Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
ONLY AUTHENTIC PORTRAIT OF
WILHELM HEINRICH SEBASTIAN VON TROOMP
(FROM THE OIL PAINTING).
BARON TRUMP’S
MARVELLOUS
UNDERGROUND
JOURNEY
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF WILHELM HEINRICH
SEBASTIAN VON TROOMP, COMMONLY
CALLED LITTLE BARON TRUMP
As doubting Thomases seem to take particular pleasure inpopping up on all occasions, Jack-in-the-Box-like, it may be wellto head them off in this particular instance by proving thatBaron Trump was a real baron, and not a mere baron of themind. The family was originally French Huguenot—De laTrompe—which, upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in1685, took refuge in Holland, where its head assumed the nameof Van der Troomp, just as many other of the French Protestantsrendered their names into Dutch. Some years later, uponthe invitation of the Elector of Brandenburg, Niklas Van derTroomp became a subject of that prince, and purchased a largeestate in the province of Pomerania, again changing his name,this time to Von Troomp.
The “Little Baron,” so called from his diminutive stature,was born some time in the latter part of the seventeenth century.He was the last of his race in the direct line, although cousinsof his are to-day well-known Pomeranian gentry. He beganhis travels at an incredibly early age, and filled his castle withsuch strange objects picked up here and there in the far awaycorners of the world, that the simple-minded peasantry came tolook upon him as half bigwig and half magician—hence thevigrowth of the many myths and fanciful stories concerning thisindefatigable globe-trotter. The date of his death cannot befixed with any certainty; but this much may be said: Amongthe portraits of Pomeranian notables hanging in the Rathhausat Stettin, there is one picturing a man of low stature, and witha head much too large for his body. He is dressed in some outlandishcostume, and holds in his left hand a gro