Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-06-11
Henry Welch, A Native IriShman. Tn
dergOeS an Amazing Change
from White to Black.
At First He Becomes a Light Yellow.
After Which the Tint Stead
lily Darkened.
Physicians Puzzled and Think Eyentu-
ally He Will Be Like A Full
BloOded Negro.

There have been negroes whose skins
turned white in spots-for revenue and ex-
hibition chiefly.
There have been negroes whose skins
were so slightly tinted anyway that they
really passed for.white men. There have
even been negroes entirely white, if we
may trust veracious travellers.
But who ever heard of white man
with not drop of African blood in his
veins who turned negro.
And an Irish white man at that?
Yet the singular phenomenon is now
being observed in a well authenticated
case at the Presbyterian Hospital in New
York city
As the museum lecturer says when he
makes the living skeleton stand up, there
is, ladies and gentlemen, no deception
about this. The case is on record and You
can verify it for yourselves. A man about
whose pure Caucasian descent there is no
doubt, who six months ago was of as fair
now from head to foot the color of "a mu-
case Is recognized among physicians as
is known the first that has ever come
under local observation.
The history of this extraordinary patient,
verified in a great part by inquiry among
his friends, as set down on the hospital
records and gathered elsewhere runs
thus:
His name is Henry WEIGH. He is fifty
years old and the son of Thomas and Mary
WEIGH of county Down, Ireland, where he
was born. He has been an American
II, rtr &c
ed as waiter. He came to New York
ten years ago and has been employed in
many restaurants uptown and down He
has boarded for some time with Mrs Jack,
at the corner Of 18th street and the
Southern Boulevard, who is put down as
his nearest friend. He is unmarried and
has no relatives in New York, although he
IS well remembered In the places where he
has worked. He is a member Of the
Roman Catholic church.
Up to SIX months ago no one had ques-
toned that Welsh was a white man anv
more than that d horse has four legs. He
was as white as any other healthy white
man IN New York. Some time last No
vember he began to be troubled with an
intermittent pain in the region of his
stomach, at times very severe. He took
home remedies for the stomach ache and
was finally treated by physicians, getting
better and worse variously-about as other
patients do, perchance. He had languid
feeling and a bilious look, and along in
December his face began to take slight
tlnge OF yellow as if he had an attack of
jaundice.
The pain continued and so did the vel
low tlnge. Welch worked off and on, as
the pain would let him, and the color
steadily got darker. By Christmas he was
about the shade of typical Italian. By
the end of January he was as yellow as a
Chinaman. A month later he would be
taken for quadmaroon.
By that time he ceased work altogether
and did not go out very much
Two weeks ago he was Ike mulatto
and still growing darker.
Then WEIGH, being at last convinced
that providence for some mysterious rea-
son had elected to make full negro out of
a descendent of an Irish king, shut him
self up in abject dependency
His friends, who were not so confident
about the manifestations of Providence
In his case as he was, to cheer him up talked
him into the idea of going to hospital to
be treated, and May he was admitted to
the Presbyterian and assigned to bed in
ward 3.
He was now as dark as any mulatto, and
would be taken for one anywhere by anv
person, his straight iron gray hair and
long iron gray mustache to the contrary
Notwithstanding.
Still his exact tint was not quite that of
a colored man, though it took close and
observant inspection to see the difference.
he was of very dark brown, as dark as
the wrapper of a strong cigar, but the
shade had a slightly dead and 1nky black
look, not like that of man with African
blood. This was chiefly noticeable in his
face, where the Caucasian flush shone
little through the dark tint and gave him
an unnatural look for a colored
man. The insides of his hands, too, were
also Of nearly the same color as the out
sides.
Being questioned and examined by the
deepl y interested physicians who had never
seen a case like this, Welch's chief symp-
toms were found to beta great weakness
and the same pain in his stomach
They Ciaganosed the case as hypertrop-
hic cirrhosis, and told the patient he had a
disease of the liver and wasn't any more
o. an negro than he was before.
WEIGH felt better.
On May 7, having been in the hospital
two days and feeling encouraged, he
thought he would like to go out for walk.
So superintendent Wall gave him a pass
and he strolled forth about ten o'clock.
He walked around through the park and
over on the west side until about one
o'clock. Then he ,drifted into restau-
rant near the park to get dinner.
He sat down at the table and the walters
stood off and looked askance at him, but
nobody came to get his order. He ham
mered on the table with a plate, and
after he had exercised himself in this way
for awhile the proprietor, who had been
cycling him over the top of his desk with
the hope that he would take the hint and
get out, came up and said:-
Now stop that and light out. We
don't serve colored people here"
But Oh amt no colored mon," said
WEIGH, who still talks with brogue and
spite of his long years on Americas free
soil. ''OI am no more of a colored man
than yourself
I suppose the proprietor thought there
was nothing strange about that, and moth
.ag peculiar IN negro who had county
Down brogue, because he said Welch
would have to go anyway.
Dim as white man as you are, said
Welch, ''and you have got no right to put
me out
But the proprietor was not going to adj
NIT any equivocation about the evidence
of his own ewes, and he said that if WEIGH
didn't 60 out at once he would call his
walters and have him put out So WEIGH
said he would 60, but the proprietor had