PROFESSOR, REVEREND KARL THEODOR CHRISTIAN FOLLEN,

CALLED IN AMERICA “CHARLES FOLLEN”

I’m not sure I’ve gotten this one right. During his early life in Europe, the student Karl Follen had been up close and familiar with a group radical enough to sponsor a book-burning, and on intimate terms with a couple of other students who transformed themselves into political assassins (assassins of the knife type). Here in the New World, he became a professor and then a reverend, and a story grew up around him that cast him as an abolitionist martyr — although there does not seem objectively to be a single thing about his life trajectory that would smack of the personal sacrifice made by a genuine martyr. Meanwhile there is the unexplored fact that after he had succumbed in a tragic transportation accident, there was a great deal of unexplained difficulty in obtaining a Boston venue for a memorial service. Why was it that that memorial could not simply have been staged at this octagonal church that he had himself designed in East Lexington? –It seems to me that something has been deliberately left out of this historical record. So, what the hell are we missing here?

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Charles Follen HDT WHAT? INDEX

CHARLES FOLLEN PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN

1796

September 6, Tuesday: Karl Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen was born at the small Hessian town of Romrod, in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, to Christoph Follen (1759-1833), a counselor-at-law and judge in Gießen, and Rosine Follen (1766-1799), who had retired to Romrod to avoid the French revolutionary troops that had occupied Gießen. He would have as brothers August Ludwig Follen and Paul Follen, and as an uncle Karl Vogt. He would be educated at the preparatory school at Gießen, where he would distinguish himself by his proficiency in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, and Italian.

French troops reached Cismona, having covered 100 kilometers in two days.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

Charles Follen “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1813

In about this year, at the age of 17, Karl Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen matriculated as a student of theology at the University of Gießen.

In Stockholm, with the support of the French general who had in 1810 been elected Crown Prince of Sweden, Pehr Ling established a Royal Central Institute of Gymnastics. “Swedish gymnastics” would become a required part of the education of Swedish military officers, and in 1836 Ling, a noted fencer, would create for the Swedish Army a manual of bayonet-fighting.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Charles Follen HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1814

The brothers Karl Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen and August Ludwig Follen enlisted in a unit of Hessian volunteers, to fight in the Napoleonic Wars. A few weeks later, however, Karl came down with typhoid fever. For a time it would be feared that this infection had destroyed his memory. Recovering, he returned to the University of Gießen, and took up the study of law. As a student, he would join the Gießen Burschenschaft and pledge to support republican ideals.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Charles Follen HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1817

Edward Everett was the first American to receive the PhD of a German university. This was Göttingen, at which Alexander von Humboldt had studied.

Karl Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen was a primary organizer of the 1st Wartburgfest at the Schloss Wartburg near Eisenach, Germany. He did not himself attend the student festival, but was the author of political essays, poems, and patriotic songs espousing violence –up to and including tyrannicide– for the preservation of our freedoms.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Charles Follen HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

October 18, Saturday: This year was the 300th since the nailing of the 95 theses to the door of the Roman Catholic edifice in Wittenberg, Schloßkirche:

German republican students converged on the Schloss Wartburg near Eisenach, Germany in which Martin Luther had sought refuge while translating the Bible into the German language. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

Inside that castle was preserved the authentic whale vertebra that Luther had used as a footstool!

What this Wartburg Festival in Jena to commemorate the anniversaries of Luther’s death and the Battle of Leipzig demonstrated was the revolutionary sentiments of these German students. Here were 400 students from a dozen universities listening to impassioned political speeches and swearing deep oaths. They lighted an enormous bonfire into which they cast various symbolic objects.

This castle had since become a symbol of German nationalism, associated with the black-red-gold color scheme of the uniforms of the Königlich Preußisches Freikorps von Lützow — that would eventually be adopted as the flag of a unified Germany. At the castle on this day, the students assembled around a cheery bonfire of all the reactionary books they could easily get their hands upon, such as August Freidrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue’s GESCHICHTE DES DEUTSCHEN REICHES VON DESSEN URSPRUNGE BIS ZU DESSEN UNTERGANGE (a gesture that in a later timeframe would come to be considered more problematic than it had seemed for that event :-). They pitched symbols of everything they hated into this bonfire, such as the Police Statute Book of the notorious Prussian Minister of Justice, Herr von Kamptz, the Code Napoleon, and especially the final act of the Congress of Vienna.

Etienne-Nicolas Méhul died of tuberculosis in Paris, aged 54 years.

La clochette, ou Le diable page, an opéra féerie by Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold to words of Théaulon de Lambert, was performed for the initial time, at the Théâtre Feydeau, Paris. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1818

Karl Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen became a lecturer (Privatdocent of civil law) at the University of Gießen.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

Charles Follen “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1819

March 23, Tuesday: Karl Ludwig Sand, a Bavarian theology student at the University of Jena, gained entry to the home of the reactionary diplomat and dramatist August Freidrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue, author of the GESCHICHTE DES DEUTSCHEN REICHES VON DESSEN URSPRUNGE BIS ZU DESSEN UNTERGANGE denouncing liberalism, civil liberties, and constitutions that had been thrown into the bonfire of the student bookburning at the Schloss Wartburg on October 18, 1817, and stabbed him repeatedly in the chest while the man’s 4-year- old son watched from the nearby nursery room (after several failed attempts to commit suicide by stabbing himself, Sand would be beheaded). HEADCHOPPING

Karl Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen’s friendship with Sand would bring him under suspicion as an accomplice. Follen was able to destroy some letters linking him with Sand and would be acquitted due to lack of evidence. He would, however, be dismissed from the University of Gießen and would need to relocate, to Paris. There he would meet Charles Comte, son-in-law of Jean Baptiste Say and founder of the Censeur, a publication which he defended until he chose exile in Switzerland instead of imprisonment in France.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

Charles Follen “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1820

June 7, Wednesday: Louis Pierre Louvel was guillotined for the assassination of Charles Ferdinand d’Artois, Duc de Berry. HEADCHOPPING

Karl Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen had come under suspicion as an accomplice, and would flee to Switzerland (he would teach for awhile at the cantonal school at Coire and at the University of Basel while Prussian authorities continued to solicit Swiss authorities to deliver him unto their tender mercies, until both he and Charles Comte would be forced again to flee, in Follen’s case to the United States of America).

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

Charles Follen “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1824

Karl Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen’s brother August Adolf Ludwig Follen (1794-1855) had been leading radical student political groups at Giessen and Heidelberg, and after having been imprisoned at Berlin for agitation (1819-1821) had taught in Aarau, Switzerland (1821-1827) and become a member of the Grand Council at Zürich. His politically active brother’s works included the song Freye Stimmen frischer Jugend (1819), the novel MALAGYS UND VIVIAN (1829), the poem Harfen-Grüsse aus Deutschland und der Schweiz (1823), and the epic poem Tristans Eltern (1857). Karl, when the assassination of Kotzebue placed him and his friend Karl Sand under suspicion in the Holy Alliance of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, had been twice arrested and tried for conspiracy in that murder. He had fled first to France and then to the canton of Basel in Switzerland, and from there during this year he continued on to New-York, where he chose to be known as Charles Follen. Aided by letters of introduction from the Marquis de Lafayette, he would establish himself in Massachusetts society. He would become headmaster of the Round Hill School in Northampton, HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

Massachusetts, and would get married with a daughter of one Boston’s most prominent families, Eliza Lee Cabot.

While teaching French and miniature painting to the boys at the Round Hill Academy, Nicholas Marcellus Hentz got married with a 24-year-old lady, Caroline Lee Whiting. In this year, publication of his A MANUAL OF FRENCH PHRASES, AND FRENCH CONVERSATIONS: ADAPTED TO WANOSTROCHT’S GRAMMAR ... (Boston: Richardson and Lord, J.H.A. Frost, Printer).

In extreme old age, Walt Whitman would reminisce for one last time about this period, and that alleged manly HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

kiss from Lafayette: “Memoranda”

It must have been in 1822 or ’3 that I first came to live in Brooklyn. Lived first in Front street, not far from what was then call’d “the New Ferry,” wending the river from the foot of Catharine (or Main) street to New York City. I was a little child (was born in 1819,) but tramp’d freely about the neighborhood and town, even then; was often on the aforesaid New Ferry; remember how I was petted and deadheaded by the gatekeepers and deckhands (all such fellows are kind to little children,) and remember the horses that seem’d to me so queer as they trudg’d around in the central houses of the boats, making the water-power. (For it was just on the eve of the steam-engine, which was soon after introduced [Page 1283] on the ferries.) Edward Copeland (afterward Mayor) had a grocery store then at the corner of Front and Catharine streets. Presently we Whitmans all moved up to Tillary street, near Adams, where my father, who was a carpenter, built a house for himself and us all. It was from here I “assisted” the personal coming of Lafayette in 1824-5 to Brooklyn. He came over the Old Ferry, as the now Fulton Ferry (partly navigated quite up to that day by ‘horse boats,’ though the first steamer had begun to be used hereabouts) was then call’d, and was receiv’d at the foot of Fulton street. It was on that occasion that the corner-stone of the Apprentices’ Library, at the corner of Cranberry and Henry streets — since pull’d down — was laid by Lafayette’s own hands. Numerous children arrived on the grounds, of whom I was one, and were assisted by several gentlemen to safe spots to view the ceremony. Among others, Lafayette, also helping the children, took me up — I was five years old, press’d me a moment to his breast — gave me a kiss and set me down in a safe spot. Lafayette was at that time between sixty-five and seventy years of age, with a manly figure and a kind face. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1825

After less than a year spent learning English and “networking,” Charles Follen landed a job at Harvard College as its 1st instructor in the German language.

CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1826

Charles Follen had been offering demonstrations of a new discipline, gymnastics, that had been being made popular in Europe by the gymnast Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852), known universally as “Father Jahn.” Follen and Francis Lieber, true believers in the maxim “a sound mind in a sound body,” had been the 1st to introduce gymnastic training in Boston. In this year, with the assistance of Charles Beck, Follen established at Harvard College the 1st college gymnasium in the United States (one may well suppose that after a good workout, the fellow would pause somewhere in the Harvard vicinity for a few rounds of beer).

In a contemporary drawing by G. Tytler we see members of the London Gymnastic Society exercising at their open-air gymnasium in Pentonville — they are using parallel bars, climbing ropes, engaging in tugs-of-war, wrestling, and doing individual and partner-assisted stretches. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1827

William Davis Ticknor left his home on a farm just outside Lebanon, New Hampshire at the age of 17, to work in the brokerage house of his uncle Benjamin Ticknor in Boston.

Professor Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert was made a professor at the University of München. In this post, attempting to produce a religiously grounded interpretation of the cosmos, he would arouse the antagonism of Lorenz Oken.

Cornelius Conway Felton, who had been at least in part working his way through his education by teaching in Concord and in Boston, and at the Round Hill School in Northampton, at this point graduated from Harvard College. Horatio Wood graduated (his copious and carefully written notes on French and Spanish literature per the lectures of Professor George Ticknor, fresh from the German universities, would be preserved, and under the influence of Dr. Karl Follen, Horatio would persist in being a strenuous runner until the 7th decade of his life).

At the Divinity School, the following gentlemen commenced their studies: • Julian Abbot • Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch (A.B. Col. [Columbia College?]) • Francis Cunningham • Joseph Hawley Dorr (A.B. Bowdoin College) • George Washington Hosmer • Josiah Moore • John Owen (A.B. Bowdoin College) • Ephraim Peabody (A.B. Brown University) • Allen Putnam • George Putnam • John Turner Sargent • David Southard • Oliver Stearns

(In these early years of the divinity school there were no formal class graduations, as students would be in the habit of remaining until they wrangled the offer of an appropriate pulpit.) NEW “HARVARD MEN” HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1828

Charles Follen got married with Eliza Lee Cabot, well connected in Boston Brahmin society and author of 1827’s THE WELL-SPENT HOUR. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1829

Benjamin Peirce and William Henry Channing graduated from Harvard College.

NEW “HARVARD MEN”

Oliver Wendell Holmes graduated from Harvard as Class Poet, and went into the study of medicine — for many years afterward he would congratulate each graduating class by means of a poem.

Dr. Charles Follen became, in addition to the Professor of German Language and Literature, an instructor of ethics and history at the Divinity School.

Horatio Wood entered Divinity School. Among his classmates would be his lifelong friend the Reverend Andrew Preston Peabody, the Reverend Charles Babbidge of Pepperell, and the Reverend Henry Adolphus Miles. The Reverend Wood would afterward write of this period as follows: My mind was taken by the first movements of Rev. Dr. Tuckerman among the poorest, the most friendless, the most neglected, the most exposed to sin and ruin of our fellow-men. It struck me like the dawning of a new day for the Unitarian Church if it would be not only doctrinally, but practically, truly Christian. Rev. F.T. Gray, Rev. C.F. Barnard, Rev. J.T. Sargent, HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

Rev. R.C. Waterston, I saw step forward, one after another, and put their hands zealously and vigorously to the plough of Christ in the new field, and my heart went with them. On a Saturday of my last collegiate year, in 1827, I went alone and spent a day in visiting the crowded rooms, cellars and attics of Broad Street [in Boston], where there was a stifled mass of degradation and woe. I let nothing escape my eyes, heard all tales, sat down and talked familiarly with many till they unburdened themselves and turned themselves inside out, letting me know all that was in their hearts. I carried away knowledge and lessons which were never to leave me.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1830

Dr. Charles Follen became a naturalized citizen and Harvard College made him temporarily the 1st college- level professor in German (as opposed to language tutor) in the United States. The funding for this, which was contributed expressly for this purpose by his wife Eliza Cabot’s rich relatives, was such that this new post was not only a non-permanent one but also was assured to him only for the first five years. During this year his son Charles Christopher Follen was born. He would become ordained as a Unitarian minister, and supplemented his income by preaching in and around the Boston area, with his primary message being the moral evil of the institution of slavery. (This, obviously, was going to constitute a problem, since Harvard and learning European languages were high culture whereas proselytizing for the abolition of slavery was equivalent to the sponsoring of baseness.) NEW “HARVARD MEN” HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

The Harvard Library published its shelflist: HARVARD BOOKS, I HARVARD BOOKS, II HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1831

In this year was published the edition of the German reader that David Henry Thoreau would use while studying that language as part of his college curriculum. It was Professor Charles Follen, D.D.’s A GERMAN READER, a copy of which has been found in Thoreau’s personal library. Unfortunately, Google Books has not yet made this 1831 edition, printed in Boston by Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins, available in electronic form. All that I can offer you here, at the present moment, therefore, is the 1858 edition printed in Boston and Cambridge by James Munroe and Company: FOLLEN’S GERMAN READER

In 1826 Harvard College had reduced the length of its winter vacation, making it more difficult for students from poorer families to make some money to cover their expenses by teaching school. This is not to offer that the college had been taking action to make it more difficult for such students to stick it out for the duration of a college education; it is merely to offer, rather, that had reducing the length of the winter vacation had the effect of making it any harder on the students from the more well-to-do families, the length of the winter vacation would most definitely not thus have been reduced. To put the matter crudely, nobody in Cambridge cared a great deal whether a poor boy had or did not have an opportunity to achieve a higher formal education. There were only a few, small scholarships for needy students in those days. In this year, only 34 students would be receiving financial assistance at Harvard, versus 144 students at Yale:

These few Harvard helping arrangements were generally specified to be for boys from designated towns. David Henry Thoreau received the one for a boy from Concord — although this was presumably the very best use Harvard has ever made of any of its scholarship money, I have never heard any Harvard official ever brag about it! Since the Revolution new state-valuations have been taken, once HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

in ten years, and that after the taking of the census. In these valuations various articles of personal property are required to be enumerated and described, not however uniformly alike. In the following table some of the principal only are mentioned.1

Articles of Property. In 1781. In 1791. In 1801. In 1811. In 1821. In 1831.

Polls 326 340 390 390 435 489

Dwelling houses 193 188 227 224 235 253

Barns 174 142 184 183 203 225

Other buildings —— —— 64 79 265 125

Acres of tillage land 1188 1063 1112 1156 1137 1098

Acres of English Mowing 753 721 840 992 1205 1279

Acres of Meadow 2089 1827 2236 2131 2153 2111

Acres of Pasturing 3099 4398 3800 2982 3852 4059

Acres of Woodland 3878 4436 3635 3386 3262 2048

Acres Unimproved —— —— 1282 1732 1392 2833

Acres Unimproveable —— —— 384 —— 395 612

Acres Used for roads —— —— —— 348 286 ——

Acres of Water —— —— —— 515 695 ——

Barrels of Cider 882 799 1376 1767 1079 ——

Tons of English Hay —— —— 731 838 880 836

Tons of Meadow Hay —— —— 1434 1453 1270 1370

Bushels of Rye —— —— 4738 2942 3183 2327

Bushels of Corn —— —— 10505 10052 11375 11424

Bushels of Oats —— —— 1388 1463 2372 4129

Horses 137 146 182 179 145 177

Oxen 324 288 374 326 337 418

Cows 916 775 934 831 743 725

Swine 137 308 290 269 294 408

The total valuation, in 1801, was $20,322, in 1811, $24,554, in 1821, $25,860, and in 1831, $36,681.29. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

There were some $5,288.65 in debts owed to the town, which was considerably more than a few years before.

At the beginning of this year, Concord’s fund for the support of its minister totaled $11,431.45. (That’d be the equivalent of comfortably more than a million bucks, in today’s money.)

