Evaristus Sloane
Sloane is a New England inventor and wizard that created a robotic baseball-pitching machine in the shape of a humanoid [9-12]. Described as a tall old man with a mop of white hair who had a wart the size of a pea at the end of his long, pointed nose, Evaristus was a blacksmith by trade who had invented items such as a "eight-man tandem bicycle and coffins equipped with whistled and bells that you could use if you got buried alive" [9].
Evaristus lived in a house near Stark Corners, New Hampshire, first coming to Dustin Heights in the summer of 1901 to sell his pitching machine to the Duston Heights Spiders but was voted down by their star pitcher, Henry "Cyclone Dixon, Johnny's grandfather. Words were exchanged and Sloane swore he'd get back at Dixon for ruining him. Evaristus married Amelia Pimlico in his thirties, before his first robot began its killing spree, resulting in their leaving the country: Evaristus fleeing to England (hence his trace accent in later years) and Amelia heading elsewhere, communicating only by letters. While on the lamb, Evaristus dreamt up plans for a better robot and Amelia became an optometrist.
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As human eyes powered Evaristus's robot, magically taking on the shape of the deceased victim, Amelia setup an office in Duston Heights to help her husband find a new quarry for his project when the two returned to the United States years later. Amelia is described in her later years as being a burly, bossy-looking woman with bunchy gray hair and steel-rimmed spectacles [128-129, 145-146, 165].
Now, close to half a century later, Evaristus has found away to enact his revenge: the planned kidnapping of Johnny and decision to use him - rather his eyes - in the creation of another demonic robot. Thought long dead by Professor Childermass and the Dixons, his advances are not immediately recognized until Johnny disappears.
The Sloanes (nicknamed the Gruesome Twosome by Childermass [152]), own an old, blue Ford with dented right fender and missing hubcap that the use to drive around Duston Heights while preying on Johnny. Also, to avoid suspicion, Evaristus goes by the pseudonym Emmett Oglesby, owning a gas station near his home in New Hampshire. Entering their first robot into a pitching contest, Evaristus eventually dies of a stress-induced heart attack when Professor Childermass uses the Sword of Righteousness to destroy his robot; Amelia survives but is arrested on federal kidnapping charges.
Evaristus is another in a long list of strange-sounding words that Bellairs probably collected from his readings (see also Baart, Remigius), though the fifth pope, Saint Evaristus, was probably the source of the name. Next to nothing is known about him, also known as Aristus, including his birth year or the exact years of his pontificate (anywhere from A.D. 98 or 99 to 106 or 108). Tradition says he was martyred, though no historical proof remains, and he laid the foundation for the College of Cardinals.
Bellairs reveals in the text the source of the name Sloane and Pimlico: Professor Childermass minds the gap of his mind and connects the name of two stations seen on a map of the London Underground: Sloane Square and Pimlico [134-5]. On that note, Chigwell, as seen as the name of Chigwell's Pawn Shop [24-8], is also the name of a London Underground station.
Stark Corners
After Professor Childermass relates the strange story of Evaristus Sloane to Johnny Dixon, the professor decides to reactivate the robot and must therefore locate its remains. The robot, it is assumed, is "probably rusting to pieces in some barn up in New Hampshire [44]." Later we learn Sloane lived in New Hampshire, near "a little bitty burg called Stark Corners [46]." The professor makes reservations at the General Stark Inn, in Stark Corners [48] and he, Johnny, and Fergie soon begin their trek north into the White Mountains.
"Finally around six in the evening, they pulled into Stark Corners. There wasn't much to the town: a bandstand on a little patch of grass, some restaurant, two gas stations, a church, a doctor's office, and a few stores. At the far end of the main street stood a two story white inn with a long front porch. The weathered sign-board outside showed a picture of General John Stark, the cantankerous New Hampshire-man who fought in the Revolutionary War. [49]"
First, there is no Stark Corners in New Hampshire (at least a city by that name).. The closest town in name is simply Stark, located in the northwest part of the state on the northern border of the White Mountain National Forest. Stark is about three hours away from the New Hampshire-Massachusets border. Keep in mind, too, that many places called "Corners" are just intersections in the highway, as the above map seems to indicate (and some might be stark, as "barren, desolate").
Whatever town name you choose, both are named, as Bellairs writes, for General John Stark.
Stark (1728-1822) was born in Nutfield (now Londonderry) and later moved to Derryfield where his father built a small house by the Amoskeag Falls. Of all of New Hampshire's military leaders during the American Revolution, there is the most information about John Stark because Stark himself kept written records. Stark was possibly the best military leader in Granite State history. In 1809, a group of Bennington veterans invited their old commander to a banquet commemorating the battle. At 81, Stark was too infirm to attend, but in a letter to his former comrades the general wrote that they had once upon a time "taught the enemies of liberty that undisciplined freemen are superior to veteran slaves..." Noting that "the lamp of life is almost spent," but that he would remember their respect "until I go to the country from whence no traveller returns. I must soon receive marching orders," Stark closed with his now famous phrase, "Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils." In 1945 the state legislature adopted "Live Free or Die" as New Hampshire's state motto, and thus John Stark's love for the cause lives on. He died at the age of 94, reportedly the last surviving Continental general of the Revolution.
The inn in Stark is located on the banks of the Upper Ammonoosuc River and sits right next to a beautiful covered bridge built in 1862.
The only problem in saying Stark is Stark Corners is that we learn early on that Sloane did not live in Stark Corners but "in a house halfway up Mount Creed, which is the big mountain that kinda hangs over the town [55]." Later, after the Professor and Fergie have rescued Johnny from Sloane's house, "the professor did not drive toward US 302, which would have taken them home. Instead he went the other way that led toward Mount Creed [118]."
Mount Creed appears to be a Bellairsian invention and it is most likely based on any one of the peaks in the White Mountain range. US Highway 302 is an east-west thoroughfare that runs from Portland, Maine to Montpelier, Vermont. It crosses through New Hampshire in the middle of the White Mountain National Forest about thirty miles south from Stark. It should be noted that US 302 is about thirty miles north of the towns of Chocorua and Center Sandwich, familiar names from Bellairs's previous novel, The Mummy, the Will and the Crypt.
However, we forget that on the first drive north that the "professor tried to point out some scenic spots, like Mount Nancy and Mount Bemis, but they were just vague shapes behind gray veils of rain [49]." As opposed to Mount Creed, both of these peaks exist in the middle of the White Mountain National Forest. Mount Nancy (3906 feet) and Mount Bemis (3706 feet) are about due west of Notchland, New Hampshire, about forty miles south of Stark. Therefore Stark Corners would be north of these peaks and in turn gives Stark, New Hampshire a stronger case for being Bellairs's inspiration.
