Mind your p's and q's

Ronald Tuckwell was the editor of the Pilot Mound Sentinel from 1916 to 1949. He and Pete Fraser were good friends who liked to tease each other, but it was all in good fun.

“Hunting for typographical errors? Could be!”¹ There were plenty of teachers in the Fraser household.

As an editor, Tuck would have winced at typos, but knew they would sneak in sometimes. He said as much in the paper itself.

Fidograms were lighthearted bits, but Tuck makes a valid point about typos.²

The Sentinel was a well-respected, award-winning newspaper. It took a lot of work to publish a weekly issue on time. Readers didn't always appreciate or understand how difficult it was.

A reminder to readers: late submissions to the paper made the job even harder. Rushing to get an edition to press just invites errors.³

Did you notice the typo in this poem about typos?⁴

There are different theories about the origin of “Mind your p’s and q’s,” but in typesetting it literally means not mixing up those letters. When using hand-set type, individual letters read backwards and are set into a composing stick upside down, and from left to right. It’s easy to see how p’s and q’s and b’s and d’s and u’s and n’s can get mixed up. A nick on one side of each type piece, felt by the thumb, helps, and care must be taken to return used type to its correct place in the type case in the first place.

Hand-set type in a composing stick, working left to right and upside down.⁵

Typos turn fluorescent after they’re printed. Blame them on the “printer’s devil,” a young printshop apprentice who performed all kinds of chores, like mixing ink, sorting type, and sweeping up.

The term “printer’s devil” has been ascribed to the apprentices’ hands and skin getting stained black with ink […] Once cast metal type was used, worn, or broken, it was thrown into a “hellbox,” after which it was the printer’s devil’s job to either put it back in the job case, or take it to the furnace to be melted down and recast.⁶

If “printer’s devil” sounds familiar, perhaps you are recalling a Twilight Zone episode by that name. In season 4, episode 9, Burgess Meredith plays a skilled linotype operator who shows up to rescue a small-town newspaper that is failing. The editor sells his soul to this devil, who increases circulation by printing stories he typesets before they happen.

The Twilight Zone/Printer’s Devil excerpts [6 min.]

Posted by CallFourZero, 2025

Like gremlins⁷ in aviation, a demon named Titivillus was a fictional type of printer’s devil. Dating back to the Middle Ages, he plagued monks copying manuscripts, and “haunted every print shop, performing mischief such as inverting type, misspelling words, and removing entire lines of completed type.”⁸ Titivillus is known world-wide.

One of five grotesques adorning the 1910 Queensland Government Printing Office in Brisbane, Australia. Two of them stare down from the rooftop.⁹

The same building features another devil who glares at visitors from above the main doorway.¹⁰

Titivillus was blamed for the daddy of all typos.

Known as the “Wicked” Bible, the text, printed in 1631, leaves the word “not” from the seventh commandment. This means that amid exhortations that “thou shalt not kill”, and “thou shalt not steale”, readers are also informed that “thou shalt commit adultery”. One thousand copies of the text, which also came to be known as the Adulterous or Sinners’ Bible, were printed, with the printing error only discovered a year later. When it was uncovered, the printers Robert Barker and Martin Lucas were summoned by order of Charles I to court, and found guilty. They were also fined £300, and their printing licence removed, with the entire print run of the offending text called in, and the majority destroyed.¹¹

“Thou shalt commit adultery” in what became known as the Wicked Bible. No-one knows if it was an unintended error, or an act of sabotage by a rival printer. An estimated 10 Wicked Bibles exist, and can be worth $100,000 USD at auction.¹¹

Editor Ron Tuckwell could rest assured that typos in the Sentinel would be far less serious. As fastidious as he might have been, though, no publisher can claim to be perfect, and Titivillus troubled every print shop. [The samples below are from the Sentinel unless otherwise noted.]

   

The Printing Museum, Houston, TX, Setting Metal Type [2-1/2 min.]

Letterpress studio manager Jessica Snow demonstrates how to set metal type using a composing stick.

MIND YOUR u’s AND n’s

Never mind p’s and q’s; it seems the printer’s devil at the Sentinel often confused u and n. When using hand-set type, the mix-up might have occurred when returning pieces to the type cases, or while setting type in the composing stick. Either way, it was not an infrequent mistake.

Touruament! Yikes, this typo from 1925 would have turned fluorescent, and the typesetter’s face would have turned red.

Whoops, another headline gone wrong.

Ouch! It’s embarrassing to misspell your town’s name: Pilot Mouud in the first line of a caption.

UPSIDE-DOWN CHARACTERS

A proofreader would underline the offending character(s) and note it in the margin with a spiral “turn over” mark. (This proofreaders’ mark is scarce these days; it would be hard to insert a letter upside down when keyboarding.)

Here are just two of many samples that were missed in the Sentinel:

Typos occur in regular text, but are easier to spot in rushed advertisements.

It wasn’t unusual to see condensed fonts used to cram titles into one line. It doesn’t hide the upside-down e in Service, though.

THE LINOTYPE

“Linotype machines, Anthony Hordern and Sons department store, c. 1935, by A. E. Foster” The linotype revolutionized typesetting, ruling the industry world-wide for 100 years after its introduction in 1886. Many claim Edison called it the eighth wonder of the world, astounding praise from a proud inventor himself.¹²

The Linotype machine operator types text on a 90-character keyboard. The machine assembles matrices, or molds of the letter forms, in a line. The assembled line is then sent to the casting part of the machine where it is cast as a single piece, called a slug, from molten type metal in a process known as hot metal typesetting. The matrices are then returned to the type magazine via a distribution bar, to be reused continuously.¹²

The Machine That Printed History For 100 Years [36 sec.]

