SMITH HUBBARD & TICHENOR

GOLDENGATE’S

for March 17, 2013

GROUNDED

HOW DID “DRUNKEN DICK SHOAL” in MAFFITT’S CHANNEL to

CHARLESTON HARBOR (South Carolina) GET IT’S NAME??

But first…. !!!

From the desk of ….

PLAYERS!

Yes!!! You wanted ‘em….

MORE AMAZING MARITIME NAVIGATIONAL HAZARDS!!!

And We’ve Got Them … !!!! THAT’S RIGHT!!!!

PLAYERS!!!! You let us know [Here at Unit D-37, Payless Self-Storage (Brownsville) Corner of California & Scotts Sts., Pacific Heights, San Francisco, Cal., 94115– Ed.] just how much you appreciated the recent SHIPWRECK! Issue of S.Y.M.-Zonia™ -- to wit: “The “Last Log” of the Desdemona: Can You Crack ….the Code?” [Feb. 17, 2013 – exactly one month ago today!!!! – Ed.] BUT …Players: much to my surprise, it wasn’t just the CRYPTIC CODE of the shipmaster’s journals of the Eagle Wings, [Capt. Linnett, or, sometimes, Linnell – Ed.] or that of the Desdemona, [Capt. Williams – Ed.] that sent you … well … overboard -- figuratively speaking [Except for a very few of you, who had to be actually-- bodily – left behind on Desdemona Light, and thus went indeed “overboard”!!! —Ed.]. Rather it was the navigational hazards – the invisible shallows, shoals and obstacles to safe maritime navigation -- that grabbed you !!! Yes!! Players: SUBMERGED ROCKS!!! Way cool, I know. And those that are only submerged at high tide: “washrocks”— or so the fishermen of Port Orford (Oregon) call them!!! [Gargle one of those, if you can – Ed.!! ] And then there’s the less familiar orosays! So they call them in Gaelic – a tidal island common enough along the coastlines, of which Battle Rock (Oregon) has been said to be an example …

All of them Dangerous Navigational Hazards! And what about the shoals and sand-spits? Like Desdemona Sands?

…. “Desdemona Sands” … Players: the poetic resonances of this very melancholy name, sound in the ear like the soughing surf as it retreats down the hardscrabble of some remote and shelly shoreline… or like the oysters at dawn at Stony Point, (Washington) which seem to be whispering among themselves -- one to the other – as they exercise their abductor magnus muscles, against their abductor minimus muscles, warming up in preparation for yet another fascinating day overlooking Shoalwater Bay. Could such a perfect name be merely the result of some stupid – or unfortunate -- turn on the captain’s wheel? Desdemona Sands ….. Desdemona Sands …..

So, it’s no wonder, Players, that you should want to inquire into yet FURTHER instances of these curious accidents of navigational nomenclature and have been e-mailing us for more, at the old P.Y.M.™ PUZZLER e-mail address pym.puzzler@rocketmail.com [Gotta update that … !!! – Ed ]. Of course, we could have run a half-dozen more of these for the Columbia River, (Oregon & Washington) and a dozen or more from right here around San Francisco Bay (California) … but, in order to equally distribute the sense of enchantment from coast-to-coast, and lift the veil of fair poesy evenly across this land, I’m reaching out now cross-country to the mouth of Charleston Harbor (South Carolina) for another item of navigational nomenclature lain over yet another maritime hazard, and – in order to secure parity – I’m selecting yet another sand-bar not unlike fair Desdemona Sands … but a little smaller, a little less conspicuous, and so just a little less well-known… BUT!!! Players: for all that, one no less befitting the histrionic dignity of Charleston and environs, and the role it has played in so many of the great movements of America’s past. And so, without further adieu let me introduce This Week’s S.Y.M.-Zonia™ …… easily among the coolest … ..

HOW DID “DRUNKEN DICK SHOAL” in MAFFITT’S CHANNEL to CHARLESTON HARBOR (South Carolina) GET IT’S NAME??

But first …. !!!

FROM THE MAILBAG – Lost Correspondence Dept.

