Wikipedia talk:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/George K. Broomhall

Hoax
This longstanding article is a hoax. It was the author's only contribution to Wikipedia in 2006. There was no brevet brigadier general who served in the Union Army in the American Civil War named George K. Broomhall. The name is not mentioned in Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-8047-3641-1; Heidler, David S., and Jeanne T. Heidler, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. ISBN 978-0-393-04758-5; Hunt, Roger D. and Jack R. Brown, Brevet Brigadier Generals in Blue. Gaithersburg, MD: Olde Soldier Books, Inc., 1990. ISBN 978-1-56013-002-4; Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988. ISBN 978-0-8160-1055-4; or Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964. ISBN 978-0-8071-0822-2, which has a list of Union Army brevet generals in addition to the sketches of full rank generals.

The article states that Broomhall enlisted in the military in 1817, trained in Annapolis and eventually settling in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, after hostilities ended. What hostilities might those be? The War of 1812 ended in 1815. Also, this date would have made Broomhall at least 60 years old at the start of the Civil War. While a few officers were that old, there is nothing in the article which indicates Broomhall had anything to do with the military after his early enlistment or any other experience or position that would have qualified him for a military command. Certainly a 60-year old would not have been taken as an enlisted man and risen to brevet general.

The Wikipedia article on cream soda shows that E. M. Sheldon published a recipe for the drink in 1852 and that Alexander C. Howell, of Vienna, New Jersey, was granted a patent for "cream soda-water" on June 27, 1865. Broomhall is not mentioned.

Broomhall could not have been/could not be Wayne, Maine's most famous resident. Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the machine gun, was a resident of the town.

A copy (with some missing pages) of one of the two cited references History of the town of Wayne, Kennebec County, Maine, from its settlement to 1898 by George W. Walton is available at archive.org. There is not a sketch of Broomhall, but more importantly, there is no mention of a Broomhall family in the section of the book concerning early settlers or the 1810 census.

There is a photo of an alleged cemetery monument to Broomhall in the article but it is indistinct and no inscription can be read or locations discerned from the photo.

There is no other detail in the article except for the disinterment of the family from burial in Pennsylvania to reburial in Maine in 1889, an unlikely event not cited by Walton. There is a citation to a 1968 book which is conveniently unavailable as near as I can find.

No American Civil War article links to this article. The George K. Broomhall name was added as a notable resident of Wayne in 2014 but that likely is because the user discovered this article. The only other article linking to this article is Broomhall (surname), a disambiguation page.

The article was proposed for deletion in 2006 Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Archive 5 as a possible hoax by User:Makemi. He was right, of course, but the article was de-proposed by the original author who was still working on it.

All this leads to the conclusion that this was an early hoax article which was correctly proposed for deletion but had the template removed by the author. There was no follow-up and being the early days of Wikipedia, it seems to have escaped further notice. It has been little viewed or linked since then. The absence of Broomhall's name in relevant reference books about American Civil War generals and with items or lists or sketches on brevet brigadier generals alone justifies deletion of this article as a hoax. This has now become one of Wikipedia's longest standing hoax articles (maybe the longest). It is time to remove it. Donner60 (talk) 22:42, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

HOAX
Patrolling sysop, please delete the article and then restore it per WP:HOAXLIST. Winged Blades Godric 04:41, 5 January 2018 (UTC)