Part 1 The Chronicles of the Missing-The Troy Taylor Chronicles-Fact and Fiction Blend-Ambriose Bierce

Courtesy of Iron Brigader

Fact and Fiction Blend: Ambriose Bierce 

I mentioned that writer Ambrose Bierce disappeared while searching for Orion Williamson in another blog. The hilarious author, who is assumed to have died around December 26, 1913 while investigating Williamson’s disappearance, is often being quoted by people who bring up his stories when they talk about mysterious disappearances. Unwittingly being brought up by people who discuss the mysterious disappearances of fictious characters and plots Bierce created, assuming that they were real. Is it any wonder that Ambrose Bierce disappeared when searching for Orion Williamson? In the Oliver Larch story, for example, kids leave footprints as they trek towards a well and vanish into thin air. When people rushed to see what happened to the children, their footprints continue then come to an abrupt end. However, it was also based off a true story in 1854, so with the wave of a pen, he embellished a true story and people ate it up as fact. 

As for Orion Williamson, Troy Taylor has his own version of events. Taylor points out that Bierce’s account is highly improbable, so Sean Casteel gives us Taylor’s account. According to the instructions given by Casteel, Taylor gives us more of his account of what happened to Orion Williamson in chapter 9. Neat, so I guess you’ll have to look that up. Meanwhile I’ll give you Taylor’s account of Williamson’s disappearance according to what is presented in this chapter. In Bierce’s account, Orion Williamson disappears right in front of his wife, son, and two neighbors. In Taylor’s version, the family (Williamson, his wife, and child) were drinking lemonade on their porch when the carriage went by with two of his neighbors who waved. Ok, so far the same except for the lemonade and waving.  Williamson runs into the field and disappears in front of friends, his wife, and his son. Check-that version’s still the same. Then they gathered 300 hundred people, including geologists, to conduct an investigation-check, still the same. In fact it’s all the same until he mentions that his wife discovered an odd circular patch of dead grass in the field where he disappeared. I assume. You’ll have to read chapter 9 to find out where the story deviates further. 

Though as a disclaimer, I should mention that this has nothing to do with the veracity of other stories that I review. Bierce was simply one of the most intriguing storytellers, so I just had to review this story. The other stories were not retold by Bierce or anyone else. And there is truth to the Williamson case, after all, because we haven't heard from Ambrose Bierce since he went to investigate the Orion Williamson story. Did he discover a universal ether? Was he sucked into a time portal which caused him to go into another dimension? Did aliens abduct him? I guess we'll never know for sure. Perhaps he was raptured. No, I don't think so.