Joseph Bushnell Ames

Joseph Bushnell Ames was born on August 9, 1878, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, the son of Elias Hurlbut Ames (1851-1891) and Eleanor Gray Bushnell (1855-1946).[2] Both Ames' father and maternal grandfather, Joseph Bushnell (1831–1918), came from old New England families and became wealthy during the Pennsylvania Oil Rush. Ames' great-grandfather was the Pittsburgh industrialist Daniel Bushnell.[3] After Elias Ames' death of pneumonia in 1891 at age 39, Joseph's mother moved the family to Morristown, New Jersey, where her children had a privileged upbringing in the town that was then known as an "inland Newport.".[4] Ames attended St. Mark's School and the Stevens Institute of Technology, graduating from the latter in 1901.[5] Ames then worked as a mechanical engineer in Morristown, New Jersey for a time, until he quit that profession and began writing.[6]

Ames wrote over a dozen novels, primarily Westerns, during the 1910s and 1920s.[7] Some of his works, including the posthumously published The Bladed Barrier, included fantasy themes. While Ames' books were set in the Western United States (the famous Pete, cow-puncher - A Story of the Texas Plains, is one example), it is unclear whether he ever travelled there extensively.[8] His novel Shoe-Bar Stratton was made into the 1922 Western film Catch My Smoke, directed by William Beaudine and featuring actors Tom Mix and Lillian Rich.[9]

Poster for the 1922 film Catch My Smoke, based on Ames' novel "Shoe-bar Stratton"

For most of his writing career Ames lived in "Willow Hall," a mansion on his estate, "Speedwell," in Morristown, New Jersey. The estate was the former residence of industrialist George Vail. Today the home is preserved as a historic site.[10] Ames' brother Peter Ashmun Ames, to whom Joseph dedicated his 1921 novel The Emerald Buddha, was an American who served in the British Army in the Grenadier Guards during World War I and then as a British military intelligence spymaster and a member of the Cairo Gang, until Bloody Sunday, when Lt. Ames was assassinated in Dublin by order of Michael Collins during the Irish War of Independence.[11] The philanthropist Mary Warden Harkness, wife of Charles W. Harkness, was a first cousin of Ames' mother Eleanor.[12]

Ames' home in Morristown, New Jersey, as it appears today.

• The Valley of Missing Men. London: A.C. McClurg & Company, 1925.
• The Man from Painted Post. New York: Century Company, 1923.
• The Stranger from Cheyenne. New York: Century Company, 1927.
• The Mystery of Ram Island. New York: Century Company, 1918.
• Chaps and Chukkers. New York: Century Company, 1928.
• The Bladed Barrier. New York, London: The Century Co., 1929.[13]
• The Secret of Spirit Lake. New York: Century Company, 1927.
• The Emerald Buddha. Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1921.
• Flame of the Desert. New York: Duffield, 1928.
• Curly and the Aztec Gold. New York: Century Company, 1920.
• Shoe-Bar Stratton. New York: Century Company, 1922.
• Pete, Cow-puncher: A Story of the Texas Plains. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1908.[14]
• Under Boy Scout Colors. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1917.
• The Lone Hand. New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1926.[15]

• Works by Joseph Bushnell Ames at Project Gutenberg