FINANCES.— In the early ages of the town, several lots of land were reserved for the “public good,” and donations were made by individuals for the same purpose. Most of them, however, were disposed of without producing much permanent benefit, or accomplishing the wishes of the donor. Captain Timothy Wheeler,2 in 1687, bequeathed to the Rev. Edward Bulkeley and the Rev. Joseph Estabrook, who were then the ministers of the town, 20s. apiece; and to the town about three acres of land, with a house standing on the same, to be improved, all but half an acre (which was “laid out to the training place” at the northwesterly end of the public common), “for the furtherance of learning and the support of a school in the said town.” This lot was that on which the grammar school-house now [1835] stands, and then embraced nearly all which would be included in a line drawn from the north side of the house recently built by Ephraim Merriam, to the brook and by the brook round to the Middlesex Hotel and the common. These premises were several years leased and the rents applied according to the wishes of the donor; but piece after piece was unfortunately sold, till the school-house lot was contracted to its present [1835] highly inconvenient dimensions. Captain Wheeler also bequeathed to the town 40 acres of woodland, “to be improved from time to time for the use and benefit of the ministers of the said town.” This was the present [1835] ministerial lot; and the people were long accustomed to hold a bee, when a sufficient quantity of wood for the minister’s annual consumption was drawn from this lot to his door. The town directed, April 1, 1811, that the wood on this lot, and on one in Carlisle, should be cut off and sold; and that pews should be erected on some vacant floor in the meeting-house, and also sold; and that the proceeds should be vested in the hands of trustees, as a ministerial fund. Their first report was made November 7, 1814, and shows the following results. Proceeds of sales of wood on the ministerial wood-lot $2,566.13 Proceeds of sales of wood on a lot in Carlisle 364.27 Proceeds of sales of pews in the meeting house 1,365.55 ————————

1. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) 2. Captain TIMOTHY WHEELER died July 10, 1687 aged 86. He came to Concord in 1638, tradition says from Wales. Besides holding, at different times, most of the important trusts in various town affairs, he was captain of a military company, and represented the town eighteen years in the General Court, between 1653 and 1672. In all stations he appears to have conducted himself with great propriety. At his death he was possessed of a very respectable estate. His will, which is recorded in the Suffolk Probate Records, was dated the 1st of March next before his death. His second wife was Mary, daughter of Captain Thomas Brooks. They had no male issue. One of his daughters, Elizabeth, married Ebenezer Prout, some time clerk of the House of Representatives; and another, Rebecca, married James Minott, Esq., and was the ancestor of many distinguished individuals. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

Total on interest from January 1st, 1814 $4,295.95 The first trustees were John White, Francis Jarvis, and John L. Tuttle; and they and their successors were incorporated by an act passed February 27, 1813, as “The Trustees of the Congregational Ministerial Fund in Concord.” This fund has since been accumulating; and it received the additional legacy of Humphrey Barrett,3 in 1829, of $500. No appropriations were made from it till 1830; and on the first of January, 1831, it amounted to $11,431.45. In 1732, a committee was appointed, consisting of the Rev. Mr. Whiting, James Minott, Jr., John Fox, and Samuel Heywood, to make sale of the common and ministerial land in the town, and vest the proceeds in other real estate. A “ministerial pasture and plow land,” was accordingly bought west of the almshouse and some time used as a “perquisite” lot. During the Rev. Mr. Emerson’s ministry, it was sold for £75, or $250, and the annual interest, $15, applied for the benefit of the minister. In consequence of losses sustained during the revolution, it became reduced to $100 nearly. In 1819, the town voted that the minister should receive $15, the original perquisite; and the balance $9, has been annually raised by a tax.4 EMPLOYMENT.— Agriculture is the greatest source of wealth to the town. Manufactures are next in rank. Three farmers in the town own about 1000 sheep, the value of whose wool was estimated, in 1831, at $1500. There were raised 884,000 teasles. The oldest cotton-mill now [1835] in this state was commenced in this town in 1805, and the manufacture of cotton soon after began by Messrs. Hartwell and Brown, and has since been carried on by Ephraim H. Bellows through the various fluctuations of the business. The proprietors were incorporated in 1832. The mill contained 1100 spindles, 20 looms, employs 9 men, 3 boys, and 30 girls, works 50,000 lbs. of cotton, and makes 188,000 yards of cloth annually, valued at $17,900. David Loring commenced the manufacture of lead pipes in 1819, and of sheet lead in 1831. He employs 6 men, and upwards of 300,000 lbs. of lead are annually wrought, valued, when ready for sale, at about 20,000. In the extensive establishments for the manufacture of chaises, harness, and carriages, owned by Colonel William Whiting and the Messrs. Robbins, the value of the articles manufactured last year was estimated at $14,000. The smithery, where the iron work was made, used upwards of 100,000 lbs. of iron, and 4,000 of steel, in 1831. Henry H. Merrill, the proprietor, erected, in 1832, a steam-engine, and has otherwise enlarged his works. Elijah Wood commenced the manufacture of boots and shoes in 1812 and makes, annually, about $6,000 worth. Nehemiah Ball began the

3. HUMPHREY BARRETT was the son of Lieutenant Humphrey Barrett, and died without issue, March 13, 1827, aged 75. Abel B. Heywood inherited, and lives on [1835], his real estate. 4. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

same business in 1832. From 3000 to 6000 gross black lead pencils and points are annually made in town. William Monroe commenced the manufacture of these in 1812; and his method of making them he regards as his own invention, having, he informs me, had no instruction from anyone in relation to the subject. “The lead for the first pencil was ground with the head of a hammer, was mixed in a common spoon, and the pencil sold to Benjamin Adams in Boston.” In 1814 he made 1212 gross, which he sold for $5,946. He has since made about 35,000 gross; in some years 4,000 gross of pencils, and 1,000 of points. John Thoreau and others in the town have also carried on the business extensively, but the profits are now [1835] very much reduced. Mr. Thoreau also makes red lead pencils and glass paper. There were also made, in 1831, 50 brass time-pieces, 1,300 hats, 562 dozen bellows, 100 guns, 300,000 bricks, 500 barrels, 20,000 lbs. bar soap, 5,000 nail- kegs, and cabinet ware, the value of which was estimated at $14,860. This is what is generally termed wholesale business, and includes very little custom work; the articles manufactured being principally sold abroad. There are 6 warehouses and stores; one bookstore and bindery; two saw-mills; and two grist- mills, at which it was estimated that 12,000 bushels of grain were ground the last year [1834?]. The manufacturing and mechanical business of the town is increasing, and promises to be a great source of wealth.5

The Volunteer Engine Company of Concord procured, by subscription, a fire engine: Provision Against Fire. — The Fire Society was organized May 5, 1794, and holds its annual meetings on the 2d Monday in January. The Presidents have been, Jonathan Fay, Esq., Dr. Joseph Hunt Tilly Merrick, Esq., Dr. Isaac Hurd, Deacon Francis Jarvis, Hon. Samuel Hoar, and Joseph Barrett, Esq. The Engine Company was formed, and the first engine procured, in 1794. A new engine was obtained in 1818. A Volunteer Engine Company was organized in 1827, who procured by subscription a new engine in 1831.6

5. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) 6. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston MA: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy, 1835 (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

Town Clerks of Lincoln7

Ephraim Flint 1746-1752, 1754, 1756-1757 Grosvenor Tarbell 1799-1803

Ebenezer Cutler 1753, 1755, 1759 Thomas Wheeler 1804-1806

Samuel Farrar 1758, 1760-1766 Elijah Fiske 1810-1821

John Adams 1767-1777 Stephen Patch 1822-1827

Abijah Pierce 1778-1779, 1781 Charles Wheeler 1828-1830

Samuel Hoar 1780, 1782, 1787-1798, Elijah Fiske 1831 1807-1809

Richard Russell 1783-1786

Here are the valuations, for this year, in neighboring Carlisle: The population [of Carlisle] in 1800 was 634; in 1810, 675; in 1820 681; in 1830, 566. In 1820, 119 persons were engaged in agriculture, 1 in commerce. and 34 in manufactures. The valuation in 1831 gives the following results: 138 rateable polls, 17 not rateable, 83 dwelling-houses, 88 barns, 4 grist and saw mills; 314 acres of tillage land, 524 acres of upland mowing, 661 acres of meadow, 294 acres of pasturing, 882 acres of woodland, 3607 acres unimproved, 884 unimproveable, 213 acres used for roads, and 109 acres covered with water; 46 horses, 200 oxen, 474 cows and steers; 3668 bushels of corn, 541 bushels of rye, 490 of oats, 362 tons of English hay, and 468 tons of meadow hay. By comparing the valuations for several periods since the incorporation it will appear that the town has made little or no progress, but in many things has retrograded.8

7. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston MA: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy, 1835 (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) 8. Ibid. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1832

November 17, Saturday: The Reverend Charles Follen delivered the oration at the grand society funeral of Dr. Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, coiner of the term “phrenology,” whose death due to typhoid fever in Boston had sadly cut short an American lecture tour.

THE FUNERAL ORATION HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

Christmas Holiday: At a party in his home on the corner of Follen Street in Cambridge, Professor Charles Follen introduced his 2-year-old son, and New England in general, to the German tradition of the decorated Christmas fir tree. The small fir was set in a tub and its branches hung with small dolls, gilded eggshells, and paper cornucopias filled with candied fruit. The tree was illuminated with numerous candles. Follen was of course not the first German immigrant to set up a Christmas tree on this side of the water. Such decorations had been seen in Pennsylvania in the 1820s, and there are reports that Hessian soldiers fighting for the British during the Revolution set up Christmas trees in their encampments. But there is good evidence that Follen was the first person to bring the decorated tree to New England and, after he had set the example, the custom would spread. Harriet Martineau described the unveiling of the tree: “It really looked beautiful; the room seemed in a blaze, and the ornaments were so well hung on that no accident happened, except that one doll’s petticoat caught fire. There was a sponge tied to the end of a stick to put out any supernumerary blaze, and no harm ensued. I mounted the steps behind the tree to see the effect of opening the doors. It was delightful. The children poured in, but in a moment every voice was hushed. Their faces were upturned to the blaze, all eyes wide open, all lips parted, all steps arrested.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1833

Henry Jacob Bigelow would be David Henry Thoreau’s classmate at Harvard College, until first receiving a “public admonition” and finally being dismissed from the college on April 24, 1837, the Saturday prior to the commencement in that year, for having been in possession of firearms and ammunition in his dormitory room and repeatedly discharging a firearm inside the room (MH-Ar Faculty Records UAIII 5.5.2.IX, 311). Evidently he was able to resume his studies, at Dartmouth College.

