Event: Lady Alice discovers she is with child and the Greystoke's buy child provisions to take along to Africa.
Source: This date is stretchable, and any date will be Burroughs-friendly between late January through early February. This working date is provided by me based on the assumption that most women, during that time period, are approximately two months pregnant before they discover it.
Date: May 14, 1872
Event: The Greystoke's set sail from Dover, England.
Source: In Tarzan Of The Apes the author states it is "on a bright May morning." No other dating is provided by him. A chronologist is left to guess the exact date. Picking a date is exactly that, a guess. For calendar dating this is a very important event, however, and a Burroughs-friendly working date needs to be provided.
As mentioned in previous writings, Burroughs often inserted his family genealogy dates, family & friends' names, etc. into his stories. Following the author's lead when we search the Burroughs genealogy to see if any memorable occasions occurred in May 1872 that we could use as a working date, we discover that the author's brother, Frank, was born on May 14. Keeping with Burroughs tradition, this working date is friendly with the provided descriptions and will work as good as any until something more concrete turns up.
Event: The Greystoke's arrive at Freetown where they chartered the barkentine Fuwalda.
Source: "A month later." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
Date: June 16, 1872
Event: On the morning of the second day aboard the Fuwalda Captain Billings shot Black Michael in the leg.
Source: "The morning of the second day," ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
 |
| Berne Hogarth |
Date: June 18, 1872
Event: On the fourth day aboard the Fuwalda Clayton came on deck that morning just in time to see the limp body of one of the crew being carried below by four sailors while the first mate stood glowering with a heavy belaying pin in his hand.
Source: "The second day after the wounding of Black Michael." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
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| Berne Hogarth |
Date: noon June 19, 1872
Event: At noon the Fuwalda passed a British man-of-war.
Source: "The following day," ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
 |
| Tarzan Of The Apes |
Event: The Fuwalda mutiny.
Source: "The next morning," ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
 |
| Russ Manning |
Date: June 25, 1872
Event: The Fuwalda sights land and that night Burroughs mentions Lady Alice is with a child for the first time.
Source: "On the fifth day following the murder of the ship's officers land was sighted." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
Date: June 26, 1872
Event: The Greystoke's are put ashore with all their belongings and Clayton builds a tree shelter. That night the two saw their first Mangani.
Source: "Early next morning." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes. "At night upon their first day upon land." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
Event: Clayton begins to work on a one-room cabin.
Source: The morning after seeing the Mangani, ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
Date: near the end of July 1872
Event: Clayton completes a one-room cabin built of small logs about six inches in diameter. The exterior was completely covered on the outside with four inches of mud. He had also completed a stone fireplace and chimney but had yet made a door or furnishings.
Source: "Took the better part of a month," ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
Date: August 14, 1872
Event: British warships search for the Fuwalda and find her wreckage on the shores of St. Helena.
Source: "Two months after the Greystoke's leave Freetown." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
Date: August 27, 1872
Event: Clayton hung the cabin door, completed the furnishings, and moved all their belongings inside.
Source: "By the end of the second month they were all settled," ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
Date: September 1, 1872
Event: A Mangani bull attacks Clayton while he is working on an addition to the cabin. That night Lady Alice gives birth to a healthy son.
Source: This is another event that Burroughs choice not to share the date with us. "One afternoon while Clayton was working upon an addition to their cabin he was interrupted by a group of fleeing monkies," ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes. Therefore, any date provided is mere speculation, but we still need one if you want to have a chronology. As mentioned earlier the author inserted many dates and names from the Burroughs genealogy, so when a working date is needed I follow Burroughs' tradition and also use their family genealogy.
As you can see, there will never be a way to obtain an undebatable date, but there is a way to obtain a Burroughs' friendly date. The author says the Greystoke's one-room cabin was built, furnished, and moved into by the second month. If Clayton begins work on June 27, that means the Greystoke's were well settled by August 27.
Once this project was completed it is very likely Clayton began the second addition almost immediately. "There is but one thing to do, Alice, and that is work. Work must be our salvation. We must not give ourselves time to think, for in that direction lies madness." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
Since Clayton was cutting down a tree for building purposes when the Mangani bull attacked him, it is obvious the Englishman had just finished the first section of the cabin and was just at the very beginning stage of his secondary project. If any construction on a second edition to the cabin was underway, Tarzan and the Porter party would have seen the remains upon their first visit.
