The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1877-08-16
Mythical Towns.

Mythical Towns.
The unthinking majority of the pub
lie, OF course, believe that Oshkosh has
an actual existence, and bona fide inhab-
ltants. There are those, however, who
notonly look upon Oshkosh as intrinsicaIlY |
improbable but W ho insist that altogether
too many things happen in that alleged
town. 1t Is true that map-makefs per
slstently locate Oshkosh upon the map of
Wisconsin, but no one who has ever
studied African geography has any
faith In the map-makers. Who has ever
yet seen man or woman who pre-
tended to live in Oshkosh Such per-
son Is yet to be discovered, and when |
found will be regarded as unique and |
priceless curiosity. Wisconsin people |
when asked questions concerning Osh- |
kOsh always turned the conversation into |
other channels, and persist in declining |
to discuss that hypothetical and suspi- |
cious town. No EASTERN man has ever
visited Oshkosh and returned again to
civilization. When a man asked a
Chicago hotel clerk for any information
as to Oshkosh, he is uniformly
understood to be asking for "hot-
SCOTCH" which seductive fluid is
promptly brought to him, and the price
thereof entered in his bill, even if he
happens to be a Methodist bishop
actively engaged in preventing the
appointment of incorporate per
sons in connection with the
Deadwood postal service. Some years
since d determined Massachusetts man
set out upon a journey in search of
Oshkosh. He fully believed in its ex-
istence, and was confident that he would
return a successful and famous man
He penetrated as far as Waukegan with
out much difficulty, and his last letter,
dated from that place, announced that
he believed himself to be within ten
days march of his mysterious goal.
Thereupon he vanished into the wilder
ness, and not a word was heard from him
during the next three years. AT the
end of that time he re-aPpeaTed at his
Massachusetts home, so haggard and
worn that he had hardly strength
enough to tell his wife's new
husband that he had better sort out his
private children and remove to some
other State. From that day to this the
traveller has never mentioned the name
of Oshkosh. The curiosity of an entire
New England village has never been
able to drag from him one word of infOr
nation as to the alleged Wisconsin
town. Whether he actually reached
| Oshkosh, and was imprisoned by the in
| habitants until he took a solemn oath
never to reveal their names, or whether
he found that there was no such town,
and lacked the courage to confess that he
| had been fOolishly credulsus in searching
for it, we shall probably never know.
Now, when we consider these signifi-
cant facts-that no avOWed native of
| Oshkosh has ever been seen; that no tTaV-
eler has ever reached and described
| that town, and that it's name is so i'm!
! probable as to invite our disbelief, it is
not strange that our best critical minds
refuse to believe in it. The very fact
that vast quantity of extraordinary
things are constantly said by unscrupu-
lOus papers to have happened at Oshkosh
Is extremely suspicious. Why should
that unseen Wisconsin town have almost
! a monopoly of remarkable events? If
| Mr.. Stanley had asserted that he had
found DIR. Livingstone at Oshkosh, no
one would have believed him; and yet
the people believe in Oshkosh, although
scores of far more incredible things con-
stantly occur in that absurd place.
As to ShebOygan, on the other hand,
there is positive evidence of it's exist
ence, however doubtful the town may
seem to those who hear its name for the
first time. There was a man at the Phil.
adelphia centennial exhibition who adj
mitted that he came from Sheboygan
and was constantly asked to dinner and
otherwise lionized by every map-make1
who visited the exhibition. Then there
Is the authentic anecd5te of the devout
Roman Catholic Irishman who died al
ShebOygan, and, of course, mentioned
that town to st. Peter as his last place oil
residence. "Sheboygan ~ remarked the
saint, with an incredulous and injured
air: " Oh, no, you mustn't talk in that
way. You came from Chicago or St.
! Louis, or some such place, and naturally
want to conceal the fact but you really
go too far when you try to palm off any
such prepOsterOus place as ShebOygau
on me-" But the worthy Irishman per
sisted, and finally produced a letter Of
recommendation from his cOnlesser dated
at ShebOygan. Whereupon the saint ad.
mitted him without even reading the let
ter, Temarking, as he did so, "It's nc
matter, my dear son, what you may OF
may not have done. A man who has
lived at Sheboygan, and been known te
his fellow-men as a Sheboygannian, has
earned a full exemption from pUrgstory.'
This veracious anec1ete is alone sufficient
] -
and our faith in that fact need not be
shaken by the suspicious way in which
ShebOygan and Oshkosh are often classed
together.
1t is probable that the myth of Osh.
kosh originated in the effort of some
wild western bumorist to surpass the
worst efforts of aboriginal nomen
clature. After WaukegGn became an
actual town, certain Wisconsin settlers
of more than usual effrontery attempted
to make their village even more notorious
than Waukegan by calling it ShebOygan.
In order to ridicule these unpardOnabIe
names, some Western editor invented an
imaginary town and conferred upon ii
the unspeakable name of Oshkosh. By
degrees the name became SO well known
that the map-makers felt compelled to
put it on their maps, and thenceforth it
was generally accepted as a geographical
fact. In much the same way the
name of the Bogardus kicker, a purely
imaginary machine, became so familiar
to the readers of western newspapers that
thousands of people have now as firm a
belief in the existence of the Bogardus
kicker as they have in the existence of the
steam engine; and one of the first things
which every French journalist who
visited the Philadelphia exhibition de-
sired to see was that machine the most
wonderful devised by Sir Bogardus." So
| persistent is the hold of popular tradi-
! ton upon the masses that in all proba-
bility Oshkosh will appear upon the map
| of Wisconsin for fifty years to come, and
] three-fourths of the Wisconsin people
will believe that it is as real as Boston or
| New York. No earnest man can be sat
| isfed with this state of things, and an
| effort must sooner or later be made to
disabuse the popular mi nd.-N Y.
Times.