Cyrus Townsend Brady

A naval officer turned Episcopal priest, Cyrus Townsend Brady (1861 to 1920) left the United States Naval Academy in 1883, served three years at sea, then took work on the Missouri Pacific and Union Pacific railroads before ordination as deacon in 1889 and priest in 1890. Years as an itinerant missionary across five western states gave him his material, and he wrote fast: histories and historical romances of the Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Civil War. A Little Traitor to the South (1904) is set in Charleston in 1864 and turns on the volunteer crew who took a small submersible out against the Union blockade. Secret Service (1912) is his prose version of William Gillette's stage hit, a Union agent's night in Richmond in the spring of 1865. A Christmas When the West Was Young (1913) draws on his missionary years, and By the World Forgot (1917) is an island romance, filmed the following year. From 1914 he wrote scenarios for the Vitagraph company. He preached against votes for women, telling a congregation in 1915 that a woman voter was an insult to God. Pneumonia killed him at Yonkers, New York, aged 58.