Haldon Chase

Haldon Chase (1923–2006) was an American archaeologist known for his research on several rock art sites in Colorado. Outside of archaeology, he was best known as part of the earliest Beat circle and inspiration for several characters in the novels of Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.

Early life Chase was born around 1923 in Denver, Colorado, where he was brought up. In high school, by composing a fictional dialogue between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, he attracted the attention of an official and a Columbia alumnus from Denver called Justin Brierly. Brierly, who had a reputation of selecting young male protégés and placing them to his own alma mater, recommended Chase to Columbia University.

Chase met Joan Vollmer in New York in the early 1940s, and became one of Vollmer's tenants in the apartments at 421 West 118th Street (1943 – 1944) and at 419 West 115th Street (1945 – 1946) in New York. The other people who shared or frequented Vollmer's apartments in the period would later be known as the Beat Generation figures, including Edie Parker, Lucien Carr, Allen Ginsberg (who shared a room with Chase the latter of whom was intrigued by Chase's "outgoing ease and sexual prowess".

Back in Denver, Chase had been the friend and mentor of Neal Cassady, who was then another notable protégé of Brierly's. Cassady would then soon become a prominent figure of the group, and the muse who inspired Kerouac's and Ginsberg's numerous works, including two of Kerouac's most famous novels, On the Road and Visions of Cody.

Chase moved out of the 115th Street apartment in 1946, drifting away from the scene, because he disapproved of the Beat circle's lifestyle. He was thereafter less often heard of by the Beat writers.

In 1949, upon hearing that Chase was back in Colorado for some archaeological field work, Kerouac called Chase in the hope of reunion. Although they had a long talk over the phone, Chase did not agree to see him, which was, according to Kerouac, possibly because Chase's wife disapproved. Kerouac wrote in his letter to Ginsberg, "Hal is really dead."

In 1951, Chase went to Mexico and briefly reunited with some of the Beats there, including William Burroughs, and Frank Jeffries, his childhood friend who also went to Columbia University. Chase and Burroughs encountered in a bar in Mexico City, where Burroughs asked Chase to spend the night with him but was rejected. In the same year, Chase also came upon Vollmer whom he found in a bad shape. After Burroughs shot Vollmer in the head, killing her, Chase distanced himself from Burroughs.

Marriage with Ginger Bailey Virginia Bailey (nicknamed "Ginger") was born in 1928 in New York City, the youngest of three children born to musician parents. Her father, named Charles Bailey, was a voice teacher, and her mother, Ida Mayhew, taught piano. In the early 1940s, she worked as a model for perfume advertisements, as well as a singer and guitarist in night clubs. Around this time, she met Kerouac and started a short-lived romantic relationship with him (Kerouac mentioned her as "Dark Eyes" in his journal

Bailey assisted Chase in most of his archaeological field projects. When Chase went to Mexico City to study the Zapotec languages, Bailey also went with him. However, their marriage was said to have been undermined by the disagreement that, while Bailey was interested in field work, Chase preferred her to keep house for him. Chase had also worked for the Peabody Museum at Harvard, the Denver Art Museum, and Louden-Henritze Archaeology Museum in Trinidad. ), as well as other activities including "subsistence farming, orchard-tending, and dairy production", according to fellow archaeologist Chris Lintz's account of him in 1999. A "friendly, but eccentric hermit," he was reported to have nine children and "two or three mongrel dogs".

Chase died in 2006.

Appearance in fictional works As a close friend of the core Beat members, Chase often appeared in their works under different names.

Most of Kerouac's works are romans à clef (novels that were largely based on real people and events). In these works, Chase was:

Chad King in On the Road; Val Hayes and Val King in Visions of Cody; Val Hayes and Halnau in the original manuscript of Book of Dreams published in 2001; Halvar "Hal" Hayes in the 1961 edition of Book of Dreams. Chase also appeared as Winston Moor in Queer by William Burroughs.