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Thomas Holley Chivers, MD THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS, M.D “THE WILD MAZEPPA OF LETTERS” By ROBERT L. PITFIELD, M.D. PHILADELPHIA LARGE marble urn, draped view. He was not as mad as Blake after the fashion of long ago, but very much like him in many ways. stands in the town ceme- Not only did he, like that celebrated tery of Decatur, Georgia, English poet and artist, write mystic Aabove the grave of a forgottenpoetry, poet. but he had the same sort of On a cubical of stone on which the unbridled imagination soaring in and urn stands is this inscription: out of heaven, seeing all the company of celestial regions, communing with Here Lie the Remains of angels and other spirits. He saw THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS, M.D. visions, wrote the same kind of Of His Excellence rhythmic verse, and became in after As a Lyric Poet His works will remain a Monument years something of an artist, and like for Ages Blake adopted Swedenborgianism later After this temporary tribute of love in life. Is in his dust forgotten. He was born in a sparsely settled This soul winged its flight Heaven- portion of Georgia in 1809. His father ward came of good Virginia stock, his December 19th, 1858 * Aged 52 Years mother, a Miss Digby, is said to have descended from an old English family This mortuary urn may be taken as of that name. Little more is known of the chief motif of this essay, for it the ancestry of this frontier poet; symbolizes death, the constant recur- no one appears to have distinguished ring theme of the poet through most himself in the arts or letters, among of his work. Chivers was a most the forebears of this raw rhymster singular man, eccentric and in many of the live oaks and savannahs. ways uncouth. To many of his neigh- Nothing is known of their mental bors in Georgia, he appeared to be abilities or health. In considering mad. The ordinary man in the street, the man’s life, it must be borne in on reading his verses, would say that mind that he was never in want and there was no question about it and never suffered pecuniary worries and would unhesitatingly subscribe to that privations that hampered and tor- tured so many men of his profession. * Shortly before he died Chivers ante- His father, Col. Robert Chivers, was dated the year of his birth two years, making a wealthy planter and mill owner. it 1807 instead of 1809 as is accepted as his His son had certain lyric powers that true birth year. He did this to make him older than Poe, on account of the matter of cannot be denied. He wrote volumi- priority of publication, etc. The gravestone nously, his out-pourings were very often inscription states that he was fifty-two years huge affairs of eighty or more stanzas. old instead of forty-nine which was his correct He wrote much of celestial matters, age. he ransacked all of heaven to procure poetical materials for his works, but his marked rhythmic gifts from hear- he was far below his famous English ing the negroes chant their spirituals prototype in sheer mental powers. in field and kitchen. He loved his All medical men will agree that he parents dearly, especially his mother, was somewhat mentally unbalanced, and never wearied of writing lauda- of a highly emotional nature and tory poems in her tribute. He was religious to a bigoted degree. Born in a probably like Poe, an indulged spoiled strict Baptist family he early adopted boy. He was brought up to consider their narrow and stern views in himself an elegant Southern gentleman every particular. The Southern Bap- with all that such a social station tists of that period were of a very entails; he was proud and wholly bigoted, self-satisfied kind. Like Dr. Southern in his views always, espe- Beddoes, another doctor poet, he was cially in regards to slavery. As a boy obsessed with death; there is hardly he saw visions, as did Blake, and later a poem of his in which he does not in life wrote of his experiences in one muse upon that dreary subject. Like of them in Davis’ weekly magazine Blake and Swedenborg he was wholly The Univercoelum, which was con- an introvert. Being highly sensitive ducted by Davis, a well-known spirit- his emotions were very easily excited. ualist in the early days of this country. Damon in his clever biography of This is quoted in part to appraise the him says: extent of his mental disorder and his high pitched religious emotionalism: He had his eyes turned inward by means of fidelity to psychological fact, I had been sick but was now convales- he was blindly reaching upward for the cent—(the Elysium of this poor life) and tendencies afloat in the atmosphere of was lying in bed in