Execution of John André: not the fear of death

Major John André was a British army officer hanged as a spy on October 2, 1780 after conspiring with Benedict Arnold over the fate of West Point during the American Revolution. André pleaded with George Washington that he die honorably via firing squad; instead, he was ordered to be hanged, the traditional execution method for a spy.

The drama of the conspiracy, as well as the capture of André, his trial, and his execution all unfolded in the Hudson River Valley area of New York. Nathaniel Parker Willis would eventually settle in that area but he was, in fact, living in England at the time that he composed his poem "André's Request to Washington" (1835):

It is not the fear of death
     That damps my brow;
It is not for another breath
     I ask thee now;
I can die with lip unstirr'd
     And a quiet heart—
Let but this prayer be heard
     Ere I depart.

I can give up my mother's look—
     My sister's kiss;
I can think of love—yet brook
     A death like this!
I can give up the young fame
     I burn'd to win—
All—but the spotless name
     I glory in!

Thine is the power to give,
     Thine to deny,
Joy for the hour I live—
     Calmness to die.
By all the brave should cherish,
     By my dying breath,
I ask that I may perish
     By a soldier's death.

Some 40 years after Willis's poem, just about 100 years after André's execution, Charlotte Fiske Bates offered her own poem to the executed Major. Like Willis, Bates is mostly sympathetic, though her narrator here is not André himself but a visitor to the place of his death:

This is the place where André met that death
Whose infamy was keenest of its throes,
And in this place of bravely yielded breath
His ashes found a fifty years' repose;

And then, at last, a transatlantic grave,
With those who have been kings in blood or
fame. As Honor here some compensation gave
For that once forfeit to a hero's name.

But whether in the Abbey's glory laid,
Or on so fair but fatal Tappan's shore.
Still at his grave have noble hearts betrayed
The loving pity and regret they bore.

In view of all he lost, — his youth, his love,
And possibilities that wait the brave,
Inward and outward bound, dim visions move
Like passing sails upon the Hudson's wave.

The country's Father! how do we revere
His justice, — Brutus-like in its decree, —
With André-sparing mercy, still more dear
Had been his name, — if that, indeed, could be!

Willis's Fugitive Poetry: cheer me as I go

It was on the September 11, 1829 that Nathaniel Parker Willis copyrighted his book Fugitive Poetry, a collection mostly of previously published works. Willis, only 23 years old upon the book's publication, had already met with early success and popularity as a writer. This was in no small part due to his family's long history in publishing and journalism. Willis's title page included a quote from Washington Irving, repeated on his copyright page: "If, however, I can, by lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can, now and then, penetrate the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall not then have written entirely in vain." His earliest major biographer said most of the book was "of no importance."

Many of the poems in Fugitive Poems remained among his famous works throughout Willis's career, including his free verse poem "April." Several showed the influence on him from his conservative religious father. Many are addressed to women — some romantically, some more platonic — and those poems with titles like "On Seeing Through a Distant Window a Belle Completing Her Toilet for a Ball" did little to remove rumors that Willis was living a dissipated and idle life. Even so, at about the same time he was preparing Fugitive Poetry for the press, he was also beginning his career as a periodical editor, first of an annual giftbook called The Token and then a new newspaper he called the American Monthly Magazine. After its failure a couple years later, Willis moved to Europe for a time; it was there that his reputation as a writer began to soar. His poem "The Solitary":

Alone! alone! How drear it is
     Always to be alone!
In such a depth of wilderness,
     The only thinking one!
The waters in their path rejoice,
     The trees together sleep—
But I have not one silver voice
     Upon my ear to creep!

The sun upon the silent hills
     His mesh of beauty weaves,
There's music in the laughing rills
     And in the whispering leaves.
The red deer like the breezes fly
     To meet the bounding roe,
But I have not a human sigh
     To cheer me as I go.

I've hated men—I hate them now—
     But, since they are not here,
I thirst for the familiar brow—
     Thirst for the stealing tear.
And I should love to see the one,
     And feel the other creep,
And then again I'd be alone
     Amid the forest deep.

I thought that I should love my hound,
     And hear my cracking gun
Till I forgot the thrilling sound
     Of voices—one by one.
I thought that in the leafy hush
     Of nature, they would die;
But, as the hindered waters rush,
     Resisted feelings fly.

