1 THE LONG 19TH CENTURY IN GREATER RHODE ISLAND
“History ... does not refer merely to the past ... history is literally present in all that we do.” — James Baldwin, 1965 “UNNAMEABLE OBJECTS, UNSPEAKABLE CRIMES”
GO BACK TO THE PREVIOUS PERIOD
1838
THE RHODE-ISLAND ALMANAC FOR 1838. By Isaac Bickerstaff. Providence, Rhode Island: Hugh H. Brown.
1. “Greater” Rhode Island would include relevant regions connected with the local culture, such as Block Island and the other channel islands that used to be considered part of this colony, contiguous areas such as New Bedford in Massachusetts, etc. “Rhode Island” had been for a long time an ambiguous designator, as it might refer to the moderately sized island in Narragansett Bay, or it might refer to the entire colony of which said island was a part, together with the extensive Providence Plantations on the mainland shore. Also, since the period of that ambiguity, there have been significant trades of land and towns between Rhode Island and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts — such as the entire city of Fall River. You need to deal with it. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Friend John Wilbur was accused by several other Rhode Island Quakers of circulating, in his conversation and writings, opinions and statements derogatory to the character of the visiting English evangelical minister, Friend Joseph John Gurney.
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On the other side of the globe, the new viceroy in Canton, China was destroying the illegal opium imports of the British East India Company, a total of 2,640,000 pounds of suspicious vegetable substances, and in consequence Britain was going on the warpath, seizing Hong Kong, forcing trade concessions, and garnering much loot. Meanwhile, in Rhode Island, the governor was William Sprague II and Perry Davis was removing
from Westport, Massachusetts to Pawtucket and then to Taunton, Massachusetts while engaged in the development of his invention, of a mill for grinding grain. In Taunton he would fall ill and would study the effects of certain drugs upon the human system, and he would experiment in the various uses of these drugs, mostly ethanol and opiates, until he became able to concoct a dose capable of curing his own maladies. This Mr. Davis would later vend the following story: “I told my wife that she could not expect to have me with her much longer. A cold settled on my lungs. A hard cough ensued, with pains in my side. My stomach soon became sore, my digestive organs became weak, consequently my appetite failed; my kidneys had become affected. The canker in my mouth became troublesome.... I searched the globe in my mind’s eye for a cure during my illness and selected the choicest gums and healing herbs. These were carefully compounded creating a medicine to soothe the nerves and a balm to heal the body. I commenced using my new discovered
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medicine with no hope other than handing me gently to the grave.”
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The MEMOIRS OF ELLEANOR ELDRIDGE, one of the few narratives of the life of an early 19th-century free black woman, was published in Providence, Rhode Island by B.T. Albro, Printer. This had been transcribed for Elleanor Eldridge (1784-1845?), who had been gifted with no formal education whatever, by Mrs. Frances Harriet Whipple Green McDougall (1805-1878).
It is probable that William J. Brown knew of this book and was able to draw upon it as a model, since he was living during the same period and as a member of the same free black community and since, like her, he was a lineal descendant of the Narragansett native American family named Prophet, if not of Thomas Prophet himself.
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To supplement the facility of the Children’s Friend Society for white orphan children, an Association for the Benefit of Colored Children was organized and eventually would construct a facility in Providence, Rhode Island (the point to having such separate institutional arrangements, of course, would not have been to keep the children of different races separate, as that could easily have been accomplished within the same institutional arrangement, but would have been to ensure that colored orphans received fewer funds and were treated more poorly that white orphans. To make my point: Also, in this year, in very much the same vein, a mob of the white citizens of Philadelphia, persuaded that “nigger charity” was like throwing money away, would torch their Colored Orphan Asylum.2)
2. No such faculty would be created in Boston — which is probably the single most relevant reason why no such facility would be burned by a Boston mob persuaded that “nigger charity” was like throwing money away.
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Charles Lenox Remond began to make speaking tours of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine as an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
The device of the kneeling black female in chains, referencing her femininity and pleading for the support of her peaches-and-cream relative, made its way from England to America, as a companion piece for the similar device that had featured a black male captive:
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Richard Henry Dana, Sr. was lecturing on William Shakespeare in Providence, Rhode Island, most likely to classes made up of women.
Charles Armitage Brown’s SHAKESPEARE’S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEMS.
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Thomas Allen Jenckes, a product of the Rhode Island public schools, graduated from Brown University. He would serve as a tutor at his alma mater in Providence during the 1839-1840 school year.3
3. This public-domain image of Jenckes was obtained from the Library of Congress by Professor Scott A. Sandage of Carnegie- Mellon University, and provided for use in the Kouroo Contexture.
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There was at this point a hot debate going on in Providence as to whether the capital city of Rhode Island ought to expand its public school system beyond its existing elementary schools, by establishing a free high school. Some members of the public objected that creating such a school would encourage the dilution of the local aristocracy, by fostering onto it a bunch of people who had merely attended a free public institution. This would interfere with the apprentice system by tending to “educate children above working for their support.” The free public high school concept would be simmering on the back burner until 1843.
In 1834 the government of Rhode Island had “owed” its education fund $12,884.30. By this point the figure had become $14,662.
The Quakers at the Yearly Meeting School on top of the hill was attempting to be innovative. The school abandoned its four-quarter year for a two-semester year, the winter semester to begin in early November and the summer semester in early May. This change brought a change in vacation patterns as well. Previously, the young scholars had attended as they could and had been able to go back go back and forth between the school and the homes of their parents. Under the new semester system, however, the young scholars would be with their families of origin only during two-week breaks between the semesters.
Friends Rowland Rathbun and Alice Rathbun came to the school as superintendents. Superintendents.
1819-1824. Purinton, Matthew and Betsy. 1824-1835. Breed, Enoch and Lydia. 1829-1835. Gould, Stephen and Hannah, Asst. Supts. 1835-1836. Davis, Seth and Mary. 1837. Breed, Enoch and Lydia. 1838-1839. Rathbun, Rowland and Alice. 1840-1844. Wing, Allen and Olive. 1845-1846. Thompson, Olney and Lydia. 1847. Congdon, Jarvia and Lydia. 1847-1852. Cornell, Silas and Sarah M.
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Friend Joseph John Gurney, the most famous British evangelical Quaker of his day, detoured from a trip down the Hudson River specifically to preach the gospel in Hudson NY, in the lair of “the heretical Hannah Barnard.”
Friend Chuck Fager has analyzed the matter as follows: In 1838, more than a decade after her death, Joseph John Gurney, the most famous British evangelical Quaker of his day, detoured from a trip down the Hudson River specifically to preach his gospel in Hudson, in the lair of “the heretical Hannah Barnard.” I think I understand part of what moved him. There’s something seminal and memorable about Friend Hannah Barnard’s story. For one thing, the version of Quakerism which she articulated and championed has persisted, and even flourished. For another, the repressive orthodox reactions to it have likewise become a depressingly familiar feature of our history. Similarly, Friend Hannah Barnard carried on her ministry decades before Lucretia Mott and other Quaker women activists helped invent what we know today as feminism. Yet her assertiveness and eloquence in stating her case, her tenacity in her own behalf, her refusal to bow to male authority, and her indomitability even in isolation and defeat have hardly been bettered by the self- conscious sisters who came later. For some reason, however, Friend Hannah Barnard’s story has received but scant attention from many of the more prominent Quaker histories. Elbert Russell’s “The History of Quakerism,” and John Punshon’s “Portrait in Grey” mention her only briefly in passing; Larry Ingle’s “Quakers in Conflict” says little more. Even Margaret Bacon’s “Mothers of Feminism” slights her, perhaps because Barnard was more of a “Grandmother” of the movement. The most extensive treatments are in the first volume of Rufus Jones’s “The Later Periods of Quakerism,” and a 1989 study by David Maxey in Quaker History. Perhaps Rufus empathized with her; certainly he had taken his share of brickbats from a new generation of orthodox heresy-hunters. Yet despite its obscurity, Friend Hannah Barnard’s story is in many ways the prototype, or better the archetype of liberal Quakerism. No wonder I imagine her elbowing her way to the front of the long line of liberal Quaker heroes. Joseph John Gurney wrote to his children that he believed he had done well in his preaching at Hudson, and perhaps
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he did. But Friend Hannah Barnard did pretty well herself.
The 1st Rhode-Island-operated prison was built, in Providence, on Gaspee Street north of the cove, a 2-story granite structure costing about $1,300 per cell, or a total of $51,500. This building would prove to be unsuitable, and the state would in 1869 land in the Cranston village of Howard in 1869. This land, known as the State Farm, was managed by the Board of State Charities and Corrections until about 1920. Several institutions were built there, including the State Workhouse and House of Corrections, the State Hospital for the Insane, the State Almshouse (renamed the State Infirmary in 1917), the State Prison and Providence County Jail (managed jointly), and the State Reform Schools (the Sockanosset School for Boys, and the Oaklawn School for Girls). The State Workhouse and House of Corrections building held men and women and was also the home for the women’s county jail and for state prison inmates. After the male workhouse inmates were phased out, it would become in 1924 the State Reformatory for Women. It would close in about 1968. The State Prison and Providence County Jail in Cranston would be built in 1878, and this eventually would become the Adult Correctional Institution that we now hold so dear. Federal inmates have also been bunking at this facility from time to time. The governing body for the State Institutions has changed over the years, becoming variously “State Public Welfare Commission,” “Department of Public Welfare,” and “Department of Social Welfare.” Though some of its inmates have been under federal or county jurisdiction, the institutions seem to have always been operated by the state of Rhode Island. The titles “Keeper of the State Prison” and “Warden of the County Jail” are two hats worn by the same apparatchik. DEXTER ASYLUM
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In this year ownership of the Saylesville, Rhode Island machine shop and its land was transferred from Granville Olney to his son Elisha Olney (this would not be recorded in Smithfield town records until 1841).
Friend William Bassett of Lynn, Massachusetts participated in the founding of the New England Non- Resistance Society and also spoke out publicly against the Quaker meetinghouses which imposed segregated seating upon white and black Friends.
(The “Negro Gallery” had been removed from the Friends meetinghouse in Providence in a renovation in 1822, but as of 1838 was still in existence in the society’s meetinghouse in Saylesville and in fact is in existence there to this day — although of course nowadays nobody thinks of it in that context.)
January: The Rhode Island General Assembly’s Committee to Revise the Penal Code considered a “Report of the Committee On the Abolishment of Capital Punishments” which recommended that the state abolish capital punishment.
March 28, Wednesday: The black community of Wilberforce in Canada was having problems with a confidence man named Israel Lewis who was apparently making the rounds soliciting contributions for their survival, and then simply pocketing most if not all of these gifts: ISRAEL LEWIS. MUMPERY Wilberforce, U.C., March 28th, 1836. The board of managers of the Wilberforce settlement, met and passed unanimously the following resolutions — Present, Austin
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Steward, Philip Harris, Peter Butler, William Bell, John Whitehead, Samuel Peters. Resolved, 1st. That we deeply regret the manner in which our friends in the States have been imposed upon by Israel Lewis; and that we hereby inform them, as a board of managers or otherwise, that we have received less than one hundred dollars of all the money borrowed and collected in the States. Resolved, 2d. That although we have not received one hundred dollars from said Lewis, yet, when we shall have received the funds collected by our agent, the Rev. Nathan Paul, in England, we will refund as far as our abilities will allow and our friends may require, the money contributed for our supposed benefit, by them in the States. Resolved, 3d. That we tender our sincere thanks to our beloved friends, Arthur Tappan and others, who have taken such deep interest in the welfare of our little colony. Resolved, 4th. That the foregoing resolutions be signed by the whole board, and sent to the States to be published in the New York Observer and other papers. AUSTIN STEWARD, President, PETER BUTLER, Treasurer, JOHN HALMES, Secretary. PHILIP HARRIS, } WILLIAM BELL, } JOHN WHITEHEAD, } Managers. SAMUEL PETERS, } Just prior to the election that had taken place in Rhode Island, Oliver Johnson, the Corresponding Secretary of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society, had written to each of the candidates for governor and lieutenant- governor expressing the views of the abolitionists by posing a series of questions. Mr. Sprague, who was elected governor, had responded from Warwick in the following vein (the answer received from Mr. Childs, who was elected lieutenant-governor, was in a similar vein): DEAR SIR,— Your favor of the 19th inst. requesting of me, in conformity to a resolution of the Executive Committee of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society, an expression of my opinions on certain topics, was duly received. I have no motive whatever for withholding my opinions on any subject which is interesting to any portion of my fellow-citizens. I will, therefore, cheerfully proceed to reply to the interrogatories proposed, and in the order in which they are submitted. 1. Among the powers vested by the Constitution in Congress, is the power to exercise exclusive legislation, ‘in all cases whatsoever,’ over the District of Columbia? ‘All cases’ must, of course, include the case of slavery and the slave-trade. I am, therefore, clearly of opinion, that the Constitution does confer upon Congress the power to abolish slavery and the slave- trade in that District; and, as they are great moral and political evils, the principles of justice and humanity demand the exercise of that power. 2. The traffic in slaves, whether foreign or domestic, is equally obnoxious to every principle of justice and humanity; and, as Congress has exercised its powers to suppress the slave-
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trade between this country and foreign nations, it ought, as a matter of consistency and justice, to exercise the same powers to suppress the slave-trade between the states of this Union. The slave-trade within the states is, undoubtedly, beyond the control of Congress; as the ‘sovereignty of each state, to legislate exclusively on the subject of slavery, which is tolerated within its limits,’ is, I believe, universally conceded. The Constitution unquestionably recognises the sovereign power of each state to legislate on the subject within its limits; but it imposes on us no obligation to add to the evils of the system by countenancing the traffic between the states. That which our laws have solemnly pronounced to be piracy in our foreign intercourse, no sophistry can make honorable or justifiable in a domestic form. For a proof of the feelings which this traffic naturally inspires, we need but refer to the universal execration in which the slave-dealer is held in those portions of the country where the institution of slavery is guarded with the most jealous vigilance. 3. Congress has no power to abridge the right of petition. The right of the people of the non-slaveholding states to petition Congress for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and the traffic of human beings among the states, is as undoubted as any right guarantied by the Constitution; and I regard the Resolution which was adopted by the House of Representatives on the 21st of December last as a virtual denial of that right, inasmuch as it disposed of all such petitions, as might be presented thereafter, in advance of presentation and reception. If it was right thus to dispose of petitions on one subject, it would be equally right to dispose of them in the same manner on all subjects, and thus cut of all communication, by petition between the people and their representatives. Nothing can be more clearly a violation of the spirit of the Constitution, as it rendered utterly nugatory a right which was considered of such vast importance as to be specially guarantied in that sacred instrument. A similar Resolution passed the House of Representatives at the first session of the last Congress, and as I then entertained the same views which I have now expressed, I recorded my vote against it. 4. I fully concur in the sentiment, that ‘every principle of justice and humanity requires, that every human being, when personal freedom is at stake, should have the benefit of a jury trial;’ and I have no hesitation in saying, that the laws of this state ought to secure that benefit, so far as they can, to persons claimed as fugitives from ‘service or labor,’ without interfering with the laws of the United States. The course pursued in relation to this subject by the Legislature of Massachusetts meets my approbation. 5. I am opposed to all attempts to abridge or restrain the freedom of speech and the press, or to forbid any portion of the people peaceably to assemble to discuss any subject — moral, political, or religious. 6. I am opposed to the annexation of Texas to the United States.
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7. It is undoubtedly inconsistent with the principles of a free state, professing to be governed in its legislation by the principles of freedom, to sanction slavery, in any form, within its jurisdiction. If we have laws in this state which bear this construction, they ought to be repealed. We should extend to our southern brethren, whenever they may have occasion to come among us, all the privileges and immunities enjoyed by our own citizens, and all the rights and privileges guarantied to them by the Constitution of the United States; but they cannot expect of us to depart from the fundamental principles of civil liberty for the purpose of obviating any temporal inconvenience which they may experience. These are my views upon the topics proposed for my consideration. They are the views which I have always entertained, (at least ever since I have been awakened to their vast importance,) and which I have always supported, so far as I could, by my vote in Congress; and if, in any respect, my answers have not been sufficiently explicit, it will afford me pleasure to reply to any other questions which you may think proper to propose. I am, Sir, very respectfully, Your friend and fellow citizen, WILLIAM SPRAGUE.” APPENDIX F. The following is believed to be a correct exhibit of the legislative resolutions against the annexation of Texas — of the times at which they were passed, and of the votes by which they were passed:— 1. VERMONT. “1. Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to use their influence in that body to prevent the annexation of Texas to the Union. 2. Resolved, That representing, as we do, the people of Vermont, we do hereby, in their name, SOLEMNLY PROTEST against such annexation in any form.” [Passed unanimously, Nov. 1, 1837.] 2. RHODE ISLAND. (In General Assembly, October Session, A. D. 1837.) “Whereas the compact of the Union between these states was entered into by the people thereof in their respective states, ‘in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity;’ and, therefore, a Representative Government was instituted by them, with certain limited powers, clearly specified and defined in the Constitution — all other powers, not therein expressly relinquished, being ‘reserved to the states respectively, or to
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the people.’ And whereas this limited government possesses no power to extend its jurisdiction over any foreign nation, and no foreign nation, country, or people, can be admitted into this Union but by the sovereign will and act of the free people of all and each of these United States, nor without the formation of a new compact of Union — and another frame of government radically different, in objects, principles, and powers, from that which was framed for our own self-government, and deemed to be adequate to all the exigencies of our own free republic:— Therefore, Resolved, That we have witnessed, with deep concern, the indications of a disposition to bring into this Union, as a constituent member thereof, the foreign province or territory of Texas. Resolved, That, although we are fully aware of the consequences which must follow the accomplishment of such a project, could it be accomplished — aware that it would lead speedily to the conquest and annexation of Mexico itself, and its fourteen remaining provinces or intendencies — which, together with the revolted province of Texas, would furnish foreign territories and foreign people for at least twenty members of the new Union; that the government of a nation so extended and so constructed would soon become radically [changed] in character, if not in form — would unavoidably become a military government; and, under the plea of necessity, would free itself from the restraints of the Constitution and from its accountability to the people. That the ties of kindred, common origin and common interests, which have so long bound this people together, and would still continue to bind them: these ties, which ought to be held sacred by all true Americans, would be angrily dissolved, and sectional political combinations would be formed with the newly admitted foreign states, unnatural and adverse to the peace and prosperity of the country. The civil government, with all the arbitrary powers it might assume, would be unable to control the storm. The usurper would find himself in his proper element; and, after acting the patriot and the hero for a due season, as the only means of rescuing the country from the ruin which he had chiefly contributed to bring upon it, would reluctantly and modestly allow himself to be declared ‘Protector of the Commonwealth.’ We are now fully aware of the deep degradation into which the republic would sink itself in the eyes of the whole world, should it annex to its own vast territories other and foreign territories of immense though unknown extent, for the purpose of encouraging the propagation of slavery, and giving aid to the raising of slaves within its own bosom, the very bosom of freedom, to be esported and sold in those unhallowed regions. Although we are fully aware of these fearful evils, and numberless others which would come in their train, yet we do not here dwell upon them; because we are here firmly convinced that the free people of most, and we trust of all these states, will never suffer the admission of the foreign territory of Texas into this Union as a constituent member thereof — will never
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suffer the integrity of this Republic to be violated, either by the introduction and addition to it of foreign nations or territories, one or many, or by dismemberment of it by the transfer of any one or more of its members to a foreign nation. The people will be aware, that should one foreign state or country be introduced, another and another may be, without end, whether situated in South America, in the West India islands, or in any other part of the world; and that a single foreign state, thus admitted, might have in its power, by holding the balance between contending parties, to wrest their own government from the hands and control of the people, by whom it was established for their own benefit and self-government. We are firmly convinced, that the free people of these states will look upon any attempt to introduce the foreign territory of Texas, or any other foreign territory or nation into this Union, as a constituent member or members thereof, as manifesting a willingness to prostrate the Constitution and dissolve the Union. Resolved, That His Excellency, the Governor, be requested to forward a copy of the foregoing resolutions to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, and to each of the Executives of the several states, with a request that the same may be laid before the respective Legislatures of said states.” [The Preamble and Resolutions were unanimously adopted, Nov. 3, 1837.] 3. OHIO. “Resolved, by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, That in the name, and on behalf of the people of the State of Ohio, we do hereby SOLEMNLY PROTEST against the annexation of Texas to the Union of these United States. And be it further resolved, That the Governor be requested to transmit to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, and to the Governors of each of the States, a copy of the foregoing resolution, with a statement of the votes by which it was passed in each branch of the Legislature.” [Passed by 64 out of 72, the whole number in the House of Representatives — unanomously in the Senate. Feb. 24, 1838.] 4. MASSACHUSETTS. “Resolves against the annexation of Texas to the United States. Whereas a proposition to admit into the United States as a constituent member thereof, the foreign nation of Texas, has been recommended by the legislative resolutions of several States, and brought before Congress for its approval and sanction; and whereas such a measure would involve great wrong to Mexico, and otherwise be of evil precedent, injurious to the interests and dishonorable to the character of this country; and whereas its avowed objects are doubly fraught with peril to the prosperity and permanence of this Union, as tending to disturb and destroy the conditions of those compromises and concessions, entered into at the formation of the Constitution, by which the relative weights of different sections and interests were
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adjusted, and to strengthen and extend the evils of a system which is unjust in itself, in striking contrast with the theory of our institutions, and condemned by the moral sentiment of mankind; and whereas the people of these United States have not granted to any or all of the departments of their Government, but have retained in themselves, the only power adequate to the admission of a foreign nation into this confederacy; therefore, Resolved, That we, the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, do in the name of the people of Massachusetts, earnestly and solemnly protest against the incorporation of Texas into this Union, and declare, that no act done or compact made, for such purpose by the government of the United States, will be binding on the States or the People. Resolved, That his Excellency the Governor be requested to forward a copy of these resolutions and the accompanying report to the Executive of the United States, and the Executive of each State and also to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, with a request that they present the resolves to both Houses of Congress.” [Passed MARCH 16, 1838, UNANIMOUSLY, in both Houses.] * * * * * 5. MICHIGAN. Whereas, propositions have been made for the annexation of Texas to the United States, with a view to its ultimate incorporation into the Union: “And whereas, the extension of this General Government over so large a country on the south-west, between which and that of the original states, there is little affinity, and less identity of interest, would tend, in the opinion of this Legislature, greatly to disturb the safe and harmonious operations of the Government of the United States, and put in imminent danger the continuance of this happy Union: Therefore, Be it resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Michigan, That in behalf, and in the name of the State of Michigan, this Legislature doth hereby dissent from, and solemnly protest against the annexation, for any purpose, to this Union, of Texas, or of any other territory or district of country, heretofore constituting a part of the dominions of Spain in America, lying west or south-west of Louisiana. And be it further Resolved, by the Authority aforesaid, That the Governor of this State be requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing preamble and resolve, under the great seal of this state, to the President of the United States; also, that he transmit one copy thereof, authenticated in manner aforesaid, to the President of the Senate of the United States, with the respectful request of this Legislature, that the same may be laid before the Senate; also, that he transmit one copy thereof to the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States, authenticated in like manner, with the respectful request of this Legislature, that the same may be laid before the House of Representatives; and also, that he transmit to each
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of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, one copy thereof, together with the Report adopted by this Legislature, and which accompanies said preamble and resolves.” [Passed nearly if not quite unanimously, April 2, 1838]. * * * * * 6. CONNECTICUT. “Resolved, That we, the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened, do, in the name of the people of this State, solemnly protest against the annexation of Texas to this Union.” [Passed, it is believed, unanimously in both houses.] * * * * * (Those which follow were passed by but one branch of the respective Legislatures in which they were introduced.) 7. PENNSYLVANIA. Resolutions relative to the admission of Texas into the Union. “Whereas the annexation of Texas to the United States has been advocated and strongly urged by many of our fellow-citizens, particularly in the southern part of our country, and the president of Texas has received authority to open a correspondence with, and appoint, a commissioner to our government to accomplish the object; — And whereas such a measure would bring to us a dangerous extension of territory, with a population generally not desirable, and would probably involve us in war; — And whereas the subject is now pressed upon and agitated in Congress; therefore, Resolved, &c, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to use their influence and vote against the annexation of Texas to the territory of the united States. Resolved, That the Governor transmit to each of our Senators and Representatives a copy of the foregoing preamble and resolutions.” [Passed the Senate March 9, 1835, by 22 to 6. Postponed indefinitely in the House of Representatives, April 13, by 41 to 39.] * * * * * 8. MAINE. “Resolved, That the Legislature of the State of Maine, on behalf of the people of said state, do earnestly and solemnly protest against the annexation of the Republic of Texas to these United States; and that our Senators and Representatives in Congress be, and they hereby are, requested to exert their utmost influence to prevent the adoption of a measure at once so clearly unconstitutional, and so directly calculated to disturb our foreign relations, to destroy our domestic peace, and to
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dismember our blessed Union.” [Passed in the House of Representatives, March 22, 1838, by 85 to 30. Senate (same day) refused to concur by 11 to 10.] * * * * * 9. NEW-YORK. “Resolved, (if the Senate concur,) That the admission of the Republic of Texas into this Union would be entirely repugnant to the will of the people of this state, and would endanger the union of these United States. Resolved, (if the Senate concur,) That this Legislature do, in the name of the people of the State of New York, solemnly protest against the admission of the Republic of Texas into this Union. Resolved, (if the Senate concur.) That his Excellency the Governor be requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing resolutions to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, and also to the governors of each of the United States, with a request that the same be laid before their respective Legislatures.” [These resolutions passed the House of Representatives in April, by a large majority — the newspapers say, 83 to 13. They were indefinitely postponed in the Senate, by a vote of 21 to 9.] * * * * * APPENDIX G. The number of petitioners for abolition in the District of Columbia, and on other subjects allied to it, have been ascertained (in the House of Representatives) to be as follows:— Men. Women. Total. For abolition in the District, 51,366 78,882 130,248 Against the annexation of Texas, 104,973 77,419 182,392 Rescinding the gag resolution, 21,015 10,821 31,836 Against admitting any new slave state, 11,770 10,391 22,161 For abolition of the slave-trade between the states, 11,864 11,541 23,405 For abolition of slavery in the territories, 9,129 12,083 21,212 At the extra session for rescinding the gag resolution of Jan. 21, 1837, 3,377 3,377 ———————————————————————— Total, 213,494 201,137 414,631 The number in the Senate, where some difficulty was interposed that prevented its being taken, is estimated to have been about two-thirds as great as that in the House. * * * * * APPENDIX H. [On the 1st of December, one of the secretaries of the American Anti-Slavery Society addressed a note to each of the Governors
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of the slave states, in which he informed them, in courteous and respectful terms, that he had directed the Publishing Agent of this society, thereafter regularly to transmit to them, free of charge, the periodical publications issued from the office of the society. To this offer the following replies were received:—] GOVERNOR CAMPBELL’S LETTER. JAMES G. BIRNEY, Esq., New York “RICHMOND, Dec. 4, 1837. SIR, — I received, by yesterday’s mail, your letter of the 1st instant, in which you state that you had directed the publishing agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, hereafter, regularly to transmit, free of charge, by mail, to all the governors of the slave states, the periodical publications issued from that office. Regarding your society as highly mischievous, I decline receiving any communications from it, and must request that no publications from your office be transmitted to me. I am, &c, DAVID CAMPBELL.” * * * * * GOVERNOR BAGBY’S LETTER. “TUSCALOOSA, Jan. 6, 1838 SIR, — I received, by due course of mail, your favor of the 1st of December, informing me that you had directed the publishing agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society to forward to the governors of the slaveholding states the periodicals issued from that office. Taking it for granted, that the only object which the society or yourself could have in view, in adopting this course, is, the dissemination of the opinions and principles of the society — having made up my own opinion, unalterably, in relation to the whole question of slavery, as it exists in a portion of the United States, and feeling confident that, in the correctness of this opinion, I am sustained by the entire free white population of Alabama, as well as the great body of the people of this Union, I must, with the greatest respect for yourself, personally but not for the opinions or principles advocated by the society — positively decline receiving said publications, or any others of a similar character, either personally or officially. Indeed, it is presuming a little too much, to expect that the chief magistrate of a free people, elected by themselves, would hold correspondence or give currency to the publications of an organized society, openly engaged in a scheme fraught with more mischievous consequences to their interest and repose, than any that the wit or folly of mankind has heretofore devised. I am, very respectfully, Your ob’t servant, A.P. BAGBY”
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JAMES G. BIRNEY, Esq., New York. * * * * * GOVERNOR CANNON’S LETTER. [This letter required so many alterations to bring it up to the ordinary standard of epistolary, grammatical, and orthographical accuracy, that it is thought best to give it in word and letter, precisely as it was received at the office.] “EXECUTIVE DEPT.— NASHVILLE. Dec. 12th, 1837. Sir I have rec’d yours of the 1st Inst notifying me, that you had directed, your periodical publications, on the subject of Slavery to be sent to me free of charge &c — and you are correct, if sincere, in your views, in supposing that we widely differ, on this subject, we do indeed widely differ, on it, if the publications said to have emanated from you, are honest and sincere, which, I admit, is possible. My opinions are fix’d and settled, and I seldom Look into or examine, the, different vague notions of others who write and theorise on that subject. Hence I trust you will not expect me to examine, what you have printed on this subject, or cause to have printed. If you or any other man are influenced by feelings of humanity, and are laboring to relieve the sufferings, of the human race, you may find objects enough immediately around you, where you are, in any nonslaveholding State, to engage your, attention, and all your exertions, in that good cause. But if your aim is to make a flourish on the subject, before the world, and to gain yourself some notoriety, or distinction, without, doing good to any, and evil to many, of the human race, you are, pursuing the course calculated to effect. Such an object, in which no honest man need envy. Your honours, thus gaind, I know there are many such in our country, but would fain hope, you are not one of them. If you have Lived, as you state forty years in a Slave holding State, you know that, that class of its population, are not the most, miserable, degraded, or unhappy, either in their feelings or habits, You know they are generally governd, and provided for by men of information and understanding sufficient to guard them against the most odious vices and habits of the country, from which, you know the slaves are in a far greater degree exempt than are other portions of the population. That the slaves are the most happy, moral and contented generally, and free from suffering of any kind, having, each full confidence, in his masters, skill means and disposition to provide well for him, knowing also at the same time that it is his interest to do it. Hence in this State of Society more than any other, Superior intelligence has the ascendency, in governing and provideing, for the wants of those inferior, also in giveing direction to their Labour, and industry, as should be the case, superior intelligence Should govern, when united with Virtue, and interest, that great predominating principle in all human affairs. It is my rule of
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Life, when I see any man labouring to produce effects, at a distance from him, while neglecting the objects immediately around him, (in doing good) to suspect his sincerity, to suspect him for some selfish, or sinister motive, all is not gold that glitters, and every man is not what he, endeavours to appear to be, is too well known. It is the duty of masters to take care of there slaves and provide for them, and this duty I believe is as generally and as fully complyd with as any other duty enjoind on the human family, for next to their children their own offspring, their slaves stand next foremost in their care and attention, there are indeed very few instances of a contrary character. You can find around you, I doubt not a large number of persons intemix’d, in your society, who are entirely destitute of that care, and attention, towards them that is enjoyed by our slaves, and who are destitute of that deep feeling of interest, in guarding their morals and habits, and directing them through Life in all things, which is here enjoyd by our slaves, to those let your efforts be directed immediately around you and do not trouble with your vague speculations those who are contented and happy, at a distance from you. Very respectfully yours, N. CANNON.” Mr. JAS. G. BIRNEY, Cor. Sec. &c. * * * * * [The letter of the Secretary to the governor of South Carolina was not answered, but was so inverted and folded as to present the subscribed name of the secretary, as the superscription of the same letter to be returned. The addition of New York to the address brought it back to this office. Whilst governor Butler was thus refusing the information that was proffered to him in the most respectful terms from this office, he was engaged in another affair, having connection with the anti-slavery movement, as indiscreet, as it was unbecoming the dignity of the office he holds. The following account of it is from one of the Boston papers:—] “Hoaxing a Governor.— The National Aegis says, that Hollis Parker, who was sentenced to the state prison at the late term of the criminal court for Worcester county, for endeavoring to extort money from governor Everett, had opened an extensive correspondence, previous to his arrest, with similar intent, with other distinguished men of the country. Besides several individuals in New York, governor Butler, of South Carolina, was honored with his notice. A letter from that gentleman, directed to Parker, was lately received at the post office in a town near Worcester, enclosing a check for fifty dollars. So far as the character of Parker’s letter can be inferred from the reply of governor Butler, it would appear, that Parker informed the governor, that the design was entertained by some of our citizens, of transmitting to South Carolina a quantity of ‘incendiary publications,’ and that with the aid of a little money, he (Parker) would be able to unravel the plot, and furnish
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full information concerning it to his excellency. The bait took, and the money was forwarded, with earnest appeals to Parker to be vigilant and active in thoroughly investigating the supposed conspiracy against the peace and happiness of the South. The Aegis has the following very just remarks touching this case:— ‘Governor Butler belongs to a state loud in its professions of regard for state rights and state sovereignty. We, also, are sincere advocates of that good old republican doctrine. It strikes us, that it would have comported better with the spirit of that doctrine, the dignity, of his own station and character, the respect and courtesy due to a sovereign and independent state, if governor Butler had made the proper representation, if the subject was deserving of such notice, to the acknowledged head and constituted authorities of that state, instead of holding official correspondence with a citizen of a foreign jurisdiction, and employing a secret agent and informer, whose very offer of such service was proof of the base and irresponsible character of him who made it.’” * * * * * GOVERNOR CONWAY’S LETTER. EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS, March 1, 1838. Sir — A newspaper, headed ‘The Emancipator,’ in which you are announced the ‘publishing agent,’ has, for some weeks past, arrived at the post office in this city, to my address. Not having subscribed, or authorized any individual to give my name as a subscriber, for that or any such paper, it is entirely gratuitous on the part of its publishers to send me a copy; and not having a favorable opinion of the intentions of the authors and founders of the ‘American Anti-Slavery Society;’ I have to request a discontinuance of ‘The Emancipator.’ Your ob’t servant, “J.S. CONWAY.” R. G. WILLIAMS, Esq., New York. * * * * * [NOTE.— The following extract of a letter, from the late Chief Justice Jay to the late venerable Elias Boudinot, dated Nov. 17, 1819, might well have formed part of Appendix E. Its existence, however, was not known till it was too late to insert it in its most appropriate place. It shows the view taken of some of the constitutional questions by a distinguished jurist, — one of the purest patriots too, by whom our early history was illustrated.] “Little can be added to what has been said and written on the subject of slavery. I concur in the opinion, that it ought not to be introduced, nor permitted in any of the new states; and that it ought to be gradually diminished, and finally, abolished, in all of them. To me, the constitutional authority of the Congress to prohibit the migration and importation of slaves into any of the states, does not appear questionable. The first article of the Constitution specifics the legislative powers committed to Congress. The ninth section of that article
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has these words:— ‘The migration or importation of such persons as any of the now existing states shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808 — but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation not exceeding ten dollars for each person.’ I understand the sense and meaning of this clause to be, That the power of the Congress, although competent to prohibit such migration and importation, was not to be exercised with respect to the THEN existing states, and them only, until the year 1808; but that Congress were at liberty to make such prohibition as to any new state which might in the meantime be established. And further, that from and after that period, they were authorized to make such prohibition as to all the states, whether new or old. Slaves were the persons intended. The word slaves was avoided, on account of the existing toleration of slavery, and its discordancy with the principles of the Revolution; and from a consciousness of its being repugnant to those propositions to the Declaration of Independence:— ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident — that all men are created equal — that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights — and that, among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’”
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 28th of 3 M 1838 / I am still poorly as to bodily health there are Mitigations of the disorder under which I have suffered & no extremity as some weeks ago, yet I am not clear from it, & find myself unable to be much about — I am favoured with quietness of mind — I have some outward concerns which might be closer settled, but nothing that would give much trouble were they settled by others RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
June 18, Monday: Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts continued his speech before the US House of Representatives, on the expansive topic of Texas, for a 4th day.
Having undergone a total of four blasphemy trials, and Massachusetts Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw having come to the opinion that the Commonwealth was obligated to protect its citizens against “an intended design to calumniate and disparage the Supreme Being, and to destroy the veneration due to him,” the convicted atheist and blasphemer Abner Kneeland was consigned to 60 days in the Boston lockup. (Presumably while there he was of incredible benefit to other prisoners, by instructing them in the tenets of Universalist doctrine.) Presumably it was while he was there that he prepared A REVIEW OF THE TRIAL, CONVICTION, AND FINAL IMPRISONMENT IN THE COMMON JAIL OF THE COUNTY OF SUFFOLK OF ABNER KNEELAND FOR THE ALLEGED CHARGE OF BLASPHEMY. The Reverend William Ellery Channing put together a petition for his pardon based
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upon the principles of freedom of speech and press, which was signed by many prominent people, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, George Ripley, William Lloyd Garrison, and Bronson Alcott. The Reverend Hosea Ballou, who did not sign the petition, did visit his old friend in jail. When the jail doors opened, Kneeland relocated to Iowa to initiate a small utopian community that was to be known as Salubria (it was near what is now Farmington).
During his childhood in Alton, Illinois, John Stetson Barry had determined to prepare himself for the ministry. In this year he returned to Massachusetts to study under the Reverend Hosea Ballou in Boston (there was no Universalist College). After his ordination he would initially serve the Universalist congregation of West Amesbury MA (has become Merrimac), but would begin to serve instead Weymouth in 1839, West Scituate in 1841, Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1844, and finally Needham beginning in 1855.
Summer: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was spending the season at Newport on Aquidneck Island. He had formed connections there with George W. Greene and with Samuel Ward, a brother of Julia Ward (Howe) whom he had met in Europe, and had prepared for his visit by a perusal of John Callender’s 1739 work, AN HISTORICAL DISCOURSE, ON THE CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS OF THE COLONY OF RHODE ISLAND. When he visited 19- year-old Julia, most likely at the Ward family residence called “Buttonwood” or “Redwood Lodge,” she called him “Longo” — and he caught a bad cold by sleeping with the window wide open. The group visited the mysterious Old Stone Mill or Round Tower, and ventured intrepid speculations as to the ancientness of its origins.
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Our national birthday, the 4th of July, Wednesday: This was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 34th birthday.
The balloon of the intrepid master Boston goldbeater and aeronaut Louis Lauriat graced the skies above historic Salem MA, and a good time was had by all. In Providence (Moshasuck), Rhode Island, a procession included 29 veterans of the revolution.
The White House was closed to the public because “the President has lately lost, by death, a near relative.”
In Charlottesville, Virginia, the Declaration of Independence was read from an “original draft, in the handwriting of Mr. Jefferson.” THOMAS JEFFERSON
At Fort Madison, Iowa, headman Black Hawk delivered a 4th-of-July address. CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY
At the US House of Representatives, Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts continued his speech on the expansive topic of Texas for a 20th day.
Sidney Rigdon preached another sermon to the Mormons of a similar nature to his “Salt Sermon,” stating “And that mob that comes on us to disturb us; it shall be between us and them a war of extermination; for we will follow them till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exterminate us.”
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 4th of 7th M 1838 / This has been a day of much stir in Town as it always is — My mind & feelings however has been preserved in the quiet —- This morning our Friend Joseph Bowne came to town from Portsmouth where he had an appointed a Meeting yesterday — finding it not a Suitable day to appoint a Meeting here he concluded to spent the day at D Buffums in resting & writing home to his friends - to be at our Meeting tomorrow & the appointment has been forwarded accordingly. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
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September 16, Sunday: Frederick Douglass and Anna Murray Douglass, as Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Johnson, were put by David Ruggles aboard the steamer John W. Richmond from New-York to Aquidneck Island4 in Rhode Island and there boarded a stagecoach headed toward the whaling port of New Bedford in the company of Friend Joseph Ricketson and Friend William C. Taber.5
In New Bedford, known as a liberal town, the outlaw bridegroom would be seeking (but not finding, due to race prejudice) employment as a caulker — and would be put to work on the docks as a stevedore.
4. There is possible irony here, that might be looked into. What is the probability that Anna’s and Frederick’s black ancestors had been brought to this continent in ships owned by the international slavetraders of Newport? 5. Although Frederick Douglass’s various narratives all make the encounter in Newport seem quite accidental, it is rather more likely that David Ruggles had passed the word to the local anti-slavery society, and that Friends William C. Taber and Ricketson had been expectantly waiting for them to disembark from the steamer.
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ANNA MURRAY DOUGLASS FREDERICK DOUGLASS
We arrived at Newport the next morning, and soon after an old fashioned stage-coach, with “New Bedford” in large yellow letters on its sides, came down to the wharf. I had not money enough to pay our fare, and stood hesitating what to do. Fortunately for us, there were two Quaker gentlemen who were about to take passage on the stage,— Friends William C. Taber and Joseph Ricketson, —who at once discerned our true situation, and, in a peculiarly quiet way, addressing me, Mr. Taber said: “Thee get in.” I never obeyed an order with more alacrity, and we were soon on our way to our new home. When we reached “Stone Bridge” the passengers alighted for breakfast, and paid their fares to the driver. We took no breakfast, and, when asked for our fares, I told the driver I would make it right with him when we reached New Bedford.
WILLIAM C. TABER JOSEPH RICKETSON
“The capacity to get free is nothing; the capacity to be free, that is the task.” — André Gide, THE IMMORALIST translation Richard Howard NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970, page 7
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 16th of 9 M 1838 / I was so unwell for several days past that I could go out but little & have not attended Meetings today, but felt Able to be at the funeral of my Venerable Father in law Clarke Rodman, which was after the Afternoon Meeting - It was very numerously attended by people of all persuasions, & the sitting at the house was a very solemn Season leaving an evidence that words are not necessary to produce an evidence to the Truth but that it may be experienced in solemn Silence The only expressions were from Hannah Dennis simply the expression of the Scripture passage “Mark the perfect Man & behold the
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upright, for the end of that Man is peace.”- this simply expressed, without enlargement, left a precious savor & I never felt more unity with Hannah on any occasion. —- At the grave we had a Silent Solemn pause & the countenances of the people exhibited a reverence & respect not usually discoverable to the same extent on such occasions -
RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
December: At some point in 1837 Margaret Fuller had accepted an offer of $1,000.00/year from Rhode Island, and had left the Temple School of Bronson Alcott in Boston, where things were on a downward spiral due to extremely hostile reactions from Boston parents, to teach at Providence’s Greene Street School. (Remember that a year prior to this Thoreau’s position at Concord’s Central Grammar School, where he was to supervise two male teachers making $100.00/year and two female teachers making $40.00/year in a school having over 300 students as well as himself teach 100 boys, had been worth only half that $1,000.00/year despite the fact that he possessed a college diploma! — Fuller’s salary alone is enough to indicate that not only were the demands to be made on her in Rhode Island to be extreme, but also that for some reason the situation there must have been dicey.) By this point, in December, exhausted, she explained to her girls that she simply must resign her position. She wrote about this, that “I have behaved much too well for some time past; it has spoiled my peace.… Isolation is necessary to me, as to others. Yet I keep on ‘fulfilling all my duties,’ as the technical phrase is, except to myself.”
1839
THE RHODE-ISLAND ALMANAC FOR 1839. By Isaac Bickerstaff. Providence, Rhode Island: Hugh H. Brown.
In Rhode Island, Samuel W. King became the Acting Governor.
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Rhode Island determined to appropriate future incomes from lotteries and auctioneers to repaying its longstanding indebtedness to its school fund, with the plan being that after such indebtedness had been completely repaid, such income was to be devoted wholly to increasing the permanent school fund.
In Providence, Friend Anna A. Jenkins was among the founders of an Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans. (This institution would relocate in 1849 to a new facility called “The Shelter,” at 20 Olive Street on College Hill, that could provide sleeping areas for 50 such children. Black boys would become apprentices at the age of 10, black girls at the age of 12.)
At Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, Nicholas Brown, Jr. provided land and most of the funding for a new house of the sciences, to be known as Rhode Island Hall.
1839. The Public Schools of this city were re-organized under a new system; the number of schools was increased, and several new, elegant and spacious school-houses were erected.
February 21, Thursday: According to Roll #12 of microfilmed records of “Inward Slave Manifests,” now available on the Internet for your ready consultation, on this day the brig Smithfield of the firm of Nicholas Brown & Co. of Providence, Rhode Island, a coastwise vessel, arrived in the port of Charleston, South Carolina under the command of Captain Thomas Andros or Andrews (both spellings are listed)6 conveying two coffles of American slaves to their destiny on the auction block for the Southern plantation market. The coffles were divided according to their white ownership, with the consignment pertaining to the factor Alex M. Donald, a middleman, consisting of the following persons: NAME GENDER AGE HEIGHT COLOR Charles male 21 5-5 Black John male 21 5-10 Black Harry male 14 4-10 Black Jack male 19 5-11 Mulatto Joseph male 23 5-8 Black Antony male 15 4-9 Mulatto Lucy female 28 5-2 Black The other consignment, pertaining to the factor T. Ely Gragg of Chesaw, South Carolina, consisted of the following persons:
6. Clearly, this “Captain Thomas Andros or Andrews” of this coastal slave ship was one and the same person as the Thomas Andrews who had been born on December 1, 1790 in Smithfield, a son of Jonathan Andrews and Marcy Ames Andrews of North Smithfield.
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NAME GENDER AGE HEIGHT COLOR Melesa female 22 5-9 Brown Nancy female 40 5-4 Black Martha Jane female 12 4-5 Black Nancy Peters female 9 3-11 Black Judy female 4 3-3 Black Joseph male (infant) Black Lseeila female 15 5-3 Black
September 3, Tuesday: Fa of the La Amistad died. THE MIDDLE PASSAGE RACE SLAVERY
Providence, Rhode Island attorney William Jewett Pabodie read his CALIDORE: A LEGENDARY POEM (Boston: Marsh, Capen, Lyon, and Webb, 1839) before an assembly at Brown University. READ PABODIE’S POEM
September 4, Wednesday: According to the journal of Friend Thomas B. Hazard or Hafsard or Hasard of Kingstown, Rhode Island, also known as “Nailer Tom,”7 there had been “strange Northern lights last night.”
AURORA BOREALIS
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Sept 4th [Wednesday of WEEK] As we shoved away from this rocky coast, before sunrise, the smaller bittern, the genius of the shore, was moping along its edge, or stood probing the mud for its food, with ever an eye on us, though so demurely at work, or else he ran along over the wet stones like a wrecker in his storm-coat, looking out for wrecks of snails and cockles. Now away he goes, with a limping flight, uncertain where he will alight, until a rod of clear sand amid the alders invites his feet; and now our steady approach compels him to seek a new retreat. It is a bird of the oldest Thalesian school, and no doubt believes in the priority of water to the other elements; the relic of a twilight antediluvian age which yet inhabits these bright American rivers with us Yankees. There is something venerable in this melancholy and contemplative race of birds, which may have trodden the earth while it was yet in a slimy and imperfect state. Perchance their tracks, too, are still visible on the stones. It still lingers into our glaring summers, bravely supporting its fate without sympathy from man, as if it looked forward to some second advent of which he has no assurance. One wonders if, by its patient study by rocks and sandy capes, it has wrested the whole of her secret from Nature yet. What a rich experience it must have gained, standing on one leg and looking out from its dull eye so long on sunshine and rain, moon and stars! What could it tell of stagnant pools and reeds and dank night fogs! It would be worth the while to look closely into the eye which has been open and seeing at such hours, and in such solitudes its dull, yellowish, greenish eye. Methinks my own soul must be a bright invisible green. I have seen these birds stand by the half dozen together in the shallower water along the shore, with their bills thrust into the mud at the bottom, probing for food, the whole head being concealed, while the neck and body formed an arch above the water.
Thoreau’s smaller bittern, the Green Heron, like all members of the heron family, catches its food with quick stabs of its bill. It does not probe the mud as do many species of shorebird. Since Green Herons often feed in still, shallow water, reflections may have caused Thoreau to think their bills were thrust into the mud. It must be remembered that Thoreau had no optical equipment at this time to aid his observations. –Cruickshank, Helen Gere. THOREAU ON BIRDS (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964)
Sept 4th Wednesday. Hooksett east bank 2 or 3 miles below the village, opposite mr. Mitchels.
On Thursday, Thoreau and his brother halted at a point east of Uncannunuc Mountain near Manchester, New Hampshire. They hung their tent and buffalo robes in a farmer’s barn to dry and then continued on foot up the Merrimack until it became the Pemigewasset and then the Wild Amonoosuck to its very fountainhead. This part of the adventure is not included in the book. However, Thursday morning as the brothers lay in their tent listening to the rain, they found such enjoyment in birds as those who never venture into a wet world can never know. –Cruickshank, Helen Gere. THOREAU ON BIRDS (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964)
7. He was called “Nailer Tom” because his trade was the cutting of nails from scrap iron, and in order to distinguish him from a relative known as “College Tom,” from another relative known as “Shepherd Tom,” and from his own son who –because he had fits– was known as “Pistol-Head Tom.”
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A WEEK: The small houses which were scattered along the river at intervals of a mile or more were commonly out of sight to us, but sometimes, when we rowed near the shore, we heard the peevish note of a hen, or some slight domestic sound, which betrayed them. The lock-men’s houses were particularly well placed, retired, and high, always at falls or rapids, and commanding the pleasantest reaches of the river, –for it is generally wider and more lake- like just above a fall,– and there they wait for boats. These humble dwellings, homely and sincere, in which a hearth was still the essential part, were more pleasing to our eyes than palaces or castles would have been. In the noon of these days, as we have said, we occasionally climbed the banks and approached these houses, to get a glass of water and make acquaintance with their inhabitants. High in the leafy bank, surrounded commonly by a small patch of corn and beans, squashes and melons, with sometimes a graceful hop-yard on one side, and some running vine over the windows, they appeared like beehives set to gather honey for a summer. I have not read of any Arcadian life which surpasses the actual luxury and serenity of these New England dwellings. For the outward gilding, at least, the age is golden enough. As you approach the sunny doorway, awakening the echoes by your steps, still no sound from these barracks of repose, and you fear that the gentlest knock may seem rude to the Oriental dreamers. The door is opened, perchance, by some Yankee-Hindoo woman, whose small-voiced but sincere hospitality, out of the bottomless depths of a quiet nature, has travelled quite round to the opposite side, and fears only to obtrude its kindness. You step over the white-scoured floor to the bright “dresser” lightly, as if afraid to disturb the devotions of the household, –for Oriental dynasties appear to have passed away since the dinner-table was last spread here,– and thence to the frequented curb, where you see your long-forgotten, unshaven face at the bottom, in juxtaposition with new-made butter and the trout in the well. “Perhaps you would like some molasses and ginger,” suggests the faint noon voice. Sometimes there sits the brother who follows the sea, their representative man; who knows only how far it is to the nearest port, no more distances, all the rest is sea and distant capes, — patting the dog, or dandling the kitten in arms CAT that were stretched by the cable and the oar, pulling against Boreas or the trade-winds. He looks up at the stranger, half pleased, half astonished, with a mariner’s eye, as if he were a dolphin within cast. If men will believe it, sua si bona norint, there are no more quiet Tempes, nor more poetic and Arcadian lives, than may be lived in these New England dwellings. We thought that the employment of their inhabitants by day would be to tend the flowers and herds, and at night, like the shepherds of old, to cluster and give names to the stars from the river banks.
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[The full Latin expression that goes with “sua si bona norint” is “O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint,” which means “0 more than happy, if they only knew their advantages,” and was used by Virgil to describe those who led the rustic bucolic agricultural life. We can say, therefore, that Virgil is a presence not only in Thoreau’s WALDEN, but also in A WEEK.]
September 26, Thursday: Friend Lucretia Mott addressed the 1st Anniversary meeting of the New England Non- Resistance Society in Boston.8
Salmon Portland Chase married for a 2d time, to Eliza Ann Smith. Of the three daughters that would be born to this union only Catherine Jane (Kate) would survive. Kate would marry Senator William Sprague of Rhode Island, textile manufacturer and former Governor of that state, and Sprague money would be made available to finance Chase’s political ambitions.
8. I do not know whether Lucretia Mott made it to Concord on this trip — but I would like to know, if anyone can advise me.
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1840
THE RHODE-ISLAND ALMANAC FOR 1840. By Isaac Bickerstaff. Providence, Rhode Island: Hugh H. Brown.
The American Anti-Slavery Society issued its 5th annual almanac, the AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY ALMANAC FOR 1840. The cover depicted slavemasters with a shackled slave. Inside were 16 woodcuts of slaves in chains, slaves being hunted by dogs, “Selling a Mother From Her Child,” whipping, branding, burning at the stake, etc. with accompanying stories:
“Our Peculiar Domestic Institutions.”
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Northern Hospitality—New York nine months law.9
9. The slave steps out of the slave state into the state of New York, and his chains fall. New York, although a free state, stands ready to reenslave him if he should remain for more than 9 months.
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Burning of McIntosh at St. Louis during April 1836
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Showing how slavery improves the condition of the female sex
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The Negro Pew, or “Free” Seats for black Christians
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Mayor of New-York refusing a Carman’s license to a colored Man
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Servility of the Northern States in arresting and returning fugitive Slaves
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Selling a Mother from her Child
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Hunting Slaves with dogs and guns. A Slave drowned by the dogs.
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“Poor things, ‘they can’t take care of themselves.’”
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Mothers with young Children at work in the field
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A Woman chained to a Girl, and a Man in irons at work in the field
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Branding Slaves
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Cutting up a Slave in Kentucky
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Paid, Unpaid
At this point, 63 years after the fact, an account of interracial contact appeared as part of JOURNAL OF THE LIFE, RELIGIOUS EXERCISES, AND TRAVELS IN THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY OF RUFUS HALL, LATE OF NORTHAMPTON, MONTGOMERY COUNTY IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK (Byberry, Pennsylvania: John and Isaac Comly) and, although this might possibly constitute a late-life reconstruction by a teller who may or may not have been making a direct claim that he himself was present, it may be inferred by some readers that this amounted to eyewitness testimony placed on record in the holograph diary during the period of the event.10
10. During Fall 1773, Friend Rufus Hall had arrived from Rhode Island and purchased land near Easton. In 1774 there had been as many as 100 Quakers in that region (including those scattered in White Creek, Greenwich, and other towns to the north), in three places of worship). During Summer 1777 some of these men were being briefly taken into custody by the American revolutionaries, as suspected Loyalists. A considerable amount of their property was forfeit to the American revolutionaries, although no-one had been physically assaulted. When General Burgoyne’s British army entered the region with its native allies during August/September 1777, there were perhaps a dozen Quaker families at that locale.
This would have to do, obviously, with a fave Quaker kiddie story, “Fierce Feathers.” You might want to study about this because in some respects the tale has expanded and expanded until it has become quite problematic (even, in some tellings, markedly racist). “FIERCE FEATHERS” A SCHOLARLY ANALYSIS
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One day the Indians came to our meeting just as it was breaking up, but they offered no violence: their warlike appearance was very shocking, being equipped with their guns, tomahawks and scalping knives: they had a prisoner and one green scalp taken but a few hours before.... [When they] understood that Friends were at a Religious Meeting, they went to one of their Houses, got some victuals, of which a prisoner with them partook, and they quietly departed.
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After studying law, Thomas Allen Jenckes was admitted to the Rhode Island bar. He would commence practice in Providence, and would serve as Clerk in the Rhode Island legislature until 1844.
In Rhode Island politics (with a population of more than 100,000), Samuel Ward King was during this year in charge. During this year the State Armory was being built on the downslope side of Benefit Street in Providence.
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The 6th national census.11 Black Americans were becoming more numerous, in Mississippi at this point, than white Americans. In Massachusetts, the average free black able-bodied workingman was receiving one dollar per day for a laboring year of 260 working days, or a total of $260 annual income.
In the Rhode Island census, Cato Pearce was listed as an agricultural laborer living alone in Cranston, with Thomas Cole as a neighbor. Cato indicates in his 1842 narrative that for many years he lived in Cranston with Deacon Thomas Cole and Mrs. Cole. Deacon Cole was a white man, a Baptist, and had assisted Cato even before the 1820 incident with Potter Senior.
Edward Jarvis uncovered serious errors in the Massachusetts census of this year, and Lemuel Shattuck uncovered serious errors in the Boston census.
It having become abundantly clear that the new American Statistical Society had been poorly named, its initialism being ASS, the name was corrected to a less undignified American Statistical Association. (It’s obvious that these were high-minded gentlemen — or they would have seen this one coming.)
As of 1790 the center of the human population of the USA had been a little town just about a day’s travel inland
11. The rise in manumissions in the post-Revolutionary period had increased the proportion of free black Americans from about 8% to about 13.5%, where it had been holding steady. A decline in manumissions in the late antebellum period, combined with the lesser fecundity of free black Americans, would move the free-to-enslaved proportion back down to about 11% as we arrived at our Civil War: Census % in Population
1790 8%
1810 13.5%
1840 13.5%
1861 11%
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from Baltimore. By this period the center of population had relocated.
(Nowadays, of course, we’ve all been coming from one or another center in Missouri.)
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Early in the year John Adolphus Etzler had returned from the West Indies to New-York. Undoubtedly to meet and suitably impress other reformers, he would there attend the Fourier Society of New York’s annual celebration of the French philosopher-utopist Charles Fourier’s birthday. There he would make the acquaintance of a Fourierist socialist and humanitarian, C.F. Stollmeyer, also a recent German immigrant, who was at that time readying Albert Brisbane’s THE SOCIAL DESTINY OF MAN for publication. Stollmeyer was to become not only the publisher of The New World, but also a primary disciple of Etzler. This SOCIAL DESTINY OF MAN, seconded by the writings and lectures of such men as the Reverend Dana McLean Greeley of Concord, the Reverend William Henry Channing, Horace Greeley, and Parke Godwin would stimulate the rise of several Phalansterian Associations, in the middle and western states, chiefest of which would be the “North American Phalanx” on the north shore of New Jersey. ASSOCIATION OF INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION ONEIDA COMMUNITY MODERN TIMES UNITARY HOME BROOK FARM HOPEDALE
The Reverend Adin Ballou’s “Practical Christians” began to publish a gazette, the Practical Christian, for the “promulgation of Primitive Christianity.” He would write in HISTORY OF THE HOPEDALE COMMUNITY, FROM ITS INCEPTION TO ITS VIRTUAL SUBMERGENCE IN THE HOPEDALE PARISH that this year would initiate “a decade of American history pre-eminently distinguished for the general humanitarian spirit which seemed to pervade it, as manifested in numerous and widely extended efforts to put away existing evils and better the condition of the masses of mankind; and especially for the wave of communal thought which swept over the country, awakening a very profound interest in different directions in the question of the re-organization of society; — an interest which assumed various forms as it contemplated or projected practical results.” There would be, he pointed out, a considerable number of what were known as Transcendentalists in and about Boston, who, under the leadership of the Reverend George Ripley, a Unitarian clergyman of eminence, would plan and put in operation the Roxbury Community, generally known as the “Brook Farm” Association. A company of radical reformers who had come out from the church on account of its alleged complicity with Slavery and other abominations, and hence called Come-Outers, would institute a sort of family Community near Providence, Rhode Island. Other progressives, with George W. Benson at their head, would found the Northampton Community at the present village of Florence, a suburb of Northampton. One of the debates of the 18th Century was what human nature might be, under its crust of civilization, under the varnish of culture and manners. Jean-Jacques Rousseau had an answer. Thomas Jefferson had an answer. One of the most intriguing answers was that of Charles Fourier, who was born in Besançon two years before the Shakers arrived in New York. He grew up to write twelve sturdy volumes designing a New Harmony for mankind, an experiment in radical sociology that began to run parallel to that of the Shakers. Fourierism (Horace Greeley founded the New- York Tribune to promote Fourier’s ideas) was Shakerism for intellectuals. Brook Farm was Fourierist, and such place-names as Phalanx, New Jersey, and New Harmony, Indiana, attest to the movement’s history. Except for one detail, Fourier and Mother Ann Lee were of the same mind; they both saw that humankind must return to the tribe or extended family and that it was to exist on a farm. Everyone lived in one enormous dormitory. Everyone shared all work; everyone agreed, although with constant
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revisions and refinements, to a disciplined way of life that would be most harmonious for them, and lead to the greatest happiness. But when, of an evening, the Shakers danced or had “a union” (a conversational party), Fourier’s Harmonians had an orgy of eating, dancing, and sexual high jinks, all planned by a Philosopher of the Passions. There is a strange sense in which the Shakers’ total abstinence from the flesh and Fourier’s total indulgence serve the same purpose. Each creates a psychological medium in which frictionless cooperation reaches a maximum possibility. It is also wonderfully telling that the modern world has no place for either.
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According to the dissertation of Maurice A. Crane, “A Textual and Critical Edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance” at the University of Illinois in 1953, various scholars have fingered Zenobia as: • Mrs. Almira Barlow • Margaret Fuller • Fanny Kemble • Mrs. Sophia Willard Dana Ripley • Caroline Sturgis Tappan
while various other scholars have been fingering Mr. Hollingsworth as: • Bronson Alcott • Albert Brisbane • Elihu Burritt •Charles A. Dana • Waldo Emerson • Horace Mann, Sr. • William Pike • the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, or maybe • the Reverend William Henry Channing, or maybe • the Reverend Theodore Parker
Hawthorne should really have told us more than Zenobia’s nickname, and should really have awarded Hollingsworth a first name more definitive than “Mr.”? Go figure! Lest we presume that an association of this William Henry Channing with Hollingsworth is utterly void of content, let us listen, as Marianne Dwight did, to the reverend stand and deliver on the topic of “devotedness to the cause; the necessity of entire self-surrender”:1 He compared our work with … that of the crusaders.... He compared us too with the Quakers, who see God only in the inner light,... with the Methodists, who seek to be in a state of rapture in their sacred meetings, whereas we should maintain in daily life, in every deed, on all occasions, a feeling of religious fervor; with the perfectionists, who are, he says, the only sane religious people, as they believe in perfection, and their aim is one with ours. Why should we, how dare we tolerate ourselves or one another in sin?
1. Reed, Amy L., ed. LETTERS FROM BROOK FARM, 1844-1847, BY MARIANNE DWIGHT Poughkeepsie NY, 1928.
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During this decade well over 100 mills would be in operation on Rhode Island streams. The village of Saylesville would be established during this period at Lincoln and eventually would grow into one of the greatest textile complexes in the world. The Sayles Bleachery plants would become one of the most important examples of highly developed mill towns, with a wide range of social and educational activities for workers. The Georgiaville Cotton Manufacturing Company would become one of the many mills along the Woonasquatucket. (In 1853 Zachariah Allen would purchase this mill. His extensive efforts in the redesign of the water system there, downstream in Allendale, and at other sites would contribute to the expansion, success and stability of the local textile industry.)
During this decade, the Providence and Worcester Railroad would be building an 80-foot walkway around the Great Salt Cove at the foot of College Hill and Smith Hill (Cove Promenade, now known as Promenade Street). RHODE ISLAND
During this decade the business of the Washington Providence Insurance Company of Providence, Rhode Island would begin to shift, from marine insurance to fire insurance.
At some point during the 1840s, “Charley” Parkhurst, 5 foot 7 inches and wiry, would move from Worcester, Massachusetts to Providence, Rhode Island and become a coachman to the upscale swells of that vicinity.
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By this point the Heath Hen Tympanuchus cupido cupido, which had been such an available staple in Boston as to be considered of little desirability even as provisions for servants, was not often to be seen on the mainland of Massachusetts and Rhode Island and Connecticut (the species would be holding out for a time on Long Island, on the plains of New Jersey, and at a few spots in the Pocono Mountains in Northampton County in Pennsylvania).
After 1870, it would survive only on Martha’s Vineyard. In 1890 only a couple of hundred birds would be locatable by William Brewster’s most careful observation, on this entire island. By 1896, according to Kenwood, there would be fewer than a hundred survivors. In 1908 a reservation would be established for them at the center of their breeding range on Martha’s Vineyard, and although at that point there would be only about 50 left, this reservation would allow them to increase rapidly. By 1916 they would be again at all points on the island –except for Gay Head at the western tip– and the population would be numbering about a couple of
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thousand, but then on May 16, 1916 there would occur a large grass fire that would burn off about 20 square miles at the center of their breeding territory. That winter of 1916/1917 would be a hard one, and then in 1917 there would come an unprecedented flight of goshawks, and the counts of Typanuchus c. cupido would go back down to fewer than 150 individuals, most of which were males. In 1920, many birds would be found dead or in a weak and helpless condition, evidently due to some disease. By 1925, the population would be probably at its lowest. The spring census of 1927 would produce a count of 11 males and 2 females. In Fall 1828 only two birds would be seen, and after December 8, 1828 only one of these would be seen. On April 2, 1929, this one remaining bird would be photographed from a blind at the farm of James Green on the highway between Edgartown and West Tisbury. This sole survivor would be viewed and photographed by pilgrimage after pilgrimage of birders until, during Fall 1931, it would no longer be located.
Providence workers formed the Rhode Island Suffrage Association.
Friends Allen Wing and Olive Wing came to the Yearly Meeting School on top of the hill as superintendents. Superintendents.
1819-1824. Purinton, Matthew and Betsy. 1824-1835. Breed, Enoch and Lydia. 1829-1835. Gould, Stephen and Hannah, Asst. Supts. 1835-1836. Davis, Seth and Mary. 1837. Breed, Enoch and Lydia. 1838-1839. Rathbun, Rowland and Alice. 1840-1844. Wing, Allen and Olive. 1845-1846. Thompson, Olney and Lydia. 1847. Congdon, Jarvia and Lydia. 1847-1852. Cornell, Silas and Sarah M.
January: The Rhode Island general assembly allowed school committees to set apart $10 every year for the establishment of school libraries. It also protected the state’s children by making it illegal for a factory to employ any child younger than twelve, who could not prove that he or she had attended school at least three months out of the preceding twelve. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
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March 3, Tuesday: Since 1824, the mentally ill had been being housed at the Ebenezer Dexter Poorhouse at the corner of Hope Street and Lloyd Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island — where one may still view an utterly massive stone perimeter wall although by now it has been penetrated by various driveways. On this day Nicholas Brown, Jr., the head of the major firm of Brown and Ives, declared, in a codicil to his last will and testament, that it had long been deeply impressed on his mind that “an Insane or Lunatic Hospital or Retreat for the Insane should be established upon a firm and permanent basis, under an act of the Legislature, where the unhappy portion of our fellow beings who are by the visitation of Providence deprived of their reason may find a safe retreat and be provided with whatever may be conducive to their comfort and to their restoration to a sound mind. Therefore for the purpose of aiding an object so desirable and in the hope that such an establishment may soon be commenced, I do hereby set apart and give and bequeath the sum of Thirty Thousand Dollars toward the erection or the endowment of an Insane or Lunatic Hospital or Retreat for the insane, or by whatever other name it may be called, to be located in Providence or vicinity.”12
PSYCHOLOGY READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
12. Dr. Robert J. Westlake, until his recent retirement an officer and director of this institution, who had been associated with Butler Hospital since 1973, has asserted that Nicholas Brown, Jr. was a Quaker. The man had been, of course, a Baptist. Was this an innocent mistake on Dr. Westlake’s part — or does it reflect a disingenuous attempt on the part of some informant of Dr. Westlake’s, who has attempted to falsify history in order to avoid the question as to whether the originary bequest for the hospital had been made up in part of moneys obtained by the international trade in black slaves over the Middle Passage, a commerce in which many Baptist members of the Brown family of Providence actually were very deeply implicated? (It may ordinarily be dismissed as a mere error, if an institution gets the religion of its founding figure wrong, since such a detail would ordinarily be considered rather unimportant in an institutional history — except that in this case it would seem there to be a major motive, either to be certain to get this particular detail right or to be certain to get this particular detail wrong. Sometimes we can be glad something is true — and it is considered true because we are glad rather than the other way around.)
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March 20, Friday: Waldo Emerson lectured in Providence. This was the introductory lecture of what would be a total of six, from the “Human Life” series, for which he would receive $180. He would be told that the Franklin Lyceum had made money by him. He would note that one member of his Rhode Island audience had “in good earnest defined Transcendentalism as ‘Operations on the Teeth’.”
March 23, Monday: Doctor John Draper obtained a “representation of the moon’s image” an inch in diameter, with noticeable detail, by a 20-30 minute exposure of a Daguerreotype plate. (Unfortunately, this image, and a similar image made by Daguerre that had been made on the night of January 2, 1839, have been lost to fire over the years. The earliest surviving image of the moon is now the one at Harvard University, on a plate that was exposed on the night of September 1, 1849 without the assistance of a telescope.)
According to a comet list published in Boston in 1846, attributed to Professor Benjamin Peirce:
SKY EVENT
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March 25, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson lectured in Providence, Rhode Island. This was the 3rd lecture of the series: Love.
March 27, Friday: Waldo Emerson lectured in Providence, Rhode Island. This was the 4th lecture of the series: Politics.
March 30, Monday: Waldo Emerson lectured in Providence, Rhode Island. This was the 5th lecture of the “Domestic Life” series.
April 1, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson lectured in Providence, Rhode Island. This was the 6th and final lecture of the “Domestic Life” series.
April 10, Friday: William Cooper Nell registered the following advertisement in William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator:
[Isn’t the above an interesting advertisement? This Rhode Island storekeeper does not want just any person to enter his service, but specifies that what he needs is a teenager, and male, and of color. Why is it, do you suppose, that he needs specifically a teenager? Why is it, do you suppose, that he needs specifically a male? Why is it, do you suppose, that he needs specifically a person of color? He pledges that he intends to treat this new entry-level employee “in all respects without regard to complexion” — but how can we believe this? If a potential employer has no intention to abuse the new employee –underpaying and overworking him relentlessly– why on the face of God’s green earth would anyone need to insist upon exactly these specifics? He’s saying, in effect: “I specifically require someone who’s marginal and utterly vulnerable and without resources — and you must trust me when I tell you that I have no intention of taking advantage of this person’s defenselessness.”]
1841
CROCKETT’S ALMANAC. Philadelphia, New-York, Boston, and Baltimore: Fisher & Brothers, 1841, 1847, and 1852.
THE RHODE-ISLAND ALMANAC FOR 1841. By Isaac Bickerstaff. Providence, Rhode Island: Hugh H. Brown.
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A “Seamen’s Friend Society” was formed in Providence, Rhode Island, to distribute religious papers aboard vessels, and to maintain a Seamen’s Bethel at which religious instruction would be available.
Nicholas Brown, Jr., the head of Providence, Rhode Island’s major firm Brown and Ives who had over a lifetime donated $160,000 to his alma mater, died. Eventually Rhode Island College would be renamed in honor of this alumnus. BROWN UNIVERSITY
Only two Massachusetts railroads were enforcing racial segregation. One was the Eastern line between Boston and Lynn and on to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the other was the New Bedford line between Boston and New Bedford and Providence, Rhode Island. Ironically, only free black people were required to ride in the “Jim Crow” car, the “negro car” which Dickens mentioned, which was typically smaller and older and placed just aft of the engine where it would take full benefit of the engine’s smoke and sparks. Southerners who were accompanied by their black slaves were of course entitled to have their servants in the white cars with them. “In those parts of the Union in which the negroes are no longer slaves, they have in no wise drawn nearer to the whites. On the contrary, the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the States which have abolished slavery ... and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those States where servitude has never been known.” — Alexis de Tocqueville
The Committee of Incorporators for the new mental hospital applied to the state of Rhode Island for a charter for a “Rhode Island Asylum for the Insane.” PSYCHOLOGY BUTLER HOSPITAL
On a visit to Boston, the redheaded 19-year-old heiress Julia Ward of Rhode Island encountered “Chev” Howe, noted philanthropist, intrepid educator, dedicated physician, dashing horse-rider, hero of a foreign war of liberation, devoted head of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, noticeably older and something of –how shall I put this– umm, something of a womanizer.
JULIA WARD HOWE SAMUEL GRIDLEY HOWE There was, of course, mutual attraction. This would be, of course, a marriage made in hell.
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During this year the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island repealed their bans upon interracial marriage. In Pennsylvania, a bill to repeal the ban on interracial marriage passed in the House but failed in the Senate.
Christopher A. Greene helped William Chace (1786-1875) publish The Plain Speaker, a Providence, Rhode Island journal of Transcendentalism: “Chattel slavery will not be abolished until heavy and earnest blows have been struck at the entire system of labor for wages.”
Thomas Wilson Dorr, a lawyer and legislator in Rhode Island, failing in his reform efforts, organized a People’s Party which would call a convention, rewrite the Rhode Island charter of 1836, and hold elections. The proposed new constitution was to extend suffrage and introduce a range of liberal reforms.13
Dorr wasn’t just some dope, and would obtain the backing of Andrew Jackson and of Martin Van Buren. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
13. Thomas Wilson Dorr had been born in Providence as the son of a wealthy businessman who lived in a mansion. He was from a distinguished family, his grandfather having been one of Paul Revere’s companions on that famous ride in 1775. (His grandfather’s name would be left out of the poetic, patriotic legend as it developed — because nothing much could be made to rhyme with it.) Dorr had attended Harvard College where he had definitely been not a rebellious youth; in fact, when there had been a serious student revolt in the 1820s he had taken no part in it and had thus been one of the very few in his class who actually received a diploma. He had returned to Providence to became an attorney and a member of the Legislature and had then become involved in the attempts to correct the very unjust form of government based on the old colonial Charter of 1663. The main problem of his era that the Charter was being used to deny voting rights to thousands of men in the growing urban industrial areas of the state, thus retaining power for the old Yankee farmers. Matters came to an armed struggle in this year when a People’s Convention tried to stage a coup. Dorr was elected as the Rhode Island Governor but, after an involved set of events involving an armory and an old cannon, would in the following year be deposed, captured, and imprisoned. After his release he would die in 1854. The Charter would be revised into a new state Constitution. Dorr’s efforts were the most dramatic in the early battle for suffrage for all disenfranchised people — immigrants, women, and racial minorities. (Unfortunately, somewhere along the way toward implementation, there being many a slip ’twixt cup and lip, his People’s Party would be hijacked into being in effect a White People’s Party, and his People’s Constitution would be hijacked into being in effect a White People’s Constitution — please don’t presume that that was what he personally would actually have preferred.)