Players – I’ve reached down into the mail bag again this week – way down – and scrounged around there at the very bottom, where I found this old, overlooked communication from none other than Titular Leader herself, Ass. Dr. Stephanie Beckon from whom not much has been heard since she singlehandedly led into Port Orford, an army of the patriotic membership of the Independent Order of Knighthood, (I.O.K.) and the Ancient Order of Knighthood (A.O.K.) from the area around LORANE (Oregon) – in a demonstration in support of struggling Southern Oregon Counties hanging on the lip of disaster … HOWEVER, in the days before she “got the call” and morphed herself into the “‘Maid’ of Lorane” (Oregon), she was still just our ordinary “girl” next-door Stephanie Beckon, and interested in little more than lichen-hunting, windsurfing, mountaineering, pedaling her mountain-bike, sea-kayaking, re-organizing the SH&T, LLP archives, and especially ….. running the prestigious founding Port Orford (Oregon) chapter of Stephanie’s Younger Membership -- the S.Y.M. Ahhhh….

I’m printing her old letter verbatim – because in it, she evinces traces of the strange change coming upon her. My own response then follows her letter …… I have titled this now-priceless exchange…

NOTES ON MacARTHUR-BARTLETT RECONNOISSANCE of the WESTERN COAST of the UNITED STATES

SKETCH SHEET NO. 3 22 January 2013, Tuesday [ Note the date on this old letter!! – Ed.]

[Dear old Stephanie ,,, - Ed.] Stephanie Beckon [It was a simpler time … ] c/o Sarah Elizabeth etc., etc. Beckon, Editor

The Langlois Ledger [W.O.W. –Ed.] Workmen of the World Hall, 2nd Floor

Langlois, Oregon 97405 Mr. Michael C. Goldengate, Editor S.Y.M.-Zonia™ E-magazine Unit D-47, Brownsville, Payless Self-Storage California & Scotts Sts., Pacific Heights San Francisco, Cal. 94115 Dear Mr. Goldengate: I am returned from the firing range, and wish to apprise the Youngstermembers, that I was repeatedly able to group 8 shots from my .223 Bushmaster Predator within 1 sq inch on the bullseye of the target @ 100 yards. The key lay in careful preparation: i.e., by refining the grain weight of the gunpowder of the shells. To do this, I weighed out the gunpowder (H414) in alternative grain weights, for packing the shells. I used 5 alternative grain weights, in increments of .5 grains, from 23.5 to 25.5, packing eight shells at each weight. The highest weight, 25.5, gave me the desired result. So, I’m getting a few of my friends and fellow firearms-enthusiasts together at Port Orford – for a Second Amendment rally. Can you please advise your Readers: we’re going to meet at GRIFF’S again, February 3!! Details will be forthcoming. [OH, Players! The meeting floundered. It was a disaster. No-one showed!!! If only I had run this letter earlier! – Ed.] Continuing with our earlier line of inquiry on the MacArthur sheets [Regarding the 1850 sketch-maps on the MacArthur-Bartlett Reconnaissance Surveys of the Western Coast (undertaken on the U.S. Surveying Schooner Ewing – See below!!! Ed.] -- can you tell me: what is the Neckas River on Sheet No. 3, "Reconnaissance of the Western Coast of the United States" (McArthur and Bartlett 1850)? Is it Beaver Creek north of Seal Rock? A small community, probably a post office called Ona, was located upstream a mile or so in the late nineteenth century. Ona Beach State Park is located at the mouth of Beaver Creek today. From the sea the place looks like a small inlet, but it is shallow and not navigable for any vessels. It does, however, provide tolerably good windsurfing. VTY, Stephanie [My chagrinned response follows – Ed.]