I'm weary of my lonely hut
     And of its blasted tree,
The very lake is like my lot,
     So silent constantly.
I've lived amid the forest gloom
     Until I almost fear—
When will the thrilling voices come
     My spirit thirsts to hear?

Lynch and Willis: love or be famous

When Nathaniel Parker Willis and his (second) wife Cornelia heard of Anne Charlotte Lynch's engagement to Vincenzo Botta, they immediately wrote a letter of congratulations. The letter, dated March 24, 1855, expresses hope from the Willises for Lynch's future:

The positive news of your coming marriage affected us very strongly, of course. Nellie and I love you so well that we tremble while we rejoice in new wings so venturesome, though so expanding of scope and lift... You are above destiny — subject naturally to nothing.

Lynch had almost met Botta (pictured), a professor in Turin, Italy, while traveling through Europe two years earlier. The Italian government had sent him to the United States to research the American education system (he had previously been sent to Germany with a similar mission) and so they missed one another. Determined he should meet her, he supposedly carried six letters of introduction on his behalf. Back in New York after her European travels, Botta visited her daily until he finally proposed. He did not return to Italy, instead taking a job at City University of New York.

Willis had befriended Lynch, whom he called "Lynchie," many years earlier and was apparently ecstatic about her coming wedding. He invited the couple to visit him at Idlewild, his home on the Hudson River: "Our glen is a place for the happy... We trust you will both feel more at home at Idlewild than anywhere else." Willis adds that "no woman ever deserved more love" than Lynch. She, by then, had already established herself as a leading hostess for literary salons and had published several poems herself. In 1845, she had asked Willis for his opinion of her writing. Calling himself her "literary godfather," he offered a telling assessment of his own literary theory and his prediction for Lynch:

Poetry is a shadow over the heart that enables us to see to the bottom-like clouds cutting off the sunshine from a well. I now see the truth in the well of your heart, but I do not know as I dare tell you what it is like. You would be bound to deny a part of it, true or not, and (to tell a truth that is all my own) I do not yet feel sufficiently taken into your confidence to venture on translating your pulses to yourself—no; I will not venture!
...The intense passionateness of your nature is all ready for utterance in undying language; and that if you do not breathe your heart soon upon an absorbent object, you will either be corroded by the stifled intensity of undeveloped feeling, or you will overflow with poetry and (like other volcanoes that find a vent) blacken the verdure around you with the cinders of exposed agonies. In short, you must love or be famous!

"Ruthless Hall" and the "chronicler of Idlewild"

Mason Brothers knew they had a good thing in Fanny Fern when they asked her to write a novel to publish. When she started writing it, they knew it would be controversial — and also knew they could capitalize on that controversy. Still, even the Mason Brothers might have been surprised at just how successful Ruth Hall became.

Advertisements released before the book's publication predicted the book was "destined to make a sensation." Sure enough, within days of its release in December 1854, critics realized the book was mean-spirited ("Ruthless Hall," Grace Greenwood called her) and, more importantly, that it was autobiographical. Of course, the real problem was that one of the villains in the book, Hyacinth Ellet, was apparently based on "the chronicler of Idlewild," the very popular writer Nathaniel Parker Willis.

On December 23, 1854, the Mason Brothers began advertising that the author never claimed it was autobiography and that critics were looking for trouble. They never denied that it was Willis (it was, after all) but it wasn't their fault that critics recognized an unflattering portrait of that famous writer. The ads inevitably drew more attention to the controversy, and sales of the book skyrocketed, adding up to some 70,000 copies sold.

But the Mason Brothers could not have anticipated William U. Moulton, the former employer of Fanny Fern (and soon to become husband of author and poet Louise Chandler). His embittered response ended the controversy once and for all. More on that in just a few days.

Poe and Willis: good word in season

From his quaint cottage at Fordham, New York, Edgar Allan Poe wrote to editor and poet Nathaniel Parker Willis on April 20, 1849:

The poem which I enclose, and which I am so vain as to hope you will like, in some respects, has been just published in a paper for which sheer necessity compels me to write, now and then. It pays well as times go — unquestionably it ought to pay ten prices; for whatever I send it I feel I am consigning to the tomb of the Capulets. The verses... may I beg you to take out of the tomb, and bring them to light in the Home Journal?

