensely in gathering Mr. Curwood’s volumes, documents, correspondence, photographs, manuscripts and other material without which it would have been impossible to produce this biography.
Thanks and appreciation go out also to the following for help and encouragement:
J. E. Campbell, editor of the Argus-Press, Owosso, Mich.; John S. Deere; Miss Anne Crum; Dr. Harold D. Webb; The Conservation Department of the State of Michigan; the Alumni Catalog Office of the University of Michigan; Doubleday, Doran and Company, of New York City (through whose courtesy many quotations have been made available for publication in this book[1]); C. A. Paquin; Harold Titus; Miss Olive Hormel, of Owosso; R. K. Bresnahan, Postmaster and close friend of Curwood’s, at Roscommon, Mich.; Private George Terashita, Camp Atterbury, Ind.; James B. Hendry, of Sutton’s Bay, Mich.; James Hilton, of Hollywood, Calif.; John Bowen, Staff Writer, Indianapolis Times; Roscommon Civic Club; John Sellers, of Franklin, Ind.; The Franklin Evening Star; Robert Todd; James B. Young, Miss Barbara Swiggett, and to countless others.
1. From “Son of the Forest,” by James Oliver Curwood, copyright, 1930, by Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc.
I also wish to thank the public and state libraries of Indiana for allowing me the use of material. And it is a pleasure to express appreciation to the kind people of Owosso, Mich., to the students of yesteryear at the University of Michigan, and to the Cree and Chippawayan Indian tribes in Canada, all of whom knew Mr. Curwood intimately.
Harvey Jacobs, a newspaperman, is also remembered for his encouragement and good wishes, and last, but far from least, Walter Winchell, whose seemingly endless supply of energy and driving force helped to push me onward in the task of completing this book.
H. D. Swiggett
Au Sable Study
Franklin, Ind.
JAMES OLIVER
CURWOOD
CHAPTER ONE
THE CHILD PRODIGY
Little did the stern though kind-hearted citizens of Owosso, Michigan realize that on the eventful morning of June 12, 1878, the newly-born second son of James Moran and Abigail Griffen Curwood would in time plummet across the literary horizon as the brightest star to have appeared in years. His name was James Oliver Curwood.
From the outset the parents had trouble with their new son, finding it very difficult to please his childish desires. Perhaps ancestry had a bearing here, and if it did, it may all be traced back to the thrilling career of the famous Captain Frederick A. Marrayat, great seaman and popular novelist of yesteryear. He was the lad’s great-uncle.
Jimmie Curwood’s birth took place in the days when Owosso was a small town of some eight thousand population, and trees grew in the center of the streets. It was that era of the nineteenth century when livestock and fowl were free to roam about the city at will, and the horse and buggy played an important part in the development of transportation.
Likewise so it was in that district of Owosso known as West Town. It was in this particular part of town that Jimmie Curwood played so much with his friends (bad though they were), and came forth from bitter schoolboy battles unscathed. Later in life he remarked about West Town in the following manner:
“Had I continued to live in West Town at Owosso, I might have become a genius, but Fate determined a change was advisable when I was six years old.”
The city of Owosso today is far removed from what it was in the childhood days of James Oliver Curwood. Today luxurious homes line the paved streets and tall buildings dot the skyline where once stood low flat ones. Beautiful homes have filled up the empty spaces that were once wide within the city limits, but that same feeling and general atmosphere of drowsiness persists just as it did fifty years ago.
Tall, stately trees line the smooth streets and many automobiles