Dear Stephanie: - How did I fail to notice this letter of yours? Good grief!!! Thanks to your call, I got the word out of course – I ran a whole issue! [The SEA-CHANGE Issue – January 27, 2013 – Ed. ] but I think the Ledger dropped the ball, and published the wrong date!!! Really unfortunate … Otherwise… what an interesting question ... I've seen that "Neckas" or "Nekas" label on a number of early printed maps of Oregon, whose authors must have referenced sheets like this -- but its one of those thing I've never had time to track down. It look to me like Sheet 3 [Shown here – Ed. ] of the Ewing's surveys, is a disaster for land-mapping & designed only to get one PAST the famous rock-bound Oregon coast, to the safety of the mouth of the Columbia, and harbor at Astoria (Oregon) !! There weren’t many landing places, and water on the bars was so shallow, it effectively closed most of the rivers except to shallow draft vessels. Lt. MacArthur talks about that in his Report which accompanied the published version of the Sketch Map. Of course, that’s the Notices of the Western Coast of the United States, United States Coast Survey -- the Report by MacArthur and Bartlett et al, following this 1850-51 survey cruise.!! So in that sense, I wonder -- initially – whether it was even in the U.S.C.S. assignment to MacArthur, to map where those insignificant little rivers were. The surveyors didn’t want to get their feet wet, maybe. So, I guess it really does give a clear idea of just how little penetration these early ocean-going vessels had -- almost anywhere, along the coast, with the exception of the Umpqua, and the Yaquina. Note in the sailing directions, that MacArthur says the Killamook, Alseya and etc. require further examination -- and there is no suggestion at the time, that anyone is stopping into these rivers, as ports. Stephanie: I just recently got a “head’s up” from our Native American Anthropological (and hunting!) expert Unk-Nown on a topic closely related to this one. If anyone knows these Oregon coastal regions, it would be Unk. Yet … he doesn’t tell all he knows… He did, however, mention that he is researching the manner in which, following the Battle of Hungry Hill, the Rogue Tribe were escorted by the U.S. Army, from Fort Orford, at Port Orford, on the Southern Oregon Coast, just seven score miles up the coast to the SILETZ Indian Reservation on the central coast , by steamboat [Was it the Sonora?—Ed.] HOWEVER – here’s the clincher: perhaps because of these same navigational obstructions to large draft vessels, rendering the coast rather impenetrable, the trip itself was …. let’s just say Considerably Longer, and a bit more roundabout, from what you might have expected. You perhaps have discussed the matter with Unk ….? And know more details … Here's my best guess … [And here’s the “Nekas” River at right: -- Ed.] Consider the publication I mentioned, issued to accompany the finished charts: -- Notices of the Western Coast of the United States, United States Coast Survey which followed this 1850-51 survey cruise – It’s this cruise, of course, which resulted in the naming of the bay at Port Orford, as Ewing Harbor. It should be available on Gargle Book … WOwee …. !!!

In the tables in the 1851 Coast Survey book [See below – Ed.] Nekas is listed at 44 deg 57 min. This latitude is copied also in some later "Coast Pilot" books from the 1860's -- which have the Nekas it as 44 deg. 56,: and this is spot on for the mouth of the Siletz. This also about matches the position on the chart, which shows the Nekas just below the 45th parallel. So, for future reference, it also looks like MacArthur was calculating things about 2-4 minutes below present latitudes ... per Gargle Earth & USGS sites. This gives me an excellent "live sense" of just how disastrous an error on a navigational chart could be in this period (-- which incidently is what I am planning to run upcoming, only for Mare Island off the San Fran bay.) I've always been puzzled at how these great sailors could -- e.g. miss the Mouth of the Columbia and end up in Shoalwater bay, as mentioned in the notes here. Now I know!

Click to Enlarge! But if the Nekas is the Siletz, that means the river marked "Yaquinna" is NOT the Yaquina!! The table at p. 12 [above] shows the Yaquinna at 45 deg 06 min, which is precisely Neskowin creek, now -- and if MacArthur's readings are consistently a few minutes south of present latitudes, that means the team saw the little Nestucca and marked it as the Yaquinna. Alternatively, if their reading fluctuated either way, this would be the Salmon River. Meanwhile, the river due south of Cape Foulweather on the chart, marked "Alseya", is the actual Yaquina. Wowee!!! It almost makes my head spin!! Were the crew all drunk? Were they rank novices? Michael R.S.V.P.

The IMPLICATIONS ….

PLAYERS!!! That’s all rather interesting. But what are the implications? Can the USCS chart be off by two degrees of latitude all along at least this Sheet 3 – and it was never reconciled with earlier land coordinates from the G.L.O. surveys which were already underway in Oregon? WE KNOW [Of course – it’s common knowledge – Ed.] that after the Ewing arrived in Astoria, Lt. MacArthur shipped himself personally UPRIVER to Oregon City (Oregon), and met with Surveyor General Preston. [Portland was just a-borning at that time – Ed.] MacArthur and Preston MUST have at least compared notes at that time. How could the errors be allowed to persist, or, why does there not appear to be any tie-in to the G.L.O.’s land surveys? MacArthur, , on the same survey trip in the U.S.S. Ewing, prepared his Chart of the Mouth of the Columbia River (1850) and therein showed his mastery; while these three sheets look like … cartoons!!!!