Poe and Willis had been running in the same circle for years: both were editors, critics, and publishers in addition to writers themselves. Willis had founded the Home Journal, which exists today as Town and Country magazine. At the time of this letter, the final year of Poe's life, most of his new works were published in Boston's Flag of Our Union — a weekly newspaper which Poe (and others) considered trashy and certainly not high literature. In fact, Poe even suggested Willis not bother mentioning the Flag if republished. The poem, "For Annie," is now recognized as one of Poe's greatest.

About four years earlier, Willis had also republished another poem which Poe hoped would have wider circulation: in 1845, Willis republished "The Raven" in the New York Mirror. Willis's publication of that poem was the first to include Poe's name. Poe concluded his 1849 letter referencing that publication:  "I have not forgotten how a 'good word in season' from you made 'The Raven'" (emphasis mine). Poe died less than six months later.

The home where the letter was written, the Poe Cottage, is now run by the Bronx County Historical Society and is undergoing substantial repairs. A new visitor center is also being built. It will reopen to the public soon.

Willises: Thy children bless thee

Richard Storrs Willis did not generally get involved with the bickering between his older siblings, sister Fanny Fern and brother Nathaniel Parker Willis. When Fern produced her semi-autobiographical novel Ruth Hall in 1854, he did not appear to have reason to be upset. N. P. Willis was the villain of the book, renamed Hyacinth Ellet, but Richard Storrs was completely left out. However, the elder Mr. Ellet character, the father of Hyacinth and the title character Ruth Hall, was painted unsympathetically. The father of the book, of course, was also based on the father of the real-life counterparts, Nathaniel Willis, Sr., the founder of America's first children's periodical, Youth's Companion.

As editor of The Musical World and Times in New York, Richard Storrs (a composer whose most famous tune was "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear") responded to the negative depiction of his father. In the January 13, 1855 issue of the journal, he republished his brother's poem "To My Aged Father" (originally published in their father's Youth's Companion):

...Faint has thy heart become. For peace thou prayest—
For less to suffer as thy strength grows less.
For, oh, when life has been a stormy wild—
The bitter night too long, the way too far—
The aged pilgrim, ere he lays him down,
Prays for a moment's lulling of the blast—
A little time to wind his cloak about him,
And smooth his gray hairs decently to die.

Yet, oh, not vain the victories unsung!
Not vain a life of industry to bless.
And thou, in angel-history—where shine
The silent self-forgetful who toil on
For others until death—art nam'd in gold.
In heaven it is known, thou hast done well!
But, not all unacknowledg'd is it, here.
Children thou hast, who, for free nurture, given
With one hand while the other fought thy cares,
Grow grateful as their own hands try the fight.
And more—they thank thee more! The name thou leavest
Spotless and blameless as it comes from thee—
For this, their pure inheritance—a life
Of unstained honor gone before our own—
The father that we love " an honest man"—
For this, thy children bless thee...

The same day, January 13, 1855, Nathaniel Parker Willis responded in his own periodical, Home Journal, claiming that he had gone some time without saying "an unkind word" to his sister but steadfastly chose to forebear "the malignity and injustice." Fanny Fern's harsh words about her family in Ruth Hall left them only "temporarily strained" and she was soon forgiven by all — all except N. P. Willis, that is.

Fanny Fern and James Parton

Fanny Fern (pen name of Sara Payson Willis) had garnered major popularity through works like her semi-autobiographical novel Ruth Hall. Taking advantage of her success, the New York Ledger contracted with Fern as a columnist. The first of what her editors called her "spirited, lively, dashing, unrivalled sketches" appeared in the January 5, 1856 issue. Within a year, circulation increased by over 100,000 new subscribers.

Fern agreed to write exclusively for the Ledger, a deal she maintained until her death. Her weekly column appeared — without missing an issue — for 16 years. At $100 an article, she became America's highest-paid columnist for a time.

On the same date six years earlier, January 5, 1850, Fern's brother Nathaniel Parker Willis published the first article by a writer using the name "Currer Bell" (a pseudonym inspired by Charlotte Bronte) in his Home Journal. That writer was James Parton (pictured), who soon became an editor alongside Willis. Parton began publishing Fern's articles in the Home Journal — without Willis's blessing. In a move that has perpetually baffled scholars, the amiable Willis angrily forbade the publication of Fanny Fern in his magazine. In protest, Parton resigned. Perhaps in gratitude for his loyalty, shortly after Ruth Hall was published, she convinced her publishers to produce a book by Parton. The two soon built up a strong personal relationship.

