The Peculiar Saga of Abe Tater

The Peculiar Saga of Abe Tater

Above is an 1864 photograph of a heart-shaped potato. This, the only known image of the mysterious potato, was taken by an unknown studio assistant of the famous photographer Mathew Brady. The glass plate negative of this obscure potato portrait rests in a locked drawer in an unmarked and secure room in the Library of Congress. Undoubtedly there will be those who declare this image to be fake. It is not. It is the real thing. It has been whispered that in addition to being "heart-shaped", the potato seemed to emit a rhythmic sound: lub dub lub dub much like a human heart. Unfortunately, neither video nor motion picture had yet been invented to capture the pulsing motion of the heart-shaped spud as it beat like a human heart. Thomas Edison, an unknown teenager at the time, might have captured the sound and motion of this unique potato if he could have also time-travelled with the appropriate instruments. Time-travel has yet to become commonplace.

“Some of these things
May have happened.
Given sufficient time
They all may happen.”

Anonymous

All of This Is Because of a Potato

Once upon a time in a land called America there was a tiny potato farmer known as Little Curly Frye. He was called little because he was, and so were his children, and their children, and so on down the line, each a little Hobbit just like Curly. His great, great grandson played a candy-peddler in a well-known film about a Kansas girl whose house lands upon an old witch. A clump of Curly's hair always managed to make an upside-down question mark in the middle of his forehead. That is how and why people called him Curly, even though his legal name was William Oliver Frye.

William Oliver Frye was born into a farming family. They owned six hundred and forty acres, a full square mile of rich farmland in the State of Maryland. That was a lot of land and meant a lot of work. His parents were also small, so to run such a large farm they had to hire farmhands. By the time he acquired the nickname Curly he had a fairly good grasp of animal husbandry and plant cultivation. While he loved critters, he was fascinated with the mystery of things that grew in the dirt. You can watch an apple grow on a tree from a white blossom to a fruit that matures until you see it is time to pluck it off the branch. Curly noted that each apple is surprisingly unique, although one red apple may look identical to another to any Tom, Dick, or Harry. There are subtle differences and Curly noticed them.. One apple may have received more sunlight, another may have matured rubbing against a twig. This has a worm hole, that does not.

Conversely, those things that grow underground mature in the dark. While an apple which receives more rain or sunshine is different, those things that grow in the dark soil are also surprisingly different from one another. Curly liked the surprise of their uniqueness. One wouldn’t know until you dug the root vegetables up. Some carrots were extra special.

We have heard of fruits and vegetables that bear the likeness of a saint or celebrity. Some take such coincidences as a message or blessing. Before he specialized in growing potatoes, Curly grew two strange carrots. One was formed like a small axe. The other was, if viewed from a particular angle, like a map of the state of Illinois. The Baltimore Sun never published any mention of Curly’s carrots. Newspapers were known to consider agricultural oddities noteworthy, especially during times of boring peace. As Curly’s farm was in Salisbury Maryland, there was no interest in the similarity of a carrot, held at a particular angle, to a state way out west. When Curly grew a potato that was the spitting image of a soon to be American President, there again would have been no interest. If such a thing happened today, there would be talk of it on the nightly news. It would be posted on the internet. Viral videos would certainly be popular. But, the Baltimore Sun, the largest publication for hundreds of miles paid no attention, made no mention. Curley Frye did not bother to promote his oddly shaped potato. Why bother? He kept the strange root a secret. Besides, who would be interested in hearing about a bearded potato that wore a stove pipe hat? This was 1857 and had radar been invented, which it wasn’t, the name or image of Abraham Lincoln would appear on few such science fictional radars.

The name meant absolutely nothing to Little Curly. He had not yet heard of Abraham Lincoln. He kept his potato oddity in the root cellar, cool and protected. Curly checked on it from time to time, observing that it did not sprout or shrivel. The potato actually seemed to prosper.

One winter morning Curly went to fetch a rutabaga for use in a stew when the potato surprisingly stood up, doffed his stove pipe hat, and recited the Gettysburg Address, albeit only a portion. This was odd, especially since the year was now 1857, but Little Curly had seen stranger things, or so he thought. Little did he know that his potato was not only reciting what would become a famous speech but had uttered the words years before it was read in public by the President of the United States of America. Curly went about his business. He needed a rutabaga, and selected a particularly bulbous one with a purplish skin, then, grasping it, climbed the stairs. He did not bother looking over his shoulder as the potato once again doffed its hat.

