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On the evening of August 11, 1841, the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser and Journal reported the death of the wheelsman "Luther Fuller," one of many who died during the conflagration of the steamboat Erie on August 9, 1841. Fuller was at the wheel when the fire broke out at 8:10 pm. He was praised by Capt. T. J. Titus, one of the few survivors, when Titus testified before the Coroner's Inquest at Buffalo, New York, the afternoon preceding the August 11 evening edition: "I think Fuller remained at the wheel and never left it until burned to death; he was always a resolute man in obeying orders."
Titus, in his testimony, did not specify what Fuller's given name was. When Fuller's body was recovered, the Erie Gazette cited "Augustus" Fuller, not "Luther" Fuller. The following article at the John Maynard Home Page establishes that the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser was mistaken with regard to the name "Luther:"
Norman Barry, "Why Luther?"
The anonymous prose sketch entitled “The Helmsman of Lake Erie” did not appear until four years after the loss of the Erie. Many researchers have felt that the sketch referred back to Fuller, the helmsman of the ill-starred Erie, no doubt due to the magnitude of the tragedy, which up to 1841 was the worst steamer conflagration on Lake Erie. Nonetheless, the helmsman of the sketch is not young Augustus Fuller (who was only 23 years of age), but “Old John Maynard.” And, in the sketch, no one dies except the self-sacrificing helmsman! For the distribution of the 1845 sketch, cf. The Two Basic Textual Variations of "The Helmsman of Lake Erie" in Light of the Discovery of the Poughkeepsie Journal & Eagle, the Maine Cultivator & Gazette, and the Mohawk Courier, an essay by Norman Barry.
The 1845 sketch first appeared on July 19, 1845, in the Poughkeepsie Journal & Eagle. The August 30, 1845 issue of the Baltimore Sun led to the creation of a ballad by Benjamin Brown French, submitted to the same newspaper and printed on September 5, 1845. A reworked and shortened prose sketch (1860) was the subject of numerous temperance lectures by John Bartholomew Gough. Horatio Alger, Jr., inspired by Gough's sketch, composed his own popular ballad in the summer of 1866: "John Maynard, A Ballad of Lake Erie." Already in November 1863, The British Workman (London, England) put out an untitled "John Maynard" ballad by the anonymous poet "Josephine," which accompanied the shortened sketch by J. B. Gough. Epes Sargent continued the "Maynard" tradition with his own "Helmsman of Lake Erie," composed ca. 1873.
In Germany, the first Lake Erie ballad was published in 1871 by Emil Rittershaus in the popular Gartenlaube, to which he regularly contributed. The ballad's name: "Ein deutsches Herz" ("A German Heart"). Although not a "John Maynard" ballad, Rittershaus created a moving depiction of the problematics of German immigration to the United States and emigration from the United States to Germany. It should be pointed out that "John Maynard" ballads do not consider the question of immigration. Rittershaus was an important link to Ada Linden (Luise Förster) and Theodor Fontane. Encouraged by Rittershaus, each of these poets composed their own Lake Erie ballads in the tradition of "John Maynard:" Ada Linden, ca. 1882, and Theodor Fontane, 1886. Interestingly, the steamer's name in Rittershaus's, Linden's, and Fontane's ballads is the "Schwalbe" (the "Swallow").
Serial: The New England Magazine Volume 0005 Issue 25 (November 1886) Title: Distinctive Traits of John B. Gough [pp. 3-7]Author: Park, Edwards A., Prof., D.D.
Information about Louisa Förster (whose pen name was Ada Linden) from the Municipal Archives in Mönchengladbach in the original German and Norman Barry's translation into English.