In fact, Fern and Parton were married in Hoboken, New Jersey on the same day her first New York Ledger article was published — after signing a prenuptial agreement that ensured her literary earnings remained solely her own. He was her third husband and eleven years her junior.

*Much of the information in this article is found in Joyce Warren's Fanny Fern: An Independent Woman.

Willis: Winter is come again

The Portland, Maine-born Nathaniel Parker Willis grew up partly in Boston, graduated from Yale in Connecticut, before touring the United States and Canada. Though still young, he had lived a whirlwind life (which he would later make up for as a long-term convalescent in upstate New York). He was just three weeks shy of his 23rd birthday when he wrote "January 1, 1829":

Winter is come again. The sweet south west
Is a forgotten wind, and the strong earth
Has laid aside its mantle to be bound
By the frost fetter. There is not a sound
Save of the skaiter's heel, and there is laid
An icy finger on the lip of streams,
And the clear icicle hangs cold and still,
And the snow-fall is noiseless as a thought.
Spring has a rushing sound, and Summer sends
Many sweet voices with its odors out,
And autumn rustleth its decaying robe
With a complaining whisper. Winter's dumb!
God made his ministry a silent one,
And he has given him a foot of steel
And an unlovely aspect, and a breath
Sharp to the senses—and we know that He
Tempereth well, and hath a meaning hid
Under the shadow of his hand. Look up!
And it shall be interpreted—Your home
Hath a temptation now. There is no voice
Of waters with beguiling for your ear,
And the cool forest and the meadows green
Witch not your feet away; and in the dells
There are no violets, and upon the hills
There are no sunny places to lie down.
You must go in, and by your cheerful fire
Wait for the offices of love, and hear
Accents of human tenderness, and feast
Your eye upon the beauty of the young.
It is a season for the quiet thought,
And the still reckoning with thyself. The year
Gives back the spirits of its dead, and time
Whispers the history of its vanished hours;
And the heart, calling its affections up,
Counteth its wasted ingots. Life stands still
And settles like a fountain, and the eye
Sees clearly through its depths, and noteth all
That stirred its troubled waters. It is well
That Winter with the dying year should come!

Fern: I thank thee that I live

After 16 and a half years, the final column by Fanny Fern was published on October 12, 1872 — two days after her death. Fern, whose birth name was Sara Payson Willis, had printed her column continuously, without exception, every week in the New York Ledger since 1856. Her weekly salary made her the highest-paid columnist in the United States.

Fern's life, however, was not easy. Her first husband died in 1845 and she turned to her wealthy and influential brother, the writer Nathaniel Parker Willis. For reasons still unknown today, he shunned her. She married again but divorced shortly after. She wrote children's stories and a newspaper column, attracting the attention of James Parton, editor of the Home Journal (owned by Willis). He printed some of her work and, when Willis protested, he resigned as editor. Shortly after, Fern and Parton married (he was 11 years younger).

Fern's major break was the book Ruth Hall (1854), which fictionalized some of her unhappy experiences in her second marriage as well as a depicting thinly-veiled caricature of Willis, renamed "Hyacinth Ellet" — an effeminate, obnoxious editor who tries to sabotage the literary ambitions of the title character. The book sold 100,000 copies in one year, ultimately arguing that women need to financially support themselves.

Fern suffered for some time with cancer, at one point losing the use of her right arm. No matter; she wrote with her left instead. Her final column was titled "End of the Summer Season." In it, she wrote about a vacation:

As for me, whether I go early or late, whether my eyes are open or shut, memory will always make pictures for me... which makes me say with Festus, "Oh, God, I thank thee that I live."

Her editor, Robert Bonner, ordered the next issue of the Ledger print its editorial page with black edges representing mourning. He wrote, "Her success was assured, because she had something to say, and knew how to say it."

*I cannot recommend strongly enough Joyce W. Warren's Fanny Fern: An Independent Woman, which was used as a major source for this post.

Willis: I should like to marry in England

Nathaniel Parker Willis was traveling overseas when he wrote to a friend, "I should like to marry in England." He worried that "my best years and best affections are running to waste." He implies that he would really like to find a woman with a trust fund. Shortly after, he met Mary Stace, the daughter of the Royal Ordinance Keeper at Woolwich Arsenal. They were married about a month later on October 1, 1835; her father granted her £300 a year allowance.