Little Curly's stew that night was a success. Rutabaga was the perfect ingredient. He served it with a cider pressed at a neighbor’s mill. There was just the right degree of sass to the cider to compliment the twang of the yellow root of the rutabaga. His visitors enjoyed their meal more than their meal and asked Curly how he had been spending his time, during the long winter nights. He thought about letting his guests know that he was sorting seeds from his harvest and was considering selling seeds from his larger produce, especially his abundant and gigantic potatoes. But he bit his tongue. He smiled and made small talk. He said nothing about his potato crop. He told no one about the potato standing up and addressing him. His dinner guests would have thought him addled. The conversation was polite, but soon enough discussion shifted to slavery and politics, dangerous territory. Little Curly listened intently, being convinced that the next president should be Stephen Douglas. He was especially won over by the nickname bestowed upon Douglas: “Little Giant”. Like Curly, Stephen Douglas was height-challenged, barely five foot four inches, yet towering in his profession, which was of course politics rather than farming.

Had the potato in his root cellar even the slightest resemblance to Stephen Douglas, Little Curly would have become the focus of attention, or at least the potato would have. If that were the case, Billy certainly would capitalize on the situation and sold more seeds, possibly at a higher price. Billy, alas, would not find the opportunity to take advantage of his odd spud. Had Billy gone to college, the things he did to cultivate his carrots, rutabaga, turnips, and in particular, his strange potatoes, might have been less intuitive and more scientific. The way he played with the mutant produce, observing the features and characteristics, then planting their seeds and watching how they grew, foreshadowed Luther Burbank.

Not to make a big deal about it, Little Curly Frye was just a curious little farmer who specialized in root vegetables. The botanist Luther Burbank got his start by hybridizing potatoes. Those that Burbank created included the russet strain, the most popular American potato. Burbank’s russets, which the McDonald’s hamburger chain converts into fries, are a favorite ingredient for potato salad. Little Curly lacked the tools to take his experiments beyond his own fields. Yet, all without recognition or support Curly had years earlier done the field work of discovery of many unique potato strains during a prolonged visit to Peru.

Before Curly had settled down to take over the family farm he wanted to explore the world. This he did by paying his own way on a sloop that sailed along the east coast of the Americas, stopping at major ports to explore for a day or two and search for unfamiliar produce in the local markets. Sometime after the ship rounded Cape Horn the boat seemed to be taking on more water than usual and the rudder had developed some slack that required attention in a drydock in Lima. The ship would be out of water for at least two weeks. This was a fortuitous layover, as in the specialized potato market of Lima Curly hit gold. He was in potato heaven, the point of origin for the discovery of potatoes.

Earlier discoveries had been interested in the generic and most easily breed and cultivated spuds. The type of potatoes that first saved the Irish, then ruined them, due to potato blight and subsequent starvation. Even now, most people are familiar with only grocery store potatoes; the russets, the thick-skin bakers, the narrow range of bland tubers grown to satisfy incurious consumers.

Curly already cultivated those standard tubers. He wanted the unusual, the unique, the potatoes no one else had bothered to look at before. By serendipity he was able to locate a guide and a pack of mules willing and able to take him deep into the Andes to search for new root vegetables. The guide, a Senor Gauguin, brought his very young son, Paul, along.

Curley was surprised at how energetic and useful the little boy was when it came to finding the most unusual potatoes. The potatoes that the boy dug seemed to be even more colorful and odd than what Curley had seen in the market.

