Mose Humphrey

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
File:Mose and Lize.jpg
Moses Humphrey and a woman called Lize driving through the 3rd New York avenue.

Mose(s) Humphrey was a printer at the New York Sun and member of Fire Company 40. A parishioner of St. Andrew's Church,[1] he inspired an urban folklore character of Big Mose (Mose the Fireboy). He was said to have a height of 8 ft (2.4 m) and hands as big as Virginia hams, able to lift trolley cars over his head and rescue babies inside a stovepipe hat, which his own [beaver hat] was two foot across the brim. The character of Mose first appeared on Broadway in Benjamin A. Baker's A Glance at New York, in 1848. Then Mose was featured in several stage shows and penny novels in the mid-19th century. The character was most identified with actor Frank Chanfrau.[2] Certain stories recall Mose doing extraordinary activities, such as tearing up mulberry and cherry trees to use as a bludgeon against the Plug Uglies, a gang that were at odds with New York Firemen Co. 49., or swimming the Hudson river with two strokes.

Notes

  1. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. Welmeth and Bigsby 460.

Further reading

  • Mary Pope Osborne. New York's Bravest.
  • David L. Rinear. F. S. Chanfrau's Mose: The Rise and Fall of an Urban Folk-Hero. Theatre Journal, Vol. 33, No. 2 (May, 1981), pp. 199–212