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During this year Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta, who had relocated from Hartford, Connecticut to Providence, Rhode Island, was issuing THE RHODE-ISLAND BOOK: SELECTIONS IN PROSE AND VERSE, FROM THE WRITINGS OF RHODE-ISLAND CITIZENS (Providence: H. Fuller, 40 Westminster Street. Boston: Weeks, Jordan & Co. Knowles & Vose, Printers),
THE RHODE-ISLAND BOOK
a collection which included a piece by state politician Thomas Wilson Dorr entitled “Genius Born; Not Made” as well as an essay by Sarah H. Whitman on German Literature and Transcendentalism. According to this source at least, the American Transcendental movement owed a whole lot to Mme. de Staël’s GERMANIA:
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German Literature by Sarah H. Whitman. IT has been said that “it is in the German nature duly to honor every thing produced by other nations.” Our countrymen, we fear, are in danger of becoming, like the English, too exclusively national. We could wish that they had a little more of the German cosmopolitanism. Perhaps it is natural that whenever any attempt is made by a portion of the community to lead the public mind to new trains of thought or modes of action, to introduce new theories or point out new fields for exertion or enterprise, that an antagonist party should spring up, whose tendency it is to resist all innovation. Perhaps it is a wise provision of nature that has thus furnished every age with its sentinels and warders, as well as with its bold and adventurous pioneers; and provided they conduct themselves fairly and discreetly in their vocation, we have no desire to see their office annulled, or to interrupt them in its rightful exercise. Let the sentinels give challenge to all new claimants, but let them not refuse admittance to any who can furnish a fair passport, or make out a clear title to be received within their guarded citadel. Since the efforts which have recently been making to introduce the German literature among us, it is not unusual to hear the most unqualified, indiscriminate opposition expressed to the study of a language of unequalled copiousness, flexibility and force, rich in every department of its literature, and entitled, in the opinion of the first European scholars, to an equal estimation with our own noble mother tongue. Yet we are rejoiced to discover, even in the bitterness of its opponents, an indication of the increasing interest with which it is regarded among us; we are in no way disturbed by the fear that its subtleties, refinements and abstractions, should exert an evil influence on our national character, the individuality of which seems in no danger of being neutralized by such antagonist principles, though it may perchance be favorably modified by them. The Germans, it is true, have their faults; but these faults, it has been well said, are as good as virtues to us, since being the exact opposites of our own, they may teach us most important lessons. The opposers of German literature are fond of preferring the claims of common sense to those of philosophy; of elevating the actual over the ideal. They descant much and rather vaguely against Transcendentalism. They tell us of the folly of believing in innate ideas, and triumphantly quote Locke and his “tabula rasa.” They are afraid of all vagueness and mysticism, and tremble like children at the shadowy appearances seen in the twilight. They will have nothing to do with that which they cannot handle. They have faith in nothing which they cannot fully comprehend. They like to see all objects clearly and sharply defined in the broad day-light of the understanding. Yet in the shadowy, twilight regions of the imagination, we may behold much that is then only visible. The near glare of the sun conceals from us those far lights of heaven, that are forever burning in the vaults of space; even as the acute shrill sounds of day prevent us from hearing the deep voices of nature. The Shekinah, which was by day only a cloud of smoke, became by night a pillar of fire.
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In literature, their favorite models are those writers who are most remarkable for clearness, polish, and precision. They seem to prefer vigorous, rather than comprehensive thinkers; --writers whose vision is clear but limited; who deal manfully with facts and events, but care not to penetrate beyond the surface of being, showing us things as they are, without questioning of the how and why. They love to pace steadily and safely along with the “smooth tongued Addison, the stately Johnson, and the sublime Burke,” never deviating from the beaten path, and looking upon all who go down in diving-bells, or mount in balloons, as hair-brained tempters of fate. They fear all new aspects of truth, and gravely tell us, that “it is better with our fallible natures and limited capacities, to rest upon certain ideas and opinions that have been received as plausible, rejecting all speculations upon subjects which can never be decided, nor farther developed, while the soul remains in the thralls of flesh.” Supposing a reflective mind could bring itself to act upon this suggestion, or rather to cease from acting, for ourselves we know of no opinions that have been universally received as “plausible,” and did we know any such, we could not receive them as truths, until they had been submitted to the test of our own reason. Who shall tell us that any man or class of men have monopolized the right of thought? What is truth to another is not truth to us until our own understanding has verified it. Whatever danger there may be in leaving every man to decide for himself, there is surely far less than in any attempt to restrict the individual right of opinion, through regard to expediency or respect for authority. We could not, if we would, have every man a philosopher, and we think there need be little fear, that our countrymen will become infected with any undue fondness for abstract researches. The mind that has never tried to grasp the great problems of human life and destiny, that has never sought to wrest a reluctant meaning from the hieroglyphic characters inscribed on the broad page of nature, needs no such restriction; the mind that has done this, will hardly be checked in its onward impulse by the “cui bono” of the utilitarian. It sounds almost like mockery to ask one who has ever caught a single ray of the warm, living light of the sun of truth, to satisfy himself with the frippery, gilt- paper toy of “plausibility.” These timid counsellors remind us of Solomon’s slothful man, who keeps housed and says, “there is a lion in the street, if I go forth I shall be slain.” There are some who cannot be thus easily restrained; they must “go forth,” even at the worst of perils --they must meet the lion, and wrestle with it as they may --and often do they find, that when they look their formidable foe calmly in the face, he loses all his terrors, and becomes at once harmless and tractable. These persons are constantly opposing revelation to nature, and faith to reason. We cannot agree with them in apprehending any danger to Christianity from the investigation of calm, tolerant, philosophic spirits, who fear not to look at both sides of a question, lest they should meet with something opposed to established and time-hallowed opinions. The timid faith that fears to question, cannot satisfy us, --such assent is far worse than honest denial. The only fatal skepticism, as it seems to us, is that of the man who wants faith in the human soul, and fears to trust its promptings.
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For ourselves, we rejoice in the increasing number of those who are willing to follow truth wherever she may lead them, in the spirit of that child-like confidence and perfect love which casteth out fear. We look for the time when philosophy shall aid in reconciling reason and faith, not by depressing faith, but by elevating reason. When we shall be able to interpret, in all its beautiful simplicity, the word of Him who taught us to read the gospel of Nature, to observe the lilies of the field, and to seek for the kingdom of heaven within our own hearts. The enforcement of this self-reliance, this faith in the power of the individual to discover for himself truth, is one of the leading heresies of which the “New School” is accused. Yet the highest stars of heaven may be seen mirrored within the single drop of dew that trembles within the heart of a violet. This faith in truth and nature, this desire to free the mind from its slavery to creeds and conventionalities, though the growth of no particular school, has, it is true, within the last twenty years, been more profoundly felt and more earnestly inculcated, than at any former period. It gives a tone to all the noblest literature of the day, and is slowly but surely working a change in the character of the times. It is this which prompted the obnoxious declaration of Dr. Channing that “Man is great as man, be he what and where he may.” This is what was implied by Emerson, when he said, “let a man plant himself on his instincts, and the whole world will come round to him,” or in other words, work in harmony with him. It is this which illumines every page of Carlisle, as with the glory of an inspired scroll, and imparts to the apocalyptic reveries of Swedenborg whatever they possess of vivifying and converting energy. This doctrine, which was taught by a few sincere and simple spirits, amid the darkest gloom of Jewish superstition and bigotry, has caused one of the most true hearted believers of our own day to assert that the vital truths of Christianity are too deeply inwrought into the very nature of the human soul to be in any danger from a free and zealous examination into the true character of the Christian miracles. It is this growing conviction which is beginning to render all persecution for opinions sake as disgraceful as it ever was futile, and this it is, above all, which is teaching the instructors and guardians of youth, that the great objects of education are not to be achieved by the exhibition of facts or the inculcation of theories, but by developing and strengthening the powers of the soul for individual and independent action. Much, though not all of this, is we think attributable more or less directly to the Germans. Much that in our own literature is but faintly and dimly shadowed forth, is in this developing itself in free and luxuriant growth. In the German literature, to use one of their own expressive phrases, “man finds himself.” The “sweet sad music of humanity” pervades every department of it. In its deep earnest philosophic spirit; in its fearless, trusting, transparent simplicity; in the holy fervor of its poets; the serene, spiritual, far-reaching gaze of its theologians and moralists, we may find much which even the rich, classical literature of England cannot supply.
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To us, Germany has ever been a bright land of promise since first in early youth we listened with kindling heart and eager sympathy to the tidings which Mme. De Staël had brought us of a people, who in an age of artificiality, had dared to follow the suggestions of their own spirits and to show us nature as she had mirrored herself within their own hearts. And now, having possessed ourselves of the golden Key which is to unlock for us this rich world of thought, we cannot but glory in our new-found treasure, and endeavour to win others to become partakers of our joy.
Seth Luther’s idea that we all have a right to cast our ballot was finding an expression, in the formation of a Rhode Island Suffrage Association: “If the sovereignty don’t [sic] reside in the people, where in the hell does it reside?”14
14. It’s a rhetorical question — you needn’t grope for an answer.
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THE RHODE-ISLAND BOOK:
SELECTIONS IN PROSE AND VERSE,
FROM THE WRITINGS OF RHODE-ISLAND CITIZENS
BY ANNE C. LYNCH.
Providence: H. Fuller, 40 Westminster Street. Boston: Weeks, Jordan & Co. 1841. Knowles & Vose, Printers.
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PREFACE.
MR. HUNTER has well remarked, in his eloquent Oration, that “the feeling which in the individual is selfish vanity, diffused and generalized by a community, becomes patriotism,” and that “the people of Rhode-Island have a peculiar right to indulge in a State pride.” This right will be admitted when it is remembered that in the history of the race, Rhode-Island presents the first instance of a State founded on the broad principles of spiritual freedom, without which, political freedom is but a mockery. Athens was a Democracy when Socrates drank the hemlock, and Rome had scarcely relinquished her title of The Republic, when in one of her provinces, the populace shouted “Crucify him! crucify him!” Neither Greece, Rome, nor the nations of modern Europe had grasped the sublime idea of intellectual liberty, and the glory of founding the first State on this principle remained for an obscure exile on the shores of Narraganset Bay. An eloquent historian has said, “If Copernicus is held in perpetual reverence because, on his death.bed, he published to the world that the sun is the centre of our system, if the genius of Newton has been almost adored for dissecting a ray of light and weighing heavenly bodies as in a balance, let there be for the name of Roger Williams at least, some humble place among those who have advanced moral science, and made themselves benefactors of mankind.” But if we reverence the names of those who have read for us the mysteries of the visible heavens, shall we not reverence more, him who would unbind the fetters that for centuries have cramped the human mind, and shackled the conscience, that connecting link between God and man, and open for us the avenues to the very Heaven of heavens? We say, then, let there be for the name of Roger Williams an exalted place,-an illuminated page in the history of Humanity. Rhode-Island has proved herself worthy of her illustrious founder. In the revolutionary struggle, she was first in the field-and renounced her allegiance to Great-Britain two months before the Declaration of Independence by Congress. The idea of a navy was first suggested in her General Assembly; she furnished two of the four ships that composed the first American fleet,-many of the officers, and the first and only Admiral. And we need not say how the gallant Perry and his brave Newport followers, sustained on Lake Erie, the honor of that which their fathers had so well begun. It was thought that the floating literature of Rhode-Island contained much that was worthy of preservation; and to give to such passages a “local habitation,” has been the object of this publication. From circumstances that could not be controlled, many distinguished names have been omitted; and it is believed that another year, a similar and equally interesting collection might be prepared. To THE CITIZENS OF RHODE-ISLAND THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY THE EDITOR. Providence, Dec. 1, 1840.
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INTRODUCTION TO WHATCHEER.
A POEM.
BY THE HON. JOB TDURFEE.
(Addressed to the Rev. Romeo Elton.) WHAT time, dear ELTON, we were wont to rove, From classic Brown along fair Seekonk’s vale, And in the murmurs of his storied cove, Hear barbarous voices still our Founder hail; E’en then my bosom with young rapture strove To give to deathless verse the exile’s tale, And every ripple’s moan, or breeze’s sigh, Brought back whole centuries as it murmured by. But soon the brittle dream of youth was gone, And different labors to our lots were given: You, at the shrine of peace and glory shone; Sublime your toils, for still your theme was heaven I, upon life’s tempestuous billows thrown A little bark before the tempest driven Strove for a time the surging tide to breast, And up its rolling mountains sought for rest. Wearied, at length, with the unceasing strife, I gave my pinnace to the harbor’s lee, And left that Ocean, still with tempests rife, To mad ambition’s heartless rivalry; No longer venturing for exalted life, (For storms and quicksands have no charms for me,) I, in the listless labors of the swain, Provoke no turmoil, and awake no pain. To drive the team afield, and guide the plough, Or lead the herds to graze the dewy mead, Wakes not the glance of lynx.eyed rival now, And makes no heart with disappointment bleed; Once more I joy to see the rivers flow, The lambkins sport, and brindled oxen feed, And o’er the tranquil soul returns the dream, Which once she cherished by fair Seekonk’s stream. And when stern winter breathes the chilling storm, And night comes down on earth in mantle hoar, I guide the herds and flocks to shelter warm, And sate their hunger from the gathered store; Then round the cottage hearth the circle form Of childhood lovelier than the vernal flower, Partake its harmless glee and prattle gay, And soothe my soul to tune the artless lay. Thus were the numbers taught at first to flow, Scarce conscious that they bore a tale along Beneath my hand still would the pages grow They were not labor but the joy of song Still every line would unsung beauties shew In Williams’ soul, and still the stream prolong; Till all enraptured with the theme sublime, My thoughts spontaneous sought the embodying rhyme. * * * * * * * * * Whatcheer. Canto Sixth. The winds of March o’er Narraganset’s bay Move in their strength-the waves with foam are white, O’er Seekonk’s tide the waving branches play, The woods roar o’er resounding plain and height; ’Twixt sailing clouds, the sun’s inconstant ray But glances on the scene-then fades from sight; The frequent showers dash from the passing clouds; The hills are peeping through their wintry shrouds. Dissolving snows each downward channel fill, Each swollen brook a foaming torrent brawls, Old Seekonk murmurs, and from every hill, Answers aloud the coming waterfalls; Deep-voiced Pawtucket thunders louder still; To dark Mooshausick joyously he calls, Who breaks his bondage, and, through forests brown, Murmurs the hoarse response, and rolls his tribute down. But hark! that sound, above the cataracts And hollow winds in this wild solitude Seems passing strange. Who, with the laboring axe, On Seekonk’s eastern marge, invades the wood; Stroke follows stroke-some sturdy hind attacks Yon ancient groves which from their birth have stood Unmoved by steel-and startled at the sound, The wild deer snuffs the gales-then with a bound Vaults o’er the thickets, and, down yonder glen, His antlers vanish-on yon shaggy height Sits the lone wolf, half peering from his den, And howls regardless of the morning light Unwonted sounds and a strange denizen Vex his repose-then, cowering with affright He shrinks away-for with a crackling sound, Yon lofty hemlock bows, and thunders to the ground.’ * * * * *
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LETTER FROM ROGER WILLIAMS,
TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF RHODE-ISLAND,
IN RELATION TO THE SERVICES OF DR. JOHN CLARKE.
[THE following characteristic specimen of the composition of Roger Williams, is now for the first time published. This fact it is presumed will give it an interest in addition to its historical value. The Editor is however aware, that at least a brief explanation of the circumstances under which it was written, may be required by those readers who are not familiar with the early history of Rhode Island. The first charter of the Colony, (the Earl of Warwick’s Patent,) was granted in 1643. In 1651, William Coddington went to England, and obtained from the Council of State, a Commission, by which he was made Governor of the Island of Rhode-Island, Canonicut, &c. for life. With this the people were much dissatisfied, and Williams and Clarke were immediately sent by the Colony to England, to procure its repeal, which they accomplished in 1652. Williams returned in 1654, and was in the same year elected Governor. Clarke remained in England as the agent of the Colony, until 1663, when he obtained the Charter of Charles the Second. It appears from the letters of Williams, that during at least a part of the time while thus absent from home, he was obliged to provide for his own support. He says, in a letter to the town of Providence, written in 1664, “I was unfortunately fetched and drawn from my employment, and sent to so vast a distance from my family, to do your work of a high and costly nature, for so many days and weeks and months together; and there left to starve or steal, or beg, or borrow. But blessed be God, who gave me favor to borrow one while, and to work another, and thereby to pay your debts there, and to come over with your credit and honor, as an agent from you, who had in your name grappled with the agents and friends of all your enemies round about you.” It further appears, that he had recourse to teaching as a means of support; and in connexion with this fact, a passage in one of his letters to John Winthrop, written soon after his return, is peculiarly interesting, on account of the proof which it furnishes of his personal acquaintance with his great contemporary, Milton. He says: “It pleased the Lord to call me for some time, and with some persons, to practise the Hebrew, the Greek, Latin, French, and Dutch. The Secretary of the Council, (Mr. Milton) for my Dutch I read him, read me many more languages.” Clarke was absent, in the service of the Colony, twelve years. In 1664, his accounts were audited by the General Assembly, and the sum of £343, 15s. 6d. was found due him, which the Assembly often urged the towns to pay; but that act of justice was not performed
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during the life of Clarke. His circumstances however were not necessitous, -for he was enabled to die as he lived,- doing good, leaving a Will by which his Estate was to be applied to “the relief of the poor, and bringing up children unto learning.” Clarke was highly respected and esteemed by Williams. Of this fact, an interesting memorial is preserved in the library of Brown University, in a copy of “The Bloody Tenet yet more Bloody,” on one of the blank leaves of which, is an inscription in the hand-writing of Williams, in the following words: “For his honored and beloved Mr. John Clarke, an eminent witness of Christ Jesus, against the Bloody Doctrine of Persecution, &c.”] Beloved Friends and Countrymen, My due respects presented, with hearty desires of your present and eternal prosperity, when this short life is over. I was resolved to have visited you myself, this winter and to have persuaded with [arguments?] of truth and love, the finishing the payments, relating to his Majesty’s royal grant and charter to us; but it pleased God, to visit me with old pains and lamenesses, so that sometimes I have not been able to rise, nor go, nor stand. I pray your courteous leave, therefore, of saluting you with these few lines, and your favorable attention to them. On two hinges my discourse shall turn. First, The fairness and equity of the matter. Second, The damage and hazard, if not performed. As to the first, the fairness of the matter, please you to hear two or three witnesses. The first is (Common Honesty and Common Justice in common dealings between man and man. This gives to every man, his due, a pennyworth for a penny, and will cry shame upon us, that Mr. Clarke should be undone, yea, destroyed and ruined, as to this world, for his so great and so long pains, faithfulness and diligence, for which he ought in common justice, to be faithfully satisfied and honorably rewarded, although, it should have pleased God, to have granted him no success, no charter, no favor in the eyes of our sovereign Lord, the King. These very barbarians when they send forth a public messenger, they furnish him out, they defray all payments, they ratify him with rewards, and if be prove lame and sick and not able to return, they visit him and bring him home upon their shoulders, and that many scores of miles, with all care and tenderness. At the first, Rhode Island, but afterwards the whole Colony requested, employed and sent to Mr. Clarke a commission and credentials sealed, which the King was satisfied, and owned him for our public agent. Now let me say these two things which mine eyes have seen. First when I left Mr. Clarke in England to negotiate the affairs of the whole Colony, I saw with what a low sail he stood along; with what content, patience and self-denial, which course I know he hath continued, having received but little supply from us, nor of his own estate, which he continually wrote for. 2. At our General Assembly when Mr. Clarke’s accounts were fairly brought in, and what he had received and what he had borrowed, upon the mortgage of his house and land, to go through our work, the Assembly appointed a committee of able and judicious men to examine the accounts: upon whose report and upon their own further examination and considerations they saw cause to agree upon a very moderate and equal sum to be raised throughout the colony to be discharged unto him. Worthy Friends, it is easy to find cloaks and colors for denials or delays to any business we have no minds to. I have visited my neighbors at Providence, this winter. Some say they are sorry and ashamed of the delays and promise to finish it with speed; some few say, they have done it; some say they like not some words in the charter; some say they will pay, if all do; some are against all government and charters and corporations; some are not so, and yet cry out against thieves and robbers who take any thing from them against their wills some say they will see what became of their former payment, before they will part with any more; some will see the charter, first, because they hear that Col. Cartwright carried the charter into England with him; some say, let those that sent Mr. Clarke into England at first, pay him, and some say other things; but none say aught, in my judgment which answers the witness of Common Honesty: for the whole sum and scope of his Majesty’s royal grant and charter to us, is to bestow upon us two inestimable jewels. The first is peace, commonly called among all men, the King’s Peace, among ourselves and among all the King’s subjects and friends, in this country and wheresoever: and, further, at our agent’s most reasonable petition, the King prohibits all his subjects to act any hostility toward our Natives inhabiting with us without our consent, which hath hitherto been otherwise practiced to our continual and great grievance and disturbance. The second jewel is Liberty. The first, of our
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spirits, which neither Old nor New England knows the like, nor no part of the world a greater. 2d. Liberty *f our persons; no life, no limb taken from us, no corporeal punishment, no restraint but by known laws and agreements of our own making. 3. Liberty of our Estates, horses, cattle, lands, goods, not a penny to be taken by any rate from us, without every man’s free debate by his deputies, chosen by himself, and sent to the General Assembly. 4. Liberty of society or corporation, of sending or being sent to the General Assembly, of choosing and being chosen to all offices and of making or repealing all laws and constitutions among us. 5. A liberty, which other charters have not, to wit, of attending to the laws of England, with a favorable mitigation, viz, not absolutely, but respecting our wilderness estate and condition. I confess it were to be wished, that these dainties might have fallen from God, and the King, like showers and dews and manna from heaven, gratis and free, like a joyful harvest or vintage, without any pains of our husbandry; but since the most holy God, the first Cause, hath ordained second causes and means and agents and instruments, it is no more honest for us to withdraw in this case, than for men to come to an Ordinary and to call for the best wine and liquor, the best meats roast and baked, the best attendance, &c. and to be able to pay for all and yet most unworthily steal away and not discharge the reckoning. My second witness is Common Gratitude, famous among all mankind, yea, among brute beasts, even the wildest and fiercest, for kindness received. It is true, Mr. Clarke might have a just respect to his own and the peace and liberty of his friends of his own persuasion. But I believe the weight that turned the scale with him was the truth of God, viz. a just liberty to all men’s spirits in spiritual matters, together with the peace and prosperity of the whole colony. This, I know, put him upon incredible pains and travail, straits and anguish, day and night, himself and his friends and ours, which I believe a great sum of money would not hire him to wade through the like again. I will not trouble you with the allowances, payments, and gratuities of other colonies in like cases. Only let me present you with a famous story out of our English records. Henry the Third, as I remember fell out with the city of London, took away their charter and set a governor over them, which brought many evils and sorrows on them. But Doctor Redman, so called, pacified the King’s anger and procured a restitution of their charter, though with great charges and payments of moneys. Now while this Redman lived, they honored him as a father and heaped all possible gratuities upon him; and when he died they decreed that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen and chief citizens, should, yearly and solemnly visit his tomb, which mine eyes have seen performed in the public walks in Patul’s, and I presume, it is practised to this day. I will not trouble you with the application of this story, but present you with my third Witness of the fairness of this matter, which is Christianity, which we all pretend to, though in various and different persuasions. This witness soars high above Common justice and Common gratitude, yea, above all religions. This not only speaks home for due payment and due thankfulness, but of doing good for evil, of paying blessing for cursing, of praying for enemies and persecutors, of selling houses and lands, yea. of laying down lives for others. Common justice would not, Common gratitude would not, least of all will Christianity, employ a public messenger unto a mighty King and there leave him to shift for his living and means to go through so high a service, nor leave him to shift for moneys and to mortgage his house and lands to carry on our business and thus to forfeit and lose them; and lost they are, as all must see, except a speedy redemption save them. Shall we say we are christians, yea but ingenuous or just men, to ride securely, in a troublous sea and time, by a new cable and anchor of Mr. Clarke’s procuring and to be so far from satisfying his engagement about them, that we turn him adrift to languish and sink, with his back broke, for putting under his shoulder, to ease us. “Which of you, said Christ Jesus to his enemies “will see an ox or a sheep fall into a pit and not pull it out on the Sabbath day.” What beast can labor harder, ill ploughing, drawing or carrying, than Mr. Clarke hath done so long a time, and with so little provender? Shall we now when he looks for rest at night, tumble him, by our neglects into a ditch of sadness, grief, poverty and ruin? Give me leave, therefore to mention my second part or hinge, which is the hazard we run by not a free discharging. For first, one of these three points we must steer on: either Mr. Clarke must patiently lie in the pit and languish and perish, (I speak as to us, for I know there is a paymaster in the heavens who will not fail him;) or second, some volunteers must patiently put under their shoulders and bear the common burden, which for myself I am ready to do, although I part with my clothes from my back; or third, the rate must be taken by distraint, in the King’s name and authority, and this we know, will be more grievous and chargeable, yet cannot be avoided, if we resolve not to turn rebels or loose vagrants to be catched up by other colonies and governments; or else to leave our cattle, children, wives and lives to be torn out of our bosoms by the strongest arm, catch who
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catch can. It is true that honesty and innocency, reason and scripture are infinitely excellent in their way, but are they sufficient to charm, except God please to give his spirit, adders. serpents, foxes, wolves, yea, or to order tame beasts without bit or bridle, as David speaks, by which we all know what David means. Secondly. If we wholly neglect this business, what will become of our credit? Rhode-Island, in the Greek language, is an Isle of Roses, and so the King’s Majesty was pleased to resent it; and his honorable commissioners in their last letter to the Massachusetts from the eastward, gave Rhode-Island and this whole colony an honorable testimony which is like to be pointed to the view of the whole world. Shall we now turn our roses into hemlock and our fragrant ointment into carrion? Our own names, ill a righteous way ought to be more precious to us, than thousands of gold or silver, how much, infinitely more precious, the name of the most Holy and most High and his holy truth of soul-liberty amongst us. Thirdly. Again, who knows, what storms and tempests yet abide us. Who now will ever be employed by such masters, in whatsoever straits we may come into? Hath not God taught beasts and birds to be shy of being deceived, especially the second time? How justly shy are the Christians of the Turks, because they are not to be true to Christian dogs, as like dogs they speak. How shy are the Protestants of the Papists, because of their principle and practice, to keep no faith with Heretics. Who will not heareafter be fearful to trust us, when like false Merchants, our bills shall be protested, that all men may take heed how they deal with us. Fourthly. What a worm and sting of bitterness will it be to us to remember, like Jerusalem in the days of affliction, all our things, such peace, such security, such liberties, for soul and body as were ever enjoyed by any Englishman, nor any in the whole world, that I have heard of. If now, for our unthankfulness, it should please God to turn the wind and bring the wheel over us and to clap on our necks those iron yokes which so many thousands and millions of men’s necks are under in all nations of mankind, will it not then be as gall to our minds, to call to mind how free we were, yea, to our children’s minds, to remember how free their fathers were and might have bequeathed and transferred unto them such precious and invaluable treasures? Fifthly. With what indignation, must we needs imagine, will the King himself entertain the thought of such a people, that shall so undervalue and slight the rich and extraordinary favor which it pleased God to put into his royal heart to bestow upon the colony. How hath God been pleased to turn the King’s heart toward us, as rivers of water. How hath his favor to us, fallen like dew upon Gideon’s fleece, while all the world lies round about us dry and barren of such liberties. What can we now expect but the roaring of a lion, unto such an unrighteous and ungrateful generation? Sixthly. And yet if we imagine our mountain to be immoveable by any winds or shakings under heaven, yet we must look higher, to the most High King and Judge of the whole world, in whose most powerful hand we profess to have breath and being, our ways and motions. He hath whips and scourges for colonies and countries, nations and kingdoms, as we have felt in New England this last year, and have dolefully heard, from Old. How have the arrows of the pestilence pierced the hearts of thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow English. How dreadfully hath he mixed the blood of English, Dutch and French with the briny ocean. His jealousy was pleased to cause a black cloud to hover over this country, this last summer. It pleased him to cause this cloud to break and fall on some of our countrymen to the Southward and Westward of us, and then to run to the Northward and Eastward of us to Newfoundland, but not to come near our habitations. Shall now New England say, shall this colony say, it is for our righteousness- there are no sins that cry in this colony and country for justice to revenge abused mercy? Worthy friends, the changes of the heavens and the earth have been great and sudden, seen and felt by us all, this winter. Let us not soothe and sing ourselves asleep, with murdering lullabies. Let us provide for changes and by timely humiliation, prevent them. For myself, seeing what I see over all New England, I cannot but say with David, Psalm 119. My flesh trembleth for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy judgments. I remain, longing after your present and eternal Peace, ROGER WILLIAMS. Providence Jan. 1665-6 so called.
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CONCERNING SLEEPE AND LODGING OF THE INDIANS.
(From a Key into the Language of America, &c.) BY ROGER WILLIAMS. THE GENERALL OBSERVATION. Sweet Test is not confind to soft Beds, for not only God gives his beloved sleep on hard lodging; but also Nature and Custome gives sound sleep to these Americans on the Earth, on a Boord or Mat. Yet how is Europe bound to God for better lodging, &c. More particular; God gives them sleep on Ground, on Straw, on Sedgie Mats or Boord: When English Softest Beds of Downe, sometimes no sleep affoord. I have knowne them leave their House and Mat, to lodge a Friend or stranger, OF THE INDIANS. When Jewes and Christians oft have sent Christ Jesus to the Manger. ’Fore day they invocate their Gods, though Many False and New: O how should that God worshipt be, who is but One and True! * * * * How sweetly doe all the severall sorts of Heaven’s Birds, in all Coasts of the World, preach unto men the prayse of their Maker’s Wisdome, Power, and Goodnesse, who feedes them and their young ones Summer and Winter with their severall sorts of foode: although they neither sow nor reape, nor gather into Barnes! If Birds that neither sow nor reape Nor store up any food, Constantly find to them and theirs A maker kind and good! If man provide eke for his Birds, In Yard, in Coops, in Cage, And each Bird spends in songs and Tunes, His little time and Age! What care will Man, what care will God For his wife and children take? Millions of Birds and Worlds will God Sooner than his, forsake. 1643.
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ROGER WILLIAMS.
BY FRANCES H. WHIPPLE.
ILLUSTRIOUS pioneer of liberty; Parent and founder of the truly free! No treachery deforms thy -peerless story; No deed of vengeance sullies thy pure glory. Thy precept and example, hand in hand, Went like fair sisters o’er the smiling land; While the rude Indian, true to Nature’s law, Knew what was good, and trusted what he saw. He met thee as a brother-gave his land. And thou gav’st him an open honest hand; Nor was his simple nature e’er deceived; Nor his proud, noble spirit once aggrieved; He was thy brother-thou, ’neath closest scan, Mid all temptations, wert — an honest man: Rhode Islanders, with virtuous pride, can tell Thy line of life has but one parallel Thou, and the Son of Peace-the western sage Were the twin stars of your illiberal age. When warlike fame as morning mist shall fly, And blood-stained glory, as a meteor, die; When all the dross is known, and cast away, And the pure gold, alone, allowed to stay, Two names will stand, the pride of virtuous men, Our ROGER WILLIAMS, and good WILLIAM PENN.
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TO THE WEATHERCOCK ON OUR STEEPLE.
BY ALBERT G. G REENE.
THE dawn has broke, the morn is up, Another day begun; And there thy poised and gilded spear Is flashing in the sun, Upon that steep and lofty tower Where thou thy watch hast kept, A true and faithful sentinel, While all around thee slept. For years, upon thee, there, has poured The summer’s noon-day heat, And through the long, dark, starless night, The winter storms have beat; But yet thy duty has been done, By day and night the same, Still thou hast met and faced the storm, Whichever way it came. No chilling blast in wrath has swept Along the distant heaven, But thou hast watched its onward course And instant warning given; And when mid.summer’s sultry beams Oppress all living things, - Thou dost foretell each breeze that comes With health upon its wings. How oft I’ve seen, at early dawn, Or twilight’s quiet hour, The swallows, in their joyous glee Come darting round thy tower, As if, with thee, to hail the sun And catch his earliest light, And offer ye the morn’s salute, Or bid ye both,-good night. And when, around thee or above, No breath of air has stirred, Thou seem’st to watch the circling flight Of each free, happy bird, Till after twittering round thy head In many a mazy track, The whole delighted company Have settled on thy back. Then, if perchance amidst their mirth. A gentle breeze has sprung, And prompt to mark its first approach, Thy eager form hath swung, I’ve thought I almost heard thee say, As far aloft they flew, “Now all away! — here ends our play, For I have work to do!” Men slander thee, my honest friend, And call thee in their pride, An emblem of their fickleness, Thou ever faithful guide. Each weak, unstable human mind A “weathercock” they call; And thus, unthinkingly, mankind Abuse thee, one and all. They have no right to make thy name A by-word for their deeds: They change their friends, their principles, Their fashions, and their creeds Whilst thou hast ne’er, like them, been known Thus causelessly to range; But when thou changest sides, canst give Good reason for the change. Thou, like some lofty soul, whose course The thoughtless oft condemn, Art touched by many airs from heaven Which never breathe on them, And moved by many impulses Which they do never know, “W ho, ’round their earth-bound circles, plod The dusty paths below. Through one more dark and cheerless night Thou well hast kept thy trust, And now in glory o’er thy head The morning light has burst. And unto Earth’s true watcher, thus, When his dark hours have passed, Will come “the day.spring from on high,” To cheer his path at last. Bright symbol of fidelity, Still may I think of thee: And may the lesson thou dost teach Be never lost on me; But still, in sun.shine or in storm, Whatever task is mine, May I be faithful to my trust As thou hast been to thine.
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THE POET.
BY MRS. SOPHIA LITTLE.
HE is happy; not that fame Giveth him a glorious name; For the world’s applause is vain, Lost and won with little pain: But a sense is in his spirit, Which no vulgar minds inherit; A second sight of soul which sees Into Nature’s mysteries. Place him by the ocean’s side, When the waters dash with pride; With their wild and awful roll Deep communes his lifted soul. Now let the sudden tempest come From its cloudy Eastern home; Let the thunder’s fearful shocks Break among the dark rough rocks, And lightning, as the waves aspire, Crown them with a wreath of fire; Let the wind with sullen breath Seem to breathe a dirge of death Thou may’st feel thy cheek turn pale; But he that looks within the veil, The Bard, high priest at Nature’s shrine, Trembles with a warmth divine. His heaving breast, his kindling eye, His brow’s expanding majesty, Show that the spirit of his thought Hath Nature’s inspiration caught. Now place him in a gentle scene, ’Neath an autumn sky serene; Let some hamlet skirt his way, Gleaming in the fading day; Let him hear the distant low Of the herds that homeward go; Let him catch, as o’er it floats, The music of tile robin’s notes, As softly sinks upon its nest He, of birds the kindliest; Let him catch from yonder nook The murmur of the minstrel brook; The stones that fain would check its way It leapeth o’er with purpose gay, Or only lingers for a time, To draw from them a merrier chime; E’en as a gay and gentle mind, Though rough breaks in life it find, Passeth by as ’twere not so, Or draws sweet uses out of woe; The scene doth on his soul impress Its glory and its loveliness. Now place him in some festal hall, The merry band of minstrels call, Banish sorrow, pain, and care, Let graceful sprightly youth be there, Beauty, with her jewelled zone And sparkling drapery round her thrown, Beauty, who surest aims her glance, When the free motion of the dance All her varied charms hath stirred, As the plumage of a bird Shows brightest when in air he springs, Spreading forth his sunny wings. Place the bard in scenes like this, E’en here he knows no common bliss. Beauty, mirth, and music twined Shed bland witchery o’er his mind. Yet not alone these charm his eyes, In fancy other sights he spies; The ancient feats of chivalry, Of war’s and beauty’s rivalry. That hall becomes an open space, Where knights contend for ladies’ grace. He sees a creature far more fair Than any forms around him are; One love-glance of her radiant eyes, The boon for which the valiant dies. He sees the armored knights advance, He hears the shiver of the lance, And then the shot when tourney’s done That greets the conquering champion, While, kneeling at his lady’s feet, The victor’s heart doth scarcely beat, As, blushing like a new.born rose, His chosen Queen the prize bestows. But would you know the season when, He triumphs most o’er other men, See him when heart, pulse, and brain, Are bound in Love’s mysterious chain. Behold him then beside the maid; There’s not one curl hath thrown its shade In vain upon that bosom’s swell. All are secrets of the spell That holds the visionary boy Breathless in his trance of joy. And yet no definite desire Does that strong 3ob of bliss inspire; But sweetly vague and undefined The feeling that enthralls his mind, An indistinct deep dream of heaven Her 1nelting shadowy eye bath given
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These the Poet’s pleasures are, These the dull world cannot share, These make fame so poor a prize In his Heaven.enlightened eyes. What is poetry but this? A glimpse of our lost state of bliss; A noble reaching of the mind For that for which it was designed, A sign to lofty spirits given, To show them they were born for Heaven; Light from above, quenched when it falls Where the gross earth with darkness palls The fallen soul content to be Wed to its sad degeneracy; But when, like light on crystal streams, On a pure mind its effluence beams, How brightly in such spirit lies Ai image of the far of skies
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VARIETY OF OPINIONS ON RELIGION.
FROM THE MINUTE PHILOSOPHER.15
BY BISHOP BERKELEY.
THE variety of opinions about religion is a resting stone to a lazy and superficial mind. But one of more spirit and a juster way of thinking, makes it a step whence he looks about, and proceeds to examine and compare the differing institutions of religion. He will observe, which of these is the most sublime and rational in its doctrines, most venerable in its mysteries, most useful in its precepts, most decent in its worship? Which createth the noblest hopes, and most worthy views? He will consider their rise and progress, which oweth least to human arts or arms? Which flatters the senses and gross inclinations of men? Which adorns and improves the most excellent part of our nature? Which hath been propagated in the most wonderful manner? Which hath surmounted the greatest difficulties, or shewed the most disinterested zeal and sincerity in its professors? He will inquire, which best accords with nature and history? He will consider, what favors of the world, and what looks like wisdom from above? He will be careful to separate human alloy from that which is divine; and upon the whole, form his judgment like a reasonable freethinker. But instead of taking such a rational course, one of those hasty sceptics shall conclude without demurring, that there is no wisdom in politics, no honesty in dealings, no knowledge in philosophy, no truth in religion: and all by one and the same sort of inference, from the numerous examples of folly, knavery, ignorance and error, which are to be met with in the world. But, as those, who are unknowing in every thing else, imagine themselves sharp-sighted in religion, this learned sophism is oftenest levelled against christianity. * * * * Thinking is the great desideratum of the present age: and the real cause of whatever is amiss, may justly be reckoned the general neglect of education, in those who need it most, the people of fashion. What can be expected when those, who have the most influence, have the least sense, and those who are sure to be followed, set the worst examples? ‘When youth so uneducated, are yet so forward? When modesty is esteemed pusillanimity, and a deference to years, knowledge, religion, laws, want of sense and spirit? Such untimely growth of genius would not have been valued, or encouraged by the wise men of antiquity; whose sentiments on this point are so ill suited to the genius of our times, that it is to be feared, modern ears could not bear them. But, however ridiculous such maxims might seem to our British youth, who are so capable and so forward to try experiments, and mend the constitution of their country; I believe it will be admitted by men of sense, that if the governing part of mankind, would in these days, for experiment’s sake, consider themselves in that old Homerical light as pastors of the people, whose duty it was to improve their flock, they would soon find, that this is to be
15. Modern Free-thinkers are the very same with those Cicero called Minute Philosophers, which name admirably suits them, they being a sect which diminish all the most valuable things, the thoughts, views, and hopes of men: human nature they contract and degrade to the narrow, low standard of animal life and assign only a small pittance of time, instead of immortality. [Minute Philosopher, Dialogue I.]
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done by an education, very different from the modern, and other maxims, than those of the Minute Philosophy. If our youth were really inured to thought and reflexion, and an acquaintance with the excellent writers of antiquity) we should see that licentious humour, vulgarly called free-thinking, banished from the presence of gentlemen, together with ignorance and ill taste; which, as they are inseparable from vice, so men follow vice for the sake of pleasure, and fly from virtue, through an abhorrence of pain. Their minds, therefore, betimes should be formed and accustomed to receive pleasure and pain from proper objects, or, which is the same thing, to have their inclinations and aversions rightly placed. This, according to Plato and Aristotle, was the right education. And those, who, in their own minds, their health, or their fortunes, feel the cursed effects of a wrong one, would do well to consider, they cannot better make amends for what was amiss ill themselves, than by preventing the same in posterity. Written by Bishop Berkeley during his residence in Newport. Note In 1724, Dean Berkeley published his proposals for the conversion of the American savages to Christianity, by the establishment of a college in the Bermuda Islands. The plan was very favorably received; and he obtained a charter for a college, in which he was named the first President. He received, also, from Sir Robert Walpole, a promise of a grant of twenty thousand pounds to carry it into effect. He landed at Newport, after a tedious passage of five months, in January, 1729. Soon after his arrival, the Dean purchased a country seat and farm about three miles from Newport, and there erected a house which he named Whitehall. He was admitted a freeman of the Colony, at the General Assembly, in May, 1729. He resided at Newport, about two years and a half, and often preached at Trinity Church. Though he was obliged to return to Europe without effecting his original design, yet his visit was of great utility in imparting an impulse to the literature of our country, particularly in Rhode-Island, and Connecticut. During his residence on the Island of Rhode-Island, he meditated and composed his Alciphron, or Minute Philosopher, and tradition says, principally at a place about half a mile southerly from Whitehall. There, in the most elevated part of the Hanging Rocks, (so called) he found a natural alcove, roofed and open to the South, commanding at once a beautiful view of the ocean and the circumjacent islands. This place is said to have been his favorite retreat. His Minute Philosopher was published in London, in 1732, shortly after his return. This acute and ingenious defence of the Christian religion, is written in a series of dialogues, after the model of Plato. To Bishop Berkeley, the literary institutions of New-England are much indebted. He visited Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1731, and during his residence at Newport, augmented the library of Harvard College by valuable donations of the Latin and Greek classics. To Yale college, he presented eight hundred and eighty volumes, and, on his departure from Newport, he gave the Whitehall estate, consisting of his mansion -and one hundred acres of land, for three scholarships in Latin and Greek. After his return to England, in 1733, he sent a magnificent organ, as a donation to Trinity Church, in Newport, which is still in constant use, and bears an inscription which perpetuates the generosity of the donor. -Elton’s Notes to the Memoir of Callender. THE muse, disgusted at an age and clime, Barren of every glorious theme, In distant lands now waits a better time, Producing subjects worthy fame: In happy climes, where from the genial sun And virgin earth flesh scenes ensue, The force of art by nature seems outdone, And fancied beauties by the true: In happy climes, the seat of innocence, Where nature guides and virtue rules, Where men shall not impose for truth and sense The pedantry of courts and schools: There shall be sung another golden age, The rise of empire and of arts, The good and great inspiring epic rage, The wisest heads and noblest hearts. Not such as Europe breeds in her decay; Such as she bred when fresh and young, When heavenly flame did animate the clay, By future ages shall be sung.
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Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time’s noblest offspring is the last.
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THE TRAILING ARBUTUS.
BY SARAH H. WHITMAN.
THERE’s a flower that grows by the greenwood tree, In its desolate beauty more dear to me, Than all that bask in the noontide beam Through the long, bright summer by fount and stream. Like a pure hope nursed beneath sorrow’s wing Its timid buds from the cold moss spring, Their delicate hues like the pink sea-shell, Or the shaded blush of the hyacinth’s bell, Their breath more sweet than the faint perfume That breathes from the bridal orange.bloom. It is not found by the garden wall, It wreaths no brow in the festive hall, But dwells in the depths of the shadowy wood, And shines like a star in the solitude. Never did numbers its name prolong, Ne’er hath it floated on wings of song, Bard and minstrel have passed it by And left it in silence and shade to die. But with joy to its cradle the wild-bees come And praise its beauty with drony hum, And children love in the season of spring To watch for its early blossoming In the dewy morn of an April day, When the traveler lingers along the way, When the sod is sprinkled with tender green Where rivulets water the earth unseen, When the floating fringe on the maple’s crest Rivals the tulip’s crimson vest, And the budding leaves of the birch-tree throw A trembling shade on the turf below, When my flower awakes from its dreamy rest And yields its lips to the sweet south-west, Then, in those beautiful days of spring, With hearts as light as the wild-bird’s wing, Flinging their tasks and their toys aside, Gay little groups through the wood-paths glide, Peeping and peering among the trees As they scent its breath on the passing breeze, Hunting about among lichens grey And the tangled mosses beside the way, Till they catch the glance of its quiet eye Like light that breaks through a cloudy sky. For me, sweet blossom, thy tendrils cling Still round my heart as in childhood’s spring, And thy breath, as it floats on the wandering air, Wakes all the music of memory there. Thou recallest the time when, a fearless child, I roved all day through the wood-paths wild, Seeking thy blossoms by bank and brae Wherever the snow-drifts had melted away. Now, as I linger mid crowds alone, Haunted by echoes of music flown, When the shadows deepen around my way And the light of reason but leads astray, When affections, nurtured with fondest care By the trusting heart, become traitors there; When weary of all that the world bestows I turn to nature for calm repose, How fain my spirit in some far glen Would fold her wings mid thy flowers again!
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THE LANGUAGE OF A FUTURE STATE.
BY ROWLAND G. H AZARD.
It is probable that in the future and more perfect state of existence, we shall possess a means of social intercourse free from ambiguity-that the pleasure of advancement will be increased by its consequent acceleration-that when deprived of the material organs, words and signs will no longer be employed-in a word, that the language of ideality, which a partial improvement of our faculties has here exhibited, will then be so perfected, that terms will be entirely dispensed with, and thought be there communicated without the intervention of any medium to distort its meaning or sully its brightness-that ideas will there flow directly from mind to mind, and the soul be continually exhilarated by breathing a pure congenial atmosphere, inhaling feeling, poetry, and knowledge. This conjecture derives a further plausibility, from the consideration that our present language seems especially adapted to things material, that in the purely physical sciences we can communicate ideas with great accuracy a nd precision-that the difficulty of doing this increases in proportion as our feelings and the qualities of mind enter into the subject to Which we endeavor to apply it, and when they become exclusively its objects, it almost entirely fails. Poetry has accomplished much more than the other forms in portrayiing the passions, sentinmen ts,t and all the more striking and complicated mental phenomena, b ut even that has shed but a feeble light over a small portion of this interesting field of research, or in bright but fitful gleams, shown the undefined vastness not yet explored. Our present language, then, is wholly inadequate to a subject, which of all others must most interest a world of spirits. as if it were intended only to carry us to the point from which we are there to start-to give us a glimpse of the infinite regions, which imagination has not yet traversed-the exhaustless sources of thought which mind still possesses, while the language of ideality has here accomplished just enough in the exhibition of the subjects of our internal consciousness, to assure us that it also possesses the elements of a power, which when matured, may become the fitting instrument to gather the treasures of that unexplored immensity. But may we not go farther, and say that we have even here a foretaste, or at least a nearer approach to this angelic pleasure? Have we not witnessed the soul in all its purity and vigor, throwing off the trammels which words impose on its highest action, and, as if anticipating its conscious destiny, in a transport of impassioned thought and feeling, almost entirely discarding the usual mode of expressing them, when the eloquence of the eye anticipates the tongue, when every feature kindles with emotion, and the whole countenance is as a transparency lighted with its glowing conceptions? It is then that terms are most nearly dispensed with, and it is in this sympathetic mingling of thought and sentiment that we enjoy the purest poetry which warms the soul in its earthly tabernacle. Those who have known the raptures of such converse and have felt its exalting influence, will regard it as worthy a place in a higher sphere, and be willing to admit it to their most entrancing reveries of elysian bliss. Does not this view lend a delightful confirmation to our hypothesis? But the argument derives yet additional strength from the consideration that this faculty, this power of silent, yet vivid expression, seems somewhat proportioned to moral excellence, or increases as the spiritual predominates over the material part of our natures-that in most men it is at best but dimly visible-that in those of the finer grade of intellect, whose feelings have been cultivated, whose purity has never been sullied by corroding care and ignoble pursuits, nor their sensibility blunted by too rude collision with the world, it becomes more apparent; while in the sex of finer mould, who are elevated above these degrading influences-whose feelings are more pure-whose sentiments are more refined-and whose spirits are more etherial, it manifests itself with a softened splendor, to which that of angels, may well be sup posed, only another step in the scale of a magnificent progression. It is to the superiority which woman has in this expressive language; to her command of this direct avenue to the finer feelings, that we must attribute her influence in refining and softening the asperities of our nature. And it is owing to the possession of this element of moral elevation, that while the finest and strongest reasoning of philosophy has, in this respect, accomplished so little, that woman has accomplished so much. She possesses not the strength which has been exhibited by some
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masculine minds, nor perhaps even the brilliancy which has emanated from others; but the influence which they respectively exert on society appears in strange disproportion to the apparent causes. The one is as the sun, which sheds his strong beams upon the waters, and the waves proudly reflect his dazzling brilliancy; the other, as the moon, whose milder light melts into the ocean; glows through all its depths; heaves its mighty bosom, and elevates it above its common level. The refined subtleties of an Aristotle, or the glowing sublimities of a Plato, though presented to us with all the fascinations of a high-toned morality, and clothed in the imposing grandeur of a lofty and commanding eloquence, are dim and powerless to that effusion of soul, that seraphic fervor, which with a glance unlocks the avenues to our tenderness, which chides our errors with a tear, or winning us to virtue with the omnipotence of a charm, irradiates its path with the beaming eye, and cheers it with the approving smile of loveliness. And hence, too, it is, that the degree in which this influence is felt, and its source appreciated, is justly considered as the test of civilization and refinement. Is there not in this mild, gentle, silent, persuasive, yet dissolving and resistless influence, a charm which bears witness to its celestial character? Do we not recognize in it a similarity to that of heaven, and if we have ascribed it to its proper cause, does not this similarity at once stamp our speculation, if not with the seal of a moral certainty, at least with the impress of a cheering probability?
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THE LIVING-DEAD.
BY WILLIAM J. HOPPIN.
“Yet one doubt Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die: Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man Which God inspired, cannot together perish With this corporeal clod: then in the grave, Or in some other dismal place, who knows, But I shall die a living death?” [PARADISE LOST, B. X. I DREAMED that Death had froze This young and glowing frame: But He, whose grasp the pulse could chill, Had failed the hidden sense to still, Or loose the prisoned flame: Had fled away From his half.-slain prey And left the conscious Soul bound to the mouldering clay. I heard a requiem sung A prayer to Heaven said A sigh breathed forth-perchance a tear Moistened the pall above my bier But soon they left the dead: And soon forgot, For there came not One friendly footstep back to cheer the lonely spot. The years, which once seemed fleet, How slowly they passed by! The winter’s storm did hoarsely rave Long, long, ere round my gloomy grave The summer breeze did sigh: But the doleful knell Would often tell That another shade had fled in death’s dark land to dwell. Oh, thrice, thrice happy soul! Like mine it was not doomed To pass ten thousand years away Undying Spirit chained to clay, Immortal Thought entombed! Can Hell bestow A fiercer woe Than this, through countless years to die and still to know? * * * * * * Now centuries had past; The funeral knell was o’er, The sons forgot where their fathers lay For I heard the plough- share grate its way Where the grave-stone stood before; And the reapers tread Above my head, And sing their merry songs among the silent dead. And there a forest sprang From the ground where we reclined. The lofty boughs spread high in Heaven For I heard them groan by the tempest driven, The roots our dust entwined: But a fire at last O’er the forest passed And each firm root decayed beneath the withering blast. And there, deep, still, alone, In a barren waste I lay, Hushed was the song of the cheerful bird, And nought of human sound I heard, All, all, had passed away And the years stole by So silently, I thought that Nature slept in mortal lethargy. * * * * * * Hark! thunder wakes the world, It rives the trembling sod! The burning Universe doth tell This is the voice of the Archangel, This is the Trump of God! Aye, He hath spoke The trance is broke “Ye Living-Dead arise!” Shuddering with fear, I woke.
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THE ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.
BY THE HON. JONATHAN RUSSELL.
IT is a magnificent spectacle to behold a great people annually crowding their temples to consecrate the anniversary of their sovereignty. On this occasion the heart of every true American beats high with a just and noble pride. He still hears the illustrious Fathers of his Country, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of their conduct, declare that the United States “are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent.” The black catalogue of injury, abuse, contempt, and crime, which exhausted forbearance and drove us to resistance, rushes on his mind. He passes in review those great men who then burst upon the world, and who, endowed with every virtue and every talent which could fit them for the arduous task in which they engaged, appeared to be expressly commissioned A by Heaven to rule the storm of revolution. It was then, indeed, that human nature, which for eighteen centuries Had appeared nearly to have lost those qualities which alone ennoble it, emerged at once from its degradation, and recovered the lustre with which it shone in the happiest days of antiquity. On the islands of the Adriatic, the mountains of Biscay, and the rocks of Uri, the spirit of Liberty had indeed successively sought a refuge; but driven at last from all that could delight her on earth, she had already flapped her wings on the glaciers of Switzerland, and was taking her flight towards Heaven. The American people rose -- they burst their fetters -- they hurled them at their oppressors they shouted they were FREE. The sound broke across the Atlantic-it shook the fog-wrapt island of Britain, and re-echoed along the Alps. The ascending spirit heard it-she recognized in it the voice of her elect, and holding her course westward, she rejoicing saw her incense rise from a thousand altars. Her presence assured our triumph. Painful, however, was the struggle, and terrible the conflict which obtained that triumph-our harbors filled with hostile fleets-our fields ravaged-our cities wrapt ill flames-a numerous veteran and unprincipled enemy let loose upon us-our army thinned by battles, wasted by sickness, disgusted by treachery and desertion-a prey to every species of privation, and reduced to the last misery next despair. Even then, however, this little army shewed themselves worthy the holy cause for which they contended. Driven from Long-Island-from the heights of Harlem from White Plains-pursued from post to post even to beyond the Delaware-they would often turn upon their insulting foe-and mingling their blood with the melting lava of the cannon’s mouth, foretell them of Trenton, Germantown, and Monmouth. But it was not in the ardent conflicts of the field only, that our countrymen fell; it was not the ordinary chances of war alone, which they had to encounter. Happy, indeed, thrice happy, were WARREN, MONTGOMERY and MERCER; happy those other gallant spirits who fell with glory in the heat of battle, distinguished by their country, and covered with her applause. Every soul, sensible to honor, envies rather than compassionates their fate. It was in the dungeons of our inhuman invaders; it was in their loathsome and pestiferous prison-ships, that the wretchedness of our countrymen still makes the heart bleed. It was there, that hunger, and thirst, and disease, and all the contumely which coldhearted cruelty could bestow, sharpened every pang of death. Misery there wrung every fibre that could feel, before she gave the blow of grace which sent the sufferers to eternity. It is said that poison was employed. No, there was no such mercy there — there nothing was employed which could blunt the susceptibility to anguish, or which by hastening death could rob its agonies of a single pang. On board one of these prison-ships above eleven thousand of our brave countrymen are said to have perished. She was called the Jersey. Her wreck still remains, and at low ebb presents to the world its accursed and blighted fragments. Twice in twenty-four hours the winds of Heaven sigh through it, and repeat the groans of our expiring countrymen; and twice the ocean hides in her bosom those deadly and polluted ruins, which all her waters cannot purify. Every rain that descends washes from the unconsecrated bank the bones of those intrepid sufferers. They lie naked on the shore accusing the neglect of their countrymen. How long shall gratitude and even piety deny them burial?
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They ought to be collected in one vast ossuary, which shall stand a monument to future ages of the two extremes of the human character; of that depravity, which, trampling oin the rights of misfortune, perpetrated cold and calculating murder on a wretched and defenceless prisoner; and that virtue which animated this prisoner to die a willing martyr for his country. Or rather, were it possible, there ought to be raised a Colossal Column, whose base sinking to Hell, should let the murderers read their infamity inscribed on it; and whose capital of Corinthian laurel ascending to Heaven, should show the sainted Patriots that they have triumphed. Deep and dreadful as the coloring of this picture may appear, it is but a faint and imperfect sketch of the original. You must remember a thousand un utterable calamities, a thousand instances of domestic as well as national anxiety and distress, which meekl description. You, ought to remember them; you ought to hand them down, in tradition to Posterity, that They may, 1olw thi a wfil price their fathers paid for freedom. 1800.
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OUR COUNTRY.
BY WILLIAM J. PABODIE.
Our. Country!-’tis a glorious land With broad arms stretched from shore to shore; The proud Pacific chafes her strand, She hears the dark Atlantic roar; And nurtured on her ample breast, How many a goodly prospect lies; In Nature’s wildest grandeur drest, Enamelled with her loveliest dyes. Rich prairies, decked with flowers of gold, Like sun-lit oceans roll afar; Broad lakes her azure heavens behold, Reflecting clear each trembling star; And mighty rivers, mountain-born, Go sweeping onward, dark and deep, Through forests, where the bounding fawn Beneath their sheltering branches leap. And cradled ’mid her clustering hills, Sweet vales in dream-like beauty hide, Where Love the air with music fills, And calm Content and Peace abide; For Plenty here her fullness pours, In rich profusion o’er the land; And sent to seize her generous stores, There prowls no Tyrant’s hireling band. Great God! we thank Thee for this home This bounteous birth-land of the Free; Where wanderers from afar may come, And breathe the air of Liberty; Still may her flowers untrampled spring, Her harvests wave, her cities rise; And yet till Time shall fold his wing, Remain earth’s loveliest Paradise!
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GERMAN LITERATURE
BY SARAH H. WHITMAN.
IT has been said that “it is in the German nature duly to honor every thing produced by other nations.” Our countrymen, we fear, are in danger of becoming, like the English, too exclusively national. We could wish that they had a little more of the German cosmopolitanism. Perhaps it is natural that whenever any attempt is made by a portion of the community to lead the public mind to new trains of thought or modes of action, to introduce new theories or point out new fields for exertion or enterprise, that an antagonist party should spring up, whose tendency it is to resist all innovation. Perhaps it is a wise provision of nature that has thus furnished every age with its sentinels and warders, as well as with its bold and adventurous pioneers; and provided they conduct themselves fairly and discreetly in their vocation, we have no desire to see their office annulled, or to interrupt them in its rightful exercise. Let the sentinels give challenge to all new claimants, but let them not refuse admittance to any who can furnish a fair passport, or make out a clear title to be received within their guarded citadel. Since the efforts which have recently been making to introduce the German literature among us, it is not unusual to hear the most unqualified, indiscriminate opposition expressed to the study of a language of unequalled copiousness, flexibility and force, rich in every department of its literature, and entitled, in the opinion of the first European scholars, to an equal estimation with our own noble mother tongue. Yet we are rejoiced to discover, even in the bitterness of its opponents, an indication of the increasing interest with which it is regarded among us; we are in no way disturbed by the fear that its subtleties, refinements and abstractions, should exert an evil influence on our national character, the individuality of which seems in no danger of being neutralized by such antagonist principles, though it may perchance be favorably modified by them. The Germans, it is true, have their faults; but these faults, it has been well said, are as good as virtues to us, since being the exact opposites of our own, they may teach us most important lessons. The opposers of German literature are fond of preferring the claims of common sense to those of philosophy; of elevating the actual over the ideal. They descant much and rather vaguely against Transcendentalism. They tell us of the folly of believing in innate ideas, and triumphantly quote Locke and his “tabula rasa.” They are afraid of all vagueness and mysticism, and tremble like children at the shadowy appearances seen in the twilight. They will have nothing to do with that which they cannot handle. They have faith in nothing which they cannot fully comprehend. They like to see all objects clearly and sharply defined in the broad day-light of the understanding. Yet in the shadowy, twilight regions of the imagination, we may behold much that is then only visible. The near glare of the sun conceals from us those far lights of heaven, that are forever burning in the vaults of space; even as the acute shrill sounds of day prevent us from hearing the deep voices of nature. The Shekinah, which was by day only a cloud of smoke, became by night a pillar of fire. In literature, their favorite models are those writers who are most remarkable for clearness, polish, and precision. They seem to prefer vigorous, rather than comprehensive thinkers;-writers whose vision is clear but limited; who deal manfully with facts and events, but care not to penetrate beyond the surface of being, showing us things as they are, without questioning of the how and why. They love to pace steadily and safely along with the “ smooth tongued Addison, the stately Johnson, and the sublime Burke,” never deviating from the beaten path, and looking upon all who go down in diving-bells, or mount in balloons, as hair-brained tempters of fate.
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They fear all new aspects of truth, and gravely tell us, that “ it is better with our fallible natures and limited capacities, to rest upon certain ideas and opinions that have been received as plausible, rejecting all speculations upon subjects which call never be decided, nor farther developed, while the soul remains in the thralls of flesh.” Supposing a reflective mind could bring itself to act upon this suggestion, or rather to cease from acting, for ourselves we know of no opinions that have been universally received as “plausible,” and did we know any such, we could not receive them as truths, until they had been submitted to the test of our own reason. Who shall tell us that any man or class of men have monopolized the right of thought? What is truth to another is not truth to us until our own understanding has verified it. Whatever danger there may be in leaving every man to decide for himself, there is surely far less than in any attempt to restrict the individual right of opinion, through regard to expediency or respect for authority. We could not, if we would, have every man a philosopher, and we think there need be little fear, that our countrymen will become infected with any undue fondness for abstract researches. The mind that has never tried to grasp the great problems of human life and destiny, that has never sought to wrest a reluctant meaning from the hieroglyphic characters inscribed on the broad page of nature, needs no such restriction; the mind that has done this, will hardly be checked in its onward impulse by the “cui bono” of the utilitarian. It sounds almost like mockery to ask one who has ever caught a single ray of the warm, living light of the sun of truth, to satisfy himself with the frippery, gilt-paper toy of “plausibility.” These timid counsellors remind us of Solomon’s slothful man, who keeps housed and says, “there is a lion in the street, if I go forth I shall be slain.” There are some who cannot be thus easily restrained; they must “go forth,” even at the worst of perils- they must meet the lion, and wrestle with it as they may-and often do they find, that when they look their formidable foe calmly in the face, he loses all his terrors, and becomes at once harmless and tractable. These persons are constantly opposing revelation to nature, and faith to reason. We cannot agree with them in apprehending any danger to Christianity fiom the investigation of calm, tolerant, philosophic spirits, who fear not to look at both sides of a question, lest they should meet with something opposed to established and time- hallowed opinions. The timid faith that fears to question, cannot satisfy us,-such assent is far worse than honest denial. The onlyfatal skepticism, as it seems to us, is that of the man who wants faith in the human soul, and fears to trust its promptings. For ourselves, we rejoice in the increasing nunber of those who are willing to follow truth wherever she may lead them, in the spirit of that child-like confidence and perfect love which casteth out fear. We look for the time when philosophy shall aid in reconciling reason and faith, not by depressing faith, but by elevating reason. When we shall be able to interpret, in all its beautiful simplicity, the word of Him who taught us to read the gospel of Nature, to observe the lilies of the field, and to seek for the kingdom of heaven within our own hearts. The enforcement of this self-reliance, this faith in the power of the individual to discover for himself truth, is one of the leading heresies of which the “’New School” is accused. Yet the highest stars of heaven may be seen mirrored within the single drop of dew that trembles within the heart of a violet. This faith in truth and nature, this desire to free the mind from its slavery to creeds and conventionalities, though the growth of no particular school, has, it is true, within the last twenty years, been more profoundly felt and more earnestly inculcated, than at any former period. It gives a tone to all the noblest literature of the day, and is slowly but surely working a change in the character of the times. It is this which prompted the obnoxious declaration of Dr. Channing that “Man is great as man, be he what and where he may.” This is what was implied by Emerson, when he said, “let a man plant himself on his instincts, and the whole world will come round to him,” or in other words, work in harmony with him. It is this which illumines every page of Carlisle, as with the glory of an inspired scroll, and imparts to the apocalyptic reveries of Swedenborg whatever they possess of vivifying and converting energy. This doctrine, which was taught by a few sincere and simple spirits, amid the darkest gloom of Jewish superstition and bigotry, has caused one of the most true hearted believers of our own day to assert that the vital truths of Christianty are too deeply inwrought into the very nature of the human soul to be in any danger from a free and zealous examination into the true character of the Christian miracles. It is this growing conviction which is beginning to render all persecution for opinions sake as disgraceful as it ever was futile, and this it is, above all, which is teachiug the instructors and guardians of youth, that the great objects of education are not to be achieved by the exhibition of facts or the inculcation of theories, but by developing and strengthening the powers of the soul for individual and
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independent action. Much, though not all of this, is we think attributable more or less directly to the Germans. Much that in our own literature is but faintly and dimly shadowed forth, is in this developing itself in free and luxuriant growth. In the German literature, to use one of their own expressive phrases, “man finds himself.” The “sweet sad music of humanity” pervades every department of it. In its deep earnest philosophic spirit; in its fearless, trusting, transparent simplicity; in the holy fervor of its poets; the serene, spiritual, far-reaching gaze of its theologians and moralists, we may find much which even the rich, classical literature of England cannot supply. To us, Germany has ever been a bright land of promise since first in early youth we listened with kindling heart and eager sympathy to the tidings which Mde. De Stael had brought us of a people, who in an age of artificiality, had dared to follow the suggestions of their own spirits and to show us nature as she had mirrored herself within their own hearts. And now, having possessed ourselves of the golden Key which is to unlock for us this rich world of thought, we cannot but glory in our new-found treasure, and endeavour to win others to become partakers of our joy.
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SUGGESTED BY ALLSTON’S PICTURE OF JEREMIAH AND BARUCH
IN THE PRISON.
BY SARAH S. JACOBS.
A prisoner prince! Each haughty limb Bespeaks thy high descent; Nor can a dungeon’s gloom bedim One noble lineament. To fetter thee, did they not dare? Thou can’st not be contented there A captive with that kingly air, Stern and magnificent. Thou listenest a lute to hear, Struck by some minstrel’s skill; Thou dreamest,-that strain so soft and clear Makes thee a monarch still. The dungeon is forgotton now, A smile illumines lip and brow, Again thy subjects round thee bow, Obedient to thy will. Methought there breathed upon my ear In low, deep strain, A greater thIan a King is h7ere, Look thou again! A prisoner poet-thou the free, The impatient of control,Of more than regal majesty, The majesty of soul; And must thou pining linger here Till grief her last indignant tear Has shed: while o’er thee, year by year, A captive’s sorrows roll? What by thy listening ear is heard? What stirs thy poet heart? Hath water’s voice or note of bird In that deep dream a part? Or musest thou some noble song, The story of thy bitter wrong, In hurrying tide to pour along, The triumph of thine art? Then a whisper came-he dreameth not now Of wood or wave; Nor his, the patriot’s burning vow, His land to save. A prisoner prophet-thus at last Thy mission grand, I know; Thine is no shadow of the past, Nor grasp of present woe, Thou man of destiny sublime Over whose mind’s gigantic prime The surging waves of coming time Successive ebb and flow; The summer sea is not more bright, The summer cloud more free Than thou, all radiant with the light Of conscious Deity. Around thee might the thunders peal, Beneath, the solid prison reel, Unbroken still thy spirit’s seal, Unmoved thy gaze would be. * * * * * * It makes the gentle tears to fall, The tears that fall to bless, Thy thoughtful face, oh, scribe, with all Its loving winningness. Passionless intellect alone Around the Prophet’s form is thrown, And might untold;-but all thine own Fair youth, the happiness To sit and listen and record Unnoticed by his side, And treasure every wondrous word, \Vith reverence dignified; Gazing, meanwhile with earnest grace Like some babe angel in the face Of seraph in the Holy place, With love and lowly pride.
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MORAL SUBLIMITY ILLUSTRATED.
BY THE REV. FRANCIS WAYLAND, D.D.
PHILOSOPHERS have speculated much concerning a progress of sensation, which has commonly been denominated the emotion of sublimity. Aware that. like any other simple feeling, it must be incapable of definition, they have seldom attempted to define it; but content with remarking the occasions on which it is excited, have told us that it arises, in general, from the contemplation of whatever is vast in nature, splendid in intellect, or lofty in morals. Or, to express the same idea somewhat varied, in the language of a critic of antiquity, “that alone is truly sublime, of which the conception is vast, the effect irresistible, and the remembrance scarcely if ever to be erased.” But although philosophers only, have written about this emotion, they are far from being the only men who have felt it. The untutored peasant, when he has seen the autumnal tempest collecting between the hills, and, as it advanced, enveloping in misty obscurity, village and hamlet, forest and meadow, has tasted the sublime in all its reality; and, whilst the thunder has rolled and lightning flashed around him, has exulted in the view of nature moving forth in her majesty. The untaught sailor boy, listlessly hearkening to the idle ripple of the midnight wave, when on a sudden he has thought upon the unfathomable abyss beneath him, and the wide waste of waters around him, and the infinite expanse above him, has enjoyed to the full, the emotion of sLiblimity, whilst his inmost soul has trembled at the vastness of its own conceptions. But why need I multiply illustrations from nature? Who does not recollect the emotions he has felt, whilst surveying aught in the material world, of terror or of vastness? And this sensation is not produced by grandeur in material objects alone. It is also excited on most of those occasions in which we see man tasking, to the uttermost, the energies of his intellectual or moral nature. Through the long lapse of centuries, who, without emotion, has read of LEONIDAS and his three hundred throwing themselves as a barrier before the myriads of Xerxes, and contending unto death for the liberties of Greece! But we need not turn to classic story to find all that is great in human action; we find it in our own times and in the history of our own country. Who is there of us that even in the nursery has not felt his spirit stir within him, when with child-like wonder he has listened to the story of WASHINGTON? Aud although the terms of the narrative were scarcely intelligible, yet the young soul kindled at the thought of one man’s working out the deliverrance of a nation. And as our understanding, strengthened by age, was at last able to grasp the detail of this transaction, we saw that our infantine conceptions had fallen far short of its grandeur. 0! if an American citizen ever exults in the contemplation of all that is sublime in human enterprise, it is when, in bringing to mind the men who first conceived the idea of this nation’s independence, he beholds them estimating the power of hpr oppressor, the resources of her citizens, deciding in their collected might that this nation should be free, and through the long years of trial that ensued, never blenching from their purpose, but freely redeeming the pledge which they had given, to consecrate to it, “1 their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.” It is not in the field of patriotism only that deeds have been achieved to which history has awarded the palm of moral sublimity. There have lived men, in whom the name of patriot has been merged in that of philanthropist; who, looking with an eye of compassion over the face of the earth, have felt for the miseries of our race, and have put forth their calm might to wipe off one blot from the marred and stained escutcheon of human nature; to strike off one form of suffering from the catalogue of human woe. Such a man was HOWARD. Surveying our world, like a spirit of the blessed, he beheld the misery of the captive, he heard the groaning of the prisoner. His determination was fixed. He resolved, single handed, to guage and to measure one form of unpitied, unheeded wretchedness, and, bringing it out to the sunshine of public observation, to work its utitter extermination. And he well knew what this undertaking would cost him. He knew what he had to hazard from the infections of dungeons, to endure from the fatigues of inhospitable travel, and to brook from the insolence of legalized oppression. He knew that he was devoting himself upon the altar of philanthropy, and he willingly devoted himself. He had marked out his destiny,
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and he hastened its accomplishment, with an intensity “which the nature of the human mind forbade to be more, and the character of the individual forbade to be less.” Thus he commenced a new era in the history of benevolence. And hence the name of HOWARD will be associated with all that is sublime in mercy, until the final consummation of all things. Such a man is CLARKSON, who looking abroad, beheld the sufferings of Africa, and, looking at home, saw his country stained with her blood. We have seen him, laying aside the vestments of the priesthood, consecrate himself to the holy purpose of rescuing a continent from rapine and murder, and erasing this one sin from the book of his nlation’s iniquities. We have seen him and his fellow phi lantropists for twenty years never waver from their purpose. We have seen them persevere amidst neglect, and obloquy, and contempt, and persecution, until the cry of the oppressed, having roused the sensibilities of the nation, the “Island Empress” rose in her might and said to this foul traffic in human flesh, thus far shalt thou come, and no farther.
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THE BARON’S LAST BANQUET.
BY ALBERT G. G REENE.
O’ER a low couch the setting sun had thrown its latest ray, Where in his last strong agony a dying warrior lay, The stern old Baron Rudiger, whose frame had ne’er been bent By wasting pain, till time and toil its iron strength had spent. “They come around me here, and say my days of life are o’er, That I shall mount my noble steed and lead my band no more; They come, and to my beard they dare to tell me now, that I, Their own liege lord and master born,- that I, ha! ha! must die. And what is death? I’ve dared him oft before the Paynim spear, Think ye he’s entered at my gate, has come to seek me here? I’ve met him, faced him, scorned him, when the fight was raging hot,I’ll try his might-’ll brave his power; defy, and fear him not. Ho! sound the tocsin from my tower,-and fire the cul verin, Bid each retainer arm with speed,-call every vassal in, Up with my banner on the wall,-the banquet board pre pare, Throw wide the portal of my hall, and bring my armor there!“ An hundred hands were busy then,-the banquet forth was spread, And rung the heavy oaken floor with many a martial tread, While from the rich, dark tracery along the vaulted wall, Lights gleamed on harness, plume and spear, o’er the proud old Gothic hall. Fast hurrying through the outer gate the mailed retainers poured, On through the portal’s frowning arch, and thronged around the board. While at its head, within his dark, carved oaken chair of state, Armed cap-a-pie, stern Rudiger, with girded falchion, sate. “Fill every beaker up, my men, pour forth the cheering wine, There’s life and strength in every drop,-thanksgiving to the vine! Are ye all there, my vassals true?-mine eyes are waxing dim; Fill round, my tried and fearless ones, each goblet to the brim. Ye’re there, but yet I see ye not. Draw forth each trusty sword,And let me hear your faithful steel clash, once around my board: I hear it faintly -Louder yet!-What clogs my heavy breath? Up all,-and shout for Rudiger,’ Defiance unto Death!“’ Bowl rang to bowl,-steel clanged to steel,-and rose a deafening cry That made the torches flare around, and shook the flags on high: “Ho! cravens, do ye fear him?-Slaves, traitors! have ye flown? Ho! cowards, have ye left me to meet him here alone! But I defy him:-let him come!” Down rang the massy cup, While from its sheath the ready blade came flashing half way up; And with the black and heavy plumes scarce trembling on his head, There in his dark, carved, oaken chair, Old Rudiger sat, dead.
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A VISIT TO NIAGARA.
BY THE REV. FREDERICK A. FARLEY.