TTM-III Tiny Things Massive Impact

The advantages over hand-set type are obvious. The linotype process was seven times faster. Solid lines were also much easier for compositors to handle when making up pages, and less likely to be spilled (or “pied”).

On a linotype, wedge-shaped spaces would drop in place to justify solid lines of type, a welcome improvement over hand-set type that had to be manually justified, often with little pieces of lead or even thin pieces of paper. 

 

Because the brass type moulds automatically returned to their cases (magazines) after a line was cast, the printer would not run out of letters. The need to return individual pieces of type back into a case was eliminated. (Imagine sorting tiny classified ad fonts.) Linotype slugs could be saved for repeated use, or just re-melted following a print job.

UPSIDE-DOWN LINES

A compositor’s error rather than a typo, upside-down lines are sometimes found in a column of text. This can result when a corrected linotype line is inserted by a compositor rushing to make up a page.

 

An embarrassing error from 1923.

The Moffatts would have done a double-take.

Ooof! The second line in the middle of page 1.

Another upside-down line, but at least Diphtheria was spelled correctly. It often wasn’t.

A confusing line error Frasers and Houldens would recognize. Lines three and four are transposed.

ETAOIN SHRDLU

“Linotype keyboard. Keys are arranged by order of frequency as they appear in the English language (with most frequent letters on the left of their colored group; additional ligatures and special forms are in the right of the group). Note that lowercase and uppercase letters are in separate colored groups of keys (respectively on the left and right part of the keyboard). The central group contains keys for punctuations and digits.”¹³

When a linotype operator makes an error he has to complete that line of type before he can make a new line. The easiest thing for him to do is to run his fingers down the first two vertical rows of his keyboard. The result is the emergence of a line containing “etaoin shrdlu.” And when the operator forgets to pluck the faulty line from the mould, “etaoin shrdlu” gets into print. So often has “etaoin shrdlu” appeared with a “Mr.” prefixed, that Mr. Etaoin Shrdlu has really become a famed press personage. He has a relative who dwells on his right hand in the third vertical row on a linotype machine, young Mr. Cmfwyp. The family is completed by boyish Vbgkqj and tiny Xz, whose name trails off strangely into typographic symbols.¹⁴ 

In the Q&A column “A Word to the Wise,” in the Washington DC Evening Star, author Mrs. Frank Cloby often looked to her “outrageous assistant Dr. Etaoin Shrdlu” for answers.

Etaoin Shrudlu entered popular culture and was sometimes presented as the name of a character (with a wink to typesetters). In one instance it was also a fitting name for a printshop’s stray dog. A wandering pi-hound rescued by the Daily News of Lyons, Kansas was named Shrdlu, and became their mascot. The dog gave birth to a puppy one evening, which was promptly named Etaoin. By the next day Shrdlu had delivered 14 more little Etaoins. That’s a lot of typos!

 

Shrudlu, the Daily News mascot in Lyons, Kansas, 1932.¹⁵

Buddy on a late night. Sometimes the printshop’s mascot can’t handle the overtime.

A classic 1942 science fiction story by Fredric Brown entitled “Etaoin Shrudlu” tells of a linotype that is itself a devil. An editor rents his linotype machine to an odd character who somehow casts a spell on it and brings it to life.

As a living, adaptable creature, the machine becomes super efficient, lubricating its own moving parts, reading text from its clipboard and unerringly setting type itself without the intervention of an operator, generating its own electricity, etc. At first this thrills the newspaper editor, as he can not only save time producing his biweekly newspaper, but get lucrative contracts from New York publishers. But then disaster strikes. The intelligent machine sets type for some socialist books, and begins demanding a shorter work schedule. It sets type for pulp romance magazines and begins demanding that the editor buy a second linotype machine to be its girlfriend! The editor becomes the machine’s servant instead of the other way around when it achieves the ability to move and to fight, so that the editor cannot deactivate it or escape from it.

 

The retired linotype operator figures out how to neutralize the machine—he has the machine set type for books on Buddhism, inspiring it to achieve Nirvana; the linotype has become so pacific it allows the two men to disassemble it and bury the parts.¹⁶

But of course, etaoin shrudlu is really a wrong line, an error that did not amuse proofreaders and editors. Collectors of errata know that samples abound in hurried newspapers, and are more elusive in books.

 Etaoin shrudlu errors didn’t appear often in the Sentinel, but one escaped when the linotype operator tripped over the word “Tivoli” in this October 29, 1953 article.  

In this September 30, 1905 Winnipeg Tribune story, the proofreader missed two lines that should have been pulled, along with two other typos. 

The Tribune linotype operator was having an especially bad day. Looks like he gave up at the end of this May 6, 1907 story and went to the bar.

Another Tribune error, June 4, 1970.

 

Newspaper archives suggest that the Winnipeg Tribune had a higher incidence of etaoin shrdlu errors that the rival Winnipeg Free Press. One can only guess why. Perhaps the linotype operators at the Trib were less skilled, weren’t remelting their bad lines on the spot, or had worse proofreaders than the Free Press. In a world of deadlines, sometimes type is “railroaded,” printed without having been proofread at all.

 

Linotypes ruled the pressrooms for 100 years, across the world, and etaoin shrdlu knew no language barrier. A search in the online Library of Congress archive returns 1158 hits.

 

Be kind to typesetters, too. A puzzling first line (and with shrdlu spelled wrong) in Tampa, FL, El internacionale, Feb. 24, 1922, p. 4.

