- Title:
- Abe Martin's Back Country Sayings
- Author:
- Hubbard, Kin, 1868-1930
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HUBBARD, FRANK MCKINNEY: 1868-1930.
No one else ever succeeded in catching the exact flavor of the humor and philosophy native to Indiana– and perhaps to a large portion of the American Midwest besides-as did Kin Hubbard.
He labeled his locale "Brown County," because Brown County, Ind., had always been a little on the backward side–haven of hill-billies, gully-runners, artists and other non-conforming folk-but his readers could recognize representation of almost any county in almost any midwestern or midsouthern state in the remarks of his characters.
Frank McKinney Hubbard (he was always "Kin") was born in Bellefontaine, O., on Sept. 1, 1868. His parents were Thomas and Sarah Jane Miller Hubbard, Thomas being editor and publisher of the BELLEFONTAINE EXAMINER, a newspaper of some importance in west-central Ohio.
A man never given to seeking personal publicity, Hubbard left behind him no great amount of biographical material. Only a short sketch, given to another distinguished Ohio writer, Fred C. Kelly, who stayed in that state, exists to give any extensive view of Kin Hubbard as he saw himself at the peak of his career. Mr. Kelly has graciously offered this manuscript for inclusion here. In it Hubbard reports of himself.
"Have two children–a girl at the age to talk too long to peddlers and letter carriers, and a boy who is just beginning to press his trousers ever' day and use 600-W on his hair. Born at Bellefontaine, Ohio, entered school at usual age carrying volumes of Mark Twain's Rouyhing It and Behind the Scenes at Washington. Retired from school in one of the early grades and went to work in a paint shop where I learned to cast raised letters and gild the big watches that stand in front of jewelry stores. Later returned to school and was going big when Cleveland was elected and my father was appointed postmaster. Went into post office where I remained five years off and on. During this period I made a tour of the South as a silhouette artist and closed in Louisville and walked home. Also on this tour I hired out in Chattanooga to drive a bread wagon, two white mules hitched tandem. Held this job two weeks and was required to take the mules down to the Cumberland river an' scrub the red mud off once per week. Returning to Bellefontaine, Ohio, I decided to attend the Detroit Museum of Art. Attended the better part of one week, and then hung around Miner's theater and the DETROIT JOURNAL office till Spring opened up. At this time I was wearin' a loud plaid cape overcoat, a close-reefed brown derby, long, narrow shoes, a cane and long matty hair! I was loafing, knowing I could go back in the post office any old time.
"The following winter I organized Bellefontaine's Grand Operatic Minstrels and Prof. Tom Wright's Solo Orchestra, local talent, and gave a grand benefit performance for the cemetery receiving vault fund. I played one extreme end (tambo) and made a hit which disqualified me for any real usefulness for some years.
"In a letter to an Indianapolis friend describing this show I made a lot of thumb nail sketches. This letter was shown to the late John H. Holiday, founder of the INDIANAPOLIS NEWS, and he suggested that I come on to Indianapolis and go on the NEWS as an artist. I remained on the NEWS three years. I soon endeared myself to the whole staff by making two imaginative one column portraits of the Dalton Boys, bandits, who were killed in attempting to rob a bank at Coffeyville, Kansas.
"The NEWS put on a new managing editor at the end of my three years and, like all new managing editors, he raised hell with everything and everybody. I was the pioneer newspaper artist of Indianapolis. I used the chalk plate process of making pictures and had to wear a linen duster and a sponge on my nose on account of the dust. I illustrated everything that happened in town, together with Frank Carpenter's weekly letter and only got $12 per week. I was what's called a natural artist, one with no knowledge of drawing, no idea of perspective or color or anything, but I got along fine until the new managing editor dropped in one day and told me that all of the local banks had installed new and modern fixtures. He wanted a two- column sectional view of each bank, showing various new styles in bank fixtures, etc. I told him I could not undertake it, but that I would hire it done and pay for it. He said that would do, but that he would have to have the stuff in two days. I got a jewelry engraver to make the sketches and they cost me three weeks' salary. Then Decoration Day was just in the offing. The managing editor wanted a long graceful angel swooping across a whole page scattering lilies in her wake. Something "allegorical for the occasion" he said. I got Fertig and Keevers, housepainters, to plan and execute the angel at a princely outlay. Then the vacation period arrived and I was the first out. I went to Bellefontaine to spend vacation. The second day at home I received a letter from the managing editor. He told me that the NEws had grown to be such a great and powerful paper that from then on it would require an artist that could draw anything, layouts, caricatures, cartoons, decorations, etc., and that I might return and stay till I found something else. I stayed while I earned enough for a new blue serge suit and extra brown derby.