ONE of the most delightful journeys which our country offers, is that which takes the traveller through some of the most fertile and beautiful regions of the state of New York, from its great Commercial Capital to the falls of Niagara. The picturesque and romantic shores of the Hudson the wonderful region of Saratoga, where the entire soil seems to be underlaid with fountains of healing water of almost every variety-the rich valley of the Mohawk, presenting to the eye at every turn a view of exhaustless fertility and exquisite beautythe remarkable gorge at Little Falls, where the various elements of mountain and river scenery, the deep ravine, the towering precipice, the craggy, overhanging cliffs, the huge masses of rock scattered and flung here and there as if in very sport by the rushing torrents which once broke through this narrow pass, and having worn their way along found an outlet below-Trenton, that spot of unrivalled beauty-the vast lakes which seem to open upon your astonished gaze, so far inland are you, like the great ocean itself-and finally that Great Cataract, which the world over is its chief wonder-all these, to say nothing of what human enterprise and skill have accomplished through this entire region, in rail-roads and canals, towns and villages, agriculture and manufactures, conspire to excite a deep enthusiasm in the mind of the beholder, to quicken and to exalt it. In the sublime description of the creation, in the book of Genesis, we read that’” The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” But may not the same language be applied to the whole of external nature? Does not the soul amid its various scenes, whether on land or sea, by day or night, as it looks above, around, or beneath, feel that the Spirit of God is there? In the sweet flow of the gentlest stream, winding way between the high banks, covered with verdure, and flowering shrubs and vines trailing their branches in the water-or the rush of the nobler river along its deeper channel cut among lofty highlands, whose bases rest undisturbed amid its depths, and whose dark shadows project themselves over its surface;-or the lofty mountain, bathing its altar peak in the clouds;-within the black and tangled forest, whose rich foliaged arches and columns make it a fit cathedral for sublimest worship; or on the outspread, ever-rolling ocean, whether in the cairn or in the storm,-alvys mighty, aIways vast, ever symbolizing the eternal; in these, and in every varied scene of nature, may the mind,Ef man recognise the all present Spirit of God. Ald to every mind thus attuned to this the loftiest inspiration which the contemplation of nature can awaken, ever fresh and delightful will be its varying visions, as they by turns come. But beyond and above all other objects in nature which I have ever yet gazed upon, none has ever filled me with such an overpowering sense of the presence of God, as that of the Great Cataract of the west. I may not essay a description of that which the finest geniuses which have ever visited those stupendous Falls have shrunk from attempting, from a mere consciousness of inability to do any adequate justice to the subject-butt simple gratitude to God, that I have been permitted to see this wondrous work of His hands, bids me attempt to express some of the emotions with which the sight filled me, and which, whenever felt, must make a visit to Niagara one of the holiest pilgrimages of life. I reached the Falls from below. That is, I coasted up the broad expanse of Lake Ontario, one of those great inland seas, in themselves among the wonlders of our western hemisphere, and sailed up the river to Lewiston. Thence a short rail-road of fifteen miles takes you to the Falls. As the road lies in a great degree near the river, and sometimes upon the very brink of the beetling precipices which overhang it, the traveller is gradually prepared to behold in
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a right frame of mind the great object of his journey. The water is seen to be of a most peculiar and vivid green, of a hue which of itself forms one of the unsettled problems of the regionstreaked here and there with foam, and broken into eddies and whirlpools; while the banks gradually become more and more lofty, jagged and wild. The spray of the cataract, which we had observed, while on the lake before we entered the river, rising like a vast column of cloud in the early morning air, was now seen as the day advanced broken into ever-shifting and fantastic wreaths of mist; or light feathery clouds floating in and scattered by the sun. So perfectly iln keeping seemed all the scenery as we approached the Falls, to what I had imagined of the Falls themselves, that notwithstanding the curiosity which every step of our progress made only the more intense, not one feeling of disappointment for a moment cast its shadow over my soul, when at length I stood, a silent, rapt beholder of this’ wonder of the waters,” as its name of Indianii origin expressively denotes. The roar of waters!-from the headlong height NViagara cleaves the wave-worn precipice; The fall of waters! rapid as the light The flashing mass foams shlaking the abyss The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture; while the sweat Of their great agony, wrung out from this Their Phlegethon curls round the rocks of jet Thlat gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, And mounts in spray the skies, and tihen again Returns in an unceasing shower, whlich round, WVith its unemptied cloud of gentle rai), Is an eternal April to the ground, Malking it all one Emerald:-how profound The gulf! and how the giant element From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crushing the cliffs!” - The river in its descent from Lake Erie has become a noble stream of deep and crystal water of a mile in breadth, flowing ol calmly towards the nortlih-intil, when nearly a mile above the Falls, it Childc Harold, Canto IV. I have taken the liberty to substitute “Niagara” in the second line for “Velino.” begins to encounter vast ledges of submerged rocks, by which it is gradually disturbed, and soon exchanges its soft and silvery smoothness for a rushing, roaring waste of waters. In its whole course thence to the Falls, it presents the appearance of the ocean lashed by a tremendous tempest-the foaming waves leap to an amazing height-mighty vwhirlpools are formed-deep and shifting eddies-jets d’eaux of every graceful figure rise from the edges of rocks which lift their heads near or above the surface-and thus, broken and chafed, it rushes on with prodigious force and rapidity, and finally hurls its monstrous volume of waters into the abyss. In the midst of the wildest uproar of these wvondrous rapids, there are the sweetest and most romantic islets interposing their quiet and lovely verdure and foliage, in striking contrast with the confusion and dinii around them. While Irish Island, covering an extent of more than forty acres, crowned with the primeval forest, flanks and overhangs the vast boiling gulf, and breaks the river in twiai;thus forming on one side the Great American Fall, and on the other the Crescent, or Horse-Shoe Fall. A bridge of ingenious construction, passing directly * Or, Goat Island. over these rushing rapids to the length of six hun dred and fifty feet, enables you to visit this island of most picturesque and surpassing beauty, and enjoy the various and sublime views which it offers of the rapids and the Cataract. I walked first to the American Fall, and looked from the piazza of a small building upon this scene of wonders. After a few minutes enjoyment of the magnificent coup d’ ceil here presented, I went to the very brink of the Fall, and soon discovered just over the edge of the precipice a small projecting slab which might serve for a single foothold;-stepping upon this, and grasping firmly with my right hand a naked stump, ainong the shrubbery which growis upon the margin, I swung myself over, and gazed down, down, into the very gulf into which that vast mass of waters was rushing. When I returned to a firmer position upon the solid earth, I had no words for my emotions, and a tribute of tears alone gave them vent. The river, at the usual place of crossing just below the American Fall, is contracted between stupendous natural walls to the width of half a nile; and as you are swept downward in your frail boat by the deep and strong current, you forget all danger amid the astonishing scenery which surrounds you. On your left and rear is the American Fall, nine hundred feet in breadth, and leaping one hundred and sixty feet perpendicularly into the abyss-its whole surface dyed and striped in ribands of every prismatic hue, throughout its entire descent. Above and before you, is the Grand Crescent, twentyone hundred feet in breadth and about one hundred and seventy-five high-whose mighty fall lashes the pool beneath
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into a rich creamy foam, boiling like a gigantic cauldron-from which rises the spray iII unceasing clouds, and upon which rainbows are painted in their most delicate and deepest tints;while midway across the cataract, the water seems in its descent to encounter here and there projecting ledges of rock, which throw out the spray at right angles, like volumes of smoke from the mouths of some ordnance hidden beneath. You are now beneath tihe most stupendous Cataract of the world; and by the testimony of accomplished travellers who have climbed the Alps, the Himalaya, and the Pyramids, and visited every shore and every sea, before you is the chief wonder of, the most magnificent sight on earth. And I can truly say, that whencesover or at whatever hour, I viewed them, “the Spirit of GOD’T seemed to me moving “upon the face of those waters“-the one thought ever present to, ever forced upon my mind, at every turn, at every point of view, was-GOD! Never did I feel so strikingly the littleness of man-never so thrillingly the presence of the Supreme! Nor was it always in one attribute, or one class of attributes, and that of the more awful kind. For never was there a place where the beautiful and the sublime, the soothing and the terrible, were so blended. You cross upon a frail and trembling bridge an arm of the rapids, till you completely overlook from the projecting ter mination of that daring structure the raging and foaming cauldron beneath-and you turn to the island which you have just left, and see all the wxitching romance of most sequestered streets, and the most perfect rural beauty. You prostrate yourself upon the brink of Table Rock, that you may send your gaze far under that beetling canopy of stone into the dim caverns behind and belowand the rainbow, spanning the abyss ill remarkable entireness and beauty meets your delighted eye, and tells of hope and peace amid that wild tumult and terror. You descend to the edge of the gulf below -you creep along the slippery and insecure footpath which leads far above it-you look upward, and the overhanging rock which shoots its tablet stone far outward beyond you, seems just ready t-y fall-you press on, till amid a blinding whirlwvind3 and torrents of spray you pass’” within the veil,’” behind the Great Sheet of water where a single mis-step, or a moment’s loss of self-command would hurl you into that roaring abyss,-but soon you emerge in safety, and discover skirting this very scene of terror the most striking displays of natural beauty-the sparkling of transparent waters in the sun-their pure and brilliant emerald as it passes the brink of the crescent glittering like an ever- forming and majestic gem, in beautiful contrast with the snowy whiteness of the foam around it-while in all directions the prismatic tints are shining clearly out. Thus GOD in His Power-and GOD in His Benignity and Love, meet you at every turn! Nor is it by sight alone, that Niagara speaks to the soul of its all-present God. I have been at midnight, with no other light but that of the pale stars, and stood on the very verge of that mighty cataract. All was indistinct to the eye,-save as its spectral foam was reflected in the dim starlight;-but to the ear, and through that to the soul, how thrilling, how solemn and grand were its voices! Miss Sedgwick, in one of her beautiful tales makes one of its youthful characters-as he stands upon Table Rock, where all had been hushed into silence by the magnificent vision before them-exclaim “Whlat is it, Mother, that makes us all so silent?” The reply is in part in the sublime words of the sacred historian —” It is in the spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters!” It is in this new revelation to our senses of his power and majesty which ushers us, as it were, into His visible presence, and exalts our affections above language.“’ Well, indeed, might man be hushed before that glorious manifestation of the presence of his maker,-and lhen he has mused ill silence, until he has caught the ftill import of the wondrous scene, he will prostrate his spirit in adoration and worship. Stupendous, however, as is Niagara-ever-flowing. unwearied, unexhausted in its career, as seems that wondrous cataract-symbol, as I have called it, of the Eternal-how clear is it, that there is another thought upon the subject quite as striking and true. Stutpendous as it is, it will have an end. Ever-flowimg as is that rushing torrent, it will yet be hushed and gone. Symbol of eternity as it now appears, the symbol will fade before the reality. Nay, while I write, I feel that to us it may be a symbol of something of the deepest, personal interest;-of Time, ever-flowving -and we, we, are upon its current To some of us, it may be, so calmly and gently are we gliding on, that its soft and mirror-like surface scarce seems to be floating us away; but the rapids are before us, and each one in turn must pass, as do the successive drops which compose that mighty volume of waters, into the dark, deep gulf! How-r delighting, how cheering to the soul, that over that dark, deep gulf, has the Sun of Righteousness lighted up the rainbow of Hope!
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FROM THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. PETER AND ST PAUL.
BY THE REV. GEORGE BURGESS
BEHOLD the forum’s throng, the murm’ring street, The bath, the bridge, the scenes where millions meet. Each land has exiles there, for none is firee; All loathe the lords, as all have bowed the knee. Numidia’s swarthy son, subdued at length; The blue.eyed German with his giant strength; The graceful chiefs of some devoted host That bled to guard their Britain’s lovely coast; The crouching form where lurks a bitter heart That yet may teach how true the Parthian dart; The Hebrew doomed a tenfold scorn to brook, A tenfold anguish writhing in his look; All, all are here: nor theirs the pride to share, WVaked by this pomp of famed, and grand, and fair: Their’s but to plod the way of wily gain, Or curse the arts that forged and decked the chain. And wish one equal day one equal field, WAVhere nought should win, but lance, and sword and shield. In joy returned from wars of distant lands, Marked by his scars, the legion’s veteran stands The tall pretorian nods his helm of pride, The massy pavement ringing to his stride Solemn and slow, the stately priests ascend, In worship not their own to strike or bend; The patient sculptor wakes to gradual view Ideal forms and dreams not all untrue; The expecting crowd surround the patron’s gate The morning chariot rolls in gilded state; The light buffoon with idle jibe and jest, Scans the nerved athlet’s mighty arm and chest Morn warms with life the city’s utmost vein, Anrid every passion holds its wonted reign. * * * * * * O’er the vast throng a brief, deep silence sank; From the fallen prey astonished vengeance shrank Thlen, hoarse and faint, arose the heartless call, “So let the foes of Rome and Coesar fall!” Alone stood Simon: - Round his torn limbs the sevenfold bands they wvound, And his swollen forehead almost pressed the ground; They strained each cord, they cleft each gushing vein9. They plied each weapon of distracting pain: Each pang’s, each torture’s woki, amazed they viewed>. Each pang3 each torture pierced, but none subdued. But ere the hammer heaved its closing blow, Chill, chill and faltering rolled the life blood slow Ere half their bootless rage the torments spent, On angel wings the sweet release was sent. * * * * * * And thou, who comest from thine own Northern land On Roman dust in memory’s trance to stand, When thine enchanted feet have learned to stray Through all this classic waste of old decay; Imperial halis half hid mid lowly vines, Fair imaged saints that smile o’er conquered shrines Arch far o’er arch, where moss and ivy grow, Columns that stood whi!e empires fell below, The walks where fables morning shadows spread, The graves and trophies of the mighty dead: When thou hast wandered arts impassioned slave, And owned what might to man the maker gave; When o’er thy soul the spirit of the past All its thick cloud of solemn dreams hath cast, Then seek with me, some spot where fancy’s ear The apostle martyr’s echoing voice may hear And firom that spot behold, behind, before, As round a rock, the sea of ages roar. Thou hast a bark to cross the stormy tide; Thou too must follow, and perchance may’st guide From first to last one sovereign power extends, And all the light the worth the glory blends; It filled those breasts, it centered in that hour, It crowned that spot: knowest thou that sovereign power? Hast thou not felt, oh! feel its presence now, And hast thou felt, ill meek devotion bowv: And when thy words,’in home’s delighted hall, The tale, the scenes, the dreams of Rome recall, i’Then be thou strcng to walk where such have led Arm for the field where worthier bosoms bled; And find thy bliss to see amidst thy sphere, !n life. in death, the closing conquest near.
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ON THE VALUE OF LIBERAL STUDIES.
BY WILLIAM G. G ODDARD,
PROFESSOR OF BELLES LETTRES IN BROWN UNIVERSITY.
LIBERAL Studies are adapted not only to moderate all extravagant desire for wealth, but to aid in establishing the true principles upon which wealth should be expended. In a country like our own, these principles, if well understood, are apt to be very imperfectly applied. The primitive stages in the progress of refinement we have long since passed. Leaving far in the rear the cheap pleasures, the simple habits, and the unpretending hospitalities of our forefathers, we have engaged, it is to be feared, somewhat too largely, in the career of ambitions splendor, and inappropriate magnificence. Impelled too often by the unworthy desire to surpass our neighbors, in some matter of mere external embellishment, we lavish thousands, in multiplying around ourselves the elements of an elegant and selfish voluptuousness. I am distressed by no morbid apprehensions concerning the progress of luxury in our land. I am terrified by no apparition of monopoly. I utter no response to the vulture cry of the Radical, now heard in the distance. I am far from thinking that the opulent ought to diminish their expenses. I believe that, with signal advantage, they might increase them. But in the selection of those objects of embellishment which it is in the power alone of abundant wealth to command, I am not singular in contending that the decisions of a simpler and better taste ought not to be disregarded. Is it not a matter of just reproach, that of all the apartments in our mansion houses, the library is generally the most obscure, and often the most ill furnished; and that the fashionable upholsterer is allowed to absorb so much of our surplus revenue, that hardly any is left for the Painter and the Statuary? In all this, there is manifested a melancholy disproportion-an imperfect apprehension of some of the best uses to which wealth can be applied. In the spirit of an austere philosophy, it is not required that we should dispense with those costly ornaments which can boast no higher merit than their beauty; but it would be hailed as a most benignant reform, if, in the arrangements of our domestic economy, there could be traced a more distinct recognition of the capacities and destinies of man as an intellectual and moral being-as a being endowed with Imagination and Taste-with Reason and with Conscience. How few among ius cultivate the Fine Arts! How few understand the principles upon which they are founded-the sensitive part of our nature to which they are addressed! To this remark, the imperfect knowledge of Music, which, in obedience to the authority of fashion, is acquired at the boarding school, forms no exception. It may still be affirmed, that we have among us no class who delight in Music as one of their selectest pleasures; who gaze with untiring admiration upon the miraculous triumphs of Painting; who are filled with tranquil enthusiasm by the passionless and unearthly beauty of Sculpture. And is not this to be lamented? Do we not thus estrange ourselves from sources of deep and quiet happiness, to which we might often resort for solace, and refreshment, and repose? To these sources of happiness there is nothing in the nature of our political institutions, or of our domestic pmusuits, which sternly forbids an approach. We have, it is true, no titled aristocracy; and property does not, as in the land
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of our forefathers, accumulate in large masses, and descend, undivided, through along line of expectant proprietors. But there is scarcely a city, a town, or a village, in this land, where some could not be found, blessed with every requisite but the disposition, to acquire a genuine relish for the fine arts. Nay, more-in our larger cities, all of which boast their commercial prosperity, and some their Athenian refinement, why should not the masters of the pencil and the chisel be employed to furnish for the private mansion those precious decorations, which alone are secure from the capricious despotism of fashion? By thus expending some portion of their superabundant wealth, the opulent would drink deeply of those finer joys which are perversely left unlapproachled by the indolent, the voluptuous and the profligate. Thus, too, would they gather around themselves almost inexhaustible means of wvinning others from sordid pursuits, to the contemplation of the imperishable glories of Genius and of Art. The value of Liberal Studies, in counteracting the influence of politics upon the individual and social character of our countrymen, deserves next to be considered. Politics is with us becoming a distinct, though not very reputable trade; the strife for power is hardly less eager than the strife for gain; a new code of political ethics has been established, for the accomplishment of pliant consciences; and, almost without an exception, the public men of both parties, and of all parties, tired of waiting for popularity to run after them, are now eager to run after popularity. Who now so intrepid as to dare to take his stand, upon grave and well defined principles? In these days of meek condescension to the will of the people, and of affected reverence for their good sense, how few care to lead public opinion aright! how many pusillanimously follow it, when they know it to be wrong! Ilow few, alas! will forego the vulgar trappings of office for the sustaining consciousness, that by no sacrifice of principle or of dignity, did they ever seek to win them! I would fain believe that the days of the republic are not numbered; but I am not without sad forebodings of her fate, when aspirants for popular favor are such utter strangers to the grace of an erect and manly spirit as to be solicitous rather to appropriate to themselves, at any cost, some transient distinction, than to await, with unfaltering rectitude and unforfeited self-respect, the judgments of coming times; when the man of wealth, and talent, and social consideration, outstrips the Radical, in zeal for pestilent doctrines and mischievous projects; in fine, when it is incorporated in the creed of the politician, that the people are always in the right; in other words, that public opinion is not only the standard of taste, but the keeper of conscience! Well might I be deemed an unfaithful advocate of Liberal Studies, if, in estimating their value, I yielded no tribute of applause to the solid provision which they make for independent individual happiness; for that happiness which is enjoyed, not so much amid the hum and shock of men, as amid the solitude of Nature and of Thought. Living in a land where “men act in multitudes, think in multitudes, and are free in multitudes,” we are constantly tempted to forget the mysterious individuality of our being; to go out of ourselves for materials of enjoyment; to fritter away our sensibilities, and to debilitate our understanding, amid the false and hollow gaieties of the crowd. I contend for no severe estrangement from the joys of a chaste and elegant conviviality; for no exclusive intercourse with forms of inanimate beauty; for no fearful communion with the mysteries of the inner spirit. But I deprecate habits and tastes which are impatient of seclusion; which destroy all true and simple relish for nature; which scorn all quiet pleasures; which abhor alike the composure and the scrutiny of meditation. As means of reforming tastes and habits thus uncongenial to virtue and to happiness, I can hardly exaggerate the importance of Liberal Studies. I ascribe to them, however, no power to teach rooted sorrow the lesson of sutbmission; to succor virtue amid mighty temptations; to dispel the awful sadness of the inevitable hour. These are the victories of Christian Faith; the grand, and peculiar, and imperishable evidences of its power. But I challenge for Science and for Letters the noble praise of reclaiming us from the dominion of the Senses; of lightening the burden of Care; of stimulating within us the undying principles of the Moral Life.
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DRESS.
BY MRS. ELEANOR B. BURGES.
SOME men pretend that dress is only meant As a protection from the heat and cold In which some little vanity is blent, Which shows itself in jewels and in gold, Well,-let their worships think so-I’m contentTho’ I another story shall unfold. If this be all, the Indians in their skin Of beast, the palm of wit and sense must win. Their woollen manufacturers are bears, Their colors lasting, “dyed when in the wool.” Man gives the brute a stab, and then he tears His coat from off his back with one strong pull; Better than broadcloth superfine it wears, And fits-tho’ made without the tailor’s rule. If it be true that dress is but a cover, This is the shortest method ten times over. And more becoming too,-for then it shows That man indeed is “Lord of the Creation,” And gives him “l’air distingue.“-Now his clothes But mix and mingle every rank and station; That may have been the object-for who knows From cut or color, what’s a man’s vocation? Black once belonged to priests and undertakers, But now’tis worn by all men save the Qakers, WVomen have long been laughed at-’tis a shame; I’m sure there’s no occasion for a smile, If they endure it longer they are tame, For now they have been silent a great while. Of wit and moralist it is the aim Fair woman from this passion to beguile; “The vanity of dress” their ceaseless cry, While woman has dressed on without reply. But woman has a genius wondrous keen, She reads in dress what sages read in stars, She need not go beyond this world I ween, To learn of Fate or Destiny —which bars Or seems to bar us in. Much can be seen In millinery shops, which helps or mars The “March of Mind“-for upon Fashion’s banner, New truths are written in a certain manner. Now I have come to my great proposition, Dress is a hieroglyphic of the mind! I do maintain against all opposition, Champollion in Egypt did not find So deep a mystery-his supposition, For what I know, is learnedly refined. But for dark things we need not go to Egypt And look on marble temples or see crypt. No!-if you wish a puzzle look on me! Tell, if you can, why I wear this or that? My coat, if I have one, is thus, you see, And my cap so, and so my shoe and hat; “It is the style” you say-why that may be; But why such style? you cannot tell, “that’s flat.’” Dress is the spirit of the age corporeal! Sometimes’tis “l’esprit solide,” sometimes “gloriole.’ It was the fashion once as you all know, To wear stick heels and powder and brocade, Now this was hieroglyphical to show The mind on stilts and formally arrayed In others’ manufacture-all was so Stately and stiff; the mind and dress both made For courts and courtiers only to be used; By common people both would be abused. Then simple thought and dress came in together In that Emporium of both “Belle France.” The same age saw pomatum, powder, feather, And the Bastile demolished-at a glance, Toupees went off with heads. Now whether They thought them symbols, and that’twould advance The cause of Freedom, thus to change the Fashion, I do not know; but thus they long did dash on! When Kings threw off their royal purple dress, Their majesty went too, with these externals, And their corporeal part became, I guess, What the conundrum has it. The diurnals Soon found, that in those ermine robes, no less Than in the man, was royalty-the journals Mlade war on privilege, and shii ts with ruffles, Which led to riots and to horrid scuffles.
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When they dethroned their rulers, then their hair WVas “a la Brutus“-male and female head BothI cropp’d-and Madame Tallien, the fair, \Vho lectured to the learned-when she read She dressed quite masculine, and had the air Of the most noble sex, and all she said Was just like what she wore — which clearly shows She thought there was some meaning in her clothes. And when against the Turks rose up the Greeks, WVhy then all heads, we know, were “a la Grec.” And this thing lasted, I believe, for weeks, And curls were flowing o’er each graceful neck For Greece and not for beauty! He who seeks To know the hobby of the day, and specUlate on what is coming, need but know The latest Paris mode and what’s “the go!“ And thus you see, that Fashion is symbolical. It is an art, a science, quite profound; Its characters are always metaphorical, In which the spirit of the Age is found, And, if you will not think me tautological, And in my words see less of sense than sound, I’ll say again, that dress is hieroglyphical, And hats and caps and SLEEVES are ideographical!
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THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
BY THE REV. JONATHAN MIAXCY, D.D.
THE nobler part of man clearly evinces this great truth that there must be a God uncaused, independent and complete. When we consider tile boundless desires and the inconceivable activity of the soul of man, we can refer his origin to nothing but God. How astonishing are the reasoning faculties of man! How surprising the power of comparing, arranging and connecting his ideas! How wonderful is the power of imagination! On its wings, in a moment, wve can transport ourselves to the most distant part of the universe. We can fly back, and live the lives of all antiquity, or surmount the limits of time, and sail along the vast range of eternity. * * * This great Being is every where present. He exists all around us. Wherever we turn, his image meets our view. We see him in the earth, in the ocean, in the air, in the sun, moon and stars. We feel him in ourselves. He is always working round us; he performs the greatest operations, produces the noblest effects, discovers himself in a thousand different wvays, and yet the real God remains unseen. All parts of creation are equally under his inspection. Though he warms the breast of the highest angel in heaven, yet he breathes life into the meanest insect on earth. He lives through all his works, supporting all by the word of his power. He shines in the verdure that clothes the plains, and the lily that delights the vale, and the forest that waves on the mountain. He supports the slender reed that trembles in the breeze, and the sturdy oak that defies the tempest. Far in the wilderness, where human eye never saw, where the savage foot never trod, there he bids the blooming forest smile, and the blushing rose open its leaves to the morning sun. There he causes the feathered inhabitants to chant their wild notes to the listening trees and echoing mountains. There nature lives ill all her wanton wildness. From the dark stream that rolls through- the forest, the silver-scaled fish leap up, and dumbly utter the praise of God. Though man remains silent, yet God will have praise. * * When you survey this globe of earth, with all its appendages; when you behold it inhabited by numberless ranks of creatures, all moving in their proper spheres, all verging to their proper ends, all animated by the same great source of life, all supported at the same great bounteous table; when you behold not only the earth, but the ocean and the air, swarming with living creatures, all happy in their situation; when you behold yonder sun, darting a vast blaze of glory over the heavens, garnishing mighty worlds, and waking ten thousand songs of praise; when you behold unnumbered systems diffused through vast immensity, clothed in splendor, and rolling ill majesty; when you behold these things, your affections will rise above all the vanities of time; your full souls will struggle with extacy, and your reason, passions and feelings, all united, will rush up to the skies, with a devout acknowledgment of the existence, power, wisdom and goodness of God. Let us behold him, let us wvonder, let us praise and adore. These things will make us happy They will wean 11us from vice, and attach us to virtue. 1795.
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TO THE AUTUMN FOREST.
BY WILLIAM J. PABODIE.
RESPLENDENT hues are thine! Triumphant beauty-glorious as brief! Burdening w%ith holy love the heart’s pure shrine, Till tears afford relief. What tho’ thy depths be hushed! More eloquent in breathless silence thou, Than when the music of glad songsters gushed From every green.robed bough. Gone from thy walks the flowers! Thou askest not their forms thy paths to fleck;The dazzling radiance of these sunlit bowers Their hues could not bedeck. I love thee in the Spring, Earth-crowning forest! when amid thy shades The gentle South first waves her odorous wing, And joy fills all thy glades. In the hot Summer time, WVith deep delight thy sombre aisles I roam, Or, soothed by some cool brook’s melodious chime, Rest on thy verdant loam. But 0, when Autumn’s hand Hath marked thy beauteous foliage for the grave, How doth thy splendor, as entranced I stand, My willing heart enslave! I linger then with thee, Like some fond lover o’er his stricken bride; Whose bright, unearthly beauty tells that she Here may not long abide. WVhen MY last hours are come, Great God! ere yet life’s span shall all be filled, And these warm lips in death be ever dumb, This beating heart be stilled, Bathe thou infi hues as blestLet gleams of Heaven about my spirit play! So shall my SOUL to its eternal rest, In glory pass away!
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FROM A DISCOURSE, DELIVERED ON THE SECOND CENTENNIAL
ANNIVERSARY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF PROVIDENCE.
BY THE HON. JOHN PITMAN.
IT was in the summer of 1636, that Roger Williams, banished from Massachusetts, and warned by the friendly voice of the Governor of Plymouth, sought an asylum beyond the territories of Christian men. Forsaking his plantation at Seekonk, he embarked on the Pawtucket, approaching the western shore, was greeted with the friendly qwhatcheer of the natives, and doubling the southern promontories directed his little bark where a beautiful cove received the waters of the Moshassuck. Here he landed; beneath the forest boughs, and beside a crystal spring, he sought refreshment and repose; here he offered up his thanks to God, that when the hearts of his civilized brethren were alienated, he had found sympathy, protection and sustenance from the rude children of nature; and here in the thankfulness of his heart for past mercies, and full of pious hope for the future, he fixed his abode and named it Providenice. The spring remains and sends forth its refreshing waters, the only local memorial of the place of his landing and settlement. The principle remains which brought him hither, unimpaired by time, its truth tested and enforced by the experience of two hundred years, and now constituting, not the reproach of a small, despised, and persecuted colony, but the glory and happiness of millions of fr- e3men. To commemorate this event, to honor this founder, to dwell on some passages of our history which may help us to appreciate the perils, toils, and sufferings of the Narragansett pilgrims, to discharge a portion of that debt which is due to the memory of our worthy ancestors, to cherish those principles which have made us what we are, and which we hope to transmit as their best inheritance to posterity -for these high purposes we are here assembled. The dimensions of our State are humble; the politician of the day, in his estimate of relative power, regards us as of small account; but in the history of mind, in the progress of intellectual and moral excellence, what is there, from the dawn of the reformation, unito the present day, of more im portance than the principle which gave birth to our State, and has pervaded all our institutions? We celebrate annually the birth day of our inde pendence, and long may we continue to celebrate it, not because we should delight in the story of wrong and outrage, of battles fought and battles won; but because it tells the price of freedom, and shows how dearly it was purchased. But of what value is independence? Why rejoice that we have broken a foreign yoke, if it should only prepare us for a domestic yoke of greater oppression. Unless our liberty is preserved, the story of the revolution would only cause us to lament that so much blood had been shed, and so much suffering endured in vain. It is liberty which gives to our annual celebrations their greatest charm, their best propriety. It is that true liberty may be well understood, and duly appreciated, that lessons of wisdom may, on this day, be inculcated, that they may be enforced by examples of heroism and patriotism which abounded in those glorious days of our republic-it is for these great ends, that this day should be commemorated, from age to age, by all that can impress the youthful mind, or animate and purify maturer years. If, then, liberty is the charm which awakens all hearts, shall we forget him who proclaimed, and suffered for proclaiming a principle which is the corner stone of freedom, and who made it the basis of our State? a principle without which perfect civil liberty cannot long exist, and the existence of which
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will ultimately destroy tyranny in church and state? Civil liberty may exist to a certain extent without religious liberty; but where religious liberty exists, her triumph insures the triumph of civil liberty. Destroy the hierarchy and you have removed the firmest support of the throne; if the throne continues, it must be filled, not by an arbitrary monarch, but a constitutional kling, who executes the will of the people. Look at the history of despotism, and you will find a two-fold cord has bound the human race. Force has enslaved the body, and superstition the mind. What but this has prevented, in our day, the regeneration of Spain and Portugal? And what but this has deformed the history of South-American liberty and independence? The mind, free to act upon religious topics, unawed by councils, popes, or prelates, will not acknowledge the divine, or, ill modern phrase, the legitimate right of kings. It was for this reason that the reformation accomplished so much for civil liberty, and that the puritans of England were the great reformers in church and state.* HIow long would the principles of the reformation have continued if the principle of Roger Williams had not been engrafted upon them? The pope was quite as good a head of the church as Henry the eighth; quite as tolerant as Elizabeth, or James the first. The yoke of the Lords Bishops, of England, was not more intolerable than the dominion of the Lords brethren of Massachusetts. Take the most liberal sect among us, and give it dominion over all others, make it the religion of the State, give it patronage, and tythes from the property of all, and how long would it be before fit instruments would be found to conspire against our civil liberties, or a people servile enough to wear the chains of imperial and ecclesiastical bondage? * “So absolute, indeed, was the authority of the crown, that the precious spark of liberty had been kindled, and was preserved by the puritans alone; and it was to this sect, whose principles appear so frivolous, and habits so ridiculous, that the English ozwe th.e whole freedom of their Constitution.“-Hume’s England, chap. 40, Elizabeth’s reign. Manly fear that they behold already, among us, the signs of political degeneracy, in the influence of that patronage which extends to every village of the Union; but if you should add to this a permanent power to feed the bodies, and sway the souls of men, how long, think you, we should celebrate, with the spirit of freemen, the anniversary of our indepen dence, or take any pleasure in perpetuating the evi dences of our degeneracy? I say, then, and without fear of contradiction from those who give it due reflection, that the principle of liberty of conscience, which was first promulgated ill Massachusetts by Roger Williams, which he boldly maintained before all their magistrates and ministers, and which, driven from thence, he brought to these shores, and made the inheritance of our children-that this principle is of more consequence to human liberty than Magna Charta, and constitutes, of itself, a bill of rights which practically secures the enjoyment of all. Whlat honors, then, should cluster around his name, who, in an age when the most enlightened failed to perceive the simple and majestic proportions of this great truth, perceived it with a clearness, and illustrated it with a force, to which no succeeding age has added, and which now constitutes so much of the freedom and happiness of our common country. If we cannot comnpare with our sister States in the empire of matter, we may venture to compare with them in the empire of mind, and challenge them to produce a principle, in their settlement or progress, more vital than this to the perpetuation of our liberties. * * * *
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TO A SMILING INFANT.
BY SAMUEL W. PECKHAIM.
” Pibi semper sine nubibus aether Integer, et large diffuso lumine ridat.“-Lucretius, “A PENNY for your thoughts,” fair child! A penny! aye, I’d part With countless treasures, could I read The secrets of that heart; Could I but feel the careless joy That fills thy laughing eyes, And know the gay imaginings That o’er thy fancy rise. I’ve pondered o’er the classic tomes Of Roman and of Greek, Intent through an illusion dark, Some hidden truth to seek; And as its light with thrilling power Flashed from the beaming line, A rapture which the scholar’s life Alone imparts, was mine. But oh,’t were bliss beyond compare, To read on infant thought The pure impress of God’s own truth, Ere sin its blight has wrought; To see its power to fill the soul With unalloyed delight, And throw o’er fancy’s magic screen Forms of the pure and bright. Smile on, smile on, though vain the wish, May’st thou for aye, as now, Unsullied keep the stamp of truth Upon thine open brow, Still may the joyous laugh speak out Unclouded firom thine eyes, Till Heaven reclaims its errant guest, And takes thee to the skies.
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THE CHURCHES OF NEW-ENGLAND.
BY THE REV. EZRA STILES, D. D.*
LET the great errand into America never be forgotten. Let our children be made well acquainted, among other parts of sacred history, with the history of the Hebrew nation; in which they will see examples of public reward and public chastisement of providence in a very striking light. From the ancient example let our churches be warned, very carefully to avoid the two capital errors which proved the ruin of the Hebrew republic, and which will never fail eventually to subvert the best constituted empire-I mean corruption in religion at the publie virtue; and disunions. I have observed that our churches, in a disting,uished sense from almost all the protestant world are founded on the Bible. Our worthy and venerable ancestors, (be their memories dear to posterity) did not, like other protestant patrons, form a system of what they thought and judged to be the true sense of revelation, and establish this for the truth; no-it was enough for them that the Bible was the inspired rule, and this they made the only rule, *-Note 2.-See Appendix. And hence, if on examination we should find any of the received doctrines or usages among the churches, dissonant to the sacred oracles,-if we only judge so,-if this on deliberation be our opinion, we may freely enjoy and profess our judg ment and oppose such doctrines or customs by alleging from the scriptures only; without appealing to human tests of divine truth, or encountering the civil and ecclesiastical hostilities with which they have been too generally enforced. The present bounds of New England, the greater part of which is yet a wilderness, permit an increase of seven millions. If Providence should complete the reduction of Canada and an honorable peace annex it to the British crown, we may extend our settlements into new provinces, or to the western part of those provinces which by the charters cross the continent to the Pacific ocean. With pleasure we anticipate the rapid settlement of new towns and provinces around us, and filling them up with millions of inhabitants. We transport ourselves to the distance of a hundred years forward, look over the wide spread wilderness, see it blossom like the rose, and behold it planted with churches and temples consecrated to the pure worship of the most Higlh-when our present plain edifices shall be succeeded with a nobler species of building not indeed with temples whose colonades are decked with the gilt busts of angels winged; but temples adorned with all the decent ornaments of the most sublime and august architecture-when divinely resplendent truth shall triumph, and our brethren of the congregational communion may form a body of seven millions! A glorious and respectable body this, for Truth and Liberty. Well might our fathers die with pleasure, and sacrifice their lives with joy to lay the foundation of such a name, of such a peculiar people whose numbers so soon increase like the sand of the sea, or the stars of heaven, and what is more, whose God is the LORD. 1760.
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“MAN WAS” NOT “MADE TO MOURN.”
BY THOMAS C. HARTSHORN.
TUNE. to joy the sprightly measure, Utter not a note of woe, Give a loose to mirth and pleasure, Bid the generous feeling flow. Lo! the bounties of creation To whatever side we turn, Still convey this intimation, Man was never made to mourn. Flowers that deck the earth with glory, Birds that warble in the grove, Tell the same unvaried story Of our great Creator’s love. This should clear the heart of sadness And to pure devotion raise, Sorrow is ungrateful madness, Cheerfulness is silent praise. Though the clouds of dark despair Often gather round the soul, Mirth should scatter them in air And dispense its sweet control. While the bounteous hand of Heaven Pours its gifts from plenty’s horn, Though some transient ties are riven, Grateful hearts should briefly mourn.
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PLAN FOR A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.
BY THE HON. ASHER ROBBINS.
AN Institution, I conceive, may be devised, of which, at present there is no model either in this country or in Europe; giving such a course of education and discipline as would give to the faculties of the human mind an improvement and power far beyond what they obtain by the ordinary systems of education; and far beyond what they afterwards attain in any of the professional pursuits. Such an Institution, as to its principle, suggested itself to the sagacious and far-seeing mind of Bacon, as one of the greatest importance. But while his other suggestions have been followed out with such wonderful success in extending the boundaries of physical science, this has been overlooked and neglected. One reason is, that the other suggestions were more elaborately explained by him; there, too, he not only pointed out the path, but he led the way in it himself. Besides, those other suggestions could be carried out by individual exertion and enterprise, independently of the existing establishments. But this required an original plan of education, and a new foundation for its execution; where the young mind would be trained by a course of education and discipline that would unfold and perfect all his faculties; where the genius would plume his young wings, and prepare himself to take the noblest flights. The idea, however, was not entirely original with Bacon; for it would be in effect but the revival of that system of education and discipline which produced such wonderful improvement and power of the human mind in Greece and Rome, and especially in Greece. Its effects here, I am persuaded, would be many and glorious. Of these I shall now indicate only one; but that one whose importance all must admit. In its progress, and ultimately, it would give to our country, I have no doubt, a national literature of a high and immortal character. However mortifying to our national pride it is to say it, it must be confessed that we have not a national literature of that character; nor is it possible we ever should have, as it appears to me, on our present systems of education. Not that our literature, such as it is, is inferior to that of other nations produced at the present day. No; mediocrity is the character of all literary works of the present day, go where you will. It is so in England, it is so in France, the two most literary nations of Europe. It is true, learned men and great scholars are every where to be found; indeed, they may be said to abound more than ever; the whole world has become a reading world; the growth of the press is prodigious; but it is all ephemeral and evanescent —all destined to the grave of oblivion. Nor is it that our countrymen have not the gift of genius for literary works of that high and immortal character. Probably no people were ever blessed with it in a greater degree-of which every where we see the indications and the evidence; but what signifies genius for an art without discipline, without knowledge of its principles and skill in that art? Vis consili expers, mole ruit sua; Vim temperatam, Dii quoque provehunt, In majus.“ Literature is now every where mediocre-because the arts of literature are no where cultivated, but every where neglected-and apparently despised. The object of education is two-fold, knowledge and ability; both are important, but ability by far the most so. Knowledge is so far important as it is subsidiary to the acquiring of ability, and no fuirther; except as a source of mental pleasure to the individual. It is ability that makes itself to be felt by society; it is ability that wields the sceptre over the human heart and the human intellect. It is a great mistake to suppose that knowledge imparts ability of course. It does indeed impart ability of a certain kind; for by exercising the attention and the memory it improves the capacity for acquiring; but the capacity to acquire is not ability to originate and produce. No; ability can only be given by the appropriate studies, accompanied with the appropriate exercises-directed by a certain rule, and conducting infallibly to a certain result
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In all the celebrated schools of Athens, this was the plan of education; and there the ingenuous youth blessed with faculties of promise, never failed to attain the eminence aspired to, unless his perseverance failed. Hence the mighty effects of those schools; hence that immense tide of great men which they poured forth on all the departments of science and letters; and especially of letters; and hence, too, the astonishing perfection of their works. A celebrated writer, filled with astonishment at the splendor as well as the number of the works preduced by the scholars of these schools, ascribes the event to the hand of a wonder-wvorking Providence, interposed in honor of human nature, to show to what perfection the species might ascend. But there was nothing of miracle in it; the means were adequate to the end. It is no wonder at all that such schools gave to Athens her Thutcydides in history, her Plato in ethics; Sophocles to her drama, and Demosthenes to her forum and her popular assemblies; and gave to her besides, that host of rivals to these and almost their equals. It was the natural and necessary effect of such a system of education; and especially with a people who held, as the Athenians did, all other human considerations as cheap in comparison with the glory of letters and the arts. It is true, this their high and brilliant career of literary glory was but of short duration; for soon as it had attained its meridian blaze, it was suddenly arrested, for the tyrant came and laid the proud freedom of Athens in the dust, and the Athenians were a people with whom the love of glory could not survive the loss of freedom. For freedom was the breast at which that love was fed; freedom was the element in which it lived and had its being; freedom gave to it the fields where its most splendid triumphs were achieved. The genius of Athens now drooped; fell from its lofty flights down to tame mediocrity-to ephemeral works born but to languish and to die; and so remained during the long rule of that ruthless despotism-the Macedonian; and until the Roman came to put it down, and to merge Greece in the Roman Empire. Athens now was-partially restored again to freedom. Her schools which had been closed, or which had existed only in form, revived with something of their former effect. They again gave forth some works worthy of her former fame, though of less transcendent merit; and they now gave to Rome the Roman eloquence and literature. Gracia capta serum Victorem cepet, et artes JntuLlet agresti satis: and, if we are wise to profit by their example, may yet give to us an equal eloquence and literature. I mention these things to show what encouragement we have to this enterprise-what well-grounded hope of success. We have only to tread the path that led the Athenian to his glory, and to open that path to the youth of our country. All the animating influences of freedom exist here in still greater force than they existed there; for, while it is not less absolute here, it is better regulated-better combined with order and security. Neither is the gift of genlius wanting here; the gleams of this precious ore are seen to break out here and there all over the surface of our society; the animuts acer et sublimis is daily displayed by our countrymen in all the forms of daring and enterprise; the Eagle, their emblem, is not more daring in his flights. And if the love of fame, which was the ruling passion of the Greek, is not now so strong with us, it is because the want of the means, the want of plain and sure directions for its pursuits, begets a despair of its attainment. The Greek had these means, had these plain and sure directions; and it was the certainty of success by perseverance and by their guide that kindled and sustained his passion and made it his ruling passion. This passion is now burning in the young bosoms of thousands of our youth; but it is, as I have said, vis consili expers, and struggles in vain because it struggles blindly for the fame it pants after. Let this Athenian mode of education be adopted in this instance* let it produce but a few examples of eminent success, and thousands would rush to the path that had led to that success; and there are many among us yet young enough to see a new era arising in our land-another golden age of literature, no less splendid than any that has gone before it-not excepting even the Athenian.
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OLD GRIMES.
BY ALBERT G. G REENE.
OLD Grimes is dead; that good old mars \Ve never shall see more:He used to wear a long, black coat All buttoned down before. His heart was open as the day, His feelings all were true; His hair was some inclined to grey, He wore it in a queue. *Referring to the Smithsonian bequest. Whene’er he heard the voice of pain, His breast with pity burned; The large, round head upon his cane From ivory was turned. Kind words he ever had for all; He knew no base design: His eyes were dark and rather small, His nose was acquiline. He lived at peace with all mankind, In friendship he was true: His coat had pocket holes behind, His pantaloons were blue. Unharmed, the sin which earth pollutes He passed securely o’er, And never wore a pair of boots For thirty years or more. But good old Grimes is now at rest, Nor fears misfortunes frown: He wore a double-breasted vest; The stripes ran up and down. He modest merit sought to find, And pay it its desert; Hle had no malice in his mind, No ruffles on his shirt. His neighbors he did not abuse, Was sociable and gay; He wore large buckles on his shoes, And changed them every day. His knowledge, hid from public gaze, He did not bring to view,Nor make a noise, town.meeting days, As many people do. His worldly goods he never threw In trust to fortune’s chances; But lived, (as all his brothers do,) In easy circumstances. Thus undisturbed by anxious cares, His peaceful moments ran; And every body said he was A fine old gentleman
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ON NOVEL WRITING.
BY MRS. JULIA CURTIS.
ALTHOUGH we fully appreciate the various styles of novel-writing which belong to the present age, yet, we give the preference to the smoothly told tale, which bears the impress of nature, and leads the imagination gradually on with the skill of a narrator, whose impassioned feeling is gracefully controlled. Those works which abound in passionate starts, in wild and unnatural impulses and incidental sketches of love-lorn damsels and disappointed artists, though they may possess passages of striking beauty, are infinitely less perfect than the rational, though highly wvrought relations indited by greater minds. Nor do we hesitate to assert that no other than the highest order of intellect, can produce tales resplendent with natural beauty; for it is much easier to write a rhapsody, than a true and vivid description, and less difficult to depict the disjointed ravings of madness, than to trace the upward progress of a reasoning and philosophic mind. Any one can fancy sources of excitement which may influence the villain or the maniac; but few can analyze the deep stirrings of the pure and highminded, or the darker workings of the every day hypocrite. It requires an accurate knowledge of human nature, united to a keen and reflective mind, to do this; and as few possess these properties in connexion with the imagination, requisite for the accompanying plot, such romances are rare. Greater genius is displayed in depicting the stern determination of Balfour of Burley, and the subtlety of Rashleigh Osbaldistone, than the open villainy of Paul Clifford, or the haughty reserve of Eugene Aram. To these last novels, however, we would accord great praise. Their author is a man of brilliant thought, and admirable powers of language. But his works want nature. Human nature as it usually exists, presents a more difficult prototype for the artist, than its occasional distortions. The one requires a common imagination, the other, uncommon observation. It is with the novelist as with the landscape-painter. The latter knows that the hues of the sky and his own colors are oftentimes the same; but to arrange his ingredients so as to present the varied and exquisite shades in nature, to blend each harmoniously with the other, so as to strike the beholder as natural, demands surpassing skill. Thus the man of lively fancy and ordinary abilities, can lay before us an imaginative tale, brilliant but inconsistent, fascinating but anomalous, a mass of possibilities, but utterly deficient in truth and discrimination. Let us not be understood, however. as advocating a suppression of the imagination for the sake of practical good sense. We consider the latter as tame and uninteresting, unattended by the former. We approve of beautiful theories and poetical dreams; and of souls almost bursting with their proud and generous aspirations. These tend to elevate us above the stern realities of life. Though, visionary, they may be so beautifully interwoven with the coarse warp of our natures, as to give a finer character to the whole. One whose fancy thus floats along upon the severer qualities of his mind, reminds us of a bold mountain height, around the rugged outline of which, clouds of the most delicate texture are so artfully wrapt, that the whole seems softened into a heavenly shape of beauty. We do not like those heroes and heroines, who are set apart for display, having a constant fund of difficulty to surmount; as if it were possible to travel up and down a chain of mountains during a whole life without pausing in the vallies to take breath, and consider whether it is better to proceed or to stop short. We would rather observe the mind in this latter process, than behold it so completely wound up, that it must, ere it can stop, either break or run down. An author should relate his tale, like one who had merely observed the actions of others, and hastened to entertain his hearers with their repetition; or “to point a moral” in the events of which he had been an eye witness. But how often in representation, men are made puppets of each other, with each string and pulley apparent to all or, on the contrary, how often are their productions so fiill of plots and counterplots, that like the gordian knot, the whole must be rudely severed, or remain entangled forever. But Scott, Cooper, James, and a few others, belong to that nobler class of writers who make the world their study, and point out the errors of the great, the virtues of the humble, the defects in human laws, and the absurdity of unnatural distinc
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tions. Scott deserves our thanks for the spirit he has infused into the character of his heroines in contrast with those of Cooper, who are invariably tame and insipid, acquiescent without judgment, yielding without grace, and enduring because too weak to resist. This is all wrong. A woman may approach more nearly to the general elements of the male character, without losing her identity, than is usually imagined. Allow her courage as well as fortitude, the capacity to suggest, as well as the disposition to obey, the nerve to act, as well as the power to think, and she is more perfect as a woman, provided she possesses the feminine delicacy of vision to discern the hair-line between energy and boldness, between spirit and manly daring, than she, who with a mind exclusively bent upon the preservation of the distinguishing female graces, passes a life of gentle dependence. There is a noble medium between the headlong torrent and the petty streamlet. It is the flowing river-bold but not boundless- rushing yet constrained-deep, yet not fathomless. A woman cannot preserve her loveliness as a woman, unless her ambition and her love of worldly honors are subservient to the softer impulses of her heart. Shakspeare is right when he makes love control the destinies of his heroines. They may aspire reasonably, but they were never meant to trample upon their own hearts and the hearts of others for empty aggrandizement, as men may do with greater impunity. But even with men, we doubt if there are many whose ambition has not been at some time during their lives, the very slave of their affections. It is extremely interesting to compare the different productions of our best writers with each other. Beginning with Scott, and continuing the observation down to our own Pautlding, it is surprising to see what varied combinations of character are placed before us. It is as useful to give a cursory glance at this imaginary world, as it is actually to mingle withl mankind in their public assemblages, or in the more refined circles. Human nature has been well sifted since the days of Fielding. He is the Shakspeare of prose. Since his bold sketches, writers have drawn more from nature than firom the imagination exclusively, as formerly. It is certainly true also, that the more keenly we scan our fellow beings, the more minute do the complicated folds of their different temperaments appear. Aristotle’s system of a world within a world is more true of the inward than outward nature. Enough is created; imagination need only embellish. Time is not mis-spent in perusing our best novels. We know it is the opinion of some, that when they have Shakspeare and Fielding, Milton, Johnson, &c., before them, they have enough for a life. True, here are mines of thought, but they are susceptible of numberless ramifications. D’Israeli, in his’ Curiosities of Literature,” gives us a chapter upon “Imitations,” which shows how much an idea may be heightened, and how gradual is its approach to perfection. In observing how often the thoughts of others have been imbibed, unconsciously improved and Ye- produced by some of the greatest minds the world has ever known, we are led to believe that there is, strictly speaking nothing new under the sun. In modern days, a man of talent, is a sort of mental alchymist, and we rejoice to say, that greater success has attended the transmutation of heavy suggestions into current truths, than ever crowned the efforts of the ancient searchers for the philosopher’s stone. We do not approve of too much reading. Literature should be absorbed by the mind, exactly as water is taken up by a sponge; itself unseen, save as it increases the bulk of the original material. But to pack down the thoughts of others just as we would pack down a jar of sweetmeats, is absurd in the extreme. When the taste is once formed, then reading may be desultory. Let the compass of the mind be first extended by our acquaintanee with the solid writers, and then, every thing else will be like tributary streams, which swell the original current, while their own tiny natures are lost in its depths. Desultory reading is advantageous, because we are thus led to comprehend the full extent of our own powers. We are often in the beginining, attracted towards our best friends by a casual but happy remark. Thus may the imperfect supposition of others touch a train of thought, which afterwards embodies new and important discoveries. The mind, like the bell, is struck ere it can sound; but the various vibrations, whether they be strong or weak, belong intrinsically to the metal of which it is composed.
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PRIZE POEM.
BY SARAH H. WHITMAN.
Spoken at the opening of the Shakspeare Hall, Providence, November 27, 1838.
HIST! what strange influence hovers in the air? Soft music breathes and festive torches glare, A roseate light illumes the storied wall, And youth and beauty throng the lofty hall; Lo, where the Drama, thro’ the gloom of night, Bursts in soft splendor on the ravished sight! All hail! bright queen of fancy’s fairy train, Long lost, long mourned, resume thy genial reign! Can we forget when first, in childhood’s hour, Our footsteps sought thy vision.haunted bower? When trembling, wondering’mid the enraptured throng, We quaffed the tide of eloquence and songWhile stood revealed the creatures of our dream, Bright, breathing, palpable! scarce could we deem That earth confessed such beauty-to abide With these were life-vain shadows all beside. O cold the hearts that from such’witching sway Could turn unmoved and passionless away. But tho’ less genial prove our western clime, To Art’s bright reign, than when in olden time, Thy noblest influence filled Athena’s halls, While thundering plaudits shook her marble wallsYet have thy temples rose, thine altars smiled, Where late the savage tracked the pathless wild, And far around thy festive notes are borne, Ere fade the echoes of the huntsman’s horn. Once more we bid thee welcome to our shores, Confess thy empire and assert thy cause, Again we haunt thy courts, throng round thy shrine, And pour soft incense to the breathing Nine. Oft when the wint’ry storms shall hurtle round, Or silent snow.flakes print the frozen ground, VWhen the cold rain comes pattering on the blast, And mantling clouds night’s blazing host o’ercast, I-lere shall we sit in this enchanted hall, lWhile “breathing thoughts and burning words” enthral,Regardless of the cold world’s sordid strife, And all the hollow mimicries of lifeNWhere vainer actors idler pageants play, And wvear their masks in the broad eye of day. Oft shall young beauty to this shrine repair, And manhood here cast off life’s coiling care, Entranced and spell- bound by her potent sway, Who “calls each slumbering passion into play“Exulting, trembling, as her accents flow In varying strains of triumph or of woeNow decked in smiles, and now her brow o’er fraught With the pale cast of melancholy thought. Far thro’ the twilight vistas of the past, Where gathering years their cloudy mantles cast, Oft turns her eagle eye, and at its glance, The shadows vanish from that drear expanseLo, at her gaze night melteth into day, And the dark mist of ages rolls away! Each old romantic region hath she traced, And gathered many a floweret from the waste, Which fancy nurtured with her softest dews, While wit and wisdom lent their golden hues. She hath “called spirits from the vasty deep,” Roused kings and heroes from their dreamless sleeps Restored the scenes of a chivalrous age, Where knightly forms heroic conflicts wage, The victor’s triumph on th’ ensanguined field, The plume, the penon, and the blazon’d shieldBade the dead lover’s clay-cold bosom glow, And the slain warrior meet once more his foe,. And caused them for a night on earth to roam, Then pass like spectres to their silent home.
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And now she comes with all her shadowy train To hold her court within this gorgeous faneHere her bright banner fearlessly unfurls, Nor heeds the pointless shaft the bigot hurls. Boundless her influence, her intent sublime, To cherish virtue and to shield from crime, With loftiest theme to rouse the languid heart, And stern reproof with subtle grace impart; To wake the noble love of well earned fame, And teach the glory of a deathless name. She shows how heroes lived and martyrs died And fills the exulting breast with god-like pride, That such high energies to man are given, To conquer earth and ope the gates of heaven. Such themes new vigor to the heart supply, Flush every cheek and light up every eye. WVhether in gorgeous drapery she is seen, Mloving before us like an empire’s queenOr clothed in all the majesty of woe, Bids beauty’s tears like molten diamonds glovwOr vwreathled in smiles, with soft seducing glance, MIakes the warm life blood through the pulses dance, Still ever beautiful she meets the sight, Taking all shapes to furnish new delight, Forever chlanging, yet forever true To one fond aim-approving smiles fiom you. Long may those smiles our virgin temple graces And SHARSPEARE’S spirit hallow all the place.
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IMPOSSIBILITY OF ATHEISM.
BY THE REV. CHARLES T. B ROOKS.
MEN have, in all ages and regions of the world’s felt the great truth that “The awful shadow of some unseen power Floats though unseen among us.“ And one who will study with a penetrating eye tie heathen mythology and mysteries, will find clear traces of a belief in one God of gods running through all,-wvill find reason to say of heathen an-. tiquity ill general, what was so beautifully said in regard to the idolatry of Greece ” And yet-triumphant o’er this pompous show Of art, this palpable array of sense On every side encountered;-a Spirit hung Beautiful Region! o’er thy towns and farms, Statues and temples and memorial tombs.“ The ancient heathen, though he knew not what he worshipped, did in reality dimly adore one Divinity. lie adored, indeed, in name and form, gods of the -\vinds, the woods, and the waters, but it was the one, eternal, almighty, and all pervading spirit or power, which gave life and motion to the wind, the forest and the river, that he felt and reverenced. And we may discern amidst the strange and monstrous creations of the ancient heathen mythologyamidst the strong workings of the heathen mind, a tendency and an effort to make intelligible to the understanding that truth of the being of one supreme power, which has always dwelt and will always dwell in the heart and conscience of man. They bowed down, indeed, to the images of many gods, but there was a Father of gods, as well as of men, as certain of their ownv poets said. And more than this, there were the mysterious and inexorable Fates to whose eternal decrees gods as well as men were subject. The self-styled or self-fancied Atheist, though in his zeal against certain ideas of God that have darkened and degraded the human soul, he may sometimes be hurried so far as to seem to himself, as well as others, to deny Divine Providence itself,-cannot in the wildest wanderings of his spirit, fly from himself and therefore cannot escape from the presence of the Being who made him, who dwells within his body as in a temple, and numbereth the very hairs of his head. And although he may have seen so much iniquity committed in the name of the Most High, as to induce him to refuse that name a place in his system of belief, nevertheless he cannot in fact and in feeling remain “’ without God in the world“-in other words he cannot be actually an Atheist. If he be a man of strong feelings of justice coupled with a somewhat sombre temperament, he will see every where the footsteps of some ever-working, resistless and inexorable power, to which he may give the name of Destiny. And the decrees of this Despot, he will be ever nerving himself to bear and to defy. To him then, Fate or Necessity will be a God. If he be a man of no settled principles whatever-a mere straw on the waves of the world, then you will find him the “dark idolator of chance.” He will court the caprices of a Being who is dimly imaged to his mind under the name of Fortune, and even pray to her in his heart. Or if he be one whose kindlier affections have never been polluted by sophistry or by selfishness, then, however he may declaim against the name or against some of the impulted attributes of Jehovah, his heart will go forth in love and rise in adoration to a Mother Nature-he will worship with all his faculties and feelings a mighty and mysterious power, goodness and wisdomwhich he may choose to call the “Soul of the Universe.” If his spiritual nature be cultivated, he will commune with this all-pervading, all-embracing, all-animating Soul in every place and season. To him the whisper of the winds, the moan of the billows and all the sounds of Nature, will be the audible voice-the universal air will be the breath-and the blue sky the serene countenance of a Being, whom though he may not choose to name him as men name him, his heart and soul and all that is within him, impel him irresistibly to love and reverence as the source and support of all creatures.
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So deeply has the Creator engraven on man’s heart a sense of his being and agency-so true it isto quote a happy illustration of the thought, that as the needle touched by the loadstone, turns, after all its deviations, tremblingly faithful to the pole-so the Sou] of man touched by the Holy Spirit, turns, amidst its wildest errors, tremblingly faithful to the throne of God. PIAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS, SUGGESTED lBY THE (ARTOO,’ OF RAFFAELLE. BY A’-N C. LYNCH. GREECE! hear thlat joyful sound, A stranger’s vOice:-eon thy sacred hill, lvIose tonec shall bid the slumbering nations round~ \ake with oc nvulsive thrill. Athenians gather there, he brings you words brighter than all ycur boasted lore affords. He bring, you inews of One A’bove Olymj)ian Yove. One in whose light Your gods shall fade like -tars before the sun On your bewildered night T-hat UNiKNONowN GOD ef whom ye darkly dreamn in all his burning radiance eha,! beam. Behold5 he bid syu rise , rom your ea.r, Vcrsllip ro:nd thllat idol slhrine, Tlc points to him.hc rear’d your starry skies, And badcle your Ph’cbus shine. lift up your souls fom where in dust ye bow, That God of gods commands your lhomage now, But, brighiter ticldings still! He tells of one whose precious blood was spilt In lavish streams upon Judea’s hill, A ransom for your guilt,Who triumphed o’er the grave, and broke its chain;s \xVb,,rn,,p.’ Dpnth and Hell. and irosa n-, - In Sages of Greece! come nearSpirits of daring tlhoug,ht and giaLit i-riould, Ye questioners of time and nature, hear AMysteries before untold inmmortal life revealed! light for which ye Have tasked in vain your proud philosophy. Searchers for some First Cause Mlidst doubt and darkness, lo! he points to OneVWhere all your vaunted reason lost must pause, And fa,int to think upon. That was from everlasting, that shall be To everlasting still, eternally. Ye followers of him Who deemed his soul a.Qpark of Deity! Your fancies fade,-your master’s dreams grow dlim To this reality. Stoic! unbend that brow, drink in that sound! Skeptic! dispel those doubts, the Truth is found.. Greece! thioughi tlhy sculptured walls -Iave withl thy trmiumpls- and thy glories rung, nd througlh thy temples and thy pillai’d halls, ImnmorItal peets sung, — ’o soudlls like these have rent vourt startled air, Lh’!ley open realms of lig,ht and bid( you enter there.
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ON THE REMOVAL OF THE REMAINS OF WASHINGTON.
BY THE HON. TRISTAM BURGES.
On the 13th of February, 1832, a Resolution wvas intro. duced into the House of Representatives, to remove the remains of Washington from Virginia, and to place them in a vault under the centre of the Capitol. IF I look back towards the beginning of life, memory is in a moment filled with bright and joyous recollections of that time, when even in the distant and humble neighborhood of my birth, the lessons of youth, and of childhood, when the very songs of the cradle were the deeds, the glory, the praises of Washington. Think you, these teachings have ceased in the land; that these feelings are dead in our country? Cannot we, who regard the buried remains of the great Father of our Country, as the earthly remains of no other mortal man are regarded; cannot we, awed and subdued with gratitude, with more than filial piety; cannot we approach the hallowed repository, and roll back the stone from the door of the sepulchre, without the guilt of sacrilege? Cannot his country remove the remains of this, its great Founder; and carry them in solemn procession, accompanied by all the rights of religion, and all the sanctity of its ministers; and finally deposite them in the national cemetry provided for that purpose under the foundation of this building,* which thenceforth shall be, not only the temple of freedom, legislation, and justice, but also the august mausoleum of Washington? Who, of all the civilized world, will, while these reverential movements are performing, who wvill point his finaer at these solemnities, and call them a mere pageant? It is the feeling, the purpose of the persons, and not the place or the subject which renders their deed pious or profane. Can we never again without sacrilege, look into the dark house of those so dear to us, until they, bursting the cerements of the tomb, are clothed with immortality? How often does the piety of children, how often thie anxious affectioln of parents, induce them to remove tile remains of endeared relatives, to places of more appropriate sepuiltutre? I-ow often do nations remc,ve to their own countries, from distant foreign lands, the bones of their illustrious dead? Was it sacrilc-e in the Heibrews, when miigrating from Egypt, to takle friom *Tlhc Capitol at W’ashington. the consecrated catacomb or pyramid, where for centuries they had been deposited, the bones of the illustrious founder of one of their families, and the preserver of them all; and bearing them from the populous valley of the Nile, the learned and luxurious realm of the Pharaoh’s, the scene of all his glory that they might carry them to a land of rocks and mountains; and render his burial place one of the eternal monuments of their country? So it has continued; and at this day it is, by the dwellers on the hill or on the plain, pointed out to the traveller as the tomb of Joseph the Patriarch. We are told that the last will and testament of Washington, points out the place and directs the manner of his interment; and if we remove his bones from their present repository, we shall violate that will, and set at defiance principles dear to all civilized nations. Did indeed, then, this great man prohibit this people from doing honor to his remains by placing them in a mausoleum more suitable to his illustrious life, and to the gratitude of Americans? He, like all Christian men, directed by his last will, that his body should have Christian burial; and prescribed the manner, he selected the place for that purpose. How shall we expound that will? It has been expounded for us; and that too, by one, Evho was the partner of his perils and triumphs, his labors and councils. One, who shared with him all life could give-and stood by him in the hour of dissolution. Think you, that she would have violated his will; and that too in the beginning of her bereavement in the first dark hours of her earthly desolation? “Taught by his great example,” she gave up those remains at the call of her country. I cannot join in the pious incantation of those who would, in imagination, call up the mighty dead, and put them to inquisition, concerning these obsequies. Who, if he might, would bring back fromnt the blessedness of heaven, to the cares of earth, one purified spirit; or for a moment interrupt the felicities of those realms of reality, by any thing which agitates human feelings, in this region of dust and shadows? Permit me to learn from his life, what his country may, with propriety, do with his remains, after his death. When that immortal soul, now as we trust in beatitude, inhabited and animated his mortal part, where was the place, what was the service to which the voice
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of his country called him, and he was not there? In the toils of war, in the councils of peace, he was, soul and body devoted to that people, whom he labored through life to build up into one great nation. Should that body at this time be less at the service of his country, than when alive, with the imperishable soul it was, Washington, aid walked the world, for human wel fare? If his whole life doth tell us, that he placed himself at the call of his country, then truly where should all that remains, be finally found, but where the same voice would place them? We would not raise over him “a pyramid, a monument, like the eternal mountains.“’ No, the folly of ancient ambition, has perished from the earth, while these its monuments still stand iunmoved upon its surface. This House, we trust will endure as long as this nation endures. Let this be the MIausoleum of Washington. We would place his remains in the cemetery built for that purpose, under the centre of that dome which covers the Rotunda. Directly over this on that floor, we would erect a pedestrian statue of that man, sulfficiently colossal, and placed on a pedestal so high and massy, as might be required to fill and satisfy the eye, in the centre of that broad and lofty room, which, probably, has no equal in the architecture of the world. The ever-during marble will give to coming generations the form and the features of Washington; and the traveller of future ages shall learn where he may find his tomb. This House, this Mausoleum of one, who prospered by Divine assistance, perfIormed more for his country and for the human race, than any other mortal, shall be a place of pilgrimage for all nations. Hither will come the brave, the wise, the good, from every part of our country lot to worship, but to stand by the sepulchre and to relume the light of patriotism at the monument of Washington.
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A DAY OF THE INDIAN SUMMER.
BY SARAH H. WHITFIAN.
“Yet one more smile, departing distant sun Ere o’er the frozen earth the loud winds run And snows are sifted o’er the meadows bare.“-Bryant. A DAY of golden beauty!-Through the night The hoar-frost gathered o’er each leaf and spray \Weaving its filmy network, thin and bright And shimmering like silver in the ray Of the soft, sunny morning turf and tree Pranct in its delicate embroidery, And every withered stump and mossy stone, \Vith gems encrusted and withl seed.pearl sown While in the hedge the frosted berries glow, The scarlet holly and the purple sloe, And all is gorgeous, fairy.like and frail As the famed gardens of the Arabian tale. How soft and still the varied landscape lies, Calmly outspread beneath the smiling skies, As if the earth in prodgal array Of gems and broidcred robes kept holiday Her harvest yielded and her work all done Basking in beauty’neath the autumn sun! Yet once more through the soft and balmy day Up the brown hill-side, o’er the sunny brae Far let us rove-or, thlroughl lone solitudes Where “autulmn’s smile beams through the yellow woods,’ Fondl. retracing each went, sumner haunt And sylvan pathway-where the sunbeams slant Thlrough, yonder copse, tinging the saffr,on stars Of the witclh-hlazel with their golden bars, Or. lingering down this dim and shadownvy lane Where still lthe damp sod wears an emerald stain, Though ripe brown nuts hang clustering in the hedge And the rude barberry o’er yon rocky ledge Droops with its pendanl corals. WVhen the showers Of April clothed this winding path with flowers, Here oft Nwe sou,ghIt the violet, as it lay Buried in beds of moss and lichens grey And still the aster greets us as we pass foizh her f,ai-nt cnileam. ong the vwithered grass ’B3eside the way, lingering as loth of heart, ilke me, from these sweet solitudes to part. Now seek we the dank borders of the stream l’here the tall fern.Lufts shed a ruby gleam Over the water from their crimsoned plumes, And clustering near the modest gentian blooms Lonely around-hallowea by sweetest song The last and loveliest of the loral throng. Yet here we may not linger, for behold, Where the stream widens, like a sea of gold Outspreading far before us —all around -Steep wooded heights and sloping uplands bound The sheltered scene-along the distant shore Through colored woods the g’.inting sunbeams pour, Touching their foliage with aL th.osand shades And hues of beauty, as the e:e- liglht fades Utpon the hill-side’neadt- ycn’oating shroud, Or, from the silvery edms f the cloud Pours down a brighter gleamr. Gray wvillows!ave Their pendant branches An the crystal wave, And slender birch-trees o’er its banks incline, WVhose tall, slight stems across the water shine Like shafts of silver-there the tawny elm, The fairest subject of the sylvan realm, The tufted pine-tree and the cedar dark, And the young chestnut, its smooth polished bark ’Gleaming like porphyry in the yellow light, ’The dark brown oak and the rich maple dight In robes of scarlet, all are standing there So still, so calm in the soft misty air That not a leaf is stirring-nor a sound Startles the deep repose that broods around, Save when the robin’s melancholy song
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Is heard from yonder coppice, and along The sunny side of that low, moss-grown wall That skirts our path, the cricket’s chirping call, Or, the fond murmur of the drowsy bee O’er some lone flowret on the sunny lea, And, heard at intervals, a pattering sound Of ripened acorns rustling to the ground Through the crisp, withered leaves.- How lonely alf, How calmly beautiful! Long shadows fall More darkly o’er the wave as day declines, Yet from the west a deeper glory shines, While every crested hill and rocky height Each moment varies in the kindling light To some new form of beauty-changing through All shades and colors of the rainbow’s hue, “The last still loveliest” till the gorgeous day Melts in a flood of golden light away, And all is o’er. Before to-morrow’s sun Cold winds may rise and shrouding shadows dun Obscure the scene-yet shall these fading hues And fleeting forms their loveliness transfuse Into the mind-and memory shall burn The painting in on her enamelled urn In undecaying colors. When the blast Rages around and snows are gathering fast, When mutsing sadly by the twilight hearth Or lonely wandering through life’s crowded path Its quiet beauty rising through the gloom Shall soothe the languid spirits and illume The drooping fancy-winning back the soul To cheerful thoughts through nature’s sweet control.
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THE PRESENT INTELLECTUAL AND POLITICAL CONDITION OF
EUROPE.
BY THE REV. FRANCIS WAYLAND, D.D.
WITHIN the last fifty years, the intellectual character of the middling and lower classes of society throughout the civilized world has materially improved, and the process of improvement is at present going forward with accelerated rapidity. A taste for that sort of reading, which requires considerable reflection, and even some acquaintance with the abstract sciences, is every day becoming more widely disseminated. And not only is the number of newspapers multiplying beyond any former precedent, but it is found necessary to enlist in their service a far greater portion of literary talent than at any other period. And truth obliges us to state, that this melioration owes much of its late advancement to the pious zeal of Protestant Christians. Desirous to extend the means of salvation to the whole human race, these benevolent men have labored with perseverance and success, not only to circulate the Bible, but to enable men to read it. Hence have arisen the British and Foreign Bible Society, the British and Foreign School Society, the Baptist Irish Society, the multiplied free schools, and the innumerable Sabbath Schools, which are so peculiarly the glory of the present age of the church. And surely it is delightful to witness the disciples of Him, who went about doing good, thus girding themselves to the work of redeeming their fellow men from ignorance and sin. O! it is a goodly thing to behold the rich man pouring forth from his abundance, and the poor man casting in his mite; the old man directing by counsel, and the young man seconding him by exertion; the matron visiting the prison, and the young woman instructing the Sabbath School; and all pledging themselves, each one to the other, that, God helping them, this world shall be the better for their having lived in it. The effects of these exertions are every year becoming more distinctly visible. In a short time, if the church be faithful to herself, and faithful to her God, what are now called the lower classes of society will cease to exist; men and women will be reading and thinking beings; and the word canaille will no longer be applied to any portion of the human race, within the limits of civilization. In connexion with these facts, we would remark, that in consequence of this general diffusion of intelligence, nations are becoming vastly better acquainted with the physical, moral and political conditions of each other. Whatever of any moment is transacted in the legislative assemblies of one country, is now very soon known, not merely to the rulers, but also to the people of every other country. Nay, an interesting occurrence of any nature cannot transpire in an insignificant town of Europe or America, without finding its way, through the medium of the daily journals, to the eyes and ears of all Christendom. Every man must be, in a considerable degree, a spectator of the doings of the world, or he is soon very far in the rear of the intelligence of the day. Indeed, he has only to read a respectable newspaper, and he may be informed of the discoveries in the arts, the discussions in the senates, and the bearings of public opinion, all over the world. The reasons for all this, as we have intimated, may be found chiefly in that increased desire of information, which characterizes the mass of society in the present age. Intelligence of every kind, and especially political intelligence, has become an article of profit; and, when once this is the case, there can be no doubt that it will be abundantly supplied. Beside this, it is important to remark, that the art of navigation has been within a few years materially improved, and commercial relations have become vastly more extensive. The establishment of packet ships between the two continents has brought London and Paris as near to us as Pittsburg and NewOrleans. There is every reason to believe, that, within the next half century, steam navigation will render the communication between the ports of Europe and America as frequent, and almost as regular, as that by ordinary mails. The commercial houses of every nation are establishing their agencies in the principal cities of every other nation, and thus binding together the people by every tie of interest; while at the same time they are furnishing innumerable channels, by which information may be circulated among every class of the community.
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E-ence it is that the moral influence, -whicii nations are exerting upon each other, is greater than it has been at any antecedent period in the history of the world. The institutions of one country, are becoming known, almost of necessity, to every other country. Knowledge provokes to comparison, and comiparison leads to reflection. The fact tl-lat others are happier than themselves, promlpts imen to inaquire whenice this difference proceeds, and how their own meliorationii may be accom;illshled. B3y simply lookimg upon a free people, ail opipressive people instinctively feel that they have inalienable rights aind they wvill never afterwards be at rest, until tile elljoyment of these rights is guaranteed to them. Thus onie form of government, which ini aiy preemiinenit degree promotes thie happiness of manil, is gradually disseminiating the I)rinciples of its constitution, and from thie very fact of its existelnce, calling into being those trains of thought, whiclh inust in the end revolutionize every government, within the sphere of its influence, under which the people are oppressed. Aind tthus is it that the field iii which iiiiad mnay labor, lhas nvow become wide as the limits o(f civilization. A doctrine advanced by one man, if it have any claim to interest, is soon kniown to every other man. The movement of one intellect, now sets iii motion the intellects of millions. We may now calculate upon effects, not upon a state or a people, but upon the melting, amalgamating mass of human nature. Man is now the instrument which genius wields at its will; it touches a chord of the human heart, and nations vibrate in unison. And thus he who can rivet the attention of a community upon an elementary principle hitherto neglected in politics or in morals, or who can bring an acknowledged principle to bear upon an existing abuse, may, by his own intellectual might, with only the assistance of the press, transform the institutions of an empire or a world. In many respects, the nations of Christendom collectively are becoming somewhat analogous to our own Federal Republic. Antiquated distinctions are passing away, and local animosities are subsiding. The common people of different countries are knowing each other better, esteeming each other more, and attaching themselves to each other by various manifestations of reciprocal good will. It is true, every nation has still its separate boundaries and its individual interests; but the freedom of commercial intercourse is allowing those interests to adjust themselves to each other, and thus rendering the causes of collision of vastly less frequent occurrence. Local questions are becoming of less, and general questions of greater importance. Thanks be to God, men have at last begun to understand the rights, and to feel for the wrongs, of each other. Mountains interposed do not so much make enemies of nations. Let the trumpet of alarm be sounded, and its notes are now heard by every nation whether of Europe or America. Let a voice borne on the feeblest breeze tell that the rights of man are in danger, and it floats over valley anld mountain, across continent and ocean, until it has vibrated on the ear of the remotest dweller in Christendom. Let the arm of oppression be raised to crush the feeblest nation on earth, and there will be heard every where, if not the shout of defiance, at least the deep-toned murmur of implacable displeasure. It is the cry of aggrieved, insulted, much-abused man. It is human nature waking in her might from the slumber of ages, shaking herself from the dust of antiquated institutions, girding herself for the combat, and going forth conquering and to conquer; and wo unto the man, wo unto the dynasty, wo unto the party, and wo unto the policy, on whom shall fall the scath of her blighting indignationl. That two parties are forming in every country, we have abundant evidence; it is equally evident that the question on which they are divided is of the utmost magnitude; and that it is, in every nation, substantially the same. As to their present state, we may observe, that the one has enlisted the greatest numbers, while the other wields the most effective force. The one comprises the lower and middling classes of society, which are of course by far the most numerous, and the other, the rulers and their immediate dependants. The physical power of any nation always resides with the governed, and it is the governed who are the friends of free institutions. But it is to be remarked, that the millions who desire reform are scattered abroad over our immense tracts of country, each one by his own fireside, without concert, and destitute of the means for organized operation; oIn the contrary, the force of the rulers is always collected, and can at any moment be brought to bear upon any portion of territory, in which there might appear the least movement towards revolution. But the friends of popular institutions are opposed, in every nation, by more than the force of their own rulers. Whilst they are powerful only at home, the rulers are able to bring all their forces to bear upon a single point in any part of the civilized world.