Another beleaguered linotype operator just needs a break. The Waterbury, CT Democrat, April 1, 1932.

Etaoin shrdlu sightings disappeared with the linotype. By the 1970s, the machines faced a typesetting revolution of their own. Phototypesetters flooded the market, and the reign of hot metal typesetters was over.

Ottmar Mergenthaler’s wondrous machine that replaced six hand-set typesetters was itself replaced.¹⁷

At Hignell Printing Ltd., this is what shut down the linotypes.
A page from a sales brochure, mid-1970s, for Addressograph Multigraph’s Comp/Set 500 direct entry phototypesetter. The phototypesetting boom of the 1970s and 80s ended with the advent of desktop publishing and digital printing. [The colour orange was all the rage in the 1970s.] 

While “etaoin shrdlu” errors have disappeared, the usual typos have not. Some would moan that errors have only multiplied and are taken less seriously (especially in texts produced by thumbs on iPhones!) Today’s spellcheckers are useful, but can’t identify an “atomic typo”:

… a typo that happens to result in a correctly spelled word that is different from the intended one. Since it is spelled correctly, a simple spellchecker cannot find the mistake. The term was used at least as early as 1995 by Robert Terry.¹⁸

“Untied States” instead of “United States” is an atomic typo, but given the state of the country these days, is it really wrong? 

 

According to veteran print historian Frank Romano, there is “more change than at any other time in the history of our industry.” He understands that the pace is increasing, too.

• The handset typesetting era began in 1440 and ended in 1970, and it is still practiced in some quarters (500+ years).
• The machine typesetting era began in 1886 and ended in 1976, and it is barely in practice (90 years).
• The phototypesetting era began in 1950 and ended around 1990, and it is totally gone (40 years).
• The laser imagesetting era began in 1978 and ended in 2008, replaced by direct-to-plate, on- and off-press (30 years).
• The digital printing era began in 1976 and the laser CTP [computer to plate] era began in 1991.¹⁹

Written in 2011, Romano’s summary is several years out of date. Artificial intelligence has seen to that. Maybe Fredric Brown’s story of 1942 is prophetic, and AI will become sentient. Perhaps it will conquer typos, and then the world. 

 

There’s always a revolution lurking.

 ❤

 

Recommended viewing:

 

Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu [28:45], 1978, directed by David Loeb Weiss

https://archive.org/details/FarewellEtaoinShrdlu

also on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MGjFKs9bnU&t=1519s

“On July 2, 1978, the last hot lead edition of the New York Times rolled off the presses. Weiss, a proofreader for the Times, documented the phasing out of this historical process, and what impresses us now, beyond the Ludlow machine (which casts the lead at 535 degrees), the Linotype machine (operated for the last time by Carl Schlesinger, who also narrates the film), and the presses, is the incredible noise generated by all these people and devices. The process is fascinating and sad, and the new computers seem baleful in the fluorescent lights of the new composing rooms. The film is as much about the passing of the mechanical age as it is about the newspaper biz, as told by those who were there that day...”

 

Linotype: the Film – In Search of the Eighth Wonder of the World, 2012, directed by Douglas Wilson

Full documentary [1:16:41]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDM-EbDCiQg&t=245s 

Trailer [2:11]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avDuKuBNuCk

“The film tells the charming and emotional story of the people connected to the Linotype and how it impacted the world.”

 

__________________________ 

Sources (retrieved August 25, 2026)

1. “In Good Company,” Pilot Mound Sentinel, May 7, 1942
2. “Fidograms,” Pilot Mound Sentinel, July 23, 1925
3. “ERRORS in a newspaper…” Pilot Mound Sentinel, April 19, 1934
4. “Isn’t It The Truth,” Pilot Mound Sentinel, April 7, 1955
5. “Composing stick,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composing_stick 
6. “Printer’s devil,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer%27s_devil 
7. “Gremlins,” Recollections blog. https://frasertrunk.blogspot.com/2017/07/gremlins.html 
8. “Printer’s devil,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer%27s_devil 
9. Gregory Martin, Australian Letterpress Fellowship, Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10167778140139498&set=gm.3376818699144527&idorvanity=164953780331051   See also: Christopher Dawson, “The Seven Devils of George Street,” Christopher Dawson Public History blog, April 20, 2023. https://dawsonchris.com/2023/04/20/seven-devils
10. Photo by John Robert McPherson, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Government_Printing_Office_printer%27s_devil_George_St_Brisbane_P1030694.jpg. See “My Old Nemesis Titivillus” for more images of him: https://blog.lostartpress.com/2021/01/17/my-old-nemesis-titivillus/ 
11. Alison Flood, “Extremely rare Wicked Bible goes on sale,” The Guardian, October 21, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/21/rare-sinners-bible-on-sale-bonhams-auction 
12. “Linotype machine” Wikipedia. Photo: Linotype machines, Anthony Hordern and Sons department store, c. 1935, by A. E. Foster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine
13. Linotype machine” Wikipedia. Keyboard photo: Copyright 2006 Marc Dufour for Wikimedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine#/media/File:Linotype_keyboard_with_Star_Quadder_attachment.jpg  
14. “The Press: Etaoin Shrdlu,” TIME, March 31, 1929. https://time.com/archive/6818557/the-press-etaoin-shrdlu 
15. Albert Payson Terhune, “Tales of Real Dogs,” The Independent (Elizabeth City, N.C.), July 8, 1932, p. 5. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83025812/1932-07-08/ed-1/?sp=5&q=etaoin+shrdlu&r=-0.196,0.714,1.354,0.811,0
16. M. Porcius, “Four Fredric Brown SF Stories from 1942 and ’43,” MPorcius Fiction Log (blog), April 5, 2020. https://mporcius.blogspot.com/2020/04/four-fredric-brown-sf-stories-from-1942.html. The story, originally published in Unknown Worlds, is read (by a stilting narrator) in a YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCciwGL4mFE
17. John Manders, “Linotype!,” John Manders’ Blog, October 30, 2024. https://johnmanders.wordpress.com/2024/10/30/linotype/
18. “Typographical error,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographical_error 
19. Frank Romano, “The day the typesetting industry died,” WhatTheyTh!nk blog, December 16, 2011. https://whattheythink.com/articles/55522-day-typesetting-industry-died 

