Brown County Folks

Kin Hubbard

Indianapolis: Abe Martin Publishing Company

1910

Illustrated by the author. Entitled: The Lost Heiress of Red Stone Hall.

Several years ago, I visited Brown County State park in Indiana and stayed at the Abe Martin Lodge. A small exhibition in the lodge introduced me to the world of Abe Martin and his creator Kin Hubbard. Frank McKinney Hubbard, born in Bellfontaine, Ohio, was a transplant to the Hoosier state when he began his career in 1891 as a police reporter sketch artist for the Indianapolis News. A change in management told Hubbard they needed a “real artist” and after a short hiatus returned to the News as a political cartoonist. In 1904, through Hubbard’s numerous drawings of politicians, Abe Martin was born. This lanky figure, residing in rustic Brown County delivered cracker-box philosophy in a rural dialect, making observations of his neighbors and surroundings. In 1910, author George Ade commented, “Abe Martin is as quaint and droll as Josh Billings and Artemus Ward ever dared to be.” Upon his untimely death in 1930, John T. McCutcheon venerated Hubbard by publishing a cartoon showing Hubbard's grief-stricken characters standing at their creator's door.

Jo Ellen McKillop Dickie