TL;DR: The narrative of Preston Tucker and his innovative but ill-fated Tucker Torpedo was a Salem Witch joint. Voluminous documentation and surprising links follows.
One would think that the story of the Tucker Corporation’s “Tucker 48” was pure and classic Americana: a heroic innovator strives to create the future, but falls tragically when his reach exceeds his grasp. We’re handed narratives all the time because little stories are the primary way people are given to understand. What do you think Jesus was doing with his parables?
With narratives, the unconscious assumption is that we have been told everything relevant or interesting. Otherwise it would have been included in the story, right? And life moves fast so we never take the time to slow down a little, look around, and examine for ourselves the facts and circumstances surrounding what we were told. Well, that’s what we’re doing here now.
The automobile itself is unimportant; they only made 51 of them, including the prototype. The man himself is key: Preston Thomas Tucker (1903-1956). We’ll examine these topics: his name, his available genealogy, the Salem Witches, the movie they made about him, and some very strange associations from his bio.
That film was supposed to include everything relevant or interesting, but we won’t be talking about the content of it at all. That’s how it works, you see? Anyway, let’s jump in….
It turns out both Preston and Tucker are Salem Witch names. I daresay both are also relatively uncommon. Browsing the page for “Preston (surname)”, I confess I did not recognize any of the notables. On the page for “Tucker (surname)”, I recognized only actor Forrest Tucker (1919-1986).
Was Forrest a Tucker? I saw a few red flags but the one I’ll pass on is that he was best known for playing Cavalry Sgt. Morgan O’Rourke in the very popular F Troop series, and that his last wife was Sheila Forbes, which is another unusual name. Let’s not get into it, though, agreed?
My other notes relate to the information that the surname Tucker traces to the….
… pre-7th century verb tucian, meaning "to torment". It would have been for a fuller, also known as a "walker", one who softened freshly woven cloth by beating and tramping on it in stale urine.
“To torment”? A bit of a creepy find, eh? More directly relevant, though, are that both Fuller and Walker are also Salem Witch names. History can be fun, huh?
Regrettably, we won’t be able to trace Preston Tucker directly back to the Salem Witch Trials via genealogy. The oldest ancestor of his I can find, his 2g-grandfather Stilmon C. Preston, was not even born until 1781, almost a century after the trials. In these cases, the billowing clouds of circumstantial smoke will be left to challenge your idea that all this is mere coincidence.
The smoke begins immediately, with Tucker’s mother Lucille Caroline (Preston) Holmes (1881-1960). She was born a Preston. That’s her bloodline and that’s where Tucker gets his first name.
Preston got his last name from his father, of course, Shirley Harvey Tucker (1879-1907). As you can see, Shirl died quite young, when Preston was only three or four. Lucille evidently remarried to a man named Holmes, which seems reasonable or even expected for a young widow.
However, I say “evidently” because WikiTree makes no further mention of this “Holmes”. Her Geni page, Lucile Caroline "Carrie" Tucker (Preston), makes no reference to any Holmes at all. Preston’s Wikipedia page makes no mention of a stepfather.
I go to this excruciating detail because Holmes is yet another Salem Witch name. Keep in mind this is the looser definition of “Salem Witch” because not every family made a formal appearance there. But in the post about the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, we discussed phony serial killer H.H. Holmes and fake mass shooter James Holmes and how far back their histories went.
There are two other grannies from Preston’s genealogy we should note: his great-grandmother, Clarissa Allen (1838 - aft. 1860), and his 2g-grandmother, Sarah Richardson (1798 - aft. 1840). Their genealogies go no further, but we should observe that both Allen and Richardson are Salem Witch names. Keep that name Allen in mind as we proceed.
I would also like to make a point about Preston’s great-grandfather, John Tucker (1828-1898). He was the original immigrant of Preston’s Tucker line, although no information is available on when he arrived.
The reason I key on him is something we discussed in the post on the American automotive industry as well as after. It seems the “big project” of the Salem Witches—in both North America and Europe—to remake the transportation industry was kicked off in the middle of the 1800’s. Well, assuming John was the age of majority when he immigrated, that would have been exactly the same time. Just sayin’.
How does all this match up to the records of the Salem Witch Trials? As is becoming usual when we take a close look for ourselves, Wikipedia botches the job of even recording freely available mainstream records. Three Prestons are listed by Wikipedia and none have outgoing links. Six Prestons are in the records. Wikipedia has no mention of any Tuckers, but there are three persons named Tucker at Salem. There are also four Tucks and a Tuckey, but we needn’t count them in.
