User:It's Harrison!/sandbox/Alf Lancaster Llewellyn

Alfred James "Alf" Lancaster Llewellyn (born James Alfred Lancaster, Jr., January 28, 1814 - May 1, 1885) was a British-born American businessman, pioneer, soldier, humorist, and writer, best known for a series of memoirs published in The Oregonian from 1868 to 1872 and later collected in the 1874 anthology From Derbyshire to Appomattox.

Early life and education
Lancaster Llewellyn was born James Alfred Lancaster, Jr., on January 28, 1814, in Over Haddon. His father, the farmer James Alfred Lancaster, Sr. (1774-1814), was killed falling from his horse shortly before Lancaster Llewellyn was born, and his mother Alexandra (née Blackwell; 1782-1814) died in childbirth, leaving him in the care of relatives from London. While passing through London, Swansea copper businessman Caradoc Llewellyn and his wife Gwen expressed interest in adopting the boy, to which request the relatives consented. Consequently, young James took the double-barrelled name Lancaster Llewellyn, which he would keep for the remainder of his life.

Lancaster Llewellyn attended Christ College, Brecon before going on to Wadham College, Oxford, where he began to call himself "Alfred" in order to distinguish himself from various acquaintances named James. Following Oxford, he drifted around England and Wales for a short period before ultimately deciding to reject a post at his father's copper firm in favor of a job with a merchant in Boston, where he arrived by ship in June of 1835.

Boston years
While in Boston, Lancaster Llewellyn worked simultaneously as a bookkeeper for a tea merchant and as a writer for the Independent Chronicle. It was there that he first made the acquaintance of several members of The New Church, to which faith he formally converted in 1838. He also acquired the nickname "Alf," which he used in his byline at the Chronicle.

Lancaster Llewellyn applied for and received American citizenship in 1840; in his application he swapped the order of his given names so that Alfred was his first name, thereby changing his name for the second and last time. That same year, he met Eliza MacLeod, whom he married one year later in 1841.

Oregon settler
Shortly after marrying, the Lancaster Llewellyns took the Oregon Trail by wagon to Oregon City, where Alf founded the L&L General Store. The store made Lancaster Llewellyn one of the settlement's most prosperous and prominent citizens, and he hosted several meetings of the town's small Swedenborgian community.

He had an informal but instrumental role in the creation of the Oregon Spectator, serving both as a major financial backer and as an occasional writer until the paper folded in 1855. Following the Spectator's closing, Lancaster Llewellyn sold the store for a handsome sum and began to print his own, often humorous record of Oregon City events, which he called the Oregon Potater; it achieved a small but devoted readership and was frequently the source of a number of popular jokes. He closed that paper in 1858, however, writing in the last issue, "I now consider myself a retired man."

Civil War and military career
In 1862, Lancaster Llewellyn came out of retirement to serve in Company D of the 1st Oregon Volunteer Cavalry Regiment; his experiences are vividly described in the latter part of From Derbyshire to Appomattox.

Memoirs
Lancaster Llewellyn returned to Oregon City in 1865; in order to bolster his faltering finances, he began soon after to write a series of memoirs detailing his life in the light-hearted style of the Oregon Potater. Once done, he submitted them to The Oregonian, which decided to publish them in serial form; the first column was an instant success, and The Oregonian had soon syndicated the rights to several major East Coast newspapers. Two years after the memoirs' completion, Lancaster Llewellyn was contacted by Chicago publishing company A. C. McClurg, then called Jansen, McClurg & Co., about a book-length compilation. Lancaster Llewellyn gave the project his approval, although he attempted on several occasions to get the title changed, feeling that From Derbyshire to Appomattox was a dishonest tile for the memoirs of a man who had not participated in the Appomattox Court House surrender.

Last years and death
Lancaster Llewellyn lived out his last years rich, having made large sums of money both from his general store and from the sale of his memoirs; he divided his estate between his wife Eliza and their only son, Alexander. Finally, on May 1, 1881, he died of natural causes at his house in Oregon City; although widely considered apocryphal, one record claiming to be the work of Alexander Lancaster Llewellyn states that his last words were as follows:

"I shall live on, fictional and dying though I may be, in the userspace of an online collaborative encyclopedia."