Stockton Astronomical Society
George Madeira the Journalist
Marshal F. Merriam
January 2006
George wrote easily and well, making good use of his encyclopedic memory. Many of his stories were written while traveling, with no reference books available, yet he quotes extensively and accurately from an enormous range of sources.
Much of the preserved material is from small town weekly newspapers and can be identified by his byline. He wrote for major metropolitan dailies too, notably the San Francisco Chronicle (for 25 years, according to one obituary), but these stories are mostly lost. The Chronicle, possibly other papers too, had a policy of not identifying their correspondents. Also, searching a major metropolitan daily exhaustively, looking for a particular name, is impractical. Only the New York Times has a name index; a search for George Madeira's name came up negative. Some clippings were saved by the family and presented to the Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society. These have been very helpful. However they are only a tiny sample of his writings, and many are not identified by date or publication.
His newspaper writing dates from the late 1860's and continues up to almost 1920. Usually it was a sideline, mining, mining geology, or prospecting being his major activity. He wrote no books or general interest magazine articles, though he did contribute a major chapter on mother lode geology, and botany, for Mason's History of Amador County. Also he wrote for specialized trade journals.
It was the custom in the 1860's, 1870's, 1880's to use pen names. George used a number of pen names. Those which have been positively identified with him include:
| IBEX | 1880-1881 | Amador Ledger |
| Amador Sentinel | ||
| 1886 | Santa Rosa Daily Democrat | |
| Aleck | Russian River Flag | |
| Oceani Cus | 1870's | Santa Cruz Sentinel |
| In Hoc Signo Vinces | 1870's | Santa Cruz Sentinel |
| G. Whillikens | 1870's | Santa Cruz Sentinel |
| Lin C. Doyle | 1860's | Santa Cruz Sentinel |
| Herschel, Jr | 1860 | Sacramento Union |
He wrote for all the following--some for years and some only once:
Newspapers:
Copyright © 2006 by Stockton Astronomical Society
Last Updated: 2/8/2006
http://astro.sci.uop.edu/~sas/MadeiraJournalist.html