"Returning to Bellefontaine that summer I organized a local minstrel show and gave a grand complimentary benefit for the K. of P. lodge, holding out only enough to get some new shirts.
"Later I went to the Atlanta Exposition. Failing to get a newspaper job I signed up with the manager of a mummified Aztec mother and child, who were exhibited in a covered wagon. I sold tickets with one hand and took them with the other while the manager lectured. Later coming to Cincinnati, I hit it just in time to get in on the Pearl Bryan murder mystery, and went to work for the TRIBUNE, anti-Cox organ, and made pictures of white horses and cabs and attorneys and jurymen till Spring, when I bought a new blue serge suit and brown derby an' had my hair evened up and joined out with Lagoon Park, where I turned the stile at $9 per, roomin' at Covington, eating at Bromley and getting my other shirt and collar done up in Cincinnati.
"In the fall I returned to Bellefontaine and gave a 'Ladies Minstrels' for the benefit of the Kings Daughters, holding out only enough for some shoes. Then to Mansfield, O., where I worked on the NEws, cut my own kindling, puddled my own metal, cast my own cuts and routed them and did everything but make up the paper. Got $11 per. Used chalk plate process. It took fourteen hours to finally get a one column cut in the paper. Col. Wm. Capeller, well known Ohio politician, owned the paper. One day he came to me and said. 'Hubbard, I know you're a damned Democrat, but I want you to help clean up Mansfield and vote for Huntington Brown for mayor tomorrow. I'll let you off all day if you will.' I studied a while and decided that inasmuch as there were no great national issues involved I would condescend to vote for a reform mayor. Was at the polls when they opened and voted for Brown and a Democratic council. The Fort Wayne baseball club was stopping at the same wooden shoe hotel where I lived and the club was managed by a former schoolmate and we soon got to talking about old times, and by noon I was on the swinging rings. The next morning I woke up sitting by a fountain soaking wet in the heart of Cleveland. By my side was all my scenery, cape overcoat, two canes, and telescope. Here I was the guest of an old Bellefontaine boy who was employed in Cleveland by a large department store. He did nothing from morning till evening but knock crates off new bicycles, but he was mighty liberal. Thence to Bellefontaine where I organized Frank K. Hubbard's High Class Vaudevilles and toured the star route towns, coming to grief at Roundhead, where the advance sale did not justify the moving of an organ up two flights of stairs to the opery hall. The fellow who drove my wagon stood up and looked all over town, and said, 'Hubbard, the money haint here.'
"Back to Bellefontaine. Then a letter from the INDIANAPOLIS SUN saying a newspaper, THE PRESS, was soon to be launched and that the SUN would be in the fight and to come on and go to work for $15 per.
"Returned to Indianapolis, worked year on the SUN and then back to the NEWS again where I've always remained. Until 'Abe Martin' started I was employed solely as a caricaturist, attending all conventions, local, state and national, and supplying the NEWS with single columns and splatters, touring Indiana with political celebrities, etc. The next day after the Parker- Roosevelt election I launched Abe Martin. Abe has appeared daily in the NEWS ever since. Have made a new drawing for each appearance. Abe Martin is probably the oldest continuous newspaper feature. Has been syndicated twelve years. 'Short Furrows,' a weekly essay, has been syndicated eight years. I located Abe in Brown county, Ind., on account of the topography and the primitive condition of things, no telephones, railroads, or telegraph and few roads.
"I also learned the printer's trade in the office of the BELLEFONTAINE EXAMINER, a paper established in 1830 and owned by my father, who at his death, was the oldest editor in Ohio.
