DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Letters of Henry S. Whitehead, 1942

Transcribe
Translate

Letters of Henry S. Whitehead, 1942

Page 5

"He is the strongest man, physically, I ever saw. Soon after he came here to Santa Cruz, it was discovered he took a great deal of exercise. One evening he was asked to do a 'stunt' for a large group of people who were having an old-fashioned Crucian jollification, and he called for a pack of cards. He tore them squarely in half, and then quartered them. I had heard of cards being torn in two, but never quartered. Incredulity was expressed. The people present thought it was a trick, and said so, though pleasantly and in a bantering way. Father Whitehead asked for another pack to destroy, and for two wire nails. He nailed the pack through at both ends, so that the cards could not be 'beveled', and then quartered that pack. He had to do this everywhere he went after that. Everybody wanted to see it done. One night Mrs. Scholten, the wife of our Danish Bank manager, gave him a small back of brand-new Danish cards. They were made of linen! He tore those in two.

"...He has put old St. Paul's back the way it was in its palmy days, when Alexander Hamilton and the great gentry of the Island drove him to service in their coaches. Everybody comes now to hear him preach. He likes form, like all High Churchmen, and he applies this to his household. He drives out on his parish visits in the car with his chauffeur in a white livery and a chauffeur's hat which he sent for to New York. One of his house boys has the same kind of hat and the same white suit, and the parson coming along the road certainly looks like the old parish had got something to run her that's prosperous. The car is a Ford, too. 

"...The Danes are strong for him, for he knows all their little manners and customers. He goes to all the 'big doin's' on the Island, and shows them how.

"...I don't see how he does the things he does. His physical strength is incredible. I was in his house one day when they were moving one of his big mahogany bedsteads. That wood is as hard as iron, and almost as heavy. This was a four-poster, square, and must have weighted a ton by the looks of it. He picked up the heavy end, the head, with one hand and carried it across the room and set it down, like me lifting a waste basket. It took four able-bodied men to lug the other end along, two lifting under the headboard and the other two at the side down at the foot end.

"...He keeps the police court calendar clear because when any of the negroes at St. Paul's get into a mess he makes them bring it to him and he tries the case. He sits there and runs it like clockwork, and he picked up the Crucian Creole that the black people speak in about two weeks."

This letter interested me very much. As usual the people of Santa Cruz were most interested in what I didn't go there to do -- strong-men stunts. The card thing I have practised since I was about seventeen, and the bed-lifting wasn't what it sounds, because the "four able-bodied men" were a negro joiner and his three young men assistants, and they are fungy-eaters (hard boiled corn meal), which doesn't give them the stamina to lift mahogany beds very easily. A couple of husky Micks could have done it easily -- the whole bed.

Maybe you can get something out of this mess; maybe not. But I know I'd hash it if I tried to write anything like a biographical introduction.

Henry S. Whitehead

Saving...

"He is the strongest man, physically, I ever saw. Soon after he came here to Santa Cruz, it was discovered he took a great deal of exercise. One evening he was asked to do a 'stunt' for a large group of people who were having an old-fashioned Crucian jollification, and he called for a pack of cards. He tore them squarely in half, and then quartered them. I had heard of cards being torn in two, but never quartered. Incredulity was expressed. The people present thought it was a trick, and said so, though pleasantly and in a bantering way. Father Whitehead asked for another pack to destroy, and for two wire nails. He nailed the pack through at both ends, so that the cards could not be 'beveled', and then quartered that pack. He had to do this everywhere he went after that. Everybody wanted to see it done. One night Mrs. Scholten, the wife of our Danish Bank manager, gave him a small back of brand-new Danish cards. They were made of linen! He tore those in two. "...He has put old St. Paul's back the way it was in its palmy days, when Alexander Hamilton and the great gentry of the Island drove him to service in their coaches. Everybody comes now to hear him preach. He likes form, like all High Churchmen, and he applies this to his household. He drives out on his parish visits in the car with his chauffeur in a white livery and a chauffeur's hat which he sent for to New York. One of his house boys has the same kind of hat and the same white suit, and the parson coming along the road certainly looks like the old parish had got something to run her that's prosperous. The car is a Ford, too. "...The Danes are strong for him, for he knows all their little manners and customers. He goes to all the 'big doin's' on the Island, and shows them how. "...I don't see how he does the things he does. His physical strength is incredible. I was in his house one day when they were moving one of his big mahogany bedsteads. That wood is as hard as iron, and almost as heavy. This was a four-poster, square, and must have weighted a ton by the looks of it. He picked up the heavy end, the head, with one hand and carried it across the room and set it down, like me lifting a waste basket. It took four able-bodied men to lug the other end along, two lifting under the headboard and the other two at the side down at the foot end. "...He keeps the police court calendar clear because when any of the negroes at St. Paul's get into a mess he makes them bring it to him and he tries the case. He sits there and runs it like clockwork, and he picked up the Crucian Creole that the black people speak in about two weeks." This letter interested me very much. As usual the people of Santa Cruz were most interested in what I didn't go there to do -- strong-men stunts. The card thing I have practised since I was about seventeen, and the bed-lifting wasn't what it sounds, because the "four able-bodied men" were a negro joiner and his three young men assistants, and they are fungy-eaters (hard boiled corn meal), which doesn't give them the stamina to lift mahogany beds very easily. A couple of husky Micks could have done it easily -- the whole bed. Maybe you can get something out of this mess; maybe not. But I know I'd hash it if I tried to write anything like a biographical introduction. Henry S. Whitehead