🔝

Old Favourites

Among the Fraser trunk treasures is Annie Reid’s Old Favourites song and poetry book, published by The Family Herald and Weekly Star. 

 

The Montreal Star, an English-language newspaper, published The Family Herald, Canada’s National Farm Magazine, for an impressive 99 years (1869 to 1968).

The cover of Annie’s song book. Named after Kintyre, Scotland, Cantire was a small farming hamlet east of Paisley in Bruce County, Ontario. Established by the Taylor and Blue families, the settlement had no post office or church, but did have a school, a cheese factory, and a blacksmith shop. All that remains today is the school’s water pump and a commemorative sign.

On the last page of Annie’s song book, an advertisement for The Family Herald and Weekly Star listed Old Favourites as one of its many specialties. It was worth the annual subscription of $1.00.

 

Old Favourites was a collection of “old and interesting songs, ballads and poems, often with music.”

A young Annie Reid (1881–1969) at left, with her sister Kate (1878–1954). The two were the youngest of nine children born to Ontario pioneers Peter Reid (1829–1895) and Christena Taylor (1839–1925)

Annie was 17 in 1898 when the second edition of Old Favourites was printed, and the 155-page book was clearly well-used and treasured. It must have been falling apart in Annie’s hands, as its binding has been resewn with kitchen string. Occasional stains suggest favourite passages, and we can guess at others.

“The Scottish Emigrant’s Farewell” would have resonated with Annie's parents, Christena Taylor and Peter Reid, who came to Canada in the 1850s from the Kintyre Peninsula, Scotland. They married in 1860 in Paisley, Ontario (about 200 km NW of Toronto near Lake Huron).
 

The songbook included a poem that became a very popular hit when it was set to music.

 

George Washington Johnson’s poem was written early in 1864. Composer James Austin Butterfield set it to music in 1866.

George Washington Johnson, poet and scholar.¹

The song had a sad history:

One of the most popular ballads of the 19th and early 20th centuries with over 40 versions to its credit, “When You and I Were Young, Maggie” began as a love poem written by a school master, George Johnson, who taught in Glanford Township, south of Hamilton. In 1859, George, then 21, had fallen in love with one of his students, Margaret Clark, 18. After they were engaged, Margaret became ill with tuberculosis. He wrote the poem as a pledge of undying love and later had it published in a collection of his verse, titled Maple Leaves. George married his Maggie in 1864 but she had a relapse with the disease, dying in 1865, only seven months later.²

“When You and I Were Young, Maggie” was adapted into sheet music in 1866 by composer James Austin Butterfield and published by H.M. Higgins in Chicago. Butterfield was born in England in 1837 and emigrated to the US in 1856.³

Sheet music from Hymnary.org⁴

The song could be arranged in several ways. Listen to Bing Crosby’s swinging version:

Bing and Gary Crosby: When You and I Were Young, Maggie (1951) [3:22]

A Grokipedia account details the impact of the collaboration between poet Johnson and composer Butterfield. An excerpt is copied here:

The song quickly gained popularity in the United States and spread internationally, becoming a staple in 19th-century American parlors and music halls, where it evoked themes of nostalgia and enduring love. By the late 19th century, it had achieved global recognition as a sentimental ballad standard, performed in vaudeville shows, concert saloons, and early phonograph recordings, resonating with audiences amid the era’s rapid social changes. 

The song’s cultural dissemination extended into the 20th century through diverse recordings and adaptations. Notable artists who recorded it include Bing Crosby in 1947, Perry Como in 1950, Fats Waller in a 1930s jazz rendition, Benny Goodman in a swing version from the 1940s, John McCormack in 1925, Louis Armstrong, and The Chieftains in their 1991 album An Irish Evening, incorporating it into Irish ballad traditions despite its Canadian origins and lack of Irish connections. It also appeared in films such as The Jolson Story (1946), where Larry Parks performed it, underscoring its versatility across genres from ragtime to Celtic folk. 