When Tarzan, age ten, investigated his father's cabin years later nowhere in any of the descriptions does it hint at a semi-erected second room? John Clayton I's cabin is clearly described as having only one room. When the Porter party was beached, Tarzan age twenty, there is no hint of a semi-erected second room and the cabin is again clearly described as having only one room.
By this research, it is evident that the Mangani attacked Clayton within a few days of his August 27 completion of the first edition. To provide a Burroughs-friendly working date for this event we
go to the author's family genealogy to provide a date Burroughs could have used as a source. That day is September 1st the author's own birthday.
Event: The Fuwalda sights land and that night Burroughs mentions Lady Alice is with a child for the first time.
Source: "On the fifth day following the murder of the ship's officers land was sighted." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
 |
| Burne Hogarth |
Event: The Greystoke's are put ashore with all their belongings and Clayton builds a tree shelter. That night the two saw their first Mangani.
Source: "Early next morning." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes. "At night upon their first day upon land." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
 |
| Joe Kubert |
Date: June 27, 1872
Source: The morning after seeing the Mangani, ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
 |
| Russ Manning |
Event: Clayton completes a one-room cabin built of small logs about six inches in diameter. The exterior was completely covered on the outside with four inches of mud. He had also completed a stone fireplace and chimney but had yet made a door or furnishings.
Source: "Took the better part of a month," ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
 |
| Burne Hogarth |
Event: British warships search for the Fuwalda and find her wreckage on the shores of St. Helena.
Source: "Two months after the Greystoke's leave Freetown." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
 |
| Pablo Marcos & Oscar Gonzalez |
Event: Clayton hung the cabin door, completed the furnishings, and moved all their belongings inside.
Source: "By the end of the second month they were all settled," ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
 |
| Burne Hogarth |
Date: September 1, 1872
Event: A Mangani bull attacks Clayton while he is working on an addition to the cabin. That night Lady Alice gives birth to a healthy son.
Source: This is another event that Burroughs choice not to share the date with us. "One afternoon while Clayton was working upon an addition to their cabin he was interrupted by a group of fleeing monkies," ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes. Therefore, any date provided is mere speculation, but we still need one if you want to have a chronology. As mentioned earlier the author inserted many dates and names from the Burroughs genealogy, so when a working date is needed I follow Burroughs' tradition and also use their family genealogy.
As you can see, there will never be a way to obtain an undebatable date, but there is a way to obtain a Burroughs' friendly date. The author says the Greystoke's one-room cabin was built, furnished, and moved into by the second month. If Clayton begins work on June 27, that means the Greystoke's were well settled by August 27.
Once this project was completed it is very likely Clayton began the second addition almost immediately. "There is but one thing to do, Alice, and that is work. Work must be our salvation. We must not give ourselves time to think, for in that direction lies madness." ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.
Since Clayton was cutting down a tree for building purposes when the Mangani bull attacked him, it is obvious the Englishman had just finished the first section of the cabin and was just at the very beginning stage of his secondary project. If any construction on a second edition to the cabin was underway, Tarzan and the Porter party would have seen the remains upon their first visit.
When Tarzan, age ten, investigated his father's cabin years later nowhere in any of the descriptions does it hint at a semi-erected second room? John Clayton I's cabin is clearly described as having only one room. When the Porter party was beached, Tarzan age twenty, there is no hint of a semi-erected second room and the cabin is again clearly described as having only one room.
By this research, it is evident that the Mangani attacked Clayton within a few days of his August 27 completion of the first edition. To provide a Burroughs-friendly working date for this event we
go to the author's family genealogy to provide a date Burroughs could have used as a source. That day is September 1st the author's own birthday.
 |
| Pablo Marcos & Oscar Gonzalez |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Michael Moody is a lifelong fan and collector of Edger Rice Burroughs. Over the past forty-five years, Moody has contributed over two hundred articles to various ERB-related fanzines. He also manages an unauthorized Tarzan blog titled Greystoke Chronologist: James Michael Moody. There, the researcher chronologies the Tarzan books starting in May 1872 (known as the pushback theory) instead of the more accepted date, May 1888.
James Michael Moody also authorizes the action-packed Sci-Fi fantasy adventure Unium series. Pioneers On Unium, published December 31, 2019, Exiled On Unium, published August 25, 2022, and Swordsman On Unium, published on July 15, 2024.
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