In 1795 a Conservatoire des Artes et Métiers had been established for France, and in this year that system of trade museums was introduced into Germany (the 1st efforts to accomplish anything of the kind in England would not come until 1837 with the Museum of Economic Geology, in 1848 with the Museum of Economic HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

Botany at Kew, and in 1851 with the Museum of Practical Geology and the School of Mines).

At Harvard, under instructor Hermann Bokum (who was filling the place left vacant by the departure of Charles Follen), Thoreau began four terms of study of the German language. Bokum had just come to Harvard from the University of Pennsylvania, where he had just prepared a new edition of BERNAYS’ COMPENDIOUS GERMAN GRAMMAR, WITH A DICTIONARY OF PREFIXES AND AFFIXES, AND WITH ALTERNATIONS, ADDITIONS, AND REFERENCES TO AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE (60 pages; Philadelphia: Hogan and Thompson, 139½ Market Street, 1832). This, presumably, would have been used in Thoreau’s classroom.9 COMPENDIOUS GERMAN

Heinrich Heine’s ZUR GESCHICHTE DER NEUREN SCHÖNEN LITERATUR IN DEUTSCHLAND (PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE IN GERMANY). Also in this year, his FRANZÖSISCHE ZUSTÄNDE (FRENCH AFFAIRS).

Twelve year-old future philologist George Adler was brought to the USA from Leipzig, Germany.

A projected uprising in the Piedmont was betrayed before it had begun, and a number of its idealistic and ruthless ringleaders committed suicide or were executed. The Italian government put a dead-or-alive price on Giuseppe Mazzini’s head, and he had to move to Switzerland to get out of the jurisdiction of the French police. In Switzerland he tried to raise an army to invade Savoy, but not enough young men were willing to die, so instead he founded organizations named Young Germany, Young Switzerland, Young Poland, and Young Europe.

9. Interestingly, both Charles Follen and Hermann Bokum would be instrumental in bringing the Christmas Tree tradition to America. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1834

At Harvard College, Professor Cornelius Conway Felton became Eliot Professor of Greek Literature and had David Henry Thoreau as one of his pupils. Professor Felton was positioning an essay in the North American Review in defense the teaching and study of classical mythology, especially Greek mythology, which evidently was considered in need of a defense as it seemed to be encouraging lewdness. For Professor Felton, expurgation of the classic texts to delete titillating stuff did not represent a problem of suppression and censorship, but rather represented the correction of a problem of debasement and inauthenticity, because it was inconceivable that there could have been any actual “food for the passions” in originary authentic works of classicism, or, at least, in works of Greek classicism.

To the scholar we would say, then, expurgate your Horaces and your Ovids, till not an obscene thought shall stain their pages; and you may be sure that nothing will be lost in your enquiries respecting the classic religion.

No, for if you credit Professor Felton’s reconstruction of European history, these dead white men could never have been guilty of worshiping at “altars of indecency and wantonness.”

WALDEN: There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not PEOPLE OF philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once WALDEN admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier- like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why do men degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men?

CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

Hanging being a piece of public theater, however, it was sometimes required of a condemned man in this modern decent society that he attire himself in his shroud (a long white linen or cotton garment with open back and long sleeves) prior to the placement of the hood and the noose. Local taverns would sometimes hire “watchers” to keep around-the-clock guard upon a condemned man, not to prevent his escape of course but to ensure that he would not cheat them of their profits from the alcohol-imbibing throng of men come to witness a hanging. No way would such an important participant in an expected ceremony be allowed to off himself in private in advance. When a condemned man was reprieved at the last moment, as indeed sometimes happened, this might incite the disappointed throng to riot, for although we have few records for such items as the shroud and the death watch, we know that this sort of riot is actually what did result from a reprieve in Pembroke MA in this year.10

The lenience of Harvard President Reverend John T. Kirkland had been succeeded by the strictness of President Josiah Quincy, Sr., the former mayor who was attempting to deal with student rebellion as he had once dealt with mobs attempting to tear down Boston’s whorehouses: by repression. Students at Harvard were rioting over living conditions and the entire Sophomore class was being not merely expelled but hauled before a court.

10. In this year Pennsylvania became the first state to move executions away from the public eye and carry them out only within prison enclosures. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

Records of faculty meetings from this period show that in the shifting minority of professors who opposed and attempted to moderate Quincy’s crackdowns, Professor Charles Follen was alone in constancy of opposition.11 Freshman David Henry Thoreau evidently made himself scarce during the tearing of shutters off windows and the building of bonfires in front of doorways and his only contribution to the rebellion was a comment he appears to have made in Dr. Beck’s examination room –apparently sarcastically– “Our offense was rank.”12

(shutters awaiting the arrival of students)

One midnight during the great Harvard Rebellion Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar lay on his back in the belfry of Harvard Hall and sawed off the tongue of the bell that summoned the students to morning chapel. Fortunately he was not caught destroying property, or perhaps later he would not have been able to become Attorney

11. Professor Karl Follen’s brother Paul Follen was at this point emigrating to the United States, and would settle in Missouri. We’ll allow you three guesses as to what is about to happen to Professor Follen himself. 12. At Harvard at this time, the offense of “grouping” in Harvard Yard, that is, students assembling for some purpose not condoned by the faculty (such as, for instance, free speech), was grounds for being asked to “take up one’s connexions,” that is, grounds for permanent expulsion from college. (Such rules are of course not limited to the Harvard of the 19th Century: my own memories are of smelling tear gas on the steps of Widener Library as I came away from my carrel and found out that there had been a “Pogo Riot” in which the police had rioted and cleared the intersection in front of the student bookstore of passersby in 1960-1961, and then of being vomit gassed by US Marine guards on the street outside our embassy in Tehran, Iran in 1978 for the offense of attempting to obtain entry thereto as a US citizen in an Iran in which soldiers were authorized to kill anyone “assembling” in any public place in a group larger than two persons.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

General of the United States of America:

Of his college life little remains to say. In his Junior and Senior years he attracted the attention of Edward Tyrrell Channing, then the valued Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, and received the highest marks for English Composition. He also won the second Bowdoin prize for an essay, and at the Exhibition in his Senior year had, as his part, the English oration, taking as his subject “Reverence.” His part at Commencement when he graduated was an English oration on “The Christian Philosophy; its Political Application.” Only fifty-two of his class received degrees at Commencement [80 had entered this class of 1835, and Richard Henry Dana, Jr. had been forced to drop out on account of his eyes], largely a result of the “Rebellion,” but five more were allowed their Bachelor’s degree years later. Rockwood Hoar was third scholar. The refined and attractive Harrison Gray Otis Blake of Worcester, later Thoreau’s near friend, was chosen Orator by a large majority, but his modesty made him decline, and Charles C. Shackford, later a minister, and a professor at Cornell University, was then chosen. Blake, however, gave the Latin Salutatory. Benjamin Davis Winslow was the Poet. Hoar was chosen a member of the Class Committee.

It need only be added to this, that the student who was first scholar in the Harvard College class of 1835, a class that included Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, and who was chosen to replace H.G.O. Blake, who was that class’s fourth scholar, as the class Orator, Charles Chauncy Shackford, after graduation went out to Concord and became a schoolteacher and romanced the local lasses, before going on to study law, and becoming a minister in 1841, and eventually becoming a professor at Cornell University. At Cornell, he would be their professor of rhetoric and literature, and, incidentally, would make himself one of the pioneers in the field now known as Comparative Literature. COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

May: For the first meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, in Boston, the Reverend Samuel Joseph May orated: Genius of America — Spirit of our free institutions! — where art thou? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer! son of the morning, — how art thou fallen from Heaven! Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming! The kings of the earth cry out to thee, Aha! Aha! Art thou become like unto us? HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

At this convention, Harvard College’s Professor of German, the Reverend Charles Follen, inferred from the Declaration of Independence to certain principles of republican freedom: “Shall a republic be less free than a monarchy?” he asked, pointing out that England, a monarchy, had already outlawed slavery. “If you are republicans in principle, then let the avenues, all the avenues of light and liberty, of truth and love, be opened wide to every one within the nation.” By “every one,” he meant to be really radical and really to shock: “every one” meant, he suggested, not only black people but also American Indians and even human females. Toward the close of the learned German-American’s address occurred a passage which would suggest the following lines: The despotism which our fathers could not bear in their native country is expiring, and the sword of justice in her reformed hands has applied its exterminating edge to slavery. Shall the United States —the free United States, which could not bear the bonds of a king— cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing? Shall a Republic be less free than a Monarchy? Shall we, in the vigor and buoyancy of our manhood, be less energetic in righteousness than a kingdom in its age? Friend John Greenleaf Whittier would prepare the following poem:

