My alias is a fantasy character I have created by combining my own life, in outline, projected back 100 years, with as much as I can learn about the period and places. The following curriculum vitae for Rev. Dr. Elegy Stoner has emerged:
Reverend Doc is actuallly named Elegy Stoner, and was born in Bulloch County, Georgia, in 1855, to a wealthy plantation owner who had already seen the end of "king cotton" and slavery, and had begun to shift his interests to surveying, timber, and attempts to grow sweet onions and sweet pecans. Elegy grew up with the kind of education a young southern aristicrat would get, including classical languages, religion, riding, shooting, etc. During the civil war, Sherman's troops came through a part of Bulloch County and a brave attempt but futile was made to repulse them. As the war ended, Elegy's family turned increasingly to timber, onions, and pecans for sustenance on what remained of the family property. Elegy became an embittered young man, determined to show the carpet baggers and scalawags the meaning of honor. Trailing one specific gentleman to a revival tent meeting run by the methodists with the intent of killing him after the meeting, Elegy sat throught the sermon, recoiling on the one hand from the emotional excesses, but drawn on the other hand to learning and passion of the preacher, who had participated in the infamous "Cane Ridge" campmeetings of 1800. Quite unexpectedly, Elegy found himself a convert to campmeeting revivalism and soon decided to enter the ministry.
Elegy was first sent to a methodist college in Kentucky, in hopes of getting closer to the center of the revival, but soon realized he longed for the learning of the great northeastern schools and enrolled in Yale College, ultimately pursuing an advanced degree in Old Testament and ANcient Oriental Languages. His final year of study was spent in Germany, which in the 1860's and 1870's had become a hotbed of the "new" approaches to the Bible and Theology, all of which Elegy imbibed in deeply. He also found there in full flower the custom of dueling, both with pistols and swords. Despite his attempts at Christian compassion, he found himself drawn into an affair of honor that left a man dead, and a lady whom Elegy loved agrieved.
He returned home to teach at a Northeastern college of divinity only to step directly into controversy over the very learning he had acquired in Europe, a controversy combining political power grabs and institutional control of a massive bequest of money, all orchestrated by Stoners offended counterparts in Europe. This controversy brought his revival faith and high learning into conflict. After one especially shattering confrontation, Elegy went home and for the first time in his life, drank himself into oblivion. The next morning word came that his opponent in the controversy had been found shot dead, his house burned. "Coincidentally" news had arrived of Elegy's having shot a man in Europe. He fled just a step ahead of the authorities, not knowing what the future would bring.
From the heights of a promising career as a scholar and churchman, Rev. Dr. Elegy Stoner found himself forcibly dragged down to run for his life until he could somehow find a way to restore his name, recover his honor, and resume his calling. He found himself in the west, creating for himself a new life that would somehow enable him to one day go back. But for now, the Rev. Dr. Elegy Stoner, A.B., B.Div, M.A., D.Div, simply goes by "Reverend Doc."