Remarkable unpublished autobiography of a young French immigrant to the USA in the 1890s, who became a ranch-owner in Montana before turning to civil engineering and finally, after his return to France, publishing extensively on occultism and founding the Societe Unitive - a sort of psychic wellness group avant la lettre.
Written in English and clearly intended for publication this is the story of Albert Caillet’s American years, presenting himself as a prosperous and adventurous young man who managed to buy a ranch in Montana where he learned to hunt buffalo and bear; almost bought a Florida shipping company as well as nearly marrying ‘Miss Molly N’ whom he met in Key West before gravitating to the great metropolis of New York City.
There Albert Caillet (1869-1922), no slouch himself, was nearly overcome by the sheer energy of the city, lodging at the famous ‘United States Hotel, corner of Fulton, Pearl and Water streets, quite down-town…. A queer sort of caravanserail.. It had entrances on three streets… the place looked more like an ant-hill, always crowded with hurrying people, always trepidating with the vibrations of the cars and the puffing of the steam engines…’ While in the city he enrolled with the New York Navigation Academy under ‘Captain Salini’ and his account breaks off as he prepared to return to the Florida Keys - ‘the life down there suited me exactly it was very free yet had the charm of companionship, and the sport in the water was a thing I was growing more and more fond of.’
Caillet’s journey to the USA took him west immediately on arrival in Quebec as ‘Mr Vion’s ranch was to be my first stopping place in the New World’. Out west he fell into a Franco-American ex patriate community of Paul Breteche - Count Du Dore’s manager and Count Jean de Hedoubille that immediately impressed him: ‘Billings… a western new town as those you read about in the Bret Harte and Alfred Henry Lewis’ works’ and rendezvoued with a French chef turned cowboy, Paul Cottu, was introduced to cowboy life in the ‘Blue Creek Valley, on the Crow Indian Reservation… [where he] pitched camp as usual in front of our fire... I in my new sheepskin camping-bag… a fine, cool, beautiful night, and I enjoyed it immensely (p18)
Hailing from a prosperous background Caillet served his apprenticeship and promptly bought Shield Ranch ‘situated along Cottonwood Creek.. ’ and sowed ‘the meadow with Kentucky blue grass’. Caillet descries how he learnt buffalo hunting from Bill MacCoy ‘his real name was Bill Kirwin, which for some private reason he had found expedient to change for a while’ and bear hunting with William Irving Booth, ‘his clothes were so scented from the smell of bear fat that all horses but his own would fly from him’ A railway trip with his Scovill Detective camera took Caillet to Florida, Key West and the company of William Ebenezer of the South Florida Lumber Company from where New York beckoned.
TYPESCRIPT bound in card wrappers, labelled: ‘A French Boy in America during the Nineties’ giving an address in Paris, ‘Rue de Bellechasse’ where Caillet seems to have been living in 1916 around the time of composition. The other ephemera listed below also suggests that Caillet wrote his autobiography during these war years, possibly after a return trip to the USA in 1915 - there is a drawing of Fort Marion, Florida, which is dated to March 12th, 1915. This is a professional typescript with extensive annotation and correction by Caillet himself, ff34, c18,000 words. There are 3 chapters: 1 is devoted to his childhood in France, a stay in England with the family of the Portsmouth brewer Sir John Brickwood where he learnt English and brief military service; Chapter 2 Montana; Florida and ‘Miss N’, ending with ‘Return to my Ranch’; Chapter 3: ‘Love and the boy - Little Haddam - The New York Navigation Academy - The “Markab”.
ADDITIONAL EPHEMERA:
1 Albert Caillet, Hymnair de Ma Paredre, 1922, Paris - single proof bifolium of title page and dedication
2 Wellesley Club of the United States; 1909 annotated map with St Augustine, Key West, Miami etc annotated by Caillet
3 ‘The little boy of four’ - pen and ink drawing, traced over a photograph
4 ‘F[or]t Marion St Augustine. March 12th 1915’, pencil and crayon drawing of the oldest masonry fort in the USA, laid down on a larger sheet of paper
5 ‘Cattle brands in Montana and Wyoming, 1892’ - single sheet
6 ‘Tante Camille’, numbered 6; pen and ink probably traced over a photograph