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T1O accomplish this purpose, seems the principal design of the Holy Alliance; and hence they have pledged the physical force of the whole to each other, whenever a question shall be agitated in any country, on which depends the rights of the people. If we compare their prospects, we shall find that the popular party is increasing with amazing rapidity. Nations are already flocking to its standard. Fifty years ago, and it could be hardly said to exist, only as the voice of indignant freemen was heard in yonder hall,* the far famed “cradle of liberty.” From that moment, its progress has been right onward. A continent has since declared itself free. In the old world, the principles of liberty are becoming more universally received, more thoroughly understood, and more ably supported. Education is becoming every day more widely disseminated; and every man, as he learns to think, ranks himself with the friends of intellectual improvement. The trains of thought are already at work, which must effect important modifications in the social edifice, or that edifice, undermined from its foundations, must crumble into ruin. And thus, from these very causes, the other party is rapidly declining. Nations are leaving it. The people are loathing it. It cannot ultimately succeed, until it has changed the ordinances of heaven. It cannot prosper, unless it can check that tendency to improvement, with which God endowed man at the first moment of his creation. Every report of oppression weakens it. Every Sabbath School, every Bible Society, nay, every mode of circulating knowledge weakens it. And thus, unless by some combined and convulsive effort it should for a little while recover its power, it may almost be expected that within the present age, it will fall before the resistless march of public opinion.
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“WHERE IS THY BROTHER?”
BY SARAH S. JACOBS.
THERE were sounds of peace and joyousness, In that New England place; And there was many a merry smile On many a merry face; And the great sun went riding up, And the broad river ran; All things seemed hideously glad To me a guilty man. I could not bear the yellow light As it streamed so pure and clear; The holy look-of the village church, It thrilled me thro’ with fear. I turned away from the gentle stream, And from the smiling land, For their peace was torture unto one With blood upon his hand. I saw the city’s distant spires, I saw the old turrets gray, And the household chimneys and the smoke With the fresh air at play. I loathed them all, they mocked me so. They would not let me be, But still kept pointing to the heaven That I might never see. As the sun-shine chased the sportive Cloud O’er the fields of golden grain, The darker fell and heavier, The cloud upon my brain. The shadow of the broad old oak Slanted to reach his grave; And the river told the sky my crime In the blood tint of its wave. The trees in the wood towered loftier, Their outlines grew harsh and grim, And they seemed to struggle hard with me, As I had striven with him. A deadly shudder crept o’er the world, Tho’ the sun shone pleasantly, And I knew that the eyes of the buried man, Were peeping out at me. The innocent flowers beside my path Looked pale and shivering; Oh! the whole earth was cursed for me, The only guilty thing. The blessed beauty of a child, With its lovely eyes and hair; I thought it would cool my fevered heart, Oh God! his smile was there. I shrunk away from his wondering look From his gentle hand away; “Oh! come with me,” he cried, “or else You’ll be too late to pray.” For the bells were tolling in the tower; And in the stillness calm, Unbroken to the ear of heaven Rung out the morning psalm. The pleasant child looked back at me, And shut the church-yard gate; Alas! I knew as he had said It was indeed too late. And then I sat down quietly, Despair had made me strong; It passed in tearless suffering, That lonely day and long. The sun had watched me close all day, And when his beams were low Men came and in the pleasant fields, WVere walking to and fro. I saw one with a quiet garb A hat with an ample brim And a placid look, as if the world WVere placid unto him. And he spoke kindly unto me Touched by my wretched face; And asked me why I sat so still All day in that same place? I told him all, I told him all, And others round us came; What cared I? the wide universe Already knew my shame. And how I loved the dead, I told As if he were my brothelr; And how I struck a cruel blow, Another, and another. How I buried him beneath the oak, Two nights before, in the rain; And I prayed them for sweet mercy’s sake, Not to leave me there again. I thought not of the magistrate, I thought not to atone; I dreaded nothing but to stay WVith my dead friend alone. Then those around us went away The kindly Quaker stayed, He did not speak to me, but since, I’ve thought for me he prayed.
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An hour or more we waited thus The peaceful man and I, Until the boldest of the stars Was flashing in the sky. And then, all sinful as I was, Doomed to a death of shame, The sleep I had not found before, Cool and refreshing came. The Quaker held my hand the while, The tree waved o’er my head; One, two, to watch me, and the star Another, and the dead. So when the men came from the town To take me to be tried, The murdered and the murderer, WVere sleeping side by side.
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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
BY THE HON. ASHER ROBBINS.
THERE has been no revolution known in the history of mankind, so interesting in itself, for the national character it attested; so memorable in its circumstances, for the national virtues it evinced; so favorable in its consequences, directly to the people who accomplished it, and indirectly to the rest of mankind. It stands, and will forever stand, as a monument of peculiar glory to the American people; and as the guiding star of every other in their struggles for freedom. Whenever, and whereever any people, indignant at their wrongs, shall rise resolved to vindicate their rights, they will turn their eyes to this guiding star; to cheer and to animate, as well as to guide them. Our example will be their study, their model; here they will take their lessons; here they will learn how to fight the battles of freedom, and to triumph in the contest; here they will learn the more difficult lesson, how to secure and to perpetuate all the blessings of that triumph; here they will see demonstrated that the people are capable of self- government, and of a government, too, far excelling all others in security, and the blessings it bestows; here they will find a practical refutation of the doctrines so industriously taught them by their rulers in every age, that a power independent of their own, and superior to their own, is essential to their happiness, as being essential to their security; here they will see that .the most powerfuil, the most prosperous, and the most happy of all governments, is the government of the people, by the people. Such a guiding star it has already been to the liberated nations of the South on this continent. In the great resolve to achieve their freedom and independence; in the severe conflicts of their long and sanguinary struggles; in their institutions, and forms of government; they have studied, have imitated, have emulated our great example; and success has crowned their efforts. They too have their sages, and their heroes; if they have not had a WASHINGTON, that seems a favor reserved by Providence for our peculiar felicity; recollect that WASHINGTON stands alone; without compeer in the ages that preceded, and probably to be without compeer in the ages that are to follow him. It is fabled that there could be but one Phcenix; it would seem a fact that there can be but one Washington; he stands, and probably will forever stand, at the head of human kind; too elevated to have a rival, almost too elevated to have a second. But though they have not had the compeer of Washington, they have had, as I said, and have, their heroes and their sages who have enabled them to achieve their independence. They have now taken their equal stations with the independent nations of the earth; with whom they have formed, and are forming their relations; they have adopted and are adopting institutions on the model of our own; institutions that will give full scope to all the energies of regulated freedom, operating throughout their immense regions, fertile in boundless resources. No longer the hand of a foreign domination lies there as a curse upon the land; withering and blasting even nature herself; that Inade the most fertile portions of the earth, in a manner, a barren waste; that lay like an incubus upon the faculties of mal, and benumbed like a torpedo. No; that blasting hand, is now itself blasted, and is shaken off: Freedom now reigns there; from the summits of their Andes, to the shores of either ocean, her banners unfurled to the breeze, float in triumphant pride; blessing those nations, by those happy nations blessed. The Genius of our Revolution towering to the heavens, and pointing to those happy nations, may say, in pride of heart may say, “Ecce meos filios.” The American people have led and are leading in the van of freedom for mankind. The march of that freedom may be slow; but there is reason to believe, it will be sure and irresistible, and that all absolute thrones will sooner or later fall before it. Already those thrones have to rely on the brute force only of the military arm; for they have lost or are fast losing their two other great props, the ignorance and the superstition of their people, by the diffusion of knowledge and of the spirit of inquiry among them. Nor is this military arm, singly for each, deemed by them a sufficient security to each; for, abjuring their mutual wars of ambition and conquest, they have leagued together for their mutual defence against their own people; and have deemed the united force of all necessary to each, against the single people of each. Now this spirit of the people, so dreaded by these thrones, takes its great force from the example of our revolution there it feeds itself, thence it grows and becomes the ruling passion. The love
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of liberty is a sentimnent natural to the human heart; but the want of it, though that is always felt as a severe privation, it is not felt as a reproach, so long as it is the common lot of all; and if the privation is not aggravated by outrages, it is not apt to impel to action: But if liberty has been acquired and is enjoyed by others, and the example is ever present to the view, and the results are enviable, then it is coveted; then the contrast makes the privation felt as a reproach. It is the sting of this reproach, this wounded pride, impatient of degradation, and eager to avenge itself, grafted on this innate love of freedom, that impels to action; that prompts the noble purpose, that urges the daring hand to vindicate the rights of insulted nature. Yes: insulted nature; for every arbitrary throne is an insult to nature. What greater indignity to man than to be made the property of his fellow-man; to have no share in the power that rules him; to be subject to the abuses of that power, and that power always tending to abuse; corrupted itself. and corrupting its possessor; by its own nature and necessary operation corrupting him. It is thus that the influence of our Revolution is silently undermining arbitrary thrones, and preparing their fall; it is by nourishing the spirit of liberty, by begetting and inflaming an impatience of its privation; and they must fall. Their leagues, their holy alliances, may delay, but they cannot prevent their final fall. That is; the arbitrary power must be surrendered; the people must have freedom, and that freedom must be secured to the people by their forms of government.
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A FRAGMENT.
BY GEORGE R. BURRILL.
WHEN tidings to Prince Edward came “Your little son did die;” He donned his death weeds for the same, And grieved most piteously. And then to them the prince did say God’s holy will be done: The Lord did give and take away: I’m yet my father’s son. But when came messengers and said “Yourfather, he did die,” He tore his raiment, shaved his head, And on the ground did lie. For seven whole days, a goodly week, He sat him down and wept; He could not eat, he could not speak, And never once he slept. Then him bespake the Lord Warrenne, “Why grieves my liege so sore? For fair Lord John thy heart did brenne But for King Henry more. “Art thou not king of fair England, E’er since thy father died, And do not we thy servants stand By legient homage tied?“ Then spake King Edward, “wot ye not I may have sons a score, With God his grace? but’tis my lot Ne’er to have father more.“
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CONNEXION BETWEEN LOVE, POETRY, MUSIC AND DEVOTION.
BY ROWLAND G. H AZARD.
LANGUAGE in its simplest form of narration, elevates us above the brute creation, to social and intelligent beings. In the form of abstraction, it )ecomes an engine for the acquisition of general iknowledge, and thus carries us through another stage of improvement; but one in which narrow vtiews still predominate. It still keeps pace with our intellectual and moral advancement, and whenr our enlarging views pass the boundary of common, direct expressions, it becomes elevated to poetry. And this combination may, in a yet further stage of advancements be etheralized and sublimated to the more exquisite perfection of music, which, though here but a vague and misty shadow, may yet be the first indication of what is there to be embodied in the most comprehensive, perhaps infinite emanations of truth and beauty. This progression is facilitated by the generous feelings which carry us beyond the little circle of common affairs, and particularly by those excitements which elevate us far above them; for it is only in the farther and hig!,?r departments of thought, that we are compelled to think only in the poetic form of ideals. Hence it is, that this faculty is so often first developed, whenr love, ” That feeling from the Godhead caught, Has won from earth each sordid thought,“ and makes us conscious of a happiness too generous and exalted, too pure and etherial, too vast for words to express. The effect of this expansive sentiment upon the modes of thought and expression, is one of the most striking illustrations of the theory we have advanced, and as such deserves a further notice. In its most romantic, and also its most ennobling form, it is the result of all the estimable qualities which the excited imagination of the lover can combine, embodied and harmonizing in some pleasing object, which has, in some generally unknown manner, excited the first emotion. When these perfections are different from any which we are conscious of possessing within ourselves, we have no means of measuring their extent, and the imagination may expand without limit to meet its wants, or its conceptions. The superiority of mind to matter, and the greater expansibility of its qualities, indicate it as the only terrestrial object capable of exciting this hallowed emotion, and the diversity, which is a necessary element in perfecting it, is found admirably designed in the modifications of the masculine and feminine characters. This is confirmed by common observation. If these views of the romantic passion are correct, it is evident that the imagination will almost immediately have filled the measure of this ideal excellence-that it will have reached, and even gone beyond the tangible object of its adoration; and hence, although it may still retain all that it has gained, that object must lose its power of impelling it forward in the flowery paths and bright creations to which it has introduced it. We trust that we shall not be suspected of intending any disparagement of the sex, from whose purer spirit first emanated the spark which kindled in the breast of man this etherial flame. It is much, that woman has made us acquainted with one of the infinite tendencies of the soul, to fill the never ending expansion of which, she must be more than angel. Must this influence then be arrested and the consequent improvement cease? Has this spirituality been awakened in the soul, only to shed a momentary gleam of romance over the realities of life? Analogy rejects the idea; it must serve some higher purpose. And observing the path of our progression, is it not obvious that this finite feeling may be merged in the love of that which is infinite; and in the attributes of God find an illimitable field for expansion, where every new elevation but reveals more to admire, adore, and love; thus forever presenting a standard of superior excellence, and forever winning us towards perfection? There is on this account, a manifest advantage in the Deity not being present to our senses in any definite, tangible form. His power, wisdom, goodness, and every perfection, are manifested to us, only in the beauty, grandeur, and designs of his creation; but these evidences are so obvious, so numerous and so varied, that every one may discern the qualities and combine them so as to form the precise character which will correspond to his idea of perfection, and which he can most admire, love, and adore. A beau ideal, in which increased clearness of perception will only discover new beauty, and on which he may forever expatiate, and yet not sum up all its excellencies-in which his admiration will be per
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petually excited by new and delightfull discoverywhich will continually adapt itself to the change and enlargement of his views of perfection, and appear more beautiful and lovely, the more he contemplates it. His most exalted conceptions of excellence may here always be realized, and the mode of mind is love etheralized, love sublimated to devotion, and resting not on the fleeting shadows of a feverish imagination, but on the infinite and immutable attributes of a Being, that can never be the subject of those changes and misfortunes, the thought of which will sometimes break upon the transports of the most impassioned lover. The thought of one beloved, and with whom fancy has associated every human excellence and angelic loveliness, has often elevated the mind above criminal or ignoble conduct; and if religion had done no more than furnish us with an ideal, in which we group every perfection, she would still have done much to purify the heart, ennoble the mind, and bless and protect our race. Whether the object, with which we associate this ideal excellence, be human or divine, the effect of contemplating it will be the same in kind, though varying in degree; the tendency in either case being to produce that elevation of soul, purity of sentiment, and refinement of feeling, which are the natural guardians of virtue. It is in this view, that we may realize the fulness of an apothegm of Madame De Stael, and perceive how much more than the mere truism is conveyed in her expression, “to love God is still to love.” We again repeat, that to a mind accustomed to observe and to contemplate its advancement in this delightful progression, there can be nothing terrible in that which merely accelerates it. The observed connexion between refined intelligence, enthusiasm, love, poetry, music and devotion, bears a striking analogy to that so often noticed by natural philosophers, between heat, light, magnetism galvanism, electricity, vitality, and the nervous fluid. An ingenious attempt,* has not long since been made to elucidate the latter, by a division of matter into two classes; the one called common *Ultimate Principles by Lardner, Vanuxum, &c. matter, having the power of concreting by an attractive power; the other or etherial matter, having the property of expanding by an inherent repelling tendency. All the phenomena alluded to, and indeed all other in the material world, are referred to combinations of these two, varying as the one or the other predominates in a greater or less degree. Pursuing the analogy, we may divide our moral nature into two elements-the one having an influence to contract, and keep as within the narrow limits of gross and grovelling occupations, and to which we may ascribe all the selfish feelings, which have no higher object than physical existence, or sensual pleasure, and if unaided, in its best estate, reaching no higher elevation than mechanical reasoning,-and refer the greater refinements of reason, and the generous and exalted emotions of enthusiasm, love, poetry, music and devotion, to the predominance of a finer and purer essence, already exhibiting its infinite tendency, and destined, when freed from its connexion with the gross and sensual, to expand in the purer regions of an undefined immensity. The calculations of avarice, and the sordid maxims of selfishness, are easily embraced in finite terms and the language of abstraction, even when directed to more ennobling pursuits, has a constant tendency to narrow the path of our advancement, and lead us to subtle, rather than improving results. The processes of ideality, on the other hand, are constantly widening and giving us more expanded views. We would therefore suggest, that the latent connexion which exists between the purer feeling and sentiments, arises from their all flowing from this source, and the property, which they consequently have of gratifying our desire for the infinite. * * * Observation is the first faculty brought into action, and is for a time a sufficient source of mental excitement. The child is pleased with every novelty; we may see him sound his rattle, pause, and shake it again, to assure himself that it is the effect of his own volitions, and is thus continually exhilarated by the acquisition of knowledge, and the discovery and exertion of his own powers. His store of facts accumulates, the circle around him is culled, and hence a necessity for classification and invention (the two earliest stages of reasoning and imagining) is at once produced. These enable him to reduce his particulars, and to form new combinations of them. His mind expands until these appear too limited, and reason begins to form universal propositions which are among the earliest indications of its infinite tendency. These, however, relating only to things in themselves finite, fail to meet the wants of his opening soul. The infinite begins to claim his attention. He fixes upon the most expansive of terrestrial objects, upon mind, but in a form so differing from his own, that he may conceive of it as imbued with qualities far surpassing ally which he is conscious of possessing, and yet not feel himself comparatively degraded in his division of the species. This, as we have before explained, forms the poetic stage of his advancement. The finer
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feelings of his nature are now developed and expand themselves with a rapidity proportioned to the vast range here opened to their exercise, until even this fails to meet their wants. The universal mind alone remains; and here all the infinite tendencies of the soul now expand themselves; here refined intelligence, enthusiasm, love, poetry, and devotion, are united in a delightful harmony, blended in one heaven of feeling. The religious sentiment is thus fully developed by this union of all the pure and infinite tendencies of the soul, which traversing the finite, find no other sphere sufficiently comprehensive for their full development, and nothing which harmonizes with their nature, but the manifestations and the attributes of the Godhead. In this combination, the etherial principle largely predominates, and the expansive tendency becomes so strong, that neither human force, nor human ingenuity, has yet been able to control it. It has been loaded with the chains of tyranny. It has been retarded and shackled by creeds. It has been diverted from its proper objects by cunningly devised forms, and gorgeous and imposing ceremonies. It has been wickedly directed to inexplicable mysteries, and wasted in the vain endeavor to elicit truth from terms which contained no meaning. But in despite of all these obstacles, it has advanced. It has set at defiance the power of princes, and broken the fetters they imposed. It has put at nought the subtlety of priests, and with the energy of enthusiasm penetrated beyond the forms and mysteries by which they have sought to conceal truth, and proclaimed its discoveries from the flames which surrounded it with glory, and shed lustre on its revelations. The only mode of preventing the development of this expansive principle, is by destroying some of its elements or by taking away some of the steps which are essential to its progress. The experiment of shackling the mind with prohibitions, preventing the acquisition of knowledge, and restraining the reasoning faculties, has in part succeeded. But the step thus removed, is too short to leave an impassible barrier. The mind gets over the abhorred vacuum, and its weakened energies expand beyond it. It is by removing the next, and greater element, of our advancement, by destroying the influence of woman on society, and with it the generous emotions, the exalting influence of love, that the progress of mankind has been most effectually checked. It is where the female character is so degraded, that its etherial influence is no longer felt, that this sign of divinity has failed to exhibit itself-where from infancy man has been taught to look upon woman as a soulless toy, and woman to act as if unconscious of a higher destiny. The same effect has been elsewhere produced by her exclusion from society, and resorting to physical deformity of a kind producing sloth of body, dependence and a consequent want of mental energy. Restore the soul of woman, and the Mahometans would soon have a better, and a brighter revelation. Suffer the feet of Chinese women to grow, and the men could not long retain their grovelling, slavish dispositions, nor the government, its narrow and exclusive policy. It is worthy of remark, that a religion adapted to the wants of the etherial nature, must, like it, possess a susceptibility to never ending expansion. It must continually exhibit higher and better state of existence than that to which we have arrived; and consequently the professors of such a religion will always be manifestly short of its teachings, while the professors of a rigid finite system of ethics may fulfil every tittle of their law. The Christian dispensation certainly appears to possess this wonderful adaptation. Its broad principles include the whole duty of man, and apply in every stage of his progression. Like the source from whence they emanate, they always fill our views of perfection. It were to be wished, that the remarks which we have just made, would account for all the acknowledged defalcations of those who profess to be the followers of its great founder. How delightful would it be to draw at once an illustration and a confirmation from such a source. How encouraging to believe, that we had improved and were still improving, though the horizon of perfection recedes as we advance. We fear, however, that we must look to other causes, for at least a portion of the disparity between the profession and practice of Christians.
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STANZAS. BY ALBERT G. G REENE.
OH think not that the bosom’s light Must dimly shine, its fire be low, Because it doth not all invite To feel its warmth and share its glow. The altar’s strong and steady blaze On all around may coldly shine, But only genial warmth conveys To those who gather near the shrine. The lamp within the festal hall Doth not more clear and brightly burr., Than that, which shrouded by the pall, Lights but the cold funereal urn. The fire which lives through one brief hour, More sudden heat perchance reveals, Than that, whose tenfold strength and power Its own unmeasured depth conceals. Brightly the summir cloud may glide But bear no heat within its breast, Though all its gorgeous folds are dyed In the full glories of the WVest: ’T is that which through the darkened sky, Surrounded by no radiance, sweeps, In which, concealed from every eye, The wild and vivid lightning sleeps. Do the dull flint, the rigid steel, Which thou within thy hand may’st hold. Unto thy sight or touch reveal The hidden power which they enfold? But take those cold, unyielding things, And beat their edges till you tire,And every atom forth that springs, Is a bright spark of living fire: Each particle, so dull and cold Until the blow that woke it came, Did still within it slumbering hold A power to wrap the world in flame.. What is there, when thy sight is turned, To the volcano’s icy crest, By which the fire can be discerned That rages in its silent breast; Which hidden deep, but quenchless still,. Is at its work of sure decay, And will not cease to burn, until It wears its giant heart away. The mountain’s side upholds in pride Its head amid the realms of snow, And gives its bosom depth to hide The burning mass which lies below While thus in things of sense alone, Such truths from sense lie still concealed;. How can tile living heart be known,. Its secret, inmost depths revealed. Oh, many an overburdened soul Has been at last to madness wrought, While proudly struggling to control Its burning and consuming thought; When it had sought communion long, And had been doomed in vain to seek, ,For feelings far too deep and strong For heart to bear or tongue to speak.
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RHODE ISLAND DURING THE REVOLUTION.
BY THE HON. WILLIAM HUNTER.
’THE first blows struck in our Revolution in an obscure village of a remote, and almost unknowni country, seem to have been heard all over the world. The inhabitants of Europe seemed roused as from the trance of ages, and soon from anxious spectators, became generous and animated actors. We had as our friends, and fellow combatants, the patriotic and chivalrous -spirits of Poland-Pulaski and Kosciusko. The gallant and accomplished Fersen, of Sweden. The tacticians and disciplinarians of Austria and Prussia, De Kalb and Steuben. We mustered in our train the flower of the French nobility. The mind of Europe was with us; and we received from every philosopher, poet, or patriot of the day, cheerings of gratulation. They wept at our disasters, they rejoiced in our victories. They felt it as their own triumph, when, for the first time in the annals of man, the parent and the sovereign power acknowledged by the treaty of 1783, the rightful independence of the reproached, rebellious child, and the rightful establishment, ill full sovereignty, of a new empire. But let ns withdraw our dazzled gaze from the extended epic painting of National glory and prowess crowded with personages, lighted by the volcanic blaze of battles, and shaded by darkening clouds of sorrow and disaster, and look with endeared emotions of tenderness and love, at the MINIATURE of the parent state. Men of Rhode Island, you are the descendants of those who were twice pilgrims; the descendants of the victims of a double persecution. This fact of your origin has shaped your whole political character, influenced all your political movements, from the time of your feeble association, in the depths of the forests of this then houseless land, to the present moment; and may God grant it always may so influence, and direct you. You are the descendants, equally with those who take pride from this descent, of those puritans and independents, who fled from religious persecution in England, in the hope of enjoying religious freedom here. Why your forefathers did not, could not, enjoy it, is a dark passage in the history of a sister state, which we would gladly expunge, if it were not a record necessary to prove your genealogy and birthright. The basis of your political institution, was not merely toleration, but a perfect freedom in mat ters of religious concernment. No nice exceptions, no insulting indulgencies, which, while they allow the exercise of voluntary worship deiny the right, and pretend to confer a favor-deface the consistent beauty of our plan. Every aspirant to Almighty favor, in the sincerity of his devotion, has a perfect, unobstructed, inobstructible right, to seek it in the way he thinks fit. He may choose the simplest or the richest form. He may drink the waters of life, in rude simplicity, from the palm of his hand, from the crystal cup of reformed episcopacy, or from the embossed and enchased golden chalice of papal gorgeousness. Your ancestors announced this opinion and enjoyed its legal exercise, long before the able and amiable Romnan Catholic Lord Baltimore, or the sagacious and benevolent Quaker William Penn, adopted and enforced it. In this great discovery, you have the incontestible merit of priority. This is a glory of which you cannot be robbed, a glory which no historian dare pass by unnoticed; though he may be born in a land which reluctantly eulogizes, what it secretly evinces, the proud pre-eminence in effectuating that, which has contributed to the repose and felicity of mankind, more than any other discovery or declaration; saving that of the Gospel, whence it was borrowed, and from which it necessarily results. For we have its clear authority for the assertion, that “where the spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty,“-and that his service is perfect freedom. This freedom is not only unconquerable, but it must conquer. Opposition to it makes martyrs, but never slaves. Where this principle is, there is a largeness of thought, a loftiness of conception, that naturally breaks the way, and opens the avenues to political rights and enjoyments. Wherever this freedom exists, political freedom co-exists. This is not too broad a position, but at any rate fearless of contradiction, we may assert that
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civil and political liberty, cannot be loig securely maintained, without religious freedom. What man can deem himself frae, when in the primary concern and consolation of his present, and the hopes and fears of his future existence, he is shackled by authority, debarred from light, and taught to shrink from a vagrant uprising thought of non-comformity to the prescribed creed, as blasphemy and enmity towards God? Political Freedom, with cautious, not with timid step, though witl her person half concealed, and the brightness of her glory veiled, attended in the trainl of the protestant Reformation in Europe. In the North American Colonies, she marched with a fearless and defying tread and bearing, and, with a voice sometimes loud and dread, sometimes soft and composed, scattered dismay over her foes, or breathed hope and condolence to her votaries; because her way was opened by her pioneer-because she was strengthened, sustained, and invincibly secured, by her heaven-born sister, religious freedom. You never would have been, you never could have been, what you have been, and what you politically are, unless for the principles of religious, always followed and accompanied by those of )olitical freedom. They both were equally and simultaneously adopted and consecrated by your institutions. Your ancestors always had a spirit, and a daring, an original, unaccommodating character, an insurgency and elasticity of mind, which cannot otherwise be accounted for. We deny it not. We always have been in Rhode-Island reproached for heresy, both religious and political; which word heresy, being rightly interpreted, unless I have forgotten my Greek, from which language the word is derived, means the atrocious offence, of the assertion of a mnan’s own opinion. The spirit of these remarks, emanates from our legislative history. The charter ultimately procured by the talents, address, and good fortune of Clarke, under the form of a corporation, has all the essentials of a well-tempered democracy. The king, after he granted it, virtually excluded himself from any interference with it. He had no viceroy, he had no veto on the laws of the colony. We endured not his actual or constructive presence. We preserved the charter as the talisman of our being, the palladium of our rights, the idol of our affections. Awaiting the revolution of 16SS88, we temporized, and though the charter had been, so far as irregular power could do it, annulled, after that glorious event, the revolution of 16SS88, we went on acting under it, without clamor or apology, as unharmed and unforfeited. When the mother country was in the right, or we thought it so, nothing could surpass the energy and enthusiasm of our patriotism, Under the fascinating influence of the administration of the elder Pitt, we sent 500 men into the Canadian expedition. We assisted, and more than in our proportion assisted, in the siege and conquest of the Havana. The truth is, that our consciousness of military merit and fortitude, was taught us by that Canadian war. We were received, and at first despised as provincials; but we were Yankees and learnt rapidly. We frequently relieved our royal and courtly associates, from the effect of error and panic by the skill of our just taught, almost self taught officers; and we sustained them by the unbroken fortitude, or the hardy enterprise of men, who habituated to the exercise of self opinion, and prompt in invention of all the means necessary to an end, and Lundaiunted in their execution, knew not despair or sickness of heart. This fact is of much more importance in the history of ollr revolution, than has been assigned to it. We had fought by the side of British officers and soldiers, and though we did not in the result despise them, we were by no means taught to despise ourselves. This was true in a certain sense of all the colonies, but the feelings arising out of these transactions, operated much more decidedly in Rhode-Island, on account of the immense disproportion of our levies, compared to our population. This was the secret cause of our not being dismayed by the threats of regular troops, of the king’s forces, of fleets, that would batter and conflagrate our towns. We were unintimidated by fulminations of devastation, and extermination. Here, in Rhode Island, we spurred on the contest. We had spirits that were solicitous to hasten events, and render battle inevitable. Before the enactment, or during the negligent enforcement of the English Laws of Trade, we grew utip with prodigious thriftiness. The new system adopted after the peace of 1763, not only checked our commerce, but indi(.ated a systematic design of oppression. Of this design we had all intuitive conception, and to it an invincible repulginance. It has lately been stated by a British minister in the House of Commons, “that however the attempt at taxation might be viewed as the imniediate cause of the American explosion, yet the train had been long laid, in the severe and unbending efforts of England to extend more rigorously than ever the Laws of Trade. “Every little case,” he says, “that was brought before the Board of Trade, was treated with the utmost severity.” The two really great cases that occurred, originated here. The first was the attack at Newport on the 17th June 1769, of the armed revenue sloop Liberty, whose captain
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had been guilty of some oppressions and enormities. She was attacked by a band of unklnown people, who cut her cables, let her drive on shore on the point, where they cut away her masts: scuttled her, carried both her boats to the recently planted Liberty Tree, at the upper end of the town, and burnt them. The second was the affair of the Gaspee on the 9th of June 1772. The first blood that was shed in the revolutionary contest, by that very act begun, stained her deck, and it was drawn by a Rhode Island hand. The blood of Lieutenant Duddington, was the first blood drawn in the American cause. We are obliged to read in our ownl American books, disquisitions, almost controversial, on the question, “who gave the first impulse to the ball of the revolution,” as some in degrading metaphor have chosen to express the thought. I have been compelled to listen upon this topic, to inflated declamation, rather than just argument, from grave senators, on the question, whether Virginia or Massachusetts struck the first and decisive blow. The debate, in feigned mutual difference, and sweet complacency, always proceeded on the thought, that those two most important and meritorious states, solely begun, sustained and accomplished the revolution. That all the other states, had hardly all interest or a participation. Rhode Island and the Gaspee it was always convenient to forget. It is from foreign, and impartial historians, that we are reminded of the relative importance of that deed, which first impressed a bloody hue on our proceeding, and doomed its perpetrators, if the virtue of the country could have permitted their detection, to irremissible death. As to the effect produced by this daring act, and its baffled prosecution, the dread of ministerial vengeance, and the deep but calm determination to meet that vengeance, I must depend on tradition, and appeal to the recollections of the few survivors, of that portentous period. The effect was universal. The flames of the Gaspee seem to have been niiot only seen, but felt throughout the continent. Independence, unqualified independence, was the aim of Rhode-Island, and it proceeded accordingly. In 1774 you did an act, if possible, more positive, daring, and decisive, more unequivocally indicative of your warlike spirit and your determination to be independent. You rose, as the British lawyers said, from common felony to high and atrocious treason. As soon as the proclamation, prohibiting the importation of arms from England, was known here, you dismantled the king’s fort at Newport, and took possession of 40 pieces of cannon. All our leading men, not only had at heart, but avowed the same sentiment as that contained in General Greene’s letter to Governor Ward, then a member of the first Congress, dated on the 4th of June, 1774, at the camp on Prospect hill. “Permit me,” says he then, “to recommend from the sincerity of my heart, ready at all times to bleed in my country’s cause, a declaration of independence, and call upon the world and the great God who governs it, to witness the propriety and rectitude thereof.” We anticipated Congress in the declaration of independence; for, by a solemn act of our General Assembly, we dissolved all connexion with Great Britain, in the May previous. We withdrew our allegiance from the king, and renounced his government forever, and, in a declaration of independence we put down in a condensed, logical statement, our unanswerable reasons for so doing. I drew my facts from records, nothing is colored or exaggerated. Our conduct in the war, was in perfect keeping with our previous character. The news of the battle of Lexington, reached this town on the evening of the same day, the 19th of April, 1776. Irn spite of the evasions and vacillations of the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, three days after you poured your hasty levies of militia, a large detachment, into Massachusetts. In the same year you raised and had in service 1200 regular troops. You afterwards raised three state regiments, and this froni a population of about 50,000 souls-an astonishing fact! According to Gibbon, the calculation confirmed by the experience of all ages, is that a community that sends into the field more than the one hundredth part of its population, will soon perish from exhaustion. You did vastly more than this-voluntarily mnore than Bonaparte in Xis severest conscription ever dared demand. The truth is, your spirit was high and warm, your generosity reckless- your soaring, romantic. It is one of the few evils amidst the innumerable blessings of a confederacy, composed of states of unequal territory and population that the small must fromr the nature of things, contribute more in proportion than the larger state; it can be more easily congregated and excited. The flashes of sentiment are conducted from one to another, and to the whole with electric celerity. The citizens are prompt in the performance of what they promptly resolve. They bear the burden, they fight the battle, they shout the victory, and returning from its well fought field, descry the tardy contingents of larger and perhaps wiser states, plodding their cautious way to see, to admire and perchance to envy, what has been done. You took high ground by your members iii Congress, as to the mode of conducting the war. You endeavored to give it a naval cast. Distinguished for your conmmercial marine, and for
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the enaterprize and intrepidity of your mariners, you felt the necessity and urged the expediency of naval military exertion. The first little fleet, the germ, the nautilus of our present naval character and fame, was commanded by a native Rhode-Islander, Cominodore Esek Hopkins, who surprised New Providence, captured the governor, lieutenant governor and other officers of the crown, seized a hundred pieces of cannon, and carried off all the munitions of war from the island. The island was occupied for weeks, and with what is and I hope ever will be the characteristic of American and Rhode-Island commanders, with a most scrupulous respect for private property and individual feeling. My humble attempt, hitherto, has been that of suggesting the general national spirit that led to, and effected, our revolution, and the particular, but efficient share that, from institution, character and pre-disposition, Rhode-Island contributed to the main design. This last attempt, will be blamed, as fostering a delusive vanity, and deceptive selfesteem. But if individuals have a natural right to feel a generous consciousness of a pure and virtuous ancestry-if the Romans placed in the vestibules of their houses, the statues of their progenitors, that they might, by beholding them as they passed, be excited to a rivalry of their excellence, surely you as a state, have a peculiar and indubitable right, to indulge in a state pride. It is justified from the purified and pious motives which impelled to your primary institution, as a body politic, and which conducted, continued, and upheld you in the same direction, through all your difficulties, dangers, and distresses, through good report and evil report, even unto the end. That, which in the individual is a selfish or absurd vanity, diffused, mitigated, and generalized by a community, is patriotism-the cement of union-the spring of virtuous emulation - the nurse of lofty thoughts, and the impulse of heroic deeds. Rhode-Island has had as yet no historian; of our heroes and sages it may indeed be said-” they had no poet, and they died.’“
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THE BATTLE OF BENNINGTON
BY THOMAS P. R ODMIAN.
Up through a cloudy sky, the sun WVas buffeting his way, On such a morn as ushers in A sultry August day. Hot was the air-and hotter yet MAen’s thoughts within them grew. They Britons, Hessians, Tories saw They saw their homesteads too. They thought of all their country’s wrongs, They thought of noble lives Poured out in battle with her foes, They thought upon their wives, Their children and their aged sires, Their firesides, churches, GodAnd these deep thoughts made hallowed ground Each foot of soil they trod. Their leader was a brave old man, A mnan of earnest wvill; His very presence was a host He’d fought at Bunker Hill. A living monument he stood Of stirring deeds of fame, is Of deeds that shed a fadeless light On his own deathless name. Of Charlestown’s flames, of Warren’s blood, His presence told the tale, It made each hero’s heart beat high Though lip and cheek grew pale; It spoke of Princetown, Morristown, Told Trenton’s thrilling storyIt lit futurity with hope, And on the past shed glory. Who were those men, their leader who? Where stood they on that morn? The men were Berkshire yeomanry, Brave men as e’er were born,Who in the reaper’s merry row Or warrior rank could stand; Right worthy such a noble troop, John Stark led on the band. WVollamsac wanders by the spot Where they that morning stood; Then rolled the war cloud o’er the stream, The waves were tinged with blood; And the near hills that dark cloud girt And fires like lightning flashed, And shrieks and groans like howling blasts Rose as the bayonets clashed. The night before, the Yankee host Came gathering from afar, And in each belted bosom glowed The spirit of the war. All full of fight through rainy storm, Night, cloudy, starless, dark They came, and gathered as they came, Around the valiant Stark. There was a Berkshire parson-he And all his flock were there, And like true churchmen militant The arm of flesh made bare. Out spake the Dominie and said, “For battle have we come These many times, and after this We mean to stay at home.“ If now we come in vain, said Stark, What! will you go to.night To battle it with yonder troops. God send us morning light, And we will give you work enough: Let but the morning come, And if ye hear no voice of war, Go back and stay at home. The morning came-there stood the foe, Stark eyed them as they stood Few words he spake-’t was not a time For moralising mood. “See there the enemy, my boys! Now strong in valor’s might, Beat them, or Molly Stark will sleep In widowhood to-night.“ Each soldier there had left at home A sweetheart, wife, or mother, A blooming sister, or, perchance, A fair-haired, blue.eyed brother. Each from a fireside camne, and thougihts Those simple words awoke That nerved up every warrior’s arm And guided every stroke. Fireside and woman-mighty words! How wondrous is the spell They work upon the manly heart, Who knoweth not full well? And, than the women of this land, That never land hath known A truer, prouder hearted race, Each Yankee boy must own.
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Brief eloquence was Stark’s-nor vain — Scarce uttered he the words, When burst the musket’s rattling peat Out leaped the flashing swords;, And when brave Stark in after time Told the proud tale of wonder He said the battle din was one “Continual clap of thunder.“ Two hours they strove-then victory crowned The gallant Yankee boys. Nought but the memory of the dead Bedimmed their glorious joys; Aye-there’s the rub-the hour of strife, Though follow years of fame, Is still in mournful memory linked With some death-hallowed name. The cypress with the laurel twines The plan sounds a knell, The trophied column marks the spot Where friends and brothers fell. Fame’s mantle a funereal pall Seems to the grief dimmed eye, For ever where the bravest fall The best beloved die.
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THE EFFECTS OF SIN.
BY REV. FRANCIS VINTON.
WHEN man came forth from the hands of God, he was upright, holy, perfect; and God pronounced him very good. Not one stain of sin tarnished his moral nature. He was the image of God. Not a pang, nor a sorrow troubled his soul. He was the mirror of the divine happiness because he reflected the divine holiness. In original humanity what harmony, what beauty dwelt! It was a harp of many strings; but all were tuned by the Maker, and were struck into music by a heaven taught hand. It was a glorious humanity. Each faculty indeed was distinct like the colors of the rainbow, but they all were combined and melted into one another, shining forth as the brightness of the Father’s glory-and as man trod the ground, the earth beheld the likeness of God. Man sinned-the harp was broken- the strings were untuned, and instead of harmony, was discord. He sinned-the mirror was in fragments, each was stained, and soiled, and now reflected the distorted image of the Maker. YlIan sinned. And the beauty of those blended colors was destroyed. Instead of the mild, and genial radiance of sunshine, was the glaring of fire. Hot passions burned furiously in that heart where pure affections had shone gently, and this alter of heaven became a laboratory of hell.-Man sinned. The fresh, and laughing earth now groaned. The thorn, and thistle now sprang forth. Thile eye of the lion, and the tiger now shot glances of enmity, and savage lust, ravenous desires, and cruelty now circulated throughout the animate creation. Man sinned, and all was cursed. Death made havoc first in Paradise, and sent decay, and sickness over every created thing. The exquisite body of man, which had stood like a finished temple, monumental of the skill of its architect, crumbled. Next to the soul, it was death’s chiefest prey, and under his touch it was dissolved into dust. In the strong language of Scripture “Death reigned.” He was Lord paramount over earth, and swayed his sceptre as king of terrors. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men. He was indeed an enemy. Had sin spoiled man alone, its ravages had been less fearful; but every creature was made subject to vanity, and delivered over to the bondage of corruption, and so the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now. All evil, and all death, are the fruits of the sin of Adam. The curse was upon all things, and annihilation brooded on every creature that God had made.
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ODE TO THE POPPY.
BY CYNTHIA TAGGART.*
THOUGH varied wreaths of myriad hues, As beams of mingling light, Sparkle replete with pearly dews, Waving their tinted leaves profuse, To captivate the sight: Though fragrance, sweet exhaling, blend With the soft, balmy air; And gentle zephyrs, wafting wide, Their spicy odors bear; While to the eye, Delightingly, Each floweret laughing blooms, And o’er the fields Prolific, yields Its incense of perfumes *Note 3.-See Appendix. Yet one alone o’er all the plain, With lingering eye I view; Hasty, I pass the brightest bower, Heedless of each attractive power, Its brilliance to pursue. No odors sweet proclaim the spot, Where its soft leaves unfold; Nor mingled hues of beauty bright Charm and allure the captive sight, \Vith forms and tints untold. One simple hue the plant portrays Of glowing radiance rare, Fresh as the roseate morn displays, And seeming sweet and fair.
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But closer prest, an odorous breath Repels the rover gay; And from her hand with eager haste ’T is careless thrown away; And thoughtless, that in evil hour Disease may happiness devour, And her fair form, elastic now, To miisery’s wand may hopeless bow. Then Reason leads sad Sorrow forth, To seek this lonely flower; And blest experience kindly provies Its mitigating power. Then, its bright hue the sight can trace, The brilliance of its bloom; Though misery veil the weeping eyes, Though sorrow choke the breath with sighs, And life deplore its doom. This magic flower In desperate hour, A balsam mild shall yield, When the sad, sinking heart Feels every aid depart, And every gate of hope forever sealed. Then shall its potent charm Each agony disarm, And its all.healing power shall respite give. The frantic sufferer, then, Convulsed and wild with pain, Shall own the sovereign remedy, and live. The dews of slumber, now, Rest on her aching brow; And o’er the languid lids, balsamic fall; While fainting nature hears, With dissipated fears, The lowly accents of soft Somnus’ call.
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Then will affection twine Around this kindly flower; And grateful memory keep, How, in the arms of sleep, Affliction lost its power.
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THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION.
BY ZACHARIAH ALLEN.
HOWEVER varied are the occupations of men, one pursuit is common to all, that of happiness. The principal obstacle to success in this pursuit, is ignorance;-ignorance of the rational mode of obtaining it. Plato often repeated to his disciples, “that all vice springs from ignorance;” and that it is a want of proper instruction alone, that can lead a man into the great mistake of following a vicious course, because it seems to lead directly to some good, greater than any which a virtuous course may promise. A practical statesman of the present age, the King of Prussia, in accordance with the doctrine of Plato, considers that no parent has a right to inflict so great an injury on society, as to bring utp his child in ignorance; and has enforced by compulsory laws on all parents in his dominions, the duty of attending to the cultivation of the minds of their children. Euclid maintained, that knowledge only is required to direct every man in the path most conducive to his happiness, and boldly asserted the startling doctrine, deduced from this proposition, that “there is actually no necessary evil.” In illustration of this doctrine, one of the most popular philosophers of our own time, Mr. Combe, observes, that under the benign influence of Christianity and revelation, the most delightful view in which the goodness and beneficence of the Almighty can be placed before us, is, that the constitution of our natures, and the moral laws by which the world is governed, are such as lead always to good when their dictates are obeyed: whereas the least in fringementof them is attended by some warning, erroneously called evil. Education will teach ius that all which we call evil, is in reality most benevolently designated for good, as it is a warning for our instruction, to return to, or adopt the proper course;-the course prescribed by those laws; that, in fact, “evil does not, cannot exist.” When the improvement of the mind, the source and seat of enjoyment is left neglected, it is not a matter of surprise that dissatisfaction should be ex perie,ced by those, who with undue zeal devote their time and exertions to gaining wealth or fame, or to the indulgence of sensual pleasures. Even Solomon required the practical lessons of experience to discover, that the engrossing pursuit of them, is nothing but “vanity and vexation of spirit.” In the liberal professions, should unintermitted cares of business exclusively absorb attention, the scholar may become inferior in mental cultivation to many mechanics; and although situated on the brink of the fountain of science, he may then devote himself rather to stooping down in search of gold among the sands, thani to tasting of the inspiring waters. To the young man, entering on the active scenes of life, with generous feelings of ambition to excel, a taste for the acquisition of knowledge renders him cheerful and happy, and proves a safeguard to preserve him from temptations to evil. Refined mental enjoyments, and gross, debasing pleasures are seldom relished by the same individual. The one or the other will speedily assume the control over the mind, which rarely acknowledges a divided empire. It is like Mohammedan fatalism voluntarily to remain in ignorance of the knowledge that may deliver us from evil; or like the rashness of the mariner, who launches his bark to navigate the wide ocean, and neglects to make use of the discoveries of science to direct his course and to preserve him from the perils of the deep. Theatrical exhibitions would comparatively lose their demoralizing attractions, were magnificent theatres erected for the interesting display of splendid philosophical lectures and experiments, and were men of science and eloquence recompensated with a liberality equal to that bestowed upon Opera dancers. It is only necessary to lend the aid of the charms of music and painting, in brilliantly illuminated halls, to those of eloquent public lecturers, to produce excitement on the minds of the young, and to ensure the decision of the public taste in their favor. Properly qualified, eloquent lecturers, are now wanting to minister to this improved public taste and no professional occupation would be more productive of certain and munificent emolunent. The political axiom of our republican code of government, affirming that all men are born equal, goes no further than to place men on the same footing or standing in the great race of human competition. Educationi, partially diffused, has the immediate effect to produce inequality; for mental powers unimproved are of as little avail as the churl’s politeness, who said that he was born with as much as Chesterfield himself, and was confident that he
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had never diminished his stock by use. It is not by classing the learned, the good and the great men of our land on a level with the indolent and vicious, that men are to be brought to a happy state of equality; but on the contrary by exalting the poor and the depressed by means of the diffusion of knowledge. General and thorough education is the true levelli;g princple. By the aid of very limited means of self instruction, persons commencing life as humble day laborers, have risen and will continue to rise, to the first distilnctions of honor in our country. Although it is certain that mechanics do not often become philosophers, yet it is equally certain that they have, by means of self instruction become the greatest of philosophers. WN,ith laudable inducements to tempt him forward in his inventions, the mechanic feels in a degree the ardor which inspires the philosopher or the soldier, to leave a name that will survive in the recollection of successive generations, as long as the grass continue to cover with fresh verdure, the earth above his grave. After thousands of years shall have rolled away, and the very monuments of philosophers, statesmen and warriors of renown shall have been crumbled to dust, the multitude of human beings who may then people this earth, will as frequently recur to the popular name of him, whose genius first introduced the use of the steamboat and enabled man to overpower the swift currents of adverse tides, as to the memory of Newton who explained the great laws that govern those tides. Although a young man may fail in his attempts to amass wealth, to enable him to make a distinguished appearance in the gay circles of fashion, yet it is in his power to qualify himself by mental cultivation, to associate with a superior class of men, who value the aristocracy of mind, above that of wealth. He may thus attain a more truly respectable standing, and enjoy more rational pleasures, than the absorbing pursuit of wealth can afford. On every side he will find objects to interest and delight. Should he engage in the study of animal life, a vast range for research is presented him, in the thousands of species of animals and of the insect tribes. Of animalcule, the numbers are beyond the power of computation, and their minuteness is still more wonderful; as a few cubic feet of sea water gives full scope for all the enjoyments of vitality to more of them, than there are human inhabitants on the earth. Yet all these minute beings exhibit to the eye of the scientific observer, by the aid of glasses, perfectly organized structures like those of large animals, having arteries, nerves and circulating blood. If hlie turn his attention to Botany he will find that seventy or eighty thousand distinct species of plants decorate the surface of the earth with their bright colors, or vegetate in the dark caves of the ocean. Days may be passed in admiring the varied forms and glowing tints of the different classes of shells. Mountains are formed of the limestone, products of shell-fish, and countless islands of the sea have been created by the coral reefs, constructed by a feeble wvorm. The earliest history of the earth itself the student will find recorded in the impressions, oIl buried rocks, from whence the petrified remains of niimerous, and nowv extinct species of animal and vegetables are constantly brought to light. In addition to all these are the numerous subjects contained in the long catalogue of useful knowledge, which are adapted to improve and elevate the mind. But if he flag in his ardor for investigating terrestrial objects, he has only to lift his eyes to the glorious firmament of Heaven. His imagination ill the boldness of its flight, may visit unseen worlds, numerous as particles of floating dust, until wearied in its boundless course, it may at last rest in silent awe before the throne of Him who created them. Oh! cold indeed must be the feelings of that man who can contemplate all these objects without emotion. But the ordinary term of human life would neither be sufficient to learn nor to relate in detail, all the interesting works of creation. Were we able to attempt a narration of them, the decrepitude of age might steal over us, and still our task would be but commenced. The dull, cold ear of death would at last remain insensible to the voice that might be addressed to it, in continued utterance of the exhaustless descriptions. But the pleasing hope may animate us, that gathered from time to eternity and joining with the worshipping host of Heaven, it may constitute a part of our happiness, as all seeing, celestial spirits, to rejoice in beholding clearly and comprehensibly, and not as now “through a glass darkly,” with the feeble vision of montal eyes, the interminable display of the wondrous works of our great Creator.
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PETTIQUA MSCOTT.“
BY EMMA ROBINSON.
WHAT e’er can warm the imagination, Please the eye, or charm the ear; In enchanting variation, Bounteous nature lavished here. Pious awe and sweet composure This sequestered gloom inspires, And from this secure enclosure Every ruder thought retires. Here the waters idly sporting, Fondly woo the grassy shore; And more calm recesses courting, Shun the ocean’s stormy war. Here, more tranquil joys pursuing, Pettiquamscott steals away; Oft his peaceful course reviewing, Winds along with sweet delay. Moss-grown rocks their heads erecting, Heighten still the pleasing gloom; And their circling flowers protecting, Bid them unmolested bloom. I Near Point Judith. Here the birds the sunbeams flying, Nature’s inspiration sing; Echo to their voice replying, Makes the neighboring valleys ring“ This fair spot with partial pleasure, Pettiquamscott’s arms entwine; Leaves with pain his favorite treasure, Parting feels regret like mine. Soon again thy waves returning, Shall embrace this peaceful shore; Fate my fondest wishes spurning Bids me different scenes explore. Follow still thy sweet employment WVave ye woods, ye oceans roar; You shall give sublime enjoyment, WVhen your Emma is no more. 1785.
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THE CULTIVATION OF TASTE.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM HAGUE.
THE importance of cultivating a correct taste for natural and moral beauty has often been inculcated by the novelist and philosopher, the preacher and the poet. Its effects prove its worth. It expands the mind and refines the heart, it alleviates the ills of life, and multiplies its joys, it soothes the agitations of the troubled bosom and throws a genial sunlight around the calm and placid spirit; it constantly opens new and pleasing paths of pursuit, leads to new springs of happiness, and diffuses its own fresh charm around the whole creation. He who has cultivated as he may, his natural susceptibility of deriving delight from the beautiful in nature or the sublime in morals, the lights of science or the charms of art, has within himself a source of high enjoyment, which delivers him from the thraldom of gross appetite, the corrosion of petty cares, and the many irritations which arise amid the hurry and tumult of life. The more delicate his taste becomes, the more nice is he in his discrimination of character, the more keenly alive to the pleasures of friendship, the more susceptible of the soft and tender emotions, the more delighted with tranquil scenes, the more disposed to calm reflection. He has a zest for joys of which others do not dream, and even the character of his sorrows is peculiar, for they are changed into an agreeable melancholy which soothes the heart that feels its weight, and has a natural affinity for all that is exalted in genius, or tender in sympathy, or commanding in moral greatness, or glowing in fancy. Such an one, though familiar with the world in which the worldling lives, yet lives himself in a world which we may call his own. He sees glories around him to which others are blind. He hears a music, which others do not hear. He feels a rapture which is real, but which he call not communicate, and in which only kindred minds can sympathize. Not that the elements of his nature differ from those others, only they are differently developed. The boor who gazes at night upon the vaulted firmament, sees nothing there but “twinkling lamps to light him home.” The man of cultivated taste sees worlds on worlds, an “infinite amaze,” a scene of wondrous order and magnificence, proclaiming the Creator’s presence and makiij known that he is Love; the moon walking in her brightness, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth, while all the stars around her burn, And all the planets in their turn Confirm the tidings as they roll And spread the truth from pole to pole. But while the importance of cultivating good taste may be conceded in general terms, the question may arise, what is good taste? Is there any thing fixed in its character? Are there any established principles by which it is governed? Is there any room for appeal beyond a man’s own feelings respecting what is truly beautiful? Has it not long since passed into a popular maxim “de gustibus sion disputandumn;” and is it not bringing a question at once to an issue, to say of the subject of it, “it is a mere matter of taste?” In regard to what is true and what is false, we may appeal from opinions to facts. We may show what has real existence. But in regard to what is beautiful and what is deformed, can we appeal to any thing beyond the sentiment of the mind? It is the mind which throws out its own inward light over various objects and thence views them as beautiful. Mind, mind alone (bear witness earth and Heaven) The living fountains in itself contains Of beauteous and sublime; here hand in hand Sit paramount the Graces. Thence if I feel any thing to be beautiful, is it not therefore, truly beautiful, and even more beauteous still. because I cannot see why it is so? Undoubtedly it is true that there is in no object an inherent beauty any more than there is inherent color that it is the mind which conceives the idea of beauty and connects it with the external objectthe mind which, by its sensibility and its power of association invests the universe with its loveliness.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4549 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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But then, has not the inward world its laws as well as the outward? Is not the one adjusted to the other? Is there not a harmony in their op erations? May not the moral sense and the sense of beauty be as uniform and determinate as the animal senses, though modified like every part of human nature, by circumstances? What if a man should declare that the monotonous tones of a public crier are as musical and beautiful as the varied intonations of the orator on whose lips senates hang enraptured? Or, that the notes which reach his ear from the hand-organ borne by the music-grinder through the street, are as beautiful and elevating as those which break from the mighty instrument of Harlem, when, under the touch of a master’s hand, it pollrs its bounding notes along? Or, what if one should see as much beauty in the paltry decorations of an eastern Pagoda as in the simple front of the Pantheon, or the majestic dome of St. Peter’s? Or, what if one should be delighted to place amidst a group of pendant willows in a cemetery the tall and straight limbed poplar, which presents not a mere contrast, but a direct opposition of features? In such cases our sensibility to beauty is somewhat shocked all feel that some law of nature is violated, and look on him who so confounds things that differ, or delights in aught so incongruous, as void of all taste. Hence we learn that theri are established principles of taste, that the laws of this part of our constitution are as fixed as those of any other; and that within its sphere, order reigns as wisely and supremely as in that part of speculative opinion. Yea, far more so. In the world of philosophy, Greece has long since ceased to rule, but in the realm of taste she is still the “star ascendant.” Her theories of nature have passed away like brilliant dreams, but her works of taste still live to captivate the world. Her architecture still stands in all the dignity of its fair proportions, her statues still speak, her poetry still glows with living fire, her oratory still wakes a genial enthusiasm, as when it roused in the dormant multitude a voice like the voice of many waters and the voice of mighty thunderings, crying “let us march against Philip, let us conquer or die.” The speculations of Cicero have withered under the touch of time, but the eloquence which first stirred Roman blood, still quickens the pulsations of an American assembly. Longinus, who, centuries ago, swayed a mighty sceptre as the prince of critics, still stands invested with unfading honors. The theology of Milton has made but a slight impression on mankind; but his poetry will warm the hearts and stimulate the intellects of far distant generations. The same Homer, who was once the delight of Greece, still pleases us; the same Virgil, who was the boast and ornament of Rome, now receives every where the homage due to genius. The productions of mind which evince only great intellectual power, or depth of thought, or wide research, may yet be doomed to perish and be forgotten; but true beauty lives forever and wins a universal sway. Still, if beauty be not a mere airy fiction but a substantial reality, the question yet arises, how may we define that taste for beauty which may be justly designated as good and correct? Objects which are regarded as beautiful in one age, are utterly neglected in another, and loathed in a third. During the prevalence of any particular fashion, it is deemed a proof of bad taste to decry it, and if one should attempt it, on what grounds could he justify himself? He might say of any ornament, or dress, or piece of music, “it offends me;” to which another might reply, “it pleases me;” and so the argument is at an end. What then is the criterion of good taste? Here, it is worthy of remark, that there is an analogy between that faculty of the soul which we denominate Taste, and that Physical faculty which we call by the same name. The latter is given to us, not merely as a means of pleasure, but also in ill order to distinguish between those substances which are good for food and those which are noxious. In ahealthy state it answers this end. If. however, you observe an individual whose taste constantly craves varieties and stimulants, loathing those simple articles of refreshment which nature has so richly provided for us, you say at once, his taste is perverted-it is at variance with the laws of lis nature. There you strike a far-reaching principilc. If a man seek as food what exhausts rather than nourishes his frame, if he is fascinated with \what is rilieotus, you say his taste is not in accordance with natural laws, and thence it is bad. The rule is universal. Good taste, either within the sphere of the material world, or the spiritual world, is that which is in harmony with the laws of the unlliverse. The more you know of these, the more numerous criteria will you have to ascertain whether your taste be healthy or disordered. The more yout study these with such views, the more conformed will your taste become, to that of the infinite and eterial mindi.-l whose ideas of beauty are bodied forth in this vast creation, which, as at his bidding, it sprang from chaos into order, reflecting in all its heights aid depths the beauteous and sublime conceptions of its author, he looked upon with delight, and pronounced it good. The power of perceiving beauty; of being fascinated with it, of receiving deeper and deelper impression from it, distingnishles a rational mind. and forms a part of that stamp of natural dignity. whiclh wvas
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originally placed upon the brow\ of iman. lie was formed to look tlpon the material universe as a glorious mirror, reflecting, every whlere goodness. grandeur, beauty, sublimity. VWhlat then is taste, but these internal p)owers, Active aind strong, and dclingly alive T,) eaclh fine inipulse? A discoveinT;is’lse Of decenit and sublinme, with quick disgust Fromn thins deforimed, or disarranged, or gross Inl species? This, no, ge,s, nor sto,es ofgold, Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow, But God alone, when first his active lhand Imprints the secret bias of the soul. The mighllty Parent, wise and just in all, Free as the vital breeze or light of Heaven Reveals the chlarms of Nature. Ask the swain ’Who journeys lhomewa-cd firom a summer day’s Long lahor, why forgetful of hIis toils, And due repose he loitcers to behold The sunsh.ine gleaming as thlro’ amoer clouds O’er all the western sky. Full soon I ween, H-Is rude expression and untutored airs, Beyond the power of language will unfold The form of beauty smiling at his heart, ][ow lovely! How conimmanding! But althout-li it be true that culture cain nevcer bestow the faculty of taste upon nlai], yet without culturel tile germ can never be developed.:Now wvhat are the meanls of cultivatingt it? In ans’w:rina this question. ()tur X:;J’ obs ervaticon is, that if goodl taste be that :v!.ich is in harmiony with the laws of the naiverse then the most important means of cultivating it, is ,. becom;e c1,it w’[ itcl’t tf(ose l(taw;s. -Te \w i,,) iiade thle ihumian miind, made all worlds, and a g’loi’i(l]s;lairmory per;,vades theIm. le bath ga,,’islet t’i heavens, a.dioned the world - vithl lovelillness, and inspired the mind with a taste for beauty. The great fabric of creation tlihrough which order reigns, is the development of that love for natural and moral beauty, which dwelt from eternity in the Infinite mind. Our emotions of beauty, therefore, are mocdified by an acquLaintance with those laws which s“inie out in the operationis of nature, either within the s)iritual or the material realmrn. ae are socoilstituted as to see a moral beauty in benevolence, and the more clearily we discern the law by which it is co’ilected with peace of mind and social happiness, the more beaulty shall we see in it and love it more. We are so formed asto admire the heroism which is enjoyed in sacrificing the pleasures of sense, or stores of gold to the interests of virtue; and the more clearly we see the law, that man waas created to obey his moral sentiments, which hold l)y right the throne of tllC soul, the more enamored shall Iwe be with the beauty of virtue. This enlargement of mind of which we speak, produced by an extensive acqpiaintance with the laws of nature, physical or moral, with the estab lished principles of art and science, will evidently affect outr emotions of taste, by inducing new assoi ciations of ideas, and newv trains of feeling.’o a mant entirely ignorant of the laws of life, the slender compressed and tapering waist of a ihuman form may seem beautiful, as the expression of delicacy, symmetry and refiinemnent but let lhim conceive aright of the tender vital organs unnatural ly cramped and denied the free and easy play so essential to life an[d health, then the spell would at once be blokel),i and pain succeed to pleasure. As the serpentine motion expressive of delicacy and ease, delights tus in every case except that of the serpent itself. where the thought of malignity and peril is awakened, so,) here, the pleasure of discovering an extraordinary symmetry and delicacy of the human form is dispelled by the ideas of constraint, and pain, and (langer, which a compression of that form tends {i,lways to produce. Nothing is beautiful but what is true,” say tile Rhletoricians. This is a universal nmaxim. COIt formity to truth is beauty, real and permanent. Study niatire. Seek truth. The laws of nature are distinguished by simnplicity, anid simplicity has ali abiding charim whether it appear in literature or art, in character or manners. T’hence affectatioi alwvays displeases when it is discovered. ThougllI affectation be the fashion, yet it appears contemptible as soon as it loses the delusive charm of novelty or a name. In France, fashion once declared for an affected negligence of dress. Thence we hear Montaigne saying, “I have never yet been apt to imnitate the negligent garb, observable among the yotung men of outr time, to wear my cloak on one shoulder, my bonnet on one side, and one stocking ill somewhat more disorder than the other, meant to express a manly disdain of such exotic ornaments, and a contempt of art.” There is no beauty in the ,’t ttivat1d negligence even of trifles. It is only that which is occasional, appropriate, and which indicates a mind engaged and absorbed in something worthy of it which truly pleases. Scott saw it in his Lady of the Lake, when he said, Vitbh head upraised, and look intent, And eye and ear attentive bent, And locks flung back, and lip)s apart, Like imonument of Grecian art, In listening mood sihe seeCned to stand, The guardian Naiad of the strand.“
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4551 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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No kindred grace adorns her of whom it may be sati( Coquet and coy, at once her air, Both studied, tho’ both seem neglected Careless she is with artful care Affecting to seem unaffected. Truthll to nature, then, is beauty, and to study the laws of nature is to chasten and develope the taste for beauty. Another means of cultivating good taste, is to study the eipressioet of clhacracter or d(lesign in which the beauty of objects consists. In the material world, every thing beautiful, is a manifestion of certain qualities which are by nature agreeable to the mind; and to ascertain what these are, to point them out distinctly, to classify them, is a pleasiling mode of refining and quickening the taste for beauty. “’ The longer I live,” said one, “the more familiar I become with the world around me. Oh! that I could feel the keen zest of which I was susceptible when a boy, and all was new and fair!” “The longer I live,” says another, “the more charmed I become with the beauties of a picture or a landscape.” The first of these had a natural taste for beauty wvlich he had never developed by studying the expressions of character, which constitute the loveliniess of creation. The other, regarding the outward universe as a splendid system of signs directed his attention to the thing signified; loved to contemp)late the moral qualities which were beaming fortlh if’cni all the surrounding objects, and thus saw open before him a boundless field, ever glowing with new colors and fresh attractions. The first, as he heard a piece of music, might from the mechanism of his iilattre fee] some pleasure arising firom novelty, or a rceular succession ofsounds, which familiarity would sooli dispel. The other, as he studied the expression of character, which those tones gave forth, as for instance, with the loud sound he associated the ideas of power or peril, with the low, those of delicacy and gentleness, with the acute, those of fear or surprise, with the grave, solemnity and dignity lie would become more and nmore deeply touched and enraptured, while listening to the music of nature in the voice of singing winds or in the plaint of an Eolian harp, in the crash of tlhunider or in the roar of the Cataract, in the murtmur of the brook or in the moan of the ocean. in the sigh of the zephyr or in the breath of the whirlwind, or while listening to the music of art breaking forth from the loud-sounding trumpet, the muffled drum, or Zion’s lyre which hangs upon religion’s shrine.
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CHARLIE MIACHREE. A BALLAD.
BY WILLIAM J. HOPPIN.
I. COiME over, come over The river to me, If ye are my laddie, Bold Charlie Miaclhree Here’s Mary McPherson, And Susey O’Linn, Who say ye’re faint.hearted,. And darena plunge in. But the dark rolling water Though deep as the seas I know willna scare ye, Nor keep ye frae me: For stout is ye’r back, And strong is ye’r arm, And the heart in ye’r bosom Is faithful and warm Come over, come over The river to me, If ye are my laddie Bold Charlie Machree! II. I see him, I see him, He’s plunged in the tide, His strong arms are dashing The big waves aside; -Oh, the dark rolling water Shoots swift as the sea, But blytlhe is the glance Of his bonny blue e’e; And his cheeks are like roses, Twa buds on a bough; WVho says ye’re faint.hearted My brave Charlie now? Ho, ho, foaming river, Ye may roar as ye go, But ye canna bear Charlie To the dark loch below! Come over, come over The river to me, My true hearted laddie, My Charlie Machree! Hle’s sinking, he’s sinking, Oh, what shall I do! Strike out, Charlie, boldly, Ten strokes and ye’re thro’. He’s sinking, oh Heaven! Ne’er fear, man, ne’er fear, I’ve a kiss for ye, Charlie, As soon as ye’re here! Hle rises, I see him, Five strokes, Charlie, mairHe’s shaking the wet From his bonny brown hair. [-le conquers the current, Hle gains on the sea, HIlo, where is the swimmer Like Charlie Macliree! Come over the river, But once come to me, And I’11 love ye forever Dear Charlie Machree. IV. He’s sinking, he’s gone, Oh God, it is I, It is I who have killed him, Help, help-he must die! Help, help-ah, he rises Strike out and ye’re free, Ho, bravely done, Charlie, Once more now, for me! Now cling to the rock Now gie us ye’r handYe’re safe, dearest Charlie, Ye’re safe on the land! Come lie in my bosom, If there ye can sleep, I canna speak to ye, I only can weep. Ye’ve crossed the wild river, Ye’ve risked all for me, And I’11 part frae ye never Dear Charlie MAlachree!
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OLD AGE.
BY THE REV. EDWARD B. HALL.
l,rE presents few images of higher beauty, than that of a tranquil and virtuous old age. It is quite distinct from the beauty and power of all other periods. The innocence of infancy has a charm unsurpassed in its kind, nor are they to be envied who cannot see it. The simplicity of childhood finds its way to every heart, which selfishness has not cased, or system perverted. The buoyancy of youth, especially when subdued by the gentle hand of religion and gladdened by her smile, is inexpressibly lovely. And the sober strength of manhood, putting itself forth for the good of society and the enduring interests of man, is an object on which the eyes of all, even of the frivolous and corrupt, love to rest, or are forced to look with respect. But you will pass them all, if you see beyond them the venerable form, erect in its dignity, or bending with its load of years well-filled. Here is maturity. And if it has been attained beneath the warmth and is tinged with the rays of the sun of righteousness, there is a grandeur in its beauty, a majesty in its calmness, a mellowness and richness in its fruits, to which none can be indifferent. Even when it is broken with the infirmities of old age, when the senses are dulled, the mind impaired, and the multitude of years has become labor and sorrow, it is an object of deep respect and unusual interest, to every mind that respects itself and every heart that is interested in its race. For, beside the intrinsic venerableness of age, varied but never destroyed by circumstances, there will come occasional words of far-reaching recollection, brief hints full of experience and instruction, voices of warning, breaking upon the ear like the voices of the dead, and at times flashes of light issuing from hidden depthsall telling of an age that is past, and a soul that cannot decay. Then, as the shades of death creep onl, see the tranquillity with which its approach is often watched, the subdued joy with which it is welcomed, the kind but unsparing faithfulness with which it is improved for the instruction of those around. And when (as we sometimes see in the saddest yet noblest wrecks, and to us among the valued tokens of the souls immortality) the worn out frame loses at last even its power of burdening and clouding, and the spirit which for a time had been its prisoner becomes again its Monarch, emerging from its dungeon darkness and reascending its throne of light, how unearthly does it appear,-how resistlessly does it command the perishing organs, its sensual servants, to do its will, or act as if now independent of their ministry! The sunken frame lifts itself up with a strength not its own, the drooping arm is new-nerved, the listless eye beams with no common light, the faltering voice recovers and deepens fearfully its tone, and the shrivelled lips, toutched with an eloquence as of another world, give forth in moments volumes of gathered wisdom. [t is not the master of fiction alone who has drawn a picture of such majesty in age and renovation il decay, nor imagination only that has dipped its pencil in these colors. It is reality. It is the Master of nature and man, the Framer of these bodies and Father of these spirits. It is He who hath said, “Even to your old age, I am He; and even to hoary hairs will I carry you.” It was a feature of antiquity, of ancient literature and manners, to inculcate uniform respect for the aged. Its declension in these latter days, is among the melancholy signs of the times. Once it was not only a disgrace but a crime, to fail of deference and respect to age. Now, is it not a common, and held to be a venial offence? Is it not creeping into that dearest and holiest of earthly relations-parent and child? And in all other relations, in all common cases, is not any high degree of respect, from the young to the old, more unusual and noticeable, than the;want of it? Is it inculcated as it was formerly in our own land? Is it made, as it should be, a part of education, essential to good manners and good morals? If it be not, we may have cause to remember the sad declaration, “rTheir is a generation that cutrseth their father, and doth not bless their miother.” There is reason for the strong language of one, now oppressed by the infirmity but full of the peace of a good old age-” We may judge ill some measure of the state of morals ill any country, from the manner in which age is treated by youth. Where they, who are advanced in life, receive affection and respect, there decency is found, purity is not unknown, and the passions and appe
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tites are under some restraints.“* Let me press the importance of this duty. Let me urge it upon those, who have the office, or in any way the control, of education. Let me press it particularly upon the regard of the young themselves. Honor the aged. Look upon age as entitled of itself to your deference. Pay it every attention, render it every service in your power. Bear with its frailties, as belonging to its condition, and coming, it may be, upon you. Let those frailties never, in their presence or their absence, be the subject of your ridicule or amusement, or that of any around you if your rebuke can silence it. Regard it as an offence against nature, decency, manners and principle. Regard the opposite, habitual respect for age, as belonging essentially to the character of a man, a gentleman, and above all, a Christian. Remember the emphatic * Dr. Freeman, of Boston. 21* word of the Lord to his chosen people;-” Thou shalt rise uip before the hoary head, and honor the face of tlie old manl, and fear thy God.” Remem ber the terrible judgment visited upon those, who jeered at the “bald head.” Be not impious mockers, but reverent helpers, of the aged. Delight to be a staff to their failing limbs, an enlivener of their solitary hours, a comforter of their sorrows. Help them to forget, not to remember, their deprivations and weaknesses. And if you are permitted to watch those weaknesses as they grow with the wveight of years, to witness the decay of noble powers and the apparent withering of warni affection, if you see the inlets of knowvledge and sources of common ii enjoyment one after another closing, if it be your privilege to walk by the aged step by step as they descend the vale-rejoice, that you can be both disciples and teachers of their waning wisdom; that you can be eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, feet to the lame, ministers to the darkened but still eager mind, and messengers of life to the dying. *:* Powverfil indeed is the appeal which comes in the broken voice of age, turning as it leaves the world to rebuke or animate those from whom it is parting forever. Most responsible the influence thus possessed, beautiful the religious use of it, melancholy beyond expression its thoughtless or corrupt abuse. But what, (my friends of every age,) though this influence be all perverted, and the warning lost?What though all lips were still and all lives voiceless? Is there not a tongue in every form that flits before us, in every change that is witnessed, in every breeze that ruffles the surface, and every storm that tosses the billows, of life’s ocean? Has not life itself always a tongue, when it comes in tremulous breathings, when it passes swifter than a post, wheii it vanisheth away like vapor? I)o not days speak, though their possessors be dumb? And the multitude of years, shall it iiot of itself teach wisdom? Look upon the agedconsider what they have been, and bear in mind, that if your most flattering hopes are granted, the change that has come upon them will come upon you, if a more fearful change come not first. A change you wvill experience, not in your bodies only, hibut in your minds, your views of life, your thoughts of death, your pursuits, passions, aspirations. Doubt not this, though you may strive to doubt all things else. The decree is fixed. The change is inevitable. Nature whom you may worship, has written it in every frame. History, which you trust, has told it in the swelling voice of six thousand years. Philosophy and science, in which you glory, have covered the earth with monuments to its truth. Time is already tracing it, though now perhaps with playful fingers, in your changing form and features. Every planet that flies its round, every leaf that drops, every pulse that beats at your wrist, every hair that falls from your head, tells of its coming, sure fulfilment. And before to-morrow’s light lingers on the western hills, Death may inscribe it with his cold hand upon your senseless clay. “Dust thou art. and to dust thou shalt return.“ AN EXCURSION DOWN NARRAGANSET BAY. BY THE REV. JAMIES D. KNOWLES. THE morning shines in all the pride of May, The smiling Heavens unsullied by a cloud; All nature hath assumed her bright array, And wake her living choir their concert loud. While on the deck now throng the busy crowd, The smile of pleasure brightening every brow; The sails on all unfurled, the streamers proud Sport in the breeze, and gay as childhood, now We skim the silver wave, which sparkles round our prow. Majestic Narraganset, o’er whose breast Our barque is lightly wafted by the breeze, Fondly encircled, on thy bosom rest Thy nursling isles: Afar the strained eye sees, Along thy distant banks, amid the trees The peasant’s dwelling, where unwandering eyes, And faithful hearts, if earth indeed have these, Might find that gem which fate or pride denies To those oft envied ones, the noble and the wise.
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Though never hallowed by the voice of song, Yet e’en here quickening recollections crowd, Here the fierce sons of Nature held, along These hills and valleys, ere the forests bow’d Beneath the white man’s stroke, dominion proud \Vild as the cataract-whom their mother gave, The fierce and untamed spirit which ne’er cowed To man, and scorning fate: But o’er the wave The white man came-and they are slumbering in the grave! Ye hapless and deluded victims-when Far Europe’s helpless fugitives, exiled, Fled from the presence of their fellow men, To seek securer refuge in the wild; In honest singleness of heart, ye smiled Upon them, and firee Nature’s welcome spoke, In the heart’s language, warm and undefiled: But soon the gathering tempest burst and broke d’cer your defenceless heads, the scathing thunderstroke. And Philip, thou, whose name is deemed a blot On History’s page all black with human crime; Though thou for country, freedom, life hast fought, With spirit worthy those of ancient time: Though wild and savage, yet thy soul sublime Swelled high with every feeling, which could wring The patriot’s breast, who saw intruders climb His eagle nest, and to the tempest fling The remnant of his race, and clip his mounting wing. Mount Hope is towering proudly as before, The same bright smile, the fields and valleys wearr But thou, their pride, their terror, art no more, And thy bold followers are slumbering there Or haply if the battle chanced to spare A few, more wretched, to the trackless West They fled, to seek a refuge from despair. Alas! the earth vouchsafes no place of rest, Their sons are hated still, wrong’d, hunted and oppressed. Newport! thou wast indeed a lovely spot, Smiling in wealth and beauty o’er the bay, Ere War despoiled thee, yet his hand could not Sweep all thine early loveliness away. Though Time hath written every where decay, Still are thy hills green, and thy daughters fair The last rich hues of the departing day, Full glowing on thy roofs and tall spires, there And fading slowly off, thy fittest emblem are. gut from the tedious dullness of thy streets, Which busy toil and bustle seldom cheer Thy mouldering wharves, which commerce rarely greets Or swells the tar’s rude chorus on the ear To nature’s charms I gladly turn-and here A scene of beauty bursts upon the eye: tHere, blooming fields and fertile hills appear, Below, the harbor, bay, and islands lie, And there, the ocean rolls, wide stretching to the sky. And here the traveller who grieves to trace The wrecks of former grandeur in decay, And every heart, which loves the hallowed place, Which owns a fame that cannot pass away; Mlust pause awhile, and parting tribute pay To that famed spot,* where art and nature vied, That second Eden-but the palace gay Moulders in dust-neglect and ruin wide Darken the lovely spot, erewhile the Island’s pride.