It was there, in Lima, at the big market that he met a man known as Senor Gauguin who promised to show Curly where he could gather all the seed potatoes he might desire. Senor Gauguin explained there were thousands of varieties, some of which were common and had ordinary names, such as:
patata puma maquil
patata chesse choque
patata iamotillo
desconocida
spunta
papa colorada
atahualpa
lapin puikula
vitelotte

nicola
tubira
patata roja
patata azul
papa amarilla
patata piña
patata corazón
patata turd de perro
patata ordinario
There were also those whose names indicated they were bizarre or perhaps even the product of witchcraft:
patata inusual
patata de la bruja
patata sagrado
patata mágica
patata extraño
confusa de la patata
inesperado de la patata
cuatro puntuación patatas
patata que se mueve

Senor Gauguin brought him to special places where young Paul introduced Curly to the folks known as the “Hush Hush Farmers” and their upside-down carrots that grow like yellow, orange, scarlet and purple flames shooting from the soil. Maybe it was because five-year-old Paul was almost the same height as Curly they developed a reciprocal interest in what each other was involved in. Paul was as fascinated in Curly’s tales of sea voyages as Curly was in Paul’s attraction to the complex colors of the different forms of these vegetables that grow below the surface. They returned to the repaired schooner with canvas bags stuffed with a carefully cataloged, amazing array of root vegetables packed in such a way that they all survived the ocean trip back to Baltimore. Most of these potato varieties were unseen anywhere outside of Peru. It was from amongst the scions of the Peruvian stock that the talking spud would grow.

While to Curly, young Paul was a delightful and curious little boy, most others only know of him from his later life in Paris and Tahiti. Unbeknownst to curators or collectors, Paul would in his later years illustrate a version of this far-fetched-story, although unfortunately not this edition.

Back at home in Maryland

Curly went down to the root cellar daily. If you are unfamiliar with what a root cellar is, it is a below ground storage space for roots and vegetables. It is like a hole dug on the wall of the basement. The temperature of the soil remains constant, about 55 degrees, and the humidity tends to also be constant and moist. Potatoes and other roots do not shrivel in a root cellar. This remains a better storage method than modern refrigeration. Curly kept his carrot in the shape of the state of Illinois down here. The strange potato lived there as well.

When I say “lived,” that is truly what seemed to be going on with this potato: like a child, it grew in scale so that eventually it looked like a very tall man with a beard and stove pipe hat. Its features never changed, only its height. Curly Frye's farm had produced heart-shaped potatoes before. Heart shapes and potatoes that look like bears or dogs are rather common, so he didn’t think to gather their seeds. When he dug his Abraham Lincoln out of the ground, he marked the plant with a big stake. He left the plant to go to seed.

Each time he visited the cellar the potato would be a tiny bit larger. It greeted him with a tip of its hat, but never said anything more than this: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here.” Curly tuned it out, having heard the line more than four score and seven times. He just waved his hand in a dismissive manner toward the potato, as if to say, “I know, I know”. Curly wished he could little note or remember, but the problem was he couldn’t forget. He had tried asking the potato to be quiet. After about the two-score time, he tried screaming that the damn potato should shut up.

The potato that you and I recognize by now to be a politician named Abraham Lincoln, had no ears. It recited the line again. Now, when he went down into the cellar, Curly just ignored what the potato said. He glanced at the potato to note that it continued to grow larger.

Most root stock placed in the cellar is consumed at meals during the winter or spring. The map of Illinois, hatchet, and Lincoln were not. Note, dear reader, that you and I can refer to the strange potato as Abe, Abe Tater, or Honest Abe, or Lincoln; as we are from the future time and are aware who Abraham Lincoln was. Poor Curly only saw a strange and bizarre vegetable. Neither shaped carrot grew, only the strange potato.

The next growing season Curly planted what he called his “Little Note” seeds. Nothing of particular note resulted.

As summer turned into harvest time, again and again, he collected the seed, planting again the following spring. Eventually, the two bizarrely shaped carrots did wither away. Curly let them go and did not sauté them in butter with mint. Abe Tater did not. Interestingly, although the flesh and blood Abraham Lincoln had now moved into a big house barely over one hundred miles and a boat trip away from Curly’s potato replica, Curly still saw no resemblance, as he was yet to lay eyes upon the President. Mister Frye was too involved with cultivating root vegetables for the Union Army. The War of Succession was well under way and the Frye farm was contributing to the war effort by helping feed the Boys in Blue.

Travel to the District of Columbia during the War was ill advised. Soldiers were all along the byways and paths, on the lookout for spies and assassins. Curly stayed on the farm and as the war drew on, he still had seen the Illustrations in the local gazette of President Lincoln. These were line cuts of black and white and Curly was yet to make the connection between the stunningly stunning resemblance between the President in the White House and the potato in his root cellar. This would change when Curly personally took a wagonload of potatoes all the way across the bay to the Capitol. This was not the first time water travel had changed his life.

