In the seven years and ten months between the time John Rowlands set sail from Liverpool and returned from Turkey as Henry Stanley, Uncle Tom and Aunt Maria Morris had moved from Roscommon Street. They now lived in a smaller home in Davies Street, 1½ miles away in Liverpool’s Whitechapel district – and the last thing they expected to find on their doorstep on a grey, wet autumn morning was their 24-year-old nephew ‘John’ with a young American stranger.
Stanley explained that he was planning to visit Wales, hoping to be reconciled with his mother, and said he would be obliged if Lewis Noe could lodge at Davies Street until his return. Uncle Tom and Aunt Maria could hardly say no and agreed to provide lodging for the boy, who understood nothing of what was said in the Welsh-speaking household or why the Morrises addressed their nephew as ‘John’.
It was only after Stanley had departed for Wales that Noe learned of his companion’s mysterious past and true identity from Uncle Tom and Aunt Maria in the ‘humble circumstances’ of their Liverpool home. He recalled: ‘I remained for some weeks with his uncle and aunt and was most kindly treated by them, though they were ill able to bear the burden of my support. I frequently urged Stanley by letter to send me means to reach my home, but without success and was unable to leave Liverpool until I received means from my parents.’
Meanwhile, a young man of below average height, with a light moustache and sporting the dark blue uniform of a foreign military officer, was walking through Denbigh’s narrow streets, politely lifting his hat and wishing passers-by ‘a very good mornin’ to you, Sir, and you, too, Ma’am’ in an American drawl. The courteous young American with noble bearing, charm and impeccable manners impressed the locals. For most, this was the first time they had met, let alone spoken to, an American – and they liked what they heard and saw.
Was it coincidence, or the act of a young man keen to earn extra shillings, that Stanley’s story from the Levant Herald about being robbed and assaulted was now published in one of Denbighshire’s local newspapers, the Flintshire Observer, on Friday 2 November 1866? The piece, published from the paper’s Holywell editorial offices shortly after Stanley’s return to his hometown, identified ‘Mr Henry Stanley’ as ‘one of the number’ involved in the incident, stating that he was an American. The story provided no further information about the author, his true identity or the fact that he was in Wales seeking reconciliation with his mother and no longer known as John Rowlands. Stanley was hoping she might be more welcoming once she learned of the hardships he had endured in Turkey – and saw him wearing a smart foreign military uniform.
With these thoughts in his mind and his mother’s previous parting words never to return until he was better dressed still ringing in his ears, Stanley made his way to the Cross Foxes public house in Abbot Street, Glascoed, where he politely asked to see the landlady, Mrs Jones. While someone went to fetch the lady of the house, the young man in uniform remained in the public bar. When Betsy appeared the first thing she saw was the back of her unexpected visitor. She asked how she could help, and the stranger turned and said: ‘Hello, Mam.’
The landlady scrutinised the stranger and recognised that it was her son, John Rowlands, who stood before her – not the sickly ragamuffin who had turned up at her door fresh from a prison camp four years earlier, but a smart, tanned, bright-eyed 24-year-old who, by the look of the uniform, had made something of himself.
The meeting proved a turning point in the relationship between Betsy and her son. Although they were never to become close, Stanley managed to convince his estranged mother that he wanted nothing from her apart from her acceptance and a chance to get to know his stepbrothers Robert and James and stepsister, Emma. His efforts paid off and Stanley spent the rest of November, the Christmas and New Year holidays at the Cross Foxes, regaling his mother, her husband, his younger brothers and sister with exciting fireside stories of his life and adventures. Letters to Lewis Noe in Liverpool, including one dated 25 December 1866, inviting the young American to ‘come on to Wales and see his folks. He strongly urged me to do so – indeed, he insisted upon it.’ However, Noe remained in Liverpool with Uncle Tom and Aunt Maria.
Stanley revisited the scene of his earliest childhood at Denbigh Castle again – this time as a tourist. On 14 December 1866 he wrote the following untruth in the Royal Denbigh Bowls Club visitors’ book:
John Rowlands formerly of this castle, now Ensign in the United States Navy in North America belonging to the US Ship Ticonderoga now at Constantinople, Turkey. Absent on furlough.
Before leaving to rejoin Noe in Liverpool, Stanley could not resist putting on his fake uniform again and paying a call on staff and inmates at St Asaph’s workhouse. James Francis had been dead for several years and the schoolmaster was now a Captain Thomas, who was impressed when the young man turned up to talk to junior inmates. Writing in the Denbigh Free Press only days after Stanley’s death in 1904, G.T. Miller, a former workhouse guardian, recalled: ‘Captain Thomas praised Stanley for what he had done; that he was not ashamed to acknowledge having been reared in the workhouse after raising himself to the position he then held and pointed out to those present what could be done by lads having grit and energy in them. Captain Thomas also thanked Stanley for giving the children the treat, and said he was proud of him.’
While still with his ‘folks’ in Denbigh, Stanley received another letter from Lewis Noe pleading for money for a passage home to America and revealing that he knew everything about his friend’s identity and early life in Wales. The letter prompted Stanley to rush back to Liverpool in January 1867 for a heated argument with Noe in the front parlour of his aunt and uncle’s home. According to Noe, Stanley ‘commenced a tirade against me with his uncle and aunt in Welsh. His uncle interjected: “Speak English, so that the boy (meaning me) can understand what you say. I don’t want anything said so that Lewis cannot take his own part.”’
On 12 January 1867, Stanley wrote to Noe’s parents giving them a long account of their Turkish journey and urging them to send money to their son. By 18 January Stanley had suddenly left Uncle Tom and Aunt Maria’s home and was himself back on the high seas aboard the steamer Damascus heading out across the Atlantic. He wrote a short letter to Noe, posted during a transit stop in Londonderry, telling of his plans to head west to Missouri where he intended to land a job as a newspaper reporter.
Noe’s parents managed to scrape money together and forwarded it to their hapless son on the other side of the Atlantic. He sailed home in March and in April received a letter from Stanley in St Louis informing him that he was working as a ‘special correspondent’ with the Missouri Democrat for a weekly salary of $15, plus expenses, ‘writing up Northwestern Missouri, and Kansas and Nebraska’. This sparsely populated region was larger than the United Kingdom and infamous for hostile Indians on the warpath with new settlers, ramshackle and lawless towns with cowpoke populations, lively saloons and a scattering of US army forts to help keep a fragile peace. For Henry Stanley, ‘special correspondent’, this all spelled adventure and opportunities to create lively and imaginative copy direct from the heartland of America’s frontier. In keeping with the popular tradition of the time, it also permitted him to add a middle initial to his name, allowing his stories to be credited to the impressive-sounding ‘Henry M. Stanley’ – the letter M sometimes standing for ‘Moreland’ and at others for ‘Morton’.