Fall River Has Been the Butt of Jokes for a Long Time

Poor Fall River.

The city always seems to be the subject of jokes. People laugh at its "We'll Try" motto, whose real meaning has been diluted over the last 200 years. Others scoff at the city being best known for a couple of gruesome murders in the 19th century. I once asked folks on Facebook for their favorite ways to spend summer in Fall River. "Go to the beach in Westport," my wry friend Tommy replied. Fair enough, but ouch.

This drubbing is nothing new. Fall River has long been fodder for witty minds, even back when the city was one of the most successful on the planet thanks to the Industrial Revolution.

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The proof is in the dusty back pages of a century-old book by one of America's most celebrated writers.

Robert Benchley: 'Fall River Is Fall River'

My history buff father, Mark, born and raised in Fall River, recently handed me Of All Things, a 1921 collection of essays by Robert Benchley, one of his favorite authors. I'm not sure where Dad got it from but the circulation history notes it was last checked out of Fall River Public Library in 1966.

"This book may be kept fourteen days," the listing warns. "A fine of two cents will be charged for each day the book is kept overtime."

I sure hope not.

READ MORE: How Fall River Became 'the Scholarship City'

Who's to say the library would even want the book back? While well-written and funny, it doesn't leave the reader with the warm and fuzzies about the city.

Take this bit about the Old Fall River Line, the popular steamboat service to New York, and a conversation between an abolitionist and a Civil War general that may or may not have happened:

And the old Fall River Line! What memories does that name not awaken in the minds of globe-trotters? Or, rather, what memories does it awaken? William Lloyd Garrison is said to have remarked upon one occasion to Benjamin Butler that one of the most grateful features of Fall River was the night-boat for New York. To which Butler is reported to have replied: "But, my dear Lloyd, there is no night-boat to New York, and there won't be until along about 1875 or even later. So your funny crack, in its essential detail, falls flat."

Garrison and my friend Tommy seem to have something in common. What's Garrison's favorite part about Fall River? The boat to New York. It stings a little.

Benchley ended the observation, which originally appeared in a magazine, with another playful get-out-of-town dig:

But, regardless of all this, the fact remains that Fall River is Fall River, and that it is within easy motoring distance of Newport, which offers our art department countless opportunities for charming illustrations.

In the interest of fairness, I should note that Benchley's other descriptions of Fall River come off a bit nostalgic, flattering and earnest. He references the "clanging trolley-cars and noisy drays" of Main Street, the "swirl of the smoke from the towering stacks" and the "humming looms" of Fall River's textile mills, and the days when "old gentlemen in belted raglans and cloth-topped boots strolled through these streets."

Robert Benchley Was a Massachusetts Original

Benchley likely knew Fall River well. New England often found its way into his writing.

Born in Worcester in 1889, the son of a Civil War veteran, he went to Harvard University and became an editor at The Harvard Lampoon (about 80 years before fellow Massachusetts comedy legend Conan O'Brien did the same thing). After some unfulfilling jobs, he found his voice as a humorist and critic, gaining fame through pieces in Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and other publications. He was a member of the famed Algonquin Round Table, a group of sharp minds who gathered regularly in New York.

Benchley also became an actor, mainly in short comedies, playing the part of a bumbling everyman.

With his wife, Gertrude, he had two children and two grandchildren, one of whom, Peter Benchley, went on to write Jaws.

Benchley died in 1945 at 56. All these years later, he's remembered not only for his talent but for not taking himself and the world around him too seriously.

That's apparent in Of All Things, his 1921 book. The dedication is to steel manufacturer Henry Bessemer, who died 23 years earlier. The preface is the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Benchley's initials -- not Thomas Jefferson's -- are at the bottom.