The United Bohemian Society

The name of this society is actually derived from Bohemia in Czechoslovakia, not the lifestyle. The "United" element indicates that the society at was made open to Moravians in 1878, a good twenty-five years after the Bohemian Society was founded in 1853. The society was initially a cultural association, but it transformed during the 1880s and 1890s into a space and meeting hall that used to be available to the general public as well as a charitable association that benefited all of Arkham. The main hall can be rented for events on Wednesdays through Saturdays.

The former chairman of the United Bohemian Society was Mr. Zygmunt Prka, a respected and engaged citizen and businessman in the import and export business. Prka was also the secretary of the Benevolent Society of Our Lady of Alexandria, a spiritual gentlemen's club which was located on the top floor of the building that houses the United Bohemian Society. Its former members are now facing serious charges for arson and manslaughter.

The United Bohemian Society is located in Alexandria house on 512 South Sentinel Street, at the intersection of East High Street.

A series of weird events took place in Alexandria House between May 25 and 26. On the afternoon of May 25, Mr. Joe Morgan, the driver and butler of Mr. Zygmunt Prka, was shot and killed by unknown perpetrators just outside the building. The Arkham police department was summoned, the inhabitants of the building were questioned, and a police officer was posted to guard the building and the crime scene. The detectives remarked that Mr. Prka seemed to have gathered members of the Benevolent Society of Our Lady of Alexandria on the top floor of the building, and that the members seemed disturbingly disheveled, and that the place was remarkably cold and harboring a vile stench that was difficult to categorize, yet wholly repulsive. 

Next day, May 26, the Arkham fire department was called after an explosion was heard and heavy smoke was seen coming out of Alexandria House. The firemen were horrified to find officer James Branagan nailed to the front porch, and a scene of mayhem and carnage inside the building. There had been some form of mass homicide in what seemed to be ritualistic and unwholesome circumstances. The Arkham Police Department refused to discuss any of the details, save that Mr. Prka was found dead, having suffered gruesome mutilation, and that several bodies were still to be identified. Rumors have claimed that a few well-known Arkhamites were found among the dead, but this has yet to be confirmed.   

The main hall of the United Bohemian Society

The late Mr. Zygmunt Prka

Alexandria House brfore the mayhem of May 26, 1923.

The Ascension Club

This club was formed in 1920, and it is an invitation-only club open to both ladies and gentlemen after 4 p.m. The relatively small and smoky salon is crammed with chairs and small tables in front of a small stage, where some of the most interesting cultural performances and lectures of Arkham are presented at least four times a week. The owner and host of the club is Madame Alberta von Schantz, a widow who inherited a sizeable amount of money, which enabled her to pursue her life-long interest in the arts. The crowd is quite eclectic, and there have been one or two colorful scandals under the rafters of the Ascension Club. The Ascension Club is located on 1201 West Pickman Street between South West Street and South Garrison Street.

Madame Alberta von Schanz

Saturday evening at the Ascension Club

The Pawtuxet Hotel and the Metropolitan Restaurant

The Pawtuxet Hotel opened just about a year ago, and it is one of the more popular spots in Arkham for socializing. The Metropolitan Restaurant on the first floor serves breakfast, lunch and dinner in a modern, yet stylish dining room, and the lounge is almost always filled to capacity. A separate dining room is available for more intimate gatherings. Prominent Arkhamites noted amongst the tables of the Met include Mayor the Honorable Jonathan D. Bryce, Industrialist Horace W. Pettinkoffer, Author Ella B. Cocker, Outfielder Henry “Flash” Simmons, and Attorney James E. Biron. The Pawtuxet Hotel is located on 201 East Peabody Street at the corner of North Armitage Street and overlooking Independence Square. 

The Metropolitan Restaurant

 Ms. Ella B. Cocker in conversation with Ms. Jacqueline du Plessis outside the Pawtuxet.

The Pawtuxet Hotel

NPCs

Professor Trevor Artburthnot Wyndham is a professor of anthropology and religion at the Miscatonic University. He has a B.A. in anthropology from Harvard and an M.A. in religion from Fordham University. Wyndham has had a life-long interest in pre-Columbian societies with a special focus on South America for most of his life, despite almost being killed by the Rumbaba tribesmen while exploring eastern Peru together with professor Herbert Ridgewell of the Oxford University in 1899. Following this calamitous expedition, Wyndham gained some notoriety by claiming extensive contacts between various native Amerian tribes, pharaonic Egypt and old Tibet. However, Wyndham did recant from these theories in 1906, and he proceeded to dedicate himself to more conventional fields of study. He was given tenure as a professor of anthropology in 1915, taking the chair of the late professor David St. Hubbins. Wyndham has been fundraising for the Wyndham-Jones expedition to Peru and Bolivia since 1919, and expedition was finally launched in September of 1922. Rumors have been rife about the undertakings of the expedition, but most of them seem to have emanated from envious colleagues in academia, since the expedition seems to have been quite successful.

Dr. Henry Wilbur Jones was originally a linguist, but he started working with professor Wyndham in 1908. He is nowadays a historian focused on religion, and he has translated Eduardo Mendéz-Sotomayor’s legendary Historia del paganism en el Nuevo Mundo from 1703 into both English and German. Jones is also a fairly proficient amateur boxer and an accomplished big game hunter.

Sylvia Elice Sasso has just married James E. Biron. She is a fairly well-known socialite in Boston and Arkham, although her family is originally from Marblehead up north. Her family lost most of their fortune in a spectacular legal battle with the Olmstead family of Kingsport in 1872, but the Sassos did eventually reinvent themselves as publishers of the New England Style and Manners, the first local women’s periodical dealing with items besides housekeeping, which was published for the first time in 1912. There are some rumors concerning Ms. Sasso’s patronage of certain clubs, including some supposedly unsavory stage performances, but this has been dismissed as mere slander.