"I bought a tambourine with the first money I ever earned. Worked around the opera house at Bellefontaine and was well on in years before I quit trying to look like a showman, and no mother ever hated to cut her boy's curls off any worse than I hated to cut my hair short and get down to work. I always owned a cluster diamond pin, even when walking from one town to another. I also owned seven different cape overcoats all loud plaid an' richly lined. I married rather late, or after I got three or four hundred dollars together. I date all of my good luck from that hour. And while my wife does not write my stuff, she has all the peculiarities of the genius and is a good manager.
"I have published 18 volumes of Abe Martin material and the greatest fun I have is during the month of December when I market them and open the mail each day. I rarely have any material ahead or know when I'm going to have any. But somehow something allus shows up at the eleventh hour, not always good stuff, but about as fair as most of the stuff that's getting over. One really good paragraph in six days is a fine week's work. I make my own illustrations, and not infrequently they supply any humor that's lacking in the text. I do not make public appearances and talk and draw. I tried it once and it knocked $60 off my book sales. I rather prefer the background and keep away from banquets. Also I've had a couple of chances to go to New York and make something of myself, but like a friend I used to have, whose uncle wanted him to go to Denver and take charge of a big drug store said, I'd rather stay here where I can get in the band. Have two hobbies–mowing my lawn and circuses, Am taking up golf although I feel as good as I ever aid, in fact better. It's the only game where you can chew tobacco with impunity. And most of them do. I often meet acquaintances on the Indianapolis streets who ask me what I'm doing now, and I'm often introduced to people who never heard of me, but I don't care. The world is full of people who don't know who Tony Pastor was. Indianapolis is a great literary center, and we have men and boys in the stereotyping and press rooms of the NEWS that contribute regularly to magazines as a side line. Everyone in the State is either a politician or writer. Of course there's a fair sprinkling of tradesmen an' farmers, but only enough t' supply the wants of the writers and politicians.
"The only thing any teacher ever said to me, that I now recall, was, 'Well, Kin, be that as it may, Mr. Hayes took his seat.' Some boy had just named the presidents of the United States and included Rutherford B. Hayes and I got up and said he was not elected fair and that Tilden was counted out.
"The first year at school I raised my hand one day and teacher said, 'What is it, McKinney?' and I said, 'I've got a sister that's half Indian.' She was very dark.
"Never was on a bicycle or roller skates. I went about for years covered with perfume and wearing a fuchsia in my lapel, but I let the girls alone till I was 17 or 18.
"My one big night was Friday night, when I traded a copy of father's WEEKLY EXAMINER for a couple of twofers at Carter Brothers grocery and sat on the court house fence and watched the passing show.
"First tobacco chewed was Jackson's Best. I soaked it in molasses to make it palatable.
"I never dreamed of doing anything else but owning a good, well painted, comprehensive one-ring circus, and even today I feel rather miffed at losing out on the proposition.
"I leaned a little toward minstrelsy and bought a tambourine with my first money. At nine years of age I also owned a pair of real plantation song and dance shoes–sending to New York for them.
"First hall show I ever saw was Annie Ward Tiffany in 'The Child Stealer,' then the Wallace Sisters, Minnie Palmer, 'Under the Gas Light,' Jane Coombs, Joe Cawthorn in 'The Little Nugget,' and 'Lights O'- London' followed in rapid succession.
"Greatest aversions–office holders, banquet speakers and 1000 Island dressing.
"Books–East Lynne, Rouyhin" It, Beyond the Mississippi, Called Back (Hugh Conway) and Wash. Irving's Sketch Book.
"Cannon acts were all the vogue when I was a kid– catching cannon balls and firing women out of cannons, etc.–in circuses. I made a cannon out of a wooden pump and mounted it on wheels and used a black rubber ball. Devoted one whole summer trying to stop the ball. Still have a squatty blue (circus color) chair and lettered across the back is, 'Great Cannon Ball Act.' "
There is Kin Hubbard as he saw himself–his lack of success in following in the theatrical footsteps of his wagon-show owning maternal grandfather, Capt. John B. Miller, far overshadowing his achievements as a cartoonist, humorist, satirist and philosopher.