If the latitude of these river mouths could not be pegged with any greater certainty, then how was Lt. MacArthur so confident about the names of the rivers? Yaquinna? Alseya? – These are all the right names – but in the wrong place! The river marked the Nekas….? It’s the Siletz.

PLAYERS: The funny thing is …. the name Nekas actually sounds like an authentic aboriginal or Indian name for an Oregon river: the language of many Native American tribes of the Oregon territory include a particle – ne – which references water: so, along the coast especially, the rivers or creeks include the Nestucca, [Big and little – Ed.] the Necanicum, the Necarney, and so forth, and Netarts bay, for example, or Neskowin. Nekas fits right in with these –whereas the name “SILETZ” does not – not quite!! Well: at least, apparently not… Is it Salish? It’s quite unique!! It sounds like a European name -- “Celeste” maybe. Wowee!!!

Or .. or maybe a command: “SILENCE!”

[ PLAYERS: the Alseya here, is really the Yaquina -- Ed.]

Remember: This is the river “Siletz” – for which the very same SILETZ INDIAN RESERVATION was named: the one that Native American anthropologist Unk-Nown has, as I said, been researching recently! Should the real name of the Indian reservation be the Nekas, or the Neckas Reservation? Why couldn’t the steamer [Which vessel was it? The Sonora? – Ed.] carrying the Rogue Tribe of Native Americans, have entered the area on the Yaquina – the real one -- which really

was navigable? Especially by 1855??

PLAYERS! This could get confusing. Even for me, Your Editor!

The steamer took a roundabout route from Port Orford, to reach a nearby coastal reservation. WHY?

However, that’s not the only consequence implied by Ass. Dr. Beckon’s trenchant observations, and the investigation which it triggered. The errors on the MacArthur-Bartlett Reconnoissance Sheet No. 3 has to be understood, for all their potential implications … OTHER implications …

Like, for MacArthur-Bartlett Reconnoissance Sheet No. 2

Players: You’ll have to remember back to last summer: Yes: to the POLE-SHIFT /X-FACTOR series of S.Y.M.-Zonias™, which dealt with yet another Reconnoissance map – equally misspelled – this one by Lt. Robert Stockton Williamson, who was actually on the Oregon coast, and at Port Orford (Oregon) at precisely the same time as the U.S.S. Ewing was … “in town” – just a month or two after legendary surveyor of San Francisco, Vitus Wackenreuder, was on site to lay out the City of Port Orford itself. Wowee!! YOU MAY REMEMBER… this is one of the remarkable maps that Juerglein Waters Ph.D.3

recovered from the SECRET ARCHIVES at NARA.

Did you save your back issues? Let’s hope so!!

Either way, you may remember that the U.S. Surveying Schoooner Ewing anchored in the harbor, aka Port Orford, in the anchorage/cove just north of Battle Rock and gave it’s name to the Harbor, which was thereafter labeled on some charts, and a number of maps “Ewing Harbor” – as I said above. That name, however, did not catch on among the locals.

PLAYERS!!! I mention that just to help you get oriented. The real issue is, that if Lt. MacArthur’s calculations as to his latitude were off as much as 2°, so that some of the major rivers on the central and northern Oregon coast are NOT represented where they actually are, and if he shared these results with Lt. Robert Stockton Williamson – as was routinely done – then Williamson’s rivers could be equally off-target in their actual coordinates, and therefore likely…

completely misidentified !! YES: these surveyors often “swapped” their data!!

WHICH, if true, WOULD MEAN… that the river we [Thought we had!! – Ed.] successfully identified as the SHIT RIVER, [ And once thought to be …. merely mythological!!! – Ed.] and which was fka the Shix River, and nka the Sixes River … well, it could in fact have been some other river!!! In fact, any of a number of them, perhaps the Elk River, perhaps Floras Creek, or the river marked Sequellahin on some old maps. Maybe that’s Two Mile Creek now … PLAYERS!! If the Siletz can be the Neckas, and the Alseya river is the Yaquinna .. then I have to ask myself,

And now …

A Special “UMP”-Date … …. ….

