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Historic Hoaxes88By ELMO SCOTT WATSON® Western Newspaper Union.Wesley’s InspirationTP YOU ever visit Jekyl's island * off the coast of Georgia and some native shows you a point of .land and tells you that it was the inspiration for a famous hymn, don’t believe him! It isn't because he's an untruthful man, but he's just repeating in all good faith a story that originated in the fertile imagination of a Chicago business man named Franklin Harvey Head, a friend of Eugene Field and his rival in concocting preposterous yarns.One of them, called., “The Legend of Jekyl Island” and written for the amusement of his friends in the exclusive Jekyl Island club, included letters which ostensibly had been written by Gen. James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, and his wife, Dorothy, and others which were supposed to have come from the pens of John and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism.In one of these letters, Charles Wesley told how the view from this point inspired him to compose the hymn beginning, “Lo, on a narrow neck of land , . As a matter of fact, that song was inspired by Wesley's visit to Land's End in England and had nothing to do with Georgia.But so convincing was Head's version that at least one publication ol the Methodist church accepted it as true, as it did other supposed “facts” in the Wesley letters (written by Head), even though they did upset several other early traditions of Methodism. Even after Head's hoax was exposed, many people continued to believe “The Legend oi Jekyl Island.”
Newspaper Details
Terril Record
Terril, Iowa, US
Thu, Jan 20, 1938
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
GA, USA 30 Mar 2025
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