Before we dive into Newbrough‘s fascinating life story, let me provide some quick background. John Ballou Newbrough was a 19th century Renaissance man with seemingly boundless talents and ambitions. Born in rural Ohio in 1828, he practiced medicine and dentistry, prospected for gold out West, secured patents for inventions like calculators, published a spiritually-inspired scripture, and founded a utopian colony that ultimately crashed in tragedy. Phew! Just summarizing his pursuits leaves one exhausted.
Clearly this was no ordinary man. So how did his remarkable life unfold? Let‘s explore the key phases of this creative force once nearly lost to history.
Striking Gold: From Farm Boy to Luckless Prospector
Imagine growing up in an isolated farmstead in 1820s rural Ohio. Surely the tales of glittering gold newly discovered out West would capture any young man‘s imagination! Indeed, soon after John graduated from the Cleveland Medical College in 1849, he set off for California alongside his Scottish buddy John Turnbull.
Life in the goldfields was no picnic – long hours sifting streams in chill waters, backbreaking labor excavating mines with rudimentary tools, flavorless canned food at the end of dusty trail rides. Yet John managed to stake a viable claim, pocketing profits of several thousand dollars over 2 years. Fun fact – the average 49‘er saw yields of only $10 per month!
| Date | Area | Key Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1849-1851 | California gold fields | – Yield believed to be approx $5,000 |
| 1851-1853 | Ballarat, Victoria gold fields in Australia | – Secured massive $25,000 claim |
Buoyed by success, John next voyaged to Australia in 1851 when prospects emerged at Ballarat near modern-day Melbourne. Though only 5% struck it rich, he won the lottery with an astonishing $25,000 claim!
Now flush with funds, Newbrough said farewell to the grueling digger lifestyle. After a brief visit back home to Ohio in 1855, he looked towards more stable career options.
Inventor and Man of Medicine
You might think early retirement and relaxation would follow such golden successes. But John proved far too restless for a quiet life. Bouncing between Cincinnati, Dayton and St. Louis from 1855-1865, he dabbled across ventures ranging from medicine to dentistry to novelty inventions.
In the process, he secured several noteworthy patents that give clues to his unconventional intellect:
| Year | Patent Description | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| 1859 | Artificial teeth manufacturing technique | Clashed with Goodyear vulcanized rubber company who dominated dental plates market |
| 1860 | Mechanical calculation "machine" | Believed to be an early forerunner of calculators, but never commercially produced |
| 1864 | Railway passenger car with improved ventilation | Invention indicates forward-thinking interest in emerging transport tech |
Though details remain limited, we know his calculation "machine" patent dates from 1860 – very early days in the development of computing devices ultimately yielding modern laptops and smartphones. Unfortunately Newbrough seems not to have profited from this brainchild, but it shows his curiosity towards cutting-edge innovations.
The artificial teeth patent also brought conflict with the mighty Goodyear empire, whose vulcanized rubber utterly dominated industrial and consumer products of the era. What daring then for a lone inventor to take on such a towering firm! Though his business prospects sank, his willingness to challenge orthodoxy proved telling of Newbrough‘s disposition going forward.
Turbulent Marriage, Secret Family, and the "Oahspe Bible"
1860 brought wedding bells for Newbrough upon returning to Scotland, his native homeland. His bride, Rachel Turnbull, was actually the sister of his former California prospecting partner John!
The newlyweds soon sailed back across the Atlantic, opting to settle long-term in New York City where John had accepted an appointment as dentist for the wealthy Howland family. For 20 years the couple resided in the pulsating metropolis, though by all accounts domestic life brought little happiness for the two.
While blame for such circumstances remains unclear, we know that John initiated an affair in the early 1880s with his young dental assistant Frances. She soon bore an illegitimate daughter named Justine in 1884 – all while John maintained his faltering marriage with Rachel! Two years later, Rachel rightfully ejected her deceitful husband from their Manhattan home after uncovering the scandal.
This denouement with Rachel conveniently allowed John to wed his mistress Frances shortly thereafter. They relocated upstate to Pearl River, NY on a farm they christened "Camp Hored." But besides causing emotional damage through his earlier infidelity, John‘s relationship drama also deeply disrupted the lives of his three legitimate children – William, Elizabeth and the young toddler George who soon sadly passed away.
Escaping the tumult back in New York City, Newbrough also developed an intense fascination with the Spiritualist movement then spreading rapidly across America. Séances, mystical trances, clairvoyants claiming to channel the dearly departed – such phenomenon outraged conservative Protestant congregations, yet enthralled open-minded seekers like our subject. Through personally experiencing vivid visions and automatic writing sessions, John came to earnestly believe that interdimensional entities communicated profound universal truths through select human "mediums."