 The same article told of Johnson’s career:

Johnson’s professional trajectory evolved from rural schoolteaching to distinguished academia: after a brief period in journalism, including positions with the Courier in Buffalo, New York, and the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, where Maggie died, he resigned following her death and returned to education as principal of Binbrook Public School in 1866, later leading Central School in Hamilton (from 1875) and teaching at Upper Canada College (1891–1906). He advanced to professorships in languages at the University of Toronto—his alma mater—and in Latin at Cornell University, culminating in a PhD from Johns Hopkins University; post-retirement, he traveled extensively before dying on June 2, 1917, in Pasadena, California, at age 78, with his remains returned for burial in Hamilton Cemetery, Ontario. Beyond Maple Leaves, Johnson authored an autobiography interspersed with additional poems, published in 1893, reflecting on his life’s joys and sorrows, and he remained active in literary circles, contributing to the sentimental poetry tradition that resonated with Victorian-era audiences.⁵

Catherine (née Hay) (1849–1940) and Douglas Fraser, Sr. (1848–1915)

 

The song was definitely known in the Reid and Fraser households. While out homesteading in Saskatchewan with his sons Pete and Doug, c. 1909–1911, Douglas Fraser Sr. wrote often to his family back home in Pilot Mound. An Ontario schoolmaster like Butterfield, Douglas Sr. wrote poignant letters to his own dear wife:

I sat by the fire reading the many happy returns of that day “when you and I were young Katy.” It is a long time since we first met on one of those days. Another milestone is passed, and I hope there may be fore us a good many more to pass yet. Our journey though long has on the whole been a pleasant one. Here and there we have met with jags, but I try to forget those and I know you do too, and let our remembrances dwell on the pleasant parts of the road.

 

[…]  Now My Dear Spouse don’t let Mrs. McKellar outdo you in showing your loving attachment for your poor lone husband here on the prairie. Keep my photo well brushed too, but don’t let her see you kiss it, for that would give you clean away. Your love I know is stronger than hers but I don’t want everyone to know it. It’s quite enough that I know it and appreciate it.

 (January 2, 1910) 

Douglas’s hope for a good many more milestones was not to be. He died in 1915, only a few years after returning home after homesteading. Old Favourites includes another song that his widow would have appreciated:

 

Kate Fraser outlived Douglas Sr. by 25 years. She moved back to Ontario after Douglas passed away, and died in 1940 in Wroxeter.

A hit in several countries, others tried to claim “When You and I Were Young, Maggie” as their own, but its Canadian roots are undeniable.

Eugene Dunphy, When You and I Were Young, Maggie (ballad history) [12:13]

____________________________

Sources (retrieved April 10, 2026)

1. George Washington Johnson, poet and scholar, Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, https://www.cshf.ca/song/when-you-and-i-were-young-maggie
2. Ibid.
3. James A. Butterfield, Discography of American Historical Recordings, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/detail/116455/Butterfield_James_A
4. “When You and I Were Young, Maggie sheet music, Hymnary.org, https://hymnary.org/hymn/SPH1930/page/195
5. “George Washington Johnson, poet,” Grokipedia, https://grokipedia.com/page/george_washington_johnson_poet

⇧ BACK TO TOP 

Flying high in Sarles

Saturday, August 13, 1927 was a memorable day for Pete Fraser. Enjoying their new 1926 Chevy (Dr. Ferguson’s old car), the family motored to the summer fair in Sarles, North Dakota. It wasn’t far, only 21 miles (34.4 km) due south of Pilot Mound, and less than four miles (6.44 km) across the border.

Founded in 1905, Sarles was named after the state’s governor. [Google maps]

Pete knew the way. Sarles, at the terminus of a branch of the Great Northern Railway, was just off the route to Hannah, seven miles (11 km) to the east, at the end of another branch line. In earlier years, Pete drove his horse and wagon to Hannah. Better grain prices were a draw, but so was the presence of Miss Annie Reid. Another factor was a more practical one: at times there was a shortage of railway cars in their own district and elevators were full. [1]

 

The small town of Sarles had a long row of elevators, representing several grain companies. [2]

It’s easy to imagine Pete in this lineup of Canadians delivering grain to Sarles. [3]

“Farmers shipping wheat, Dickinson, N.D.” [4]

Sarles grew quickly since its founding in 1905. Within a year it boasted 34 business enterprises and a population over 400. Like many enterprising prairie towns, it was prosperous and self-sufficient.


Not every new prairie town had an opera house. [5] 

The layout of Sarles around a square is different than most of the towns in North Dakota. This came about because most of the settlers came from England and Scotland and this design they preferred. The business places surround the square and the residential dwellings in turn surround them. [6]  

Downtown Sarles in its early days. [7]

“Southwest corner of the Village Square. Note the elevated sidewalks.” [8]

Sarles after 1917, when the school (upper left) was built. [9]

There was a lot of cross-border traffic in the region. In 1923, a customs official in Sarles reported “that during the month of July alone he had cleared 3,000 persons who were touring and coming through to Manitoba.” [10] 

The town square is clearly evident in this aerial shot of Sarles. [11]

Alas, Sarles was to decline in subsequent years, like so many other small railway towns. In the 1900s there were over 2000 grain elevators in North Dakota. By 2016 485 remained. With better vehicles and roads, train traffic dried up. Railways consolidated and closed routes that were no longer profitable. Small branch lines could no longer accommodate heavier railway cars and longer trains. Farmers used bigger grain trucks to haul on their own schedules. [12] 

Settlements like Hannah and Sarles have been reduced to virtual ghost towns. The population of Sarles in 2024 was 16, while Hannah’s was less than 10. Clues to their once-busy and prosperous roots are long gone. 

In the past, Hannah and Sarles had been vibrant, thriving towns. As roads and vehicles improved in the 1920s there was much traffic and goodwill among the border towns in the area. Celebrations in Sarles included Dominion Day on July 1 as well as Independence Day on July 4. Summer fairs, concerts, dramas, baseball tournaments, horse races, and other social events routinely drew visitors back and forth. 

A dance in Pilot Mound in 1923 featured the Sarles Orchestra, from their Opera House, no doubt. [13]

On July 19, 1923, when Pilot Mound hosted a Peace Day Celebration commemorating the Peace Treaty ending WWI, Americans joined the festivities. It was a successful day, with plenty of attractions. Baseball teams from Sarles and Pilot Mound tied, shook hands, and split the prize money. Harness racing was especially lucrative for Gordon Fraser, whose horses Billy Democracy and Minnie Duff were big winners.  