The couple spent a two-week honeymoon in Paris. Shortly before leaving, Willis arranged for the publication of Pencillings by the Way, a book commenting on his European travels and meetings with famous Europeans (including royalty). Yet, he confided in his wife, "I have lived the last ten years in gay society, and I am sick at heart of it." The couple moved to England, but Willis's interactions with high society did not stop (nor would they ever, really); they soon befriended Charles Dickens in London, for example.

One of Willis's sketches, "Beware of Dogs and Waltzing," seems to refer to Willis and Mary Stace through a character named Mabel Brown. The name was too plain for her, Willis wrote, and many wanted to change it for her. The male protagonist, a representation of Willis himself, is Mr. Lindsay Maud — "a gentleman whom I wish you to take for more than his outer seeming." With one look, he appears to show he "cares nothing for your opinion." His face is quite Willis-like:

His eyes are like the surface of a very deep well. Curling brown hair, broad and calm forehead, merry chin with a dimple in it, and mouth expressive of great good humour, and quite enough of fastidiousness. If this is not your beau ideal, I am very sorry.

By the end of the story, Mabel Brown is successfully wooed by Lindsay Maud, when he "poured out the fervent passion of his heart" to her. Their love softens his previous off-putting personality and they almost certainly live happily ever after — the last line of the short story reveals that Miss Brown (the future Mrs. Maud) has inherited a substantial fortune.

Guest post: Mount Auburn Cemetery consecrated

Mount Auburn Cemetery, a National Historic Landmark, was consecrated on September 24, 1831. In his consecration address, Justice Joseph Story (later buried in the cemetery; see image at right) noted that, "Here are the lofty oak, the beech,... the rustling pine, and the drooping willow... All around us there breathes a solemn calm, as if we were in the bosom of a wilderness."

Both literature and horticulture have been important elements at Mount Auburn since its inception. The cemetery's founding drew upon roots from earlier literary proponents of Romanticism expressed in landscape design and it was originally incorporated under the auspices of the then new Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1829. Mount Auburn cultivated necessary early support from Bostonians interested in both horticulture and literature.

Indeed the Cemetery drew upon literature even for its name. In the early 1800s, this rolling, wooded land that once had been a colonial-era farm became known colloquially as "Sweet Auburn." This name drew from Oliver Goldsmith’s nostalgic poem "The Deserted Village" (1770) which references a fictitious town of Sweet Auburn. Founding trustees of the cemetery named its highest hill Mount Auburn.

A visitor today may stop at monuments commemorating dozens of literary figures as well as explore the horticultural diversity of this nationally-acclaimed arboretum. The cornucopia of individuals with literary affiliations at Mount Auburn is varied: novelists, poets, playwrights, historians, editors, publishers, journalists, legal and classical scholars, technical writers and children's book authors, among others.

Many of those writers use horticultural imagery. For example, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow begins his poem "The Village Blacksmith" with, "Under the spreading chestnut tree / The village smithy stands." In "A Gleam of Sunshine" (1845), he writes:

The shadow of the linden-trees
Lay moving on the grass;
Between them and the moving boughs,
A shadow, thou didst pass.

Nathaniel Parker Willis, buried at Mount Auburn in 1867, wrote "City Lyrics" in 1850. The poem includes the stanza:

Oh woman! Thou secret past knowing!
Like lilachs [sic] that grow by the wall,
You breathe every air that is going,
Yet gather but sweetness from all!

Another Mount Auburn notable is Sarah Sprague Jacobs, who wrote poetry and authored several books for young adults including Nonantum and Natick (1853), which notes:

High upon the straight black cherry
The pigeon swings,—
With its fruit he maketh merry,
Flapping his wings;
As, on the neighboring dead ash limbs,
The stealthy hen-hawk watches him.

Oliver Wendell Holmes makes several references to notable trees in his 1858 The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, including:

What we want is the meaning, the character, the expression of a tree, as a kind and as an individual. There is a mother-idea in each particular kind of tree, which if well marked, is probably embodied in the poetry of every language.

While not all of the many literary individuals that are buried here included horticulture in their writings, they certainly chose to be surrounded by horticulture in memorialization at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

*This guest blog was written by Jim Gorman, a certified arborist who is also fond of the written word. He has been a docent at Mount Auburn for the past three years.