RUPERT JUERGLEIN

SCOOTER

Players – It’s been almost as long since we checked the status of the lost Umpqua County (Oregon) Map , and I want to just give you this special “UMP-date”… (get it?) to advise you that there may indeed be a real prospect of now locating this mysteriously missing “MAP of UMPQUA COUNTY 1863” of which you see a virtually “thumb-nailed” image above! “Where could it be?” I understand, that intermittent sightings of this lost MASTERPLAN of the lost Umpqua County, have been reported by volunteer staffers at the remote WTF warehouse, over the intervening generations since it was first consigned to the catacombs there, when Umpqua County (Oregon) went defunct! [Also in 1863 – Ed.] Reported sightings are now being collated.

However, despite these assiduous efforts, intrepid staff at the exclusive WTF Archive [Warehouse – Ed.] – namely Scooter -- has [Have – Ed.] still not been able to locate it—after lo!!! these many months, since it was first identified as an ITEM OF INTEREST, back in the jam-packed double-barrelled DOUBLE ISSUE [And that was November 11, 2012 – Ed.] At that time, the re-emergence of this mere thumbnail alone, prompted …. well, quite a heavy-duty exchange between S.Y.M.-Zonia ™’s experts…lead by Rupert Roget, P.L.S., Surveyor of Coon County (Ret.) and joined by Jeurglein, Stephanie and Yours Truly! The “E-Dialogue on the Map of Umpqua County – 1863” was the result!!

But – where was the actual map itself? PLAYERS!! NOW, In another S.Y.M.-Zonia™ EXCLUSIVE, I am reporting a late-breaking leak, that back-channel negotiations are even now underway, to bring Juerglein Waters Ph.D.3 from his waterfront home [Juerglein resides in New York [-on-the-Pacific](California) – Ed.] to the famous WTF Warehouse, to assist WTF senior sub-archivist Scooter, by bringing to bear Juerlgein’s unique cartographical-locating expertise in tracking down, pinpointing, and actually bringing to the light of public scrutiny, this very same “MAP of UMPQUA COUNTY 1863” We should know more about this development, within a few more short months, at most !!!! [ Dangling exclamation points – fix – Ed.] Maybe a year …

And now …

THE SOMERS MUTINY – and MIDSHIPMAN’S SPENCER’S

MYSTERIOUS “SHEET-ANCHOR of GREEK CODE” -- IS THERE a CODE

……WITHIN the CODE?

Last Week’s issue you will recall, put to the S.Y.M. a real poser concerening the fracts of the famous, so-called Somers mutiny: one of America’s few historical instances, in which the crew of a U.S. Naval vessel actually brought the men of their ship virtually to the verge of outright MUTINY!!!

YES: the affair involved the plans laid by, Midshipman Phillip Spencer, to commandeer the U.S.S. [Training vessel – Ed.] Somers through conspiring to recruit from its crew of apprentice seamen, a gang of bloodthirsty mutineers, willing to go so far as to commit murder, in order to carry out their diabolical design. Spencer’s plan was to take control of the vessel and sail it to the Isle of Pines near the southwestern tip of the Island of Cuba. The Isle of Pines was a known haunt of maritime Pirates of the Caribbean – real ones, mind you!!

Not Disney™ characters!!! NOP – and not Disney™ characters licensed to LEGO®… but real pirates many of

whom used the Isle of Pines [ Shown here – Ed.] as a

rendezvous and redoubt. THIS – Players - was Mids. Spencer’s planned destination for the U.S.S. Somers, were he to succeed in his nefarious plans to take the ship, murder his commanding officers, and HOIST THE BLACK FLAG!

Midshipman Spencer’s “Sheet-Anchor” of Greek Code – is there a Code Within it?

PLAYERS: Last week, we ran through the basic “structure” of Spencer’s code – one of simple transliteration of English (or Roman) alphabet characters [Letters!!! – Ed.] into their closely corresponding Greek letters. As we noted Last Week, Spencer’s “sheet-anchor” simply lists a score or two of the Somers’ apprentice seamen, so that -- for instance-- “McKinley” reads M’Xενλυ; “Green” is rendered Γρεεν, and “Spencer” himself is Sπενcερ …!!! A first-year – NO!! A first-quarter Greek student could crack it !!!!

Or … could he?

Because, upon closer inspection -- there were some inconsistencies in the transliteration, that broke the direct patterning of “English letter to Greek letter”: inconsistencies that seemed almost to have the character, not of random errors, but of ideosyncracies!! They seemed to disclose a secondary code laying “within” the overt code: as if the obvious code was just a “carrier wave” and the inconsistencies were the real signal. Thus, because of these inconsistencies, certain words when “transliterated” out of English into Greek, appeared to take on alternative meanings. Heading up the lefthand column of Midshipman Spencer’s list was the group of men he considered “Certain” – which ought to be written with a “tau” τ as Sερταιν, but appears instead as Sερlαιν. Well, that sounds meaningless enough.