In the 1920s, fairs in towns like Pilot Mound and Crystal City were sure to include American baseball teams. That guaranteed a good crowd, putting a smile on the face of Pete Fraser, Vice-President of the Pilot Mound Agricultural Society. [14]

In 1925 the four-day Cavalier County Fair in Langdon, North Dakota concluded with “Canadian Day.” It featured horse races and a livestock parade (always of interest to their northern neighbours), as well as entertainment from Morden’s band and a game of lacrosse played by Canadian teams. Gordon raced over two days, earning several hundred dollars driving speedy horses Billy Democracy and Hazel Melrose. Cheering him on, Pete and Annie Fraser reported a “splendid time, an excellent Fair—and most courteous treatment to Canadian visitors.” [15]

The Sentinel welcomed this observation in the Cavalier County newspaper:

At the meeting of the stockholders of the Cavalier County Fair held on Thursday afternoon of last week, attention was called to the very large patronage given the fair by our Canadian friends from across in Manitoba, who are within automobile distance of Langdon. This attendance from Manitoba is annually increasing and all enjoy the visit from the Canadians. […] It was further decided that the officers of the fair should acquaint themselves with the dates of events across in Manitoba. [16]

This 1925 ad in the Sentinel included a unique sales pitch: the chance to win a car at Hannah’s baseball tournament. [17]

Barnstormers 

In 1926 the Cavalier County Fair in Langdon included another successful Canadian Day, as well as an exciting new attraction: “Two Flying Machines in spectacular stunt flying.” [18] The barnstormers were coming!

Barnstorming was a form of entertainment in which stunt pilots used to make the craziest things in the air to attract an audience: dangerous spins, loops and the barrel roll, stall turns and wing overs while reckless aerialists performed crazy stunts like switching from a plane to another, wing walking, parachuting and even playing tennis. Either individually or in groups, called flying circuses, they used to entertain crowded fields of people paying the tickets for a show or a plane ride. This soon became one of the most popular attractions in the United States during the Roaring Twenties. [19]

Barnstorming had begun in rickety biplanes before World War I, only a few years after the Wright Brothers’ famed 1903 flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In spite of legal threats from the litigious pair, World War I accelerated aircraft development and production. 

A prolific aircraft designer was Glenn Curtiss, who was not dissuaded by his multi-year legal battle with the Wrights. His company mass produced 6,070 Curtiss “Jenny” trainers (“Canuck” was a Canadian variant). The slow-flying Jenny was a favourite of wing-walkers, and the plentiful and affordable biplane became the iconic favourite of 1920s barnstormers. Post-war, these surplus “crates” (many literally still in crates) were available for as little as 50 bucks. 

The Curtiss JN 4 – “The Jenny” (2:27) [20]

Other military trainers, like the Standard biplane with its more powerful engine, were also used, but it had a “bitchy reputation” and tended to catch fire. [21] Another aircraft, the Thomas-Morse Scout, was:

a terrifying abortion of mechanical and aeronautical incompetence. It was a single-seater with a rotary engine (in which the entire engine rotated at great speed and with brutal torque) which once had been the great white hope of the U.S. Air Service. […] Fortunately for the nation, the “Tommy Morses” never reached France, thus robbing the Germans of easy victories and saving the Gold Star Mothers of America from an unnecessarily long list of members. [22]

Before long, there were between 500 and 600 young American pilots on the barnstorming circuit. [23] Barnstormers—small teams or in organized outfits called flying circuses—performed anywhere they could find an audience. With no proper airfields, pilots took risks with every flight, whether stunting or not. A green field was a dangerous, wet landing choice, maybe hiding stumps or ditches. Cows, who ate facing upwind, were reliable meteorologists: “there’s no better natural wind sock than the tail end of a cow; the stronger the wind the more likely you were to see all those cow-rump wind indicators.” [24]

The Barnstormer Aviators (1:45) [25]

Although many barnstormers worked on their own, or in very small teams, there were several that put together large “flying circuses” with several planes and stunt people. These types of acts had their own promoters who would book the show into a town ahead of time. They were the largest and most organized of all of the barnstorming acts. The Ivan Gates Flying Circus was perhaps the most traveled of all of the major barnstorming acts. […] Gates and his colleagues were famous not only for their stunts but also for having started the one-dollar-joy ride. This ride was so popular that in a single day, Bill Brooks, one of Gates’ pilots, took 980 passengers up for rides during a show in Steubenville, Ohio. [26]

Larger, organized shows were promoted in newspaper ads. Big air shows attracted up to 50,000 spectators. A small outfit might just buzz the town, pulling a banner and/or dropping ads, and performing a few sample tricks to attract attention. Captain Basil Lee Rowe knew how to gauge interest in his barnstorming exhibitions:

To test a town for its interest in flying, I would buzz it a couple of times. If the people continued about their business, I did the same. But if the animals and fowl took off for the woods and the kids tried to follow me, it indicated virgin territory. In that case I looked for a farmer’s field from which to operate and, when I found one, buzzed the town to get the whole population following me out to the field like the children of Hamelin following the Pied Piper. The farmer usually let me use his field for a free ride for himself and his family. [27]

The Minnesota Air Service Co. placed a confusing ad in the Bismarck Tribune in June, 1927. [28] A dodger in this case is a printed flyer. Six winners received free airplane rides.

