According to Robert Barbour Johnson, MacNichol met Thayer while he was in New York. Johnson isn’t a reliable historian, but this claim makes sense. The two men were in New York at the same time and were well known writers. It seems likely that there social circle should overlap. MacNichol was not a science fiction writer, but did turn out fantasy and what was called the weird story (although in Twelve Lectures he warned his students that the market for such stories was small and unreliable). Given this interest, it’s not hard to imagine that MacNichol knew of Fort’s work, especially after 1941 when Thayer put out a collected volume of Fort’s four books on damned facts. So an interest in Forteana may have drawn the two together, as well. It’s all speculation at this point, though, for none of the Thayer correspondence I have seen is with MacNichol.
At any rate, we do know that MacNichol founded the San Francisco Fortean Chapter, from Johnson as well as Haas (and, through him, Herron), so, again, it makes sense that he might have met Thayer in New York and carried the interest west with him. The meetings took place at Pencraft College, which suggests that they began after 1946. Johnson’s story of Thayer expelling the chapter—more on this later—dates, through outside sources, the excommunication to 1948 or 1949. It seems likely that the club may have declined after the break-up of MacNichol and Polly Lamb, which would date the end to some time between 1951 and July 1953. Whatever was going on with the club was not attracting a great deal of attention—at least my research has uncovered no reporting on the club by the local papers.
At any rate, we do know that MacNichol founded the San Francisco Fortean Chapter, from Johnson as well as Haas (and, through him, Herron), so, again, it makes sense that he might have met Thayer in New York and carried the interest west with him. The meetings took place at Pencraft College, which suggests that they began after 1946. Johnson’s story of Thayer expelling the chapter—more on this later—dates, through outside sources, the excommunication to 1948 or 1949. It seems likely that the club may have declined after the break-up of MacNichol and Polly Lamb, which would date the end to some time between 1951 and July 1953. Whatever was going on with the club was not attracting a great deal of attention—at least my research has uncovered no reporting on the club by the local papers.