This man is the seducer of my wife!

Onlookers were shocked at what they saw (and what they heard). "This man is the seducer of my wife!" screamed Edwin Forrest as he beat a man with a gutta-percha whip. The burly and famous actor assaulted his victim, Nathaniel Parker Willis, in New York's Washington Square on the evening of June 17, 1850. Willis, a famous poet, essayist, and editor, was recovering from illness at the time and, in fact, had nothing to do with the seduction of Forrest's wife.

Willis, a tall man who towered over the 6-foot tall Forrest, was helpless as the whipping brought him to his knees. He was a partial-invalid, forced to near-permanent convalescence, since the late 1840s. His health aside, Willis was also noted for being somewhat effeminate, a "namby-pamby" who presented himself as a refined gentleman. At least one observer noted the "battle" may have been a man versus a woman.

Forrest was suspicious of his wife, Catherine Sinclair, as early as the spring of 1848, when he believed he found evidence of an affair. She swore her innocence, but the two separated by April 1849. Catherine moved in with the journalist Parke Godwin and Forrest filed for divorce in Philadelphia in 1850, still citing adultery. The court denied the request and Forrest was ridiculed in the press. Willis, always a sucker for gossip, joined in.

Coming to Catherine's defense, Willis wrote that Forrest violated "the American standard of what is gentlemanlike, and the American estimate of the treatment due a lady." Forrest applied for divorce again, this time in New York. It wasn't long after that Forrest whipped Willis very publicly in Washington Square.

All this tension was just the crescendo to the six-week divorce trial during the winter of 1851-1852. The city was gripped by the scandal, with "thousands and thousands" awaiting the verdict. During the trial, a witness suggested Willis and Catherine were "lying on each other" in an affair. The court finalized the divorce and, soon after, Willis sued Forrest for assault, winning $2,500 from the actor.

*Much of the information in this post comes from Sentiment and Celebrity: Nathaniel Parker Willis and the Trials of Literary Fame by Thomas Baker.

Memorializing James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper died in September 1851. Despite a slightly abrasive personality, Cooper was immediately recognized as an American literary icon. So, about four weeks later, the editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold presented a resolution to the New York Historical Society to honor Cooper.

Calling him "an illustrious associate and countryman," "a masterly illustrator of our history," someone with "imminent genius" who was "honorable, brave, sincere, generous," Griswold helped organize a committee that became a veritable who's who of "Who are they??" — mostly-forgotten literary critics and writers: Parke Godwin, Fitz-Greene Halleck, George Pope Morris, James Kirke Paulding, Epes Sargent, Gulian Verplanck and, of course, the ubiquitous Nathaniel Parker Willis.

After a couple delays, the major ceremony was held on February 25, 1852 at Metropolitan Hall on Broadway (it was two years old at the time and would burn down two years later). The main address was given by Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State. Griswold himself held the role of co-secretary in organizing the event, though he may have served as Master of Ceremonies (I haven't seen evidence for this yet).

Remembrance letters were sent by Richard Henry Dana, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Samuel F. B. Morse, and Francis Parkman (and a whole bunch of obscure folks). Also speaking was Washington Irving, a somewhat controversial selection. Cooper and Irving were recognized early on for being progenitors of American writing, but they were not good friends. Cooper had antagonized Irving, once calling him a "double dealer" with low moral qualities, though Irving himself showed no animosity in return.

Irving later admitted his speech at Cooper's memorial was poorly-delivered. After him spoke William Cullen Bryant, who mentioned "an unhappy coolness" between Irving and Cooper; Irving was hoping that coolness would not come up. Even so, the event was recorded as a success; Elizabeth Oakes Smith was in the audience and, allegedly, was brought to tears. "The whole affair succeeded quite well," recorded Griswold.

Not quite so well, Dr. Griswold.

The committee hoped the event would raise enough money to honor Cooper with a large public statue. They fell short of their goal, raising less than $700. They gave the proceeds to another effort which led to a Cooper monument in Lakewood Cemetery — a marble pillar over 20-feet tall, surmounted by a statue of the author's most famous character, Leather-Stocking (a.k.a. Natty Bumpo).

 

*The image is from the James Fenimore Cooper Society.