A 1920 advertisement promising “daring air acrobatic feats” that risked a fall “hundreds of feet to instant death. Oh, it’s a thriller!” [29]

Rural fairs were an obvious venue, and guaranteed a crowd. Admission was typically 25 or 50 cents, and plane rides of 10 to 15 minutes might cost anywhere between one and 15 dollars. 

Barnstormers, flying mostly Jenny biplanes left over from the scrapheap of 1918, hopped and struggled across the face of America from one pea patch to another, in the process caroming from cloud to cloud, dashing down valleys, and much too often barely evading mountains obscured within cloud and fog. They thrilled millions of people at large fields and isolated pastures with such acts as wing-walking without parachutes, snatching handkerchiefs from the tops of waving weeds, low-level aerobatics that included deliberately scraping wing tips in the dust or “slapping” the ground in wing-tip-to-wing-tip maneuvers, smoke-writing in the sky, spectacular delayed parachute jumps while trailing behind them a white plume of flour from XXX sacks. They jumped from one plane to another, engaged in mock dogfights, made wild takeoffs and landings, clowned around, and effected World War I flying togs. They stood patiently for pictures with local boys and femmes and, whenever they could do so, took up the locals for quick rides, for whatever ready cash it might bring. [30]

One such barnstormer was a young pilot named Charles Lindbergh who “crashed his way across the country on his first glorious trip with his own Jenny [… and eventually] started the biggest flying boom in history.” [31] His skills improved with practice. Lindbergh’s non-stop 33.5-hour flight from New York to Paris in May of 1927 made headlines around the world. Four million people lined the parade route in New York to celebrate his return. Aviation fever escalated. 

Charles Lindbergh: A Young, American Hero (1:15) [32]

Lindbergh toured widely after his famous flight, visiting 82 American cities. Fargo declared August 26, 1927 Lindbergh Day. [33]

Fargo crowds were thrilled to welcome Lindbergh and his monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis. [34]

Tempting Fate

There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.

— Barnstormer’s adage [35]

“Death-defying” was not just advertising copy. The danger was very real, and the aerobatic teams were aware that “the crowd might be witness to what they secretly hoped to see—the blood of a man pulped out of his body as it smashed into the unyielding earth.” [36]

Danger was part of the attraction and thrill for gypsy flyers and audiences alike. The risks only grew as barnstorming companies tried to outdo each other and keep audiences enthralled. Operators introduced new stunts that were original, but often ridiculous.

Gladys Ingle changes wheel in mid air (2:19) [37]

A wing-wallker “trains” a fox on the wing of a Jenny. [38]

Anyone for tennis? Ivan Unger and Gladys Roy 3000 feet in the air over Los Angeles in 1925. [39]

“Two wing walkers sit at table on the wing of a Jenny airplane… ready to say ‘cheers!’ at a high altitude!” [40]

Fore! Film stunt pilot Al Wilson becomes the first aerial golfer, 1,800 feet (548m) in the air. [41] Sadly, he died in 1932 at age 36 at a show in Cleveland when his 1910 biplane collided with another plane when landing. Film cameras captured the crash. [42]

The worn-out wood and canvas airplanes themselves added to the danger. They were rickety and risky. 

The danger in performing aerobatics before large crowds increased in proportion to the age and poor maintenance of the airplanes. What could rumble safely from one town to another in the air simply couldn’t withstand the punishing loads and forces of maneuvers. And so the planes began to fall apart in the air, and sometimes the pieces fell into the grandstands directly into the crowds. [43]

Lincoln Beachey was an early barnstormer whose many firsts earned him the moniker Alexander, the Great of the Air. The 28-year-old ran out of luck on March 14, 1915 when the wings of his plane folded and broke off during a steep dive over San Francisco Bay. He drowned in front of a crowd of 250,000.

Ormer Locklear earned big bucks in Hollywood, but it wasn’t worth dying at age 28. Blinded by movie searchlights that were not turned off as expected, he flew into the ground. The fatal footage remained in the film.  

Famed movie stunt pilot Ormer Locklear hit this breakaway steeple for the 1920 film The Skywayman as planned. It was all in a day’s work. [44] (When Mickey Mouse duplicated the feat in the 1928 Plane Crazy cartoon, the steeple accordioned down to let him pass.)

Petite Gloria Lynch, an expert pilot at age 24, paid the price in 1949 when her biplane was tossed in an updraft and slammed into the ground. Rescuers ran to the crumpled wreckage. “She was a lot shorter now. Both feet had been torn off at the ankles.” [45]

Louis “Speedy” Babbs was another parachutist, wing-walker and rope ladder aerialist. He claimed to have broken only fifty-six bones, a few at a time, and felt indestructible. He survived a parachute jump that went wrong with two crushed vertebrae that left him paralyzed for weeks. When healed, he went back for more, becoming a famous motorcycle stunt rider. One of the few old and bold pilots, he died in 1976 at age 70. [46]

Duke Krantz of the Gates Flying Circus had his career and life cut short. Hanging from a rope ladder below a plane was routine—until it wasn’t.

It swung back and forth with its human cargo transformed suddenly into a pendulum. That wasn’t too bad, except that the rope was too long. On one forward swing the stunt man went far into the propeller. He fell to earth in little pieces amid a fine crimson spray from the dismembered chunks of his body. But—that was the game. [47]

Surviving a crash itself didn’t pre-empt dumb luck. Wing walker and parachutist Wesley May died after landing in a tree in a cemetery. He then fell from the branches, fatally fracturing his skull on a gravestone. [48]

Dick Grace, a movie stunt pilot whose specialty was crashing planes, “sustained a serious neck injury when he fell out of the cockpit during the filming of Wings. But he made a full recovery and was one of the few stunt pilots of his day who died of natural causes.” He survived 50 crashes and 80 broken bones, including a broken neck. [49] After flying more than 45 combat missions and over 40 death-defying stunts, Grace lived to the ripe old age of 67, dying of emphysema on June 25, 1965. 

