(Photo: Kris WUHS_Mom)

In 1923, William Carlos Williams wrote the short poem he is best remembered for today, “The Red Wheelbarrow”: 

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

But until now, no one besides the poet himself knew who owned that wheelbarrow.

William Logan, a professor at the University of Florida, has discovered the wheelbarrow owner’s identity: He was “Thaddeus Marshall, an African-American street vendor from Rutherford, N.J.,” the New York Times writes.

The poem is only 16 words; Logan has written around 10,000 words about it, the Times notes. Logan tracked down hints to the wheelbarrow’s origins—that it was “outside the window of an old negro’s house on a backstreet,” that the owner’s last name was Marshall, that he was once was a fisherman in Gloucester, that he had a son named Milton. 

In an old census, there was “only one possible candidate: Thaddeus Marshall, a 69-year-old widower who lived with a son named Milton at 11 Elm Street, about nine blocks from Williams’s house,” the Times writes.

Bonus finds: Birch bark cocoon with a human mummy inside, weird-looking leafhopper, baby rhino, bees

Every day, we highlight one newly lost or found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something unusual or amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com.