Roscoe Arbuckle a feature film. Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle was born on March 24, 1887, in Smith Center, Kansas, one of nine children of Mary E. "Mollie" Gordon (d. February 19, 1898) and William Goodrich Arbuckle. He weighed in excess of at birth and, as both parents had slim builds, his father believed the child was not his. Consequently, he named the baby after a politician (and notorious philanderer) whom he despised, Republican senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. The birth was traumatic for Mollie and resulted in chronic health problems that contributed to her death 12 years later. When Arbuckle was nearly
James C. Conkling James C. Conkling James Cook Conkling (October 13, 1816 – March 1, 1899) was an American politician and attorney from New York City. A graduate of Princeton College, Conkling was admitted to the bar, then moved to Springfield, Illinois. There, he became a prominent Whig, serving first as mayor and later in the Illinois House of Representatives. In 1856, he became one of the first Republicans in the state, attending the Bloomington Convention with Abraham Lincoln. Twice a presidential elector, Conkling was a State Agent during the Civil War and returned to the Illinois House in 1866. Later in his