Curly brough back to his 40-acre plot of land an amazing array of root vegetables unseen anywhere other than Peru.

A Much Shorter Voyage

The crossing of Chesapeake Bay took the lion’s share of the time during Curly’s journey to Washington, District of Columbia. He drove his laden wagon onto a ferry which sailed across the wide Chesapeake. As it was, he traveled for more than a day between home and the District of Columbia. His reason for going was two-fold. Rather than hire a teamster to deliver his produce to the Army, Curly would make the trek himself. In addition, he had still not found a wife and he imagined that the capitol might prove to offer a better experience than his unhappy encounters in Baltimore. He knew that not all tall women were so mean spirited or hoped so.

Finaly possibly being able to cast his eyes on President Lincolns could be interesting, if he could happen to be so fortunate. Perhaps, he fantasized, political connections would benefit his idea of building a large seed distribution enterprise. He liked the way that sounded. That felt of higher stature than being known as that “very short man who dug spuds for the Yankees”.

Upon Casually Seeing the President for the First Time

Eventually, Curley viewed the President from a distance. He was unable to determine why, but the tall man with the stove pipe hat seemed familiar. The short farmer left for home on his wagon without meeting any eligible woman, but with a lingering puzzlement, a strange feeling that he had met the president, perhaps in a dream. Curley Frye could not put his finger on it until late in 1863 when the Baltimore Sun published the text of a short speech given by President Abraham Lincoln at a former battlefield in Pennsylvania, at Gettysburg. Curley fell off his chair and spilled his coffee all over himself, recognizing the words he had been subjected to for the past several years.

He picked himself off the kitchen floor, grabbed the front page of the Sun, and hustled down to the root cellar where he was greeted by the same “Four Score” address he knew by heart. In a flash he made plans to return to the Nation’s Capitol, with his tuber, which had grown to a height of six feet four inches tall. He was a heavy spud.

He still referred to the potato as “Little Note” as he composed a letter to the President of The United States of America. In the letter Curley address President Lincoln in the most respectful manner. He did not mention his support for Stephen Douglas, but made certain that he was responsible for providing the Union Forces with many tons of “taters and other root vegetables, known to have fortified both soldiers and sailors. Then, in closing he hints at a great curiosity he wishes to present to the great and esteemed man, naturally without saying: “Little Note”. He politely signed the letter with his full, legal name: William Oliver Frye.

A Response from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

In less than a week a postman arrived to hand deliver a letter to Mr. William Oliver Frye. The man is not Curly’s familiar letter carrier, but a man who waits while Curley reads the Presidents message.

The messenger is an agent of the President. This agent has been tasked and bound to secrecy. Mister Frye is requested to reveal to this agent the hinted-at “Great Curiosity”. The agent is to act as a secure go-between. He will relay to the President the nature and value of the suggested “Curiosity”. Mister Frye is to treat the agent as he would the “Eyes of The President”.

Curley smiled to himself as he led the agent to the root cellar, beckoning the agent to proceed.
“Mister President, what are you doing down here?”
At which point the potato recited the famous address and doffed his hat.

The Spud is Secreted, Under Tarps, to Washington

In the dark of night Mister Frye and his Curiosity arrive at the backside of the Presidential residence, out of view of absolutely everyone, save the Agent, Curly, and President Lincoln, oh, and the potato.

Did you know that back before refrigeration, even the White House had a root cellar? The root cellar at 1600 Pennsylvania was given three sets of padlocks. The day previously there had been none. The cook and the kitchen staff were uninformed why this was so. Even the guard newly assigned to the root cellar did not know why. Only two individuals who shared the three keys were permitted to access the cellar: Mr. Frye and Agent Morris. No one even imagined the President had a doppelganger, never mind a potato body double.

Only for an extremely short time did those who knew about the potato consider making potato salad. Lincoln, his agent, and Curley all thought that one day a body double might come in handy. They would be correct.

