Tag: catnip bill

Who Remembers The Catnip Man?

Posted on by God's Morning

catnip man update

I did a post about a year ago on the Catnip Man

https://goodmorninggloucester.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/who-remembers-the-catnip-man/.  I received an email today from Ann Flood of Florence, Oregon with this picture.  She and her husband operate a collectibles shop there called Treasures by the Dunes.

In 2005, they purchased this painting of the Catnip Man at an auction in New Hampshire.  She came across my GMG post while searching for information about the man in the painting, who they both initially thought was a sea captain, and so had purchased the painting because they live on the coast in Oregon.  There is no identification as to the artist, who may have been from Beverly because of his note on the back about The Catnip Man standing in front of Salem 5 Cent Savings Bank (presumably the one on Cabot Street in Beverly where Catnip Bill spent a good deal of time during the last years of his life) selling bags of fresh green catnip.

I think it is pretty cool that Catnip Bill has been gone for over 50 years, but he still keeps popping up in unexpected ways.

E.J. Lefavour

http://www.hobbithousestudio.com

Who Remembers the Catnip Man?

Posted on by God's Morning

catnip man

Lora Merchant came into the gallery to visit today.  Lora grew up on Rocky Neck, moved away when she was 20, now lives in Georgia, and would do anything to live back in Gloucester again.  She mentioned something about giving up two fingers to anyone from Gloucester who would trade places with her in Georgia – a little extreme, but I can understand.  We talked about all sorts of things Gloucester, and then she mentioned the Catnip Man, who she remembered following down the street when she was a young girl.  He was a kind of scruffy character who grew catnip, which he walked the streets of Gloucester selling, followed by a clowder of cats.  Does anyone else remember the Catnip Man, called Catnip Bill?  He was the subject of the children’s book “Catnip Man” written in 1951 by Rockport author, Ruth Holberg. 

According to Stephen P. Hall of Beverly, the Capnip Man’s real name was William Albert Joseph Patrick Swayne Luscomb.  Bill lived the last years of his life in a rooming house at 32 Broadway Street in Beverly, and was a familiar sight on Cabot Street in the late 1950s until his death in 1962.

E.J. Lefavour