| Joseph Bushnell Ames | |
| Birth Date: | 9 August 1878 |
| Birth Place: | Titusville, Pennsylvania |
| Death Place: | Morristown, New Jersey |
| Education: | Stevens Institute of Technology |
| Occupation: | Novelist |
| Relatives: | Peter Ashmun Ames (brother) Daniel Bushnell (great-grandfather) |
Joseph Bushnell Ames (August 9, 1878 – June 20, 1928) was an American novelist during the early 20th century.[1]
Joseph Bushnell Ames was born on August 9, 1878, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, the son of Elias Hurlbut Ames (1851-1891) and Eleanor Gray Bushnell (1855-1946).[2] Both Ames' father and maternal grandfather, Joseph Bushnell (1831–1918), came from old New England families and became wealthy during the Pennsylvania Oil Rush. Ames' great-grandfather was the Pittsburgh industrialist Daniel Bushnell.[3] After Elias Ames' death of pneumonia in 1891 at age 39, Joseph's mother moved the family to Morristown, New Jersey, where her children had a privileged upbringing in the town that was then known as an "inland Newport.".[4] Ames attended St. Mark's School and the Stevens Institute of Technology, graduating from the latter in 1901.[5] Ames then worked as a mechanical engineer in Morristown, New Jersey for a time, until he quit that profession and began writing.[6]
Ames wrote over a dozen novels, primarily Westerns, during the 1910s and 1920s.[7] Some of his works, including the posthumously published The Bladed Barrier, included fantasy themes. While Ames' books were set in the Western United States (the famous Pete, cow-puncher - A Story of the Texas Plains, is one example), it is unclear whether he ever travelled there extensively.[8] His novel Shoe-Bar Stratton was made into the 1922 Western film Catch My Smoke, directed by William Beaudine and featuring actors Tom Mix and Lillian Rich.[9]
For most of his writing career Ames lived in "Willow Hall," a mansion on his estate, "Speedwell," in Morristown, New Jersey. The estate was the former residence of industrialist George Vail. Today the home is preserved as a historic site.[10] Ames' brother Peter Ashmun Ames, to whom Joseph dedicated his 1921 novel The Emerald Buddha, was an American who served in the British Army in the Grenadier Guards during World War I and then as a British military intelligence spymaster and a member of the Cairo Gang, until Bloody Sunday, when Lt. Ames was assassinated in Dublin by order of Michael Collins during the Irish War of Independence.[11] The philanthropist Mary Warden Harkness, wife of Charles W. Harkness, was a first cousin of Ames' mother Eleanor.[12]