January 2010 – More Tracks

January 2010 – More Tracks on the Trail of Verrill

Last time, a trip to New York brought us a few clues on A. Hyatt Verrill’s (AHV) life in South America. It ends up the archeological papers we discovered were from the journal Timehri. Here is one, but for now just the text version

These researches have stood the test of time, we have evidence of them being the basis of anthropological theories as recently as 1997. Warning some of these third party ‘references’ can be long in downloading and a little dry for a layman to read. You may want to skip this 1960 reference, Archeological Explorations in British Guiana

Courtesy the National Museum of Natural History, I took photos of AHV’s pencil and watercolour drawings of pottery from the Cocle area of Panama. These paintings were on cardboard and about 16” high by 12” wide. I am trying to get permission to use these. I hope they don’t mind me teasing you with one. Just in, 'permission granted' see all the images.

New this month is a clipping on AHV’s first marriage, an elopement at the age of 21 (1892). Even at this age he was very eloquent and made the news!

He divorced Kathryn Laura McCarthy in 1944, at the age of seventy three, later that year marrying Lida Ruth Shaw. He died ten years later after writing another nine books along with his other activities in South Florida.

The Sea Stories magazine ‘pulp fiction’ collection is coming along slowly. These pages were fragile, thus were photographed and unfortunately have not gone through my digital converter with any success. Those that know me, know that I can type as fast as I can think. More unfortunately, that means that these stories may be long in coming. But we do have I’ll Learn ‘em from 1923.

It is amazing and encouraging, that every month, if I work seriously on Verrill’s past, I am rewarded with some news, a gift story or some great deal toward adding to the Verrill records. So it has been again this month. We have added at least another six previously unknown works to the lists, and a few new articles are in the mail. But you will have to wait for the next ‘On the Trail of Verrill’ to find out the news.

Doug