FOLLEN. OUR fellow-countrymen in chains! Slaves, in a land of light and law! Slaves, crouching on the very plains Where rolled the storm of Freedom’s war! A groan from Eutaw’s haunted wood, A wail where Camden’s martyrs fell, By every shrine of patriot blood, From Moultrie’s wall and Jasper’s well! By storied hill and hallowed grot, By mossy wood and marshy glen, Whence rang of old the rifle-shot, And hurrying shout of Marion’s men! The groan of breaking hearts is there, The falling lash, the fetter’s clank! Slaves, slaves are breathing in that air Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank! What, ho! our countrymen in chains! The whip on woman’s shrinking flesh! Our soil yet reddening with the stains Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh! What! mothers from their children riven! What! God’s own image bought and sold! Americans to market driven, And bartered as the brute for gold! Speak! shall their agony of prayer Come thrilling to our hearts in vain? To us whose fathers scorned to bear The paltry menace of a chain; To us, whose boast is loud and long Of holy Liberty and Light; Say, shall these writhing slaves of Wrong Plead vainly for their plundered Right? What! shall we send, with lavish breath, Our sympathies across the wave, HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

Where Manhood, on the field of death, Strikes for his freedom or a grave? Shall prayers go up, and hymns be sung For Greece, the Moslem fetter spurning, And millions hail with pen and tongue Our light on all her altars burning? Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France, By Vendome’s pile and Schoenbrun’s wall, And Poland, gasping on her lance, The impulse of our cheering call? And shall the slave, beneath our eye, Clank o’er our fields his hateful chain? And toss his fettered arms on high, And groan for Freedom’s gift, in vain? Oh, say, shall Prussia’s banner be A refuge for the stricken slave? And shall the Russian serf go free By Baikal’s lake and Neva’s wave? And shall the wintry-bosomed Dane Relax the iron hand of pride, And bid his bondmen cast the chain From fettered soul and limb aside?

Shall every flap of England’s flag Proclaim that all around are free, From farthest Ind to each blue crag That beetles o’er the Western Sea? And shall we scoff at Europe’s kings, When Freedom’s fire is dim with us, And round our country’s altar clings The damning shade of Slavery’s curse? Go, let us ask of Constantine To loose his grasp on Poland’s throat; And beg the lord of Mahmoud’s line To spare the struggling Suliote; Will not the scorching answer come From turbaned Turk, and scornful Russ: “Go, loose your lettered slaves at home, Then turn, and ask the like of us!” Just God! and shall we calmly rest, The Christian’s scorn, the heathen’s mirth, Content to live the lingering jest And by-word of a mocking Earth? Shall our own glorious land retain That curse which Europe scorns to bear? Shall our own brethren drag the chain Which not even Russia’s menials wear? Up, then, in Freedom’s manly part, From graybeard eld to fiery youth, And on the nation’s naked heart Scatter the living coals of Truth! Up! while ye slumber, deeper yet The shadow of our fame is growing! Up! while ye pause, our sun may set In blood, around our altars flowing! Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth, HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

The gathered wrath of God and man, Like that which wasted Egypt’s earth, When hail and fire above it ran. Hear ye no warnings in the air? Feel ye no earthquake underneath? Up, up! why will ye slumber where The sleeper only wakes in death? Rise now for Freedom! not in strife Like that your sterner fathers saw, The awful waste of human life, The glory and the guilt of war: But break the chain, the yoke remove, And smite to earth Oppression’s rod, With those mild arms of Truth and Love, Made mighty through the living God! Down let the shrine of Moloch sink, And leave no traces where it stood; Nor longer let its idol drink His daily cup of human blood; But rear another altar there, To Truth and Love and Mercy given, And Freedom’s gift, and freedom’s prayer, Shall call an answer down from Heaven! HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

November 3, Monday: Harvard Professor of the German Language and Literature Charles Follen, J.U.D. delivered, at the Masonic Temple in Boston, an address introductory to the 4th course of the Franklin Lectures.

THE FRANKLIN LECTURES HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1835

Hosea Hildreth died (after being expelled by Congregationalists during the previous year from ministering over their First Parish Church of Gloucester, Massachusetts, he had been serving as minister for a Unitarian congregation in Westboro, Massachusetts).

Dr. Charles Follen was no longer to be the Professor of Germanic Literature at Harvard College, new funding having failed to appear perhaps on account of his often-proclaimed abolitionist sympathies but more likely because he had been such an outspoken opponent of the disciplinarian President of Harvard, Josiah Quincy, Sr. His widow and his friend Samuel May would be convinced he had been dropped for being indiscreetly vocal about antislavery, but the attitude taken by Harvard’s Dr. Reginald H. Phelps toward this has been that there is nothing whatever in the record which might substantiate such an accusation: outside funds for his professorship, which initially had been being supplied by his wife’s relatives, had run out with the Corporation simply neglecting to endow a more permanent professorship in German. Phelps points out that Follen might have elected to continue on at an instructor’s status and salary, a point which seems to have been neglected by those who hold that he had been dismissed. The maximum case that might be made for persecution on account of antislavery activities would be, not that he had been sluffed off, but that the powers that be in the academic world had failed to prefer him.

He had an alternative, because the friendship of the Reverend William Ellery Channing had drawn him into the Unitarian Church. In this year he was ordained as a minister and called to the pulpit of the 2d Congregational Society at East Lexington, Massachusetts (in 1839 he would build himself an octagonal church, that is now the Follen Church Society-Unitarian Universalist). Instead of continuing at Harvard, but on an instructor’s salary and with an instructor’s status, this energetic gentleman had simply opted for a different sort of career.

In this year efforts to break down the barriers –social, educational, and theological– between Unitarians and Restorationist Universalists ended, with the death of the Reverend Bernard Whitman. After this untimely death, although Adin Ballou would remain a Restorationist, he would take little part in apologetic and ecclesiastical affairs. Instead, already won to the temperance cause, he would devote his energies to social reform. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1836

This year would be the start of what are referred to in the trade as “Emerson’s most productive working years,” until 1849. His agenda in NATURE would be to see words as signs of natural facts, and these natural facts in turn as the symbols for equivalent facts within the realm of spirit, in such a manner that animate and inanimate Nature becomes a transparent window into this obscurer realm. [T]he universe becomes transparent, and the light of higher laws than its own shines through it.

This agenda would become the most influential new, secularized version of the Puritan attitude toward Nature as a sign system of correspondences in which one could read the Will of God.

The East Lexington community that attended the Unitarian Church had proved to be unable to pay their minister, the Reverend Charles Follen, sufficiently to support his family. Accordingly, he sought other employment, while the needs of that pulpit would be supplied, until he returned in 1838, by the Reverend Waldo Emerson. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

David Henry Thoreau was already back at Harvard College, in 32 Hollis Hall, when at the annual town meeting of Concord, Waldo was elected “hogreeve.” The following explanation of the custom is from a piece titled “An Old-Time March Meeting” in the Atlantic Monthly for March 1902, and was by the Quaker author Rowland Robinson:13

It was a common custom … in the first half of this century, to permit all kinds of stock to run at large in the highways, which made it necessary to appoint several poundkeepers and as many haywards, or hog- howards, as they were commonly called, whose duty was to keep road-ranging swine within the limits of the highways. Six poundkeepers were now elected, and their barnyards constituted pounds. There was a merry custom, of ancient usage, of electing the most recently married widower to the office of hayward, and it then chanced that Parson Nehemiah Doty, the worthy pastor of the Congregationalists, had been but a fortnight married to his second wife. So an irreverent member of his own flock nominated him for hayward. The nomination was warmly seconded, and he was almost unanimously elected, even the deacons responding very faintly when the negative vote was called; for the parson was a man of caustic humor, and each of its many victims realized that this was a rare opportunity for retaliation. Laughter and applause subsided to decorous silence when the venerable man arose to acknowledge the doubtful honor which had been conferred upon him; and he spoke in the solemn and measured tones that marked the delivery of his sermons, but the clerical austerity of his face was lightened a little by a twinkle of his cold gray eyes:— Mr. Moderator and fellow townsmen, in the more than a score of years that I have labored among you, I have endeavored faithfully to perform, so far as in me lay, the duties of a shepherd: to keep within the fold the sheep which were committed to my care, to watch vigilantly that none strayed from it, and to be the humble means of leading some into its shelter. Thus while you were my sheep I have acted as your shepherd, but since you are no longer sheep I will endeavor to perform as faithfully the office of your hayward.

Waldo was also made the chair of the school committee of Concord — and he resigned from this as well. (Many years later, this sequence in regard to the chairmanship of the school committee would repeat itself exactly. If it weren’t Emerson, a sterling fellow, a boon to any town, you might have said that this wasn’t the conduct of a citizen possessing public spirit.) 13. Robinson was speaking primarily of Vermont, and in Massachusetts this office of the hayward or hog-warden of a town was referred to as “the hogreeve.” The custom of the March Town Meeting assigning this duty to a widower who had recently remarried was the same in Massachusetts as in Vermont, as Waldo Emerson, having remarried in 1835, found out at his first March town meeting. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1837

April (?): Two months after the publication of Bronson Alcott’s CONVERSATIONS, Harriet Martineau’s book SOCIETY IN AMERICA appeared in America: “There is fear of vulgarity, fear of responsibility; and above all, fear of singularity.”