The feature for which he first became famous, the sayings of "Abe Martin," first appeared on Dec. 31, 1904. The feature was an immediate hit: Abe's comments were current, critical and unfailingly telling, and Hubbard was soon a state and, very little later, when they began to be syndicated, a national figure.
He married Josephine Jackson, of Indianapolis, on Oct. 12, 1905. Hubbard enjoyed his home, and particularly his garden–throughout his career he avoided lecturing, radio appearances and other proffered engagements which would interfere with his home life.
His books enjoyed a wide annual sale, some of the earlier ones now being collector's items, and his syndicated "Abe Martin's Sayings" have been reprinted continuously since his death. They are now (1948) appearing regularly in a list of papers extensive enough to gladden the hearts of any current paragraphers, and most of the quips are as pointed and as appropriate to the modern scene as they were to that of thirty or forty years ago.
Kin Hubbard died on Dec. 26, 1930, having influenced the thinking of the American people along the lines of plain, homely horse sense far more widely than any serious philosopher of his day.
Information by Fred C. Kelly and from Who Was Who in America.
- Collection of Indiana Lawmakers and Lobbyists.
Indianapolis, 1903.
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Indianapolis, 1905.
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Indianapolis, 1909.
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- Collection of Indiana Lawmakers and Lobbyists.
Indianapolis, 1903.
- Publication Year:
- [n.d.]
- Source:
- Indianapolis: Abe Martin Publishing Company, [n.d.].
- Bookmark:
- https://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/inauthors/VAA2452
Abe Martin's
Back Country
Sayings
Compiled fromThe Indianapolis News and revised and edited
by the
Author
ABE MARTIN PUBLISHING COMPANY,
INDIANAPOLIS
ONE DOLLAR NET
This Edition, Five Hundred Copies, was
Printed for
John R. Johnston
Numbered from One to Five Hundred,
of which this is No.
Presented to
Christmas 1917
TO THE MEMORY OF MY BROTHER,
EDGAR O. HUBBARD,
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED
FRONTISPIECE
ABE MARTIN, of Brown County, Indiana
Drawn by Will Vawter
for
James Whitcomb Riley's poem, "To Kin Hubbard—
th' Father
of His Countryman, Abe Martin,"
in "Poems of Friendship," and here
reproduced
by the courtesy of the
Bobbs-Merrill Campany.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
- PINKY KERR Retired Tuba Player
- LAFE BUD Agent Acme Crayon Portrait Co.
- PROF. CLEM HARNER Leader Harner's Silver Cornet Band
- 'SQUIRE MARSH SWALLOW Justice of the Peace
- ALEX TANSEY School Teacher and agent for Gems of Verse and Prose
- TELL BINKLEY Enthusiastic motorist and tornado insurance agent
- UNCLE EZ PASH Who brought the first organ to Brown County, Indiana
- UNCLE NILES TURNER First white child born west of Chillicothe, Ohio
- LEMMIE PETERS Who graduated with such high honors in June
- STEW NUGENT Unattached
- NEWT PLUM Constable
- TILFORD MOOTS Country Gentleman
- TIPTON BUD Country Gentleman
- MRS. TILFORD MOOTS General farm work
- MRS. TIPTON BUD General farm work
- MISS MYRT PASH Fourteen, and the best painted girl of the younger set
- MAME MOON Proprietor of the O. K. livery barn and active worker for the emancipation of women
- MISS TAWNEY APPLE Ticket seller for the Fairy Grotto nickel theater
-
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- MISS FAWN LIPPINCUT Elocutionist, writer and authority on love, courtship and marriage
- MRS. LAFE BUD Late of the optical counter of the Monarch 5 and 10 cent store
- DR. MOPPS Ear, eye, nose and throat and croquet authority
- CALE FLUHART Editor of The Weekly Slip Horn and inventor of the Little Napoleon towel roller.
- ABE MARTIN "A kind of a comical mixture of hoss-sense and no sense at all."
