Walking quietly with a can of snakes
The adventures of a Missouri eccentric in the early 20th century.
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Two dog skulls One white and black cat One Maltese cat One box jimpson weed salve Two grasshopper skeletons Three hundred beetles Sixty butterflies, some with spots on them Six coyote tails Twelve pairs tiger claws One turtle liver
I was intrigued to read this list of property that went missing from a chicken coop in Kansas City, Missouri, in August 1907.1 Some reports of the incident included additional curiosities – three toad skin purses; one lizard carcass; medicines made from herbs of all kinds; snakes, toads, lizards and bugs. On further investigation, I found the story of an interesting character who lived according to his own rules. The Kansas City Journal described his behaviour as follows:
“Dr” Bohl goes about town carrying a small hand satchel. In it, he most always has a live toad, a turtle or a snake. He will pick up any kind of a snake just as easily as one would a straw … He is regarded as exceedingly eccentric.
Otto Bohl (1846-1930) made a small income from the sale of a pile salve that he compounded from jimson weed (stramonium). This ‘botanist, naturalist, vegetarian and snake charmer’ had asked Andor and Rosa Kiss of Clinton Place if he could live in their henhouse in return for looking after the lawn and flower beds. They refused, but he moved in anyway, ‘much to the discomfort of [Kiss’s] chickens.’2
The smell of boiling herbs and regular bonfires proved a nuisance, and as Bohl’s collection of junk and animals expanded across the yard, they wanted him gone. In August 1907, they had him arrested for breach of the peace. Mrs Kiss said in court:
He has a menagerie out there which has frightened the whole neighbourhood. We are afraid his animals or varmints will get loose. Then he came out there Sunday with a gallon of whiskey, got full on it and laid out in the rain and mud most of the day.3
Dr Bohl (who was probably not really a doctor but said he had attended university back in Germany) had been cultivating a botanical garden of species from all over the world, centred around an old tree stump near the chicken coop.
‘This woman, judge,’ he said. ‘She chased me three times around my botanical stump with a hoe. I made my exit into the weeds.’
The judge dismissed him and warned him to keep away from the Kiss place, but he claimed they had stolen or destroyed his possessions. A week later, they were all back in court with Andor Kiss as the defendant, charged with destruction of property. The judge threw the case out, while Kiss opined of Bohl: ‘He is a regular nuisance, and his medicine is not fit for a dog.’4
Bohl does appear to have moved out of the henhouse but started camping on a vacant lot nearby, and circulated a petition among the neighbours to campaign for police protection against Kiss. One man who signed, J B Rohrbach, went round to visit the campsite and incurred the wrath of Mr and Mrs Kiss, who shouted at him and threatened him with ‘a revolver as big as a cannon.’ Once again, Kiss was arrested and this time fined $3.
Meanwhile, Bohl was continuing his zoological studies. He found a nest of garter snakes, which he lured into a bottle and took to the office of Harry Walmsley, Vice President of the Zoological Society, who had purchased snakes from him before. He left it on the desk, but when Walmsley returned, he found only an empty bottle. The baby snakes roamed free in the huge Keith & Perry Building, making the office workers jump every time a rubber band or piece of string fell on the floor.5
Two years later, the Kansas City Star reported that tensions remained high in Clinton Place:
Behold now Chapter two hundred and umpterarum of the never-ending feud of Dr Otto Bohl, ‘animalologist’, and Anton Kiss, a furrier.
Bohl was back in court, accused of sending Mrs Kiss a postcard with ‘improper matter’ written on it. He argued that Mr Kiss had sent it himself in an attempt to ‘get the doctor in bad.’6 Bohl was acquitted.
His capacity for making enemies persisted and, in 1917, we find reports of a quarrel with another member of the German-speaking community.
Bohl was ‘walking quietly with a can of snakes’7 along Walnut Street when a friend, a janitor in a the Gloyd building, invited him in for a chat. Also in attendance was Professor Paul de Luxe von Seidendoerfer, whom Bohl had met once before. The three conversed for hours, but von Seidendoerfer became irritated with what he saw as Bohl’s lies about the old country. These were rather trivial – for example, that 20 feet of snow had once fallen on the University of Eisenach’s roof, or that a particular English book had been available in Germany long before it really was – but von Seidendoerfer’s anger increased. By 2am, a full-blown argument was in progress.
Bohl escalated it by challenging him to a duel. The choice of weapons was not made clear but on learning of the challenge, the newspapers speculated that 72-year-old, 125lb Bohl did not stand a chance against his much younger adversary, who was 6 feet tall and weighed over 300lb. In any case, von Seidendoerfer thought the whole thing too stupid to bother with and the duel never went ahead.
Reading these reports – which were almost certainly exaggerated by newspapers seeking entertainment from their local eccentric – I found Bohl quite a sympathetic character who must have been interesting to know. I admit I might not say that, however, if he were boiling up pile ointment in a chicken coop on my lawn.