Mervin Monroe - Jebediah Springfield

Jebediah Springfield

Jebediah Obadiah Zachariah Jedediah Springfield (a.k.a. Hans Sprungfeld) is the founder of the town of Springfield. He is voiced by Harry Shearer. According to legend, Jebediah Springfield and his partner Shelbyville Manhattan led a band that left Maryland in search of "New Sodom" due to a misinterpretation of the Bible, but they parted ways over political differences: though both men are devoted to chastity and abstinence, Manhattan wanted to let people be free to marry their cousins if they wish, which Springfield strongly opposed. It was then that Manhattan went on to found the rival town of Shelbyville, taking half of the settlers with him.

Springfield had many famous quotations, such as "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man". He also wears a coonskin cap. The Springfield Marathon commemorates an occasion on which he ran across six states in order to avoid his creditors. In "The Telltale Head", Bart beheaded the statue, thinking that this would make him more popular. In reality, the town became depressed and angry, leaving Bart to endure "The Tell-Tale Heart"-style guilt before replacing it. This episode is referenced in multiple Simpsons video games such as The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants, where the statue's head serves as a power-up item, or The Simpsons Road Rage and The Simpsons Hit & Run, where characters can kick or ram Jebediah's head off the statue.

Many Jebediah legends have been debunked during the run of the series. For instance, "The Telltale Head" repeatedly refers to Jebediah killing a bear with his bare hands, but on the news, Kent Brockman reveals that recent historical evidence suggests the bear actually killed Jebediah. On an expedition to Springfield's historic "Fort Springfield", Bart uncovers other inconsistencies in the Jebediah legend, such as that he fought at Fort Ticonderoga the same day as the first Whacking Day.

Most of Springfield's biography is revealed in the 1996 episode "Lisa the Iconoclast", wherein Lisa Simpson discovers Jebediah Springfield's biggest secret: he was formerly a bloodthirsty pirate named Hans Sprungfeld, who once brawled with George Washington and lost after Washington crushed Sprungfeld's genitals in one of his sets of iron false teeth. Sprungfeld fled and changed his name in 1795 to hide his identity. He was well known for his "silver tongue" (literally; a metal prosthetic tongue, his original tongue having been bitten off by a Turkish pirate in a grog house fight). Before he died of diphtheria, he wrote his confession on a scrap of canvas that he hid in a fife. The canvas scrap formed the "missing piece" of the famously incomplete 1796 Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington; Sprungfeld picked it up during a fight against Washington which occurred while the latter was having his portrait painted. Lisa decides not to reveal this secret to the people of Springfield, seeing that the myth of Jebediah has brought out the good in everyone and that the true story will cause them to lose hope and morale within themselves.

The Australian rock-band "Jebediah" was named after Jebediah Springfield.