Beulah and the cannibals

[Erato]

Great articles, Shellyesq.  I hadn't seen either of them.  I should have thought to search under the name 'Tuttle' because her name was frequently misspelled.  I was unaware that she had lost a finger and didn't even know that she was in San Francisco for the earthquake.  She had quite a life!

I'm still unconvinced by the cannibal story, though.

Here is another article which does not mention cannibals:

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025121/1900-02-23/ed-1/seq-8/#words=/

[Lisa in California]

Lovely photo, Erato.

This describes a bit about the St. Francis, including a little bit about the earthquake:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westin_St._Francis

[Erato]

Interesting article about the hotel.  Thanks.

Beulah had an exciting life but there are many holes in the story which are difficult to fill in, including the details of her birth.  She was born in San Francisco on 5 May 1877 [according to her death certificate] and was adopted by the Logans at some point, probably in about 1882.  I haven't figured out who her biological parents were.  The Logans and their son Arthur had gone to the Pacific as missionaries in about 1872/73 and returned to the US in 1882 because Robert was terribly ill.  I assume that they adopted Beulah at that time and then headed back to the islands where Robert died and was buried in 1887. 

It is hard to make sense of the conflicting dates in the newspaper articles.  Did Beulah go to Micronesia when she was 10 days old?  Or when she was 6 years old?  They were out of the country for so much of the time that there are few census and other records to solidify the sequence of events.

[shellyesq]

The finger story sounded a bit over-the-top to me.  Could someone really wrench a finger off?  I suppose it's possible, but doesn't seem likely. 

There seem to be numerous mentions of Beulah in missionary-related books/newsletters on Google Books from the 1905-1907 time frame.  In The Christian Work and the Evangelist, Volume 81, it say she told the story about 11 natives being eating at the Desplanes, Iowa Methodist Convention.   Some of the other talks refer to the island people being "savages" and such, but don't mention any particular cannibal actions.

[KGarrad]

The finger story sounded a bit over-the-top to me.  Could someone really wrench a finger off?  I suppose it's possible, but doesn't seem likely. 

There seem to be numerous mentions of Beulah in missionary-related books/newsletters on Google Books from the 1906-1907 time frame.  In The Christian Work and the Evangelist, Volume 81, it say she told the story about 11 natives being eating at the Desplanes, Iowa Methodist Convention.

It sounds to me like she told the story once, it got "embellished" by journalistic licence, and then syndicated around over a period of 6-9 months?

I'm not sure I believe the tale!
William Arens, author of The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy, questions the credibility of reports of cannibalism and argues that the description by one group of people of another people as cannibals is a consistent and demonstrable ideological and rhetorical device to establish perceived cultural superiority. Arens bases his thesis on a detailed analysis of numerous "classic" cases of cultural cannibalism cited by explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists. He asserted that many were steeped in racism, unsubstantiated, or based on second-hand or hearsay evidence.

[shellyesq]

It seems that the story might have been told more than once.  The first post refers to the Des Planes Methodist Camp Ground, which was in Illinois.  The article I linked to in reply #7 mentions the story being told at the Summer school of missions at Winona Lake, which is in Indiana. 

[Erato]

There are dozens of articles that refer to Beulah and probably hundreds about her father, Robert W. Logan, and also her mother, Mary Fenn Logan.  I have a huge collection of them and I could easily double it.  It wouldn't surprise me that a missionary would make up cannibal stories but, in this case, I wonder if there wasn't some journalistic exaggeration.  Beulah could not possibly have misrepresented the date and circumstances of her father's death and gotten away with it - it was very widely known that he had died a martyr in 1887; he was a hero in missionary circles.  There were many lengthy articles and eulogies about him published at the time in newspapers and missionary magazines.  Unfortunately, though, I can't track down any other report of the goings-on at that Methodist camp meeting in 1906 to verify exactly what she said.

I agree with KGarrad about the total improbability of the story.  Reliable reports of cannibalism are almost nonexistent.  If Beulah and the crew  actually witnessed such events, it defies belief that no report was made to the authorities when the boat docked in Australia but I can't find any contemporary report in an Australian newspaper.  She arrived there in February 1900 but there was no mention of this horror story until 1907 when the US article was reproduced in the Sydney Morning Herald.

As for the finger, I'm more inclined to believe that story.  Certainly I have several times known similar cases here in South America of thieves stripping valuables from the bodies of the dead and injured.  Wrenching or chopping off a finger is not unthinkable to me.  Too bad I have no photo that shows Beulah's hands.  And too bad, also, that I was uninterested in Beulah or any other ancestor when I was a child and could have gotten the lowdown from grandma.  The only anecdotal note about Beulah that she included in her little written summary of her family's history was that, as a result of the shipwreck, Beulah had almost entirely lost her voice but that she was nevertheless a very popular public speaker because people liked to look at her even if they could barely hear her.

[Erato]

Beulah's [adoptive] father, Robert W. Logan ....

http://www.ohio5.org/omeka/exhibits/show/contextualizingobjectsinocec/robert-logan/who-is-robert-logan

[jorose]

 http://www.rootschat.com/links/0vn5/
 - a mention here from 1887 of the crew of a wrecked vessel being massacred, recorded by Robert W. Logan, although no cannibalism in this story. Perhaps this, or a similar story, was used by Beulah - as an example of the dangers of the area and quite possibly something she feared if she was shipwrecked! 

The story might then have been reported as something she saw first hand, as opposed to a story that she had been told growing up - and then probably a few of the details were added in by the author of the news piece.

Regarding her birth, here if you search for Logan there are:

Feb 1877 - Per Morning Star
Mrs Mary E Logan (from Micronesia)
Mar 1877 - Mrs Logan on the City of Sydney, to San Francisco
June 1877 - Mrs Logan returns from San Francisco, her health having improved, and will sail on the Morning Star.
July 1877 - Mrs Logan and child, on the Morning Star, for Micronesia.

This would fit with her having gone when very young .