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GENIUS BORN; NOT MADE.
BY THE HON. THOMAS W. DORR.
THE doctrine, that the differences of talent among men are made by education and labor, in fact that “Labor is the only true Genius,” seems to be gaining - Malbone’s extensive and beautiful Garden. ground among us. The repute of this doctrine has grown out of the practical turn which every thing takes in this country; and there are so few really great geniuses, that it is a safe one to inculcate in any part of the world excepting only the danger that it may occasionally excite an ambition disproportionate to a man’s abilities, and which, with all its exertions, is destined to the mortification of having its pretensions, and even its merits disallowed. Every young man should aim high, and then, with labor, he will become respectable; perhaps, eminent. It is quite surprising, how great some men have become by hard study, in various literary and professional departments, whose natural powers were not above mediocrity. They enlarged by use, their acquisitive faculties to an extraordinary degree; they may have been eminently useful, but they never became original and inventive. Let no man deceive himself with the hope of making himself a genius. This is a word of high prerogative. It indicates the possession not of any immediate divine inspiration truly, but of certain “high gifts that border on divinity,” and which are not easily definable by or to those who are entirely unconscious of them. They are still, in kind, the same human powers which all possess in various humbler degrees, since it is the true test of -genius, that its productions arrest and control the sympathies of all mankind. Genius, in its power, is like the mysterious centre of magnetic attraction. All minds and hearts, are instinctively drawn out toward it, they know not why, and are filled with the glory and fruition of its divine works,-claiming by their very homage, kindred with its nature, and attesting by the truth and fervor of their admiration, its higher origin and nearer affinity to the “First good, first perfect, and first fair.“ This is the testimony of every age and country and its force will not probably be impaired by any exceptions in our own. But not to be deemed too vague, let us resort to examples. If any being ill this lower world is distinguished by the hand of his Maker above the rest of His intelligent creatures, it is the truly great, original, inventive, creative Poet. His native perceptions, susceptibilities, capacities, are different from those of common men. He sees a great deal more than they, in the world without; a thousand beautiful combinations, (suggesting innumerable fancies and emotions,) which are lost to the dead eye of the ordinary observer: to the favored places of the earth, where he paid homage to nature, he bequeaths associations which render them forever memorable and sacred to mankind: he perceives new, delicate, remote relations, the parents of new and striking thoughts; he searches “dark bosoms,” and unveils the mysteries of the heart and life of man; he does not rest when he has portrayed the vicissitudes of life and the varieties of human character; he ranges beyond the death of the body, along the endless destiny of the mind. Further, there is no reputation so dear and coveted as that of the true poet. Other great men are occasionally remembered and admired, but the mnemory of the poet dwells with the noble and generous ill mind, and is constantly renewed, with each rising generation, in the hearts of the young. The Temple of Fame was reared by elder hands, but the young are the guardians and patrons of its shrine. Their offering,s are the richest and most sincere. The poet lives after death, on earth; lives to the mind’s eye more truly than any other man, however great his virtues, his genius, or his works. Literary ment and all who have strong, ambitious minds, are well aware of this truth, and there is a wide aspiration after the fame of a poet. Horace complained in his day, of the general ruish toward Parnassus “Both fools and learned, we every where write verse.*
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The complaint is tenfold more distressing at the preseiit day. There is an unexampled competition in the poetical lists of England and our owni country; yet with all the incitements of ambition, all the accutmulations of classic and modern learning, all the labors or patience and industry, all the efforts of real taleit, there has appeared but one man in this century, whose statue deserves to be placed in the temnple of which we have been speaking, beside the images of Shakspeare and Milton. But genius is not of one kind only, There are various forms of it. There is a genius of the it-tdersta iiciig; and it was never better exemplified than in the mind of Newton. He is commonly cited to prove what a man of moderate abilities can do, with ’ patient attention and reflection.” The humility of this great man, while it really favored his perception of truth, and aided his discoveries, led him to depreciate h.is own abilities. But it should be remembered, that wheii he spoke to common apprehension so poorly of himself, he was looking upward to the powers above him, and the world of truthl, that lay beyond the capacity of his present limited faculties; and not downward, at the ordinary intellects and aclquirements aroun-d him. The genius of the imagination is thle mnost imposing and the most easily recognized and distiinguished: but that of the iunderstaiidiug is not the less real. Sir Isaac had an imagination perhaps of no ordinary degree; he essayed both poetry and painting in his younger days; but his good sense told him where his greater strength lay, and he shaped his pursuits in that direction. It was the power and reach of his understanding that were so remarkable. But, it wvill be asked, may not any one be an Orator? There is much truth in the old adage ” For though the Poet’s born, net made, The Orator mnay learn his trade.” The first line is strictly true: any man of good talents may indeed make verses, and some such have more facility in rhyming than the true sonis of the lyre: in other words, great numbers can and do attain to that?mediocrity, which necither, “gods, men, nor booksellers,” can endure. The second line requires qualification. Since the poets have ceased to sing their own verses, as in early times, their personal appearance and mnode of speech are of little consequence, except to their immediate acquaintance. Thoughl Dante, after the death of Beatrice, wore a savage aspect, and was fearful to look upon his “Comedy” is not the less “Divine.” Pope was none the less a poet, for resembling in his person, a note of interrogation but his fitness for ani orator, with such a figure, would have been rathler questionable. It is not only necessary for the orator to have good thoughts and good words; and these are the main thing after all, but personal appearance and bearing, voice, enunciation, gesture, effect, must all be attended to, and are all to a great ([egtree, within the reach of art. An awklward, slovenly port, (and it is of no small consequence to a public speaker how he carries himself,) may be corrected, a bad voice may be improved, rude einunciation and gesture may be amended and polished, and the orator may acquire a skill in adapting himnself to his audience, to times, places, feelings, so as greatly to increase the effect of his efforts. But go into public assemblies, and you will soo00 learn, that all the externals of great oratory are merely accessories to something great in the mind. Suppose a man perfect in them, without strong reasoning powers and imagination, he is but feeble and tiresonme. It is not uncommon, indeed, to hear speakers whose well studied delivery and gesture are so out of proportion to the littleness of their thoughts, that you listen to them with a sense of the ridiculous. Power and manner must be combined, to realize our conceptions of perfect oratory. In truth, the really great orator is a man of genius; he is “a poet in action.” He is almost as rare as the pct, or philosopher of the first rank. There is a wide field for eloquence in this country and yet, notwithstanding the amount of talent directed towards public speaking, how few decidedly powerful orators now exist, or have existed among us: and most of them have been but little indebted for their effect, to the graces of elocution. Our New-England “champion of the Constitution,” has but one gesture in delivery; an awkward movement of the arms up and down, making what has been appropriately termed, with reference to him, the “lion-paw stroke.” His power is in his strong vehement logic, and cold, bitter irony. Had he but a few grains more imagination-but he is great enough, too great, to be popular in this day of small men. That there is such a thiing as a natural ear fobr music, without which no one can be more than a mere mechanical imitator of sounds, will, I believe, be conceded by almost every one; although there may be a
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difference of opinion as to the defect, whether, strictly speakinig, it be in the external organ, rather than in the mind itself. And will any one deny the name of genius, though of a lower form, to such divine masters as Handel, Mozart, Rossini; who stand as far above the ordinary level of the unnumbered musical composers, as Milton, Byron, and Moore, (between whom and the artists above named, there is, perhaps, more than a fanciful resemblance,) are pre-eminent, above the ten thoulsand poetasters, in their several orders of excellence? In examining the elements of a poet’s constitution, we cannot fail to observe, that he must have a peculiar sensibility-a large, full heart of his own, to be able either to probe and search the bosoms of others, or to win and control their hearts, which are the depositories of his fame. These warm feelings kindle that creative faculty, by which lihe is characterized. We call his the genius of the imagination. I believe, also, that there is, in a very peculiar sense, a genius of the heart. This is a subject of itself; I am afraid to attempt it, and will leave it where it is. Education must go on, to a certain point, nearly the same with all minds. But the time will come, and does come, in the course of mental development, when certain decided tastes and preferences are manifested in those, whatever may be their condition of life, who are destined to distinction. Consult the biography of eminent men. You do not find that early circunmstances decided their fate; that is to say, you do not find that this man was great, or the reverse, because he was born to wealth, had every advantage of education, and was directed by anxious friends to that particular course for which they thought him best qualified; nor that another was great, or the reverse, because he had none of these circumstances on his side. Wealth, birth, title, do not seem on the one hand, to depress and enervate the native energy of real genius; nor on the other, do poverty, misery and neglect, seem necessary to call it into action. Where it is ill a man, it will show itself, without, or against external circumstances. If Boyle, or Byron, had been born to the most squalid wretchedness, I do not believe that they would have been greater men onl that account. The condition of a man of genius, may advance or retard his progress, not prevent it. We may find in the list of great men, some who were born apparently to the most unhappy fate, who never knew their parents, who were surrounded by degrading and vicious examples and bowed down by the most servile humiliation; while, on the contrary, thousands of another sort, with every advantage of fortune and education, have gravitated toward, and at last sunk into the very state from w-hich the first mentioned emerged. So far as Iam able to learn the truth on this subject, it is, as others have found it, that ordinary men generally remain so far as their own exertions are concerned, in the conditions where the accidents of birth may have placed them; while the greater men, to whom nature has been lavish of her best gifts, vindicate their supremacy, bend and conquer circumstances, are the artificers of their own fortunes, the “sons of their own works.” In the noble lines of Dryden, “Man makes his Fate according to his mind; The weak, low spirit, Fortune, makes her slave, But she’s a drudge, when hectored by the brave. If Fate weave common thread, I’ll change the doom, And with new purple, weave a nobler loom.“ That genius depends on an inward impulse, and is not merely mncade by the will and exercise of the individual, is also corroborated by the fact that its possessor may for a long time give the clearest evidence of his endowment, without a consciousness of its existence. Men of powerful minds, generally find themselves out, some very early in life; but they are frequently indebted to the reaction of the popular opinion formed by their works, for the full conviction of their own superiority. It is rare for a man of genius to go through life, without expressiig his love of fame, and his hope of an immnortality on earth, in the memory of mankind. Milton, gloried in the assurance he felt, that he had written something which “posterity would not willingly let die.” But on the other hand, is there a line in the works of Shakspeare, or an intimation in any thing which we know of his life, to show that he felt and exulted in his strength, and indulged the dream of his immortal honors. His plays are evidentl y written with haste and carelessness; he took no pains for their accurate preservation; and they have reached us with doubtless many additions and alterations by other hands. Shakspeare early felt “, That dear necessity of being loved;’ And although disappointed in his domestic affections, he does not appear to have resorted to those solaces of ambition and fame, I That cheer the poverty of dcsert hearts.” Perhaps this absence of all affectation of a great name and of the conscious display of genius, is one of the secrets of the power of the great Poet of Human Nature. With regard to the labor of men of genius: although they are not exempted from the toils of acquisition, they are above
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the necessity of plodding. They gather and arrange facts, and arrive at the conclusions, more rapidly than the generality of men. Although, a precocious memory in a child is not the best assurance of genius; yet, on the other hand, it is true, with rare exceptions, that men of genius have great memories. They may not be idle, though their labors have not the arrangement and regularity of others. They may become slothful and negligent, and fail of attaining the just measure of their superiority; but point out, if you can, any man of this description, whose curiosity and love of knowledge have not led him to to acquire enough to make himself known, if not so well known as he should be. Geinius and acquisition naturally belong tog,ether. Milton was the greatest scholar of his age. One might suppose that Byron, if any body, lived without acquirement and study; but we learn the contrary, from his biography. His reading was desultory, but vast. Excepting ill the exact sciences, he was one of the best informed men of his day. Labor does not make the man of genius; but he derives as much more advantage from it than others, as his native mind is greater than theirs. But are circumstances of no account, as you before said? the objector may ask. I did not say they were of no account. I said they had nothing to do with creating those powers of mind which are summed up in the word genius. Circumstances can do a great deal; they can depress the truly noble, and cover them with neglect and obloquy; they can raise the little, the sordid, the base, to high distinction, and keep them there; they can confer and take away wealth, reputation, power; they can favor or retard the advancement of those who must advance without them, or in spite of them; but they cannot make the great heart, the unconquerable will, the creative imagination, the comprehensive understanding. These divine endowments cannot be wholly concealed or suppressed; and at some time or other, in some place or other, and in some way or other, will proclaim their own majesty, and command the world’s reverence. Their possessor may have been the child of misfortune and penury, from the cradle to the grave; nay, he may have perished prematurely like Otway and (,hatterton, in the desperation of physical want; but if the gift of God wvas in him, depend upon it, there was also a record of its power, which cannot be lost, before it was taken with him to another life. The hapless son of genius, to whom fortune denied his daily bread, may make such rich provision for posterity, in his undying wvorks, that remote generations shall call him a benefactor, and consecrate his fame. But labor and circumstances did not make this man. Some one will say, it is a hard fate to which we are born; the vast majority, to mediocrity and even less. Such is our fate nevertheless.’” Hath not the potter power over the clay, to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor?” The decree of mere p ower may not justify to our minds, the way of ou r Maker; but if we look farther, we shiall discern in this, as in all the other appointments of Providence, the purpose and the fulfilment of the greatest good. The endless variety of the natural world is not more necessary to the pleasure of the individual beings who inhabit it, than the diversity of th eir powers, conditions and employments is, to the greatest happiness of their greatest number. And after all, there is one great common ground of equality. The moral constitution of man, which gives him the perception of right and wrong, and makes him the just subject of a futuire retribution, redresses the balance of power, which might otherwise be disturbed by the preponderance of great abilities: and thus the humblest man, who enjoys an inferior portion of his maker’s best gifts, may raise himself to the higher degrees of moral excellence. The duties of justice, benevolence, and piety, are common to all, because all have the power to perform them; and the worth of the performance is not measured by ability, but by the proportion between ability and its result. The sway of mere genius, without reference to its benevolent exercise, is beginning to decline, as Christianity advances; and a life of beneficence is becoming a passport to fame. Wilberforce was blest with no genius; but he heard the cry of the oppressed, and devoted his life and fortune to the abolition of the curse of slavery. His name will be mentioned with honor, to say nothing of future recompenses, when the names of multitudes of greater men who gratified a selfish ambition, at the expense of tears and blood to their fellow creatures, are cited with contempt, or covered with oblivion. The spirit of that great philanthropist is borne up to heaven upon the prayers of the human race. He was their friend. Let those who despair of distinction from the force of their abilities, adopt a course like his: they may be assured that there is a leaf in the Life-Book even of human memory and gratitude, for all those who dedicate their time, their talents and their substance, to increase the know ledge, the virtue and the happiness of mankind.
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TIME.
BY THOMAS C. HARTSHORN.
TIME, though our friend, is often deemed a foe, Against him many strive with idle zeal: The lover and the sluggard think him slow, And wish a rapid motion to his wheel: While debtors, who have notes or drafts to pay, Would gladly have him linger on his way. The gay coquette, regardless how he flies, Enjoys her conquests while her charms avail, Nor knows the truth that Flattery denies, Until her mirror tells the serious tale; Then borrows she each artificial aid To hide the ravages that Time hath made. In vain she strives! proud monuments decay; Shall frailer beauty such a wreck outlive? Alas! it is the creature of a day, And passes with the cloud that shines at eve, When the bright sun in setting throws a fringe Of rays on it- an evanescent tinge! Nor this alone; the fairest works of art May fall unwept, but Genius weeps to see The gentlest lines that ever touched the heart, Fade like the colors on old tapestry. Hath he not plundered Chaucer of his bays, By making obsolete his finest lays? And Shakspeare too, whom Nature took to nurse Amid her mountain scenery, wild, sublime, (Why did she not exempt him from the curse?) Hath felt the woeful ravages of Time So much, that some think all his commentators, Compared to Time, are harmless depredators. ’rhe words in which they breathed their glowing souls, When the fine frenzy kindled up their ken, Obscure in meaning, like the leafy scrolls Which zephyr wafted from the Sybil’s den, Have lost the bold conceptions they conveyed, And given critics quite a m.usty trade. Even they who led the van, and kindled war Along the breathing lines of clashing spears, Have missed the fame which they contended for, Obscured and buried in the lapse of years; Mentioned perhaps in some black-letter book Covered with cobwebs in its dusty nook. Behold what mighty changes Time can make. The fields that madmen fattened with their gore, Are green and peaceful as a summer lake, The victors and the vanquished known no more, Save when the sturdy ploughman, with his share, Turns up their bones and wonders whose they were. He who hath read the records of the past, Perchance may recollect the cause, the date, VWherefore and when the trumpet blew the blast Which called these mortal remnants to their fate: And while his soul is tuned to melancholy lie drops a tear, and sighs for human folly. O what a tale could Time to us reveal Of by-gone ages, when the world was new! Thou hoary sire! thine oracles unseal! Display thy past experience to our view! For thou hast seen proud empires rise and fall Before the deluge overwhelmed them all. Thy visionary form before me now Appears as Neptune from the main arose, The mists of ages hang upon thy brow, Spectres of ruined things thy train compose, The verdure shrinks and withers at thy tread And crowds of mortals number with the dead! Speak while I sit submissive to thy will, Historic truth devoid of fabrication: I wait, with eager mind and ready quill, To give symbolic form to thy narration. Infuse my ink with all thy gathered store, And thus from darkness light shall spring once more. Tell us the story of those eastern nations To whom the arts and sciences were known.
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Ere Philip’s son commenced his operations, Or his precursor, Cyrus, was o’erthrown; Fable sits brooding over them, and mystery Involves the scanty records of their history. Who reared the mounds upon Ohio’s shore That mock research and triumph over thee! The savage, skilled in legendary lore, Hath no tradition firom his ancestry. Oblivion glooms upon the buried brave Like Desolation, on a Druid’s grave. It is imagined by the antiquaries That, ere Columbus found this hemisphere, (Thou hast reduced them to these strange vagaries) A nobler race of men existed here. Pray, did this race, from earthly refuge driven, Pass with the mammoth to the Indian’s heaven? When brilliant schemes the youthful fancy drew, Did after years fulfil each fond desire? Or did they, like the Hebrew leader, view Afar the consummation, and expire Before they reached it? Such the fate of all Who grovel now on this terrestrial ball! Deceitful Time! when grief and pain annoy The mind and body, slow is thy career: But when excited by some transient joy, Rapid thy passage through the rolling year! Our fears, our hopes, thou bearest on thy wing, Age’s ripe autumn, and young boyhood’s spring. Even while I gaze, thou fadest from my view As some loose cloud fantastic,zly dight, Which, at the evening’s close, dissolves in dew, And leaves no vestige in the starry height. Farewell! grim phantom of an idle hour, Which Endor’s art may not to me restore!
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A DEFENCE OF POETRY.
BY THE REV. DR. CHANNING.
POETRY seems to us the divinest of all arts; for it is the breathing or expression of that principle or sentiment, which is deepest and sublimest in human nature; we mean, of that thirst or aspiration, to which no mind is wholly a stranger, for something purer and lovelier, something more powerful, lofty, and thrilling than ordinary and real life affords. No doctrine is more common among Christians than that of man’s immortality; but it is not so generally understood, that the germs or principles of his whole future being are now wrapped up in his soul, as the rudiments of the fiuture plant in the seed. As a necessary result of this constitution, the soul, possessed and moved by these mighty though infant energies, is perpetually stretching beyond what is present and visible, struggling against the bounds of its earthly prison-house, and seeking relief and joy in imaginings of unseen and ideal being. This view of our nature, which has never been fully developed, and which goes farther towards explain ing the contradictions of human life than all others, carries us to the very foundation and sources of poetry. He who cannot interpret by his own consciousness what we now have said, wants the true key to works of genius. He has not penetrated those sacred recesses of the soul, where poetry is born and nourished, and inhales immortal vigor, and wings herself for her heavenward flight. In an intellectual nature, framed for progress and for higher modes of being, there must be creative energies, powers of original and ever growing thought; and poetry is the form in which these energies are chiefly manifested. It is the glorious prerogative of this art, that it “makes all things new” for the gratification of a divine instinct. It indeed finds its elements in what it actually sees and experiences, in the worlds of matter and mind; but it combines and blends these into new forms, and according to new affinities, breaks down, if we may so say, the distinctions and bounds of nature; imparts to material objects life, and sentiment, and emotion, and invests the mind with the powers and splendors of the outward creation; describes the surrounding universe iii the colors which the passions throw over it, and depicts the soul in those modes of repose or agitation, of tenderness or sublime emotion, which manifest its thirst for a more powerful and joyful existence. To a man of a literal and prosaic character, the mind may seem lawless in these workings; but it observes higher laws than it transgresses, the laws of the immortal intellect; it is trying and developing its best faculties; and in the objects which it describes, or in the emotions which it awakens, anticipates those states of progressive power, splendor, beauty, and happiness, for which it was created. We accordingly believe that poetry, far from injuring society, is one of the great instruments of its refinement and exaltation. It lifts the mind above ordinary life, gives it a respite from depressing cares, and awakens the consciousness of its affinity with what is pure and noble. In its legitimate and highest efforts, it has the same tendency and aim with Christianity; that is, to spiritualize our nature. True, poetry has been made the instrument of vice, the pander of bad passions; but when genius thus stoops, it dims its fires, and parts with much of its power; and even when poetry is enslaved to licentiousness or misanthropy, she cannot wholly forget her true vocation. Strains of pure feeling, touches of tenderness, images of innocent happiness, sympathies with suffering virtue, bursts of scorn or indgination at the hollowness of the world, passages true to our moral nature, often escape in an immoral work, and show us how hard it is for a gifted spirit to divorce itself wholly from what is good. Poetry has a natural alliance with our best affections. It delights in the beauty and sublimity of the outward creation and of the soul. It indeed portrays, with terrible energy, the excesses of the passions; but they are passions which show a mighty nature, which are full of power, which command awe, and excite a deep though shuddering sympathy. Its great tendency and purpose is, to carry the mind beyond and above the beaten, dusty, weary walks of ordinary life; to lift it in a purer element; and to breathe into it a more profound and generous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of early feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings, spreads our sympathies over all classes of society, knits us by
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new ties with universal being, and, through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the fiuture life. We are aware, that it is objected to poetry, that it gives wrong views and excites false expectations of life, peoples the mind with shadows and illusions and builds up imagination on the ruins of wisdom. That there is a wisdom, against which poetry wars, the wisdom of the senses, which makes physical comfort and gratification the supreme good, and wealth the chief interest of life, we do not deny; nor do we deemn it the least service which poetry renders to mankind, that it redeems them from the thraldom of this earthborn prudence. But, passing over this topic, we would observe that the complaint against poetry as abounding in illusion and deception, is in the main groundless. In many poems there is more of truth than in many histories ant philosophic theories. The fictions of genius are often the vehicles of the sublimest verities, and its flashes often open new regions of thought, and throw new light on the mysteries of our being. In poetry, when the letter is falsehood, the spirit is often profoundest wisdom. And if truth thus dwells in the boldest fictions of the poet, much more may it be expected in his dc’ineations of life; for the present life, which is the first stage of the immortal mind, abounds in the materials of poetry, and it is the high office of the bard to detect this divine element among the grosser labors and pleasures of our earthly being. The present life is not wholly prosaic, precise, tame, and finite. To the gifted eye, it abounds in the poetic. The affections which spread beyond ourselves and stretch far into futurity; the workings of mighty passions, which seem to arm the soul with an almost superhuman energy; the innocent and irrepressible joy of infancy; the bloom, and buoyancy, and dazzling hopes of youth; the throbbings of the heart, when it first wakes to love, and dreams of a happiness too vast for earth; woman, with her beauty, and grace, and gentleness, and fulness of feeling, and depth of affection, and blushes of purity, and the tones and looks which only a mother’s heart can inspire;-these are all poetical. It is not true that the poet paints a life which does not exist. He only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life’s etherial essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys. And in this he does well; for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence, and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights worthy of a higher being. This power of poetry to refine our views of life and happiness, is more and more needed as society advances. It is needed to withstand the encroachments of heartless and artificial manners, which make civilization so tame and uninteresting. It is needed to counteract the tendency of physical science, which being now sought, not, as formerly, for intellectual gratification, but for multiplying bodily comforts, requires a new development of imagination, taste, and poetry, to preserve men from sinking into an earthly, material, epicurean life.
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A FRAGMENT. BY THE REV. CHARLES T. B ROOKS.
“THERE is a rapture on the lonely shore By the deep sea, and music in its roar:” Thus sung the Bard; and yet he ne’er had stood By “Purgatory,“* where its crystal flood * Near Newport. All green and glassy murmurs evermore,He ne’er had heard the music of that roar, Nor had he heard the deep and sullen shock Of bellowing billows at the “Sounding Rock.” He ne’er had heard the gently rippling wave Mo,u o’er the pebbly flood of “Conrad’s Cave.” Would he had heard these tones that he might tell What music lingers in the solemn swell Of the wild waves along our rock-bound coast How like some stern and ever mustering host, Old ocean’s billows roll and murmur here, And greet with trumpet tones the enchanted ear. Solemn and stately now the gathering throng Of waves on waves deep-sounding sweep along In measured march, far as the eye can reach Onward they come, still onward to the beach, LI,o! in the van, with manes of flying foam, Rank upon rank like fierce war-steeds they come, As up the beach the snow-white lines advance Their curling manes in the gay sunlight glance. But ah! these words are feeble-lovely isle! Whether the summer waves serenely smile, Or wintry breakers dash with solemn roar Around thy stern and wild-thy noble shoreThou hast a charm no pen or tongue can tell.
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TRENTON FALLS.
BY THE REV. ABEL STEVENS.
TRENTON FALLS are in the town of Trenton, about fifteen miles in a northern direction from the city of Utica. It may seem an extravagant enthusiasm to undertake a ride of thirty miles, and that a digression from the regular route, for the purpose of seeing a sip,(le object; but no one endowed with even an ordinary love of nature will feel unrecompensed by a visit to these beautiful cascades. We started about nine o’clock in the morning on horseback. After passing through the village of Trenton, you immediately ascend a small hill, on the summit of which is a finely situated hotel, where you dismount and prepare to descend to the stream which forms the cascades. The rivulet is called the West Canada Creek. The falls are about twenty-four miles above its confluence with the Mohawk river; they extend about two miles, and are six in number. A ridge of limestone, reaching from the Mohawk to the St. Lawrence, crosses the bed of the river through an interval of about five miles and it is by the tortuous channel which it has worn for itself through this ridge, with the numerous precipices which its waters have been excavating for ages, that an assemblage of natural features has been produced which forms a picture unrivalled for beauty, at least in our own country. You descend from the hotel, on the summit of the hill, a precipitous declivity, by numerous flights of steps, to the river which lies entirely concealed with overhanging forests, and is not perceptible until you step into the very ravine through which it meanders. On reaching this position, your progress is instantly arrested to gaze with wonder and delight on the scenery, beautiful beyond description, which immediately opens to your view. Above, lofty and almost perpendicular hills lift their summits upward of 100 feet, robed with thick forests until within about twenty feet of their base, where the limestone is exposed in perfect stratification, worn into a thousand varied lines of beauty, by the waters which no doubt, formerly washed them. Below, the strata extend out beneath your feet making a level pathway sufficiently wide, with the exception of occasional places where it is contracted to a few inches, and frequently projecting so far as to form large table rocks. These continued strata break nearly in their centre, affording a channel of varying width for the stream, which whirls along with great rapidity, its waters clear as crystal, now flowing smoothly like the surface of a mirror reflecting the small strip of sky perceptible above the tops of the hills and the foliage on their declivities, and then foaming over the reefs that interrupt their course, now, sweeping rapid as a lightning streak through deep chutes which they have cut for themselves, and then winding a serpentine course, in rolling eddies until they lose themselves in the distance. Now, suppose an assemblage of scenery a thousand times more delightful than this attempted description, extending for about two miles, with, at suitable intervals, six splendid cataracts tumbling over romantic precipices varying from twenty to forty-eight feet in depth, with lofty embankments, in many places projecting in threatening cliffs, under which you tremble with apprehension, and here and there large numbers of forest trees growing horizontally in their fissures, and pending over the winding waters as if charmed by their beauties, or stooping to imbibe their refreshing spray. Imagitle such a scene as this fenced in by mountains from all around, accessible to the spectator only by few and somewhat difficult passages, every object shut out from the sight but the heavens above and the scenery below, where the mind can commune only with beauty and solitude-and then you may have some conception of this loveliest workmanship of nature. The prospect from any one position is of but small extent, owing to the curvatures which the stream describes among the hills. This only adds to the interest of the scenery by dividing it into a succession of pictutres, each perfect in itself, and sufficiently distinguished. You may well suppose that such an interesting scene detained me the great proportion of the day, gazing and gazing again, wandering to and fro, ascending the cliffs, leaping out on the isolated rocks that lay in the channel of the stream, venturing to perilous extremities of the banks, in order to blend the feeling of the terrible with the delightful, and varying my position as much as possible, that I might catch the full expression of the scene. Never, indeed did the true idea of the beautiful more entirely penetrate my soul. I rambled along the declivities of the embankments as far as it was possible without being precipitated into
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the depths, sometimes standing on small protuberances not more than four inches in width, and holding on to the cliffs above, while 20 or 30 feet below, the torrent was dashing onward in its course, as a cataract sending up its thundering roar. The whole mass of limestone forming the bed and banks of the river, is full of various organic remains, some rare and valuable; indeed they seem to form the substance of the rock, for scarcely can a square inch beneath your feet be found destitute of some impression of organic existence, which in an unknown period of the past found a place of being where now rest the deep foundations of a part of an extended chasm of mountains. Thus while the whole scenery of the place renders it a beautiful and befitting temple of nature to her God, the rocky laming of the mountain are a record of great truths confirmatory of most important events in the providence of God, and in the narrative of his word-truths, recorded in hieroglyphics, which, after the obscurity of ages, modern science has deciphered with an accuracy almost infallible, and developed in them attestations of God’s Holy Word. It may well be supposed that the Christian visitor, wandering alone amid these glorious solitudes, would catch the spirit of the scene, and, bowing on these entablatures of nature’s ancient records, amid the entrancing beauty around him, send up his voice with the thunder of the cataract to Him who is God over all and blessed forever.
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THE LIVING DEAD.
BY WILLIAM J. PABODIE.
“Dead men have come again, and walk about.“-Blair. SLAM bang!-I sprang from my chair, As springs from her form the startled hare, When the rifle’s report wakes the slumbering air. Ghosts, hobgoblins and corpses pale, Witches and warlocks, Erl.kings and all Such fancies as make up a German tale, And hold the soul in a fixed enthral, Had withdrawn my mind from the world around, And fast in the realms ideal bound, WVhen burst on my ear that startling sound. I rushed to the window with fear aghast!’T was the slam of the blind in the nightly blast. The night was dark, save when the beams Of the moon burst thro’ the jagged clouds, Hurrying by in flying crowds, And lit up the landscape with fitful gleams; Or when the lightning flashed from afar, Or athwart the gloom shot a blazing star: And hark to the moan of the lofty trees, As they bend their tall tops to the breeze! The church.yard slept in the fitful light, And methought-was it true or fancy’s flight?’Mid the grave.stones glimmering tall and white, A troop of thin ghosts, like the shapes of a trance, Were flitting about in a shadowy dance. I rushed to the streets-the lights burned blue,I passed them by and onward flew, And still I gave speed to my hurrying pace, For methought those sprites were behind in chase. A light gleamed forth with a dazzling glare, From a lofty hall, on the darkened air; A figure stalked by me-I followed him inHe was tall and gaunt and lean and thinI gazed around with a wondering stare, And as I gazed, up rose my hair! Some three.-score shapes were seated around That ample hall, nor breath, nor sound Disturbed the silence so profound. Fleshless they were, those ghastly men, And the bone shone white thro’ the o’erdrawn skin, And 0,’twas an awful sight, to see The deathly glare of each stony e’e! And look! more forms come gliding in, Those spectral forms so tall and thinAnd the dry bones rattled, as on they passed, Like leafless boughs in the wintry blast:Methought the dead had returned to life, To revisit the scenes of their former strife. The last had entered, the door swung to,I was alone with that ghostly crew; And 0,’twas an awful thing, to be Alone in such fearful company! On the rostrum now a shape arose, Whose look my blood with horror froze;, To his brow he lifted his skinny hand, And glower’d around on that grisly band, I looked as pale, I ween, as he, When he fixed that glassy eye on me. He comes, he comes, that fearful one! He has left his rostrum highHe comes!-each head is slowly turned, And on me is fixed each eye. I strove to rush from that haunted place, But my limbs were smote with fear; I strove to shriek, but my voice was mute That dreadful shape was near. He comes, he comes, that fearful one! His breath, it fans my cheek’T is chill as the breeze of the polar seas, When it blows from the icy peak;His shrunken face is close to mine, His hand is on my arm, And his lips, those skinny lips, they move O God! forfend the charm! A voice came forth-it said to me, “Will you join the Graham Society?’“
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HIENRY CLAY IN THE SENATE.
BY THE HON. JOHN WHIPPLE.
MR. CLAY had listened, day after day, with the determination to say nothing upon the subject which had been so long under debate. At last his patience became exhausted. His feelings impelled him to take the floor, and though salm, collected and full of dignity, his whole port and bearing heralded the approach of the godlike eloquence which was about to burst upon the American Senate. He rose with a sort of halo around him. Thoughts that breathe and words that burn, issued not from his lips alone, but from every attitude, every gesture, every look. It was not merely a resistless tide, a tide of power and giant strength, but a stream of glowing light, of sparkling beauty, of bewitching charms. You would have felt your hearts swelling within you, as he described the beauty and loveliness of your own, your native land. At one moment he was seen diving down to lowest depths of a clear and convincing logic; at another soaring aloft amidst the highest heaven of pure and patriotic feeling. At one moment piercing his antagonist with the sharp edge of the keenest irony. At another, overwhelming him with the bolt of thundering indignation. Patriotism filled his heart with the warmest emotions, a clear and crystal head supplied him with the loftiest thoughts, and poetry yielded to his use her whole store of syren words, each one glittering with the rosy touch of her own heavenly pencil. On he moved in his own path of light, his country’s welfare in his heart. and her standard in his hand, and he paused not, till the banner of freedom was seen floating aloft upon the ramparts of the constitution. Let it not be supposed, that I have alluded to the brilliant effort of this distinguished man, for the mere purpose of personal eulogy. I have alluded to it as but one of the many similar efforts, some of them quite its equal, of lofty, commanding and energetic eloquence, which for the last ten years have characterized the friends of constitutional freedom in the American Senate. That little band have earned for themselves a durable and a lasting fame. For years they have stood upon the outward wall, and they have never for a moment, shrunk from the arduous duties of their dangerous position, but through good report and through evil report, they have delivered the whole word of the law, as re ceived by them from the inspired framers of the constitution. They have received, what to lofty and noble minds is above all rewards, the own consciences. Some of them have fallen by the wayside, worn out in the service of their country. But many of them now live to enjoy the high reward of having imparted their own patriotic spirit to the people whose cause they have so nobly defended. That spirit it is which is now abroad in the land. It is no selfish, office-seeking spirit. It is the spirit of Brutus, which laid the imperial tyrant of Rome low in the dust. It is the spirit of Hampden, which brought to the block the head of a perjured King. Nay, it is the still loftier spirit of WVashington, which awakened the energies of a great and free people, led them through a long and painful struggle, and finally crowned them with an undying glory on the heights of Yorktown. That spirit will surely prevail, for it is abroad all over the land. From the mountain tops and from the valleys of the east, upon every peak of the extended Alleghany ridge-all over the ocean-like prairies of the west, and upon every mile of the great father of waters, from the Falls of St. Anthony down to the Gulf of Mexico, the banner of freedom proudly floats aloft in the breeze of heaven. Beneath that banner, the ocean roll of this grand and glorious sentiment, is heaving and.sywelling over a population of fifteen millions of freeborn men.
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A SEPTEMBER EVENING ON THE BANKS OF THE MOSHASSUCK.
BY SARAH H. WHITMAN.
” Now to the sessions of sweet, silent thought, I summon up remembrance of things past.” Shakspeare’s Sonnets. AGAIN September’s golden day Serenely still, intensely bright, Fades on the umbered hills away And melts into the coming night. Again Moshassuck’s silver tide Reflects each green herb on its side, Each tasselled wreath and tangling vine Whose tendrils o’er its margin twine. And standing on its velvet shore Where yesternight with thee I stood, I trace its devious course once more Far winding on through vale and wood. Now glimmering through yon golden mist, By the last glinting sunbeams kissed, Now lost where lengthening shadows fall From hazel-copse and moss-fringed wall. Near where yon rocks the stream inurn The lonely gentian blossoms still, Still wave the star.flower and the fern O’er the soft outline of the hill; While far aloft where pine-trees throw Their shade athwart the sunset glow, Thin vapors cloud the illumined air And parting day-light lingers there. But ah, no longer thou art near This varied loveliness to see, And I, though fondly lingering here To-night can only think on theeThe flowers thy gentle hand caressed Still lie unwithered on my breast, And still thy footsteps print the shore Where thou and I may rove no more. Again I hear the murmuring fall Of water from some distant dell, The beetle’s hum, the cricket’s call, And, far away, that evening bellAgain, again those sounds I hear, But oh, how desolate and drear They seem to night —how like a knell The music of that evening bell Again the new moon in the west, Scarce seen upon yon golden sky, Hangs o’er the mountain’s purple crest With one pale planet trembling nigh, And beautiful her pearly light As when we blessed its beams last night, But thou art on the far blue sea, And I can only think on thee.
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LAST NIGHT OF THE YEAR. BY THE REV. EDWARD B. HALL.
OUR sympathy with this hour is almost wholly retrospective. It belongs to the Past. It has little association with the morrow. The morrow has a character entirely separate-not less important, but distinct. We may not close our hearts, if they are right toward the Giver we cannot close them, to the greatness and power of a new gift of existence. We all share the natural and ever fresh joy, which an opening year awakens But the impression is playfUil and evanescent, compared with the concen tration and awe, with which the mind hangs upIon the few, not lightly flying, but soberly moving and gazing moments of the parting season. There is power in all seasons, and all impressions are mixed. But there is one element here that belongs to no other. True, it is an association that rests upon a division of time once artificial and wholly conventional. But it has become real. And now it takes hold of the natural and the powerfuil. It dwells in a deep and sober conviction, that we are waiting to catch the last message, we are losing the last day, we are enveloped in the last night, of a large and marked period of that mysterious thing which we call life; and of which so much is now passing into that which we call death. It is not the future, so much as the past, and that which is growing into the past, that here stands before us, and lays its firm grasp upon our hasting spirits, and with subdued buit all the more distinct and audible accent, bids us pautse. Time himself, the hoary and swift messenger, seems not only to stop for a moment, but even to return, and fold his wings, and walk by our side, that he may take us earnestly by the hand and discourse face to face, ere he speeds away forever. Nor does this power of the closing year depend ipon the peculiar complexion which the year may have worn to one or another. It may be affected by this peculiarity, but it does not depend upon it. He wrongs it, taking not only a selfish but a superficial view, who gives to this influence a merely personal character. Personal all influence must be, in one sense. Individual we are and human, nor from ourselves are we able, at any season, by any effort, to escape entirely. The past itself is individual to every man. Each of us, each and every one of mankind, has lived his own life. The space we are finishing has been to no two persons the same. To every mind in existence, it has been an individual and separate year. On each path it has thrown different lights and shades. To each heart that beats in the great universe of social and moral being, it has brought its own joy and its own bitterness,-with which no stranger, no friend can intermeddle. It is this thought, that gives to the present hour much of its influence. It is that its associations are individual, and yet common. None are excluded from them, and none can monopolize. No man knows that the year has been more to him than to another, in influence, instruction, or responsibility. M1uch as these have varied in kind, the amount may have been nearly equal to all. At least, the variation both in kind and amount has been determined more by the inward than the outward condition, and therefore has not been seen and cannot be fixed. Who can say, what workings, processes, experiences, there have been during the last year, within the breast of any one near or remote? Who can number or describe even his own? Could those of everyone be recalled and revealedall the thoughts, passions, affections, imaginations, the pleasures and griefs, that have swept over every heart, with the days and months, the meetings and partings, the gifts and losses, of the year now ebbing -could they all come thronging back upon us, and stand forth in our view, as they stand in the light of God’s countenance, whatever else might be disclosed, this should we all see-that not one has reason for pride or selfishness, and not one for indifference. Happy they “whose yesterdays look backward with a smile.” The past is often present, and great is its power over every mind and heart. We cannot prevent its action, but we may profit by it. Many are they who are now experiencing its power. And with all, conscious or not, thoughtful or heedless, life is closing a solemn account. Wherever placed, however occupied, one term of probation is ending to every intelligent creature. The fact that thousands think not of it, and care not, does but deepen the solemnity of the conviction. It is still true, that to every one, on whom time has laid a light or a heavy hand, to every soul in the busy city, in the great continent, in the waking or sleeping hemisphere, anotier year of opportunity and responsibility has gone-yea, more fearful, is just going-is now completing that marvellous change from the overhanging, all-grasping present, to the deepening and inimoveable past. An important view of the past, urged upon us by a closing year, relates to that which men call “property.” The world’s moving power is gain. Man rises early and toils late, forms plans and devises implements, endures cold and heat, braves the perils of sea or wilderness, penetrates the heart of mountains, foregoes comfort,
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enjoyment, improvement, even character, all for property! And property, never securely held, seldom quietly enjoyed, seldom indeed, existing as a part of the present, or the past, buit only of the future. And yet where is there property of any kind, either so secure or so rich, as that which the past itself offers to those who seek? Even to the mercenary, it gives that for which they should pay the debt of gratitude-its discoveries, inventions, detections, instruments and monuments. To the intellectual and moral, to the scholar, the artist, the statesman, the philanthropist, it is rich in gifts-anid they may be had without price, and treasured where no moth can corrupt. All that ages lhave thrown up in their march, all that busy generations have accumuiated and worlds brought to light, the gathered stores of centuries, the works of science, the products of genius, the results of enterprise, selfish or benevolent, the experience and wisdom of all who have ever lived-these are not merely offered, they are thrown into the lap of the present, firom the overflowing past. They are forced into the patlhs, and hands and minds of the living. Debtors are we all, with unmeasured obligation, to the ages that have moved along, and scattered seed, and planted truths, and lighted beacons on their course. If the actors themselves who have gone with them, have not always succeeded or attempted thus to enrich those who follow, GOD has done it, through them, and by his great teacher, destroyer and renovator, Time. And what we may specially note is, that these gifts and influences are outrs, in a peculiar sense. They are necessarily and indestructibly ours. We grow up in the midst of them. We are fashioned by their power. They make most of the material of life’s fabric. They are clothing to the body, food to the mind, discipline for the faculties, nutriment for the whole nature. The past encircles us like an atmosphere. It wraps us in countless seen and unseen folds, its very nature enters into ours, and becomes our property forever. This without effort. This is the appointed education and universal gift of God. Add effort, sympathy, grateful reception and discriminating appropriation-how is the gift enhanced and enlarged! He who acknowledges the Giver, and uses all powers to make the property his own not simply by inheritance but by labor and reward, b)ecomes proprietor in the true and noble sense. Discernment, wisdom, self-culture, and independent fidelity, will draw from the past all that it holds., and more-by blending with it the influence and original action of every free and growing mind, and all that is thus gained, nothing, nothing can take away. The treasures of the past belong to the soul The future is, we know not what Untried, unseen, unsearchable The present a contracted spot, Where the mind will not, cannot dwell And over these is ever cast, A blight or blessing from the past. Delusive hope before us springs, Still seeking some more sunny clime, And brings upon her halcyon wings Sweet promise for a future time. That time to us may ne’er be knownThe past, the past is all our own.
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TO SWITZERLAND. BY THE REV. A. STEVENS.
ROMIANTIC Suisse! still are thy memories dear Thy snow-crowned peaks, thy crystal mountain rills, Meandering midst the sloping vineyards bloom, While blithesome songs of love and liberty Blend with the fanning breeze and strains of birds, And virgin hands the purple clusters pluck Thy verdant vales! with adamantine walls, Snow-topped and reaching to the skies, fenced in Sweet garden spots of earth! with flowers decked, WVhile, in strange contrast, hoary winter bends, Delayed and charmed, to smile upon the scene Thy lakes, thy beauteous lakes! adorned with all The ever-varying hues of thy glad skiesHere shadowing forth the form of some tall cliff, And there the vineyard’s gay luxuriant growth, While on their placid bosoms wave and glide, Like things of air, fantastic sails of skiffs. Sweet Leman! on thy lovely shores full oft My youthful footsteps wandered with delight, And oft with heart entranced reclined beneath The shadowing mountain cliff, I drunk from thee Delicious draughts of poetry, till thought Dissolved away in airy reverie! Thou art the mirror placed by nature’s hand, Reflecting back her gayest, loveliest charms. Thy verdant shores are classic, on them roamed The Albion bard whose reckless muse profane Here felt thy inspiration, pure, intense, And kindling sung in chaster, nobler lays, Of freedom and of love, such as thine own! The images of Julie, Clare, St. Preux Still dwell among thy beauteous scenery. The shades of Bonaventura, of Stael, Of Gibbon, Fernay’s patriarch, and him* Whose thrilling pen drew lines of fire, haunt yet Thy sylvan solitudes. *Rousseau. MONT BLANC!-Oft have mine eyes gazed on thy brows Thine awful brow! but long to gaze once more Before they close on earth. Thou art, dread peak, Alone, without a brother, like the God Whose hand almighty mnade and holds thee up, Sublime in thine own solitude! The storms Pay worship round thee; winds and thunderbolts Go from thy foot, like monarch’s heralds swift, And all the mountain tops responsive roll Their echoing homage on, with trembling awe! The generations of the past have gazed On thee, but they have gone; ten thousand more May look and die; but thou wilt still remain,For thou, dread genius of the mountain storm, Shalt only sink when nature sinks and dies, When suns go out, and stars from heaven fall. Land of glacier and the avalanche! Thou wert not made to be the home of slaves! The heart among thy lofty heights beats free, And trembles not at sceptres or at chains. God hath ordained thee freedom’s mountain home, And built thy battlements up to his throne! Firm hast thou stood in liberty’s great cause, Midst falling states and changing monarchies. Still stand! stand like thine everlasting hills! The spirits of thy Tells and Winkelreids Are yet abroad, and thou needst never fall!
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THE RELATIONS WHICH THIS COUNTRY SUSTAINS TO THE
NATIONS OF EUROPE.
BY THE REV. FRANCIS WAYLAND, D. D.
THIS country is evidently at the head of the popular party throughout the civilized world. The statement of a few facts will render this remark sufficiently evident. 1. This nation owes its existence to a love of those very principles for which the friends of liberty are now contending. Rather than bow to oppression, civil or ecclesiastical, our fathers fled to a land of savages, determined to clear away in an inhospitable wilderness, one spot on the face of the earth where man might be free. Ense petit placidam slub libertate quietem.* 2. This nation first proclaimed these principles, as the only proper basis of a constitution of government. 3. This nation first contended for these principles with perfect success. In other countries, attempts had been made to re-model the institutions of government. But in some cases, the attempt was arrested in its outset by overwhelming force; in * The armorial bearing on the shield of Massachusetts. by anarchy, anarchy gave place to military despotism, and this at last yielded to a restoration of the former dynasty. In our country first was the contest commenced, in simplicity of heart, for the rights of man and when these were secured, here alone did the contest cease. Since our revolution, other nations have followed our example, and many more are preparing to follow it. But when the most glorious success shall have attended their struggle for liberty, they are but our imitators; and the greatest praise of any subsequent revolution must be that it has resembled our own. Our heroic struggle, its perfect success, its virtuous termination, have rivetted the eyes of the people of Europe specially upon us, and they cannot now be averted. To us do they look, when they would see what man can do; and while sighing under their oppressions, they yet hope to be free. 4. And lastly, our country has given to the world the first occular demonstration, not only of the practicability, but also of the unrivalled superiority of a popular form of government. It was not long since fashionable to ridicule the idea, that a people could govern themselves. The science of rulers was supposed to consist in keeping the people in ignorance, in restraining them by force, and amusing them by shows. The people were treated like a ferocious monster, whose keepers could only be secure while its dungeon was dark, and its chain massive. But the example of our own country is rapidly consigning these notions to merited desuetude. It is teaching the world that the easiest method of governing an intelligent people is, to allow them to govern themselves. It is demonstrating that the people, so far from being the enemies, are the best, nay, the natural friends of wholesome institutions. It is showing that kings, and nobles, and standing armies, and religious establishments, are at best only very useless appendages to a form of government. It is showing to the world that every right can be perfectly protected, undler rulers elected by the people; that a government can be stable, with no other support than the affections of its citizens; that a people can be virtuous, without an established religion; and, more than this, that just such a government as it was predicted could no where exist but in the brain of a benevolent enthusiast, has actually existed for half a century, acquiring strength, and compactness, and solidity with every year’s duration. And it is manifest that no where else have men been so free, so happy, so enlightened, or so enterprising, and no where have the legitimate objects of civil institutions been so triumphantly attained. Against facts such as these, it is difficult to argue; and they furnish the friends of free institutions with more than an answer to all the theories of legitimacy. It is unnecessary to pursue this subject further. You are doubtless convinced that this country stands linked by a thousand ties to the popular sentiment of Europe. We have no sympathies with the rulers. The principles, in support of which they are allied, are diametrically opposed to the very spirit of our constitution. All our sympathies are with the people; for we are all of us the people. And not only are we thus amalgamated with
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them in feeling, we are manifestly at the head of that feeling. We first promulgated their sentiments, we taught them their rights, we first contended successfully for their principles; and for fifty years we have furnished incontrovertible evidence that their principles are true. These principles have already girded us with Herculean strength, in the very infancy of our empire, and have given us political precedence of governments, which had been established on the old foundation, centuries before our continent was discovered. And now what nation will be second in the new order of things, is yet to be decided; but the providence of God has already announced, that, if true to ourselves, we shall be inevitably first. Now to say that any country is at the head of popular sentiment, is only to say, in other words, that it is in her power to direct that sentiment. You are then prepared to proceed with me, and remark, in the next place, that it devolves on this country to lead forward the present movement of public opinion, to freedom and independence. It devolves on us to sustain and to chasten the love of liberty among the friends of reform in other nations. It is not enough that the people every where desire a change. The subversion of a bad government is by no means synonymous with the establishment of a better. A people must know what it is to be free; they must have learned to reverence themselves, and bow implicitly to the principles of right, or nothing can be gained by a change of institutions. A constitution written on paper is utterly worthless, unless it be also written on the hearts of a people. Unless men have learned to govern themselves, they may be plunged into all the horrors of civil war, and yet emerge from the most fearful revolution, a lawless nation of sanguilnary slaves. But if this country remain happy, its institutions free, it will render the common people of other countries acquainted with the fundamental principles of the science of government; this knowledge will silently produce its practical result, and year after year will insensibly train them to freedom. But suppose the spirit of freedom to have been sustained to its issue, the blow to have been struck, and, either by concession or by force, the time to have arrived when the institutions of the old world are to be transformed; then will the happiness of the civilized world be again connected most intimately with the destinies of this country. Ancient constitutions having been abolished, new ones must be adopted by almost every nation in Europe. The old foundations will have been removed; it will still remain to be decided on what foundations the social edifice shall rest. From the relation which we now sustain to the friends of free institutions, as well as from all the cases of revolution which have lately occurred, it is evident that to this nation they will all look for precedent and example. Thus far our institutions have conferred on man all that any form of government was ever expected to bestow. Should the grand experiment which we are now making on the human character succeed, there can be no doubt that other governments, folloving our example, will be formed on the principles of right. We have thus far spoken only of the effects which this country might produce upon the politics of Europe, simply by her example. It is not impossible, however, that she may be called to exert anl influence still more direct on the destinies of man. Should the rulers of Europe make war upon the principles of our constitution, because its existence “may operate as an example;” or should a universal appeal be made to arms, on the question of civil and religious liberty;-it is manifest that we must take no secondary part in the controversy. The contest will involve the civilized world, and the blow will be struck which must decide the fate of man for centuries to come. Then will the hour have arrived, when, uniting with herself the friends of freedom throughout the world, this country must breast herself to the shock of congregated nations. Then will she need the wealth of her merchants, the prowess of her warriors, and the sagacity of her statesmen. Then, on the altars of our God, let us each one devote himself to the cause of the human race; and in the name of the Lord of Hosts go forth unto the battle. If need be, let our choicest blood flow freely; for life itself is valueless, when such interests are at stake Then, when a world in arms is assembling to the conflict, may this country be found fighting in the vanguard for the liberties of man. God himself hath summoned her to the contest, and she may not shrink back. For this hour may He by his grace prepare her.
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THE FANCY BALL.*
BY HENRY B. ANTHONY.
As float the fancies of a gorgeous dream That vanished with the morning’s earliest beam; As haunts the ear some half-remembered strain It once hath heard, and seems to hear again; As flowers whose beauty and whose bloom have fled, Each bright leaf withered and each green one dead, A grateful, an undying fragrance bear, To tell what blushing beauty once was there; So turns my memory to that brilliant sight When wit and beauty held their festal night; When the thronged hall its glittering groups displayed Of nature’s loveliness, by art arrayed; Of graceful forms that mocked the sculptor’s art, And eyes whose glances reached the coldest heart, Note 4.-See Appendix. Of all that beauty loves or taste admires, Of all that valor warms or genius fires. First raise yon curtain; view the scenes that pass Like shadows floating o’er some magic glass. No canvass here, no painter tries his skill To fix the visions that his fancy fill; But living pictures fast before us rise And breathing loveliness salutes our eyes. * * * Blushing before us now A.Novice kneels to take her sacred vow. Pure as the tear-drop glistening in her eye, Fair as the roses at her feet that lie. Close at her side a holy Bishop stands, The Book of Truth spread open in his hands. The mitred Abbess, bending o’er her low, Cuts the bright tresses clustering round her brow, And, breathing to her patron Saint one prayer, She gives to Heaven a maid for earth too fair. Again the scene is changed. Stern Seyd behold, Flashing with gems and glittering in gold, Fiercely on Gulnare turn his jealous eye, And speak the sentence,” Conrad sure shall die!“ The palace fades;-the scene is changed again; And Conrad, sleeping on the dungeon’s chain, Dreams of the island, o’er the deep blue sea, Where dwell the lion-hearted and the free; Dreams of the eye that watches every sail To see his banner floating on the gale. But other eyes are gazing on his sleep; Gulnare, with purpose firm, with vengeance deep, Bends o’er his couch, and whispers in his ear A word, that, were he dead, he’d rouse to hear; Raises a lamp unto his wildered sightPoints to the dagger glittering in it’s lightAnd says, “I come, captive, I come to save; Death to the tyrant! freedom to the brave!“ Behold again the curtain slowly rise, A fairer, softer scene now greets our eyes. Two Lovers, from Albania’s classic land Are seated side by side, and hand in hand; She, blushing as the rose she gazes on; He, wondering how such beauty may be won. Her hair is darker than the raven’s hue, Her eyes as soft as HIeaven’s own fount of blue. Near did Illissus’ stream reflect a face Of fairer beauty, more bewitching grace; Nor Nymph nor Muse e’er tread, with step more light, In Tempe’s vale, or on Parnassu.s’ height. Next Selim stands and kneeling at his side, Zuleika, blooming as an eastern bride. Soft as the dying sunset’s parting beams Bright as the visions of a poet’s dream. Once more the curtain raise;-be drab the hue; Banish the gayer red, the gaudy blue. Yea, verily, friend Obadiah see, With broad brimmed hat, huge buckles on his knee, Turning on Deborah many a loving glance, Loath to recede, yet fearful to advance, If outer signs the “inner man” can proveHeaven save thee, Obadiah, thee’s in love.
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The picture fades, behold another scene, Fair Jeannie Deans, kneeling to England’s Queen, With Beauty’s power, and Nature’s strength alone, Pleads for a life, far dearer than her ownWhile Scotland’s Duke, with anxious brow, stands by, Hope in his heart, fear trembling in his eye. Sure rarer beauty never knelt to claim A sovereign’s mercy for a sister’s shame; Fear not, sweet suppliant, banish every pain, Such lips as thine can never plead in vain But hark 1 the music sounds, the dance! the dance! The brilliant throngs, in glittering lines, advanceAnd nodding plumes are mingling in the maze; And knightly helmets shine and jewels blaze The Brigand, rousing from his wounded side, Leads, iil the merry reel his blooming bride. The dark Peruvian and the Naples Maid Fly through the waltz, or down the gallopadeSpain’s haughty Grandee seeks the Gipsy Girl, And Greek and Moslem join the airy whirl. Joy, joy beams bright on every face; And manhood’s strength and woman’s grace Are here, in all their pride And brighter is each sparkling eye, And on each cheek, a deeper dye, As rolls the living tide. From every clime where beauty smiles; — From Scotia’s hills-from Grecia’s isles; From India’s spicy groves, From Cashmere’s perfumed vale of flowersFrom Russia’s snows, from Persia’s bowers; The throng of beauty moves. With quiver o’er his shoulder flung, And bugle-horn around him slung, With unstrung bow and snow-white plume, A youthful Hunter treads the room. See, at his side, a Flower Girl stand, A basket in her tiny hand, With flowers of every hue With every leaf that’s sweet or brightThe rose’s red-the lilly’s white, The violet’s modest blueBut none so sweet and none so fair, As she, who holds the basket there! Here stand the veteran Sons of Mars Marked with the honorable scars Of many a well-fought field. And hearts that never bowed before, To manhood’s strengthl —to woman’s power, At length have learned to yield. The voice that paled the foe to hear, Now whispers soft in Beauty’s ear; And Beauty’s form leans light, upon The arm that urged the battle on. Bold James Fitz James and Rhoderick Dhu Meet in the circling dance; Yet neither hostile weapon drew, Nor cast one angry glance. With coat embroidered and with powdered hair, And dress of half a century, gone by, The master of the mansion standing there, WVith right old English hospitality, Receives each guest and bids the wine cup fly. The Banquet comes! and the broad tables groan ’Neath the heaped luxuries of every zone; And wines and liquors, bottled ere the flood, PouLr their rich tide and spill their purple blood. Morning! and nothing of the scene remains, Save the dull head-ache, throbbing in the veins. And every bird that dared the evening blaze, Pales it’s false plumage, in the sun’s bright rays, hunter and Brigand, Turk and courtly Lord Doff the gay plume and lay aside the sword; Spaniard and Moslem meet, to ask the price Of cotton, “strictly prime,” and “common” rice. I saw a Duke and Knight together meet; .Low bent the Duke-yet not at valor’s shrine; Down knelt the Knight-yet not at beauty’s feet, But —striving both, to pick “goodfair“from “.fine.“ Alas! alas! this week.day, work-day life That all that’s brightest, all that’s noblest, best, All that consoles us for its weary strife, And all that gives to time its little zest, Should be, at most, butfancy’s transient beamFade in a tableau, vanish in a dream!
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PHILIP OF POKANOKET.
BY GEORGE F. M AN.
To close this protracted drama so prolific in tragic incident, and worthy to fulfil the destiny apparently assigned him of becoming the sepulchre of Indian glory, now appeared upon the stage, Massassoit’s second son, Alexander’s brother, Pometacom or the famous Philip; a man of comprehensive vision, profound policy, enterprising genius, subtile address, lofty soul, and the keenest sensibility; one of those extraordinary characters, (met with from time to time in the history of mankind at impressive distances from each other) who are brought forward, if not wholly formed by the course of events, but, under the particular circumstances of their coming, seem expressly empowered by heaven to spread havoc and desolation, and to attest the divinity of their mission by exultingly pointing to the wounds which they sink into the very hearts of their oppressors. At a subsequent period, after the catalogue of injustice and cruelty had been greatly swollen by the English, Mr. Hubbard, the devout historian of Massachusetts, tells us, that nothing had transpired to warrant the discontent of Philip, and the historian of Massachusetts would have us believe, that the confederate colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth and Connecticut had been lilled into the most fatal security by the peace, the harmony and feeling of brotherhood, which their mild, just, merciful, generous and disinterested policy towards the Indians had universally diffused. The people of Plymouth, too, through their Governor, make it a matter of great merit and praise, that their solicitude for the Indians increased exactly in proportion as the objects to which it was directed were mnade to decrease; that, when they had deprived Philip of nearly all his lands, they sedulously betook themselves to devising means to ensure his possession of the residue; that, for leaving him little or nothing, he was amply compensated by the consciousness of increased security in the enjoyment of that which was left; in short that they were at especial pains to draw around the remaining territory of this former sovereign of the forest a most beautifully constructed fence, which, though it might incidentally serve to coop Philip in, and present, in more definite outline, to his mind the image of whlat he had become, and, under the continuing tutelage of his protectors, might still farther expect, was wholly designed to protect him against the intrusion of the whites, or rather such of the whites as might not as wisely have considered as themselves, that there is a point of suffering beyond which endurance ceases, and as nicely weighed the farthest limits of practicable oppression. But imagine yourself to stand where Philip stood; to be what Philip wvas,-qualified by natural capacity and also from position to contemplate fully and comprehend exactly his peculiar situation, to look forward, baclkward, through and beyond things. Recall to mind the first comning of the Europeans, their exasperating aggressions, the depopulating pestilence which followed in their train, the arrival of the Pilgrims, their suppliance and humility iii weakness, the generous hospitality which made them strong, or the kind forbearance which permitted the m t o become so at the hazard of its noble authors, the strength which warmed into life their injustice, their continuat and never ending encroachments upon-or artfiul appropriations of Indian ]ands, incited by avarice and assisted by superior knowledge; their gradual usurpation of power over the persons and liberties of independent nations,- with no pretext but religion, with no authority but the charter of a king beyond an ocean three thousand miles in extent, to whom these men owed nothing, of who m they had received nothing, wanted nothing and knew nothing but through the delusive tales of his grasping subjects; the formation of treaties not understood, entered into under compulsion, and for the sole benefit of their contrivers, their arbitrary exactions under them and severe inflictions for their non-fullfilment by the Indians, their own unscrupulous violation of them, the extinction of a whole people, prefaced by the slaughter of their chiefs and the usurpation of their soil, the assumption of a wasting and harassing supremacy over the Narraganset Sachems, in return for the most generous offices, the murder of the noble Myanrtononly for sheltering a fugitive from their persecution, the last days of his aged uncle, Canonicus, descending to the grave amidst his own and his people’s fears, their unvarying injustice to his successors, their distinguishing favor to, open encouragement or secret abetting and support of their butcher, Uncas, the treatment
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of good Massassoit, Philip’s father, the exasperating to madness and death, Alexander, Philip’s brother; or turning to the present a-nd future, see Philip surrounded by living and suppliant memorials of English cruelty appealing to every sympathy that could stir a generous bosom; the English, in spite of his remonstrance, still infusing into his people a taste for ostentation and cajoling them by traffic wvhei force coulid find no pretext; himself, in possession of comparatively a barren sceptre, the fruit of English friendship-fenced ill already, and the whites still urging him, whenr shy, to further traffic, the fiery circle of civilization daily girting mrore closely its writhing victim! And he, alas, an object of hatred for his knowledge of the past, of jealoutsy, for the domain he still possessed, of suspicion, for the resources his geniuts could still command, and the multiplied powerful motives which they had given him to put them all in requisitionii. See this hatred, unable to repress itself, provolding him to pursue with uplifted tomahawk into the midst of the whites, one who under their favor had dared to offer him the greatest of Indian insults, that of jeeringly recalling the name of his deceased ancestor. See this jealousy with avarice combined, forever busy in curtailing his estate, and this suspicion dogging his footsteps, and finally disarming him and his men, and declaring forfeit the weapons whlichl their own cupidity had furnished, at a time wheni Indian arms had been generally disused for forty years, when the Indian chase grounds had been greatly circumscribed or mostly appropriated by the English, and one of the chief resources of Indian subsistence had in a great measure disappeared, and the attainment of what remained had been made more difficult, if not impossible, by the Iuse of former methods of capture, in consequence oL the rapidly progressing strides of the whites. Imagine Philip upon Mount Hope, revolving these things,s with every billow associating some new image of grief, and calling to imagination those happier days of his ancestors when they roamed undistutirbed over their wide domain and breathing every wheire the air of freedom, chased into toil with lusty sinew the savage inhabitant of the forest, or luxu riously reposing upon the sunny rock waited tile capture of their rich repast from those yet unmolested waters.
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E L E G Y.
BY ANNE C. LYNCH.
THERE was no bell to peal thy funeral dirge, No nodding plumes to wave above thy bier, No shroud to wrap thee but the foaming surge, No kindly voices thy dark way to cheer; No eye to give the tribute of a tear. Alone, “unknelled, uncoffined,” thou hast died, Without one gentle mourner lingering near; Down the deep waters thou unseen didst glide, WVith Ocean’s countless dead to slumber side by side. Thou sleepst not with thy fathers. O’er thy bed, The flowers that deck their tombs may never wave, To plead remembrance for thee, o’er thy head No sculptured marble shall arise. Thy grave Is the dark, boundless deep, whose waters lave The shores of empires. When thou soutghtest thy rest Amid their silent depths, they only gave A circling ripple, then with foaming crest The booming waves rolled on, o’er their unconscious guLesto ’T is said, that far beneath the wild waves rushing, WVhere sea flowers bloom and fabled Peris dwell, That there the restless waters cease their gushing, And leave their dead within some sparkling cell, \Where gems are gleaming, and the lone sea shell Is breathing its sweet music. And’t is said That Time, who weaveth over earth a spell Of blight and ruin, o’er the Ocean’s dead He passeth lightly on, with trackless, silent tread. Then, though no marble e’er shall rise for thee, No monument to mark thy last, long home, Thine ocean grave unhonored shall not be. The coral insect there shall rear a tomb That age shall ne’er destroy; and there shall bloom The fadeless ocean flowers. And though the glare Of the bright sunbeams ne’er shall light its gloom, Yet glancing eyes and forms unearthly fair Shall throng around thy couchl, and hymn a requiem there. Now fare thee well! I will not weep that thou Didst pass so soon away; for though thou wert Still in thy boyhood’s prime, and thy fair brow Undimmed by care; yet sad was thy young heart, For thou hadst seen thy light of life depart, And Love had thrown a wild and burning spell Around thee, and with sly insidious art Had maddened thee. Then sounded loud the knell Of all thy bright young dreams. My earliest friend, farewell!
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GO FORTH INTO THE FIELDS
BY WILLIAM J. PABODIE.
” The world is too much with us.“-Wordsworth. Go forth into the fields, Ye denizens of the pent city’s mart! Go forth and know the gladness nature yields To the care wearied heart, Leave ye the feverish strife, The jostling, eager, self-devoted throng;Ten thousand voices waked anew to life, Call you with sweetest song. Hark! from each fresh clad bough, Or blissful soaring in the golden air, Bright birds with joyous music bid you now To spring’s loved haunts repair. The silvery gleaming rills Lure with soft murmurs trom the grassy lea, Or gaily dancing down the sunny hills, Call loudly in their glee! And the young wanton breeze, WVith breath all odorous from her blossomy chase In voice low whispering,’mong th’ embowering trees Woos you to her embrace. Go-breathe the air of heaven, Where violets meekly smile upon your way; Or on some pine-crowned summit, tempest riven, Your wandering footsteps stay. Seek ye the solemn wood, Whose giant trunks a verdant roof uprear, And listen, while the roar of some far flood Thrills the young leaves with fear! Stand by the tranquil lake, Sleeping’mid willowy banks of emerald dye, Save when the wild bird’s wing its surface break, Chequering the mirrored sky — And if within your breast, Hallowed to natu re’s touch one chord remain; If aught save worldly honors find you blest, Or hope of sordid gain; — A strange delight shall thrill, A quiet joy brood o’er you like a dove; Earth’s placid beauty shall your bosom fill, Stirring its depths with love. 0, in the calm, still hours, The holy Sabbath hours when sleeps the air, And heaven, and earth decked with her beauteous flowers, Lie hushed in breathless prayer, Pass ye the proud fane by, The vaulted aisles, by flaunting folly trod, And’neath the temple of the uplifted sky, Go forth and worship GOD!
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LIBERTY’S TREES.
BY THE HON. JOSEPH L. TILLINGHAST.
(Written early in 1812, in prospect of hostilities with France oi England.) 0 LEAP from the mountain, thou firm rooted Oak, And shake off thy vesture so grand, Yield thy rugged old limbs to the architect’s stroke And sweep from the foam-whitened strand. Down, down firom thy highland, thou winterless Pine, O cast thy green mantle away; Thy head-with the streamers of war let it shine; Thy breast-let it dash the storm.spray. Trees hallowed and sacred! Full long have your brows In Heaven’s golden lustre stood shining; VVhile shaded, beneath, by your balm.breathing bough,ls, Religion and Peace were reclining. And oft in the tempests of vengeance and power, Your bosoms the glebe have defended; And oft on your heads, that still steadily tower, The shaft due to man has descended. Now leave the old mountain all bare to the storm And let the free bolt round us roll; The tempest can only our bodies deform, But servitude killeth the soul! See o’er the red wave, ever blushing with gore, False Gallia her pennons advancing; Beneath the dark Eagles so ruthless that soar How the eyeballs of Rapine are glancing! Beyond, see old Albion her War-Cross display Both the Free and their foe to appalAs the lion and panther contend for their prey, So the Briton and Frank for our fall. Ye Cedars, ye Firs, that the torrent floods lave, Descend from the heights ye adorn;In the cloud of your canvas, far-shadowing the wave, Be the thunder of Liberty borne! Rush, rush, thou warm blood through the veins of our youth, And, while their swoln bosoms are beating, Let them strike, and strike firmly, for Freedom and Truth, One blow, that may need no repeating! Then hail to the years that in honor shall flourish WVhen glory and safety combine; Once more, grassy hills,’mid the bowers that ye nourish, Religion and Peace shall recline.
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PERRY, ON LAKE ERIE.
BY THE HON. TRISTAM BURGES.
COMMODORE PERRY arrived at Erie on the 26th of March, 1813. He carried with him from Newport, 149 men and three boys, all of whom were volun teers. The fleet of Eneas, so Maro sings, when riding at anchor in the Tyber, and, in his absence attacked by the Rutulians, and likely to be burned, was, by a miracle of poetic mythology, changed into a shoal of dolphins, and went off sporting down the stream; and if so, they may, for aught we know, be at this time playing about the mouth of that river; or showing their bright sides to the sun, in other parts of the Tyrean sea. Perry and his hardy Rhode- Island mariners, travelled up to the lake, for something not quite so poetic. They were required to change the oaks, and the green pines and hemlocks, then standing on those shores, into a fleet of ships and vessels, and fit them out to encounter, and overcome, in battle, on those waters, a fleet then armed, equipped and manned with British sailors; men, who had never, before that time, met an equal, in any fleet, on that ele ment. In this there was no poetry, nor any other miracle than bone labor, matchless skill, and unconquerable bravery. Every Yankee is an axe man; and all the companions of Perry were of the full blood; and most of them the best of that blood, the Rhode-Island stock. These, with a few more shipwrights, smiths, caulkers, riggers, and sailmakers, built and equipped this fleet; and launched the whole into the harbor of Erie, rigged and ready to sail, in about ninety days, after the first blow was struck. They built from the stump, six vessels; the Lawrence, of twenty gutns-two long twelves, and eighteen 24 pound carronades; the Niagara, of two long twelves, and eighteen 24 pound carronades; the Ariel, of four guns, 1S8’s and 24’s; the Scorpion, of two guns, thirty-twos; the Porcupine, of one gun, a thirty- two; and the Tigress, of one gun, a thirty-two. During the same time, they repaired and made efficient, the Caledonia, of three guns, 24’s and 32’s; the Somers, of two guns, thirty-twos; the Trippe, of one gun, a thirty-two, and the Ohio, of like force, but not in the battle. At the mouth of the harbor of Erie, there is a bar; and on this, the water was then so shallow, that the vessels could not be floated out over it. They had been built in this place, because, in no other on the lake, could they be secure from the enemy. To carry them out over the bar, in the face of this enemy, superior in force, had they all been furnished with guns, and, as it must be, entirely unarmed, was a labor which tasked the Yankee invention, no less than the valor, of the young Commodore and his associates. They were loaded on the backs of camels, and carried out over the bar into deep water. An Arab, who, from the back of his camel, on the desert, had, at a safe distance, looked at the French and English fleets, in the bay of Abouker, would not believe a word of all this story. It is literally true. These camels were of sinmple mechanism, and American manufacture. They were long, broad, deep boxes, made of planks, like scows, and perfectly water tight; with holes to fill, and sink, and pumps to exhaust them of water, and raise them so as to float with their upper edge high above the surface. These, placed on each side, and connected by strong beams, on which the vessels being placed when they were sunk; thus raised the vessels up above the bar, when the camels were pumped out, and rose again by their own buoyancy. The guns of the fleet had been mounted in batteries on the shore; and the militia, under General Mead, then encamped in the neighborhood, were embodied, and united with the seamen in defending these vessels, while they were thus travelling over the bar, on the backs of these able bodied camels. Thus, in the face of an enemy, superior in force, this fleet was built, put afloat, and equipped. The enemy, however, before they were ready to make sail, withdrew to the harbor near Malden; and retired under the guns of the British fortress. The British vessels were stout built, wvith thick bulwarks of solid oak; but the Amnerican were built in a hasty manner, and intended merely to
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carry guns and men; and bring them dowii along side of their adversary. How long the British fleet might have kept their shelter, in the harbor of Malden, is not known. Exigences called them out; the want of provision, in the British army, compelled them to put out, and attempt to clear the lake of the American fleet; so that they might, with safety, run down to Long Point, their depot of stores, and provision the camp. The British fleet had a veteran commander, the American, a yoitng sailor. Barclay had conquered with Nelson, at Traffalgar; Perry had probably never seen the combined movement of ships, in a fleet, formed in line of battle. The two fleets might be equal in number of men; but all, in the British, were seamen, or marines, or soldiers; while many, in the American, were militia, or new levies, from the ranks of the army. In number of vessels, we exceeded by three; the enemy had a superiority of ten in the number of guns. The vessels of the enemy were impervious to the shot of our carronades; but their long guns hulled the thin sides of our vessels, through and through. Let Him be praised who has told us that ’ the battle is not always to the strong.” On the night of the 9th of September, 1813, the American fleet lay moored at Put-in-Bay, on the southwest shore of Erie. At daylight on the 10th the enemy were discovered from the mast head of the Lawrence, far up the lake in the northwest. This was, by signal, immediately communicated to the fleet; and, at the same time, the signal was given to get under weigh. Commodore Perry, soon after, hoisted his broad pennant on board the Lawrence, inscribed with the immortal words of him whose name his vessel bore- ” Doin’t give up the ship.” And at the sight of it, the loud huzzas of the mariners resounded over the lake, from deck to deck, along the whole American line; and awakened the echoes which had been sleeping on those waters and shores, ever since the morning stars sang together. The breeze being light, the American fleet was two hours in bearing down under all sail over this smooth surface of nine miles. The wind, though light, was steady; and not a new movement was made ill steerage, running geer, or sail. Al were silent. It was, in both fleets, the stillness of the elements, before the storm of the hurricane. I will not believe one bosom palpitated with fear; but many a one beat with an aspiration, and a hope for victory. In that awful pause, when at times, every eye glanced on every other eye, and all were min,gling souls in a sympathy of courage and daring among their comrades and commanders, how many young hearts, for the last time, breathed a sigh and prayed a prayer, for home, parents, brothers, sisters, and for “the bosom friend dearer than all?” Many a bright and moist eye looked, for the last time, on the green shores and sunny hills of their country. Rashness, without courage, may rush thoughtlessly into the battle; but nothing but valor of soul can stand unmoved, and wait for the coming conflict of life or death, victory or defeat. They stood every man silent at his post; while the breath of heaven, born to fill the sails of com merce, and which never had before, seemed reluctant now, on those quiet waters, to aid men in mutual destruction. * * * * * At the close of the battle, Perry set up no exclu sive claims to the glory of the victory. He sub mitted all, with unexampled modesty, to the award of his country. Look at his despatches; does he tell what I have done? To General Harrison-” We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” To the Secretary of the Navy-” It has pleased the Almighty to give to the arms of the United States a signal victory over their enemies on this lake. The British squadron consisting of two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop, have this moment surrendered to the force under my command, after a sharp conflict.” Nothing can be so conspicuous as the modesty, unless it be the piety, of this most perfect of all naval despatches. How could he say less of himself? The victory had been given by Him who gives all things-had been given, not to him, but to the American arms. The British squadron had surrendered to the force; what force? He could not avoid saying, to the force under my command. Ogte epithet only, tells the nature of the battle; it was a sharp conflict. He puts under sail none of that squadron of adjectives, after which, a young egotist would have sent his first victory to the Naval Department. The living canr protect their own characters. Those who are dead, and who fell in the national service, have left their fame, perhaps the only inheritance of their children, to the safe keeping of their country; and wo betide a people, when they permit the sanctuary of human glory, frail and perishable as it is, to be profaned and pluntdered.* It was sacrilegeamong the ancients, and deemed abhorrent to gods and men, to destroy, or remove a stick or a stone, from a trophy erected, by a conqueror, on a battle field, or by the shore where a naval victory had been achieved. Let the people of Rhode-Island protect with a pious diligence, the tombs and the glory of their buried patriots and heroes; and alike abhor those who would tarnish the one, or demolish the other. xNo+e 5.-See Appendix.
