The Man Inside the Mansion
You’ve seen the mansion. Now meet the man.
John B. Stetson was the inspiration for Theodore Stevens, the lead ghost in my book Back in Time. I didn’t have to dig down deep to be inspired. I drive past the Stetson Mansion every time I head to the grocery store.
Sometimes I look up at the third-floor windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of his ghost—because John Stetson actually died there, of a stroke, while he was preparing for a bath. Eeeeek.
Up to that point, however, he’d always been larger than life. Stetson was born in 1830 in Orange, New Jersey, the son of a hatter. He learned the trade early, then struck out on his own after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. TB was basically a death sentence back then—so he went west in search of better health and a little adventure.
That trip changed his life. Out on the frontier, he saw what working people actually needed from a hat: shade, durability, weather protection, and a little bit of swagger. Eventually, he turned that insight into the hat that made him famous, the Boss of the Plains.
In 1865, he opened a hat business in Philadelphia, and it grew into one of the largest hat companies in the world. That part of the story feels very American to me: one man, one practical idea, and then a tidal wave of success.
But Stetson wasn’t just a businessman. He also developed a reputation for looking after his workers, building medical facilities and helping employees secure affordable homes.
He was generous far beyond his own company, too. He gave to charities in Philadelphia, supported the YMCA, and helped transform education in DeLand. His gifts to the DeLand Academy were so significant that the school was renamed Stetson University in 1889.
So yes, Theodore Stevens may be fiction—but John B. Stetson gave me more than enough material to haunt a story.