On this day in 1849 — 175 years ago — Frederick Wadsworth Loring was born in Newton, a suburb of Boston. He was a poet, playwright, novelist, and journalist and died just weeks before his 22nd birthday. Those of you who know me remember that I have been researching (obsessed with) Fred ever since I first visited Wickenburg, Arizona in 2003.

And what does he have to do with Wickenburg? He died in the “Wickenburg Massacre,” a stagecoach attack that took place outside of town on November 5, 1871. Historians still arm wrestle about who the killers were and I’m not touching that subject, at least for now.

Anyway, I will spend 2025 retracing Fred’s footsteps. Less than a year after graduating from Harvard, this dreamy poet joined up with a dangerous exploring expedition as correspondent for a New York magazine called Appleton’s Journal, and to act as the expedition’s secretary. He wrote great stories from the road, but died like he was in a John Ford movie. He’s only remembered as a victim, but I’m going to change that. I’m writing a book about his life, his writings, and how it feels to be the historian who chases him around the West.

I’ve already followed most of his trail around Nevada, a trip I took in 2015 with my friend Mark, The Ghost Town Whisperer. Next year I’ll go to Salt Lake City, where Fred met Brigham Young. Then the Whisperer and I will head to Death Valley and Inyo County, California; a couple of new places in Nevada; the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon; Fort Whipple and Prescott, Arizona; and finally, Wickenburg, where it ended for Fred, but began for me.

For his birthday however, I want to talk about something Fred was probably proud of: being a bad boy at Harvard. Here’s something from the Harvard archives about a few of his less-than-stellar activities on campus. They sound pretty harmless today, but being absent from prayers in 1869 was scandalous.

On the flip side, he was the editor of the Harvard Advocate, the university’s newspaper, and was hailed for his work as both writer and editor.

In 1870, as he got ready to graduate, he wrote up a personal essay for the “Class Book,” and included some interesting facts:

I am a member of no college society. I fell out of a three story window when about two years old. I am fond of music, poetry, painting and sculpture and the drama, all studies wherein Mathematics enter in the slightest degree I loathe.

At the end of the essay, when talking about his future plans, he says something that breaks my heart every time I read it:

I shall adopt journalism as a profession and probably reside at the West for a year or so.

He got his wish, but not the way he wanted it.

So, happy birthday, Fred. I’ll tell more of your story as I walk your western trail.