the middle of the the new world. Much of the fruit he room, reading the Psalms of David, when gathered was green, some of it was rotten, this vision appeared to me. I knew that but that was the fault of his intelligence God had couched my eyes to see it, for and not his genius. with my naked eyes I knew that I could not see a spirit; and, for fear that I was Later he continues:—“We must pick deceived or, that it might be a mere and choose in his rare volumes, much delusion—I placed my hands over my there is trash, but amongst the trash eyes, but the glorious vision still appeared are a few amazing specimens of rare to me as beautiful as before. Still doubt- species that deserve salvation.” ing the Truth of the Appearance—think- Born on a plantation near Oaky ing, perhaps that I might be deceived—I Grove, little is known of his early called my mother into the room and education. He lived in a handsome crying out in the ecstacy of delight, I cottage surrounded by finely kept said: “Mother, look up there on the wall at the beautiful angels singing and play- lawns, tall trees and gravel walks. His ing on their harps.” At which she looked childhood was happy; plenty of slaves up intently for sometime but could discern worked the fields and served in the nothing. She then said: “My dear, you home. They wanted nothing, life are distracted! I can see nothing.” flowed easily and placidly along under “Now,” said I, “they are gone. And they the live oaks and beside slow moving went away just as I told you.” When I rivers. It is more than likely that in turned my face toward the right side of Chivers’ early childhood he acquired the room, I saw a fountain of crystal water running down the wall and break- poet with sentimentality on every ing into a beautiful musical, cooling and hand, with the blacks chanting their purifying cascade. ... I told her to melodies with admirable rhythm amid hold her hand under the glass and I saw green meadows, groves, hills and the living crystal water splash down into streams. With a religious tension and the palm of her hand. conviction that was pathological, or Such an experience would qualify at least most unwholesome, equipped Chivers to membership in that singu- with an impressionable high strung lar band called the illuminati or system far from balanced, the condi- vision seers. tions were just the kind to make him During Chivers’ boyhood religious the sort of lyrist he became. It was rivalry and even strife between the easy to woo the Muse, such as she two predominant religious sects, was in the plantations of Georgia in Methodists and Baptists, was ramp- the nineteenth century. His mind ant in Georgia. The conflict was was, no doubt, deeply stirred and widespread and rancorous. swayed by his religious teachers. The Baptist ministers of his day were The Methodists held their camp meet- highly emotional, unbalanced men. ings, spectacular, orgiastic and deeply Dressed in dolorous black, gaunt, emotional; the Baptists were more digni- lean, long haired, fanatical, often fied, and duller. Conversion and death were the two great events in the lives of melodramatic, they moved multitudes those people, and as infant mortality was enormously, feeding them the kind exceedingly high, both sects specialized of religious pap they hungered for. in edifying death-bed scenes and the black Every gesture was intensely theatrical, pomp of funerals. their strident voices as they related in intimate detail accounts of edifying America was raw, uncouth, un- death-bed scenes, shook with emotion. lettered, culture was crude and so Some claimed to have looked unto colored with sentimentalism that it hell and to have witnessed the tor- was a matter of detestation on the ments of the unconverted. Sin, death, part of visiting foreigners. Life was a conversion, salvation and damnation melodrama, highly colored and pas- were the themes of their weird dis- sionate. Prejudices ruled men rather courses. They dealt little with Divine than reason. Damon says: Love, the beatitudes, spiritual grace, Crying out that America had no bards, service and Christian beauty. Prob- everybody rushed into print. A thousand ably, most of their texts were taken mocking birds struck up imitating a from the Book of Revelations. They thousand nightingales whose haunt did wanted to make sinners quake in not happen to be America—into each their shoes and this they often did. other’s albums youths and maidens re- Their victims groaned and wept. corded (in impeccable copper script) Many were seized with convulsions undying sentiments and attachments of or swooned or fell into hysterical an ardour which would startie today’s trances.
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