One participant I wanted to highlight is Samuel Preston Jr (1672-1717). In 1694, a couple years after the hoax, he married another participant, Sarah Bridges (abt. 1673 - abt. 1725). Just keep that surname in your back pocket for a moment.
As stated, the narrative we were handed was in the 1988 biographical comedy-drama, Tucker: The Man and His Dream. The director was Francis Ford Coppola. That’s no coincidence: he was named after Henry Ford. BTW, the plan is for a post on Henry Ford and another on the Fords of Hollywood. Gotta put pins in those for now.
The film starred Jeff Bridges and Joan Allen as The Man and His Wife, respectively. Jeepers, we just saw those names, didn’t we? It was Miles Mathis who first alerted me to the idea that They liked to cast relatives of those they were portraying in films. So maybe, huh? Then again, maybe it goes deeper than even that:
Abe hires Robert Bennington to run the new Tucker Corporation on a day-to-day basis.
That’s a pretty random-sounding sentence I pulled from the movie’s wiki. As you may see in the article “The Tucker Automobile Club of America | Tucker Movie: Facts vs Fiction”, Abe Karatz is a real person and Robert Bennington is a composite character. Put that choice of name in your back pocket for a minute.
That leads us into Preston’s bio. Unexpectedly provocative is where he grew up: a suburb of Detroit called Lincoln Park, Michigan. I might have believed that being around Detroit in those days would be a reasonable explanation for getting involved in the automotive industry, but I think we’re well past that, aren’t we?
I would first point out that one of Lincoln Park’s primary schools is Carr Elementary. Notable, given the six Carrs at Salem. Also note that Lincoln Park is bordered by Allen Park, Michigan. I already told you how many Allens there were when I mentioned the actress who played Vera Tucker. Coincidence?
If you don’t like coincidence, how about weird coincidence? Now, it seemed obvious but I was looking for positive confirmation that the town was named after President & Salem Witch Abraham Lincoln. I could not get that confirmation of that but I did get this:
LINCOLN PARK HISTORICAL SOCIETY & MUSEUM | A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE LINCOLN PARK STORY
Early in 1900's a business district developed at the corner of Fort St. and St. Cosme Line, later State Street, now Southfield Road, where Herman Quandt and Noah LeBlanc operated general stores.
Did you catch that name? It was featured in the post on German carmakers. We found out it was Gunther Quandt, an intimate (ie Eskimo brother of Joseph Goebbels, haha) of the top Nazis, who controlled BMW back then, and that his grandchildren, Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten (nee Quandt), still own half of it today. Jeez, what are the chances?
Weirder still, IMHO, is this: Have you heard of the whole “Linkin Park” conspiracy? You can look all this up on your own time, but supposedly the name of the band secretly refers to the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Calgary, site of a Royal Canadian Air Force base where some dark CIA MKUltra doings were done.
Even darker is when that extends to the claim that some of the band’s songs concern abuse suffered by the questionably suicided lead singer, and even to speculation regarding his beyond-striking resemblance to a certain infamous Mr. Podesta. He hasn’t been dead that long, but do you recall his name? How about the name of that composite character from Tucker?
Final notes: This post may come off as a fun romp concerning cars, actors, and movies, but that is mere happenstance. These Salem Witches are as serious as strokes, never to be underestimated.
At the end of the post on Chrysler we discussed an essentially unknown businessman named Mark Tucker (b1957). He’s the chairman of the British financial services company HSBC, which manages well over $3 trillion in assets and employs 211,000 people.
Now, some may hurry to point towards Larry Fink (naming the Jew!), the chairman of BlackRock which manages over $12 trillion in assets. But that’s my point: if you can name Larry and have never heard of Mark, that indicates to me that Mark is a shot-caller and Larry is merely a Hofjude. Everyone is free to keep reeeeing! up that tree, if they prefer.
We should also mention probably the most influential journalist around today, Tucker Carlson. Yes, I did the advance research and he’s a Salem Witch, although the full story is—as usual—more nuanced and complex. He recently interviewed his brother Buckley. Try to convince yourself these names are mere coincidence.
Their father was Richard Warner Carlson. There were two people named Richardson at Salem and Preston had a 2g-grandma by that name. Tucker and Buckley are literally the sons of Richard, but I think that one really is a coincidence. Then again, at this point, maybe not. Anyway, get on your toes when anyone named Tucker is around.
Bonus: Even more fun with names. Tucker co-starred Frederic Forrest. Wikipedia states he was “best known for his collaborations with director Francis Ford Coppola”. This just struck me because, well, do you remember the name of the only Tucker I recognized, actor Forrest Tucker? I’d like to believe this is mere coincidence because everybody loved “Chef” in Apocalypse Now.
No one could even begin to make all this up. Thanks for reading!