Procrastination-related random google find of the night: Samuel Peyton, fake founder of faketown Peyton Place was black in the book. From David M. Jones' “Blacks, Greeks, and Freaks: Othering as Social Critique in Peyton Place”:

After his arrival in town by train, Makris is surprised by how little the townspeople want to engage in conversation. Speaking with the owner of the town cafe, Corey Hyde, Markris receives evasive answers when he asks about the origin of the town’s name:

“Peyton Place…is the oddest name for a town I’ve every heard. Who is it named for?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Corey, making unnecessary circular motions with a cloth on his immaculate counter. “There’s plenty of towns have funny names. Take that Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I had a kid took French over to the high school. Told me Baton Rouge means Red Stick. Now, ain’t that a helluva name for a town? Red Stick, Louisiana. And what about that Des Moines, Iowa? What a crazy name that is.”

“True,” said Markis. “But for whom is Peyton Place named, or for what?”

“Some feller that built a castle up here, back before the Civil War. Feller by the name of Samuel Peyton,” said Corey, reluctantly.

“A castle!” exclaimed Makris.

“Yep. A real, true, honest-to-God castle, transported over here from England, every stick and stone of it.”

“Who was this Peyton? asked Makris. “An exiled duke?”

“Nah,” said Corey Hyde. “Just a feller with money to burn. Excuse me, Mr. Makris. I got things to do in the kitchen.”

The old man at the end of the counter chuckled. “Fact of the matter, Mr. Makris,” said Clayton Frazier in a loud voice, “is that this town was named for a friggin’ nigger. That’s what ails Corey. He’s delicate like, and just don’t want to spit it right out” (102).

The latter sections of the novel tell more about Samuel Peyton, when a reporter from out of town interviews Clayton Frazier. According to Frazier, Peyton escaped from slavery long before the Civil War, “at a time when most folks looked on niggers as work horses, or mules” (329). He escaped to France, married a French girl, and built a castle on the highest point in the then-unoccupied landscape around Peyton Place. Both Peyton and his wife eventually die of tuberculosis, and according to his will, the land and castle was given to the state, left in disrepair but towering over the town of Peyton Place that grew up around it.

Metalious’ development of the Peyton plot focuses on racial difference, setting up a conditional shift in power as the townspeople live their lives in the physical and symbolic shadow of Samuel Peyton. In the film and television versions, Samuel Peyton is no longer identified as an African American character – in the television version, he becomes a wealthy industrialist with a resemblance to J.R. Ewing of Dallas. [full]

"We see it, too. We see it every day, we never think about it. Do you Allison?"