Umbrella Man (Seattle)

Umbrella Man (Seattle)

Seattle's "Umbrella Man" was both the eccentric Robert W. Patten (1832-1913) and a long-running cartoon character inspired by him.

The Man

Born in New York in 1832,cite web
url=http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=3149
title=Patten, Robert W. (1832-1913), Seattle's famed Umbrella Man
author=Dorpat, Paul
date=March 28, 2001
accessdate=August 23|accessyear=2007
publisher=HistoryLink] Robert W. Patten served in the Civil War from which he drew a small pension. While prospecting in Mexico, he devised his signature hat with an umbrella mounted atop and mosquito netting tucked within.

Coming to Seattle in 1890, Patten told many colorful tales of early life. He claimed that he was born in 1811, ran away from home at age nine, was adopted by Winnebago Chief Big John and romanced the chief's daughter. Later (he said) he scouted with Kit Carson and saved John Fremont from death, for which heroics (he said) Abraham Lincoln made him Chief Scout of the Army. As to the veracity of his claims, it may be said that the evidence is scanty.

Living on a Lake Union houseboat, and supporting himself by fishing and doing odd jobs, The Umbrella Man was a colorful figure of early Seattle.

The Cartoon

Beginning in 1909, cartoonist John Ross "Dok" Hager drew a cartoon of Patten as a regular feature in The Seattle Times.*cite book
author=Newell, Gordon and Sherwood, Don
title=Totem Tales of Old Seattle
publisher=Ballantine
year=1974|id=ISBN 345-24141-X] With his duck sidekick named "The Kid" (also sporting an umbrella hat), the cartoon Umbrella Man dispensed wit and wisdom along with weather forecasts on the newspaper's front page. Sometimes he reflected the paper's owner's opinion, as on July 20, 1913, when he was drawn leaving town to avoid trouble with the Wobblies.

References

* Paul Dorpat, "Now and Then: The Umbrella Man," The Seattle Times, Pacific Northwest Magazine, April 5, 1998
* John Russ "Dok" Hager, Sport and the Kid, (Lowman & Hanford Company, Seattle, WA, 1913).


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