Image from “Green Peas Picked from the Patch of Invisible Green, Esq”, Copyright 1856
In 1856, a curious volume appeared for sale in the bookshop of Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Overend on Cincinnati’s Fourth Street. The title of the book was “Green Peas Picked from The Patch of Invisible Green, Esq.” and contained 64 stories of various lengths and topics, mostly concerning the less-privileged classes of the Queen City. The publisher, Livermore & Rudd of New York City, enticed readers by emphasizing the author’s entertaining style and accurate portrayal of plebian existence:
“His happy manner of hitting off the foibles, holding up to contempt the vices, and enlisting the better feelings in favor of the often undeserved miseries of those in the lower walks of city life, have made ‘Invisible’ hosts of friends in all parts of the country and their number has been largely increased by the frequency with which his shorter sketches have ‘gone the rounds of the press.’ To the lovers of true humor we can recommend this volume.”
Although the author’s actual name appears nowhere in this book, everyone in Cincinnati knew that “Invisible Green” was, in fact, William G. Crippen, who at that time served as local editor and later editor-in-chief of the Cincinnati Daily Times. During that decade, “Invisible Green” was also known as a particular shade of paint or fabric that would blend in with natural foliage.
William Crippen was a Cincinnati native, born in 1820. His father was a blacksmith. As a teenager, William apprenticed to a printer and spent several years as a “devil,” the nickname given to printshop factotums.
Crippen married a local girl named Eleanor Crossley and fathered three children. He eventually landed a position in the pressroom of the Cincinnati Daily Times and began sending dispatches to out-of-town newspapers. The publisher of the Cincinnati Times noticed that his printer was getting published elsewhere and gave him some local assignments as a sort of audition. Crippen acquired his nom de plume around 1850 through his embarrassingly accurate reportage from Cincinnati’s City Council. According to a memory published many years later in the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette [22 April 1894]:
“Reporters were not at that time allowed in the City Council Chamber while Council was in session. Crippen sat in the lobby one day during a very important meeting, and having a remarkably retentive memory, kept track of the proceedings and wrote them out almost verbatim when he arrived at the Times office. Many inquiries were made for the author, who signed himself ‘Invisible,’ without avail, until it was suggested to Uncle Joe Ross, a prominent member of Council, after whom the first fire engine was named, that William Crippen was the writer. ‘What! That lob?,’ said he in surprise. ‘I thought he was too green for that.’ Crippen heard of the compliment that had been passed on him, and the next time the report of a Council meeting was given the article was signed, ‘Invisible Green.’”
Crippen’s memory was legendary. He would commonly listen to a fifteen-minute conversation and repeat it back to the participants, word for word.
A dive into “Green Peas” provides a good review of Crippen’s interests and inclinations. He was very much a proponent of temperance and often filed stories of the most maudlin and bathetic flavor to illustrate the evils of demon rum: drunken harlots unloading deathbed confessions, orphan children starving as their wastrel fathers chased the flowing bowl, once-wealthy businessmen reduced to penury by their unholy thirst for booze. At times, he dropped all pretense of telling a story and offered up an editorial rant:
Image from “Green Peas Picked from the Patch of Invisible Green, Esq”, Copyright 1856
“Invisible never experienced ‘a drunk.’ His brain, fortunately or unfortunately, was never fuddled with the fumes of distilled extracts, and he has no idea of a drunken man’s feelings. What charm there is in intoxication is a query he has put to many, but as yet has never received a satisfactory answer.”
Crippen enjoyed forays into ethnic dialects. In the 1850s, that portion of town north of the canal had begun to earn its reputation as “Over the Rhine” as Germans fleeing the European revolutions of 1848 sought freer air in the New World. The new “Dutchmen” were frequent subjects for Crippen’s reportage, allowing him to replicate the German accent to humorous effect. He enjoyed mimicking the rustic mannerisms of Hoosier rubes and also explored the patois of African American and Irish residents but always in such a manner that the basic humanity of his subjects came through.
Almost as intense as his loathing for whiskey, Crippen had no tolerance at all for women’s equality and his few excursions into that topic betray a decidedly antagonistic bile that is absent from almost all his other profiles. In his mind, apparently, women who considered themselves equal to men were deluded harridans parasitizing their milquetoast husbands.
Image from “Green Peas Picked from the Patch of Invisible Green, Esq”, Copyright 1856
In addition to intimate profiles of the unlucky and bereft, Crippen volunteered for a few of the era’s “stunt” stories, notably a nearly fatal 1855 balloon ride from Cincinnati into the heart of a thunderstorm.
Although usually set at very identifiable Cincinnati locations, Crippen’s columns were picked up by newspapers around the country. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Crippen took to the road, following Union armies throughout the South and filing very detailed and often unflattering reports from the field. The Army brass were incensed, but the soldiers and their families at home appreciated the candid and unvarnished information. So well-known was Crippen that his arrival in camp usually resulted in a mention by competing reporters. Here is the Cincinnati Press from 23 December 1861:
“I met ‘Invisible Green, Esq.’ of the Times, here yesterday. He looks remarkably well, notwithstanding his hard fare on salt pork and hard biscuit.”
Because of Crippen, detailed descriptions of some of Cincinnati’s legendary slums have survived, including Gas Alley in the West End and Charcoal Alley behind Saint Xavier Church. He was in many ways a predecessor to the legendary Lafcadio Hearn in shining a light on those aspects of Cincinnati life that the local papers, given to unquestioned boosterism, tended to ignore.
Crippen contracted an unspecified but painful illness in late 1862 and suffered for several months before dying at his home in Cincinnati in May of 1863. He was universally mourned, with every newspaper in the city reporting his demise. Crippen’s colleagues at the Times [25 May 1863] provided the most telling of all tributes, by affirming that he was that rarest of individuals – the beloved journalist:
“Those only who are intimate with the aggravations of newspaper life, can fully know the force of the remark when we say, that during a close connection of twenty years, not the slightest disagreement ever existed between himself and those whom he was most immediately connected in a journalistic capacity; and while they mourn his loss, they bear with them at this hour the fond recollection, that from the past no single thought can arise to cause one feeling of regret.”
Invisible Green, aka William G. Crippen, is buried in Wesleyan Cemetery in Northside.
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