Item 317: Adventures in Rocket City Lobby Card 1942

Collection Item 317: Adventures in Rocket City Lobby Card. 1942.

What possible connection does a 1942 movie serial have to the Hawkins Strongbox histories?  That is the riddle presented by Collection Item 317.

Adventures in Rocket City was a fifteen chapter movie serial produced by Hyperion-Zephyr Productions and released during the summer of 1942.  Discovered inside the Hawkins Strongbox was an original studio lobby card used to promote the picture and now archived as Collection Item 317.  The item measures 11 in x 14 in and was printed in a sepia tone black and white.

Hyperion-Zephyr Productions was a part of Hollywood's poverty row, a collection of studios that specialized in B pictures and movie serials.  The studio emerged in late 1939, taking over the former Disney Studio location at 2719 Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake neighborhood just east of Hollywood.  Walt Disney had moved his studio to Burbank earlier that year. Hyperion-Zephyr used that facility for soundstage production, while operating a backlot at the Timberjack Movie Ranch in the nearby San Fernando Valley.

Despite its second-class status in the studio hierarchy, Hyperion-Zephyr earned a reputation for producing good looking films with impressive optical and special effects that belied their typically low budgets.  While most of the other poverty row studios focused on westerns and crime dramas, Hyperion-Zephyr specialized in science fiction and fantasy adventures.  Adventures in Rocket City was one of the studio's more high profile endeavors and spawned two sequels, Revolt of the Rocket City Robots in 1944 and Rocket City Race to Jupiter in 1945.

But what connects all of this to the Hawkins Strongbox and its storied cast of 19th century historical characters?  An examination of the credits on the lobby card provides at least some answers.

Adventures in Rocket City was inspired by a series of stories by Adler Fanshaw, published in the magazine Startling Stories between 1939 and 1942.  As visitors here know, Fanshaw was a member of the Society of the Mechanical Sun.  Following his retirement from newspaper work in 1925, he wrote novels and short stories until his death on 15 August 1953.

Publicity Photo of Ted Hawkins. 1942.

The serial starred Ted Hawkins as hero Preston Powers.  Hawkins was born Theodore Victor Pepper on 20 October 1904 in Duquesne, Pennsylvania.  He was the youngest son of parents Brent Hawkins Pepper and Orphelia Burby Pepper.  His paternal grandfather was Geoffrey Hawkins.

The film was directed by Magnus Deakin. He was born in 1908 to parents Everett Deakin and Mary Ann Hughes Deakin.  His paternal grandparents were Timothy Deakin and Falynne Hyperion Deakin.  Magnus Deakin was one of four individuals who formed Hyperion-Zephyr Productions. It would appear that the name of the studio was inspired in part by Falynne Hyperion's late 19th century airship fleet. Prior to the studio's inception, Magnus Deakin worked for Walt Disney Productions where he helped develop the multiplane camera and numerous other technical innovations.

Collection Item 98: Cabinet Card of Shannon Kennicot Pepper and Brent Hawkins Pepper

We have discovered little so far within the Hawkins Strongbox that provides details of the passionate and sometimes contentious relationship between Geoffrey Hawkins and Shannon Kennicot. The two met as teenagers in their native Dixton in the late 1860s. A desultory courtship ensued over the next decade, culminating in the birth of their out-of-wedlock son Brent Hawkins, on 1 December, 1877.  Thirteen years later, mother and son posed for a photograph at Deakin Bro's studio in London. Collection Item 98 is a cabinet card of that photograph.

Item 98 has been designated as part of Lot 15: Frontier Ephemera. Robert Deakin sent the card to Geoffrey Hawkins when Hawkins was staying at the Timberjack Ranch in Nevada during the autumn of 1890. Included with the card was the following missive:

Geoffrey,

     I hope this finds you well. Young Brent asked me to send you this copy, despite his mother's objections. Your son is wise beyond his years. He may not know of the Society and the troubles with Cyncad, but he seems to truly sense you are not the devil his mother portrays you to be.  Shannon does it all to protect Brent, of this I am certain, but he will chart his own course, I am sure.

     They live comfortably as Roderick's inheritance provides for their needs. The Society endeavours to keep them safe. I hope the image cheers you as you continue to try to squelch this evil that has beset us these too many years.

                                                              Stay safe my friend,

                                                                             Robert

The note was dated 9 September 1890.

It can be assumed the Geoffrey Hawkins wanted to shield Brent and his mother from the dangers of Enoch Cyncad and thereby initiated the estrangement that Robert Deakin alludes to in the missive.

Shannon Kennicot married book publisher Roderick Pepper in 1879. Pepper in turn adopted Brent on the occasion of  the boy's fifth birthday.  Roderick Pepper died suddenly in 1888, leaving the inheritance that Deakin makes reference to. Upon reaching adulthood, Brent would join the Society of the Mechanical Sun and shortly thereafter, fight along side his father at the infamous Battle of Silver Mountain.

The Mysteries of Duquesne

As I noted in the previous post, the Hawkins Strongbox was discovered on Ocotber 17, 2003 in the cellar of my grandfather's former home. So this begs the question, what is my family's connection to this Victorian era scientist, inventor, writer and adventurer?

Quite simply, Geoffrey Hawkins is my great-great grandfather. He was born in London, England** in the year 1850. The date of his death remains unrecorded as he disappeared under mysterious circumstances during the summer of 1911. Although my family surname is Pepper, I am in fact a Hawkins by bloodline. Brent Hawkins Pepper, my great grandfather, was born out of wedlock in 1877 to parents Geoffrey Hawkins and Shannon Kennicot. When Brent was two years old, his mother married Roderick Pepper. Both mother and son had been estranged from Hawkins since Brent's birth, and Pepper subsequently adopted the lad on the occasion of Brent's fifth birthday. Despite bearing continued animosity toward Hawkins, Shannon insisted that Brent retain his father's name in some fashion. As an adult, Brent would enjoy a cordial relationship with Hawkins, but still always retained his adopted surname.

Brent Hawkins Pepper married Orphelia Burby in 1899. Their son Cedric, the first of three children, was born in January of 1900. Following service in the British army during World War I, Cedric Pepper emigrated to America in 1920. He married another English immigrant, Esme Sigismund in 1922. Cedric and Esme settled in the small western Pennsylvania steel town of Duquesne, a few miles up the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh. In November of 1928, Esme gave birth to my father William, their third child.

It remains a mystery how a strongbox belonging to Geoffrey Hawkins came to be buried in a dark corner of his grandson's coal cellar. Cedric and Esme Pepper built their Duquesne home in 1946, some thirty-five years after Geoffrey Hawkins vanished from history. My father William Pepper has no recollection of his father ever speaking about Hawkins; the strongbox was a secret buried both literally and figuratively. As yet, nothing found within the Hawkins Strongbox has provided any explanation as to how it journeyed from Victorian England to mid-2oth century western Pennsylvania.

*The spot illustration shown above was originally published in the winter 1885 issue of the Hawkins Journal of Advance Science and Industry.  It is likely that the artist used a 1884 cabinet card (HS Item 254) as his reference.

**CORRECTION:  Geoffrey Hawkins was born in Dixton near the town of Monmouth in south Wales.  See Correspondences: A Long Term Venture, Max Planck and More (4 February, 2010) for complete details.