Newfoundlanders and Labradorians tend to feel strongly about the right way to pronounce the name of our island, but would you kill a man over it? In 1876, someone did.
Since the release of the Netflix limited series Below, the pronunciation of “Newfoundland” has become a hot topic once again. Actors are correcting talk show hosts; online commenters are correcting actors.
While these discussions can get pretty heated, they’re nothing compared to a fight that broke out over the word exactly 150 years ago.
One Friday night in March of 1876, workers from the Hooker and Gray saw mill near Larkspur, Colorado, were chatting over supper when their landlady asked one of them, a burly New Yorker named William Atcheson, about his dog.
It was a New-FOUND-land dog, Atcheson explained. No, it wasn’t, another man interjected. It was a New-found-LAND.
The objector was John Peter Davis, a Texan teamster in his mid-thirties who was rumoured to have been a gunslinger in his youth.
The murder occurred at a backwoods lumber mill on Colorado’s Great Divide, which might have looked similar to this mill in Williamstown, New York, photographed around 1900. (Oswego County Historical Society)
This wasn’t the first time the two men had clashed. Atcheson had more formal education than many of the other men on staff, and his zeal for “proper” word use had sometimes caused him to butt heads with the workers from Texas and with Davis, who acted as their spokesman.
Tensions had been rising, and this time they boiled over. “High words and some rather hard names” were exchanged, according to a report published in The Colorado Banner.
On their way to Atcheson’s shanty to consult a dictionary — and the mere fact that he had brought a dictionary to an isolated lumber camp on the frontier may tell you something of his passion for the English language — Atcheson took a swing at Davis and landed a blow so hard it knocked the Texan to the ground.
When Davis staggered to his feet, he had a revolver in his hand, and “true to his Texan breeding and education,” as one newspaper told it, he shot Atcheson in the gut.
Atcheson remained a tough customer until the end. As he lay bleeding, he bragged about having decked Davis twice more despite the bullet lodged in his belly.
Atcheson died in the early hours of Saturday morning, and Davis fled into the woods, leaving his team of draft animals behind. Witnesses said he was distraught he’d killed someone over such a trivial argument.
A simple question about a worker’s Newfoundland dog sparked the argument. (Edwin Landseer/Victoria and Albert Museum)
A snowstorm obliterated Davis’ tracks, and, though the local sheriff led a posse in after him, he was never found.
Had the two men made it as far as the dictionary, they would have discovered it disagreed with them both.
The 1864 edition of Webster, which would have been the latest version, gave the pronunciation as NEW-fund-LAND, with primary stress on the first syllable and secondary stress on the third.
Webster’s advice is strikingly similar to the way many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians say the word today, but how did Newfoundlanders pronounce the island’s name in the 1800s?
Until the early 20th century, the official pronunciation was NEW-FOUND-LAND, where each syllable was fully articulated and equally stressed. This was the pronunciation recommended by the Broadcasting Corporation of Newfoundland in 1939, though they allowed for “a slight stressing of the final syllable.”
The Rocky Mountain News called Atcheson and Davis “chronic disputants” who “always manifested much temper in their discussions.” (Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection)
It was Joey Smallwood and the Newfoundland Historical Society who, in the late 1930s, advocated for the pronunciation New-fund-LAND.
Assuming neither Atcheson nor Davis was reducing “land” to “lund,” which has always been the cardinal sin of pronunciation among Newfoundlanders, the versions both men used could probably have been heard somewhere on the island in the 19th century.
Not that either Atcheson or Davis would have known that. There’s no evidence either man had any ties to Newfoundland itself.
The story might have ended there except for a letter that arrived on the doorstep of the Castle Rock, Colo., sheriff in late 1912.
The message purported to be written by a physician in Peoria, Ore., who was treating John Peter Davis, now 70 years old.
Believing himself to be at the brink of death, Davis had apparently confessed to Atcheson’s murder. Then, either he had asked the doctor to send his statement to the Colorado authorities to unburden his soul, or the doctor had taken it upon himself to turn Davis in so he could line his pockets with any reward money that might be on offer.
Whatever the case, the letter’s description of the crime was so specific the sheriff had no doubt it was sent by someone close to the killer.
When the story of the deathbed confession leaked to the media, reporters wondered “whether justice [would] be defeated by death,” but justice was also threatened by practical details.
Calls to Peoria failed to turn up any resident by the name of John Davis. If he was indeed living there, he had probably assumed a new identity.
Thirty-six years after the crime, the sheriff of Castle Rock received a letter from a man in Peoria, Ore., confessing to the killing. (The Herald Democrat/Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection)
Meanwhile, even if Davis survived his illness, were located, and were arrested, there might not be enough evidence left to convict him.
Older Coloradans remembered the unusual killing, but no official records of it could be found among county court documents or coroner’s reports. The physician who had treated Atcheson in his final hours was dead, and the prime witness was missing.
If Davis retracted his confession, there could be no trial. It’s not clear whether he was ever brought up on charges.
The case has a final irony.
William Atcheson was a man so devoted to proper word use he died over it, but none of the news reports of his death can agree on the spelling of his name, which is recorded as Atcheson, Atchison, Atchinson and Atherson.
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