“There is a school in Boston (a large one, when I left the city,) conducted on this principle [the principle of Platonic idealism, that the spirit precedes the body rather than vice versa, that in general it is ideals or ideas that create their own manifestations in the realm of sense rather than vice versa]. The master presupposes his little pupils possessed of all truth in philosophy and morals, and that his business is to bring it out into expression, to help the outward life to conform to the inner light; and especially to learn of these enlightened babes, with all humility. Large exposures might be made of the mischief this gentleman is doing to his pupils by relaxing their bodies, pampering their imaginations, over-stimulating the consciences of some, and hardening those of others; and by his extraordinary management, offering them inducements to falsehood and HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

hypocrisy.”

Many years later Abba Alcott would comment succinctly on the above paragraph: “Thus Harriet Martineau took the bread from the mouths of my family.” THE ALCOTT FAMILY Harriet Martineau, reporting to her British readers about the state of America, complained of the moral cowardice of the conservative Unitarian leadership, with a handful of exceptions. The schism that divided Unitarians into a conservative institution versus a more radical opposition in the 1820s was epitomized in Emerson’s resignation from the ministry in 1832 and his famous dissatisfaction with the doctrine’s “corpse- cold” institutionalization. The Reverend Charles Follen, a German professor and political radical who arrived in Boston in 1825 and managed to impress both Boston’s conservative-Unitarian establishment and its breakaway intellectuals with his firsthand familiarity with the new ideas and practices in his native land, was also one of Martineau’s exceptions, as he was active in both in Unitarianism and in abolitionism. According to Edmund Spevack’s CHARLES FOLLEN’S SEARCH FOR NATIONALITY AND FREEDOM (Harvard UP, 1997, pages 138ff, 284-85 notes 63 and 65), he became America’s first Germanist, and apparently sat in on some early sessions of Hedge’s transcendental “club.” Here is the matter as expressed by Martineau in her Part IV, Chapter 3, “Administration of Religion.” ...On one side is the oppressor, struggling to keep his power for the sake of his gold; and with him the mercenary, the faithlessly timid, the ambitious, and the weak. On the other side are the friends of the slave; and with them those who, without possibility of recompense, are sacrificing their HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

reputations, their fortunes, their quiet, and risking their lives, for the principle of freedom. What are the Unitarian clergy doing amidst this war which admits of neither peace nor truce, but which must end the subjugation of the principle of freedom, or of oppression? I believe Mr. [Samuel] May had the honour of being the first Unitarian pastor who sided with the right. Whether he has sacrificed to his intrepidity one christian grace; whether he has lost one charm of his piety, gentleness, and charity, amidst the trials of insult which he has had to undergo, I dare appeal to his worst enemy. Instead of this, his devotion to a most difficult duty has called forth in him a force of character, a strength of reason, of which his best friends were before unaware. It filled me with awe for the weakness of men, in their noblest offices, to hear the insolent compassion with which some of his priestly brethren spoke of a man whom they have not light and courage enough to follow through the thickets and deserts of duty, and upon whom they therefore bestow their scornful pity from out of their shady bowers of complacency. —Dr. Follen came next: and there is nothing in his power that he has not done and sacrificed in identifying himself with the cause of emancipation. I heard him, in a perilous time, pray in church for the “miserable, degraded, insulted slave; in chains of iron, and chains of gold.” This is not the place in which to exhibit what his sacrifices have really been. —Dr. Channing’s later services are well known. I know of two more of the Unitarian clergy who have made an open and dangerous avowal of the right: and of one or two who have in private resisted wrong in the cause. But this is all. As a body they must, though disapproving slavery, be ranked as the enemies of the abolitionists. Some have pleaded to me that it is a distasteful subject. Some think it sufficient that they can see faults in individual abolitionists. Some say that their pulpits are the property of their people, who are not therefore to have their minds disturbed by what they hear thence. Some say that the question is no business of theirs. Some urge that they should be turned out of their pulpits before the next Sunday, if they touched upon Human Rights. Some think the subject not spiritual enough. The greater number excuse themselves on the ground of a doctrine which, I cannot but think, has grown out of the circumstances; that the duty of the clergy is to decide on how much truth the people can bear, and to administer it accordingly. —So, while society is going through the greatest of moral revolutions, casting out its most vicious anomaly, and bringing its Christianity into its politics and its social conduct, the clergy, even the Unitarian clergy, are some pitying and some ridiculing the apostles of the revolution; preaching spiritualism, learning, speculation; advocating third and fourth-rate objects of human exertion and amelioration, and leaving it to the laity to carry out the first and pressing moral reform of the age. They are blind to their noble mission of enlightening and guiding the moral sentiment of society in its HDT WHAT? INDEX

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greatest crisis. They not only decline aiding the cause in weekdays by deed or pen, or spoken words; but they agree in private to avoid the subject of Human Rights in the pulpit till the crisis be past. No one asks them to harrow the feelings of their hearers by sermons on slavery: but they avoid offering those christian principles of faith and liberty with which slavery cannot co-exist. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1838

During this year in which Friend John Greenleaf Whittier was being re-elected to his seat in the Massachusetts legislature,

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was issuing his “A Psalm of Life / What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist” (the “Psalmist” in question of course being King David) which Friend John would describe as the “moral engine of an age of action,”

And things are not what they seem.

A PSALM OF LIFE ... Since Professor Charles Follen was no longer teaching German literature at Harvard College, Professor HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Longfellow began to lecture on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s FAUSTUS.

The Reverend Follen became the minister of a Unitarian congregation in New-York (now All Souls), but quickly lost that position due to conflicts with his parishioners over his radical anti-slavery views. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1839

Waldo Emerson was elected to the “Social Circle” of Concord which met on Tuesday evenings during the winters:

Much of the best society I have ever known is a club in Concord called the Social Circle, consisting always of twenty-five of our citizens, doctor, lawyer, farmer, trader, miller, mechanic, etc., solidest of men, who yield the solidest of gossip. Harvard University is a wafer compared to the solid land which my friends represent. I do not like to be absent from home on Tuesday evenings in winter.

In America, Uriah Phillips Levy was placed in command of the USS Vandalia and promptly had all its guns painted bright blue. He would soon be court-martialed (his 4th such ordeal) and dismissed in disgrace (his 2nd such dismissal) from the US Navy — for in addition to having those guns painted blue, he had proclaimed that no seaman under his command might be flogged. (During our war upon Mexico, Levy would become a Washington lobbyist, campaigning against such torture of employees.)

The Reverend Charles Follen returned to the Unitarian congregation in East Lexington, Massachusetts whose HDT WHAT? INDEX

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ministerial needs had been being supplied for the previous three years by the Reverend Emerson.

He would design an octagonal sanctuary in such manner that the preacher could not elevate himself above the congregation. However, after a short while he would again abandon that little group to take up a more lucrative job offer, as tutor to a family in Watertown. To fill his vacancy, he recommended that the group hire their previous supply preacher, the Reverend Emerson. He would agree to return, he said, only when the congregation had erected its new building of his own design, and had in addition come up with enough money to pay him the sort of ministerial stipend which he required. In our own timeframe, Lucinda Duncan, minister of that church, has attempted to put a fine face on this: “Follen has left us a legacy of social action based on the principle of freedom. It’s a principle that we continue to test ourselves against. He was really a man who left a mark on this congregation. He had a vision of a free Christian church where all people could come and speak their minds. It was an idea that was way ahead of its time.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Our national birthday, Thursday the 4th of July: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 35th birthday.

Ground was broken in East Lexington, Massachusetts for a unique octagonal Unitarian church structure, designed by the Reverend Charles Follen (this octagonal building still stands, as the oldest church structure in Lexington). In his prayer at the groundbreaking the Reverend declared the mission of his church — and this mission statement now on a memorial to him in the churchyard: [May] this church never be desecrated by intolerance, or bigotry, or party spirit; more especially its doors might never be closed against any one, who would plead in it the cause of oppressed humanity; within its walls all unjust and cruel distinctions might cease, and [there] all men might meet as brethren.

In Hagerstown, Maryland, the only two soldiers of the American Revolution of that vicinity still alive sat proudly in a carriage drawn by white horses.

On Staten Island, between 20,000 and 30,000 children were gathered to celebrate a Sunday School Scholars National Jubilee while, in New-York harbor, 1,000 ships were “gaily dressed in honor of the day.”

In Boston, 1500 men gathered at Faneuil Hall in support of a Temperance Reformation. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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In Norwich, Connecticut, at a sabbath school celebration, one of the students read excerpts from the Declaration of Independence while wearing “the identical cap” that had been worn by William Williams of that state at the time he had placed his signature upon that document.

In Tennessee, the McMinnville Gazette published a “Declaration of Independence for an Independant Treasury,” and the text of this would be reprinted in the Washington DC Globe.

At Norfolk, Virginia, an elephant “attached to the menagerie” was induced to swim across the harbor from Town Point to the Portsmouth side and back. CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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There was a 91-scalp victory dance on the east shore of Lake Calhoun, just south of Minneapolis in the Minnesota Territory. One of the scalps was of the bride from the wedding at the fort (one can’t help but notice that in none of the accounts has any white recorder of these events gone to the trouble of recording her name). In regard to that scalp dance, one of the white people did register a comment:

“It seemed as if hell had emptied itself here.”