4584 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
THE DWARF’S STORY.
BY FRANCES H. WHIPPLE.
“NAY, listen to me, Lilian! I’m not mad. Linger and listen. I would tell a tale — Oh, God! sustain me! —but’t will wring thy heart, I would not grieve thee-thee, my only friend! But yet I cannot-how can I forego Thy precious sympathy? Give here thy hand I’11 hold it thus in mine. There, turn away, And look not on me; for I cannot bear That thou should’st feel disgust-that thou should’st loathe, Though the sharp hiss of universal scorn Has been my only greeting from the world. Lilian, thou hast dear woman’s gentleness, Without her vanity. 0, thou might’st lead The noble and the great in pleasant thrall, Casting such chains as men delight to wear Yet, dearest, thou art mine —the friend of him Who has no other. Yes, I owe thee much.“ “Thou ow’st me nothing. Mine —all mine the debt! Do I not owe thee all I value mostTreasures of intellect, the wealth of mind? — What had I been this moment, but for thee? 0, cold will be this heart ere I forget My endless debt of gratitude and love!“ She turned her blue eyes on him, with the tears Softening their lustre, like the pearly gems Of dew in violets. The little hand Trembled within its confines. One low sigh Escaped his quivering lips. “Dear girl, beware. Reprove, condemn, or scorn me; but do not, For my sake and thy own, O do not be Thus kind, thus gentle, or I shall forget My vow of fealty. Yet leave me not; And fear me not. Within this shapeless clod A spirit dwelleth, fervid, pure, and high, As thy own spotless one. It loveth thee And cannot do thee wrong-would not for worlds. “Be calm and hear me dearest Lilian. A living curse I came into the world; And when I was an infant-ay, a babe, My little, hideous, melancholy face Drew nought but hatred on me. Then I learned, Ere I could syllable the simplest word, The worth of beauty; for I saw it give All that a child desireth unto him, My bright eyed brother. He was beautiful. My mother loved him;-but she hated me! I’ve seen his dimpling arms around her neck And, looking on him, her expressive eye Was one rich gush of love! Then how I longed To cling there too, and share her dear embrace! But, oh, if I drew near, a cold repulse, A loathing look, a shudder of disgust, Told me how dear I was. Yet, even then, My heart was burning, bursting with its love, That yearned to gush, nor asked a meet return But nothing loved me. My old ugly nurse, The dogs, the horses; yea, the very cat, Read in my crouching brow-my skinny limbs, The brand of hate, and loathed the cursed one! Even when a child I prayed, I longed for death! The grave could have no terror; and the worm, With all its slimy length twined in my hair, Or knotted in my bosom, could not loathe The form he feasted on; and this was joy! The noisome reptile seemed to me a friend “O0, dry thy tears, dear Lilian! Do not weep I cannot bear to see thee weep for me! I envied every thing, for nothing lived Cut off from love and its sweet fellowship, With one accursed exception! The poor moth That fluttered for an hour, and then was gone, Had brethren like itself. The vilest thing Knew kindred, and the claims of kindred love! There was an idiot child, inert as clay, I envied for his very senselessness, And wildly prayed that I might be like him 0, had I met one kind, one gentle look, One token of affection, I had been Happy despite my fatal ugliness; And I had loved with more than human power! But crushed affections petrified within; And all my latent love to hatred turned, Creating gangrene to corrode itself.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4585 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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” The measured wrath not yet had touched the brim. Heaven gave a little sister. Months went by, I durst not look upon her. She was kept Far firom the frightful monster. Still I caught, At times, a passing glimpse. How fair she was! Her little cherub form-her silvery voiceHer thousand beauties-thousand witcheries — Mocked me with all their loveliness; and then My spirit’s venom tookl a bitterer depth! — I hated her!-I hated that fair child With half a thought of murder! But, at length, One pleasant eve, as little Marion sat Twining her fingers in the chesnut curls Of my fair brother, in her gleeful sport She pulled the silken mesh. Enraged with pain, He flung her, screaming, on the marble floor! She looked to me for comfort —looked to me! Merciful God! I thank thee, even now, For but the memory of that blessed look! I clasped her in my arms. She clung to me. She laid her cheek to mine; and, sobbing low, She murmured, in her sweet imperfect way, The name of brother! Nature taught the word; How, else, could she have given the name to me? The flint burst quick within me and the ice That lay beneath was melted into tears. The gushing torrent checked me. “Need I tell How day by day she loved me? How I lived Like one awaking from a horrid dream — Waking to life, and happiness and love? They could not tear her from me. Gratitude, Or cherub pity for the hated one, Made that angelic spirit all my own. I only lived when with her-only slept That I might dream of her. A thought of death Would sometimes cross my brain and madden me! The augury was prophetic. She grew ill. I watched by her. I never left her couch For one long, awful week-and then, she died. The light of my existence was put out! The living fountain of my desert failed “My former bitterness with awful strength Gathered back its tide, and overwhelmed my soul; And festering deep within the sorest part, The venom lay of disappointed hope: And then the beaker of my lot was full! “I watched the body. None could tear me thence. WVhen none were by to blame, or to forbid, I took her from the coffin, held her close Within my flaming bosom, with a hope Its fever yet might warm her. All in vain, No single tear relieved me. Back I laid, For the last time, my treasure; and sat down With all the silent firmness of despair. “I begged-I prayed in vain. They buried her. Night after night, and day by day, I watched Beside the lonely tomb. At midnight deep I called to her, entreating for one word! I made the silence vocal with my cries! And then I listened-listened without breath, For the dear name of brother! 0, I thought, Might that one word be whispered from the grave, I could go back and be at peace again! But echo mocked me, as I called her name! The deep shades mocked me, and the placid stars The cold earth mocked me, and the heartless moon! All nature mocked me. Nothintig, nothing knew What the heart suffers that has lost it’s all! “Insanity relieved me; for my brain Was touched with raging fever. But I rose From my lone couch of bitter suffering With a new purpose graven in my soul. I had the spell of genius. Fame had called. I heard her syren voice, and vowed a vow To be what men adore; and thus avenge The shapeless body, through the o’ermastering mind t Then silently I turned away, and bound My soul to its grim purpose. Long, long years, Of deep, intense, unceasing study, wrought With the quick fires of genius, gave a name Emblazoned with the loftiest-wON THE MEED! “I wore my triumph proudly, for a while; But when I longed for kindness, then I found Fame, honor, glory, could not purchase love! My reputation was an ice-berg, high, Magnificently cold, unenvied, lone; And in the splendid panoply I stood, As a volcano’neath a frozen sea, “I left my native land, and wandered here Then, on the darkness of my being, rose The lovely morning star. 0, need I say Whence came that thrilling heart-beam? Lilian I need not tell thee how my buried love Warmed into being, lived again in thee; Yet chastened by a sorrowful mistrust Of its endurance-by experience taught! 0, hadst thou been as shapeless and deformed As this vile clod, how madly could I love!Ay, worship thee-hoping for love again! But, now, endearing as thou art, and kind, I wrong thee not-I know thou canst not love. ’T is well. Hark, hark! Didst hear a thunder tone? It comes!’t is coming! This is my last hour “ “i Oh, no! what meanest thou? It cannot be.“
4586 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
“Peace, dearest Lilian. Listen yet again. When I am gone, and thou dost wander here, At eve, or morn, or the deep stilly noon, Then think of him who woke the latent springs Of genius in thy soul; of him who led Thy spirit from the shadows, giving thee Sources of pleasure thou hadst never known. Think of him then, beatified, and pure, An angel presence, beautifully fair, Waiting in some sweet bower of Heaven for thee! Thus shall it be, my Lilian. We shall wed. Our God shall join our spirits; and the lyres Of cherub, and of seraph, shall be swept To gladden our espousals! 0, I know We shall be wedded for eternity; And, hand-in-hand, and soul inwrought with soul, We shall advance forever, finding out The living waters through the maze of love, And light, and music, that make heaven, Heaven, With such a gush of worship on our lips As may wake angels to new songs of praise! Look to this hope, my Lilian, and I know My memory shall live within thy soul, Like a shrined presence, where affection still, May minister, and hold communion sweet! I know thy gentle nature. Kind and true WVill be the tears thou givest. Weep not long; But go abroad, and con my lessons o’er. The flowers, the rocks, the stars, the clouds, the dews Are living with them. Ponder on the laws That animate, and govern, and sustain; And thus remember me, but not with tears. “Again that thunder! I have had a dreamA horrid dream! That vivid flash again! The scene, the hour, were such as even now Are round and o’er us. Hither then we came; And we did sit as now; one gentle hand Pressed fondly thus in mine. Nay, tremble not. This lofty elm, those venerable oaks, Hung their rich shade below. The laughing brook Was gurrulous and clear; and as light clouds Passed o’er the sunshine, shadows swept along O’er the swayed grass as coolingly as now. A cloud came up and blackened suddenlyLike yonder firowning one. 0, leave me not I told the tale I’ve just related thee; And one bright tear stood in thine either eye; One yellow curl, like this, was on thy neck; Thy drooping eyelids fell, as now they fall; Thy soft, transparent cheek was pale and cold; And thou wert sweetly beautiful, as now! I held thee to my bosom. Nay, shrink not, I’m telling thee a dream! My yearning soul Exhaled itself in one long, frantic kiss! Thus, even thus, my lips were joined to thine! A horrid flash (like that!) it blasted not! And yet I fell. I felt thy fingers press Upon my eyelids! Lilian! Lilian! Oh!Great God! forgive me!-Lilian! Water!-” * * * * * * * * The lightning had not touched him; but he lay, Low at the feet of the distracted girl, A livid corse; thus yielding up to her The highest sacrifice of love-a heart That could not prove its worth, until it broke!And yet that shapeless being had a mind To pierce the deepest mystery-a heart That might have won an angel from its sphere! He walked alone amid a world of love, Dying for what is wasted; like the wretch, Stricken with pestilence, who lays him down In nature’s loveliest bower, where waters play Almost within his touch. The cooling splash, Mocking his thirst to madness, still he hears!Oh, aggravating torture, thus to die!While floods are round, to perish for a drop!
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4587 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
EXTRACT FROM A POEM.
BY THOMAS A. JENCKES.
IF no true spirits there were left to guide The trembling state o’er factions stormy tide, If no tried steersman seize the rocking helm, Shun the wild waves that threatening yawn to whelm; If from this fount the stream of poison steals Through all the nation loves, or thinks, or feels Beware, proud Union, though thy power and wealth May gild the ills that mine thy public health. Though ’neath thine eagle flag, proud navies ride, Where winds can waft, or ocean heaves his tide, Though still thy call the patriot’s heart should warm, Fire the true soul, and nerve the sinewy arm, Though from each mountain height to ocean wave Swells the deep anthem of the free and brave; Yet could these save thee, when the poison’s course Shall taint with death, thy life-blood’s inmost source? So thine own bird, the warrior Eagle, nurst Where rolls the avalanche, and thunders burst, Soared from his mountain eyry, free and high, And thousands watched him wheeling through the sky Upward he sprang exulting on its flight, Then paus’d and fluttered-from his cloudy height Men saw his fall, and wonder’d as they gaz’d; No bolt was sped-no blasting lightning blaz’d, The secret viper curled beneath his wing, Poison’d the life blood in his heart’s warm spring, Sank the proud bird, once monarch of the skies, His dying hymn the raven’s funeral cries. Yet fear we not-a bold and Spartan band Rise firm midst them whose contests shake the land, We trust a power above all rulers’ art, The power that guides to truth the human heart; And while yon eagle standard floats, and thrills The heart that’s nurtured on our own free hills, No power but heaven, no victor but the grave, Can crush that band, omnipotent to save!
4588 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
SONG OF THE WINDMILL SPIRITS.
BY ALBERT G. G REENE.
HA, ha!-here we are, and the moon has not set; And the mossy old Windmill is standing here yet. The harvest is gathered, the summer has gone, And again we rejoice in the scent of the corn. Up all,-to the wings now! blow high, or blow low, Round on the old Windmill once more we will go! The trees have been leafless, their branches all white, Since we left it, last autumn, one cold, frosty night, And went far away from the region of snow, To see the magnolia and locust-tree blow: Then, the warm, sunny fields of the south we have trod, To see the white cotton burst out from its pod And then, far away to the bright torrid zone, Where the orange, and lemon, and citron have blown. But once more, the season we love has come round, And here, to enjoy it, again we are found; And while the bright moon which now lends us her beam, Is looking alone on the rock and the stream, And gently the dews of the midnight distil, We will have one more ride on the wings of the mill! Stretch out, then stretch out, to the end of each wing,And send them all round, with a good, hearty swing; Up and down —up and down-send them merrily round,Bear them down on that side, from the sky to the ground: Now up!-send them up:-on this side let them fly With a bound from the ground, till they point to the skyNow they crack: never mind,-they are used to the strain: Up with them once more,-now down with them again! How gaily, that morning, we danced on the hill, When we saw the old Pilgrims here building a mill; There, at day-break, we stood when they laid the first stone, And came, every night, till their labor was done. How often around its old wvings we have hung, And havegambolled and laughed, and have shouted and sung. Its frame- work all fell, ere a century waned, — And only the shaft and the millstones remained. It was built all of wood, And bravely had stood, Sound hearted and merry as long as it could And the hardy old men Determined that then Of firm, solid stone they would build it again, With a causeway and draw, Because they foresaw It would make a good fort in some hard Indian war. But they all are gone, its old builders are gone,They are all in their graves and a new race is born: — All, all of its builders,-the head which had planned, Each hand which helped raise it, each honest old hand,They are gone, all are gone,-all are low in the mould, And the new mill itself is an hundred years old, But still, when the harvest has been gathered in, Up here in the moonlight we always have been In the soft autumn midnight, still, year after year, The wind and the moonlight have found us all here. But when the frost comes and the sleet and the snow, And the green leaves are dead, then far southward we go, And rove’mid the rich fields of rice and of cane, Till the bright northern summer recalls us again. We love the clear breeze o’er the pine covered hill, As it sings through the wings of the sturdy old mill. There it comes! now spring out to the end of each rail,And let each arm bend like a mast in a gale. Round with them,- round with them,-the wind is too slow, Bear down all together, hallo! there, hallo! Fill the hoppers below-heap them up till they choke,And let the old stones then fly round till they smoke. Round, round, send them with a merry good will Ha! ha! we are back to the rattling old mill. And Ephraim, the miller, the drowsy old head, Who lies now at midnight asleep in his bed, Should he wake, would suppose That because the wind blows, And for no other reason,-around the mill goes,When, at sunrise, he comes, and our work he has found, How little he’11 know how his grist has been ground,Then, round,-send it round!-for our work must be done Ere old Father Ephraim appears with the sun.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4589 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Though fair are the plains of the south and the west, We love the green fields of New-England the best. For here, while we see o’er the golden-edged plain, Each low, fertile hillock all waving with grain, We know, that rewarding its patience and toil, The hand of the free reaps the fruit of the soil. We are free as the blue air around us is free,And so we would have all God’s creatures to be. Ha, ha! a fresh breeze now comes over the hill: Each sail feels its breath:-now they stiffen and fill! Now, now, all is straining above and below,And round the quick circle we merrily go: Round, round,-and now hark to the musical tones That come quivering out from the whirling old stones! What joy can compare With the life that we bear: The earth is our play-ground, our home is the air. How happy are we, How happy are we, ’Midst the beautiful things of the land and the sea. \Vhen the moonbeams fall clear, through the silence of night, And the dew-drops are sparkling like gems in the light, We love, bounding forth with the speed of the gale, The rich, teeming cornfield’s sweet breath to inhale; While each stalk gently bends, as they bear us along, And waves its green arms in response to our song, And the spindle’s tall plume that droops over its head, Just moves in the air, as it springs from our tread. And when our gay revels have drawn to a close, ’Mid the cool, verdant foliage, how sweet to repose: Or to rock in the leaves, when all round us is stilled, And commune with the life with which nature is filled, Which above and below, Forever doth flow Rejoicing around us, wherever we go, And to mortals unknown, To us hath been shewn By Him who made all and who sees all alone. How often we listen delighted, to hear, Beside the green folds of the delicate ear, The voice of the tender young mother of corn Singing’mid her fair brood which within it were born, While breathing in fragrance and cradled in silk, They are drawing forth life from her fulness of milk. And when the bright days of the summer have fled, Its beauty all withered, its verdure all dead, The care and the toil of the season all past, And the full, golden harvest is gathered at last,When the gay, merry groups to the husking repair, ’Though unseen and unheard, yet we often are there. While the chinks of the barn are all streaming with light, And sounds of loud glee wake the echoes of night, Our voices prolong The laugh and the song, And answer each shout that bursts forth from the throng. And when the new grain comes its hoppers to fill, How dearly we love the old corn-scented mill. Hallo, then,- rouse all! Ere the night watch is past, One more merry round let us have, and the last. To the ends of each arm! —and now pour in the corn The daylight is coming, and we must be gone. Round with them!-ha, ha! how like willows they spring; And the sails go down skimming like birds on the wing. Rise all with them cheerly,- then down let them come: And now hear the stones, how they sparkle and hum. As they rapidly swing, In its fire- circled ring Each seems like a glad living creature to sing! Hark, hark, to their song, how it gushes and swells With sounds like the low, distant chiming of bells. Once more, all together:-now, up from below; There is light in the East;-we must go-we must go. There’s a cloud passing by, Over head in the sky, And there, for an hour, we our fortune will try; It is time to be gone, For the day will soon dawn, And the cloud reddens now with the tints of the morn. It is waiting us there, And our troop it rqust bear On a cool, pleasant sail through the pure morning air. See, the coming of day, We must not delay: Up! through the blue ether! up, up, and away! And now, the old mill May go on, if it will,Or fold up its wings, for a while, and be still. 1839.
4590 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
SONNET. ILLUSTRATING A PICTURE. BY JAMES HOPPIN.
Now bright beneath them gleamed the sunlit vale, And just discerned, the cot from whence they passed, When stayed the creaking wheels, and slow and pale Stepp’d forth the sorrowing emigrants, to cast Upon the home they left, one gaze,-the last. The grardsire shaded with his trembling hand The dim eye, strained upon the roof he reared; The son but looked, and bowed himself, unmanned, Upon his horse’s neck, whose rough breast share His master’s agony;-unlike the rest The wife gazed tearless, and her infant son Folded in silence to her tranquil breast, As though she felt wherever doomed to roam, With him and with his sire-there would be home
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4591 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
FADED FLOWERS. BY SARAH H. WHITMAN.
REMEMBRANCERS of happiness! to me Ye bring sweet thoughts of the year’s purple prime, Wild, mingling melodies of bird and bee That pour on summer winds their silvery chime And of rich incense, burdening all the air, From flowers that by the sunny garden wall Bloomed at your side,-nursed into beauty there By dews and silent showers; but these to all Ye bring. Oh! sweeter far than these the spell Shrined in those fairy urns for me alone, For me a charm sleeps in each honied cell Whose power can call back hours of rapture flown, To the sad heart sweet memories restore, Tones, looks and words of love that may return no more.
4592 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
THE FORSAKEN WIFE.
BY GEORGE W. PATTEN.
’T is past the hour of evening prayer! What lonely watch is mine! I hear thy step upon the stair No-no-it is not thine; ’T was but a sound the tempest made, Along the moaning balustrade. What Circean spells-what Syren charms What words of secret art: Thus keep thee from my longing arms, Oh partner of my heart? And am I not thy chosen bride, Who-what can take thee from my side? Soft words may fall from lips refined From eyes, soft glances shine: But ’mid the crowd thou may’st not find, A heart that loves like mine! The very tear thy coldness brings Seems welcome-since for thee it springs. Have I not smil’d when thou wert gay? Wept-did thy look reprove Lov’d thee as woman sometimes may, As man can never love! All this-yea more-’twas mine to give; And unrequited-yet I live! Yet thou didst once with accents bland, Beside me bend the knee: And swear, in truth this little hand, Was more than worlds to thee! This jewell’d hand,-what is it now t The token of a broken vow! Oh love!’ How oft the bridal ring, Binds fast its golden tie: To make the heart a slighted thing, You pass unheeded by The charm is broke-the spell is gone And conscious woman weeps alone!
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4593 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
S 0 N N E T.
BY WILLIAM J. HOPPIN.
(Suggested by the late disgraceful transactions in Florida.), SAY it in whispers, that the sons of those Who fought beside our Fabius, Washington, Inheriting a glory, which was won By honorable port to friends and foes, Should fling away their birthright, and enclose In a vile ambush that undaunted one, Who yielded to their treachery alone. The arm their valour did not dare oppose! Hush! for the Dead at Lexington who sleep, The Forlorn-Hope of Freedom must not hear That our degenerate hands, to which they gave Truth’s spotless banner, all unstained to keep, And in her mighty vanguard to uprear, Have left it buried in a half-breed’s grave! 1838.
4594 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
TO THE TRAILING ARBUTUS FOUND BLOOMING THROUGH THE
SNOW.
BY SAMUEL W. PECKHAM.,
I FOUND thee smiling’mid surrounding gloom, While yet the whistling winds their’revels kept, And nature in the embrace of winter slept; Ere spring’s sweet songsters had began to plume Their airy wings:’t was then thy modest bloom From underneath the mouldering foliage crept, And, as around thy frosty bed I stepped, The spotless snow seemed almost to assume A crimson tint, reflected from thy blush; And as I gazed, thy modest beauty gave My heart a lesson, and the prayer did gush That thus I might death’s chilling influence braves And that, like thee, my parting soul might flush With cheerful light the darkness of the grave. ON SEEING A GRAVE WITHOUT A STONE. BY PAUL ALLEN. ALAS! no scutcheon’d marble here displays, In long-drawn eulogies, thy name and worth; Such servile homage adulation pays To a poor mouldering clod of common earth. The pompous eulogy, emblazon’d high, With all the glare that flattery can bestow, In splendid falsehood strikes the trav’ler’s eye, And makes the silly tear of pity flow. The yellow cowslip, and the violet blue, The pallid daisy, growing by thy side, Are all, poor peasant! that remains to you; But nature gifes what haughty man denied. Sweet, simple trophies! and to me more dear. Than all the arrogance of letter’d lore: Receive the tribute of a parting tear, Warm from my heart; a bard can give no more. STANZAS. BY JOSIAS L. ARNOLD. VAIN is the cheek’s vermilion hue, The forehead smooth and high, The lip, like rose.buds moist with dew, And vain the sparkling eye. A NOVEMBER LANDSCAPE. Vain beauty’s self the heart to bend, And in love’s fetters bind, Unless with grace external blend The graces of the mind. The flow’r that’s ting’d with various dyes At first may lure the eye; But if no fragrance from it rise, ’T is pass’d neglected by. 1791. A NOVEMBER LANDSCAPE. BY SARAH H. WHITMAN. How like a rich and gorgeous picture hung In memory’s storied hall, seems that fair scene O’er which long years their mellowing tints have flung; The way side flowers had faded one by one, Hoar were the hills, the meadows drear and dun, When homeward wending’neath the dusky screen Of the autumnal woods at close of day, As o’er a pine-clad height my pathway lay, Lo! at a sudden turn, the vale below Lay far outspread all flushed with purple light, Grey rocks and umbered woods gave back the glow Of the last day.beams fading into night, While down a glen where dark Moshassuck flows With all its kindling lamps the distant city rose.
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SPRING. FROM THE GERMAN OF TIECK, BY HENRY C. WHITAKEI. SEE, see how the Spring like a glittering bride, Comes forth on the hills in beauty and pride; She flings o’er the forest her mantle of green, Where the blossoming trees so gracefully lean, And the bird in the branches in merry mood sings, As he shakes the bright drops of the dew from his wings. See, see on the soft blushing cheek of the flower, The red glow grows deeper and deeper each hour; The winter-frost flies to his cavern so old, Far down their dark chambers all dismal and cold-. While old earth throws aside his gray robes to the rain That is falling so gently on river and plain; And stretches, in joy, his broad arms to embrace The light form of Spring with her fair smiling face. Down, down the rough mountains, the silver streams lap And dance in the valleys so lonely and deep; No longer the nightingale fears the rude blast, But sings in the green.wood that winter is past. Many a shadow grows bright in the beams, That sparkle and flash from ths swift-bounding streams Many a leaf like a diamond gem, Is waving in beauty on many a stem; Rainbows are playing on many a flower, As it lifts its thin petals that drip with the shower And the earth, like a monarch, majestic and old,. Sits high on a throne of purple and gold THE DEATH BED OF BEAUTY. BY JABIES O. ROCKWVELL. SHE sleeps in beauty, like the dying rose By the warm skies and winds of June forsaken; Or like the sun, when dimmed with clouds it goes To its clear ocean.bed, by calm winds shaken: Or like the moon, when through its robes of snow It smiles with angel meekness-or like sorrow When it is soothed by resignation’s glow, Or like herself,-she will be dead to-morrow. How still she sleeps! The young and sinless girl! And the sweet breath upon her red lips trembles! Waving, almost in death, the raven curl That floats around her; and she most resembles The fall of night upon the ocean foam, Wherefrom the sun-light hath not yet departed And where the winds are faint! She stealeth home, Unsullied girl! an angel broken-hearted! Oh bitter world! that hadst so cold an eye To look upon so fair a type of Heaven; She could not dwell beneath a winter sky, And her heart-strings were frozen here, and riven, And now she lies in ruins-look and weep! How lightly leans her cheek upon the pillow! And how the bloom of her fair face doth keep Changed, like a stricken dolphin on the billow. LINES. BY IRS. SOPHIA M. PHILLIPS. OH know you not, my friends, my friends, Your faces will arise On silent wings at evening, Before my gushing eyes? On silent wings at evening, When I shall long to stand Beneath the pleasant light of smiles, Within my own dear land. I have not loved it well before, This dearest, greenest spot! Where nothing now hath ever been That I remember not. Oh! earnest sounds will follow me Upon the happy breeze; Blending of names and voices, Home music o’er the seas! And I shall turn me fervently, To meet its melting power, And fill with love my yearning soul, In record of the hour. And still from each surrounding spell, My spirit breaking free, Shall hear and hail forever This music o’er the sea.
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APPENDIX.
Note 2.-Page 106. EZRA STILES, D. D., L. L. D. was the son of the Rev. Isaac Stiles, of North Haven, Connecticut, and was born Dec. 10th, 1727. He graduated at Yale College in 1746, with the reputation of being one of the most accomplished scholars it had ever produced. In 1749, he was chosen one of its tutors, and in that station he remained six years. He was ordained pastor of the second Congregational Church, in Newport, Rhode.- Island, the 22d of October, 1755, and continued the able, devoted, and highly esteemed minister of that Church, till he was elected President of Yale College, in 1777. He presided over that institution, with distinguished ability, till his death, May 12th, 1795, in the 68th year of his age. President Stiles was one of the most learned men that our country has ever produced. As a scholar, he was familiar with every department of learning. He had a profound and critical knowledge of the Latin, Greek, French and Hebrew languages; in the Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac and Arabic he had made considerable progress; and he had bestowed some attention on the Persic and Coptic. He had a passion for history, and an intimate acquaintance with the rabbinical writings and with those of the fathers of the Christian Church. Dr. Stiles maintained an extensive literary correspondence with many eminent persons in remote quarters of the globe; and his name was enrolled as a member of several learned societies in his own and foreign countries. As a preacher, he was impressive and eloquent; and the excellence of his sermons was enhanced by the energy of his delivery, and by the unction which pervaded them. His catholic spirit embraced good men of every nation, sect, and party. In the cause of civil and religious liberty he was enthusiastic.-Elton’s Notes to the Memoir of Callender. Note 3.-Page 200 The author of the Ode to the Poppy, is one of those whom Misery has long since marked for her own, and exercised with the severest forms of physical suffering. Afflicted with a chronic disease, in the seat of thought itself, for which there is no remedy, and which must fatally terminate, through slow and protracted degrees of pain and distress: never losing her consciousness of present evil, in the balm of sleep, the author has yet been able briefly to forget her condition, and to find momentary consolation, in dictating to her friends, several poetical effusions; from which the present has been selected as one of the most finished. Though secluded from the face of Nature, the memory of its various and beautiful forms is quickened, in her solitude, by a poet’s imagination. There is a pathos in some of her pieces, a strength of soul struggling against the doom of its decaying tenement, in the agony of deferred and expiring hope, that excite in us, as we lay them down, a feeling of melancholy regret, that another mind is destined to pass away, and leave so imperfect a record of its origin:-a regret that is but partially alleviated by the conviction, however sincere, that, as well in the universe of mind, as of matter, through all their endless changes, nothing is lost; and that all is safe in the hands of its Maker. The subject of this brief notice is unimproved by education, and owes nothing to circumstances: thus adding another to the thousand proofs, that Genius in its different degrees and kinds, is a gift, native in the soul, irrepressible in its growth by the greatest weight of calamity; and flourishing even in the cold shadow of Death. The author’s story disarms criticism, and makes its way at once to the charity of the heart.-Literary Journal. Note 4.-Page 296. The Poem from which these Stanzas are extracted, was written in Savannah, in 1837, as a description of an entertainment at the hospitable mansion of a gentleman of that city. This fact is mentioned, as nearly the whole Poem, with additions, was published last winter, in a New-York periodical, as a description of a similar entertainment in that city. Note 5.-Page 321. In 1836, a book was published in Philadelphia, entitled “Biographical Notes of Commodore Jesse D. Elliot,” claiming for that officer the honor of gaining the victory on Lake Erie.
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January: Early in this month Orestes Augustus Brownson addressed the Suffrage Association in Providence, Rhode Island in favor of an extension of suffrage. At the time Brownson was approving of the conduct of Thomas Wilson Dorr in seeking to amend a charter which allowed of no amendment, not because he supposed his activities to be legitimate, but because they were not any more illegitimate than the activities of his opposition in likewise seeking to amend that charter — and because it was generally good for America that suffrage be extended.
(After Mr. Dorr’s failure with the cannon at the arsenal, Brownson would discover to his considerable chagrin that the limitation of suffrage to a freehold qualification had been no provision of the colonial charter, but had been instead an act of the legislature, and so he would change sides, and disapprove of Dorr’s conduct — not because Dorr had become a loser, oh no, but due to a technicality: “this changed the whole aspect of the case.” He would have “no apology to offer” for shifting to the side of the triumphant Law and Order Party, because “our principles have undergone no change.” “The suffrage men may have meant well, and they may have incurred no great share of moral guilt; for to moral guilt there must be a guilty moral intent, or, what is the same thing, a culpable ignorance. But they were politically rebels, and could be treated only as such by a
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government that respected itself, and resolved to discharge its legal functions.”) READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
February: In Rhode Island, the Suffrage Association petitioned the General Assembly for the vote.
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3d Month: Quaker meetings at the 1st Mendon meetinghouse were discontinued by Smithfield Monthly Meeting of Rhode Island.
Abby Kelley wrote to the Uxbridge Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends:
I hereby disown all connection of fellowship with the Society of Friends, feeling it a duty to “come out and be separate.”
To celebrate her break from religious discipline Abby read a novel which she had previously, by the strict standards of this religious discipline, been unable to bring herself to read simply because as a work of fiction, it was therefore of the nature of a lie: TRISTRAM SHANDY.
Friend Joseph Sturge came to the USA with two expressed purposes: the abolition of slavery, and the promotion of a permanent international peace. Arriving shortly after the American Anti-Slavery Society had had spun off a large portion of its membership into the all-male American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society over the question of admitting women to its ranks, Friend Joseph, who did honor the work of female
abolitionists, would take the position that our projects of race and gender fairness were better kept separate. His first stop in New York was an orthodox Quaker meeting. Later he would visit Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Baltimore, Delaware, Vermont, Washington, Virginia, and Massachusetts in the company of Friend John Greenleaf Whittier.
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April 21, Wednesday: Bronson Alcott wrote a short note to Christopher A. Greene in Providence, Rhode Island while sending him a manuscript copy of ORPHIC SAYINGS; FOR THE PLAIN SPEAKER...... (seven leaves written on both sides, the verso of the final leaf addressed in the author’s hand).
At this point it had been settled that the Alcotts would stay where they were and it would be Henry Thoreau who would instead serve the Emerson family as “handyman.”
In Dunbar, Scotland, John Muir turned 3 years of age and was placed in primary schooling.
May: In Rhode Island, the General Assembly tabled the petitions of the Suffrage Association for the vote, but called for another constitutional convention, to meet in November, this one to be termed the Landholders’ Constitutional Convention. In response, the Suffrage Association issued a call for a People’s Constitutional Convention, to meet in October.
May: The Plain Speaker of Providence, Rhode Island published twelve of Bronson Alcott’s ORPHIC SAYINGS. (This reform gazette also published several letters to the editor it had received from Alcott.)
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June: Friend John Greenleaf Whittier was on tour with an Englishman, Friend Joseph Sturge, who was going to the various meetings on the Atlantic seaboard to speak of his experiences in the freeing of the slaves of Jamaica.
When they reached the New England Yearly Meeting held at Newport, they were informed that they would not be allowed to use the Great Meetinghouse for any such antislavery discussion. The two young men were considered by this Quaker group to represent the practice of arriving at decisions “by majorities, frequently after excited discussions,” when what was needed was silence, compassion, unanimity, and a gradualist approach. Rather than whip up opposition to the evil white people of the South by lecturing among the good white people of the North, the Rhode Island Friends felt it would be better to appeal directly to the consciences of the good white people in the South who were most directly involved in this evil. “In order for his peaceful release, the hearts of those who now control him [the slave] must be touched and softened.” After such a
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rebuff, Friend Whittier for several years would refuse to attend his yearly meeting.
Here are the reactions of Friend Joseph Sturge upon touring a slave trading emporium near Washington DC at some point during this month: In the afternoon I proceeded by a steam packet, with one of my friends, to Alexandria, about six miles distant, on the other side of the Potomac. A merchant, to whom I had an introduction, kindly accompanied us to a slave-trading establishment there, which is considered the principal one in the district. The proprietor was absent; but the person in charge, a stout, middle aged man, with a good-natured countenance, which little indicated his employment, readily consented to show us over the establishment. On passing behind the house, we looked through a grated iron door, into a square court or yard, with very high walls, in which were about fifty slaves. Some of the younger ones were dancing to a fiddle, an affecting proof, in their situation, of the degradation caused by slavery. There were, on the other hand, others who seemed a prey to silent dejection. Among these was a woman, who had run away from her master twelve years ago, and had married and lived ever since as a free person. She was at last discovered, taken and sold, along with her child, and would shortly be shipped to New Orleans, unless her husband could raise the means of her redemption, which we understood he was endeavouring to do. If he failed, they are lost to him for ever. Another melancholy looking woman was here with her nine children, the whole family having been sold away from their husband and father, to this slave-dealer, for two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars. This unfeeling separation is but the beginning of their sorrows. They will, in all probability, be
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re-sold at New Orleans, scattered and divided, until not perhaps two of them are left together. The most able-bodied negro I saw, cost the slave-dealer six hundred and eighty-five dollars.
Our guide told us that they sometimes sent from this house from fifteen hundred to two thousand slaves to the south in a year, and that they occasionally had three hundred to four hundred at once in their possession. That the trade was not now so brisk, but that prices were rising. The return and profits of this traffic appear to be entirely regulated by the fluctuations in the value of the cotton. Women are worth one-third less than men. But one instance of complete escape ever occurred from these premises, though some of the slaves were occasionally trusted out into the fields. He showed us the substantial clothing, shoes, &c., with which the slaves were supplied when sent to the south; a practice, I fear, enforced more by the cupidity of the buyers, than the humanity of the seller. Our informant stated, in answer to enquiries, that by the general testimony of the slaves purchased, they were treated better by the planters than was the case ten years ago. He also admitted the evils of the system, and said, with apparent sincerity, he wished it was put an end to.
June 26, Saturday: According to William J. Brown, the last Black Election Day celebration in Rhode Island occurred in this year during the turmoil of the Dorr War.16 Traditional public festivals such as black Election Days continued well into the nineteenth century. According to William J. Brown, the last black Election Day in the Providence region was in 1841. Interestingly, First of August celebrations occurred shortly thereafter. The Providence Daily Journal began recording West Indian Emancipation festivals in 1844. While First of August parades partly drew upon some of the traditions of Election Days, they were much more imbued with political and social context. Whereas black Election Days demonstrated much more plebeian, carnivalesque practices (albeit, as we shall see, with important social and political meanings), First of August celebrations specifically addressed salient political and social issues confronting blacks in the Atlantic world. In this way, this critical transformation in black public life did more than promote a black politics of protest, as Patrick Rael contends. British West Indian Emancipation celebrations nurtured a transnational black Atlantic consciousness. Whereas scholars such as William Piersen demonstrate the syncretic nature of black Election days, particularly how black participants drew upon African traditions (and in this regard these public festivals have their connection with other colonial black plebeian festivals such as Pinkster in New York and New Jersey, West Indian Emancipation celebrations reflected a different moral, social, and political consciousness that moved away from its African connections and addressed contemporary concerns that effected blacks in the Anglo-American black 16. The holiday function soon would be assumed by the 1st of August, West Indian Emancipation Day.
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Atlantic. If we are to follow William J. Brown’s description of the final days of black Election Days, we can see the benign as well as potentially politically and socially explosive content of these traditional New England cultural practices. Black Election Days in the Providence area annually occurred on the last Saturday of June [in 1841, June 26th], following white election days, but more critically at the end of the planting season. In this regard, black Election Days were connected to other harvest day celebrations where leisure, festivities, and fun followed an intense labor season. Some scholars have interpreted these election days as “safety-valves” where blacks in New England created their own public space to demonstrate ideas about political and social order, thereby reinforcing traditional white slave-master rule.17 Other scholars have focused on the interracial nature of these public festivals where white plebeians and blacks participated in the festivities. Indeed, these historians contend that the decline of Election Days can be attributed to rising racial and class tensions produced by immigration and industrialization. They maintain that the decline of black Election days corresponded with the emergence of a white working class with vested racial interests (and who would later find their leisure activities absorbed by racially charged minstrel shows), and a black bourgeoisie that promoted a politics of racial uplift and moral rectitude invested in asserting its authority and legitimacy over black plebeians who largely participated in these festival.18 Other scholars such as William Piersen draw connections to the ways elected Election Day governors and kings had direct ties to Africa, revealing the ways Anglo-American style election techniques (where not only the governors or kings were elected, but also his “officers,” including lieutenant-governors and treasurers) were blended with African customs regarding authority, legitimacy, and status. In reflecting upon Elleanor Eldridge’s experience with black Election Days, the stature of recently arrived Africans would support Pierson’s argument. Eldridge’s paternal grandfather was African, and her brother George was elected a black governor for four consecutive years. Moreover, her brother’s election brought a regal-like status to Elleanor. As Eldridge’s biographer Frances Greene noted, “As this title [of governor] was, in imitation of the whites, invested with considerable dignity, it follows that Elleanor stood among her people, in the very highest niche of the aristocracy. She always accompanied her brothers to these festivals, dressed in such style as became the sister of ‘His Excellency’.”19 According to William J. Brown, white masters would make processional arrangements with local tavern-keepers, securing 17. Joseph P. Reidy, “Negro Election Day and Black Community Life in New England, 1750-1860,” Marxist Perspectives, Vol. 1 (Fall 1978), 102-117. 18. David Roediger, THE WAGES OF WHITENESS: RACE AND THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS (NY: Verso, 1991,1993), 102-105; Shane White, SOMEWHAT MORE INDEPENDENT: THE END OF SLAVERY IN NEW YORK CITY, 1770-1810 (Athens GA: U of Georgia P, 1991), 95-106; Shane White, “’It was a Proud Day’: African Americans, Festivals, and Parades in the North, 1741-1834,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 81, No. 1 (June, 1994), 13-50. 19. Frances Green, MEMOIRS OF ELLEANOR ELDRIDGE (Providence: B.T. Albro, 1838), 33.
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rooms to hold elections and festivities following the governor’s parade, and providing refreshments for election participants. Thereafter, the participants themselves would pay for food and drink during the celebration while the governor or king held “court.” In the black Elections around Providence, Brown recalled that the events followed a regular schedule, with officers being elected, and then marching through the streets around 11:00 in the morning. The governor and his council were “accompanied by music” and “would march up and down the road, after which they would retire to the tavern and refresh themselves, then take up a collection and dismiss until dinner; after dinner they would amuse themselves any way they choose until the time for dancing.”20 Brown described the elections as raucous events where anyone who had “any animosity against another, male or female,” would “pay of their old debts by fighting.” William Pierson’s study of black Election Days throughout New England suggests that not all of these contentious issues were settled in this way, and the governors or kings and their councils would adjudicate these cases in a more sober manner.21 Moreover, the decisions resolved by the elected officials were accepted, becoming customary “law” in the local community, thereby reinforcing the importance of these black Election Days as a black public sphere that maintained social, political, and cultural power. Furthermore, that William Brown does not identify the participants as either slaves or freedmen and women (an issue further supported by our knowledge that both George and Elleanor Eldridge, free blacks living in Warwick and Providence, participated in black Election Days around the time Brown recollected these events) reveals that Election Day festivities were not simply “safety valves” to release tensions between dominant and subordinate groups, nominally lubricating the hegemonic position of the white elite. Since black Election Day was celebrated into the 1830s, a period when the majority of African Americans in Rhode Island were free, their popularity suggests that these festivals were widely accepted among blacks from different statuses and social conditions as a way to carve out black public space. William Brown argued that the more “pious did not care about attending” Election Day parades, but knowing that such morally reputable women like Elleanor Eldridge frequently attended these festivities illustrates that these celebrations remained popular among the black community in the early nineteenth century. Nonetheless, black Election Days abruptly ended in 1841 in the Providence area according to William J. Brown as a result of a riot provoked by the mistreatment of an elected officer. Election Day began innocently enough, following the traditions of elections and the parade, but when “a very dark man mounted on a horse and sword at his side, introduced himself as General Amey” and rode around town for half an hour, he “ordered the
20. William J. Brown, THE LIFE OF WILLIAM J. BROWN, OF PROVIDENCE, R.I.; WITH PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF INCIDENTS IN RHODE ISLAND, IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND (Providence RI: Angel & Co., Printers), 13. 21. William Piersen, BLACK YANKEES: THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN AFRO-AMERICAN SUBCULTURE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NEW ENGLAND (Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 129-140.
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hostler to put up his horse” while he went into a local tavern. As Brown related, General Amey then “walked up to the bar and regaled himself; then walked around among the assembled crowd like some officer in authority, but finding no one willing to acknowledge him as bearing rule over them, again went out and ordered the hostler to get his horse,” which he did according to orders. General Amey’s perplexity over the lack of respect received demonstrates both the racial fissures of black Election Day and the ways these plebeian festivities lost the potency they traditionally held. Black Election Days were plebeian festivals where a subordinate group was for a short period “on top” in a “world-turned-upside-down,” a cultural (not to say political) practice that had a long history in Anglo-America and Europe. But after years of increasing racial tensions, including two race riots (Hardscrabble in 1824 and the Olney Street Riot in 1831), whites were not inclined to be deferential to black authority figures, regardless of the dramaturgical quality of black Election Day. Some white Rhode Islanders might go along with the “custom” but even they had their limits. The hostler continued to take General Amey’s horse as the general rode throughout the city, but now maintained that he should be paid for securing the general’s horse. General Amey refused to pay the hostler, demanding to see the landlord of the facility that kept the horses, who in turn told him that it was the custom to remunerate the hostlers for their services. Again General Amey refused, and some “cross words passed between them when the landlord threw a half brick, hitting [General Amey] on the head. The General fell backward to the ground like one dead, and the cry soon went forth that General Amey was killed by the landlord.”22 Pandemonium erupted. The subterranean political and social dimensions of black Election Days finally exploded. Even if white leaders thought these black public festivals were “safety-valves” to release social and labor tensions, the riot that followed General Amey’s injury was not what they expected. Upon hearing the rumor that General Amey was dead, the general’s brother “went like a madman after the man who killed his brother.” When he reached the stable, General Amey returned to consciousness, and now “the two enraged brothers started for the landlord, who seeing them, fled into the house for refuge.” The brothers charged and broke through the front door. The landlord was able to escape through a window in another room, and “was joined outside by twenty men, who armed themselves with sticks of wood.” According to William Brown, “The two Ameys proceeded towards the landlord and his men who dropped their sticks and fled” towards the Pawtuxet River. Earlier, the landlord had set up a room in the tavern for Election Day festivities, and the brothers and other revelers proceeded to feast and drink, even “drinking up the landlord’s liquor.” After “regaling themselves” the brothers went to gather their belongings, only to be refused by the landlady, who had called upon her “help” to assist her to keep the brother’s clothes. The women who had accompanied the Amey brothers then “overpowered” the landlady and her 22. William J. Brown, THE LIFE OF WILLIAM J. BROWN, OF PROVIDENCE, R.I.; WITH PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF INCIDENTS IN RHODE ISLAND, IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND (Providence RI: Angel & Co., Printers), 14-15.
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assistants, took the clothes and left for Providence. The Amey brothers and other men who were participating in the festival stayed behind since they learned that the landlord “had gone after the Pawtuxet company of soldiers” and now “armed themselves with sticks of wood and formed themselves in a line, and awaited for the company.” Soon they heard the fife and drum, and heard the captain of the guard order them to “surrender themselves prisoners” or he would fire upon them. The Election Day men refused and “told him cooley to fire if he pleased, but it would be the last firing he would live to do.” At this point, the political potency of Election Day fully manifested itself. Not simply a racial and social drama playing to pacified black and approving white audiences, General Amey clearly saw himself as a military figure leading men to a battle because white people failed to recognize his legitimacy and political authority. Confronting the Pawtuxet soldiers, he was fighting for his and his men’s honor, much like any other military leader leading his soldiers. The captain of the guard probably recognized this as well, for he and his company of soldiers left without confronting General Amey and his men.23 Matters remained quiet for a week, when General Almey’s brother told his employer Mr. Halsey (for whom he worked as a foreman) about what happened, and how he planned to return to Warwick to settle his account with the landlord of the tavern. Halsey tried to discourage him, but Almey’s brother insisted on making “amends.” The landlord received the brother, and said he needed a few minutes to gather the proper information. However, the “landlord immediately dispatched a messenger to Pawtuxet, and a large number of men soon arrived, and locked [brother] Amey in jail.” Before Almey could be released, Mr. Halsey had to pay five hundred dollars “to settle the case.” As William Brown noted, “That was a death blow to the election. They tried several times to revive it, but failed in the attempt.”24 The violence and racial unrest unleashed by this particular black Election Day celebration undoubtedly discouraged future festivals. We can also see how the conviviality and frivolity of interracial plebeian public festivals that were once connected to a colonial culture and more heterogeneous social condition now appeared remote in the context of an increasingly racially divisive and socially tense urban North.25 However, black Election Days also came to an end in the 1830s in part because their function as a vehicle for demonstrating a black political and cultural presence in the public sphere lost its utility. Where these Election Days traditionally offered a space for “elected” black leaders to exert political and policing control over the black community and operated outside the broader social context, by the 1830s blacks wanted to use civil 23. William J. Brown, THE LIFE OF WILLIAM J. BROWN, OF PROVIDENCE, R.I.; WITH PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF INCIDENTS IN RHODE ISLAND, IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND (Providence RI: Angel & Co., Printers), 16. 24. William J. Brown, THE LIFE OF WILLIAM J. BROWN, OF PROVIDENCE, R.I.; WITH PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF INCIDENTS IN RHODE ISLAND, IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND (Providence RI: Angel & Co., Printers), 17. 25. John Wood Sweet examines the transformation of interracial contact in the North in more detail, especially focusing on Bobalition pamphlets and white humor, recognizing that race riots such as the Hardscrabble Riot of 1824 influenced this transformation, and also affected democratic politics in the North. See John Wood Sweet, BODIES POLITIC: NEGOTIATING RACE IN THE AMERICAN NORTH, 1730-1830 (Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2003), 378-397.
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and political institutions to address issues affecting the black community in Rhode Island and the United States. West Indian Emancipation festivals combined the political and social consciousness of black associational life that was maturing in the 1830s with the frivolity and pleasure of traditional black Election Days. First of August celebrations demonstrated that black Rhode Islanders could be politically assertive citizens while having fun at the same time. The Providence Daily Journal began recording First of August celebrations in 1844, six years following the official end of slavery in the British Caribbean. The Daily Journal identified characteristics of these festivals that illustrate how they were connected to earlier black public events like Election Day and Fourth of July celebrations. But they also reflected ties to black civic and political organizations. In the August 3, 1844 edition of the newspaper, the Daily Journal wrote that “[t]he colored people of this city assembled to the number of several hundred yesterday in the grove in the Northern suburbs, when a picnic was spread and a celebration held in commemoration of the emancipation of the slaves in the British West Indies.” However, the gravity of the occasion required more than just a social gathering and feasting. As the paper wrote, “Addresses were made by several speakers, and every thing was conducted in an orderly and creditable manner. After the picnic a long procession composed of persons of both sexes, marched through the streets with banners and music.”26 The newspaper’s description of the festival and parade is notable for a variety of reasons. While blacks traditionally claimed public space to demonstrate that they were part of the larger social fabric of the urban community since the colonial period with Election Days, they now used this space to celebrate a powerful event, the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies. As with Election Days, feasting, music, and enjoyment were integral to the event. People were encouraged to have a good time. But this solemn occasion also required sober behavior. Black behavior and morality as well as black politics were on public display, and it was critical that the celebration was “conducted in an orderly and creditable manner.” Unlike Election Day, First of August festivals were not coordinated around agricultural seasons, and were thus not tied to intense labor activities that might require an equally intense releasing of energy in leisure and festivities (the traditional “safety- valve argument). The processional march, music, and banners all speak to the ways African Americans wanted their social and political ideas to be taken seriously by the broader community. The Daily Journal commented on one occasion upon the ways festival participants “marched through the streets in process with music and banners and made a very orderly and respectable appearance.”27 At another time, the paper noted that “music, banners, and processions were all in good taste, and [the participants] were all in good taste, and they made an excellent and creditable appearance as they marched through the 26. Providence Daily Journal, Saturday August 3, 1844. 27. Providence Daily Journal, Saturday August 2, 1845.
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streets.”28 As with any public display, there was a conscious dramaturgical quality to the processions. Precisely because negative racial stereotypes of urban free blacks circulated the white press in the forms of Bobalition pamphlets and popular culture in minstrel shows, African Americans sought to redefine those counterfeit views of race with more sobering and uplifting representations of black life. The multivalent character of, not to mention the presence of white authority in black Election Day festivals, left participants and viewers unclear whether the event was nothing more than a playful game (much as the African game of paw-paw that was often seen played during Election Day celebrations).29 Black emancipation, however, was not a game, and the seriousness of the event required a level of engagement that was appropriate for the occasion. The procession, music, and banners may still have been a spectacle for viewers who watched the celebrants march through the city. However, they were observing a demonstration of political activity that honored black freedom, a far cry from the plebeian harvest festival of black Election Day. And as we will see momentarily, the addresses given by speakers not only directly referred to the significance of the event they were all celebrating, but also to the ways broader political movements in the British Caribbean also spoke to black life in other parts of the black Atlantic. Significantly, First of August festivals were coordinated by the members of the black community where Election Days were financially controlled by whites and depended upon white leadership. The brief history of establishing their own churches and civic associations enabled blacks to develop an independent voice, one that became confident to assert itself in the public arena. While it is unclear to what degree Providence’s black associations contributed their leadership to West Indian Celebrations, the Providence Daily Journal recorded that the First of August celebration of 1846 was coordinated by the city’s Union Anti-Slavery Society. That the festival of 1845 culminated in a concert at Mechanic’s Hall suggests that the black community’s laboring associations might have been involved in that year’s processional organization, not to mention how the celebration sought to reach a broader racial audience. At various West Indian Emancipation festivals celebrated in the American North, black and white speakers gave addresses that commemorated the triumph of black emancipation and encouraged black activism. While black and white audiences could be politically moved by lectures and (as we shall see shortly) singing hymns, black Americans were especially energized as these addresses and songs called upon them to act as citizens to change the social and political direction of the American republic. First of August addresses spoke to a variety of issues concerning the contemporary and future condition of blacks in the Atlantic world. From local speakers such as Newport’s 28. Providence Daily Journal, Monday August 3, 1846. 29. William Piersen, BLACK YANKEES: THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN AFRO-AMERICAN SUBCULTURE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NEW ENGLAND (Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 96-113, 117-128.
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William Channing to national luminaries such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Quincy Adams, not to mention Frederick Douglass whose speech opened this section, black and white leaders recognized how these celebrations offered a stage to speak to the issues facing blacks in the Atlantic world. Not surprisingly these speeches move between the condition of blacks in the Caribbean to that of blacks in America, be they in the North or South. Indeed, that these speeches swivel freely between the Caribbean and the United States further illustrate how black hopes and struggles transcended national boundaries and confronted blacks throughout the black Atlantic. In this regard, it is perhaps best to initially examine the speech of Reverend Henry Bleby who served as a Baptist missionary to Barbados and witnessed the transition from slavery to freedom on the island. By 1858, when Bleby gave his August First speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, the issue of American emancipation was at its most volatile (indeed John Brown would lead his historic raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in less than a year) and undoubtedly influenced Bleby’s address. Thus, Bleby’s choice to initially highlight the Barbadian slave insurrection of 1832 (and the violence that ensued) and then stress the peaceful and successful transition from slavery to freedom connected with larger concerns that his abolitionist oriented audience (not to mention Americans in general) would have: what would be the future of slaves in the United States, especially once freed? Bleby directly pointed to the history of Barbadian slaves to illustrate how emancipation would not only be peaceful, but how the freedmen and women would nobly confront the challenges freedom presented. Indeed, the history of slavery in Barbados demonstrated that the brutality of slavery would only produce the violence of slave insurrections as the 1832 slave rebellion proved. In 1832, 50,000 slaves “made an effort for their liberty, and had resolved to strike a blow for freedom.” According to Bleby, the uprising showed that slaves were discontented with their social condition (despite what West Indian Planters and other slaveholders argued), and that the violence endemic to slavery produced reciprocal violent responses. The British military put down the 1832 insurrection, which killed 2,000 insurgents and “most of them were either shot or hanged in cold blood.”30 Bleby said that after the slave uprising, planters discouraged missionary work (even though some missionaries publicly supported planter rule), and eighteen churches were burned. Despite this low point in Bleby’s missionary experience, the abolition of slavery in the British Empire energized him, as he recognized that part of his mission was to play a role in the emancipation process. In fact, rather than producing mayhem and retribution, slaves welcomed abolition with joyful prayers and singing now that their jubilee had come. As Bleby said to his audience, Sir, I was there when slavery was abolished. I saw the monster died.... I stood up late at night, in one of the 30. Rev. Henry Bleby, “Speech of Rev. Henry Bleby, Missionary From Barbadoes, On the Results of Emancipation in the British W.I. Colonies, Delivered at the Celebration of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, held at Island Grove, Abington, July 31st, 1858” (Boston: R.F. Wallcut, 1858).
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churches under siege under my charge, a very large church, and the aisles were crowded, and the gallery stairs, and the communion place, and the pulpit stairs, were all crowded, and there were thousands of people round the building, at every open door, and window, looking in.... I was my privilege to stand up in the congregation, and “proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison doors that were bound.”31 In Bleby’s mind, God’s children had finally been delivered from enslavement, describing how his black congregation knelt in prayer when “the hour of freedom had come.” And at the crucial moment of their emancipation sang hymns to celebrate their jubilee. And not just singing, according to Bleby, “they literally shouted” the hymn, “The Negro Jubilee,” which he then shared with the audience. Significantly the hymn did not simply rejoice the emancipation of slaves in the British Caribbean, although the stanza’s did celebrate British justice and philanthropy for finally bringing slave’s their freedom: Send the glad tiding o’er the sea, His chains are broke, the slave is free; Britannia’s justice, wealth, and might Have gained the negro’s long-lost right Significantly, these freedmen and women recognized that this historical moment was connected to all those other black men and women still in chains in the black Atlantic. They also knew that the world would now turn their eyes on them to see how they would adjust to lives in freedom. As they sang: Our prayers shall now with praise combine, For freedom poured on every clime; For holy freedom, gracious Lord, To join a world in sweet accord: Then, freed from sin, from error free, We’ll keep a brighter jubilee.32
Bleby emphasized how emancipation of slaves in the British West Indies sparked a flame, and it was now incumbent upon his audience to carry the torch. As he said, “I hope the time will soon come, Mr. Chairman, when thousands of Christian ministers, with their congregations, throughout the length and breadth of the United States will be able to sing the Jubilee Hymn (to which he was received with “Loud Applause”).”33 In this statement,
31. Rev. Henry Bleby, “Speech of Rev. Henry Bleby, Missionary From Barbadoes, On the Results of Emancipation in the British W.I. Colonies, Delivered at the Celebration of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, held at Island Grove, Abington, July 31st, 1858.” 32. Rev. Henry Bleby, “Speech of Rev. Henry Bleby, Missionary From Barbadoes, On the Results of Emancipation in the British W.I. Colonies, Delivered at the Celebration of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, held at Island Grove, Abington, July 31st, 1858.” 33. Rev. Henry Bleby, “Speech of Rev. Henry Bleby, Missionary From Barbadoes, On the Results of Emancipation in the British W.I. Colonies, Delivered at the Celebration of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, held at Island Grove, Abington, July 31st, 1858.”
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Bleby concisely addressed the purpose of West Indian Emancipation festivals: for people to celebrate black freedom in the Atlantic world, and more importantly, become historical agents themselves to end slavery in the United States. Bleby’s address also pointed to the important ways freedmen and women made the transition from slavery to freedom. Emancipation was not a failure, as some people were arguing, rather “[t]hroughout the British West Indies, in every island, the condition of the people is comparably superior, in all respects to what it was in slavery.” It was true that the colonies were not as prosperous as before slavery, but this was the result of changes in the Caribbean economy (sugar production) in general and not tied to slavery as a labor system. Freedom did not produce a lazy and indolent black population. Instead the “moral condition of Barbadoes will compare favorably with that of any other civilized country.... The people are willing to do all they can to raise themselves, and they do raise themselves.” In fact, he turned is rhetorical microscope to the condition of free blacks in the United States. Describing how he read a playbill denoting that blacks must sit in a gallery, Bleby commented how that “alone was sufficient to satisfy me that [blacks in America] are laboring under discouragements, difficulties, and prejudices which must exercise a blighting influence upon them, and must necessarily keep them down.” Bleby told his audience that laws of Barbados supported racial equality, such as sitting on juries. And even the governor of one of the British Caribbean islands emphasized racial equality by inviting black people to the governor’s house. When “some of the gentry gave the cold should to these colored guests, [the governor] caused it to be intimated to them, that if they expected invitations to the Government House, his guests must be treated by them with the same respect and courtesy he manifested towards them himself.” To this statement, Bleby was received with loud cheers. Bleby stressed an issue that was just not influencing the lives of blacks hundreds of miles away in the American South (though that was the primary issue that brought the First of August participants together). He was now addressing an issue that directly affected his audience and was encouraging them to change the social and political condition of those black Americans who lived among them in New England. The gesture by the island governor “did more than anything else I know of to put an end to the reign of prejudice on that island. Very soon, the colored people began to mingle upon equal terms with the whites....”34 If his white audience members would follow suit (and their presence at the First of August celebration was an encouraging sign) then too the United States could be a place where racial equality could manifest. Here again Bleby was emphasizing the larger issue that these Emancipation festivals addressed: the history—and future—of blacks in America were connected to other blacks in the Atlantic world. Collectively, they shared a history of slavery and racial prejudice, and 34. Rev. Henry Bleby, “Speech of Rev. Henry Bleby, Missionary From Barbadoes, On the Results of Emancipation in the British W.I. Colonies, Delivered at the Celebration of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, held at Island Grove, Abington, July 31st, 1858.”
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together they would triumph over these challenges to become a truly free people, a virtuous example of Western Civilization enlightenment. Indeed, the themes of collective history and identity as well as historical agency identity repeatedly emerge in West Indian Emancipation Celebration speeches. In one of the earlier addresses, Newport’s William Ellery Channing implored his audience to transcend their parochial regional interests that had “deadened our sympathies for the oppressed,” and collectively work to abolish slavery. Again, British West Indian Emancipation was an inspiring historical example of how moral virtue triumphed over the sin of slavery. Similar to Bleby’s speech he described the brutality of the slave regime and how nature “cries aloud for Freedom as our proper good, our birthright and our end, and resents nothing so much as its loss.” Like Bleby as well, he connected the issue of emancipation to racial equality. The triumph of black freedom in the British Caribbean was not just liberty from slavery: “Still more, and what deserves special note, the colored man raised his eyes, on this day, to the white man, and saw the infinite chasm between himself and the white race growing narrower; saw and felt that he to was a Man, that he too had rights; that he belonged to the common father, not to a frail, selfish creature; that under God he was his won master.”35 Other First of August speakers would draw upon the same theme. In his 1844 speech, Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, “I esteem the occasion of this jubilee to be the proud discovery, that the black race can contend with the white; that, in the great anthem which we call history ... [blacks in the Western world] perceive the time arrived when they can strike in with effect, and take a master’s part in the music. The civility of the world has reached that pitch, that their moral genius is becoming indispensable, and the quality of this race honored for itself.”36 In his speech, William Channing informed his audience that emancipation in the British West Indies was more than a story of the end of slavery in the Caribbean. As he said, “[l]ittle did I imagine, that the emancipation of the Slaves, was to be invested with holiness and moral sublimity.” Because of its moral and spiritual power, West Indian emancipation was commanding Americans to connect with this historic event in the Atlantic world and draw upon its energy to address the salient problems within their midst, especially racial prejudice. Channing noted that blacks were received as equals in Europe, and only in the United States were they viewed as inferior (exaggerated perhaps, but nonetheless a powerful rhetorical point to inspire his audience). As he said, “It is here [the United States] only this prejudice reigns; and to this prejudice strengthened by our subjection to the southern influence....”37 By celebrating West Indian Emancipation and its glory, Channing 35. William E. Channing, “An Address Delivered at Lennox, on The First of August, 1842. The Anniversary of Emancipation, In the British West Indies” (Lenox, MA: J.G. Stanly, 1842). Rider Collection, Box 98, No. 13. John Hay Library. Brown University. 36. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “An Address Delivered to the Court-House in Concord, MA, on 1st August, 1844, On the Anniversary of the Emancipation of Negroes in the British West Indies” (Boston: James Munroe and CO, 1844). 37. William E. Channing, “An Address Delivered at Lennox, on The First of August, 1842. The Anniversary of Emancipation, In the British West Indies”
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was demanding his audience not to let this historic moment recede into historical amnesia (perhaps like Haiti, the other great black emancipation movement that had been mostly shunned by the United States and, significantly, was celebrated publicly by black Americans like West Indian emancipation). In keeping the flames of history alive, his audience was sustaining the flames of human freedom alive as well. Speaking to his audience, Channing said, “We ought to shout for joy, not shrink like cowards, when justice and humanity triumph over established wrongs.”38 He thus wanted his audience to transform the moral soul of his country. In his speech he said, We commemorate with transport the redemption of a nation from political bondage; but this is a light burden compared with personal slavery. The oppression which these United States threw off by our revolutionary struggle, was the perfection of freedom, when placed by the side of the galling, crushing, intolerable yoke which bowed the African to the dust. Thank God it is broken. Thank God, our most injured brethren have risen to the rank of men. Thank God, Eight Hundred Thousand human beings have been made free.”39 The connection surely was not lost on Channing’s audience. The American Revolution began a new history in human freedom, and the slaves of the British West Indies picked up the torch of freedom, and it was now incumbent upon Americans “transport the redemption” of their “nation from political bondage.” The festivities of the day, though, were sobered by one thought: “Our own country is in part the land of slavery; and slavery becomes more hideous here than any where else, by its contrast with our free institutions. It is deformity married to beauty.... No other evil in our country, but this, should alarm us.”40 Hymn singing was a critical component to the First of August celebrations. They were integrated into the festivities, forming the crucial space where participants became a political and spiritual community. With the public addresses audiences listened to speeches given by notables who honored British West Indian emancipation and provoked them to become politically and socially involved in contemporary issues surrounding racial equality and slavery. However, the singing of hymns fostered a deeper meaning of those issues as the act of singing together as a collective group connected them physically, emotionally, as well as spiritually to the causes for which they were going to advocate. Hymn singing became the sacred space where festival participants absorbed the political magnitude of emancipation and the condition of blacks in the Atlantic world as a spiritual exercise. As Henry Bleby’s description of blacks in Barbados 38. William E. Channing, “An Address Delivered at Lennox, on The First of August, 1842. The Anniversary of Emancipation, In the British West Indies” 39. William E. Channing, “An Address Delivered at Lennox, on The First of August, 1842. The Anniversary of Emancipation, In the British West Indies” 40. William E. Channing, “An Address Delivered at Lennox, on The First of August, 1842. The Anniversary of Emancipation, In the British West Indies”
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singing the “Negro Jubilee” on the night of their emancipation illustrates, singing hymns energized the congregation as they celebrated their freedom. However, it gave their struggle and their liberty spiritual meaning in the larger context of their collective experience, binding them to a collective memory, history, and identity. Emancipation would be the foundation of their new history, defining how they remembered the past, and shaping the way they would confront the future now bound together as a free people who would endure the forthcoming challenges together. Hymn singing produced a similar experience for First of August celebrants. As the hymns and songs of the West Indian Emancipation celebrations reveal, these festivals were politicized rituals that energized and empowered participants. While we do not have records of hymns sung at Rhode Island festivals, available hymn sheets from other New England August First celebrations such as the one that occurred in 1855 in Abington, Massachusetts and sponsored by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society describe the ways the singing of Jubilee hymns politicized the audience. This hymn sheet also demonstrates how participants connected the triumph of British Caribbean emancipation with the current struggle over American slavery. Between 1848 and 1861, slavery emerged as the defining feature of American national politics. Advocates for American abolitionism watched as the acquisition of territories from the Mexican-American War created sectional tensions, especially as the California Compromise of 1850 potentially allowed slavery into the New Mexico territories and codified a national Fugitive Slave Law. The constitutionality of the latter was tested and eventually confirmed with the Dred Scott Case in 1857. The Kansas—Nebraska Act in 1854 provoked further sectional crisis by allowing potential states north of Missouri to locally determine whether they would practice slavery in these new states, an action that nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820. From the perspective of abolitionists, it would seem that their cause was being undermined by proslavery forces who seemed to control the levers of national politics. As the following hymn illustrates, however, the political anxieties produced by these national events only emboldened abolitionists, creating momentum to advance black emancipation. As the speeches delivered in the 1850s by notables such as Frederick Douglass and Henry Bleby demonstrate, West Indian Emancipation festivals, now more than ever, were moments to remember the triumph of previous struggles for emancipation and to continue that struggle in America. The following hymn produced by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society reinforced this sentiment, particularly the powerful message of promoting the cause of black liberty in America. As the first and second stanzas described, the hymn began with the celebration of British emancipation, then shifted to the current crisis in the United States: I.
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’T is many years since England’s arm The mighty barriers rent, And freely from his prison-house The slave rejoicing went. II. To-day, beneath the “stars and stripes,” The slave bows to his doom, And a proud nation wreathed in chains, Is rushing to its tomb! It will not heed the boding signs, That mark the tempest nigh; It will not see the reddening bolts, That flame along the sky!41
Although it had been years since England had ended slavery, it had followed the momentum of history, one that now celebrated human freedom. Contrastingly, the United States was moving against the tide of history, and “rushing to its tomb.” As readers, we not only see the ways the hymn defined a teleology of history that reified a progressive narrative of freedom, but we also see an apocalyptic vision for those societies that continued to practice slavery. These slave societies were not heeding “the boding signs, that mark the tempest nigh,” and were not recognizing the “reddening bolts, That flame along the sky.” Like a description from the Biblical book of Revelations, the signs of Armageddon were evident in the skies. An apocalypse had arrived and the history of American slavery had now come to a turning point. Despite its virtues, the United States was a “proud nation wreathed in chains” and was now heading towards its death. As the following stanzas illustrate, however, this hymn connected the broader themes of history to actual historical events confronting the celebration’s participants: III. To-day, by sunny mount and glade, The chapel bells do ring, And in the palm-tree’s grateful shade, Their free-born children sing; And answering from our own bright land, Peals from a thousand marts, That piercing cry of woe which comes From breaking human hearts. IV.
41. “Hymns and Songs For The Celebration of the First of August, 1855 At the Grove in Abington By the Massachusetts Anti- Slavery Society.”
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To-day, above old Pilgrim graves, The Slaver counts his gain; The Merchant for the fetter raves; The Pulpits forge the chains; And o’er Nebraska’s glorious land, O’er Kansas fertile plain, Dark Slavery rides, and Death and Hell Are following with their train.42
Again, the hymn juxtaposes the conditions in the British Caribbean with that of the United States. In “the palm-tree’s grateful shade, Their free-born children sing” where in America, the “piercing cry of woe which comes From breaking human hearts.” The hymn then refers to how slavers profited from human bondage in a land founded by Pilgrims who fled to America seeking liberty. The hymn points to the irony that America was founded on the principles of liberty and yet keeps people enslaved, further supported by merchants and the “Pulpit.” Contemporary events in Kansas and Nebraska only seemed to have strengthened the forces of slavery, as “Dark Slavery rides and Death and Hell are following in their train” in these territories. The joy with which this hymn opened in celebrating British West Indian emancipation has become much more somber by the end of the song. Yet, the festival’s participants did not leave the celebration on this solemn note. The following song from the hymn sheet followed the earlier hymn, that no doubt energized those singing, but also gave them a place in the historical saga to challenge their political situation that appeared to encourage the supporters of slavery. As the next song on the hymn sheet reads: I. Yes, boldly battle for the right, Where’er thy lot is cast – Wage ceaseless war ’gainst lawless might, Nor think the conflict past; Dream not, but work—be bold and brave— Gird on Truth’s armor strong:-- Oh! Never bow a willing slave To sordid thrones of wrong.43
This hymn demands singers to be active agents in history, to “battle for right” against “lawless might.” History and truth were on their side, where “thy lot is cast,” and thus they should embrace the militancy their struggle required. The 1850s were a 42. “Hymns and Songs For The Celebration of the First of August, 1855 At the Grove in Abington By the Massachusetts Anti- Slavery Society.” 43. “Hymns and Songs For The Celebration of the First of August, 1855 At the Grove in Abington By the Massachusetts Anti- Slavery Society.”
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troubling period for African Americans in the United States, especially since the Fugitive Slave Law could ensnare free blacks, sending them South and enslaving them. It seemed even free blacks in the North were not safe. Many considered leaving the country, either to the Caribbean, Latin America, or Canada, with some black leaders leading their own colonization plans (separate from the American Colonization Society) to immigrate to Africa. Hymns such as this one tried to embolden blacks and their supporters not to give up on the fight for black freedom. Rather than passively accepting the current social and political climate, this hymn (and the First of August celebrations in general) asked them to change the course of history and direct their political energy towards ending slavery. As was noted, blacks in Rhode Island (and the American North in general) did not celebrate or honor emancipation in the northern United States. Perhaps this was due to the sporadic, disconnected, and drawn-out nature of northern emancipation. There was no day or year of jubilee northern blacks could celebrate. However, celebrating British West Indian Emancipation connected them to a larger narrative of profound meaning that recognized the collective experience of enslavement in the Atlantic world, promoting a collective memory and history, and encouraging them to act collectively to change the status of blacks throughout the black Atlantic. Although the collective history of slavery in the American North might have fostered a collective history, it was not remembered as a collective traumatic event to forge a collective identity. Instead it was the energy promoted by the need for historical agency to change their marginalized condition, as well as the sense of historical destiny that bound blacks in the American North. As the hymnals from the First of August celebrations reveal, these festivals encouraged this collective identity and connected them with the larger black Atlantic. British West Indian emancipation festivals may have been an “invented tradition” in the American North in the mid-nineteenth century, and would only last a couple of decades. However, they became a tradition that profoundly ritualized and historicized recent events to attach meaning to the modern condition of black freedom in the black Atlantic.44 Celebrating West Indian Emancipation throughout the Atlantic World thus served as profound moments of collective history and memory for blacks in the United States, Canada, and the British Caribbean. It simultaneously connected a glorious past where slaves surmounted challenges and became upstanding citizens in the process, and used this historical moment to demand similar historical change in the United States. However, West Indian Emancipation festivals would also have negative consequences. Undoubtedly, British West Indian emancipation celebrations were safe spaces to celebrate black Atlantic freedom in the Atlantic world because whites could participate without guilt, and thus allow the historical memory of slavery in Rhode Island and Nova
44. Marita Sturken, TANGLED MEMORIES: THE VIETNAM WAR, THE AIDS EPIDEMIC, AND THE POLITICS OF REMEMBERING (Berkeley CA: U of California P, 1997), 3-9, 12-17; Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger, ed., THE INVENTION OF TRADITION (Cambridge MA: Cambridge UP, 1983, 2004), 3-14.
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Scotia to further recede in the past. Historians such as Joanne Pope Melish and John Wood Sweet have described how the history of slavery in New England evaporated during the sectional crisis of the nineteenth century as New England historians and antiquarians practically extinguished local slavery from the record by describing it as “mild” or ignored it altogether.45 By the end of the century a historical amnesia set in that virtually denied the existence of slavery in these areas and created a history that had embraced abolitionism, with the American North now having emerged victorious from the Civil War. For all their virtues in promoting a black Atlantic identity and collective history, British West Indian Emancipation festivals in New England reinforced this historical amnesia as they directly ignored the history of black men and women who had struggled to fight slavery in these areas at the turn of the nineteenth century. In as much as blacks contributed to the nineteenth century language and ideology of race in the region as some scholars have argued,46 one wonders if August First festivals also reinforced the historical amnesia that denied the magnitude of slavery in New England. RACE POLITICS
August 28, Saturday: Elections for delegates were held in Rhode Island’s towns to the People’s Constitutional Convention. All white male citizens over 21 were allowed to vote for the delegates.