Birth of Harriet Jacobs

Harriet Jacobs was born on February 11, 1813.* To be more precise, Harriet Jacobs was born enslaved in Edenton, North Carolina. Both her parents, also slaves, were mulattoes — meaning that Jacobs was, technically, half-white (though no less a slave).

At 12 years old, Jacobs was inherited by a 5-year old girl. An attractive young woman, Jacobs was pursued by the girl's father, Dr. James Norcom. He didn't bother to hide his lust, which even his wife knew about. His wife punished her (rather than her husband) by working her extra hard and flogging her often. To avoid her brutal owner, Jacobs had an affair with another white man named Samuel Sawyer (who later became a Congressman). With him, she had two children, Joseph and Louisa. These children were born slaves, owned by the Norcroms, though they were three-quarters white. Jacobs's domestic situation only got worse, so she escaped in 1835.

But she didn't go far. She stayed in a crawlspace above the home of her grandmother, where she watched her children grow for seven years. In 1842, she made her way north. Dr. Norcrom threatened to sell Joseph and Louisa so Sawyer purchased them and gave them their freedom. In need of money, Jacobs found herself in the employ of none other than Nathaniel Parker Willis (more on him here).

Years later, Jacobs would tell her story in the book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl using the pseudonym Linda Brent.

*Like many who were born enslaved, Jacobs was unsure of her own birthdate and scholars have disputed this information. Her gravestone offers February 11, 1815, but there is little evidence to support the winter birth. For more on the dispute, see this article by Mary Maillard or this article by Scott Korb (who first notified me of the discrepancies).

The following remarkable poem by Edgar Poe

From the January 29, 1845 issue of the New York Mirror, edited by Nathaniel Parker Willis and George Pope Morris (the editorial introduction below is usually attributed to Willis):

We are permitted to copy (in advance of publication) from the 2d No. of the American Review, the following remarkable poem by EDGAR POE. In our opinion, it is the most effective single example of "fugitive poetry" ever published in this country; and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent, sustaining of imaginative lift and "pokerishness." It is one of these "dainties bred in a book" which we feed on. It will stick to the memory of everybody who reads it.

 The poem which followed was likely already in print, published with the pseudonym "Quarles," in the February issue of the American Review. In fact, it was likely from a proof sheet from that issue that Willis took the poem — with permission, of course. The poem he was reprinting — for the first time with the name of Poe — became the work most associated with its author forevermore. It remains one of the greatest American poems ever written.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
         Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had tried to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore —
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore —
         Nameless here for evermore.

Funeral of N. P. Willis

Nathaniel Parker Willis outlived his own soaring reputation. His funeral (and, perhaps, that of his literary reputation) was held on January 24, 1867.

Willis had died on his 61st birthday four days earlier. Less than 20 years before his death, he was making $10,000 a year (equal to over $300,000 today) while living a life of semi-retirement, writing at ease while fighting illness at his home, Idlewild, in the town of Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, within earshot of the artillery drills at West Point Military Academy. In fact, Willis was living the life of a convalescent, perpetually weak and ill for much of his later years. One friend later wrote, "there has hardly been a man of letters doomed to such protracted torments from bodily disease." Willis's final work was, appropriately, The Convalescent (1859), a series of chit-chatty epistolary sketches, including one about visiting his neighbor Washington Irving at Sunnyside.

The reality seems to be that Willis was already forgotten by the time The Convalescent was released (its last sketch was titled "Funeral Procession"). No less a figure than the future President of the United States, James A. Garfield, wrote in his diary: "Willis is said to be a licentious man, although an unrivaled poet. How strange that such men should go to ruin, when they might soar perpetually in the heaven of heavens." Some of his obituaries noted it was assumed Willis was already dead.

Nevertheless, Willis's funeral on January 24 was a major event. Local book stores were closed as a sign of respect. The service was held at St. Paul's Church before his burial at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His pallbearers included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James T. Fields, Richard Henry Dana, James Russell Lowell, Edwin Percy Whipple, and Thomas Bailey Aldrich (all but Dana were later buried in Mount Auburn too).

