Where is James?

The wanderlust afflicted James Mason, and he loved to roam far. A typical globetrotter who covered the English speaking world. Leaving his wife, Martha Ann, and his family he took his profession to the South Seas and spent nine years in Australia, two years in New Zealand and a year in Tasmania, “visiting every city, village and hamlet,” as he said. In the interim he made several trips back to the States, the last through the Indian Ocean and Suez Canal, thus circum-navigating the Globe. He said he had made and lost fortunes, being at one time worth 25,000 pounds Sterling, which he lost through speculation. Upon his home visits, Prof. Mason always wore a silk high hat, and on one occasion a velvet vest, buttoned with $5 gold pieces. In addition to lectures and readings on phrenology, he sold medicines of his own preparation, his best staple seller being Dr. Mason’s Arbor Vitae Oil.

Nelson Mason (1884-1959) and his wife Eva Gorton (1892-1929)

A Narrative about James Mason, by his son Nelson

In the spring of 1902, Father visited us on the farm [two miles south of (Delphos, Iowa?)]. He had returned to the U.S. via England and Canada. In Massachusetts he visited his brother, John, and family. Evidently he did not see his sister by the mother’s second marriage. He invited me to travel with him for a few weeks when school closed. So about the last of June, I took the Great Western [railroad] to Kansas City, transferring to Kearney, Mo. Father met me at the station and we walked to the hotel. A small porter was along and I learned he had once traveled with a midget troupe, but grew too large to be an attraction. A Dr. Gardner was with Father and in the evening we went to a street corner where a large platform was erected. Lectures were given on phrenology and the excellent properties of Dr. Mason’s Arbor Vitae Oil.

This was the home town of the notorious James boys. Frank, the older, was living at the hotel. He and his wife sat at the large boarding house table with us. He was a horse fancier and each summer trained and groomed a trotting horse he would sell in the fall at fancy prices. Then in winter he would take tickets at a St. Louis play house. One day I brought him his mail. He was a tall, wiry individual, then in his sixties. While he never mentioned his former life, he had told others he had put it out of his thoughts, and it was as though it had never been. One evening we [Father and I] walked out to the old James farm, three miles in the country, where an admission charge was made. There was the old log house with rifle holes on the second floor [It was built in 1822. Mr James took it over in 1845. Jesse was born Sept 5th, 1847 and shot by his fellow outlaws April 3, 1882 in (…..illegible side note). Just outside stood a great elm tree beside the grave of Jesse James. Two men could not reach around the gigantic sentinel. Jesse’s daughter [had] married a neighbor boy, named Barr, living close by. The old mother of the boys, Mrs. Samuels, who lived across the street at the other hotel, was said to have been quite put out that “the daughter of Jesse James would marry a Republican.” She had lost an arm and a little 8 year old son when a bomb was thrown into the old house by soldiers searching for the Frank & Jesse. Her second husband, Dr. Samuels, was once hanged, but she cut him down in time after the men had gone. Young Jesse Jr. lived in Kansas City, where he practiced law, and his daughter became an actress. On Wednesday he came in to make arrangements for the removal of his father’s body to the Kearney cemetery. This rite was performed the following Sunday [June 29,] a rainy day, but we had left town on Friday. [Mrs. Frank (Ana Ralston) James lived to the age of 91, dying July 6, 1944 at or near Excelsior Springs, Mo., she left a son, Robert.]

At Liberty, home of Wm. Jewell College, we stayed a week. We were then alone, so I took a turn at selling medicine in the crowd. At first I moved about so quietly that Father encouraged me by jokingly asking me where I had disappeared to when I finally got back for more of his fine liniment. On the evening of July 4, so much liquor flowed that we remained indoors to avoid the drunken brawls and street rioting. The Negroes hid themselves early, but a hapless Chinaman got his optic badly discolored for loitering too long. There being no one else to combat, the boozers [seemingly] could not resist bending flasks over one another’s craniums.

Then we went to Excelsior Springs, a health resort, continuing our work. The water was salt and sulphur. Having little to do by day, while Father was giving phrenological readings, I worked a couple of weeks at the Hotel Castle Rock, dispensing remedies evenings. Business was good. I longed for the home folks, however, and not being particularly needed there, I went back to the farm. Father, while apparently robust, told me he suffered a great deal from a pain in the back of his neck [lined out-causing the muscles and tendons to become stiff and sore.]. I have wondered if this did not ultimately result in his demise. He was a very dynamic speaker, a trifle shorter than I, but much heavier. With his heavy hair and flowing sandy beard, he was known by everybody right after reaching a town.

Father and I kept in touch with each other. He wrote me many beautiful letters filled with advice and suggestions I have treasured through the years and passed along. In the five weeks we were together, we got to know each other better and the experience was valuable from an educational standpoint. Long a successful salesman, he was very fond of the book “Twenty Years of Hustling,” and presented me with a copy on my nineteenth birthday. He said the writer’s [author] experiences were the closest duplication of his own possible. He had a small star tattooed on one forearm. Asking him about it, he said as a boy at sea he had it done, thinking it was smart, and that now he cautioned against such disfigurements of the person. Among his interesting observations in the South Seas, he once saw a kangaroo leaping along a highway, paralleling their train. The odd creature was keeping up with the engine. Father enunciated a doctrine worthy of emulation. He said: “When considering a purchase, I always ask myself the question, ‘Do I really need it?’” [This I have amplified somewhat to, “Can I do without it?”].

Father was spending some time in San Francisco and making plans to go to Mexico. He contemplated entering the medical profession, being qualified under the laws there to enter that field. On April 18, 1906 [at 5:13 A.M.,] a great earthquake rocked the city. It was a relief when a telegram came saying he was safe. Then he wrote saying that while asleep in his suite of rooms on Market Street he was rudely awakened by a heavy piece of masonry falling on his hip. Being a man of peaceable disposition, as he said, he wondered why the onslaught. He was not kept long in doubt as other pieces began to fall. Dressing hurriedly he left the building a few minutes before it collapsed, and threading his way through panic-stricken crown and between swaying buildings he reached safety. All his equipment, books, instruments and other materials so painstakingly gathered were gone, so he gave up going to Mexico.

Father in 1908 was traveling by team and buggy in Oklahoma and invited me to spend the summer with him. Having made arrangements to go into the furniture store I could not well accept. I wish of course we might have been together more. Father had been keeping in touch with me right along, and I heard from him in October. That was the last word ever had of him. Persistently through the years I wrote to firms and friends he had been associated with, but the trail ended there. A Prof. M Tope had known him in Australia and recalled that Father was an accomplished violinist. None, however, had heard from him since about the time I did. I was forced to believe some sad mishap had befallen him and he was gone.