Henry Thoreau recorded in his journal a snippet of poetry that would be placed into his A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS:
Aug. 28. Saturday. A great poet will write for his peers alone, and indite no line to an inferior. He will remember only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and calmly expect the time when a vision as broad shall overlook the same field as freely. Johnson can no more criticise Milton than the naked eye can criticise Herschel’s map of the sun.
The art which only gilds the surface and demands merely a superficial polish, without reaching to the core, is but varnish and filigree. But the work of genius is rough-hewn from the first, because it anticipates the lapse of time and has an ingrained polish, which still appears when fragments are broken off, an essential quality of its substance. Its beauty is its strength. It breaks with a lustre, and splits in cubes and diamonds. Like the diamond, it has only to be cut to be polished, and its surface is a window to its interior splendors.
True verses are not counted on the poet’s fingers — but on his heart strings. My life hath been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and live to utter it.
In the Hindoo scripture the idea of man is quite illimitable and sublime. There is nowhere a loftier conception of his destiny. He is at length lost in Brahma himself, “the divine male.” Indeed, the distinction of races in this life is only the commencement of a series of degrees which ends in Brahma. The veneration in which the Vedas are held is itself a remarkable fact. Their code embraced the whole moral life of the Hindoo, and in such a case there is no other truth than sincerity. Truth is such by reference to the heart 45. Joanne Pope Melish, DISOWNING SLAVERY: GRADUAL EMANCIPATION AND “RACE” IN NEW ENGLAND, 1780-1860 (Ithaca NY: Cornell UP, 1998), xiii, 208; John Wood Sweet, BODIES POLITIC, 2-11. 46. Joanne Pope Melish, DISOWNING SLAVERY: GRADUAL EMANCIPATION AND “RACE” IN NEW ENGLAND, 1780-1860 (Ithaca NY: Cornell UP, 1998), 4, 198.
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of man within, not to any standard without. There is no creed so false but faith can make it true. In inquiring into the origin and genuineness of this scripture it is impossible to tell when the divine agency in its composition ceased, and the human began. “From fire, from air, and from the sun” was it “milked out.”
There is no grander conception of creation anywhere. It is peaceful as a dream, and so is the annihilation of the world. It is such a beginning and ending as the morning and evening, for they had learned that God’s methods are not violent. It was such an awakening as might have been heralded by the faint dreaming chirp of the crickets before the dawn. The very indistinctness of its theogony implies a sublime truth. It does not allow the reader to rest in any supreme first cause, but directly hints of a supremer still which created the last. The creator is still behind, increate. The divinity is so fleeting that its attributes are never expressed.
A WEEK: The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper, coincident with the production of this, stereotyped in the poet’s life. It is what he has become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince’s gallery. My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it.
THE POET’S DELAY. In vain I see the morning rise, In vain observe the western blaze, Who idly look to other skies, Expecting life by other ways. Amidst such boundless wealth without, I only still am poor within, The birds have sung their summer out, But still my spring does not begin. Shall I then wait the autumn wind, Compelled to seek a milder day, And leave no curious nest behind, No woods still echoing to my lay?
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August 31, Tuesday-September 1, Wednesday: In the Liberty Hall of Groton MA, Frederick Douglass took part in a meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society of Middlesex County, Massachusetts.
Delegates were elected in regular Rhode Island town meetings for the Landholders’ Constitutional Convention. Only white male citizens with $134 in real estate were eligible to vote for these delegates.
September: This was the Brook Farm experiment’s membership roster as it has been derived from their Articles of Association documents dated September 29, 1841 and February 17, 1842, from their Constitution dated February 11, 1844, and from various minutes of their meetings preserved by the Massachusetts Historical Society. We instantly notice that it is not a particularly accurate record of what had been going on, as witness the fact that Nathaniel Hawthorne is being shown as being admitted to membership in the association a month after his attorney has filed the necessary legal papers to disassociate him:
Date of Name Birthplace Birthdate Occupation Admission
September 1841 Reverend George Ripley Greenfield MA 1802 minister
September 1841 Mrs. Sophia Dana Ripley Cambridge MA 1803 wife of minister
September 1841 Marianne Ripley Greenfield MA 1797 teacher
September 1841 Charles A. Dana Hindsdale NH 1819 student
September 1841 Minot Pratt Weymouth MA 1805 printer
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Date of Name Birthplace Birthdate Occupation Admission
September 1841 Maria Pratt Boston MA 1806 wife of printer
September 1841 Nathaniel Hawthorne Salem MA 1804 writer
September 1841 Sarah F. Stearns Massachusetts circa 1820 student
September 1841 William Allen Vermont 1815 schoolteacher at Concord
September 1841 Charles O. Whitmore ? ? ?
February 1842 Georgiana Bruce England circa 1820 teacher
February 1842 Samuel D. Robbins Lynn MA 1812 minister
February 1842 Mary Robbins Lynn MA circa 1812 wife of minister
February 1842 David Mack Cambridge MA ? Boston attorney
February 1842 Lucy Maria Kollock Cambridge MA ? wife of attorney David Mack Brastow Mack
February 1842 Lemuel Capen ? 1789 (died 1858) minister
February 1842 Warren Burton Wilton NH 1800 minister
February 1842 George C. Leach Glouchester MA ? hotelkeeper
February 1842 Francis Farley ? ? farmer
February 1842 Sylvia Allen Vermont ? wife of farmer
June 1842 Anna Foord ? circa 1820 student
June 1842 Abigail Morton Plymouth MA circa 1820 student
June 1842 James Hill ? ? ?
August 1842 James Curtis Providence, Rhode Island 1824 student
September 1842 Eleanor Garrith ? ? ?
September 1842 John Brown ??farmer
October 1842 Manuel Diaz ? ? student
December 1842 Icabod Morton Plymouth MA ? commercial fisherman
January 1843 Amelia Russell Dunkirk, France 1798 teacher
January 1843 Lewis Ryckman New-York NY 1796 shoemaker
January 1843 Jane Ryckman New-York NY 1799 wife of shoemaker
January 1843 Mary Brown ? ? wife of a farmer
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Date of Name Birthplace Birthdate Occupation Admission
February 1844 John Cheever Ireland 1802 domestic servant
February 1844 Marianne Williams England 1806 ?
February 1844 John Mitchell Scotland 1818 shoemaker
February 1844 John Sullivan Dwight Boston MA 1813 minister
February 1844 Christopher List Wurtemburg, Germany 1816 lawyer
February 1844 William J. Davis Sutton MA 1816 carpenter
February 1844 Anne Dana Gaines NY 1825 sister of student
February 1844 Charles Salisbury Walpole NH 1819 farmer
February 1844 Deborah N- ? ? ?
February 1844 Mary Holland Belfast ME circa 1817 wife of a tallow chandler
February 1844 Mary Ann Willard ? ? ?
April 1844 William Teel Jersey City NJ 1822 shoemaker
April 1844 Porter Holland Belfast ME 1817 tallow chandler
April 1844 Jeremiah Reynolds Sterling CT 1820 carpenter
April 1844 Peter Baldwin Boston MA 1806 baker
May 1844 Ephraim Capen Dorchester MA 1813 pewterer
May 1844 Job Tirell Boston MA 1795 carpenter
May 1844 Charles Fuller Boston MA 1822 shoemaker
May 1844 Frederick Burnham Roxbury MA 1821 shoemaker
May 1844 William Cheswell Boston MA 1818 carpenter
May 1844 Mary Ann Cheswell Boston MA 1822 wife of carpenter
May 1844 Robert Westacott England 1818 cabinet maker
June 1844 Frederick Cabot Boston MA 1822 clerk
June 1844 Mary Dwight West Newbury MA 1792 mother of minister
June 1844 Marianne Dwight Boston MA 1816 teacher
June 1844 Benjamin Fitch Temple NH 1810 farmer
June 1844 Francis Dwight Boston MA 1819 sister of minister
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Date of Name Birthplace Birthdate Occupation Admission
June 1844 Flavel Patterson Lunenburg MA 1806 carpenter
June 1844 Caroline Patterson Charlestown MA 1815 wife of carpenter
June 1844 Rebecca Codman Charlestown MA 1798 wife of a mechanic
July 1844 Jonathan Butterfield West Cambridge MA 1818 printer
July 1844 Nathaniel Colson Abington MA 1815 shoemaker
July 1844 Hannah Colson Athens ME 1821 wife of shoemaker
July 1844 George Houghton Stillwater NY 1809 printer
July 1844 Hiram Haskell St. Johns, New Brunswick 1823 apothecary
July 1844 Julia Whitehouse Assumption Point NJ(?) 1799 ?
July 1844 Buckley Hastings Franklin [County?] MA 1814 grocer
August 1844 Cynthia Hastings Votingham(?) VT(?) 1818 wife of grocer
August 1844 John Codman Boston MA 1794 mechanic
August 1844 John Drew Plymouth MA 1821 ?
August 1844 Catharine Sloan Dunstable MA 1822 seamstress
August 1844 Caleb Smith Hallowell ME circa 1822 ?
August 1844 Benjamin Clark Townsend MA 1822 farmer
August 1844 Edmund Farrington Medway MA 1822 mechanic
August 1844 Thomas Blak Hallowell ME 1823 printer
August 1844 John Orvis Ferrisburgh VT 1816 farmer, son of Quaker
August 1844 Castalia Hosmer Bedford MA 1819 shoemaker
August 1844 Mary Hosmer Townsend MA 1820 wife of shoemaker
September 1844 Elmira Daniels Keene NH 1819 seamstress
September 1844 Alex Murray St. Johns, New Brunswick 1820 cabinetmaker
September 1844 George Pierce ? ? ?
September 1844 Peter Kleinstrup Denmark 1800 gardener
September 1844 Charles Hosmer Medford MA 1820 shoemaker
September 1844 James Clapp Smithfield, Rhode Island 1816 bricklayer
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Date of Name Birthplace Birthdate Occupation Admission
October 1844 Alpha Clapp Cumberland, Rhode Island 1820 wife of bricklayer
October 1844 Caroline Clapp Boston MA 1824 seamstress
October 1844 Augustina Kleinstrup Denmark 1808 wife of gardener
November 1844 Granville Hosmer Bedford MA 1822 shoemaker
November 1844 Ann Hosmer Bedford MA circa 1822 wife of shoemaker
December 1844 John Hoxie Boston MA ? ?
December 1844 Jeanne Palisse Switzerland 1802 manufacturer
December 1844 Eunice Macdaniel Washington DC 1824 sister of a journalist who was not a member
December 1844 Francis Macdaniel Washington DC ? ?
December 1844 Eliza Palisse Weymout ? ? ?
December 1844 John Sawyer ? ? ?
December 1844 Lydia Smith Lancaster ? ? ?
December 1844 Henry Trask ? ? ?
December 1844 Clinton, A Cambridgeport MA ? ?
January 1845 Sarah Codman Boston MA 1820 carriage maker
March 1845 Charles Curtis ? 1820 ?
April 1845 Alfred Peppercorn England ? butcher
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October: Rhode Island was in turmoil. During this month a People’s Constitutional Convention met and drafted a People’s Constitution to replace the old royal colonial charter which was still in effect. There were a lot of millworkers, mostly centered around a place called Blackstone Valley or Pawtucket that you can still see without even needing to get off the freeway as you drive through Providence. Almost 60% of Rhode Islanders –strike that, almost 60% of the adult male population of Rhode Island– were being denied the opportunity to
vote by the dominant Law-and-Order party there –a party made up to a significant degree of landowners who READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
had inherited fortunes made in the slave trade– because they did not hold at least $134.00 in property and/or were not the eldest son of a Rhode Islander who held at least $134.00 in property. However, the workers who were fighting for universal (adult male) suffrage were also, generally, racists fighting to deny such suffrage to adult free black males. This made for an interesting politics. For instance, the Law-and-Order party of Rhode Island cut a deal with the large black population of Providence because “they would rather have the Negroes vote than the damned Irish.” (The Irish were a threat simply because, since they had been forced to flee the potatoes and the famines of Ireland, they had become susceptible to pressures to labor longer hours for lower pay.)
Outside agitators who were in favor of equal suffrage for all adult males, outside agitators such as Abby Kelley, stood accused in the newspapers of trying to “convert people to transcendentalism.” Frederick Douglass later wrote of Kelley that “Her young and simple Quaker beauty, combined with her wonderful
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earnestness, her large knowledge and great logical power bore down all opposition, wherever she spoke, though she was pelted with foul eggs and no less foul words from the noisy mobs which attended us.” The Law and Order party lost the election, but it was an illegal election anyway and the Law and Order party had a promise from President John Tyler of federal troops if necessary, so they put a thousand-dollar reward on the head of the winner of the election, Thomas Wilson Dorr, and when they arrested him they tried him for treason and sentenced him to life in prison.47
Population Trends England / Wales Ireland
1821 12,000,000 6,800,000
1831 13,900,000 7,770,000
1841 15,920,000 8,180,000
1845 about 16,700,000 about 8,300,000 (the year of the blight, to be followed by famine and then by fever and emigration)
1851 17,930,000 6,550,000
1861 20,070,000 5,800,000
1871 31,629,299 5,410,000
1881 35,026,108 5,170,000
47. It's not that bad, wouldn’t you know: the Law and Order people pardoned this candidate as soon as they were firmly in control of Rhode Island again, and so actually he only spent a couple of years of his life in prison as a traitor to his country for the crime of being the political candidate who had been the best vote-getter in an election that was declared to be unauthorized.
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November: The Landholders’ Constitutional Convention of Rhode Island met, but only to adjourn until February 1842. At this Law and Order convention, Thomas Allen Jenckes was a secretary.
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November 11, Thursday: In Cabul, Afghanistan, the British Envoy went out on the plain towards the Seah Sung hills, accompanied by Captains Lawrence, Trevor, and Mackenzie and a few troopers, by agreement, to meet with the Afghan chiefs. His conciliatory address was met by their professions of personal esteem and approbation of the views he had laid before them, and their professions of gratitude for the manner in which the British had been treating Ameer Dost Mahomed Khan. The Envoy then read to them a sketch of a proposed treaty, which according to Lieutenant Eyre48 amounted to the following: “That the British should evacuate Affghanistan, including Candahar, Ghuznee, Cabul, Jellalabad, and all the other stations absolutely within the limits of the country so called; that they should be permitted to return not only unmolested to India, but that supplies of every description should be afforded them in their road thither, certain men of consequence accompanying them as hostages; that the Ameer Dost Mahomed Khan, his family, and every Affghan now in exile for political offences, should be allowed to return to their country; that Shah Shoojah and his family should be allowed the option of remaining at Cabul, or proceeding with the British troops to Loodiana, in either case receiving from the Affghan Government a pension of one lac of rupees per annum; that means of transport, for the conveyance of our baggage, stores, &c., including that required by the royal family, in case of their adopting the latter alternative, should be furnished by the existing Affghan Government: that an amnesty should be granted to all those who had made themselves obnoxious on account of their attachment to Shah Shoojah and his allies, the British; that all prisoners should be released; that no British force should be ever again sent into Affghanistan, unless called for by the Affghan government, between whom and the British nation perpetual friendship should be established on the sure foundation of mutual good offices.” After some objections on the part of Mahomed Akber Khan, these terms were agreed to by all, and it was further arranged that provisions should be supplied to our troops, and that they should evacuate the cantonment in three days. Preparations were immediately commenced for the retreat. Arms were ordered to be distributed from the stores, now about to be abandoned, to some of the camp-followers, and such of the soldiers as might require them; and a disgraceful scene of confusion and tumult followed, which showed the fearful extent to which the army was disorganized. The troops in the Bala Hissar were moved into cantonments, not without a foretaste of what they had to expect
48. Lieut. V. Eyre (Sir Vincent Eyre, 1811-1881). THE MILITARY OPERATIONS AT CABUL: WHICH ENDED IN THE RETREAT AND DESTRUCTION OF THE BRITISH ARMY, JANUARY 1842, WITH A JOURNAL OF IMPRISONMENT IN AFFGHANISTAN. Philadelphia PA: Carey and Hart, 1843; London: J. Murray, 1843 (three editions); Lieut. V. Eyre (Sir Vincent Eyre, 1811-1881). PRISON SKETCHES: COMPRISING PORTRAITS OF THE CABUL PRISONERS AND OTHER SUBJECTS; ADAPTED FOR BINDING UP WITH THE JOURNALS OF LIEUT. V. EYRE, AND LADY SALE; LITHOGRAPHED BY LOWES DICKINSON. London: Dickinson and Son, [1843?]
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on their march to Jellalabad, under the safe conduct of Akber Khan.
What would follow this accord would, however, be that the demands of the Afghan chiefs would rise day after day. They would withhold the promised provisions, demanding that the British provide further assurance of their sincerity by giving up every fort in the immediate vicinity of the Cabul cantonment. The cantonment would thus come gradually to exist at the mercy of the Afghan forces. The animals promised to draw the wagons would never arrive and snow would begin to fall.
Frederick Douglass was in Providence, attending a two-day meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society at Franklin Hall.
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November 18, Thursday: From about the 18th to about the 20th, Frederick Douglass and Abby Kelley would be in
Providence during the Dorrite “People’s Convention,” and would be taking part in a Rhode Island Regional anti-slavery convention in Woonsocket Falls, Rhode Island intended as a protest against the Dorr constitution.
READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT Douglass would later write of Kelley that “Her young and simple Quaker beauty, combined with her wonderful earnestness, her large knowledge and great logical power bore down all opposition, wherever she spoke,
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though she was pelted with foul eggs and no less foul words from the noisy mobs which attended us.” The Law and Order party which Douglass and Kelley were backing would lose the election, but since it was an election of very dubious legality, and since President John Tyler had already offered federal troops if necessary to straighten out the situation in Rhode Island, it was possible for this losing “Law and Order” party to put a thousand-dollar reward on the head of the “winner” of the election, the lawyer and legislator Thomas Wilson Dorr, and when they had arrested him under arms, to try him for treason and sentence him to life in prison.
(In Cabul, Afghanistan, the promised animals to draw the wagons during the British retreat had never been produced and heavy snow had rendered the situation of the British even more desperate. At this point news arrived that General Sale had sallied forth from Jellalabad and driven the enemy before his forces, but had in so doing sustained considerable losses. There would be no further hope of relief from that detachment. Only the force in Kandahar might offer relief, although there was little prospect that anyone could make it from Kandahar to Cabul during that season. There was discussion of making an attack on Mahomed Khan’s fort in order to open a path to the Bala Hissar, but that idea was abandoned when Lieutenant Sturt of the engineers considered it impracticable.)
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November 24, Wednesday: George Thomas Downing married Serena Leanora de Grasse, the daughter of George de Grasse, a prosperous landowner from Calcutta, India who was considered to be the protègé of Aaron Burr. After his marriage Downing, who had learned the restaurant business from his father, the proprietor of a restaurant and oyster house frequented by the more prominent citizens of New-York, would begin his own catering business, initially in New-York and later in Newport, Rhode Island.
Lieutenant Eyre would report that by this point, in Afghanistan, the British troops and officers had lost all confidence, while the locals were growing more and more confident. “Never were troops exposed to greater hardships and dangers; yet, sad to say, never did soldiers shed their blood with less beneficial result than during the investment of the British lines at Cabul.”
Captain Conolly wrote from the Bala Hissar, urging an immediate retreat thither; “but the old objections were still urged against the measure by Brigadier Shelton and others,” though several of the chief military, and all the political officers, approved of it. Shah Shoojah was impatient to receive them. The door to negotiation was opened by a letter to the Envoy from Osman Khan Barukzye, a near relation of the new king, Nuwab Mahomed Zuman Khan, who had sheltered Captain Drummond in his own house since the first day of the outbreak. He took credit to himself for having checked the ardour of his followers on the preceding day, and having thus saved the British force from destruction; he declared that the chiefs only desired we should quietly evacuate the country, leaving them to govern it according to their own rules, and with a king of their own choosing. The General, on being referred to, was of opinion that the cantonments could not be defended throughout the winter, and approved of opening a negotiation on the basis of the evacuation of the country.49 AFGHANISTAN
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December: The Plain Speaker of Providence, Rhode Island published seven of Bronson Alcott’s ORPHIC SAYINGS. This was the last issue of this reform gazette.
49. Lieut. V. Eyre (Sir Vincent Eyre, 1811-1881). THE MILITARY OPERATIONS AT CABUL: WHICH ENDED IN THE RETREAT AND DESTRUCTION OF THE BRITISH ARMY, JANUARY 1842, WITH A JOURNAL OF IMPRISONMENT IN AFFGHANISTAN. Philadelphia PA: Carey and Hart, 1843; London: J. Murray, 1843 (three editions); Lieut. V. Eyre (Sir Vincent Eyre, 1811-1881). PRISON SKETCHES: COMPRISING PORTRAITS OF THE CABUL PRISONERS AND OTHER SUBJECTS; ADAPTED FOR BINDING UP WITH THE JOURNALS OF LIEUT. V. EYRE, AND LADY SALE; LITHOGRAPHED BY LOWES DICKINSON. London: Dickinson and Son, [1843?]
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December: Matthew Arnold’s father Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School, on becoming Professor of History at Oxford University, for his inaugural lecture delivered himself of the conceit that the greatness of English culture lay in its supplementation of such influences as Roman, Greek, and Hebrew culture by a new element, to wit, the element of our English race, which, speaking plainly, is the German (Aryan) race.50 And that this element is an important one, cannot be doubted for an instant. Our English race is the German race.... Now the importance of this stock is plain from this, that its intermixture with Keltic and Roman races at the fall of the Western empire, has changed the whole face of Europe.... What was not [in Roman, Greek, and Hebrew origins] was simply the German race, and the peculiar qualities which characterize it. This one addition was of such power, that it changed the character of the whole mass.... But that element still preserves its force, and it felt for good or for evil in almost every country of the world. We will pause for a moment to observe over how large a portion of the earth this influence is now extended.... I say nothing of the prospects and influence of the German race in Africa and in India — it is enough to say that half of Europe, and all America and Australia, are German more or less completely, in race, in language, or in institutions, or in all.
As Robert J.C. Young would put the matter,51 The constitution of the United States proclaimed that “all men are created equal”: the institution of slavery constituted a flagrant breach of that principle. However, if there were different species of men, created differently, with non-whites classified as lower species that did not share all the properly human characteristics, then it could be argued that constitutional equality did not apply to them. We thus find a concerted effort gathering pace in the 1840s onwards to establish the doctrine of polygenesis in the place of monogenesis.
50. Arnold, Thomas. INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON MODERN HISTORY, WITH THE INAUGURAL LECTURE DELIVERED IN DECEMBER, 1841. Oxford: Parker, 1842 (pages 33-35)
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51. Young, Robert J.C. COLONIAL DESIRE: HYBRIDITY IN THEORY, CULTURE AND RACE. London: Routledge, 1995 (pages 124-5)
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December: During this month Frederick Douglass would be traveling about Rhode Island out of Providence, speaking
at various regional antislavery conventions such as in East Greenwich, in Newport, and in South Kingstown, in protest of Thomas Wilson Dorr’s party’s People’s Constitution.
This People’s Constitution would be accepted in the referendum, despite or in part because of its racism,
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by a landslide vote of 13,944 over 52.
READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
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December 2, Thursday: Waldo Emerson’s lecture “On the Times” at Boston’s Masonic Temple included a quote from Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, here rendered in boldface:
We say, then, that the reforming movement is sacred in its origin; in its management and details timid and profane. These benefactors hope to raise man by improving his circumstances: by combination of that which is dead, they hope to make something alive. In vain. By new infusions alone of the spirit by which he is made and directed, can he be re-made and reinforced. The sad Pestalozzi, who shared with all ardent spirits the hope of Europe on the outbreak of the French Revolution, after witnessing its sequel, recorded his conviction, that the amelioration of outward circumstances will be the effect, but can never be the means of mental and moral improvement.
This was the introductory lecture of a series of eight private ones. Emerson would be lecturing each Saturday until January 20, 1842 on “The Times” at the Masonic Temple in Boston.
“They told me in town this time that I was grown more direct & intelligible than in former years.”
He would realize a net income of only about $49.00 per lecture, versus about $57.00 per lecture in a previous series in Boston, and would discover himself still about $200.00 short of paying his bills, and so he resolved to try Providence again, and give a series of five lectures there in the 3rd week of February (when the Rhode Island series did not meet this financial objective, his brother William arranged for him to repeat the series at the Library Society in New-York in the 1st week of March). It would be upon returning from his 8th and final lecture in Boston that he would find Henry Thoreau suffering from the symptoms of lockjaw:
My pleasure in getting home on Saturday night at the end of my task was somewhat checked by finding that Henry Thoreau who had been at his father’s since the death of his brother was ill & threatened with lockjaw! his brothers disease. It is strange — unaccountable — yet the symptoms seemed precise & on the increase. You may judge we were all alarmed & I not the least who have the highest hopes of this youth. This morning his affection be it what it may, is relieved essentially, & what is best, his own feeling of better health established.
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December 2, Thursday-3, Friday: Frederick Douglass fulminated at the Regional Anti-Slavery Convention
in Woonsocket Falls, Rhode Island in protest of the racist Dorr constitution.
December 3: Music in proportion as it is pure is distant. The strains I now hear seem at an inconceivable distance, yet remotely within me. Remotes throws all sound into my inmost being and it becomes music, as the slumbrous sounds of the village, or the tinkling of the forge — from across the water or the fields. To the senses that is farthest from me which addresses the greatest depth within me.
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December 7, Tuesday: President John Tyler’s message was that our national government really really wanted to do away with the shame of the international trade in slaves — but only if it would be possible to do away with this shameful business without the slightest inconvenience to itself: Though the United States is desirous to suppress the slave- trade, she will not submit to interpolations into the maritime code at will by other nations. This government has expressed its repugnance to the trade by several laws. It is a matter for deliberation whether we will enter upon treaties containing mutual stipulations upon the subject with other governments. The United States will demand indemnity for all depredations by Great Britain. “I invite your attention to existing laws for the suppression of the African slave trade, and recommend all such alterations as may give to them greater force and efficacy. That the American flag is grossly abused by the abandoned and profligate of other nations is but too probable. Congress has, not long since, had this subject under its consideration, and its importance well justifies renewed and anxious attention.” HOUSE JOURNAL, 27th Congress, 2d session, pages 14-5, 86, 113. INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE
The US House of Representatives adopted its previous set of rules, including the gag rule against any discussion of bringing the practice of human enslavement to an end, pending a report of its committee. (The President would be able to appreciate this careful stance, since he owned slaves himself.)
W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: In 1839 Pope Gregory XVI. stigmatized the slave-trade “as utterly unworthy of the Christian name;” and at the same time, although proscribed by the laws of every civilized State, the trade was flourishing with pristine vigor. Great advantage was given the traffic by the fact that the United States, for two decades after the abortive attempt of 1824, refused to co-operate with the rest of the civilized world, and allowed her flag to shelter and protect the slave-trade. If a fully equipped slaver sailed from New York, Havana, Rio Janeiro, or Liverpool, she had only to hoist the stars and stripes in order to proceed unmolested on her piratical voyage; for there was seldom a United States cruiser to be met with, and there were, on the other hand, diplomats at Washington so jealous of the honor of the flag that they would prostitute it to crime rather than allow an English or a French cruiser in any way to interfere. Without doubt, the contention of the United States as to England’s pretensions to a Right of Visit was technically correct. Nevertheless, it was clear that if the slave-trade was to be suppressed, each nation must either zealously keep her flag from fraudulent use, or, as a labor-saving device, depute
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to others this duty for limited places and under special circumstances. A failure of any one nation to do one of these two things meant that the efforts of all other nations were to be fruitless. The United States had invited the world to join her in denouncing the slave-trade as piracy; yet, when such a pirate was waylaid by an English vessel, the United States complained or demanded reparation. The only answer which this country for years returned to the long-continued exposures of American slave-traders and of the fraudulent use of the American flag, was a recital of cases where Great Britain had gone beyond her legal powers in her attempt to suppress the slave-trade.52 In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Secretary of State Forsyth declared, in 1840, that the duty of the United States in the matter of the slave-trade “has been faithfully performed, and if the traffic still exists as a disgrace to humanity, it is to be imputed to nations with whom Her Majesty’s Government has formed and maintained the most intimate connexions, and to whose Governments Great Britain has paid for the right of active intervention in order to its complete extirpation.”53 So zealous was Stevenson, our minister to England, in denying the Right of Search, that he boldly informed Palmerston, in 1841, “that there is no shadow of pretence for excusing, much less justifying, the exercise of any such right. That it is wholly immaterial, whether the vessels be equipped for, or actually engaged in slave traffic or not, and consequently the right to search or detain even slave vessels, must be confined to the ships or vessels of those nations with whom it may have treaties on the subject.”54 Palmerston courteously replied that he could not think that the United States seriously intended to make its flag a refuge for slave- traders;55 and Aberdeen pertinently declared: “Now, it can scarcely be maintained by Mr. Stevenson that Great Britain should be bound to permit her own subjects, with British vessels and British capital, to carry on, before the eyes of British officers, this detestable traffic in human beings, which the law has declared to be piracy, merely because they had the audacity to commit an additional offence by fraudulently usurping the American flag.”56 Thus the dispute, even after the advent of Webster, went on for a time, involving itself in metaphysical subtleties, and apparently leading no nearer to an understanding.57 In 1838 a fourth conference of the powers for the consideration of the slave-trade took place at London. It was attended by representatives of England, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. England laid the projet of a treaty before them, to which all but France assented. This so-called Quintuple Treaty, signed December 20, 1841, denounced the slave-trade as piracy, and declared that “the High Contracting Parties agree by common consent, that those of their ships of war which shall be provided 52. Cf. BRITISH AND FOREIGN STATE PAPERS, from 1836 to 1842. 53. BRITISH AND FOREIGN STATE PAPERS, 1839-40, page 940. 54. HOUSE DOCUMENT, 27th Congress 1st session, No. 34, pages 5-6. 55. SENATE DOCUMENT, 29th Congress 1st session, VIII. No. 377, page 56. 56. SENATE DOCUMENT, 29th Congress 1st session, VIII. No. 377, page 72. 57. SENATE DOCUMENT, 29th Congress 1st session, VIII. No. 377, pages 133-40, etc.
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with special warrants and orders ... may search every merchant- vessel belonging to any one of the High Contracting Parties which shall, on reasonable grounds, be suspected of being engaged in the traffic in slaves.” All captured slavers were to be sent to their own countries for trial.58 While the ratification of this treaty was pending, the United States minister to France, Lewis Cass, addressed an official note to Guizot at the French foreign office, protesting against the institution of an international Right of Search, and rather grandiloquently warning the powers against the use of force to accomplish their ends. This extraordinary epistle, issued on the minister’s own responsibility, brought a reply denying that the creation of any “new principle of international law, whereby the vessels even of those powers which have not participated in the arrangement should be subjected to the right of search,” was ever intended, and affirming that no such extraordinary interpretation could be deduced from the Convention. Moreover, M. Guizot hoped that the United States, by agreeing to this treaty, would “aid, by its most sincere endeavors, in the definitive abolition of the trade.”59 Cass’s theatrical protest was, consciously or unconsciously, the manifesto of that growing class in the United States who wanted no further measures taken for the suppression of the slave-trade; toward that, as toward the institution of slavery, this party favored a policy of strict laissez-faire.
58. BRITISH AND FOREIGN STATE PAPERS, 1841-2, page 269 ff. 59. SENATE DOCUMENT, 29th Congress 1st session, VIII. No. 377, page 201.
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Before the Regional Anti-Slavery Convention at the Freewill Baptist Church in North Scituate, Rhode Island, Frederick Douglass lectured in protest of the racist Dorr constitution which would obtain political representation for some additional white men at the expense of denying such political representation to black men.
(That is, of course, ironic, since the result of Douglass’s political campaigning in Rhode Island would be the granting of the vote to black men of property as part of a successful ploy to deny the vote to the impoverished Irish immigrant laborers of Pawtucket, whom Douglass detested.)
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December 14, Tuesday: In protest against the racist Dorr constitution, Frederick Douglass lectured at Regional Anti- Slavery Conventions in Phenix and in Fiskville, Rhode Island.
December 14: Why is it that there is some thing melancholy in antiquity We forget that it had any other future than our present — as if it were not as near to the future as ourselves. No thank heavens, these ranks of men to right and left –posterity –and ancestry are not to be thridded — by any earnest mortal The heavens stood over the heads of our ancestors as near — as to us. Any living word in these books abolishes the difference of time It need only be considered from the present stand point.
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December 15, Wednesday: In protest of the racist Dorr constitution, Frederick Douglass lectured at the Regional Anti- Slavery Convention in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.
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December 21, Tuesday: In protest of the racist Dorr constitution, Frederick Douglass spoke on this day and the following one at the Regional Anti-Slavery Convention in Kingston, Rhode Island.
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December 24, Friday-25, Saturday: In protest of the racist Dorr constitution, Frederick Douglass spoke at the Regional Anti-Slavery Convention in Newport, Rhode Island.
December 24, Friday: I want to go soon and live away by the Pond where I shall hear only the wind whispering among the reeds.”
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December 27, Monday: Franz Liszt played his first concert in Berlin, before King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. It was here where “Lisztomania” first occurred (a word coined by Heinrich Heine). He was so successful that he would remain in Berlin for ten weeks playing 21 concerts. Liszt would receive the Ordre pour le Mérite from the King and be elected to the Prussian Academy of Fine Arts.
In protest of the racist Dorr constitution, Frederick Douglass spoke on this day and the following one at the Regional Anti-Slavery Convention in Providence, Rhode Island.
It seems unlikely that during this visit William J. Brown met Douglass, since if he had he surely would have mentioned it.
1842
THE RHODE-ISLAND ALMANACK FOR 1842. By Isaac Bickerstaff. Providence, Rhode Island: Hugh H. Brown.
Christopher A. Greene married one of William Chace’s three daughters, Sarah A. Chace (1818-1904). The couple would produce five children. For two years, Christopher and his bride Sarah Chace Greene would reside, along with Sarah’s two sisters and their husbands, at what they were terming “Holly Home,” a small communal farm in North Providence, Rhode Island.
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Allegedly, a Scots soldier in the British army was at an army camp at Caffraria on the South African coast, and consorting with a French camp follower. She gave birth to Kady Southwell and died and allegedly, the family of Duncan and Alice McKenzie then took in the orphan infant. The name “Colonel George Southwell” has been assigned as the name of this alleged father, although in the entire ample British military records there is no trace of the existence of such an officer. The name “Kady” is explained as being the surname of this alleged officer father’s good friend and military colleague “Sir James Kady” but similarly, no record has turned up of the actual existence of any such individual.60
60. Possibly, both Kady and her parents actually were Rhode Islanders and this entire Africa, Scotland, and France thingie a zinger — at one late point, the elder Kady would indicate to a census worker that both she and her parents had been born in Rhode Island.
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Apparently an object that was being purported to have been Metacom’s war club was at this point known to be in the possession of the descendants of the Reverend John Checkley of Providence, Rhode Island. Whether this object representing the gradual decay and extinction of a most marked race, recording a chapter in the world’s history, that of the fate of the Indian race, than which there is no more saddening, had been inherited from the Reverend Checkley or had been acquired by some other family member from some other source is unknown. It is not known from whom the purchase had been made, or when. Whether the object in question ever was King Phillip’s war club is of course quite unknown, but obviously as of 1842 it was already serving its purpose, its purpose of course being to allow members of the surviving white race, viewing it, hefting it, secure in victory, no longer under any threat, to be appropriately saddened at the slow retreat of the wigwam and the tomahawk and the onward progress of the axe and the log cabin.61
In this year the actor Edwin Forrest was depicted in costume for his Metamora role in the play “Last of the Wampanoag” (on a following screen).62
A bequest by Judah Touro paid for, and Isaiah Rogers of Boston designed, a fence around the Jewish Cemetery on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. JUDAISM
1 61. This object, which purports to the a native American war club 22 inches in length and weighing 28 /2 ounces, was made from the ball root of a maple tree. A ball root is something that develops when the root system of a tree hangs over a stream bank in such a way as to expose the roots and cause them to grow at an angle. The object is inlaid with white and purple wampum. White wampum is made from the central column of a whelk shell. Purple wampum is made from quahog shell. There are also several triangular horn pieces inlaid along one side of the club. The holes were made to fit individual beads. There are two lines of wampum along the top width of the club, although most of this wampum is missing. Also, there are two bands of wampum along the adjacent surfaces of the handle, 44 beads to a side. Then on one side there were spots for 15 triangular inlaid horn pieces, two of which are still in place. Also, on the other side, there is a lower band of wampum beads, only partially completed. Two parallel lines can be detected in the wood, that were made with something sharp, clearly to outline where the bead inlay was to be continued. There are also three rectangular sections engraved into the club near the ball, perhaps for a brass inlay that is now missing. 62. Forrest was able to achieve a massive aspect on stage despite the fact that he was not taller than the average man of his generation (that would have been five feet seven and a half inches).
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A minister in Pawtucket, Rhode Island put out a 36-page, illustrated publication entitled A BRIEF MEMOIR OF THE LIFE AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF CATO PEARCE, A MAN OF COLOR: TAKEN VERBATIM FROM HIS LIPS AND PUBLISHED FOR HIS BENEFIT.
Abigail McIntire Patch bought a house on Main Street in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. SAM PATCH
The Quaker monthly meeting of South Kingstown, Rhode Island was suspended due to religious dissension. In 1845 it would divide into a majority group and a minority group, Wilburites versus Gurneyites (conservative followers of Friend John Wilbur of Hopkinton versus liberal followers of English traveling minister Friend Joseph John Gurney). In 1847 divided worship would resume — until 1881 when the local Wilburite meeting would be laid down (discontinued), and 1899 when the local Gurneyite meeting would also be laid down.
In Providence, Rhode Island, the Yearly Meeting School used $5,000 of the money from the last will and testament of Friend Moses Brown to purchase two tracts of land of about ten acres each.
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The New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends put out, over the signature of Clerk Samuel Boyd Tobey, and the firm of Knowles and Vose of Providence, Rhode Island printed, a 24-page pamphlet entitled AN APPEAL TO THE PROFESSORS OF CHRISTIANITY, IN THE SOUTHERN STATES AND ELSEWHERE, ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY.
In Providence, Rhode Island, the firm of Benjamin F. Moore, at No. 10 Market Street, Up Stairs, was printing a 2d edition of Jacob Frieze’s A CONCISE HISTORY, OF THE EFFORTS TO OBTAIN AN EXTENSION OF SUFFRAGE IN RHODE ISLAND; FROM THE YEAR 1811 TO 1842. VIEW THE PAGE IMAGES
During this year, after a successful 3,500-mile tour, Frederick Douglass would be hired as a full-time paid orator by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
During this year he would meet the black abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond and the white Quaker activists Isaac Post and Amy Post of Rochester, New York.
In either this year or the following one (it is said, although I have been unable as yet to obtain corroboration for this claim), he would inspire Jesse Hutchinson to become active in the abolitionist cause. The result would be the Hutchinson Family Singers, Judson Hutchinson-John W. Hutchinson-Asa Hutchinson-Abby Hutchinson.63
63. This would be a cause group. For instance, at one point Judson Hutchinson was becoming so distressed at the idea of their doing well by doing good, that according to Carol Ryrie Brink’s HARPS IN THE WIND: THE STORY OF THE SINGING HUTCHINSONS (NY, 1947), he disrupted at least one of their concerts — by flinging their collected cash receipts into the crowd (eventually Judson would be a suicide).
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“My brother Jesse was identified with the very beginnings of the anti-slavery agitation, was in the fullest sympathy with the leaders and cognizant of all the thrilling details of the work going on.... Through him we became familiar with the great agitation....” —John W. Hutchinson
February: In Rhode Island, the Landholders’s Constitutional Convention reconvened and this time it drafted a new constitution. At this Law and Order convention, Thomas Allen Jenckes was a secretary.
READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
February 14, Monday: Waldo Emerson lectured in Providence, Rhode Island. This was the 3rd lecture of the series: “THE TRANSCENDENTALIST”. THE LIST OF LECTURES
March The voters of Rhode Island rejected the Landholders’ Constitution by a vote of 8,689 over 8,013 — merely 676 votes difference. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
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April: The General Assembly of Rhode Island passed laws to heavily fine and imprison anyone who took part in or was elected under the People’s Constitution. Two sets of elections were held: one under the legal Charter of 1663 for representatives to the General Assembly and for Governor, in which Samuel Ward King was elected to be the Governor; the other under the People’s Constitution for the People’s Legislature, in which Thomas Wilson Dorr was elected to be the Governor.
Two years later, after the dust of this controversy had settled, a gazette would be issued in Rhode Island, and the gazette would sum up the controversy in one paragraph (the gazette, of course, in achieving such brevity, was siding with the winner): 1842. The Constitution called “the People’s Constitution,” adopted by the Convention, and declared to be the paramount law of the State, January 12. This Constitution was formed by a Convention of delegates chosen by the Suffrage party, in primary meetings, which were not prescribed by any legislative act or resolution. —Town meetings were held April 21, to vote for the adoption or rejection of the Landholder’s Constitution, formed by a Convention under the authority of the Legislature, and the same was rejected. —The legislature under the People’s Constitution assembled and their officers were inaugurated. This was the only session holden by that body, or under that Constitution. At the close of the session, several of the members were arrested for treason, and misdemeanor, and this city and the whole State became the theatre of a most unhappy controversy, which continued its agitation through the summer. The events of that period are of such recent occurrence as to preclude the necessity of a more minute account here. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
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May 3, Tuesday: The People’s Party having duly held its election and counted its ballots, it pronounced Thomas Wilson Dorr, the winner, to be the new governor of the state. The preexisting government of course would not recognize him, and thus for a time Rhode Island would have two administrations. The Charter government would lock his people out of the State House in Providence. The People’s Legislature would meet elsewhere and draw up reform laws. Both sides would appeal to President John Tyler for support and recognition. Dorr would himself visit Washington DC to meet with the President. Then, a minor armed clash would occur. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
During Dorr’s rebellion Thomas Allen Jenckes would be serving the side of the “Law and Order” landholders both in a civil and in a military capacity. He was Secretary of the Rhode Island constitutional convention. When the governor’s council was established he became its secretary. In the case of Hazard v. Ires, involving the right of the Rhode Island legislature to direct a new trial, he convinced the legislature and carried it against its previously expressed opinion, and against all other obstacles. He may or may not have been on the side of evil, but he was good, really good.
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May 16, Monday: Thomas Wilson Dorr returned from Washington DC to Rhode Island.
He had failed to obtain the needed legitimation of endorsement by President John Tyler.
He would therefore have to do what he would have to do. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
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May 18, Wednesday: Governor-elect Thomas Wilson Dorr, stymied by what he took to be illegal opposition after “winning” a popular election which his group had staged for the office of governor of Rhode Island, appropriated two decrepit ornamental bronze cannon and led an assault by 234 persons upon a state arsenal in downtown Providence. The attack fizzled when their cannon, which, it turned out, someone had primed with wet paper,64 proved themselves “Quaker cannon” by refusing to speak — whereupon Dorr fled the state.
In the complex political cartoon on the following screen, in the background on the left is a depiction of that state arsenal on Cranston Street in (a building on the flatland and no longer in evidence — the gray turreted hillside arsenal we now see on Benefit Street had not yet been constructed). READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
64. Conspiracies of more than three or four people at most never work, because someone always ratfinks in order to cover all their bases, or the conspiracy gets infiltrated. In this case, clearly, the Law and Order Party had managed to insert one of their group into the Dorr group as a mole, and clearly, the priming of Thomas “Oh, Darn!” Dorr’s cannon had been sabotaged to ensure that he would be able to commit no actual outrage. What would that “wet paper” have been, chewed-up newsprint make to appear as if the flash pans of the two cannon were filled with ground-up powder? –or perhaps wads of wet paper had been tamped hard into the cannon’s blowholes to prevent the passage of a spark? In fact there would be but one violent death recorded during the Dorr Rebellion. In a unit of the Charter forces, a soldier killed another soldier who was his brother-in-law (this was clearly a personal rather than a political confrontation).
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May 24, Tuesday: On this day and the three following days, Frederick Douglass spoke at the annual meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery Convention in Boston’s Chardon Street Chapel.
In rural Rhode Island, supporters of constitutional reform were not yet ready to throw in the towel despite the fact that their hero had fled the state.
THOMAS WILSON DORR
READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
June 15, Wednesday: “Country scholar” Henry Thoreau wrote to Charles Stearns Wheeler to return some books to the Harvard Library on his behalf, including Archdeacon John Barbour’s THE BRUCE... long poem about the Scottish leader Robert the Bruce. These books had evidently been charged out in Wheeler’s name because Thoreau, just another “country scholar” no longer a privileged resident of Cambridge, would not otherwise have been permitted access to them.
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CHARGE TO GRAND JURY — TREASON Case No. 18,275 Circuit Court, D. Rhode Island 30 F. Cas. 1046; 1842 U.S. App. LEXIS 598 STORY, Circuit Justice, after some preliminary observations upon the late alarming crisis of the public affairs in Rhode Island, and paying a just tribute to the excellent institutions and past history of the state, proceeded to say to the grand jury: This is the first occasion, for many years, in which it has become necessary for me, in addressing the grand jury, to state the doctrines of law applicable to the crime of treason. Happily, there is at the present moment a pause in the public mind, which I trust may be the harbinger of a speedy return to a permanent course of peace, prosperity, and general confidence among the citizens of your state. It is impossible for me not to feel a deep sense of the dangers, through which you have so recently passed, and of the painful duties, which might have devolved upon this court in certain contingencies, which seemed at one moment about to be fearfully realized. It may not, therefore, be without some use, to call your attention to the law of treason, and to distinguish between the cases, where the crime is properly a crime against the United States, and the cases, where it properly constitutes a crime exclusively against the state. Both may be, indeed (as will be presently shown), mixed up in the same transaction; or rather, the treason against the state may, under certain circumstances, be merged in the treason against the United States. Still, there is a broad and clear line of distinction between them in many cases, which I will endeavour briefly to explain and illustrate. The constitution of the United States has declared that “treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” [Article 3, § 3.] There must, then, to constitute the crime, be a levying of war against the United States in their sovereign character, and not merely a levying of war exclusively against the sovereignty of a particular state. What, in the sense of the constitution, is to be deemed a levying of war? I take it to be clear, that it is not sufficient, that there should be an assembly of persons, who are met merely to meditate and consult about the means or levying war at some future time, or upon some future contingencies, without any present force. The would amount to a conspiracy to levy war. But a conspiracy to levy war, and an actual levy of war are distinct offences. To constitute an actual levy of war, there must be an assembly of persons, met for the treasonable purpose, and some overt act done, or some attempt made by them with force to execute, or towards executing, that purpose. There must be a present intention to proceed in the execution of the treasonable purpose by force. The assembly must now be in a condition to use force, and must intend to use it, if necessary, to further, or to aid,
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or to accomplish the treasonable design. If the assembly is arrayed in a military manner, — if they are armed and march in a military form, for the express purpose of overawing or intimidating the public, — and thus they attempt to carry into effect the treasonable design, — that will, of itself, amount to a levy of war, although no actual blow has been struck, or engagement has taken place. This is a clear case; but it is by no means the only case (for many others might be stated), in which there may be an actual overt act of levying war. I wish to state this only as one case, upon which no doubt whatsoever can be entertained. In respect to the treasonable design, it is not necessary, that it should be a direct and positive intention entirely to subvert or overthrow the government. It will be equally treason, if the intention is by force to prevent the execution of any one or more general and public laws of the government, or to resist the exercise of any legitimate authority of the government in its sovereign capacity. Thus, if there is an assembly of persons with force, with an intent to prevent the collection of the lawful taxes or duties, levied by the government, — or destroy all customhouses, — or to resist the administration of justice in the courts of the United States, and they proceed to execute their purpose by force, — there can be no doubt, that it would be treason against the United States. But it is not every act of treason by levying war, that is treason against the United States. It may be, and often is, aimed altogether against the sovereignty of a particular state. Thus, for example, if the object of an assembly of persons, met with force, is to overturn the government or constitution of a state, — or to prevent the due exercise of its sovereign powers, or to resist the execution of any one or more of its general laws, but without any intention whatsoever to intermeddle with the relations of that state with the national government, or to displace the national laws or sovereignty therein, every overt act done with force towards the execution of such a treasonable purpose is treason against the state, and against the state only. It is in no just sense a levying of war against the United States. But treason may be begun against a state, and may be mixed up or merged in treason against the United States. Thus, if the treasonable purpose be to overthrow the government of the state, and forcibly to withdraw it from the Union, and thereby to prevent the exercise of the national sovereignty within the limits of the state, that would be treason against the United States. So, if the troops of the United States should be called out by the president, in pursuance of the duty enjoined by the constitution, upon the application of the state legislature, or the state executive, when the legislature cannot be convened, to protect the state against domestic violence, and there should be an assembly of persons with force to resist and oppose the troops so called out by the president, that would be a levy of war against the United States, although the primary intention of the insurgents may have been only the overthrow of the state government or the state laws. These cases sufficiently point out the distinction, to which I have alluded, and it is not necessary, upon the present
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occasion, to go into more minute details.
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June 23, Thursday: In the ongoing “Dorr War”, the General Assembly of Rhode Island called for another constitutional convention to meet in September. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
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Henry Thoreau was written to by Isaiah T. Williams in Buffalo, New York.
Buffalo June. 23. 1842— Dear Thoreau I have not written you for a long time—but I am not going to apologize for of course you only wish to heer when & what I wish to write The poor thoughts that have occupied my busy little mind since I last wrote you have been many & often had I seen you should I have inflicted upon your ear the sad narration of th[em], or at least s[om]e of them—& I donot know why I should withhold any of them they were sent by a power above me, at the beck & bidding of another did they come & go— I know that men have but little to do with the affairs of this world—still I feel a res= =ponsibility to myself for all things that befall me in life—though to no other. To live this life well I feel a strong desire. I also feel a presentiment that I shall fail in part[—]if not totally fail to do so. I donot know what it is to live well—or how to do it if I did—between idid & idea I but swing like a pendulu[m]— I know 'tis weakness, yet such I am— But I must not disgust you by talking too much of myself—& I know it is not well to afflict myself with my own image. Still it is prety much all I know—the source of most I have ever learned. Perhaps this has been my fault—I have often repented & as often sinned again— What a succession of falls is life! I wonder if that is the object of it—& this that we may know how to stand when it is past—
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Page 2 I donot suppose it is of any use to speculate about life—we know but little of it & if it were well for us to know it would be taught us[—]& I am coming more & more every day to the settled prac= ticable [belief] that the true mode of life is to live & do from moment to moment the duty or labor before us with no questions about its fitness or end and no thought for the Morrow. I sometimes think further—that it is also best to be of men & like them while with them—to love what [they] love be interested in what they are interested—share their hopes & joys their dejection & sorrows—seek the ends & have the objects of pursuit that they have take their fortunes in life as I must in death & when the curtain shall have fallen—have to think my fortune & fate—is & has ever been that of my race— I fear it will be a hard one if it is, but “such is the sovreign doo[n] & such the will of Jove” Of one thing I am certain[.] My race have an indisputable claim upon my best—all the services I am able to render while I live—I will not withhold from them the pittance due from me— With this thought before me I have endeavoured to join in the reforms of the day— I make Temperance speeches, such as [they] are—at any rate the best I can—I go to Sab- bath [s]chool & talk to & endeavour to instruct the children what I can—& where-ever I see an op- portunity to do any thing for others I have a kind of general design to lend my aid—though not to interfere with my duties to myself. Whether I am taking the best course for to benefit myself & others—that is the question— Yet if I do as well
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Page 3 I know—& know as well as I can I shall never accuse myself— After all I am not wholy satis- fied with myself or with this view of things I fear there is something beyond & higher I ought to know & seek— Is is given to man in this state of existence to be satisfied? Is not this very dissat= isafaction but the breathing of an imortal nature that whispers of eternal progress? Shall not hope change this very dissatisfaction into the highest fruition? Say to me in reply what these desul- tory thoughts suggest to your mind—& as my sheet is nearly full I will say a few words more & fold it & forward it for your perusal. Your letter of March 14 gave me much pleasure though I need not say that I sympathize with you most deeply in the loss you sustain by the death of your brother— I knew him but little—yet I tho thought I had never met with a more flowing generous spirit— It was not fitted for a cold & hard-hearted world like this—in such a nature do I see a strong assurance of a better existence when this is over. Ever will his name float down my memory untainted by those folies & crimes I am forced to associate with those of so many of my race. And Mr Emerson—how did he endure the loss of his child? It was a cruel stroke—did his philosophy come to his aid as does the Christian Faith to administer consolation to the bereaved? I wish to know what were his feelings[.]for the consolations that a christian faith [offerds] the bereaved & [afflicted] is one of its strongest holds upon my credulity. If there is consolation from
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Page 4 his philosophy in trials like those[. ]it will do much toward settling my belief— I wish to know minutely on this point[.] I think much on Death & sometimes doubt if my early impressions upon that subject are ever effaced— The fear of it occa- sions a thousand folies— I feel it is unmanly— but yet “that undiscovered country” [W]ho shall tell us whether to fear—or [disire] it?
{address written perpendicular to text: H. D. Thoreau Concord Mass— Mr. Brown [3]}
As to myself—I am less homesick than at first though I am not satisfied with the west[—]nor quite with my profession— Perhaps I ought to be I often think my feelings feelish. Do you think of Law engaged in the practice the best way of [spending] ^ ones life? Let me hear from you soon— I will not be so remiss in my future correspondence— Yours &c— I. T. Williams.
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June 25, Saturday: Thomas Wilson Dorr returned to Chepachet, Rhode Island to reconvene the People’s Legislature
on the 4th of July. The Charter government would declare martial law, making such activities amount to READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
treason. Only a few hundred of his supporters, including not one of the elected legislators, would ever make an appearance.
Design of the Rebellion’s flag
Bronson Alcott spent an hour with Thomas Carlyle, and found that
Twas a dark hour with him. His wit was sombre as it was pitiless; his merriment had madness in it; his humor tragical even to tears.... His conversation was cynical, trivial, and gave no pleasure.
Carlyle did, however, invite Alcott to return.
The editor of the New-York Courier and Enquirer, James Watson Webb, fought a duel with US Congressman
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Thomas F. Marshall of Kentucky and the New-York Herald reported that: The duel between Thomas F. Marshall and James Watson Webb was fought this morning at four o’clock, at the old duelling ground, just this side of the State line, about seven miles north of this city. Mr. Marshall was attended by Dr. Carr of Baltimore, as second, and Dr. Gibson, of the same place, as surgeon. Mr. Morrel, of your city, acted as Webb’s friend. The parties exchanged one shot without injury. Marshall demanded immediately a second pistol, and wounded Webb upon that fire, in the fleshy part of the hip, sustaining no damage himself. Marshall, who came determined to fight it out, demanded a third shot, but Webb could not stand it and the matter was made up....
June 27, Monday: Thomas Wilson Dorr dismissed his “militia” and the legislature and again fled the state. The Charter government forces assaulted the town of Chepachet, Rhode Island anyway, injuring a cow and rounding up about a hundred men they suspected of being Dorrites, and marching their prisoners off to captivity in Providence.
READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
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July: In “Rogue Island,” as their payoff for supporting the Law and Order party and helping to deny the right to vote to adult white males (mostly Irish machine tenders) without $134.00 in property during the unrest of October 1841, the black adult males of Rhode Island (well, any of them who could show they held property worth $134.00, which would be, today, say, roughly the value of a two-year-old Toyota) were granted the right to vote, a right which they still could not exercise in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Ohio, and which they had only to a limited degree in the state of New York. See, it sometimes does pay off to cut a deal with the powers that be! This event is known in our history books as the “Dorr War” and what is being said of it is that it “forced the state’s conservatives to abolish the Charter of 1663 and expand suffrage.”65 READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
During this month Daniel O’Connell spoke on the issue of race slavery at a meeting of the Irish Repeal Association in reply to some remarks made by a Mr. Garahan of Mobile, Alabama. This is the manner in which O’Connell’s speech would appear in the pages of William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator on October 7th:
August:Brook Farm added the following new recruit:
Name Birthplace Birthdate Occupation
James Curtis Providence, Rhode Island 1824 student
65. My own attitude is that this ludicrous episode of Rhode Island history ought to be referred to as “Douglass’s Triumph” rather than as “Dorr’s War,” because I suspect that although local historians have always treated Frederick Douglass’s black presence in the state during this period as if he had been merely some sort of naive “native informant,” going around telling white people how bad slavery was (in this sort of historical writing blacks only react, they only display affect, they never take action or exercise control, because they are, of course, merely black, and everybody knows that it is the white man who makes history), actually he was operating as a skilled politician and organizing the entire sweet package deal by which local black men gained the franchise in return for helping to prevent the immigrant Irish laboring men from exercising the franchise. I suspect that while he remained under cover and in all appearance innocuous, the whole thing was Douglass’s scheme and his great accomplishment.
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September:Officially, there were about 540 Baptists in Providence, Rhode Island.
The landholders of Rhode Island, now in the form of the Law and Order Party, wrote a new constitution which granted the vote to all native-born adult male citizens, while retaining the $134 real estate qualification for foreign-born naturalized males.
November: Not very many citizens exactly wanting to be found guilty of treason, the Law and Order Constitution was approved by Rhode Island voters by a landslide vote of 7,024 over 51.
November 6, Sunday: Frederick Douglass spoke at a Latimer meeting in the Town Hall at New Bedford, and then moved on directly the same day to attend the Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society in the Town Hall at Providence.
November 7, Monday: The Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society continued in the Town Hall at Providence, with Frederick Douglass in attendance.
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November 8, Tuesday: The Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society continued in the Town Hall at Providence, Rhode Island. A letter was published, allegedly by Frederick Douglass, describing his work in defense of fugitive slave George Latimer. This was his 1st such public letter.
November 9, Wednesday: The Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society continued in the Town Hall at Providence, Rhode Island, with Frederick Douglass in attendance.
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November 10, Thursday: The Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society continued in the Town Hall at Providence, with Frederick Douglass in attendance.
It was publicly announced that our nation had entered into a Joint-Cruising Treaty with Great Britain for the final suppression of the African slave-trade and for the giving up of criminals fugitive from justice. “Treaty to settle and define boundaries; for the final suppression of the African slave-trade; and for the giving up of criminals fugitive from justice. Concluded August 9, 1842; ratifications exchanged at London October 13, 1842; proclaimed November 10, 1842.” Articles VIII., and IX. Ratified by the Senate by a vote of 39 to 9, after several unsuccessful attempts to amend it. U.S. TREATIES AND CONVENTIONS (1889), pages 436-7; SENATE EXECUTIVE JOURNAL, VI. 118-32.
November 11, Friday: The Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society continued in the Town Hall at Providence, with Frederick Douglass in attendance.
November 12, Saturday: The Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society continued in the Town Hall at Providence, with Frederick Douglass in attendance.
November 13, Sunday: The Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society continued in the Town Hall at Providence, with Frederick Douglass in attendance.
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November 14, Monday: The Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society continued in the Town Hall at Providence, with Frederick Douglass in attendance.
Secretary of State Daniel Webster wrote to ambassador to France Lewis Cass: Department of State, Washington, November 14, 1842. Sir,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of the 3d of October, brought by the “Great Western,” which arrived at New York on the 6th instant. It is probable you will have embarked for the United States before my communication can now reach you; but as it is thought proper that your letter should be answered, and as circumstances may possibly have occurred to delay your departure, this will be transmitted to Paris in the ordinary way. Your letter has caused the President considerable concern. Entertaining a lively sense of the respectable and useful manner in which you have discharged, for several years, the duties of an important foreign mission, it occasions him real regret and pain, that your last official communication should be of such a character as that he cannot give to it his entire and cordial approbation. It appears to be intended as a sort of protest, a remonstrance, in the form of an official despatch, against a transaction of the government to which you were not a party, in which you had no agency whatever, and for the results of which you were no way answerable. This would seem an unusual and extraordinary proceeding. In common with every other citizen of the republic, you have an unquestionable right to form opinions upon public transactions, and the conduct of public men; but it will hardly be thought to be among either the duties or the privileges of a minister abroad to make formal remonstrances and protests against proceedings of the various branches of the government at home, upon subjects in relation to which he himself has not been charged with any duty or partaken any responsibility. The negotiation and conclusion of the treaty of Washington were in the hands of the President and Senate. They had acted upon this important subject according to their convictions of duty and of the public interest, and had ratified the treaty. It was a thing done; and although your opinion might be at variance with that of the President and Senate, it is not perceived that you had any cause of complaint, remonstrance, or protest, more than any other citizen who might entertain the same opinion. In your letter of the 17th of September, requesting your recall, you observe: “The mail by the steam-packet which left Boston the 1st instant has just arrived, and has brought intelligence of the ratification of the treaties recently concluded with Great Britain. All apprehensions, therefore, of any immediate difficulties with that country are at an end, and I do not see that any public interest demands my further residence in Europe. I can no longer be useful here, and the state of my private affairs requires my presence at home. Under these circumstances, I beg you to submit to the President my wish for permission to retire from this mission, and to return to the United States without delay.”
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As you appeared at that time not to be acquainted with the provisions of the treaty, it was inferred that your desire to return home proceeded from the conviction that, inasmuch as all apprehensions of immediate differences with Great Britain were at an end, you would no longer be useful at Paris. Placing this interpretation on your letter, and believing, as you yourself allege, that your long absence abroad rendered it desirable for you to give some attention to your private affairs in this country, the President lost no time in yielding to your request, and, in doing so, signified to you the sentiments of approbation which he entertained for your conduct abroad. You may, then, well imagine the great astonishment which the declaration contained in your despatch of the 3d of October, that you could no longer remain in France honorably to yourself or advantageously to the country, and that the proceedings of this government had placed you in a false position, from which you could escape only by returning home, created in his mind. The President perceives not the slightest foundation for these opinions. He cannot see how your usefulness as minister to France should be terminated by the settlement of difficulties and disputes between the United States and Great Britain. You have been charged with no duties connected with the settlement of these questions, or in any way relating to them, beyond the communication to the French government of the President’s approbation of your letter of the 13th of February, written without previous instructions from this department. This government is not informed of any other act or proceeding of yours connected with any part of the subject, nor does it know that your official conduct and character have become in any other way connected with the question of the right of search; and that letter having been approved, and the French government having been so informed, the President is altogether at a loss to understand how you can regard yourself as placed in a false position. If the character or conduct of any one was to be affected, it could only be the character and conduct of the President himself. The government has done nothing, most assuredly, to place you in a false position. Representing your country at a foreign court, you saw a transaction about to take place between the government to which you were accredited and another power, which you thought might have a prejudicial effect on the interest of your own country. Thinking, as it is to be presumed, that the case was too pressing to wait for instructions, you presented a protest against that transaction, and our government approved your proceeding. This is your only official connection with the whole subject. If after this the President had sanctioned the negotiation of a treaty, and the Senate had ratified it, containing provisions in the highest degree objectionable, however the government might be discredited, your exemption from all blame and censure would have been complete. Having delivered your letter of the 13th of February to the French government, and having received the President’s approbation of that proceeding, it is most manifest that you could be in no degree responsible for what should be done afterward, and done by others. The President, therefore,
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cannot conceive what particular or personal interest of yours was affected by the subsequent negotiation here, or how the treaty, the result of that negotiation, should put an end to your usefulness as a public minister at the court of France, or in any way affect your official character or conduct. It is impossible not to see that such a proceeding as you have seen fit to adopt might produce much inconvenience, and even serious prejudice, to the public interests. Your opinion is against the treaty, a treaty concluded and formally ratified; and, to support that opinion, while yet in the service of the government, you put a construction on its provisions such as your own government does not put upon them, such as you must be aware the enlightened public of Europe does not put upon them, and such as England herself has not put upon them as yet, so far as we know. It may become necessary hereafter to publish your letter, in connection with other correspondence of the mission; and although it is not to be presumed that you looked to such publication, because such a presumption would impute to you a claim to put forth your private opinions upon the conduct of the President and Senate, in a transaction finished and concluded, through the imposing form of a public despatch, yet, if published, it cannot be foreseen how far England might hereafter rely on your authority for a construction favorable to her own pretensions, and inconsistent with the interest and honor of the United States. It is certain that you would most sedulously desire to avoid any such attitude. You would be slow to express opinions, in a solemn and official form, favorable to another government, and on the authority of which opinions that other government might hereafter found new claims or set up new pretensions. It is for this reason, as well as others, that the President feels so much regret at your desire of placing your construction of the provisions of the treaty, and your objections to those provisions, according to your construction, upon the records of the government. Before examining the several objections suggested by you, it may be proper to take notice of what you say upon the course of the negotiation. In regard to this, having observed that the national dignity of the United States had not been compromised down to the time of the President’s message to the last session of Congress, you proceed to say: “But England then urged the United States to enter into a conventional arrangement, by which we might be pledged to concur with her in measures for the suppression of the slave-trade. Till then we had executed our own laws in our own way. But, yielding to this application, and departing from our former principle of avoiding European combinations upon subjects not American, we stipulated in a solemn treaty, that we would carry into effect our own laws, and fixed the minimum force we would employ for that purpose.” The President cannot conceive how you should have been led to adventure upon such a statement as this. It is but a tissue of mistakes. England did not urge the United States to enter into this conventional arrangement. The United States yielded to no application from England. The proposition for abolishing the
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slave-trade, as it stands in the treaty, was an American proposition; it originated with the executive government of the United States, which cheerfully assumes all its responsibility. It stands upon it as its own mode of fulfilling its duties, and accomplishing its objects. Nor have the United States departed, in this treaty, in the slightest degree, from their former principles of avoiding European combinations upon subjects not American, because the abolition of the African slave-trade is an American subject as emphatically as it is a European subject; and indeed more so, inasmuch as the government of the United States took the first great steps in declaring that trade unlawful, and in attempting its extinction. The abolition of this traffic is an object of the highest interest to the American people and the American government; and you seem strangely to have overlooked altogether the important fact, that nearly thirty years ago, by the treaty of Ghent, the United States bound themselves by solemn compact with England, to continue “their efforts to promote its entire abolition,” both parties pledging themselves by that treaty to use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object. Again, you speak of an important concession made to the renewed application of England. But the treaty, let it be repeated, makes no concession to England whatever. It complies with no demand, grants no application, conforms to no request. All these statements, thus by you made, and which are so exceedingly erroneous, seem calculated to hold up the idea, that in this treaty your government has been acting a subordinate, or even a complying part. The President is not a little startled that you should make such totally groundless assumptions of fact, and then leave a discreditable inference to be drawn from them. He directs me not only to repel this inference as it ought to be repelled, but also to bring to your serious consideration and reflection the propriety of such an assumed narration of facts as your despatch, in this respect, puts forth. Having informed the department that a copy of the letter of the 24th of August, addressed by me to you, had been delivered to M. Guizot, you proceed to say: “In executing this duty, I felt too well what was due to my government and country to intimate my regret to a foreign power that some declaration had not preceded the treaty, or some stipulation accompanied it, by which the extraordinary pretension of Great Britain to search our ships at all times and in all places, first put forth to the world by Lord Palmerston on the 27th of August, 1841, and on the 13th of October following again peremptorily claimed as a right by Lord Aberdeen, would have been abrogated, as equally incompatible with the laws of nations and with the independence of the United States. I confined myself, therefore, to a simple communication of your letter.” It may be true that the British pretension leads necessarily to consequences as broad and general as your statement. But it is no more than fair to state that pretension in the words of the British government itself, and then it becomes matter of consideration and argument how broad and extensive it really is. The last statement of this
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pretension, or claim, by the British government, is contained in Lord Aberdeen’s note to Mr. Stevenson of the 13th of October, 1841. It is in these words:— “The undersigned readily admits, that to visit and search American vessels in time of peace, when that right of search is not granted by treaty, would be an infraction of public law, and a violation of national dignity and independence. But no such right is asserted. We sincerely desire to respect the vessels of the United States, but we may reasonably expect to know what it really is that we respect. Doubtless the flag is prima facie evidence of the nationality of the vessel; and, if this evidence were in its nature conclusive and irrefragable, it ought to preclude all further inquiry. But it is sufficiently notorious that the flags of all nations are liable to be assumed by those who have no right or title to bear them. Mr. Stevenson himself fully admits the extent to which the American flag has been employed for the purpose of covering this infamous traffic. The undersigned joins with Mr. Stevenson in deeply lamenting the evil; and he agrees with him in thinking that the United States ought not to be considered responsible for this abuse of their flag. But if all inquiry be resisted, even when carried no further than to ascertain the nationality of the vessel, and impunity be claimed for the most lawless and desperate of mankind, in the commission of this fraud, the undersigned greatly fears that it may be regarded as something like an assumption of that responsibility which has been deprecated by Mr. Stevenson.... “The undersigned renounces all pretension on the part of the British government to visit and search American vessels in time of peace. Nor is it as American that such vessels are ever visited; but, it has been the invariable practice of the British navy, and, as the undersigned believes, of all navies in the world, to ascertain by visit the real nationality of merchant- vessels met with on the high seas, if there be good reason to apprehend their illegal character.... “The undersigned admits, that, if the British cruiser should possess a knowledge of the American character of any vessel, his visitation of such vessel would be entirely unjustifiable. He further admits, that so much respect and honor are due to the American flag, that no vessel bearing it ought to be visited by a British cruiser, except under the most grave suspicions and well-founded doubts of the genuineness of its character. “The undersigned, although with pain, must add, that if such visit should lead to the proof of the American origin of the vessel, and that she was avowedly engaged in the slave-trade, exhibiting to view the manacles, fetters, and other usual implements of torture, or had
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even a number of these unfortunate beings on board, no British officer could interfere further. He might give information to the cruisers of the United States, but it could not be in his own power to arrest or impede the prosecution of the voyage and the success of the undertaking. “It is obvious, therefore, that the utmost caution is necessary in the exercise of this right claimed by Great Britain. While we have recourse to the necessary, and, indeed, the only means for detecting imposture, the practice will be carefully guarded and limited to cases of strong suspicion. The undersigned begs to assure Mr. Stevenson that the most precise and positive instructions have been issued to her Majesty’s officers on this subject.” Such are the words of the British claim or pretension; and it stood in this form at the delivery of the President’s message to Congress in December last; a message in which you are pleased to say that the British pretension was promptly met and firmly resisted. I may now proceed to a more particular examination of the objections which you make to the treaty. You observe that you think a just self-respect required of the government of the United States to demand of Lord Ashburton a distinct renunciation of the British claim to search our vessels previous to entering into any negotiation. The government has thought otherwise; and this appears to be your main objection to the treaty, if, indeed, it be not the only one which is clearly and distinctly stated. The government of the United States supposed that, in this respect, it stood in a position in which it had no occasion to demand any thing, or ask for any thing, of England. The British pretension, whatever it was, or however extensive, was well known to the President at the date of his message to Congress at the opening of the last session. And I must be allowed to remind you how the President treated this subject in that communication. “However desirous the United States may be,” said he, “for the suppression of the slave-trade, they cannot consent to interpolations into the maritime code at the mere will and pleasure of other governments. We deny the right of any such interpolation to any one, or all the nations of the earth, without our consent. We claim to have a voice in all amendments or alterations of that code; and when we are given to understand, as in this instance, by a foreign government, that its treaties with other nations cannot be executed without the establishment and enforcement of new principles of maritime police, to be applied without our consent, we must employ a language neither of equivocal import nor susceptible of misconstruction. American citizens prosecuting a lawful commerce in the African seas, under the flag of their country, are not responsible for the abuse or unlawful use of that flag by others; nor can
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they rightfully, on account of any such alleged abuses, be interrupted, molested, or detained while on the ocean; and if thus molested and detained while pursuing honest voyages in the usual way, and violating no law themselves, they are unquestionably entitled to indemnity.” This declaration of the President stands: not a syllable of it has been, or will be, retracted. The principles which it announces rest on their inherent justice and propriety, on their conformity to public law, and, so far as we are concerned, on the determination and ability of the country to maintain them. To these principles the government is pledged, and that pledge it will be at all times ready to redeem. But what is your own language on this point? You say, “This claim (the British claim), thus asserted and supported, was promptly met and firmly repelled by the President in his message at the commencement of the last session of Congress; and in your letter to me approving the course I had adopted in relation to the question of the ratification by France of the quintuple treaty, you consider the principles of that message as the established policy of the government.” And you add, “So far, our national dignity was uncompromitted.” If this be so, what is there which has since occurred to compromit this dignity? You shall yourself be judge of this; because you say, in a subsequent part of your letter, that “the mutual rights of the parties are in this respect wholly untouched.” If, then, the British pretension had been promptly met and firmly repelled by the President’s message; if, so far, our national dignity had not been compromitted; and if, as you further say, our rights remain wholly untouched by any subsequent act or proceeding, what ground is there on which to found complaint against the treaty? But your sentiments on this point do not concur with the opinions of your government. That government is of opinion that the sentiments of the message, which you so highly approve, are reaffirmed and corroborated by the treaty, and the correspondence accompanying it. The very object sought to be obtained, in proposing the mode adopted for abolishing the slave-trade, was to take away all pretence whatever for interrupting lawful commerce by the visitation of American vessels. Allow me to refer you, on this point, to the following passage in the message of the President to the Senate, accompanying the treaty:— “In my message at the commencement of the present session of Congress, I endeavored to state the principles which this government supports respecting the right of search and the immunity of flags. Desirous of maintaining those principles fully, at the same time that existing obligations should be fulfilled, I have thought it most consistent with the dignity and honor of the country that it should execute its own laws and perform its own obligations by its own means and its own power. The examination or visitation of the merchant- vessels of one nation by the cruisers of another, for
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any purposes except those known and acknowledged by the law of nations, under whatever restraints or regulations it may take place, may lead to dangerous results. It is far better by other means to supersede any supposed necessity, or any motive, for such examination or visit. Interference with a merchant- vessel by an armed cruiser is always a delicate proceeding, apt to touch the point of national honor, as well as to affect the interests of individuals. It has been thought, therefore, expedient, not only in accordance with the stipulations of the treaty of Ghent, but at the same time as removing all pretext on the part of others for violating the immunities of the American flag upon the seas, as they exist and are defined by the law of nations, to enter into the articles now submitted to the Senate. “The treaty which I now submit to you proposes no alteration, mitigation, or modification of the rules of the law of nations. It provides simply, that each of the two governments shall maintain on the coast of Africa a sufficient squadron to enforce, separately and respectively, the laws, rights, and obligations of the two countries for the suppression of the slave-trade.” In the actual posture of things, the President thought that the government of the United States, standing on its own rights and its own solemn declarations, would only weaken its position by making such a demand as appears to you to have been expedient. We maintain the public law of the world as we receive it and understand it to be established. We defend our own rights and our own honor, meeting all aggression at the boundary. Here we may well stop. You are pleased to observe, that “under the circumstances of the assertion of the British claim, in the correspondence of the British secretaries, and of its denial by the President of the United States, the eyes of Europe were upon these two great naval powers; one of which had advanced a pretension, and avowed her determination to enforce it, which might at any moment bring them into collision.” It is certainly true that the attention of Europe has been very much awakened, of late years, to the general subject, and quite alive, also, to whatever might take place in regard to it between the United States and Great Britain. And it is highly satisfactory to find, that, so far as we can learn, the opinion is universal that the government of the United States has fully sustained its rights and its dignity by the treaty which has been concluded. Europe, we believe, is happy to see that a collision, which might have disturbed the peace of the whole civilized world, has been avoided in a manner which reconciles the performance of a high national duty, and the fulfilment of positive stipulations, with the perfect immunity of flags and the equality of nations upon the ocean. I must be permitted to add, that, from every agent of the government abroad who has been heard from on the subject, with the single exception of
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your own letter, (an exception most deeply regretted,) as well as from every part of Europe where maritime rights have advocates and defenders, we have received nothing but congratulation. And at this moment, if the general sources of information may be trusted, our example has recommended itself already to the regard of states the most jealous of British ascendency at sea; and the treaty against which you remonstrate may soon come to be esteemed by them as a fit model for imitation. Toward the close of your despatch, you are pleased to say: “By the recent treaty we are to keep a squadron upon the coast of Africa. We have kept one there for years; during the whole term, indeed, of these efforts to put a stop to this most iniquitous commerce. The effect of the treaty is, therefore, to render it obligatory upon us by a convention, to do what we have long done voluntarily; to place our municipal laws, in some measure, beyond the reach of Congress.” Should the effect of the treaty be to place our municipal laws, in some measure, beyond the reach of Congress, it is sufficient to say that all treaties containing obligations necessarily do this. All treaties of commerce do it; and, indeed, there is hardly a treaty existing, to which the United States are party, which does not, to some extent, or in some way, restrain the legislative power. Treaties could not be made without producing this effect. But your remark would seem to imply that, in your judgment, there is something derogatory to the character and dignity of the country in thus stipulating with a foreign power for a concurrent effort to execute the laws of each. It would be a sufficient refutation of this objection to say, that, if in this arrangement there be any thing derogatory to the character and dignity of one party, it must be equally derogatory, since the stipulation is perfectly mutual, to the character and dignity of both. But it is derogatory to the character and dignity of neither. The objection seems to proceed still upon the implied ground that the abolition of the slave-trade is more a duty of Great Britain, or a more leading object with her, than it is or should be with us; as if, in this great effort of civilized nations to do away the most cruel traffic that ever scourged or disgraced the world, we had not as high and honorable, as just and merciful, a part to act, as any other nation upon the face of the earth. Let it be for ever remembered, that in this great work of humanity and justice the United States took the lead themselves. This government declared the slave-trade unlawful; and in this declaration it has been followed by the great powers of Europe. This government declared the slave-trade to be piracy; and in this, too, its example has been followed by other states. This government, this young government, springing up in this new world within half a century, founded on the broadest principles of civil liberty, and sustained by the moral sense and intelligence of the people, has gone in advance of all other nations in summoning the civilized world to a common effort to put down and destroy a nefarious traffic reproachful to human nature. It has not deemed, and it does not deem, that it suffers any derogation from its character or its dignity, if, in seeking
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to fulfil this sacred duty, it act, as far as necessary, on fair and equal terms of concert with other powers having in view the same praiseworthy object. Such were its sentiments when it entered into the solemn stipulations of the treaty of Ghent; such were its sentiments when it requested England to concur with us in declaring the slave-trade to be piracy; and such are the sentiments which it has manifested on all other proper occasions. In conclusion, I have to repeat the expression of the President’s deep regret at the general tone and character of your letter, and to assure you of the great happiness it would have afforded him if, concurring with the judgment of the President and Senate, concurring with what appears to be the general sense of the country, concurring in all the manifestations of enlightened public opinion in Europe, you had seen nothing in the treaty of the 9th of August to which you could not give your cordial approbation. I have, &c. DANIEL WEBSTER. LEWIS CASS, ESQ., &c., &c., &c.