Clearly, Willis was a powerhouse for a time. But, even his first major biographer, Henry Beers in 1885, mused that Willis was from a forgotten era and that he may not survive in American collective memory in the future. That prediction seems true, but I would love to see a Willis revival. Consider my favorite poem by him, "April." A bit old-fashioned and sentimental, but beautiful nonetheless:

I have found violets. April hath come on,
And the cool winds feel softer, and the rain
Falls in the beaded drops of summer-time.
You may hear birds at morning, and at eve
The tame dove lingers till the twilight falls,
Cooling upon the eaves, and drawing in
His beautiful, bright neck; and, from the hills,
A murmur like the hoarseness of the sea,
Tells the release of waters, and the earth
Sends up a pleasant smell, and the dry leaves
Are lifted by the grass; and so I know
That Nature, with her delicate ear, hath heard
The dropping of the velvet foot of Spring.
Take of my violets! I found them where
The liquid south stole o'er them, on a bank
That lean'd to running water. There's to me
A daintiness about these early flowers,
That touches me like poetry. They blow
With such a simple loveliness among
The common herbs of pasture, and breathe out
Their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts
Whose beatings are too gentle for the world.
I love to go in the capricious days
Of April and hunt violets, when the rain
Is in the blue cups trembling, and they nod
So gracefully to the kisses of the wind.
It may be deem'd too idle, but the young
Read nature like the manuscript of Heaven,
And call the flowers its poetry. Go out!
Ye spirits of habitual unrest,
And read it, when the "fever of the world"
Hath made your hearts impatient, and, if life
Hath yet one spring unpoison'd, it will be
Like a beguiling music to its flow,
And you will no more wonder that I love
To hunt for violets in the April-time.

*Pictured is Willis's simple headstone at Mount Auburn. If visiting (which you should), look for the Charles T. Torrey memorial on the map; he is across from it, behind the bushes. A larger obelisk marks the family plot.

Birth and death of Nathaniel Parker Willis

There really is no one like Nathaniel Parker Willis (January 20, 1806 - January 20, 1867), the American poet, editor, publisher, travel essayist and, for a time, the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. He was born in Portland, Maine, and raised in Boston, before making his career as a New York writer and a member of the Knickerbocker group. Though barely remembered today (and, when he is, usually for his associations with other writers), he was a powerhouse of the antebellum period. At one point, for example, he was a regular columnist for three different publications, causing even Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to be jealous of his income.

A quick read through Pencillings by the Way or Out-doors at Idlewild reveals little substance in Willis. However, he was one of the earliest Americans to travel to Europe and write back about his experiences. His prose drew readers in using a style that addressed them directly as close, intimate friends. He made it seem that he was just a rustic American who happened to get lucky and implied that anyone could trade places with him.

As a poet, he often wrote on stereotypically feminine, wishy-washy subjects (case in point: "The Lady in the White Dress, Whom I Helped Onto the Omnibus"). However, much of his poetry stands the test of time and, what's more, he was writing almost entirely in blank verse in the late 1820s (somewhat impressive for that time period). His "Birth-day Verses" was written while he was traveling in Europe, addressed to his mother:

My birth-day!—Oh beloved mother!
My heart is with thee o'er the seas.
I did not think to count another
Before I wept upon thy knees—
Before this scroll of absent years
Was blotted with thy streaming tears.

My own I do not care to check.
I weep—albeit here alone—
As if I hung upon thy neck,
As if thy lips were on my own,
As if this full, sad heart of mine,
Were beating closely upon thine.

Four weary years! How looks she now?
What light is in those tender eyes?
What trace of time has touch'd the brow
Whose look is borrow'd of the skies
That listen to her nightly prayer?
How is she changed since he was there
Who sleeps upon her heart alway—
Whose name upon her lips is worn—
For whom the night seems made to pray—
For whom she wakes to pray at morn——
Whose sight is dim, whose heart-strings stir,—
Who weeps these tears—to think of her!

I know not if my mother's eyes—
Would find me changed in slighter things;
I've wander'd beneath many skies,
And tasted of some bitter springs;
And many leaves, once fair and gay,
From youth's full flower have dropp'd away—
But, as these looser leaves depart,
The lessen'd flower gets near the core,
And, when deserted quite, the heart
Takes closer what was dear of yore—
And yearns to those who loved it first—
The sunshine and the dew by which its bud was nursed.

The poem goes on to ask if, hypothetically, if his mother misses him and loves him the way he misses and loves her. Of course, he knows in his heart that he does, and the poem looks forward to their reunion. He imagines that meeting as one full of happy tears and expects that he will shed his adulthood and return to the boy nature he once shared with her. These sort of open-hearted domestic scenes certainly endeared him to his American audience.