Magazine advertisement for the Gates Flying Circus, October 5, 1925. [50] The company was the most famous barnstorming group in North America, and employed several famous stunt pilots and wing-walkers.

Even the best pilots and aerialists took great risks to entertain their crowds, however. A roster from the Gates Flying Circus recorded that 16 of their 28 pilots died in plane crashes, and half of their 20 stuntmen died (five parachute fatalities, two killed wing-walking, and three in plane crashes). [51]

Old planes, tired crews, poor maintenance, riskier stunts… the occupation grew more precarious over time.

In the year 1923 alone, reported the authoritative Aircraft Year Book, gypsy fliers were responsible for 179 serious plane accidents in which 85 people died bloody deaths and another 162 were injured. Listed as “probable causes” were such chilling reasons as stunting at low altitude; plane taken up with only a pint of gas; bad landing on bad field; plane plowed into crowd; stunt flyer failed to come out of barrel roll and tailspin and control stick broke. By the following year, barnstormers were held accountable for two out of three fatal crashes. [52]

The danger could not be denied, and newspaper editors took note. 

This United Press newspaper article of 1930 told of several recent airplane deaths in graphic detail. One pilot was almost lynched after his plane dropped into the crowd, killing six and injuring 16. He was held in jail on a murder charge. [53]

A growing death toll garnered bad press and alarmed everyone. By the 1930s 18 of the top 23 aerial stuntmen in Hollywood had been killed, and four were grounded by major accidents. [54]

The situation prompted government intervention. With the field of aviation growing unchecked, general regulations and standards were needed anyway. The government stopped selling Jenny biplanes and passed the Air Safety Act in 1926, intended to improve and maintain safety standards. The Act banned many stunts, especially at low altitudes, and required the licensing of pilots and aircraft.  

The Depression only added to the decline. Many barnstormers who could not meet the new standards found commercial flying jobs, delivering freight, passengers and mail instead of thrills. 

The decline of barnstorming didn’t eliminate needless aviation risks, however. Air races and efforts to break new aviation records of all sorts created new perils and deaths. (The infamous 1927 Dole Air Race from California to Hawaii was disastrous, resulting in 10 deaths. Six planes were lost or damaged beyond repair, and only two of the 18 starting aircraft finished the race.) In July of 1937 Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean trying to become the first female pilot to fly solo around the globe. It was not the fame she wanted.

And so, it was against this backdrop that the intrepid Pete Fraser took to the air in Sarles on Saturday, August 13, 1927.

Pete’s adventure garnered a mere one-line mention in the Pilot Mound Sentinel. The same issue had noted, “Ford has just taken his first airplane flight.” [55]

It’s disappointing that editor Tuckwell, who had once devoted four paragraphs to a weird potato of Pete’s, did not find space to elaborate on the thrilling plane ride. 

The Crystal City Courier was not overly enthusiastic either. [56]

It would be inspirational to conclude that eight-year-old Murray Fraser was so enthralled by the airplane rides in Sarles that he vowed to one day join the air force. Nope. Registering for mandatory basic training, he expressed no preference for any particular branch of military service. On his RCAF attestation papers, he did dutifully record a 15-minute airplane ride, but never expressed a desire to fly. Colour-blind and grounded, he was content to train as an airframe mechanic and keep his feet on terra firma.

Sources

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19. Margareth Maurer, “Barnstorming: everything started with it and my life was forever changed...” Bliss From Bygone Days blog, August 21, 2018. https://www.blissfrombygonedays.com/post/barnstorming-everything-started-there-and-my-life-was-forever-changed
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22. Caidin, p. 144
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40. Margareth Maurer, “Barnstorming: everything started with it and my life was forever changed...” Bliss From Bygone Days blog, August 21, 2018. https://www.blissfrombygonedays.com/post/barnstorming-everything-started-there-and-my-life-was-forever-changed
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44. Gerald A. Schiller, “Flying and Dying for Hollywood in the 1920s,” HistoryNet, June 12, 2006, https://www.historynet.com/motion-picture-stunt-fliers-flying-and-dying-for-hollywood-in-the-1920s/
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51. Bill Rhode, Baling Wire, Chewing Gum, and Guts: The Story of the Gates Flying Circus. Kennikat Press, Port Washington, NY (1970), https://archive.org/details/balingwirechewin0000rhod/page/n7/mode/2up
52. Dwiggins, p. 67
53. “Airplane Accidents Take Toll Of 14 Deaths In United States During Week-End In Scattered Sections,” New Britain Daily Herald, April 28, 1930, p. 9, (Library of Congress, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014519/1930-04-28/ed-1/seq-9/#date1=1920&index=15&rows=20&words=airplane+plane+ride&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1935&proxtext=plane+%22airplane+rides%22&y=13&x=15&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1)
54. Gerald A. Schiller, “Flying and Dying for Hollywood in the 1920s,” HistoryNet, June 12, 2006, https://www.historynet.com/motion-picture-stunt-fliers-flying-and-dying-for-hollywood-in-the-1920s/
55. Local news column, Pilot Mound Sentinel, August 18, 1927, p. 3
56. Local news column, Crystal City Courier, August 18, 1927, p. 8

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