Henry Thoreau was inspired to perpetrate a poem, in honor of an illustrated 3-volume set of famous British poems which he was at the moment perusing, THE BOOK OF GEMS. THE POETS AND ARTISTS OF GREAT BRITAIN. EDITED BY S.C. HALL (London: Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street): THE BOOK OF GEMS, I THE BOOK OF GEMS, II THE BOOK OF GEMS, III

July 4. THE “BOOK OF GEMS”

With cunning plates the polished leaves were decked, Each one a window to the poet’s world, So rich a prospect that you might suspect In that small space all paradise unfurled.

It was a right delightful road to go, Marching through pastures of such fair herbage, O’er hill and dale it led, and to and fro, From bard to bard, making an easy stage;

Where ever and anon I slaked my thirst Like a tired traveller at some poet’s well, Which from the teeming ground did bubbling burst, And tinkling thence adown the page it fell. Still through the leaves its music you might hear, Till other springs fell faintly on the ear.14

14. Thoreau’s extracts from these three unremarkable volumes assembled at London by S.C. Hall between 1836 and 1838 are to be found in his Literary Notebook 1840-1848 and his Miscellaneous Extracts 1836-1840. SAMUEL CARTER HALL HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1840

January 13, Monday/14, Tuesday: At midnight the steamer Lexington was running up Long Island Sound from the harbor of New-York to Stonington, Connecticut, where passengers would be able to catch a train to Boston. The fire crew stoked the firepot under the boiler so hot that some wood they had stacked against the metal of the smokestack ignited. When the captain attempted to steer toward the Long Island shoreline, the tiller ropes charred through and the ship became unmanageable. The engines failed while the steamer was still a couple of miles out into the icy waters (wreck #2 on the map below). 123 persons burned or drowned at their election, by one account, or 139 by another account, although the reports do agree that 4 people would survive to tell the tale by such means as straddling bales of cotton that had been in the cargo.

The Reverend Charles Follen had broken off a lecture tour in New York in order to attend the dedication of his new octagonal Unitarian church structure in East Lexington, and was aboard this steamer. The lay directors of the Reverend William Ellery Channing’s church would refuse to permit a memorial service for their minister’s close friend, and this would provoke Channing to terminate the stipend which, in semiretirement and poor health, he had been receiving.15 The fact that the anti-slavery activist Follen died young, in this accident, and that then his friends would be unable to find any church in Boston willing to hold a memorial service on his behalf,16 would enable the creation of a useful legend, that he had been one of the “abolitionist martyrs.” TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS

The inquest into the tragedy would be promptly published by H.H. Brown and A.H. Stillwell as A FULL AND PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF ALL THE CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING THE LOSS OF THE STEAMBOAT LEXINGTON, IN LONG ISLAND SOUND, ON THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 13, 1840. According to this document, the inquiry concluded as follows, with a censure of one of the four survivors, the vessel’s pilot, Captain Stephen Manchester: From the testimony adduced before the Court of inquiry by the Coroner’s inquest to investigate the causes which led to the 15. With great inherited wealth, the reverend had no need for such a stipend. 16. It is entirely unclear, and an astounding detail, why they failed to simply hold this memorial service in the octagonal church in East Lexington that he had designed, since that venue was now standing complete, and since he is now held there in such high honor; the Reverend Samuel Joseph May would, during March, stage this memorial service at the Marlborough Chapel. (I am personally of the suspicion that there must be portions of this incomplete tale –portions dissonant with the chosen “abolitionist martyr” spin– that persons unknown have deliberately declined to make available to the historical record.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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destruction by fire of the steamboat Lexington, the inquest are of opinion, that the fire was communicated to the promenade deck by the intense heat of the smoke pipe, or from sparks from the space between the smoke pipe and steam chimney, as the fire was first seen near the casing of the steam chimney, on the promenade deck. They are further of opinion, that the Lexington was a first rate boat, with an excellent steam engine and a boiler suitable for burning wood, but not coal, with the blowers attached. Furthermore, it is our opinion, that had the buckets been manned at the commencement of the fire, it would have been immediately extinguished. Also, that inasmuch as the engine could not be stopped, from the rapid progress of the fire, — with presence of mind of the officers and a strict discipline of the crew, the boats could have been launched, and a large portion of the passengers and crew if not the whole, might have been saved. It is the opinion of this Jury that the present Inspectors of Steamboats, either from ignorance or neglect, have suffered the Steamboat Lexington to navigate the Sound at the imminent risk of the lives and property of the passengers, giving a certificate stating a full compliance with the laws of the United States, while in our opinion such was not the case. That the system as adapted on board of the Lexington of using blowers on board of boats, is dangerous, which has been proved to this Jury by competent witnesses. And that the conduct of the officers of the Steamboat Lexington on the night of the 13th of January, when said steamboat was on fire, deserves the severest censure of this community; from the facts proved before this Jury that the Captain and Pilot, in the greatest hour of danger, left the steamboat to her own guidance, and sought their own safety, regardless of the fate of the passengers. Instead of the Captain or Pilot retreating to the tiller, aft, when there being at that time a communication to the same tiller, there appeared to be no other thought but self preservation. And it further appears to this Jury that the odious practice of carrying cotton, in any quantities, on board of passenger boats, in a manner in which it shall be liable to take fire, from sparks, or heat, from any smoke pipe or other means, deserves public censure. One of the four survivors, Captain Chester Hillard, testified that: I went on board the Lexington at 3 o’clock, P.M. I don’t know the number of passengers she had on board; I estimated from the number at the table, that there were 150 passengers; but I have since been induced to believe, that the estimate was too large. I paid no particular attention to the landing of the freight consisted of cotton; it was stowed under the promenade deck. There might have been boxes of goods on board, but I did not notice. Between the wheel-house and engine, there was sufficient space for a person to pass; whether more than sufficient for one person or not, I cannot say. There was a tier of cotton bales stowed in the passage — I think on the side next to the wheel- house. I went into the forecastle. I think there were over the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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forecastle three or four baggage cars. The life-boat was on the starboard side of the promenade deck, forward of the wheel- house. I took no notice of the boat, until I saw persons endeavoring to clear her away. She was covered with canvass. I also saw the two quarter boats lowered away, after the fire broke out, but did not notice them before. We took supper about 6 o’clock. There were two tables set, I should think more than one half the length of the cabin. These tables were filled, and some of the passengers were compelled to wait for the second table. The boat ran perhaps 12 to 14 knots per hour. I think that we must have taken supper somewhat before 6 o’clock. I think that the supper occupied from half to three quarters of an hour. I don’t know Captain Child, and cannot say whether he was at the table or not. It was about an hour after supper that I heard the alarm of fire. I was then on the point of turning in. I had my coat and boots off. I think my berth was No. 45 or 49, the third length aft from the companion way and very near it on the starboard side. I did not at the time apprehend any thing serious. I slipped on my coat and boots and went on deck. I put on my hat and took my overcoat on my arm. When I got on deck I discovered the casing of the smoke pipe on fire, and I think a part of the promenade deck was also on fire. There was a great rush of the passengers, and much confusion, so that I could not notice particularly. The after part of the casing was burning, and the fire was making aft. I thought at the time that the fire might be subdued. I saw the fire below the promenade deck. I did not notice whether there was any fire below the main deck. I was aft at the time, and could not, therefore, see distinctly. I was never before on board the Lexington, and know nothing of the construction of the smoke pipe. I saw nothing of the commander, but from what I could hear of the crew forward, I supposed they were at work trying to rig the fire engine; I saw no buckets used, and think they were not made use of; I saw fire buckets on board, but can’t say how many; I think the fire engine was not got to work, as I saw nothing of it. I shortly after went on the promenade deck; previously my attention had been directed to the passengers who were rushing into the quarter boats, and when I went on the quarter deck the boats were both filled. They seemed to be stupidly determined to destroy themselves, as well as the boats which were their only means of safety. I went to the starboard boat, which they were lowering away; they lowered it until she took the water, and then I saw some one cut away the forward tackle fall; it was at all events disengaged, and no one at the time could have unhooked the fall; the boat instantly filled with water, there being at the time some twenty persons in her; the boat passed immediately astern, entirely clear. I then went to the other side; the other boat was cleared away and lowered in the same manner as the other, full of passengers. This boat fell astern entirely disengaged, as the other had done; she fell away before she had entirely filled with water. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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By this time the fire had got to going so that I pretty much made my mind up “it was a case.” I thought that the best thing that could be done was to run the boat ashore, and for this purpose went to the wheel-house to look for Capt. Child, expecting to find him there. I found Capt. Child there. I advised him to run for the shore. The Captain replied that she was already headed for the land. The fire by this time began to come up around the promenade deck, and the wheel-house was completely filled with smoke. There were two or three on the promenade deck near the wheel-house, and their attention was turned to the life boat. I was at this time apprehensive that the promenade deck would fall through. The life boat was cleared away. I assisted stripping off the canvass, but I had no notion of going in her, as I made my mind up that if they got her down on to the main deck, they would serve her as they had done the others. The steamer was then under head way. They cleared her away and I think launched her over the side. Before I left the promenade deck I thought it was time for us to leave; however, as the fire was bursting up through the deck, I then went aft and down on to the main deck. They were then at work with the hose, but whether by the aid of the engine, or not, I cannot say. I did not know at the time that there was a force pump on board. The smoke was so dense that I could not see distinctly what they were about. I think that the communication with the fore part of the boat was by that time cut off. Up to this time, from the first hearing of the alarm, perhaps 20 minutes had elapsed. The engine had now been stopped about 6 minutes. I then recommended to the few deck hands and passengers who remained, to throw the cotton overboard. This was done, myself lending my aid. I told the passengers that they must do something for themselves, and the best thing they could do was to take to the cotton. — There were perhaps ten or a dozen bales thrown overboard, which was pretty much all there was on the larboard side which had not taken fire. I then cut off a piece of line, perhaps four or five fathoms, and with it spanned a bale of cotton, which I believe was the last one not on fire. It was a very snug square bale. It was about four feet long and three feet wide, and a foot and a half thick. Aided by one of the firemen, I put the bale up on the rail, round which we took a turn, slipped the bale down below the guard, when we both got on to it. We got on to the bale before we lowered it. The boat then lay broad side to the wind and we were under the lee of the boat, on the larboard side. We placed ourselves one on each end of the bale, facing each other. With our weight on the bale it remained about one third out of the water. The wind was pretty fresh, and we drifted at the rate of about a knot and a half. We did not lash ourselves to the bale, but coiled the rope up and laid it on the bale. My companion did not like the idea of leaving the boat immediately, but wished to hold on to the guards. I determined to get out of the way, believing that to remain there much longer it would become pretty hot quarters. We accordingly shoved the bale round the stern. The moment we had reached the stern, we left the boat HDT WHAT? INDEX

