Chief Two Moon Meridas

Chief Two Moon Building

Chief Two Moon
Meridas
My research on Meridas began in late 1992, I was both fascinated and curious as I looked over the material that we had in our possession. Meridas born Chico Colon Meridan on August 29,1888 of probable Mexican parentage, the location is not known. Where his knowledge of roots and herbs was derived is also a mystery. My guess is his herbal knowledge was started while traveling with a carnival troupe when he was just twelve years of age. Chief Two Moon is a name to be remembered in the history of patent medicine in America. In 1914 he was selling bags of roots and herbs on street corners in Philadelphia and later in New York where he met and married Helen Gertrude Nugent. They soon moved on to Waterbury, Connecticut and after awhile settled down at 33 Wales Street ,where his healing treatments on some patients proved very successful, word soon spread and he was besieged by many new patients. During the flu epidemic of 1918 local newspapers stated that none of his patients died. By the age of thirty, various publications declared him "The World's Greatest Herbalist" and "The Miracle Man". He rose from poverty to riches, from obscurity to fame, much of the chief's wealth was devoted to local philanthropies.

Meridas who loved to travel made his first visit to Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1926 and later opened an establishment on the boardwalk in 1928, it was located at 1623 Boardwalk. It was an Indian Temple and Exhibition Hall where his herbal potions and various Indian wares could be purchased. William Spotted Crow, his wife Ella, and daughter Lucy were all employed at the boardwalk site. The "City Fathers" presented Meridas with the keys to the City circa 1928-29.

Meridas made numerous trips to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota 1928-29-30 and he was finally made an "honorary" chief by the Oglala Lakota tribe on August 6,1930 before some eight thousand Indians during an annual rodeo celebration. A motion picture based on the book "Massacre" by Robert Gessner is based loosely on this event and was made after Meridas passed away, it tells the story of an enterprising herbalist who visits the reservation and befriends the Indians. Robert Gessner was visiting various Indian reservations at the time keeping a personal log on all of the horrible conditions under which the American Indians had to live due to the Bureau of Indian Affairs cutbacks.

The Chief Two Moon Herb Company continued to flourish during this time of great depression in our country, they shipped many cases of Meridas' potions back to the reservation to help care for the sick and impoverished Indians that Meridas perceived on his previous visits. While our country was in the throes of the depression one of the casualties was the Indian communities as their rations were cut back drastically to a point where starvation became a way of life. Meridas' great wealth enabled him to help them in many ways with his healing medications, and money for food and clothing.

In October of 1932 he brought thirty Indians from the Pine Ridge reservation on custom buses with many stops on the "Goodwill Tour" to spend a month or so at his three-hundred acre estate on Beacon Valley Road in Beacon Valley, Connecticut. Notable Indians such as Charles Turning Hawk, Stephen Standing Bear (who were both at the "Battle of Little Big Horn") Noah Bad Wound, Daniel Black Horn, Joseph High Eagle, Thomas American Horse,and Frank Goings to name a few. While his guests his Indian friends dined at fine banquets and barbecues, they enjoyed the taste of beef once again instead of their steady diet of horse meat on the reservation.

Meridas traveled to Europe in October of 1930 as an international representative of the Lakota Nation. He received a private audience with Pope Pius XI, and was hailed by the foreign medical community for his great medical vision and healing powers.

Chief Two Moon had planned on moving his entire operation to Atlantic City, but this never materialized, He died at the age of forty-five in November of 1933. He is buried at Hillside Cemetery in Rosyln, Pennsylvania. Meridas was honored by being one of the first inductees of the Waterbury, Connecticut "Hall of Fame" on September 16, 1997. The photos below depict Meridas with his various employees and Indian friends, photographed in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation, in Waterbury and in Beacon Valley, Naugatuck, Connecticut where Meridas owned a large parcel of land. It was there that the Indians set up their teepees in October of 1932 . Meridas' wish was for them to remain with him and live out their remaining years but a little more than a year later he passed away, but as it was in his life he saved many lives but could not save his own. Meridas petitioned the Bureau of Indian Affairs year after year to be certified as an American Indian which he claimed to be, but he died a broken man in this venture. Whatever his heritage Mexican American, African American, or an American Indian, history shows that he suffered much prejudice in his lifetime.

Contact Info:Tom Fillius tomahawks1@comcast.net