George Derby " For the baseball player of the same name , see George Derby ( baseball ) " George Horatio Derby ( April 3 , 1823 – May 15 , 1861 ) was an early California humorist . Derby used the pseudonym " John P . Squibob " and its variants " John Phoenix " and " Squibob . " Derby served as a Lieutenant in the U . S . Army Topographic Corps . In his spare time , he wrote humorous anecdotes and burlesques , often under the guise of his pseudonyms . Biography . George Derby was born 1823 in Dedham , Massachusetts , son of John B . and Mary Townsend Derby . His father deserted the family mercantile business to be a poet , spending the family ' s money on self publishing . He graduated from West Point in 1846 and first served at Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo . According to the newly ( 2010 ) published " Autobiography of Mark Twain , Vol . One " , Ulysses S . Grant was a classmate of " Squibob ' s " and the General told Twain some stories of Squibob at West Point . In 1853 , Derby arrived in the small outpost of San Diego , California , to begin mapping the region and developing plans for redirecting the San Diego River from the marshy delta of San Diego Bay and directly into the Pacific Ocean . This was to avoid floods that periodically silted up the bay and made use of the bay by ships difficult or impossible . Derby married Mary A . Coons on January 14 , 1854 in San Francisco . His wife ' s family were wary of Derby because his erratic , flippant manner infuriated his superiors . Coons tricked Derby into marrying her by placing a notice in the San Francisco paper stating that she would depart with her mother back home to St . Louis , Missouri , although she had no intention to do so . Derby read the notice and immediately took a steamer from San Diego to marry her . They had one daughter , Daisy , born 1854 in San Francisco . While waiting for approval of his San Diego River diversion plans , he had some time on his hands . He supplemented his low military pay by contributing humorous articles to the San Francisco " Herald " , " California Pioneer " magazine , and the fledgling local newspaper , the San Diego " Herald " . He wrote articles that poked fun at the figures and pretenses of high society . These articles were written to appear as if a running narrative from John Phoenix and were the state ' s first published humor . When another writer started writing articles with his penname Squibob in a competing San Francisco newspaper , Derby wrote an article " killing off " Squibob and continued to write with a new penname , John Phoenix . In 1855 , Derby bought the " Herald " , which went out of business in 1860 . During this time he was promoted to first lieutenant . In 1857 Derby had Amaurosis ( today , some historians think he had a brain tumor ) , which prevented him from reading or writing . He requested leave from the Topological Engineers in 1859 and moved to New York , where he died shortly after the start of the American Civil War . In honor of George Derby and his contribution to the lighter , more irreverent side of California history , the local chapter of the organization E Clampus Vitus is named in his honor , using his pseudonym John P . Squibob .