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and drifted away about a knot and a half. This was just 8 o’clock by my watch, which I took out and looked at. As we left the wreck I picked up a piece of board, which I used as a paddle or rudder, with which to keep the bale “end to the sea.” At the time we left the boat there were but few persons remaining on board. I saw one lady. The ladies’ cabin was then all on fire. The reason why I noticed the lady was, that her child had got overboard and was then about two rods from her. We passed by the child so near that I could put my hand on to it as it lay on its back. The lady saw us approaching the child and cried out for us to save it. We then drifted away from the boat, and in ten minutes more we could see no persons on board except those on the forecastle. I should think the child was a female from its dress. I think it had on a bonnet. The child was dead when we passed it. I don’t recollect how the lady was dressed, or what she said. I did not see any other child with the lady; I could not notice particulars, as it was at the time pretty rough, I had as much as I could do to manage my bale of cotton, we were sitting astride of the bale with our feet in the water; I was wet up to my middle from the water which at times washed over the bale; we were in sight of the boat all the time till she went down, when we were about a mile distant; when we left the wreck it was cloudy, but about nine o’clock it cleared off, and we had a fine night of it until the moon went down; I looked at my watch as often as every half hour, through the night, the boat went down at three o’clock; it was so cold as to make it necessary for me to exert myself to keep warm, which I did by whipping my hands and arms around my body; about 4 o’clock the bale capsized with us; a heavy sea came and carried the bale over end ways; my companion was at this time with me, and we managed to get to the bale on its opposite side; we at this time lost our piece of board, afterwards the bale was ungovernable and went as it liked; my companion had complained a good deal of the cold from our first setting out; he didn’t seem to have that spirit about him that he ought to have had; he was continually fretting himself about things which he had no business to. He said his name was Cox, and that his wife lived in this city, at No. 11 Cherry street. He appeared to have given up all hope of our being saved. On our first starting from the boat, I gave him my vest as he had on his chest only a flannel shirt. He had on pantaloons, boots and cap. He said he was a fireman on board the boat. Cox remained on the bale after it had upset about 2 or 2 1/2 hours, until it was about day light. For the last half hour that he remained on the bale, he had been speechless and seemed to have lost all use of his hands as he did not try to hold on. I rubbed him and beat his flesh, and used otherwise every effort I could to keep his blood in circulation. It was still very rough, and I was obliged to exert myself to hold on. The bale coming broad side to the sea it gave a lurch and Cox slipped off and I saw him no more. He went down without a struggle. I then HDT WHAT? INDEX

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got more into the middle of the bale, to make it ride as it should, and in that way continued until at least for about an hour. I got my feet on the bale and so remained until the sloop picked me up. The sea had by this time become quite smooth. On seeing the sloop I waved my hat, to attract the attention of those on board; I was not frozen in any part. The name of the sloop was the “Merchant,” Capt. Meeker, of Southport. I think Captain M. and those on board the sloop are entitled to a great deal of credit, as they did more on the occasion than any one else. It appears that they tried during the night to get out to the aid of those on board the Lexington, but in coming out the sloop grounded on the bar, and they were compelled before they could get her off to lighten her of part of her cargo. It was 11 o’clock when I was picked up. The sloop had, previous to reaching me, spoken the light boat to make enquiries relative to the direction of the fire. On going on board of the sloop, I had every possible attention paid me; they took me into the cabin and then cruised in search of others. They picked up two other living men and the bodies of two others. The living men were Captain Manchester, pilot of the Lexington, and the other Charles Smith, a hand on board. One of the persons was picked up on a bale of cotton, and the other on the wheel-house. I supposed Captain Manchester was on the bale, but from what Captain Comstock said yesterday, it could not be the case. Captain Manchester was picked up, but I was in the cabin at the time — was below when the other was picked up. They were both picked up within half an hour. When they were brought on board, Captain Manchester was pretty much exhausted; Smith seemed better. They put them both in bed. Smith was a fireman and belongs to Norwich, Connecticut. According to this document, the surviving pilot, Captain Stephen Manchester, who was censured for seeking his own safety rather than attempting to save the vessel, testified as follows: The main deck now fell in as far as the capstan; the people had by this time got overboard, some of them drowned, and others hurrying on to the baggage cars, the raft and other things. What was left of the main deck was now on fire, and got us cornered up in so small a space that we could do nothing more by throwing water. There were then only eight or ten persons astern on the steamboat, and about 30 on the forecastle. They were asking me what they should do, and I told them I saw no chance for any of us; that if we stayed there, we should be burned to death, and if we went overboard we should probably perish. Among those who were there was Mr. Hoyt and Van Cott, another person named Harnden, who had charge of the express line. I did not know any one else. I then took a piece of spun yarn and made it fast to my coat, and also to the rail, and so eased myself down upon the raft. There were two or three others on it already and my weight sank it. I held on to the rope until it came up again — and when it did, I sprang up and caught a piece of railing which was in the water, and from thence got on a bale of cotton where there was a man sitting; found the bale was made fast to the railing; HDT WHAT? INDEX

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I took out my knife and cut it off. About the time I cut this rope off, I saw some person standing on the piece of railing — asked me if there was room for another; I made no answer, and he jumped and knocked off the man that was with me; and I hauled him on again. I caught a piece of board which was floating past me and shoved the bale clean off from the raft; and used the board to endeavor to get in shore at Crane Neck Point, but I could not succeed; but I used the board as long as I could, for exercise. When I left the wreck, I looked at my watch and it was just twelve o’clock. I think the man who was on the bale with me said his name was McKenny, and lived at New York; he died about three o’clock. — When I hauled him on the bale I encouraged him and told him to thrash his hands, which he did for a spell, but soon gave up pretty much. When he died he fell back on the bale and the first sea that came pushed him off it: My hands were then so frozen that I could not use them at all; while I was on the cotton I looked at my watch; two o’clock and three miles from the wreck when she sunk; the last thing I recollect was seeing the sloop, and I raised my handkerchief between my fingers, hoping they would see me; I believe they did. I was then sitting on the cotton, with my feet in the water. The cotton never rolled at all, although there were some heavy seas; the man who was on the bale spoke of his wife and children, that he had kissed them the morning he left home, that he was never before through the Sound, and said he feared he would die of the cold. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1841

In this year and the following one, the Reverend Charles Follen’s widow Eliza Lee Cabot Follen, a well-known author in her own right (1827, THE WELL-SPENT HOUR; 1829, SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF FENELON, WITH A MEMOIR OF HIS LIFE; 1825, THE SKEPTIC; 1838, SKETCHES OF MARRIED LIFE; 1839, POEMS), would publish a 5-volume collection of his papers and a biography. FOLLEN’S WORKS, I FOLLEN’S WORKS, II FOLLEN’S WORKS, III FOLLEN’S WORKS, IV FOLLEN’S WORKS, V HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1858

A new edition, with additions by George Adams Schmitt, Instructor in Harvard University, of Professor Charles Follen, D.D.’s A GERMAN READER (Boston and Cambridge: James Munroe and Company).17 FOLLEN’S GERMAN READER

PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY. BY MISS ANNA C. JOHNSON, AUTHOR OF THE “IROQUOIS,” “MYRTLE WREATH,” ETC., ETC. (New York: Charles Scribner, 124 Grand Street). PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY

17. This is not the edition that was in Henry Thoreau’s personal library, he having used the edition that had been put out in 1831 by Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins — but happens to be the only one presently available in electronic form. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

1915

A plaque was erected in memory of the Reverend Charles Follen (see following screen).

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Charles Follen HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: October 25, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh. HDT WHAT? INDEX

PROFESSOR REVEREND KARL CHARLES FOLLEN CHARLES FOLLEN