The tiny farmer who never let it slip that he had been a Douglas supporter was given a special White House position, that of Keeper of the Root Cellar. He was allowed to briefly return to his own farm to arrange for its management while he was “away on extended business”. Curly was given a room in an apartment not far away. When not checking on the state of his special spud, Mister Frye could pursue his seed and potato eye enterprise. He was in consultation with persons in the catalog printing and mailing business. A mail order seed business seemed to hold promise for him. Meanwhile the war between the states dragged on.

From time to time President Lincoln would consult with his generals, cabinet, and leaders of congress. The war wore heavily upon him. Sometimes he wished he could have a break. He knew it was fantasy, but wished his potato-double might let him take a breather. Why have a doppelganger locked away in the bowels of the White House? One day it might prove useful. The weight on his shoulders aged him prematurely. The Presidency was heavy. Four years of animosity and revolt punished him. If only he could put down the burden, if only he might be free. If only he could walk away from governance.

As the Union forces were advancing toward a conclusion to the conflict, which would end the war when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, an opportunity for Lincoln to become a private citizen was hatched.

A Peaceful Night at The Theatre

It was suspected that that agents and lone wolves would seek revenge for the defeat of the Secessionist States. Lincoln would be the preferred target. A plan was hatched and intercepted.

A counter operation was launched. An assassin would shoot Abraham Lincoln as he watched the play, Our American Cousin, a comedy, at Fords Theatre. Lincoln was seen entering the theatre. He went to his box, then was replaced by a very large potato, as the real Aberaham Lincoln was clandestinely smuggled out of the theatre and Washington, District of Columbia. He was never seen again.

However, sad it might be to have a unique potato destroyed, it was liberating for the flesh and blood man, who assumed a new identity. He and his little friend, Curly Frye slipped out under darkness and headed west.

Curly and his new friend, now going under the name of Robert Smith, who no longer wishes to remain in the public eye, sneak off to the Northwest territory. They buy a plot of land twice the size of what Curly had in Maryland. Twenty-five years into the future, their farm would be within the borders of the state of Idaho. Together they passed their days cultivating, in addition to large potatoes, slightly less interesting root vegetables; such as these: Ginger, Jerusalem artichoke, Garlic, Radish, Rutabaga, Celery root, Carrot, Daikon, Onion, Parsnip, Jicama, Beetroot, Kohlrabi, Sweet potato, Burdock root, Cassava, Spring onion, and Galangal

What on earth is galangal?

No one in the territory would guess the true identity of the tall potato farmer, with no beard, long hair, and a straw hat. One might think him almost a mute, he says so little. President Lincoln was, after all, assassinated at Ford’s Theatre, the newspapers all said so. It must be true or they wouldn’t have printed the story.

Two Men Walk into a Bar

The tall man and the short man lived full and happy lives in peaceful obscurity. Curly and his tall pal walk into a bar. There seems to be no one behind the bar, until a head pops into view. Sorry says the bartender, explaining she had dropped a penny behind the bar and had to climb off her step stool to look for it. It was a shiny new penny with an Indian head on it. Back in olden days a penny went a long way, especially when it went rolling across a wood floor. If it landed on dirt it would just sit there. Fortunately she retrieved it, although It took a bit of time to locate the coin. The tall customer who had just walked in would not have his profile on a one cent piece until 1909. So, the bartender ignored the tall man, but noticed his extremely handsome short friend.

The bartender could not take her eyes off Curly. It was love at first sight, just like in penny dreadful novels. Perhaps you would have thought because she had been on a step stool and attracted to Curly that she might be a dwarf. No she was not. She just had refined taste and was not into either tall or husky men. What she liked were short men who pain attention to her, walks by the ocean, baby kittens, and candlelight dinners. Back then there were no other options for light during dinner, unless you ate in the dark or by campfire. She liked campfires, too. Oh, and she was a vegetarian. Once they married she and Curly might write a vegetarian cookbook together. The book likely would have had several chapters on "Potato Salad".

No one at the wedding gave a second look to Curly’s tall friend, who had spent the morning splitting rails for a new fence to keep the deer out of the parsnips. The bride was radiant and her much shorter groom debonaire. As he stood there greeting well wishers a simple line kept repeating in his head, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but we both said I DO!”.

All of this because of a potato.