Son of local manse was soldier, hunter, traveller, teacher and author of books

An interesting note arrived in Roamer's mailbox from a reader who is proud to have been schooled at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution.
Mayne Reid's First Play was produced in Walnut Street Theatre, PhiladelphiaMayne Reid's First Play was produced in Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia
Mayne Reid's First Play was produced in Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia

The note started succinctly – “OK, I know he went to Inst but there’s an easy run here!” – and proceeded with an outline biography of the prolific author, soldier, adventurer and old-Instonian, Thomas Mayne Reid, born in Ballyroney, Co Down, in 1818.

I came across Reid by accident some years ago when I was researching Belfast’s famous ghost, Galloper Thompson, known as The Headless Horseman.

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One of Reid’s novels, penned in 1866, was also called The Headless Horseman, though it had nothing to do with a Belfast spook on a spectral steed.

Thomas Mayne ReidThomas Mayne Reid
Thomas Mayne Reid

Based on one of Reid’s many exciting escapades in the United States it was set in Texas and based on a south Texas folk tale.

“The horse is perfect,” the book begins, “…but the rider? Ah! About him there is something weird – something wanting! By heavens! It is the head.”

Even the “unreasoning animal” perceives that its rider is headless, and the narrative proceeds through many hair-raising acts of derring-do in a distant land.

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Younger folk loved Reid’s stories and the News Letter reader whose introductory note to Roamer started “there’s an easy run here” wasn’t exaggerating.

Mayne Reid compilation in 1902 reprintMayne Reid compilation in 1902 reprint
Mayne Reid compilation in 1902 reprint

Running isn’t confined to race tracks – stockings, noses and fish run; days run into weeks, politicians run for government and human characteristics run in the family.

Thomas Mayne Reid is an “easy run” because his life story is as varied, wide ranging and action-packed as his 75-plus novels and books, never mind his newspaper articles, plays and poems, a lot of his writings drawing from his life as a farmer, teacher, soldier, hunter and traveller.

Born at Ballyroney on 4th April 1818 and son of a senior Presbyterian churchman, Thomas embarked on studies for the ministry which he soon abandoned in favour of going to America in 1840.

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In New Orleans he traded and hunted with the Indians along the Missouri and Platte Rivers.

Depiction of Battle of Chapultepec during the Mexican-American WarDepiction of Battle of Chapultepec during the Mexican-American War
Depiction of Battle of Chapultepec during the Mexican-American War

He taught in a school in Nashville, Tennessee, before moving to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1842.

His first writings were poems in the Pittsburgh Morning Chronicle in 1842.

Early in 1843 he moved to Philadelphia, where he worked as a journalist and from time to time had poetry printed in publications like Godey’s Lady’s Book and the Ladies National Magazine.

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While in Philadelphia he met Edgar Allan Poe and the two became drinking companions, though Poe would later describe Reid as “a colossal but most picturesque liar. He fibs on a surprising scale but with the finish of an artist, and that is why I listen to him attentively!”

In 1846 Thomas joined the staff of the New York Herald before being commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the New York Volunteers bound for the war with Mexico.

He sailed for Vera Cruz in December 1846.

A year later on 13th September 1847, during the storming of Chapultepec – a fortification packed with Mexican soldiers on top of a steep, 200 foot hill – he was severely wounded in the hip.

In his writings he referred to himself as Captain Reid, but as far as is known he was only promoted to First Lieutenant before resigning from the army on 5th May 1848.

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Love’s Martyr, his first play, played at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia for five nights, in October 1848.

He published War Life, an account of his army service, in 1849, and then sailed for England hoping to volunteer for the ongoing European Revolutions.

Thomas Mayne ReidThomas Mayne Reid
Thomas Mayne Reid

But he changed his mind and after pondering his future in Northern Ireland he went to London.

In 1850 he published his first novel, The Rifle Rangers – by Captain Thomas Mayne Reid

Like most of his books, it’s a lively story!

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At one point the hero is hanging by his heels over a precipice; at another he and his companions are attacked by a pack of snarling bloodhounds!

The titles of his action-packed novels did little to camouflage their content; his second novel in 1851 was called The Scalp Hunters, and his third, The Desert Home, recounted the multiple adventures of a family lost in the wilderness.

When Mayne Reid discovered that books without death, violence or destruction in their plots sold quite well he wrote

The Boy Hunters in 1853.

Set in Texas and Louisiana it was a ‘juvenile scientific travelogue’ about three lads living with their disabled father, an avid collector of natural-history specimens.

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Their dad wants the hide of a white buffalo, and the boys go off in search of it.

In his autobiography, United States President Theodore Roosevelt credited the Boy Hunters with being a major early inspiration.

Roosevelt loved natural history, zoology and adventure travel and some say that Mayne Reid’s adventure books for boys may have been the inspiration for the national park expansions which occurred under Roosevelt’s presidency.

During the same year that he wrote The Boy Hunters Reid married the teenage daughter of his publisher G W Hyde, an English aristocrat, and moved to Buckinghamshire, about 20 miles from London.

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After writing and publishing many more books from there, in 1867 he and Mrs Reid went to the United States, to Newport, Rhode Island.

In 1870 his old Mexican war wounds worsened and he returned to England where he died in 1883.