The culmination of Newbrough‘s mystical pursuits emerged with his opus Oahspe: A New Bible published in 1882. This enormous scripture of over 900 pages professed revelations from angelic "Embassadors" and spiritual guides conveying divine wisdom and direction. While Christian vocabulary and motifs are occasionally invoked, the underlying cosmology draws more heavily from Buddhism and Hinduism with references to karma, reincarnation, and spiritual progression through mortal lifetimes.
Among some of Oahspe‘s core precepts are:
- Deity ("Jehovih") manifests in all conscious beings at varying degrees
- Harmony with natural order (loosely "god‘s will") advances the soul
- Physical pursuits alone cannot fulfill man‘s true purpose
- Free will allows individuals to uplift or corrupt society
For all its peculiarities by modern standards, Oahspe attracted significant attention in its heyday for claims of divinely-inspired origins. Though clearly never ascending to renown like the Book of Mormon, Christian Science, or Seventh-Day Adventism texts revealed around that same transitional era, Newbrough‘s tome definitely resonated among subscribers to alternative spiritual philosophies in later 19th century America.
The Rise and Fall of the Shalam Colony
In Oahspe‘s pages, Newbrough hinted at a longstanding vision to construct a model community enacting its pluralistic religious ideals. By the early 1880s with his notoriously stormy personal affairs stabilized, he endeavored alongside wealthy patron Andrew Howland to bring such speculative plans to fruition.
The site ultimately selected encompassed approximately 1,500 acres in the Mesilla Valley of southern New Mexico near Las Cruces in 1884. Beyond convenient railway access, the semi-arid, irrigable landholding exhibited potential for profitable agriculture and room to house colonies for what Newbrough branded the "Faithist" movement centered around Oahspe. From a mere 22 initial recruits, camp population soon swelled over 100 by 1886.
Optimistic early press reports from Shalam highlighted pleasant Victorian cottages, well-fed livestock, and harmonious residents. The colony tackled ambitious construction programs erecting barns, brick kilns, a steam-powered flour mill, and irrigated orchards and vegetable plots. Cotton, potatoes, apples and strawberries provided bountiful harvests for consumption and sale at regional markets. On the educational front, Newbrough emphasized programs teaching useful skills to local youth and orphans.
So what went wrong with this initially idyllic enterprise over its 8 year run? Several factors can be theorized:
Ideological rifts: Beyond a vague commitment to Faithist values, little united the colonists beyond a shared devotion to Newbrough himself. Squabbles inevitably arose.
Financial struggles: Shalam constantly teetered on insolvency, with deficits reimbursed almost single-handedly by Howland‘s generosity even amidst declining personal fortunes.
Town tensions: Las Cruces locals distrusted the insular sect. Cultural friction erupted into incidents of vandalism, theft, and lawsuits against the colony.
Yet the ultimate death blow occurred in 1891 when influenza ravaged the compound, claiming even John Ballou himself as victim that April 22nd at age 63. Bereft of its charismatic founder, Shalam limped on haplessly another 5 years before closing down for good in 1900. Today, only an eccentric child‘s grave spotlights Newbrough‘s once grand ambitions amidst the dusty New Mexican scrublands.
His Legacy: Innovator or Crank?
Stepping back after exploring John Ballou Newbrough‘s remarkable 63 year life path filled with so many tangents and oddities, how best might we encapsulate his legacy? The record presents puzzles.
Genius inventor hijacked by hopeless idealism? Champion of equality and compassion far ahead of his era‘s prejudices? Deluded crank who squandered advantages of intellect, creativity and wealth?
Perhaps elements of each characterization carry some credibility. But while Shalam long ago faded into footnote status, Newbrough‘s restless vision and mystically-tinged insights presaged the New Age spiritual hunger blossoming more widely in recent decades across Western societies.
And on the secular front, innovations like his early calculating "machine" demonstrated major instincts pointing directly towards our present-day computerized age. For even if obscure, his patents underscore abiding fascination with emerging technologies that would radically reshape human existence over the coming century.
So to definitively classify John Ballou Newbrough as either visionary trailblazer OR crackpot obscurantist likely misses the mark. In reality, he walked the line between both extremes across a messy life path filled with great aspirations, grievous failures, and more than a few glimmers pointing to mankind‘s wider advancement. And that makes him above all a remarkably human portrait – albeit one only now rescued from the dusty annals of history!
