The Author/Businessman: Nineteenth Century Kentucky Novelist
James Weir: 1821-1906 (Maternal First Cousin 4x Removed)
While researching James Weir’s father, also named James
Weir, I ran across a reference to his son writing and publishing three novels
in the 1800s. I was fascinated—I had to research these novels. Was he a good
writer? What did he write about? I couldn’t wait to investigate this newest
discovery.
James Weir was born June 16, 1821 in Greenville, Kentucky to
parents James Weir and Anna Cowman Rumsey Weir. He was the third of their five
children, and the second son. Unlike many young men of the era, James and his
brother Edward were fortunate enough to attend college, both matriculating at
the twenty-year-old campus of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. They went
on to study law at Transylvania University.
Law degree in hand, James moved from Greenville to
Owensboro, Kentucky. He married Susan Charlotte Green in 1842. She was the
daughter of a judge who was one of James’ legal mentors.
In addition to his legal practice, James became involved in
banking and railroads. He helped to found and later became the president of the
Deposit Bank of Owensboro, and was the president of the Owensboro and Nashville
Railroad, even financing the purchase of the railroad’s rolling stock. He also
invested in the Ohio River Telegraph Company and helped found the Owensboro
Wheel Company. He became a well-respected and wealthy member of the Owensboro community,
and was known for his charitable works. He and Susan had ten children, seven of
whom reached adulthood.
While you might assume James’ business and family endeavors
would have kept him busy, he somehow found time to write and publish three
novels. He apparently was writing during the early years of his marriage and
the birth of his first three children. I wonder if he ever had time to sleep?
Of course, he was a slaveowner, so perhaps his duties at home were taken care
of by servants.
His first book, Lonz Powers or The Regulators, was
published in 1850. With its publication, Weir became “Kentucky’s first
historical novelist.” See Taylor citation below.
The book is based on the real-life exploits of Kentucky
outlaw Alonzo Pennington, who led a band of criminals from 1830-1845. Local
people eventually formed a vigilante group to combat the outlaws, and
Pennington was captured and tried in 1846. Weir’s character Lonz Powers, like
Pennington, is the leader of a group of outlaws. However, Powers attempts to
hide his identity by joining the vigilante group pursuing him, known as the
Regulators. Despite his dual identity, Powers is eventually caught and brought
to justice.
Lonz Powers was serialized in newspapers, including
the Owensboro newspaper—it was a long book, so was published in an astonishing
81 segments!
For his next two books, James Weir turned to another place
and time he was familiar with: the North Carolina of his father’s youth, and
the migration of North Carolinians to Kentucky. In the first of the two novels,
Simon Kenton or The Scout’s Revenge, he follows the adventures of
Indian fighter and Revolutionary War scout Simon Kenton, and his conflict with
the evil Tory Simon Girty. In the novel, Kenton becomes involved with two North
Carolina families, the Duffs and the Heads, who migrate to Kentucky. In the
sequel, The Winter Lodge or The Vow Fulfilled, the Duffs and Heads are
followed to Kentucky by renegades and natives out for revenge against them. Simon
Kenton helps them fight off the villains.
Once again, Weir based his characters on real people. Simon
Kenton and Simon Girty were both actual scouts and explorers, friends of Daniel
Boone. However, the real Kenton and Girty were friends, not enemies. Also, the
real Kenton ended up settling in Ohio rather than Kentucky.
Simon Kenton was published by Lippincott, Grambo and
Co. in 1852, and The Winter Lodge was published by Lippincott in 1854. I
found the novels are held by several university libraries, including the
University of Chicago, and are also available online. Hathi Trust has the full
text of all three on their website. Weir’s writing is very evocative. Here is a
description of an abandoned house:
“That lonely cottage, with its dreary, moss-covered roof,
its crumbling chimney, its glassless windows, its half-gone porch, its
broken-down fences, and its weedy, briery yard, was a striking picture of
gloomy desolation and decay and death; and no wonder the simple rustics
believed it the home of ghosts and spirits, and never entered within its
haunted precincts.” (pg. 68)
One of the characters in Simon Kenton was a black man named
Titus. James’ father had a slave (referred to as a “body servant” in some
accounts) named Titus who accompanied him on his travels as a merchant, so the novel’s
character was probably based on that Titus. Other characters in his books were
based on his friends and acquaintances. One of his schoolteachers appears as a
character, for example.
As a modern reader, the dialect and treatment of the Titus
character are jarring and repulsive. Here is an exchange between Titus and
Simon Kenton:
“O
massa!” ejaculated the negro….”dis old boy can’t do dat; him be fraid of the
ghosts, for dat house be haunted dis long time.”
“Haunted,
you old white-liver!” exclaimed Sharp-Eye. “Just do as I tell you, or cuss me
if I don’t lift that wolly scalp of yours, and then we’ll have the ghost of a
nigger to keep company with old Girty and his crew…And the ghosts, you know,
don’t travel by daylight, for they’ve got eyes like owls, all them I’ve seen,
and can’t see ‘cept at night…”
Obviously these books have not aged well. The writing is too
florid for modern taste, and the treatment of Native Americans and black people
would horrify most modern readers. However, they are a glimpse into the world
of the 1850s and reflect the sensibilities of the time period. They were popular
when published and sold out. In addition, they were translated into German and
published in Germany, where stories of the American frontier were popular.
Print copies of the novels are now very hard to find. Since
the original publication runs were fairly small, and most of the books were
sold in the region of Kentucky and the surrounding states, few copies have
survived.
Weir’s publisher wanted to reprint Lonz Powers, but Weir
dragged his feet, claiming he wanted to make extensive edits before the book
was reissued. He never completed the edits. He also had plans to write a third
book in the Simon Kenton series, which would cover the period of the War of
1812. However, he never completed the project. Did his other responsibilities
get in the way? Did he lose interest in writing?
James Weir died in Owensboro January 31, 1906 at the age of
84. Some of James Weir’s children also authored stories and books, and kept
well-stocked libraries, so his literary interests were passed to the next generation.
photo by CAWatkins, from Findagrave
Sources:
Simon Kenton or The
Scout’s Revenge. An Historical Novel by James Weir. Lippincott, Grambo and
Co. Philadelphia. 1852. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081749974&seq=19
The Winter Lodge: or
Vow Fulfilled. An Historical Novel. The Sequel to Simon Kenton. James Weir.
Lippincott, Grambo, and Co., Philadelphia. 1854. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008617470
Lonz Powers: Or the
Regulators. A Romance of Kentucky. James Weir. Lippincott, Grambo &
Company, 1850. https://books.google.com/books?id=q6EcAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Taylor, R. Stephen. “JAMES WEIR, FIRST CITIZEN OF
OWENSBORO.” The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, vol. 72, no. 1,
1974, pp. 10–19. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23378279.
Accessed 13 Sept. 2023.
“The Story of Lonz Powers.” Article on the Cousin Harriet
website. https://cousinharriet.com/history/xiii.html
Description of Weir House. Collins' Historical Sketches of Kentucky: History of Kentucky,
Volume 2, By Lewis Collins. Collins & Co., Covington KY. https://books.google.com/books?id=FjE_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA153&lpg=PA153&dq=james+weir+house,+owensboro&source=bl&ots=Pk2An5-zW5&sig=ACfU3U2RajZmLR0_JuAs6wt87OodjbCfXw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj84_TIlrCBAxWNk2oFHaTiCpg4FBDoAXoECAgQAw#v=onepage&q=james%20weir%20house%2C%20owensboro&f=false
https://wiki.historyofowensboro.com/index.php/James_Weir
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