# Spoon River Anthology — Character guide

> Key figures in Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters.

- [Thomas Rhodes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/thomas_rhodes.md): Thomas Rhodes sits at the center of Spoon River's power, an attorney whose money and connections reach into its courts, banks, and newspapers. He is the kind of man others approach with deference and resentment in equal 
- [John Allen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/john_allen.md): John Allen belongs to the town's rougher element, a man whose nickname and temper mark him as someone to avoid. His dealings skirt the edge of the law, and the community's wariness of him says as much about Spoon River's
- [Judge Somers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/judge_somers.md): Judge Somers presides over Spoon River's legal affairs with an eye toward the powerful interests that keep him in office. Daisy Fraser's bitter accounting of who benefited from his judgments and who did not makes clear t
- [Kinsey Keene](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/kinsey_keene.md): Kinsey Keene moves through Spoon River's professional circles as a man on the make, trading on charm and ambition. His political hopes and legal practice intertwine in ways that invite trouble, and the town's gossip abou
- [Benjamin Pantier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/benjamin_pantier.md): Benjamin Pantier practices law in Spoon River but finds no comfort at home, where his wife's disdain has worn away whatever affection once existed. He drinks, and the town watches, and his son Reuben carries the family's
- [Emily Sparks](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/emily_sparks.md): Emily Sparks taught in Spoon River and believed in her pupils even when they gave her little reason to. Reuben Pantier's epitaph testifies that her prayers and hope were not wasted, that her faith in him survived his yea
- [Daisy Fraser](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/daisy_fraser.md): Daisy Fraser walks Spoon River's sidewalks through a gauntlet of nods, coughs, and 'there she goes,' her trade known to everyone and forgiven by no one. Yet her epitaph turns the town's moral ledger inside out: Editor Wh
- [Minerva Jones](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/minerva_jones.md): Minerva Jones is the daughter of 'Indignation' Jones, a proud Welsh-descended carpenter ground down by poverty and a slattern wife. The town's cruelty toward her—torment that her father says drove her to death—makes her 
- [Doctor Meyers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/doctor_meyers.md): Doctor Meyers is the town's medical man, the one people came to when a situation could not be spoken aloud. His practice entangled him in the private crises of Spoon River's women and families, making him both necessary 
- [Butch Weldy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/butch_weldy.md): A violent man who dies in a fight over a woman.
- [Knowlt Hoheimer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/knowlt_hoheimer.md): A young man who dies in the Civil War, disillusioned with patriotism.
- [Flossie Cabanis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/flossie_cabanis.md): A flirtatious girl who dies young, leaving behind a legacy of gossip.
- [Charlie French](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/charlie_french.md): A soldier who dies in the war, remembered for his courage.
- [Jack McGuire](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/jack_mcguire.md): A gambler and drinker who dies in a bar fight.
- [Nicholas Bindle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/nicholas_bindle.md): A miserly old man who hoards money and dies alone.
- [Lucius Atherton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/lucius_atherton.md): A dandy and womanizer who dies of a broken heart.
- [Homer Clapp](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/homer_clapp.md): A young man who dies in a train accident, leaving behind a pregnant lover.
- [Rutherford McDowell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/rutherford_mcdowell.md): Rutherford McDowell worked behind a camera in a town where everyone knew everyone and nothing stayed hidden for long. His portraits captured the outward respectability of Spoon River's citizens, but a photographer's eye 
- [Lucinda Matlock](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/lucinda_matlock.md): Lucinda Matlock married Thomas and settled into a long life of household labor—spinning, weaving, baking, raising twelve children, burying seven of them. She danced at the firemen's ball at eighty, and when old age final
- [Davis Matlock](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/davis_matlock.md): Lucinda's husband, a hardworking farmer who dies before her.
- [Willie Metcalf](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/willie_metcalf.md): A simple-minded boy who drowns in the river.
- [Aaron Hatfield](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/aaron_hatfield.md): A feuding mountaineer who dies in a gunfight.
- [Henry Phipps](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/henry_phipps.md): A soldier who dies in the war, remembered for his letters home.
- [Harry Wilmans](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/harry_wilmans.md): A soldier who dies in the war, disillusioned with glory.
- [Rebecca Wasson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/rebecca_wasson.md): A woman who dies in childbirth, leaving a grieving husband.
- [Hannah Armstrong](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/hannah_armstrong.md): A woman who dies of a broken heart after her lover leaves her.
- [Columbus Cheney](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/columbus_cheney.md): A farmer who dies from a fall, leaving a legacy of hard work.
- [Tennessee Claflin Shope](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/tennessee_claflin_shope.md): A spiritualist who claims to communicate with the dead.
- [Imanuel Ehrenhardt](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/imanuel_ehrenhardt.md): A German immigrant who dies in a farming accident.
- [Samuel Gardner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/samuel_gardner.md): A farmer who dies from a heart attack while plowing.
- [William Jones](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/william_jones.md): A farmer who dies from a snakebite.
- [Julian Scott](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/julian_scott.md): A musician who dies of consumption.
- [James Garber](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/james_garber.md): A farmer who dies from a heart attack in his field.
- [Lydia Humphrey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/lydia_humphrey.md): A woman who dies of a broken heart after her son's death.
- [Arlo Will](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/arlo_will.md): A farmer who dies from a stroke while working.
- [Captain Orlando Killion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/captain_orlando_killion.md): A Civil War veteran who dies in a bar fight.
- [Elijah Browning](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/elijah_browning.md): A farmer who dies from a stroke while plowing.
- [Webster Ford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/webster_ford.md): A poet who dies young, his work posthumously celebrated.
- [The Spooniad](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/the_spooniad.md): A mock-epic poem about Spoon River's history and characters.
- [Epilogue](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters/epilogue.md): The final reflection on the lives and deaths in Spoon River.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/characters