Quote from guest on 15th July 2014, 3:58 pm

I expect you have come across references on the web to a sculpture in Yachats, Oregon which bears this name. Well, I finally got round to asking why it was so named.

See: http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMHQR3_Bazalgette_sculpture_Yachats_Oregon

Here is the reply I received.

"Greetings Charles,

Thanks for your inquiry - oddly the first I've ever had (in 18 years) about the name of the whale tail sculpture.

The sculptor Jim Adler says that he named the sculpture "after a crazy French artist friend" of his named Leon Bazalgette Russell. Leon Bazalgette Russell was an avid painter of nature. He was named after Leon Bazalgette of France, who was a biographer and literary critic who wrote about the great thinkers of his time, including Whitman and Thoreau...

So - the whale sculpture was named after some interesting cousin of yours!

Here are some additional pieces of information from Jim Adler...

Long timers in Yachats remember Leon Bazalgette as "the old dude who terrorized the town on his bicycle and occasionally left $100 tips at the Adobe causing fistfights in the kitchen."

And importantly, Leon Bazalgette Russell's father was Marsden Hartley.

All the best,
Beverly Wilson"