He says he never sleeps he says he will never die and he is a great favorite

Hold up. You are confusing "Doc" Holden with "Judge" Holden. "Doc" Holden was among the men that made it to California with the scalp hunters, and may have been Charles Wilkins Webber. Samuel Chamberlain describes "Judge" Holden as "he stood six foot in his moccasins, had a large fleshy frame, a dull tallow colored face destitute of hair and all expression." Webber doesn't look like he has a "large fleshy frame", and he clearly has a beard in the photo. Furthermore, "Judge" Holden was well known child predator. Chamberlain writes: "terrible stories were circulated in camp of horrid crimes committed by him... a girl of ten years was found in the chapperal, foully violated and murdered. The mark of a huge hand on on her little throat pointed to him as the ravisher as no man had such a hand" Chamberlain also writes "Holden caught a Prima Indian girl and was proceeding to take gross liberties with her person" There is no record of Charles Wilkins Webber being a notorious child rapist. I think you are off the mark here.

I'm confused. Chamberlain said the judge was hairless. Is the judge a composite of people?

Great job again Ian. Love the substack, hoping I sell enough of my collection to cover your annual subscription haha

You’re one of the most impressive KZfaqrs I follow. I’ve done some light digging on this subject and couldn’t find a damn thing. I honestly assumed that McCarthy read a sentence or two from history and embellished the rest.

Well done. Though I feel the channel Re:wire also deserves credit as being the first channel to delve into the topic (not accusing you of stealing just bringing this to your attention).

That is one person i would not want encounter ever

Fear and Hunger 2 a popular dark video game . Father Hugo is inspired by this character and book.

Woooooow, you dug deep! :o Impressive. One thing I always wondered about Blood Meridian is why McCarthy didn't use the actual personages that Chamberlain mentioned in his memoir. And why Chamberlain himself wasn't in the book for that matter. Very intriguing stuff here. Almost like an old west conspiracy. :)

It’s definitely Charles Wilkins Webber.. however when you Google his name, the picture that comes up is NOT him, but a different man with a similar name.. thought it was worth mentioning

It would be pretty interesting to see a crossover, where Judge Holden met Jesus Christ.

I think you're right about Webber being the basis for Holden... Great research.

5:03 Pretty sure both those paintings are from Chamberlain's my confession or at least painted by chamberlain and both meant to represent "Judge Holden" not Webber. I'm not even sure Camberlain would have even known Webber by his real name were we to assume them to be the same person, also he would've have been drawing the judge from memory with many years between the events occured and the creation of his diary. The colored picture on the right also has the glanton gang in frame including John Glanton himself, John Jackson, and even what looks to be some of the native american gang members. Though this detail doesn't necesarily discredit the premise of the video.

Very well done.

Very interesting, although I disagree on Captain White being Walker.

Isn’t the drawing of the judge giving a lecture on the rock on the right also a drawing by chamberlain?

Im gonna start watching this video if i ever need motivation.

"whoever avoids evil, enter Its fear"

I noticed a couple of times when you mixed up the 1800s with the 1900s. When you said “1958” did you mean 1858? I sure hope people weren’t being killed and their heads put in jars in the 1950s! 😂

Bazinga! American history is a bottomless pit of juicy weirdness. I've never seen Alex Cox's film about Wm. Walker -- what's it called? -- but Netflix's current offering of Repo Man has reignited my desire to see it. Spoiler alert: I found BM repetitive and tedious in the second half, but so what...

He is a composite character

i dont think we will ever know the real judge holden, men back then were often not documented at all, especially out west I reckon the man probably didn't even have a birth certificate

Hell yeah dude

Could Webber play music? Was he a dancer?

1853, not 1953.

lol how did his head get in that vinegar jar. crazy!

No he was bald,silly americans😃 inthe book anyway.

I'm Irish and I'm tired of Americans pronouncing the name Cormac wrong. it's not pronounced "kor-mack" it's pronounced "kor-MUCK". not kidding. just change its spelling to Cormuc in your heads to make it easier, I dunno. I also hate the way you guys pronounce names like McGrath, Cilian, Gallagher, etc. their actual pronunciations are "muck-rAH", "kill-ee-in", and "galla-her" respectively.