James Eric Biron is actually descended from Curonian aristocracy. His family was forced to flee Imperial Russia in the mid-eighteenth century, and a branch eventually settled in Boston. The family has done quite well, and James E. Biron is a successful Boston attorney and a dedicated art collector. His collection of native folk art has been displayed in several museums and galleries over the last couple of years

Dr. Harold Charles de Winter is a former professor at Miscatonic University. He is a notorious crank, but even his foes admit that he is an outstanding scholar, especially regarding New England’s early and pre-Columbian history. He was removed from Miscatonic after a commission of inquiry found him engaged in unethical practices, and it deserves to be mentioned that professor Wyndham was the deputy chair of the commission.

William Harris George, a deceased fisherman. He has in all likelihood nothing to do with expeditions to South America, but made some great jokes about the Kraken. He was quite a character, well-known and well-liked in many New England ports.

ARKHAM ADVERTISER                                                                                   Tuesday, May 1, 1923 _________________________________________________________________________________________________ TROPICAL EXPLORERS RETURN FROM BOLIVIA TO ARKHAM Trekked uncharted jungle in Bolivia – Struggle against climate, disease and savage natives – Rare specimen and fantastic finds to be exhibited at Miscatonic University ___________ ARKHAM, APRIL 28 -- The Wyndham-Jones expedition returned to Arkham on April 27 after more than  six months in the mostly uncharted eastern provinces of Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija. The leader of the expedition, Professor Trevor A. Wyndham of the Miskatonic University, read a brief statement to the press as a great amount of boxes were being unloaded at the Arkham train station early that morning: “I am pleased to announce the return of our expedition. It has been quite successful, and our many finds will contribute greatly to the understanding of both the natural and the pre-Columbian history of Latin America. An exhibit displaying many of our finds will open at the Miskatonic University’s Fulbright Hall on Friday, May 4.” Professor Wyndham thereafter proceed to oversee the unloading of the train cars without taking any questions from the assembled press. Professor Wyndham. _______________________________________________ Ku Klux Klan on the Rise Patriots or Poltroons? ________ The Ku Klux Klan had been defunct for nearly a half-century when William J. Simmons decided to revive the organization in the fall of 1915. A resident of Atlanta, Simmons worked for a fraternal benefit society called the Woodmen of the World, and he already belonged to more than a dozen clubs and churches. But he had dreamed for years about founding a fraternal order himself someday, and with D.W. Griffith’s cinematic paean to the Klan, The Birth of a Nation, scheduled to debut in Atlanta, the inspiration and the timing seemed right. On Thanksgiving night, after riding with about 15 other men in a rented tour bus to a large granite formation outside of the city known as Stone Mountain, Simmons lit a wooden cross aflame and announced the rebirth of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Advertised by Simmons in Atlanta newspapers as “The World’s Greatest Secret, Social, Patriotic, Fraternal, Beneficiary Order” and a “High Class Order for Men of Intelligence and Character,” the new Klan floundered for several years. It had attracted just a few thousand members by the spring of 1920, when Simmons hired Mary Elizabeth Tyler and Edward Young Clarke as publicity agents and promoters for the group. Tyler and Clarke divided the entire country into what amounted to sales territories and they sent more than 1,000 solicitors into the field to recruit members whose $10 membership fee for the Klan went in part to the solicitors as commission (con’t on page 4). Rare Items to be Exhibited Indian artifacts and unique plants, animals among _______ ARKHAM, April 28 — This morning, Dr. Henry W. Jones, the co-organizer of the Wyndham-Jones expedition, met the press to provide some details concerning the finds of the expedition. According to Dr. Jones, the finds include several specimen of pre-historic fish thought to have been extinct for at least 750,000 years; several species of previously undiscovered birds and lizards; and a wide array of art from such tribes as the Gomorqi, the Xalenque and the Arumbayas. Being that Standard Oil sponsored the expedition, several surveys were also undertaken to ascertain to suitability of the provinces for oil production, the results of which have excited both the Miscatonic University Department of Geology as well as Standard Oil.     A unknown idol from the Arumbaya tribe National Affairs: Throw Them Out! _____ NEW YORK CITY --- Mr. Nathaniel A. Elsberg was elected to a second term as President of the National Republican Club. In accepting the re-election he made a pointed little speech. Said he: "I want to see the time, and that soon, when men who have been elected by Republican votes and supported by Republican newspapers and who call themselves Republicans, but who at every opportunity assail a Republican administration, President and Cabinet, are thrown out of the Republican party and over into the Democratic party, where they belong.” Veteran Peaks Island Fisherman Drops Dead ___________ SALEM, Ma, April 27 – William H. George, 87, a fisherman until 10 years ago and a well-known resident of Peaks Island, died today after being stricken with a shock on Commercial St. He was hurried to the Salem General Hospital in the police ambulance, but died on the way. He was a native of Kingsport, and is survived by his son Walther F. George. _____________________________ WEDDING BELLS ARKHAM, April 30. A very pretty wedding was solemnized at Holy Trinity Church, the contracting parties being Mr. J. Eric Biron, eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Biron of Boston, and Miss Sylvia Elice Sasso, of Marblehead. The Rev. Fr. Cronin, S. J. officiated, and the church was crowded inside and outside with friends and well-wishers of the couple and their parents. The reception was held at the Glenroy, South Camp Road, the home of the bride’s parents, and was largely attended. The presents were numerous and costly.