But then, below it, the word “Doubtful” which should be spelled correctly, with a “b” which then gets transliterated to beta “β” ; and also with the English “t’ in place, which changes to another tau ( τ ) to give Δουβτφυλ, -- appears instead as Δουlφυλ. Which sounds like English “doleful”.

Why? And then there was the name of the Purser’s Steward, Mr. Wales, is put down as U’αλες – with an aspirant mark, to make the “Wh” sound, and modern style English/Roman “U” -- where Spencer should have written Greek letter Upsilon (Υ) to make the word Yαλες . Why? Clearly he was making fun of Mr. Wales – who may have been a little rotund!!!!! Strange. And then the word “steerage” with the idiosyncractic “l” where tau ( τ ) should be, gives “ σlεεραγε ” – and looks so similar to “sleepage” -- meaning “berth deck” – as to be impossible to notice. . Players – these strange words …

Whales …. doleful … sleepage /steerage .. The berth deck is for sleeping, except of course, for the poorest passengers who had to book passage in “steerage”. But … another group for whom the steerage deck was for sleeping – for the lucky ones, that is -- was that of African slaves. Spencer’s plans to commandeer the Somers into a pirate ship, included – as I said – running her down to the Isle of Pines, off the coast of Cuba, and converting his vessel into a pirate ship – blacking over her name and giving it a new and menacing one, such as the NIGHTFALL, or … the BLACK CURSE, or, better!! Write it in Latin perhaps … the MALEDICTION.

Using the Isle of Pines as a harbor, he would evade interdiction by the U.S. Navy “Mosquito fleet” and enter the SLAVE TRADE crossing to the Guinea coast or the bight of Africa, retuning with a cargo of African slaves, and then offload the survivors in Havanna, Cuba, or perhaps, stop for a deck cargo of rum, and sail the whole load directly to the States … to… say, New Orleans (Louisiana) of perhaps Miami (Florida) or maybe someplace a little further up the Atlantic seaboard… perhaps to … .

To the place you are going next … another haunt of …. PIRATES!!!!

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING

HOW DID “DRUNKEN DICK SHOAL” in MAFFITT’S CHANNEL to

CHARLESTON HARBOR (South Carolina) GET IT’S NAME??

This one will take you back, you old-timers!! Yes: to another piratical haunt – Sullivan’s Island (South Carolina) -- near the mouth of Charleston Harbor, and into Charleston Harbor itself, which opens on the City of Charleston (South Carolina) : the trading center -- and some might say, the seat -- of the (former) North American Slave trade!!! Wowee!! Some of you long-term PUZZLING addicts will surely remember Maffitt’s Channel, as the navigable waterway into Charleston Harbor, that was discovered by none other than U.S.C.S. Surveyor, and [Confederate – Ed.] Civil War Hero, Lt. John Newland Maffitt.

And if not, you’ll surely remember Sullivan’s Island which flank’s Maffitt’s Channel to the North, and which was the setting of much of the exciting, cryptogramic action in the $100 Prize-Winning tale, The Gold Bug by the

then-up-and-coming auteur … Edgar Allen Poe!! Wowee!!! Yes.. you old-timers will no doubt remember one of the very early Elmendorf originals – in fact the “Gold Bug” Puzzler, he titled it: “Was Legrand’s House on Sullivan’s Island (South Carolina) Really Judge Elliott Huger’s House?” Released for July 12, 1998 [And shown below – Ed.] .. this very early P.Y.M. PUZZLER gives us a rare glimpse into the founding and early physical productions of Elmendorf’s genius, struggling as he did to bring to reality, his unique vision of American – and yea, even World – history, virtually out of a void.

