September 26, 1904

Posted on September 26, 2014 by Joel Byers

On This Date in TWISTED-HISTORY.com in 1904 Albert Henry George Grey, the fourth Earl Grey, was named the British Governor-General of Canada. The Earl’s little known twenty-year old second son, John Clayton, disappeared shortly after the Earl’s family moved to Canada and was presumed dead. John Clayton was discovered by an Inuit tribe just north of the city of Iqaluit in 1908. According to John Clayton Grey, he had been adopted by a family of walruses and had become their king. He claimed his name was Arkanzan in the language of the Walruses. When the Inuits found him, he was sporting a handle-bar mustache and wearing a set of fake walrus tusks fashioned from driftwood that he had found. The Inuits believe that the son of the Earl was crazy and believe he had been raiding their homes and cabins for the last four years to survive as he was dressed in the stolen clothes of the Inuit chieftain. The Earl quietly paid for all damages his son had caused in his extended holiday and had him committed into a family run rest home, as English nobility was used to eccentric behavior popping up in the gene pool from time to time. Edgar Rice Burroughs learned of the Earl’s son in 1910 and thought how his experiences would make a cracking good story if it was set in Africa, instead of Canada, and have an infant raised by gorillas, instead of a young man adopted by walruses. Burroughs’ idea proved correct and Tarzan of the Apes was first published in 1912.

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About Joel Byers

Born in North Georgia and educated at some very fine public institutions. Real education started after graduating from college and then getting married and raising two boys. Has the ability to see the funny and absurd in most things and will always remark on it, even if it means getting the stink-eye from his victims.
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