One thing that’s hard not to notice, is this proof of what we had only learnt by rumor before: namely, that in its beginnings,. The P.Y.M PUZZLER [Which was not at this period, even trademarked!! – Ed.] was an actual hard copy, or paper publication, that Elmendorf had to replicate by mimeography, by borrowing the mimeograph machine of the Communitarian church in his home-town of Bergen, New Jersey!!! [Players!! Do not confuse the appearance of this old mimeographed issue of the PUZZLER, with the cutting-edge science represented by my use in S.Y.M-Zonia™ of the Light of L-.L.U.-V.!!! No, No, No!! – Ed. ]

What troublesome years those were, for the struggling PUZZLER! Each issue had to be run off the mimeograph by hand [!!! – Ed.] and mailed in a plain brown envelope, to protect the reputation of the recipient. That’s RIGHT! It was an underground movement at the time, and considered counter-cultural … It would be three years or more – and only after being circulated in dark alleys, and gradually achieving cult status -- before Elmendorf’s work would be more widely acknowledged, then accepted!!! And even then, it was only when the Globe Press in New York (New York) made the risky decision to pick up the P.Y.M PUZZLER, and syndicate it for national distribution, that things finally changed…

Were you there? Did you save your back issues?? You had better have had !!!! [Check construction!!! – Ed.]

Probably not!! But if you did, you could be rich now: because trying to find a copy of these old PUZZLERS on eBay, is something like trying to find ACTION No. 1 at your neighborhood drugstore!!

OKAY – back to it:

Those of you who do remember those early Elmendorfs, will of course recall that the graphics rendered in those early years, left a lot to be desired… because they were all mimeographed in lavender! And so, when Elmendorf reached the crux of his proposal, and excerpted from Lt. Maffit’s Map of Comparison of Maffit’s Channel (1854) shown above, the clue looked something like this: -- with Elmendorf calling Players’ attention to the representation of a single block building, [ Huger’s House -- Ed.] , at the very top of the map, right on the border -- and as if nestled among the sand dunes near the inland bank of Sullivan’s Island:

It was an expression of Elmendorf’s originality, that allowed him to take this detail – co-located on a few other charts of Maffitt’s Channel and Sullivan’s Island – and ask/ argue whether Judge Elliott Huger [Probably pronounced “huge A” – Ed.] were not in fact the historical prototype of Mr. Legrand in Poe’s The Gold Bug; and to postulate that Poe – a big fan of cryptography -- had encrypted an autobiographical element therein. In successive issues, Elmendorf proceeded to reconstruct some of the crucial lost years of Poe’s life: in particular, his military years, when stationed at Fort Moultrie – 1827-28. Of course, the result is what moved the young P.Y.M. PUZZLER from the backstreets out onto Main Street – until now its available WORLDWIDE on the internet, and in hard copy at the W.O.W. Hall in Langlois (Oregon).

Legrand – Huger !! How could he have failed to notice the French synonyms!! And then, to solidify the hunch, there was the first line of The Gold Bug, which referred to LeGrand as “old Huguenot.” There’s that word “huge” again …. These insights were later clinched by years of steadfast research, with Elmendorf returning again and again to the cryptic figure of Edgar Allen Poe. And, although it took him over a decade, he eventually made the connection between The Gold Bug and the figure of Poe’s cryptic interlocutor, Charles S. Frailey – the 33rd৹ Master Mason and Chief Clerk of the General Land Office – or G.L.O.: of course, the G.L.O.-Worm!!!

But PLAYERS!!! That was then, and this is now!!! We have full COLOR graphics, and so I can run the same images of Maffit’s Channel that Elmendorf ran in the “Heroic Age” of the P.Y.M. PUZZLER, only in living color …

With the same close-up detail that Elmendorf ran, only -- once again – now in living color, and showing the sands of Sullivan Island just as they appeared 160 years ago – with Judge Huger’s house looking almost as good as new …

And also great images like this one, which shows the same house almost invisibly tucked away under some notes into the upper right corner ….at Huger’s House [Pinckney’s House, by the time this 1855 chart was made -- Ed.]

With enlarged insets like this one!!! Which shows “Drunken Dick Shoal” – our target navigational hazard for This Week, looming up off the coastal slope offshore of Sullivan’s Island, about one nautical mile off-shore -– just hanging there in the blue-black waters – the waters that appear almost to run with blood – as if seeping from the sands of Sullivan’s Island, or flowing from the mouth of Charleston Harbor, out to sea through Maffit’s Channel, pulling the boats along at ebb tide, and leading all the boaters, and many sailors too, to wonder …sometimes aloud…

HOW DID “DRUNKEN DICK SHOAL” in MAFFITT’S CHANNEL to CHARLESTON HARBOR (South Carolina) GET IT’S NAME??

YOU ARE NOW LEAVING

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