November 15, Tuesday: The Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society continued in the Town Hall at Providence, Rhode Island, with Frederick Douglass in attendance.
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November 16, Wednesday: Frederick Douglass spoke at the annual meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society in Providence.
Would this have been the occasion described by Frederic May Holland,66 quoting from Nathaniel Peabody Rogers? Holland, pages 63-65: Convention after convention was mobbed, but still the friends of equal suffrage went on pointing out the black spot in the Dorr constitution. Its supporters were indignant, and its opponents rejoiced to see the suffragists at war among themselves. Of the last of these conventions, and one of the noisiest, that held in Providence, while the vote was being taken on the merits of the new plan, we have the following description, from the pen of Mr. N.P. Rogers, who was making the Herald of Freedom, published at Concord, New Hampshire, a noble ally of the Liberator: Friday evening was chiefly occupied by colored speakers. The fugitive Douglass was up when we entered. This is an extraordinary man. He was cut out for a hero. In a rising for liberty, he would have been a Toussaint or a Hamilton. He has the “heart to conceive, the head to contrive, and the hand to execute.” A commanding person — over six feet, we should say, in height, and of most manly proportions. His head would strike a 66. Frederic May Holland. FREDERICK DOUGLASS: THE COLORED ORATOR. Concord edition 1891. (A revised edition prepared by the author in 1895 was eventually published, NY: Haskell House, 1969.) FREDERICK DOUGLASS
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phrenologist amid a sea of them in Exeter hall, and his voice would ring like a trumpet in the field. Let the South congratulate herself that he is a fugitive. It would not have been safe for her, if he had remained about the plantations a year or two longer. Douglass is his fugitive name. He did not wear it in slavery. We don’t know why he assumed it, or who bestowed it on him — but there seems fitness in it, to his commanding figure and heroic port. As a speaker he has few equals. It is not declamation — but oratory, power of debate. He watches the tide of discussion with the eye of the veteran, and dashes into it at once with all the tact of the forum or the bar. He has wit, argument, sarcasm, pathos — all that first-rate men show in their master efforts. His voice is highly melodious and rich, and his enunciation quite elegant; and yet he has been but two or three years out of the house of bondage. We noticed that he had strikingly improved since we had heard him at Dover NH in September. We say thus much of him, for he is esteemed by our multitude as of an inferior race. We should like to see him before any New England legislature or bar, and let him feel the freedom of the anti-slavery meeting, and see what would become of his inferiority. Yet, he is a thing, in American estimate. He is the chattel of some pale-faced tyrant. How his owner would cower and shiver to hear him thunder in an anti-slavery hall. How he would shrink away, with his infernal whip, from his flaming eye when kindled with anti-slavery emotion. And the brotherhood of thieves, the posse comitatus of divines, we wish a hecatomb or two of the proudest and flintiest of them, were obliged to hear him thunder for human liberty, and lay the enslavement of his people at their doors. They would tremble like Belshazzar. Poor Wayland, we wish he could have been pegged to a seat in the Franklin Hall the evening the colored friends spoke. His “limitations” would have abandoned him like the “baseless fabric of a vision.” Sanderson, of New Bedford, Cole, of Boston, and Stanley, of North Carolina, followed Douglass. They all displayed excellent ability.... These are the inferior race, these young black men, who, ten years ago, would have been denied entrance into such an assembly of whites, except as waiters or fiddlers. Their attempts at speaking would have been met with jeers of astonishment. It would have amazed the superior race as the ass’s speech did with Balaam. How they mingle with applause in the debates with Garrison, and Foster, and Phillips. Southern slavery —“hold thy own”— when the kindred of your victims are thus kindling Northern enthusiasm on the platform of liberty and free debate.
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November 17, Thursday: The Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society continued in the Town Hall at Providence, Rhode Island, with Frederick Douglass in attendance.
November 18, Friday: The Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society wrapped up in the Town Hall at Providence, Rhode Island, with Frederick Douglass in attendance.
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End of the year: During this period Frederick Douglass was spending quite a bit of his time in Rhode Island, and we can presume that among other things he would have been lecturing from town to town.
1843
John Downes married Charlotte S. Murdock, a Worcester woman 28 years younger than he and scarcely a year older than his daughter Frances by his previous marriage, and moved to Philadelphia to publish the UNITED STATES ALMANAC in 1843 and 1844.
THE RHODE-ISLAND ALMANACK FOR 1843. By Isaac Bickerstaff. Providence, Rhode Island: Hugh H. Brown.
THE PROVIDENCE ALMANAC AND BUSINESS DIRECTORY FOR 1843. By Benjamin F. Moore. Providence: B.F. Moore. This is really a business directory with an almanac in the front part, rather than a true almanac. It appeared until 1850 and again from 1855 to 1857.
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William Read Staples (1798-1868). ANNALS OF THE TOWN OF PROVIDENCE, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, TO THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT, IN JUNE, 1832. Providence, Rhode Island: Printed by Knowles and Vose, 1843. READ THE FULL TEXT VIEW THE PAGE IMAGES
From pages 40-43, here is information as to the 1st form of city government in Providence: It is worthy of remark, that the signers of this instrument, submit “only in civil things.” That there existed some kind of an agreement between the first settlers “masters of families” is apparent from the terms of these articles. They are referred to as a town, as “incorporated together into a town fellow- ship.” And, it is equally certain that the first agreement, whether in writing or not, provided for obedience “in civil things only,” otherwise this would not have been so guarded. The testimony of Governor Winthrop is in point here, as before quoted in relation to Verin’s case. He says, “at their first coming thither, Mr. Williams and the rest did make an order that no man should be molested for his conscience.” Here then was established a christian community based upon the great principles of perfect religious liberty, aa contended for by Mr. Williams both at Salem and at Plymonth. The first delegation of power, the first remove they made from pure democracy, was in 1640. The colonists had undoubtedly experienced the difficulties attendant on this form of civil government. They found it not only onerous to individuals, but wanting in that energy necessary to preserve the peace and ensure the prosperity of a growing community. The change adopted is found embodied in the following report. Providence the 27th day of the 5th mo. in the year, so called, 1640. We Robert Cole, Chad Brown, William Harris and John Warner, being freely chosen by the consent of our loving friends and neighbors, the inhabitants of this town of Providence, having many differences amongst us, they being freely willing and also bound themselves to stand to our arbitration in all differences amongst us, to rest contented in our determination, being so betrusted, we have seriously and carefully endeavored to weigh and consider all these differences, being desirous to bring them to unity and peace, although our abilities are far short in the due examination of such weighty matters, yet so far as we can conceive in laying all things together, we have gone the fairest and equallest way to produce our peace. 1. Agreed. We have with one consent agreed, that in the parting those particular proprieties which some of our friends and neighbors have in Pawtuxet, from the general common of our town of Providence, to run upon a straight line from a fresh spring, being in the gully at the head of the cove running by that point of land called
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Saxefrax, into the town of Mashapaug, to an oak tree standing near unto the cornfield, being at this time the nearest cornfield unto Pawtuxet, the oak tree having four marks with an axe, till some other land-mark be set for a certain bound. Also, we agree, that if any meadow ground lying and joining to that meadow that borders upon the river of Pawtuxet, come within the aforesaid line, which will not come down within a straight line from long cove to the marked tree, then, for that meadow to belong to Pawtuxet, and so beyond the town of Mashapaug from the oak tree between the two fresh rivers Pawtuxet and Wanasquatucket, of an even distance. 2. Agreed. We have with one consent agreed, that for the disposing those lands that shall be disposed, belonging to this town of Providence, to be in the whole inhabitants by the choice of five men for general disposal, to be betrusted with disposal of lands and also of the town’s stock and all general things, and not to receive in any in six days, as townsmen, but first to give the inhabitants notice, to consider if any have just cause to show against the receiving of him, as you can apprehend, and to receive none but such as subscribe to this our determination. Also we agree, that if any of our neighbors do apprehend himself wronged by these or any of these five disposers, that at the general town meeting he may have a trial. Also, we agree for the town to choose beside the other five men, one to keep record of all things belonging to the town and lying in common. We garee, as formerly hath been the liberties of the town, so still to hold forth, liberty of conscience. 3. Agreed, that after many considerations and consultations of our own state and also of states abroad in way of government, we apprehend no way so suitable to our condition, as government by way of arbitration. But if men agree themselves by arbitration, no state, we know of, disallows of that, neither do we. But if men refuse that which is but common humanity between man and man, then to compel such unreasonable persons to a reasonable way, we agree, that, the five disposers shall have power to compel him either choose two men himself, or if he refuse for them to choose two men, to arbitrate his cause, and if these four men chosen by each party, do end the cause, then to see their determination performed and the faultive to pay the arbitrators for their time spent in it. But if these four men do not end it, then for the five disposers to choose three men to put an end to it. And for the certainty hereof, we agree the major part of the five disposers to choose the three men, and the major part of the three men to end the cause, having power from the five disposers, by a note under their hand to perform it, and the faultive not agreeing in the first, to pay the charge of the last and for the arbitrators to follow no employment until the
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cause be ended, without consent of the whole that have to do with the cause. Instance. In the first arbitration, the offender may offer reasonable terms of peace, and the offended may exact upon him, and refuse and trouble men beyond reasonable satisfaction, so for the last arbitrators to judge where fault was in not agreeing in the first, to pay the charge in the last. 4. Agreed, that if any person damnify any man either in goods or good name, and the person offended follow not the cause upon the offender, that if any person give notice to the five disposers, they shall call the party delinquent to answer by arbitration. Instance. Thus, if any person abuse another in person or goods, may be for peace’s sake, a man will, for the present, put it up, and it may so be, resolve to revenge; therefore, for the peace of the state, the disposers are to look to it in the first place. 5. Agreed for all the whole inhabitants to combine ourselves to assist any man in the pursuit of any party delinquent, with all our best endeavors to attach him; but if any man raise a hubbub, and there be no just cause, then for the party that raised the hubbub to satisfy men for their time lost in it. 6. Agreed, that if any man have a difference with any of the five disposers, which can not be deferred till general meeting of the town, he may have a clerk call the town together, at his occasioned time, for a trial. Instance, it may be a man may be to depart the land, or to a far part of the land, or his estate may lie upon a speedy trial or the like case may fall out. 7. Agreed, that the town by five men shall give every man a deed of all his lands lying within the bounds of the plantation to hold it by for after ages. 8. Agreed, that the five disposers shall, from the date hereof, meet every month day upon general things and at the quarter day to yield to a new choice and give up their old accounts. 9. Agreed, that the clerk shall call the five disposers together at the month day and the general town together every quarter, to meet upon general occasions, from the date hereof. 10. Agreed, that the clerk is to receive for every cause that comes to the town for a trial 4d, for making each deed 12d, and to give up the book to the town at the year’s end and yield to a new choice. 11. Agreed, that all acts of disposal on both sides to stand, since the difference. 12. Agreed, that every man who hath not paid in his purchase money for his plantation shall make up his 10s. to be 30s. equal with the first purchasers, and for all that are received as townsmen hereafter to pay the like sum to the town stock. These being those things we have generally concluded on for our peace, we desiring our loving friends to receive
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as our absolute determination, laying ourselves down as subject to it. Witness our hands. Chad Brown, John Warner, Robert Cole, John Field, William Harris, William Arnold, John Throckmorton, William Field, Stukely Westcott, Edward Cope, Benedict Arnold, Edward + Manton, William Carpenter, William Man, Richard Scott, Nicholas Power, Thomas Harris, William + Reynolds, Francis + Wickes, Thomas Olney, Thomas + Angell, Richard Waterman, Adam + Goodwin, William Wickenden, William + Burrows, Edward Hart, Roger Williams, Hugh Bewit, Robert West, Thomas + Hopkins, Joshua Winsor, Joan Tiler, Robert Williams, Jane + Sears, Matthew Waller, Christopher Unthank, Gregory Dexter, William + Hawkins, John + Lippitt, The foregoing is copied from a copy in the files of the city clerk’s office, dated March 28, 1662. It is certified by Thomas Olney, town clerk, to be a true copy “as it standeth upon record in our town book.” The records in their present mutilated state, do not contain this document or any reference to the appointment or report of the committee by whom it was drawn up. A copy of it may be found in Hazard’s Historical Collections, there said to be taken from the Suffolk records. The signers’ names are there omitted. Nor are all the names of the first settlers and received purchasers, appended to Olney’s copy, and whether they were or were not to the original, cannot be ascertained, as that original is not in existence. So far as can be traced from the records, it went into immediate operation, and constituted the Town Government for several years. From a perusal of this document, it is quite evident, that there existed in this little community, a great distrust and jealousy of delegated power. Experience had forced them to have recourse to it, and they endeavored to provide against its abuse, by the frequency both of the general meetings of the whole body, and of the elections of their officers. Though but a small remove from the perfect democracy of their first organized government, still it forms an epoch in the history of the Town. It marks the growth of the colony, and an increase of population that required a more energetic and less onerous form of government than was sufficient for an infant colony, while the change shows the same love of equality and liberty, and the same regard to the rights of individuals as was manifested in the former.
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Per the terms of the Dexter will, a rubblestone wall eight feet high and three feet in thickness at the base had been constructed around the Dexter Asylum in Providence, Rhode Island. Despite the fact that fully a quarter of the persons being contained within this wall were insane, the medical records of the institution reveal that there was never any attempt at treating mental illness beyond confinement in the so-called “maniac cells.”
PSYCHOLOGY
The fences and curbing around the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island were designed by Isaiah Rogers of Boston and paid for through a bequest from Abraham Touro.
Republication of the Reverend John Callender’s 1739 account, AN HISTORICAL DISCOURSE, ON THE CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS OF THE COLONY OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS, IN NEW- ENGLAND, IN AMERICA, FROM THE FIRST SETTLEMENT, 1638, TO THE END OF THE FIRST CENTURY. CENTENNIAL DISCOURSE
In this year the present state constitution of Rhode Island was adopted and the state got around to banning human slavery altogether. No more gradualism! James Fenner was in charge.
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A convention on “free religions” was held at the Chardon Street Chapel in Boston. This series of meetings, The “Chardon Street Convention,” was attended by members of a “Providence Movement” of mystic anarchists led by the wealthy philanthropist Thomas Davis of Providence, Rhode Island among others. Bronson Alcott was one of the principal speakers. The Providence group invited him to come down and live at “Holly Home” and be their mentor — but he declined.
This Providence Movement was publishing a magazine called The Plain Speaker, and their principal writer, Christopher A. Greene, was declaring against the institution of private property:
Everything that is belongs to Humanity. What a man wants belongs to him to use.... And what I have in possession I hold not as mine, but as Man’s or God’s.... The noblest man is he who works and with his own hands ministers to his wants —the greatest he who discards wealth and aspires to poverty —the truest he who obeys the conviction of his soul.
One of this Providence Movement’s members, Samuel Larned, would be won away during this year by Bronson Alcott.
Alcott’s 2nd youthful convert at Fruitlands, after Larned, would be Wood Abram who preferred to be known as Abram Wood. This silent young man may have come to Fruitlands from Concord, and may have 67 been a friend of Henry Thoreau’s. He is described in Louisa May Alcott’s TRANSCENDENTAL WILD OATS as being “dark and melancholy.”
Christopher A. Greene and Sarah Chace Greene left “Holly Home” north of Providence, Rhode Island to begin a school in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, where there would develop some sort of problem: “after a tedious 3 months of vexations thought and trial, we left them -- left them to enjoy their selfishness and their passion as best they might.”
Charles Lane’s THE LAW AND METHOD IN SPIRIT-CULTURE; AN INTERPRETATION OF A. BRONSON ALCOTT’S IDEA AND PRACTICE AT THE MASONIC TEMPLE, BOSTON (Boston MA: James Munroe and Company; London: J. Green, 1843).
67. We know of a James Barrett Wood for whom Thoreau surveyed a woodlot near the copper mines in southern Carlisle on November 30, 1850 and of a James Wood, Jr. with whom Thoreau had a conversation on January 13, 1852 and of an Elijah Wood (“... Elijah Wood / I fear for no good ...”) who was the employer of Michael Flannery in 1853. Had this Abram Wood been the son or relative of one of these?
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January: Although the teachings of Friend John Wilbur were sustained by a large majority of his Quaker neighbors in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, that monthly meeting had been dissolved and its members added to the Greenwich, Rhode Island monthly meeting. At this point this monthly meeting formally disowned him, and its decision would subsequently be confirmed by the Friends quarterly meeting and then by the New England Yearly Meeting. His supporters would form an independent yearly meeting, the members of which would be known as “Wilburites.”
February 19, Sunday: Frederick Douglass lectured on slavery in Providence, Rhode Island’s Franklin Hall, under the auspices of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society.
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February 26, Sunday: Frederick Douglass lectured on slavery in Providence’s Westminster Hall, under the auspices of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society.
March: The first elections were held under the new state constitution of Rhode Island, a constitution which would be in effect until 1986.
March 18, Saturday: Frederick Douglass took part in a meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society’s executive committee, in Providence.
March 19, Sunday: Frederick Douglass lectured on slavery in Providence, Rhode Island’s Franklin Hall, under the auspices of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society.
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March 20, Monday: The first free public high school in Providence, Rhode Island opened its doors for education. At this point the public school system of Providence consisted of six public grammar schools, ten public primary schools, and one public high school. In the first high school classes there would be a few black students, but then racial segregation of educational opportunity would be imposed. Although this school was nominally coeducational, girls were to enter through a separate door into a separated area for instruction — we can see that, interestingly, the problem in regard to race relations was handled in one manner, the problem in regard to gender relations in a distinctly different manner.
Tail lengths reports for the new comet generally were ranging from 40° to 48°.
SKY EVENT
March 26, Sunday: Frederick Douglass lectured for the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society in Providence on the topic “Colonization and its connexion with slavery, and the degradation of the colored people of the United States.”
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April 2, Sunday: Joseph Smith, Jr. was at the home of Benjamin Johnson and spent the night in the bed of his sister Almera Woodward Johnson, and asked Benjamin if he might also have his youngest sister, Esther M. Johnson (the record does not indicate whether his request was fulfilled).
Frederick Douglass lectured for the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society in Providence on the topic “The Progress of the Cause.”
An observer reported that the comet had become very faint and that the nucleus was no longer being observed.
SKY EVENT
From Concord, Henry Thoreau did his duty by offering some golden reflections to the young Richard F. Fuller at Harvard College.
What I was learning in college was chiefly, I think, to express myself, and I see now, that as the old orator prescribed, 1st, action; 2d, action; 3d, action; my teachers should have prescribed to me, 1st, sincerity; 2d, sincerity; 3d, sincerity. The old mythology is incomplete without a god or goddess of sincerity, on whose altars we might offer up all the products of our farms, our workshops, and our studies. It should be our Lar when we sit on the hearth, and our Tutelar Genius when we walk abroad. This is the only panacea. I mean sincerity in our dealings with ourselves mainly; any other is comparatively easy. But I must stop before I get to 17thly. I believe I have but one text and one sermon.
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To: Richard Fuller From: HDT Date: 4/2/43
Concord April 2nd 1843
Dear Richard, I was glad to receive a letter from you, so bright and cheery. You speak of not having made any conquests with your own spear or quill as yet, but if you are tempering your spear- head during these days, and fitting a straight and tough shaft thereto, will not that suffice? We are more pleased to consider the hero in the forest cutting cornel or ash for his spear, than marching in triumph with his trophies. The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospects. What you say about your studies furnishing you with a “mimic idiom” only, reminds me that we shall all do well if we learn so much as to talk — to speak truth. The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success — the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part — at least apparently — but sometimes there are cinnamon and spice, you know. Even the grown hunter you speak of slays a thousand buffaloes and brings off only their hides and tongues. What im- mense sacrifices — what hecatombs and holocausts the gods exact for very slight favors! How much sincere life be-
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fore we can even utter one sincere word — What I was learning in College was chiefly, I think, to express myself, and I see now that as the old orator prescribed 1st action, 2nd action, 3d action, my teachers should have prescribed to me 1st sincerity 2nd sincerity, 3d sincerity. The old mythology is incomplete without a god or goddess of sincerity, on
Page 2 whose altars we might offer up all the products of our farms, our work- shops, and our studies. It should be our Lar when we sit on the hearth, and our Tutelar Genius when we walk abroad. This is the only panacea. I mean sincerity in our dealings with our- selves mainly — any other is compari- tively easy — but I will stop before I get to 17thly — I believe I have but one text and one sermon. Your rural adventures beyond the W. Cambridge hills, have probably lost nothing by dis- tances of time or space — I used to hear only the sough of the wind in the woods of conq Concord, when I was striving to give my attention to a page of Calculus. — But depend upon it you will love your native hills the better for being separated from them. I expect to leave Concord, which is my Rome — and its people, who are my Romans, in May, and go to N. york to be a tutor in Mr William Emerson’s family. — So I will bid you good bye till I see you or hear from you again. Yr friend H.D. Thoreau
P.S. Will you take the trouble to carry the inclosed letter to Richardson for me — and the vol. which Bartlett (Robert) took from the library for me — either to Samuel Long- fellow, who I believe attends to his concerns, or to the librarian?
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April 12, Wednesday: Joseph Smith, Jr. “got married with” Olive Grey Frost.
On this day and the following one, Frederick Douglass lectured for the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society in East Greenwich.
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Late Spring: As usual, the swarming of the 17-year New England cicadas Magicicada septendecim.
Henry Thoreau made no mention in his written materials about personally hearing the New England swarm other than one chance mention in a letter he wrote home from Staten Island, nor did he comment on having also heard it in 1826 as an 8-year-old. Probably the reason why he makes no personal mention is that the swarm stopped then as it does now, in western Connecticut, and never made its way as far east as Concord and the Boston vicinity — we do know for sure from the pages of A WEEK and WALDEN that he had knowledge of the existence of that 17-year variety of locust:
A WEEK: It is worth the while to see the country’s people, how they pour into the town, the sober farmer folk, now all agog, their very shirt and coat-collars pointing forward, — collars so broad as if they had put their shirts on wrong end upward, for the fashions always tend to superfluity, — and with an unusual springiness in their gait, jabbering earnestly to one another. The more supple vagabond, too, is sure to appear on the least rumor of such a gathering, and the next day to disappear, and go into his hole like the seventeen-year locust, in an ever-shabby coat, though finer than the farmer’s best, yet never dressed; come to see the sport, and have a hand in what is going, — to know “what’s the row,” if there is any; to be where some men are drunk, some horses race, some cockerels fight; anxious to be shaking props under a table, and above all to see the “striped pig.” He especially is the creature of the occasion. He empties both his pockets and his character into the stream, and swims in such a day. He dearly loves the social slush. There is no reserve of soberness in him.
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WALDEN: How long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and musty virtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one were to begin the day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and in the afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness and charity with goodness aforethought! Consider the China pride and stagnant self-complacency of mankind. This generation reclines a little to congratulate itself on being the last of an illustrious line; and in Boston and London and Paris and Rome, thinking of its long descent, it speaks of its progress in art and science and literature with satisfaction. There are the Records of the Philosophical Societies, and the public Eulogies of Great Men! It is the good Adam contemplating his own virtue. “Yes, we have done great deeds, and sung divine songs, which shall never die.” –that is, as long as we can remember them. The learned societies and great men of Assyria, – where are they? What youthful philosophers and experimentalists we are! There is not one of my readers who has yet lived a whole human life. These may be but the spring months in the life of the race. If we have had the seven-years’ itch, we have not seen the seventeenth-year locust yet in Concord. We are acquainted with a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live. Most have not delved six feet beneath the surface, nor leaped as many above it. We know not where we are. Beside, we are sound asleep nearly half our time. Yet we esteem ourselves wise, and have an established order on the surface. Truly, we are deep thinkers, we are ambitious spirits! As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts, and hide its head from me who might perhaps be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering information, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stand over me the human insect.
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June 1 (Pentecost Thursday): Joseph Smith, Jr. “got married with” Elvira Anie Cowles.
Go East, 46-year-old black woman, go East: Isabella68 experienced a command to “go east” and testify, adopted the monicker Sojourner Truth, and departed New-York with but an hour’s notice, with two York shillings in her pocket, carrying her worldly belongings in a pillowcase, to move on foot through Long Island and Connecticut, testifying to whatever audiences she was able to attract. –It is the life of a wandering evangelist, is mine. In the course of attending Millerite meetings to testify, she would accommodate to a number of the apocalyptic tenets of that group.
As Louisa May Alcott has reported in later life, on this same day quite another journey was taking place:
On the first day of June, 1843, a large wagon, drawn by a small horse and containing a motley load, went lumbering over certain New England hills, with the pleasing accompaniments of wind, rain and hail. A serene man with a serene child upon his knee was driving, or rather being driven, for the small horse had it all his own way. Behind a small boy, embracing a bust of Socrates, was an energetic looking woman, with a benevolent brow, satirical mouth and eyes full of hope and courage. A baby reposed upon her lap, a mirror leaned against her knee, a basket of provisions danced about her feet, and she struggled with a large, unruly umbrella, with which she tried to cover every one but herself. Twilight began to fall, and the rain came down in a despondent drizzle, but the calm man gazed as tranquilly into the fog as if he beheld a radiant bow of promise spanning the gray sky.
68. Isabella Bomefree van Wagenen, “Bomefree” being the name of her first husband which by virtue of enslavement she had been denied, and “van Wagenen” being the name of the white family which she assumed and used for a number of years. (“Wagener” was a consistent misspelling perpetrated by the printer of the first version of her NARRATIVE in 1850.)
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The Consociate Family of Bronson Alcott was on its way from Concord to “Fruitlands” on Prospect Hill in Harvard, Massachusetts, in the district then known politely as “Still River North” and impolitely as “Hog Street,” with its prospect of Wachusett and Mount Monadnock and its prospect of “ideals without feet or
hands” (an apt phrase said to have been created by Waldo Emerson,69 who himself, if anyone ever metaphorically lacked them, metaphorically lacked feet and hands and other essential body parts), ideals such as “a family in harmony with the primitive instincts of man.” In her fictional account of the journey, Louisa May Alcott invented an additional child and placed it on her father’s knee, obviously where she would have wanted to be, and made it a “serene” child, what she never was but longed to be. The bust of Socrates actually rode between the father Bronson, who was holding the reins, and Charles Lane, on the wagon’s bench. There was no room in this wagon for William Lane or for Anna Alcott, who for all 14 miles of the journey had to walk alongside it.
At this point the Association of Industry and Education had 113 members, a large proportion of whom were children:
69. But we may note that in Bronson Alcott’s journal for Week 45 in November 1837, Alcott had himself termed himself “an Idea without hands.”
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COMMUNITARIANISM Membership
April 1842 41 May 1842 65 End of 1842 83 June 1843 113 Winter 1844 120 Spring 1845 120
Having had enough after less than two months of attempting to teach almost entirely without teaching supplies and without adequate classroom space, Sophia Foord threatened to resign as teacher at the Association. (Promises would be made that would keep her teaching while efforts were made to convert a barn into classrooms, but the problem eventually would be resolved by the need of the community to use its children as a cheap source of incessant factory labor. After Miss Foord left Northampton, she became tutor to the children of the Chase family (Elizabeth Buffum Chase) of Valley Falls, Rhode Island; “she taught botany; she walked with the children over the fields … and made her pupils observe the geographical features of the pond and its banks, and carefully taught them to estimate distances by sight.”)
Railroad service to Concord began. Preliminary earthmoving crews, and then crossties and rails crews, had reached Concord at the rate of 33 feet per day, filling in Walden Pond’s south-west arm to give it its present shape. 1,000 Irishmen were earning $0.50 or $0.60 for bonebreaking 16-hour days of labor. Waldo Emerson was elated because he much preferred riding in the railroad coach to riding in the stage coach which offered a “ludicrous pathetic tragical picture” (his comment from April 15, 1834; I don’t know whether he meant that he felt that he presented a ludicrous pathetic tragical appearance while riding on the stage coach or that the view from the stage coach window presented him with a ludicrous pathetic tragical perspective). He found, however, that when a philosopher rides the railroad “Ideal Philosophy takes place at once” as “men & trees & barns whiz by you as fast as the leaves of a dictionary” and this helps in grasping the real impermanence of matter: “hitherto esteemed symbols of stability do absolutely dance by you” and we experience “the sensations of a swallow who skims by trees & bushes with about the same speed” (June 10, 1834). By this time, with the railroad actually in Concord, Emerson had decided that “Machinery & Transcendentalism agree well.”70
“[The railroad will] only encourage the common people to move about needlessly.” — Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
70. EMERSON’S JOURNALS AND MISCELLANEOUS NOTEBOOKS 4: 277, 4:296, 8:397.
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July 3, Monday: When his business burned out in Fall River, and he was severely injured, Perry Davis would relocate to Providence, Rhode Island.
One day a large can of alcohol caught fire, and the sudden flame of the burning liquid in its rapid ascent to the ceiling enveloped Mr. Davis, burning his body to the bone. Mrs. Davis and his daughter, Mrs. S. Dennis were left powerless in their attempts to rescue the sufferer, and rushed to the street for aid. When help arrived the flesh on his arms hung in shreds, the thick fleshy portions on his hands falling off. His face was one solid burnt sore, and his kidneys were so injured that he passed nothing but blood for nearly two days. The family pleaded for a
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physician, but Mr. Davis was inexorable and said if his medicine could not save him he would go with it. The Pain Killer was used as directed. The sufferings of the patient were terrible. Noone thought he could survive, and the second night following it was supposed he was dying, but he finally passed off into a quiet sleep, and from that time began to gain. In four weeks from that time he drove a wagon to Apponaug. The first Pain Killer taken to Boston Mr. Davis carried in a basket on his arm, walking there and back. He called on the druggists, but they shrugged their shoulders and said they could not sell it without the assistance of advertising and that they made mixtures equally as good themselves. After canvassing the city with but little success, and at last discouraged, he went among the crowd upon the street and to each poor, sick, lame person he met handed a bottle of Pain Killer. This done he returned home more discouraged than ever. In the meantime his medicine at home grew more popular every day and soon afterward the cholera made its appearance in the United States and Pain Killer was suddenly brought into general notice by the astonishing cures of this dreadful disease which it effected. Orders now began to come in to such an extent that Mr. Davis had to cast aside his pestle and mortar and commence the manufacture of Pain Killer upon a larger scale. It was now found that each bottle given away in Boston and elsewhere, had created a demand for many more; the sale increased from day to day, while everybody who used this wonderful compound was either writing or telling his friends of its powers in relieving pain and suffering. It was soon after its discovery that Perry Davis’ Pain Killer was introduced into a factory at Providence, and the employees there found a cure for all those little ills and numberless hurts of accidents which factory hands are constantly subject to. In various ways the medicine became advertised until now it is used by every people on the Globe and known elsewhere. The North American Indians prize it above gold. The miners of South Africa and Brazil have christened it the “Miner’s Friend,” while the natives of India and other warm climates find it a sure antidote against the bite of the most poisonous reptiles. The Hudson Bay Company, whose business reaches out through all the vast territory between Alaska and the coast of Labrador, are among the largest dealers of this article.
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Late Summer: Perry Davis mixed up a batch of his patent vegetable painkiller consisting of opiates in ethanol to sell at the annual Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry fair in Pawtuxet.
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September 28, Monday: Frederick Douglass lectured in Richmond, Indiana.
In a ceremony in Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph Smith, Jr. and his wife of many years Emma Hale Smith were the recipients of a 2d anointing, in which each was “anointed & ordained to the highest & holiest order of the priesthood.”
During the harvest time, before September 29th, although Bronson Alcott had recovered from his dysentery and fainting, he was still exhibiting mental symptoms of excitedness and restlessness. He and Charles Lane had left in the middle of the harvest work on yet another trip of visiting and lecturing and attempting to garner the new recruitments and the renewed funding that was essential if this “pyramid scheme” of a community was not to collapse. They had lectured in Providence, Rhode Island, and in New-York, and in New Haven and Waterbury in Connecticut, stopping off in Alcott’s old home town, Spindle Hill. When they came stopped off at Fruitlands, it was only to leave immediately for New Hampshire, and then for Concord, Massachusetts.
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During this period Waldo Emerson recorded a visit in his journal:
Alcott came, the magnificent dreamer, brooding as ever on the renewal or reedification of the social fabric after ideal law, heedless that he had been uniformly rejected by every class to whom he has addressed himself and just as sanguine & vast as ever; the most cogent example of the drop too much which nature adds of each man’s peculiarity. To himself he seems the only realist, & whilst I & other men wish to deck the dulness of the months with here & there a fine action or hope, he would weave the whole a new texture of truth & beauty. Now he spoke of marriage & the fury that would assail him who should lay his hand on that institution, for reform: and spoke of the secret doctrines of Fourier. I replied, as usual — that, I thought no man could be trusted with it; the formation of new alliances is so delicious to the imagination, that St Paul & St John would be riotous; and that we cannot spare the coarsest muniment of virtue. Very pathetic it is to see this wandering emperor from year to year making his round of visits from house to house of such as do not exclude him, seeking a companion, tired of pupils.
At about this period Anne Page, Abba Alcott’s servant, was caught eating fish at a neighbor’s table, and then a chunk of cheese was discovered inside her trunk. For thus exploiting the lives of animals, she was terminated by the Consociate Family of Fruitlands. THE ALCOTT FAMILY
In his journal, Henry Thoreau mentioned “Thomas the Rhymer” out of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, by Conner & Cooke in New-York in 1833.
Thursday, September 28. We have never conceived how many natural phenomena would be revealed to a simpler and more natural life. Rain, wind, sunshine, day and night, would be very different to experience if we were always true. We cannot deceive the ground under our feet. We never try. But we do not treat each other with the same sincerity. How much more wretched would the life of man be if there was the same formality and reserve between him and his intercourse with Nature that there is in human society! It is a strange world we live in, with this incessant dream of friendship and love; where is any? Genius cannot do without these; it pines and withers. I believe that the office of music is to remind us continually of the reality and necessity of the fine elements of love and friendship. One mood always forgets another, and till we have loved we have not imagined the heights of love. Love is an incessant inspiration. By the dews of love the arid desert of life is made as fragrant and blooming as a paradise. The world waits yet to see man act greatly and divinely upon man. What are social influences as yet? The poor human flower would hold up its drooping head at once, if this sun should shine on it. That is the dyspepsia with which all men ail. In purer, more intellectual moods we translate our gross experiences into fine moralities. Sometimes we would fain see events as merely material, — wooden, rigid, dead; but again we are reminded that we actually inform them with better life, by which they live; that they are the slaves and creatures of our conduct. When dull and sensual, I believe they are corn-stalks good for cattle, — neither more nor less. The laws of Nature are science; but, in an enlightened moment, they are morality and modes of divine life. In a medium intellectual state they
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are aesthetics. What makes us think that time has lapsed is that we have relapsed. Strictly speaking, there can be no criticism of poetry other than a separating of that which is poetry from that which is not, — a detecting of falsehood. From the remotest antiquity we detect in the Literature of all nations, here and there, words of a loftier tone and purport than are required to transact the daily business of life. As Scott says, they float down the sea of time like the fragments of a parted wreck, — sounds which echo up among the stars rather than through the valleys of earth; and yet are heard plainly enough, to remind men of other spheres of life and activity. Perhaps I may say that I have never had a deeper and more memorable experience of life in its great serenity, than when listening to the trill of a tree sparrow among the huckleberry bushes after a shower. It is a communication to which a man must attend in solitude and silence, and may never be able to tell to his brother. The least sensual life is that experienced through pure senses. We sometimes hear, and the dignity of that sense is asserted.
October 31, Tuesday: In Rhode Island, Thomas Wilson Dorr was taken into detention and accused of treason.
READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT Frederick Douglass continued to lecture in Lloydsville, Ohio with Charles Lenox Remond, James Monroe, and Sydney Howard Gay.
December 31, Sunday: Many of the devotees of the Reverend William Miller expected Jesus to return at the end of 1843 (Festinger, Leon et al. WHEN PROPHECY FAILS. Minneapolis MN: U of Minnesota P, 1956, page 16). MILLENNIALISM
The wealthiest citizen of Cranston, Rhode Island, Amasa Sprague of the A&W Sprague textile empire, was murdered. Refer to Charles and Tess Hoffmann’s BROTHERLY LOVE: MURDER AND THE POLITICS OF PREJUDICE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY RHODE ISLAND (Amherst MA: U of Massachusetts P, 1993).
You can read this book online at
Three brothers who had emigrated there from Ireland, Nicholas, John, and William Gordon, would be charged with this murder, although there was precious little evidence against them other than the fact that they were
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Catholics. Of the three, Nicholas and William had the most airtight alibis, whereas John would be unable to produce evidence as to his whereabouts on the afternoon in question. It would be John, therefore, who would hang for the crime, on February 14, 1844. The authors of this study attempt to make a case that the actual murderer was Mr. Sprague’s brother and business partner, William Sprague II, who had served as the governor of the state, and was currently one of its US senators, although actually there is less evidence against Senator Sprague than there is against one “Big Peter,” a mill laborer who had disappeared from the vicinity shortly after the afternoon of the crime.
At the trial the judge ruled that the testimony of recent immigrants from Ireland was inherently of less credibility than the testimony of native-born American citizens. Later there would be sufficient doubt, that this conviction and hanging had been anything more than a rush to judgment, that this would be the last hanging permitted to take place on the soil of Rhode Island.
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1844
1 George W. Boynton engraved a 11 /2 inch by 9 inch plan of the city of Boston for Dickinson’s BOSTON ALMANAC. A new building was erected on Bedford Street for the Boston Latin School, at a cost of $57,510.81:
THE RHODE-ISLAND ALMANACK FOR 1844. BY ISAAC BICKERSTAFF. (Providence, Rhode Island: Hugh H. Brown).
THE PROVIDENCE ALMANAC FOR 1844. BY BENJAMIN F. MOORE. (Providence: B.F. Moore).
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In this year Hugh H. Brown, a publisher of almanacs in Providence, Rhode Island, published a city directory that extrapolated from a volume of history published in the previous year at the press of Knowles & Vose, in creating “A Chronological History of Remarkable Events, in the Settlement and Growth of Providence.” That nearly 700-page volume from the other press in the previous year had been a production of William Read Staples, associate Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and was entitled ANNALS OF THE TOWN OF PROVIDENCE, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT TO THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT IN JUNE, 1832. What follows is an indication of the peculiar manner in which the important events of the history of the town were at this point being portrayed:
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1636. First settlement of the town, by Roger Williams and his companions, viz. William Harris, John Smith (miller), Joshua Verin, Thomas Angell and Francis Wikes. The tract of land which constituted the town of Providence, which then extended to the present limits of the county, was purchased by Mr. Williams for a valuable consideration, as appears from a deed made to him, and signed by the two Narragansett chiefs, Connanicus and Meauntunomie, 1639, which was in confirmation of a parol grant made two years prior to that date. These lands were in 1661 parcelled out in equal proportions to the rest of the Company, by Mr. Williams. Soon after this, “the Town street was laid out, which is now known as North Main and South Main streets. To each member of the Company were assigned a home lot and a six acre lot; and the home lot of Mr. Williams was in the vicinity of what is now St. John’s Church.” The spring of fresh water, where it is believed these pilgrims first stopped, is a little southerly from the church, in the rear of the large brick block of Nehemiah Dodge, on the westerly side of North Main st. 1640. Until this year, the government was purely democratic. A town government was now organized, by the appointment of five Disposers, whose duties were to settle all differences between individuals, to dispose “of lands, and also of the town’s stock and all general things,” and by the further appointment of “one to keep record of all things belonging to the town and lying in common,” which answered to the more modern office of Town Clerk. In this first delegation of power, the inhabitants provide for the preservation of “liberty of conscience.” 1643. In the summer of this year, Roger Williams sailed from New-York to England. for the purpose of procuring a charter of incorporation for the colonies of Rhode-Island and Providence. Miantonomi, one of the Narragansett Chiefs, a true friend to Williams and his company, was this year barbarously murdered by Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans, pursuant to a decision of Commissioners of the United Colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Hartford and New-Haven. 1644. Mr. Williams obtained a Charter, which united Providence, Portsmouth and Newport in a corporate body, styled “The incorporation of Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay, in New-England,” giving full power for making and executing “civil laws” - “conformable to the laws of England,” and returned through Boston, being protected from arrest there, by a letter addressed to the Governor of Massachusetts by members of the English Parliament. 1647. The first General Assembly, or “General Court,” or Court of Commissioners of this Colony, was held at Portsmouth, May 16, as was composed of delegates chosen by the towns of Providence, Portsmouth, Newport and Warwick, which body accepted and adopted the Charter, and organized the government under it. The meeting at Providence gave written instructions to the ten “loving and well betrusted friends and neighbors,” whom they appointed delegates, and in view of the dangers they might encounter, in
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their journey to the North end of Rhode-Island, they invoke “the Lord’s Providence for their safe arrival there,” and conclude their letter of instructions in these words:- “Thus betrusting you with the premises, we commit you unto the protection and direction of the Almighty, wishing you a comfortable voyage, a happy success, and a safe return unto us again.” A code of laws was enacted and established by this General Court. 1650. The General Assembly (which title the Commissioners now first assumed) probably with a view to put the inhabitants in a posture of defence against the Indians, passed an order for the towns to furnish themselves with arms and warlike stores, and Providence was required to have one barrel of powder, 500 pounds of lead, six pikes and six muskets, to be kept fit for use. Warwick was to have a similar supply, and each of the towns of Portsmouth and Newport were required to furnish more than double the quantities of such arms ammunition. 1651. Mr. Coddington, who went to England last year, returned this summer, with a commission appointing him Governor of the Islands of Rhode-Island and Conanicutt during his lifetime, which put an end to the then existing Colony government under the Charter. Providence and Warwick continued united, and appointed Mr. Williams to visit England, to procure a new charter for their government. About this same time, a large number of the inhabitants of Portsmouth and Newport, who were disaffected towards Gov. Coddington, appointed Dr. John Clark to go to England, procure a revocation of his commission; and these agents sailed in company. 1652. These agents presented a joint petition to the Council, who vacated Coddington’s commission, and directed a re-union of all the towns under the Charter. Hugh Bewitt, who had been tried by the General Court of trials, and convicted of “Treason against the power and authority of the State of England,” was again tried before the Court of Commissioners, and acquitted. 1654. All the towns re-united this year, under the Charter, the towns on the main land having been separated from those on the island since the commission to Gov. Coddington. Trade with the Dutch was prohibited. A law was passed against selling liquors to the Indians. There was a General Election at Warwick Sept. 12. First recorded election of military officers in Providence. All the inhabitants were required, by the Court of Commissioners, to sign a submission to the Protector and the Parliament. The sale of liquors and wines was regulated: Indians were to be whipped, or laid “neck and heels” for being drunk, and the ordinary keeper who sold him the liquor, was to be fined. A prison and a pair of stocks were ordered to be built in Providence. The number of freemen in Providence was forty-two. Four military trainings a year were ordered by the Town. 1656. A law was passed that publications of marriage should be made in a Town meeting, or on a training day at the head of the company, or by a magistrate’s certificate posted up in some public place. In town-meeting, the erection of a fort was authorized on Stamper’s hill.
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1657. William Harris was put under 500 pounds bond on a charge of High treason, made by Mr. Williams. He was never tried. 1658. This town refuses to banish such Quakers as are here, or to prohibit others from coming, though strongly urged to such a course by the Commissioners of the united Colonies, and replies to the intolerant request, that they prize freedom of conscience as the greatest happiness men can possess in this world. This place had then become a city of refuge to the cruelly persecuted Quakers of Massachusetts. By a municipal vote, all those who enjoyed lands within the jurisdiction of the town were freemen. 1659. On the accession of Charles II. a commission was ordered by the General Assembly to be sent to Mr. Clark, in England, to procure a renewal of the charter from that monarch. 1662. Up to this time, the act requiring the conveyances in land to be made in writing was not generally observed, and regulations were made on this subject to prevent apprehended difficulties, confusion and litigation. A bridge was order by the town to be built over Moshassuck river, near the dwelling of Thomas Olney, jun. This is supposed to have been at or near what is now called Randall’s bridge. 1663. Town meetings were called to elect Commissioners, to meet at Newport in November, to receive the Charter which was reported to have arrived; and the President of the Colony issued an order to the Captain or other commissioned officer of this town, and probably to the other towns, to warn and require all the freemen of the town to accompany the commissioners, in their arms, to solemnize the Charter. The box containing the Charter was produced before a great assembly of the people, which was opened by order, and the “king’s gracious letter,” the Charter, were read in the hearing and view of all the people. Mr. Clarke had been a very efficient agent in England in procuring this Charter, and grants of money had been made to him at various times, and at this time a gratuity of £100 was voted to him. The old government was then dissolved, and a new government was organized under the charter of Charles II, and “continued as the basis of the State Government” till it was superseded by the adoption of a Constitution in 1843. This is the “Old Charter,” about which so much as been written and spoken for the last few years, in this much agitated and disturbed community. It was an exceedingly liberal instrument to emanate from a royal hand and was adapted to the wants of the colonists at the time it was granted, and for a long period after; but was not suitable for the fundamental law in these days of progressive improvement; many of its provisions had become obsolete, and none of them restrained or limited the power of the General Assembly. 1664. At the October session of the General Assembly, a tax of £600 was ordered, of which the proportion of Newport was £285, and Providence £100 - the rateable property of Newport in the valuation at the time, being estimated at nearly three times as much as Providence. The tax assessed by Providence, to pay the proportion of the above, was to be paid “in wheat at four shillings and sixpence per bushel, peas at three shillings and
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sixpence, pork at £3, 10 per barrel, or horses or cattle equivalent.” 1665. On the proposition of Roger Williams, he was authorized to receive tolls for passing Weybosset bridge, for which he engaged to keep it in repair. Toll was to be exacted from strangers, and “of townsmen what they are free to give.” 1666. Nothing was paid from or received in the Town Treasury. 1672. Roger Williams held a public disputation with three Friends or Quakers, which continued three days at Newport and one in Providence. Deputies or members of the General Assembly were for the first time required to take an oath or affirmation on commencing their official duties. This was protested against by those of Providence. 1676. Thirty houses were burnt by the Indians. The war commenced the year previous, and the master-spirit who moved all the tribes was the famous king Philip. He was killed in battle this year, and peace was restored. 1678. A ferry was established across Seekonk river, where Central bridge is now. 1700. The burial ground at the North end of the city was established 1703. The Colony was divided into two counties - Providence Plantations, and Rhode-Island. 1710. Paper money, for the first time in this State, was authorized by the General Assembly to be emitted. It became very common afterwards for 60 or 70 years. 1717. The town debt had been accumulating several years, and this year the tax was more than double the ordinary amount, and was assessed for £150. 1727. Joseph Jenckes, of Providence, being elected Governor, removed with his family to Newport, all his predecessors in that office having resided there. 1739. A public ferry was established where Washington bridge now is, at India Point. 1744. The General Assembly granted a lottery to raise funds for building a bridge at Weybosset, which bridge was built the following year, and was 18 feet wide. What an appearance would such a bridge make now, in the focus of this city’s business! 1748. Population of Providence was - whole number of whites 3177, Negroes 225, Indians 50. 1749. There were 31 licensed Tavern-keepers. 1754. The inhabitants petitioned this town for power to purchase a “large water engine,” which was afterwards, in the course of two or three years, procured. 1755. Population of Providence, 747 men, 741 women, 655 boys, 754 girls, 262 blacks, 275 men able to bear arms, 406 enlisted soldiers.
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1758. The old Court House erected in 1730, was destroyed by fire, and with it the books of the Providence Library Company. The town was authorized to appoint fire-wards. 1759. A new Court House was ordered to be built by the General Assembly, which was completed in a few years, by the grant of a lottery, and by the issue of bills of credit. 1761. Weybosset bridge was destroyed by a heavy gale of wind and the highest tide ever known before that time. To rebuild it, the General Assembly made a grant, and authorized a lottery. It was rebuilt with a draw to admit the passage of vessels, as many were built then as far north as St. John’s church, and West India cargoes were unladen at wharves in that vicinity. Newport was still much ahead of Providence in the valuation of taxable property, as appears by a State tax assessed this year, Newport paying £3,200, and Providence £972. 1762. The first printing office was established by William Goddard. The first play performed in New-England, was in this town, this year. Such performances were afterwards prohibited by law. 1765. Some spirited instructions were passed at a Town meeting to the town’s representatives in the General Assembly, against the right of Great Britain to impose taxes without the Colony’s consent. They were strong, bold and explicit. They were shadows of “coming events,” which led to the declaration of Independence. The General Assembly acted up to them, and their acts, and similar ones followed by other Colonies, produced the repeal of the odious Stamp act the next year. 1767. The act of the British Parliament laying a duty on Tea and other articles went into operation, and the inhabitants in Town meeting prepared an agreement, to be signed individually, pledging themselves to each other not to import nor use those articles. 1768. A large elm tree, near Olney-street, was dedicated as the tree of liberty, and an address made by Silas Downer. 1772. The British armed schooner Gaspee was destroyed in Providence river, on the west shore. She had been sent to enforce the British revenue laws. This was the prologue to the revolutionary drama which was soon performed with unbounded applause. Some of the most worthy citizens were engaged in this enterprise. 1774. Population of this town 4321. Number of dwellings 421; families 655. 1781. Gen. Washington visited Providence. His arrival was announced by a salute from the artillery. He was conducted to the house of Hon. Jabez Bowen (now Manufacturer’s Hotel,) and the town was illuminated at night. Next day he dined with the citizens in the Court House, and in the evening attended a splendid ball. A formal address was presented to him by a committee of the most distinguished citizens, to which he made a felicitous reply, and expressed much gratification at the
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respectful attentions he received. 1782. Population of the town 4306. 1783. The news of the restoration of peace, and the acknowledgment of our independence, was celebrated with great pomp, April 22. There was feasting and training, a sermon and an oration, canon-firing, bell-ringing and flag-displaying, from morning till night; and fire-works and a brilliant illumination terminated the joyful demonstration in a blaze of splendor. 1787. The first ship, from this State, sailed for Canton - the General Washington, Captain Jonathan Donnison. The number of vessels in this port, then, exceeded that of New York, being 110, and the tonnage 10,590. 1788. The anniversary of Independence and the adoption of the Federal Constitution by nine States, were jointly celebrated on the 4th of July. There was a military parade, bells were rung and cannon fired. An address was delivered by Rev. Dr.
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Hitchcock, in the First Baptist meeting house; and an ox was
roasted whole on the plains North of the Cove, at which five or six thousand persons were present. Some three or four hundred men from the country, of the anti-federal party, which then had the ascendancy on the State, appeared near the ground under arms, and threatened an attack. A committee of citizens was delegated to meet and remonstrate with them - the difficulty was compromised, and the enemy quietly withdrew, and left the citizens to enjoy their feast. 1790. A State convention at Newport, in May, voted, to adopt the Federal Constitution; and this State came into the Union, the last of the original thirteen; and the event was commemorated by great public demonstrations of joy. The population of the town was 6380. President Washington again visited this town, with several distinguished public men in his suite. His arrival was announced by a discharge of artillery and the ringing of bells. A procession of citizens was formed, and he was conducted to the Golden Ball Inn, kept by Henry Rice, now the Mansion
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House. He was complimented by a public dinner, at which three hundred citizens attended. A very respectful and cordial address was made to him by a Committee appointed by the town, to which he suitably replied, and departed in the evening. 1791. The Providence Bank was incorporated, being the first in the State. 1792. Weybosset Bridge was rebuilt, with a draw to admit vessels into the cove. It was fifty-six feet in width, ornamented with handsome balustrades, and furnished with six lamps. The town was aided in raising funds for its erection by the grant of a lottery, which was called the Great Bridge Lottery. 1796. A canal company was incorporated to run a canal to Worcester. The Massachusetts legislature refused a charter, and the project failed at that time. In 1823, it was revived and accomplished, but was unproductive, and proved a total loss of the funds invested by the public spirited proprietors. 1797. The town was visited by the yellow fever. Many deaths occurred; the schools were suspended, streets deserted, and consternation depicted on every countenance. President John Adams visited the town in August, stopping at Esek Aldrich’s Hotel (now Washington Hotel,) and was honored with testimonials of great respect, with the ringing of bells, firing of cannon, a military escort, and an address from the Town’s Committee. The College edifice was brilliantly illuminated in the evening. 1800. The death of Washington was solemnized with a great display of funeral ceremonies, on the 7th of January, which day was intensely cold. The bells tolled through the day; a vast procession was formed, consisting of the military corps, the incorporated societies, municipal officers, and youths in all the schools, with appropriate badges, and a long train of citizens and strangers. Minute guns were fired while the procession was in motion. Col. George R. Burrill delivered an eloquent eulogy in the Baptist meeting-house. The interior of the house was shrouded in black drapery. The mournful retinue again formed, and proceeded to St. John’s Church, where, after an address from the Rector, Rev. Mr. Clark, the bier was deposited under the church. Throughout the day, a solemn gloom pervaded the whole town. In George Washington, greatness and goodness were combined: this whole people were his beneficiaries; and now, they mourned his death with feelings of awakened gratitude, with an unfeigned and heart-felt sorrow, like that of affectionate children, who mourn the death of a beloved and venerated parent. The General Assembly passed an act for the establishment of Free Schools. It had been long urged in the newspapers of this town, but the Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers were the immediate operatives in this good work, and a reference of their memorial to the Legislature produced a favorable report. This town was immediately divided into four districts, and four schools were established therein, and the masters first appointed were John Dexter, Moses Noyes, Royal Farnum and Rev. James Wilson. The schools were permanently continued by the
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town, notwithstanding the State law was repealed in 1803, and in 1819 the fourth district on the West side was divided, and a fifth district established. The salaries of the preceptors was $500 each, of the ushers $250. The General Assembly in 1828 passed a new act to establish public schools; and this town then ordered primary schools in each district, to contain the youngest children, and to be kept by females; and a school for colored children was opened the same year. 1801. The south part of the town was ravaged by a disastrous fire, January 21. It commenced about ten o’clock, A.M. in John Corlis’s store, rear of South Main-street, between Planet and Power-streets, and continued through the day. More than thirty buildings were destroyed, amongst which were some handsome dwellings and large stores. Hacker’s Hall was one of the victims of the devouring element. This had, for many years, been occupied as a school room, but had, for a generation, then passed away, been the principal dancing hall or assembly room for the gay and fashionable men and women of Providence, and was elegantly finished with fluted pilasters and carved cornices. The damage by this fire was estimated at $300,000, or more, and it was then and now is designated as the Great Fire. On rebuilding, South Main-street was very considerably widened and improved, from Planet-street, to some distance south. 1807. In February of this year, a very destructive freshet took place, by which both the bridges across Seekonk river were carried away, the bridges at the north part of town much damaged, many mills and dams swept away near this town, and losses sustained to a very large amount. 1812. The news of the Declaration of War with Great Britain was received June 24, and was noticed by the tolling of bells and displaying the flags at half mast. The majority here was opposed to the war and to the administration of the general government, but they promptly held meetings and passed spirited resolutions to make united efforts against a foreign enemy. The chartered companies were filled with new members, volunteer associations were formed, and those who were exempt by law from the performance of military duty, were organized into several corps, and officered and disciplined for service. 1815. The glad tidings of Peace were announced here February 12, and our streets were thronged with delighted men and women, and resounded with acclamations of joy. The town was brilliantly illuminated in the evening, and although it was intensely cold, the streets were thronged to a late hour by persons of both sexes and of all ages, and the sound of mirth resounded from almost every dwelling. Many, however, who had been carried along by this tide of rejoicing, had cause to mourn when the excitement had subsided, and the “sober second thought” of reflection had returned. They had speculated largely, when prices were high, and vast amounts were invested in merchandise, the value of which, on restoration of peace, “fell, like Lucifer, never to rise again.” Many failures were the consequence; but to people at large, peace came as a blessing.
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This year was signalized by the Great Storm and high tide. The storm commenced Sept. 22, and the wind was violent, and increasing through the night and the succeeding morning, many houses were unroofed, and other blown down. The tide on the 23d, rose to an extraordinary height, the gale from the South-East was of unparalleled severity, both combined, they drove the principal part of the shipping in the harbor from its moorings up the river against Weybosset bridge, which in short time gave way, and the whole was driven up and landed on the northern shore of the cove. A large sloop was left a considerable distance North of Great Point, now the site of the State Prison, and between that point and the upper part of the Canal basin, were upwards of thirty sail, of a burthen from 500 tons downwards. The water entirely filled the lower stories of the buildings in Market- street, west of the bridge, and a portion of the brick wall of the Washington Insurance building, in the third story, was broken in by the bowsprit of the ship Ganges, as she was driven rapidly by in the foaming current. A sloop of some 50 or 60 tons was driven across Weybosset-street, into Pleasant-street, where she grounded. The Baptist meeting-house, built for Rev. Mr. Cornell, near Muddy Dock, now Dorrance-street, was entirely destroyed. Many houses, stores and barns were swept from the wharves in South Water, Weybosset and some other streets, into the cove, where many of them were crushed to pieces. The water at the junction of Westminster and Orange-streets was at least six feet in depth. Two human beings only here lost their lives in this storm, which was matter of great wonder, when so many were perilled. No measures were taken to ascertain the damage done by the storm, but it was estimated at about a million of dollars. 1817. President Monroe visited the town, June 30. His arrival had been anticipated, and the citizens had appointed a Committee to receive and welcome him, which Committee consisted of the Town Council and ten other gentlemen. He was received admist the ringing of bells, the discharge of cannon, and other demonstrations of joy, and was escorted from his place of landing from the steam-boat, by a civic and military procession, to the Golden Ball Inn (now Mansion House) where the Committee made him a very respectful address, to which he made a suitable response. On the following day he passed through the principal streets, on horseback, and at 11 o’clock left the town, under escort of the Light Dragoons. 1820. Population of the town, 11,745. The streets were furnished with lamps, and a spirit seemed to be awakened for public improvements. The melancholy tidings of the death of James Burrill, Jr. U.S. Senator from this State, were received here on the 30th of December, and cast a deep gloom over the whole community. On Sunday, the 31st, the unwelcome news was announced from the pulpits of all the churches, and at the close of morning service, the bells commenced a tolling and continued till night, and the flags at half-mast were displayed on the numerous flag- staves through the day. He was a citizen justly honored and esteemed, and went off in the height of his useful Senatorial
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career. The newspapers, which had a few days before recorded his eloquent speech on the Missouri question, were now shrouded in mourning at the irreparable loss. 1821. The Court of Common Pleas was then in session at Providence, and on Monday morning, the 1st of January, Gen. Bridgham, in behalf of the Bar, and as President of the General Bar meeting, rose and addressed the Court in the most feeling and impressive manner, on this melancholy event [the death, late in the previous year, of James Burrill, Jr. U.S. Senator from this State]. To which Chief Justice Martin responded in a brief and appropriate notice of the deceased, and in respect to his memory the Court then adjourned. At a General Bar Meeting assembled on the 3d, Resolutions expressive of grief and the highest respect to the memory of the deceased were passed, and Hon. Tristam Burges was appointed to deliver an eulogy on the 15th January - on which day, the members of the bar, and a great portion of the citizens, formed a procession, and marched to the First Congregational Church, where a most impressive and eloquent eulogy was pronounced by Mr. Burges, and solemn dirges and funeral ceremonies were performed. The auditory was bathed in tears, and the speaker himself was so strongly affected, that utterance was sometimes difficult. The newspapers at Washington, and letter writers there to papers in other places, laid their partisan feelings to rest, and spoke in the most respectful terms of his character as a man, a lawyer and a statesman. Mr. Burrill was born in this town in the year 1772; graduated at the University here in 1788; at the age of 19, was admitted to the bar, and at 25 elected Attorney General, which office held sixteen years, and resigned in 1814. In October of that year he was elected a member of the General Assembly, and was soon after chosen Speaker of that body, and continued as such while he held a seat in the House, but from which he was soon after transferred to the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court, as Chief Justice. In February, 1817, he was elected Senator to Congress, and before the expiration of half his constitutional term, was carried to the silent grave. He was a fine belles lettres scholar, and eminent lawyer, and able statesman. He was remarkably domestic in his habits, home was the cynosure of his delights, and there he was beloved and honored. 1824. A convention was called by the State to frame a written Constitution for the State, to which this town sent its quota of delegates. The Convention met at Newport, and formed a Constitution, which was submitted to the freemen, and was rejected. There was an almost unanimous vote in this town in its favor. - On the receipt of intelligence that Lafayette had again arrived in this country, the bells were rung, and the great guns were fired in this town. A Town meeting was called, a resolution was passed to invite this friend of American and human rights, to visit this town, and a committee of arrangements was appointed, consisting of the Town Council, and such as they might associate with them, to carry out the objects of the meeting. The distinguished visitor arrived at the westerly line of the town in Olneyville, August 23, at noon, where he was met
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and addressed by the committee of arrangements, and with them, was escorted by a vast civic and military procession to the State House. The streets were lined with citizens eager to see their country’s friend, the companion in arms and beloved of Washington; and thousands of “happy human faces” gave him evidence that he was a welcome and honored guest. He was conducted to the Senate Chamber, where he was received by the Governor, and was then introduced by the Committee to the crowd of citizens, who pressed forward to touch the patriot’s hand. He dined with the Committee and other citizens, reviewed the troops after dinner, and then departed for Boston. In front of the State House, he was recognized by Captain Stephen Olney as an old comrade, and their mutual rapturous joy, at this meeting, produced a strong sensation on the surrounding crowd. 1827. A committee was appointed by the town to build the Dexter Asylum, who immediately proceeded to the duties of their appointment, and under whose directions the present capacious building was completed in 1830. This building is 170 feet in length; the centre part is 55 feet deep, and the wings 45 feet. Its cost was $43,000. Its materials are brick and stone. The forty acre lot on which this Asylum stands, is surrounded by a stone wall 3 feet in thickness at the ground, and 8 feet in height, as directed in the Will of Ebenezer Knight Dexter, who gave this lot, and the bulk of his estate, real and personal, to the town, for the purpose of an asylum for the poor. The liberal donor died on the 10th day of August, 1824. He had been United States Marshal for many years previous to his death. The funds and property of this legacy are called the Dexter Donation, and are under the superintendence of five commissioners. The present master of the Asylum, Gideon Palmer, has held that place from the commencement of its operations. The Will of Mr. Dexter was drawn with great care by Gen. Samuel W. Bridgham, who was named therein as Executor, and charged with seeing the testator’s objects carried into effect. He discharged his duty with fidelity. - The first public meeting was holden in April, in the First Baptist Meeting house on the subject of promoting Temperance. It was well attended, and addressed by several of the clergy and other citizens. There were several meetings held at the same place by adjournment, at which many appeals were made to the citizens to practice moderation and temperance, but none broached the doctrine of total abstinence. These meetings, however, were the parent of the numerous temperance, total abstinence and cold water societies which now abound here, shedding their benign and healthy influence over the moral atmosphere of the community. 1828. Cove-street was completed, and a new bridge was built, by the Providence Washington Insurance Company, connecting it with Canal-street. 1830. Population of the town was 16,842. — A proposition for a City Charter failed to procure the number of votes required by the legislature, which was three-fifths of the number of persons voting.
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1831. A riot of four days continuance commenced Sept. 21, in Olney’s lane, North end. It originated with some sailors and the colored people living in the lane, one of the former being shot by a black man, and instantly killed. An immediate attack was made on the houses, and two were promptly destroyed. Each evening the mob increased in number, and violence. The efforts of the Town Council and the Sheriff to suppress it were ineffectual, and the services of the military were called into requisition by the Governor. On the fourth evening, the corps, near Shingle Bridge, were assailed by the crowd, with stones and other missiles, and were commanded to fire, which they did, and four men fell mortally wounded. The crowd dispersed, and quiet was restored. Nearly twenty small houses had been destroyed or badly injured. — At a town meeting, Nov. 22, more than three- fifths of the votes polled were in favor of a City Charter. 1832. The City Government was organized, and Samuel W. Bridgham was elected Mayor, on the 4th Monday of April, being the first election under City Charter. He retained his office, by repeated elections, to December 1839, when he died, and was succeeded by Thomas M. Burgess, the present Mayor. The Asiatic Cholera made its appearance here in August. It had, for some time, been doing the work of death in New-York and Philadelphia, and other cities, and its appearance in this city occasioned universal dismay. The Board of Health had a daily session, a new hospital was built, and every precaution was adopted by the city authorities to prevent its spread. Its ravages, however were not so disastrous or fatal, as was apprehended, and after a few weeks, it entirely disappeared. 1839. The Public Schools of this city were re-organized under a new system; the number of schools was increased, and several new, elegant and spacious school-houses were erected. 1842. The Constitution called “the People’s Constitution,” adopted by the Convention, and declared to be the paramount law of the State, January 12. This Constitution was formed by a Convention of delegates chosen by the Suffrage party, in primary meetings, which were not prescribed by any legislative act or resolution. —Town meetings were held April 21, to vote for the adoption or rejection of the Landholder’s Constitution, formed by a Convention under the authority of the Legislature, and the same was rejected. —The legislature under the People’s Constitution assembled and their officers were inaugurated. This was the only session holden by that body, or under that Constitution. At the close of the session, several of the members were arrested for treason, and misdemeanor, and this city and the whole State became the theatre of a most unhappy controversy, which continued its agitation through the summer. The events of that period are of such recent occurrence as to preclude the necessity of a more minute account here. 1843. The present State Constitution formed by a convention called together by authority of the General Assembly, was, by the proclamation of Gov. Samuel W. King, on the 23d of January, declared to be established, and the people of the State were
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required to conform to the same. Under this constitution, two elections of Governor and General Officers have been successfully holden, and the same is now in force, as the paramount law of Rhode Island.
The 3d edition of Moses Greenleaf’s MAP OF THE STATE OF MAINE WITH THE PROVINCE OF NEW BRUNSWICK (Portland: Shirley & Hyde), originally published in 1829. Henry David Thoreau would consult this, and trustingly go to great pains to copy it, at a tavern in Mattawamkeag during September 1846.71
Bogus Interior Lakes, Early On Bogus Lakes, No Excuse
TIMELINE OF THE MAINE WOODS
The negrero Enterprise of Boston was transferred in Brazil for purposes of engaging in the slave-trade (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 30th Congress, 1st session IV, Number 28, pages 79-90). W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: The rigorous climate of New England, the character of her settlers, and their pronounced political views gave slavery an even slighter basis here than in the Middle 71. He would be alarmed at the level of inaccuracy, of imagination, that he would discover. The latest detail map proved to be useless, or even harmful, as a basis for the planning of actual canoe portages!
(One can imagine that there would have been a good many excuses for cartographic surmise in the 17th Century –when obviously any interior detail on a map would of necessity have been derived from verbal reports of untrained travelers– but can there be any excuse for cartographic surmise in the 19th Century — when it might well be presumed by the viewer of such a map that this interior detail would have been based at least upon some preliminary survey of the topography?)
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colonies. The significance of New England in the African slave- trade does not therefore lie in the fact that she early discountenanced the system of slavery and stopped importation; but rather in the fact that her citizens, being the traders of the New World, early took part in the carrying slave-trade and furnished slaves to the other colonies. An inquiry, therefore, into the efforts of the New England colonies to suppress the slave-trade would fall naturally into two parts: first, and chiefly, an investigation of the efforts to stop the participation of citizens in the carrying slave-trade; secondly, an examination of the efforts made to banish the slave-trade from New England soil.
The negrero Uncas of New Orleans, since it was protected by United States papers, was allowed to clear despite its evident character (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 28th Congress, 2d session IX, Number 150, pages 106-14).
The negrero Sooy of Newport, Rhode Island was captured by the British sloop Racer after landing 600 slaves on the coast of Brazil and found to be sailing without papers (HOUSE DOCUMENT, 28th Congress, 2d session IV, Number 148, pages 4, 36-62).
The Cyrus, of New Orleans, suspected of being a negrero, was captured by the British cruiser Alert (HOUSE DOCUMENT, 28th Congress, 2d session IV, Number 148, pages 3-41).
During this year and the following one, 19 negreros from Beverly, Boston, Massachusetts, Baltimore, Maryland, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, New-York, New York, Providence, Rhode Island, and Portland, Maine would be making 22 slave-collecting trips (HOUSE DOCUMENT, 30th Congress, 2d session VII, Number 61, pages 219-20).
Between 1844 and 1849, there would be a total of 93 negreros known to be active in the Brazilian trade (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31st Congress, 2d session II, Number 6, pages 37-8). INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: Not only did the government thus negatively favor the slave-trade, but also many conscious, positive acts must be attributed to a spirit hostile to the proper enforcement of the slave-trade laws. In cases of doubt, when the law needed executive interpretation, the decision was usually in favor of the looser construction of the law; the trade from New Orleans to Mobile was, for instance, declared not to be coastwise trade, and consequently, to the joy of the Cuban smugglers, was left utterly free and unrestricted.72 After the conquest of Mexico, even vessels bound to California, by the way of Cape Horn, were allowed to clear coastwise, thus giving our flag to “the slave-pirates of the whole world.”73 Attorney- General Nelson declared that the selling to a slave-trader of an American vessel, to be delivered on the coast of Africa, was not aiding or abetting the slave-trade.74 So easy was it for slavers to sail that corruption among officials was hinted at.
72. OPINIONS OF ATTORNEYS-GENERAL, III. 512. 73. TENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE AMERICAN AND FOREIGN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, May 7, 1850, page 149. 74. OPINIONS OF ATTORNEYS-GENERAL, IV. 245.
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“There is certainly a want of proper vigilance at Havana,” wrote Commander Perry in 1844, “and perhaps at the ports of the United States;” and again, in the same year, “I cannot but think that the custom-house authorities in the United States are not sufficiently rigid in looking after vessels of suspicious character.”75 In the courts it was still next to impossible to secure the punishment of the most notorious slave-trader. In 1847 a consul writes: “The slave power in this city [i.e., Rio Janeiro] is extremely great, and a consul doing his duty needs to be supported kindly and effectually at home. In the case of the ‘Fame,’ where the vessel was diverted from the business intended by her owners and employed in the slave trade —both of which offences are punishable with death, if I rightly read the laws— I sent home the two mates charged with these offences, for trial, the first mate to Norfolk, the second mate to Philadelphia. What was done with the first mate I know not. In the case of the man sent to Philadelphia, Mr. Commissioner Kane states that a clear prima facie case is made out, and then holds him to bail in the sum of one thousand dollars, which would be paid by any slave trader in Rio, on the presentation of a draft. In all this there is little encouragement for exertion.”76 Again, the “Perry” in 1850 captured a slaver which was about to ship 1,800 slaves. The captain admitted his guilt, and was condemned in the United States District Court at New York. Nevertheless, he was admitted to bail of $5,000; this being afterward reduced to $3,000, he forfeited it and escaped. The mate was sentenced to two years in the penitentiary.77 Also several slavers sent home to the United States by the British, with clear evidence of guilt, escaped condemnation through technicalities.78
75. SENATE DOC., 28th Congress, 2d session, IX. No. 150, pages 108, 132. 76. HOUSE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENTS, 30th Congress, 2d session, VII. No. 61, page 18. 77. Foote, AFRICA AND THE AMERICAN FLAG, pages 286-90. 78. BRITISH AND FOREIGN STATE PAPERS, 1839-40, pages 913-4.
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The historian George Bancroft, from his summer “cottage” Roseclyffe at Newport (see following screen), weighed into Rhode Island’s “Dorr War” on the side of Governor Thomas Wilson Dorr. BANCROFT AND DORR
The Reverend John Stetson Barry began to serve the Universalist congregation of Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
At the foot of Meeting Street at the corner of Town Street, the Friends put what had been their 2d meetinghouse in Providence (Moshasuck), Rhode Island on heavy sledges and had it tugged (by a team of horses, we are told, although perhaps it was oxen) over snow down Town Street, then up Wickenden Street on Fox Point, and then uphill to 77 Hope Street, where it became a 2-family residence. Thus its century-and-a-quarter old foundation was cleared, to hold up the west half of a new larger meetinghouse (the east half of this 3d structure would be on top of a crawl space). This 3d meeting house would last us 112 years, until the city of Providence needed a central site for a proposed new Fire Station. Another site would be available to the city, but a brick building on it would be more expensive to clear and its location between North Main Street and Canal Street would
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offer inferior access for fire equipment. So we would sell our lot to the City, and erect a 4th-generation brick meetinghouse with a slate roof at the top of College Hill, at the corner of Olney and Morris on Friend Moses Brown’s donated property, in about 1952.
Belatedly recognizing the dangers of freebasing in your home kitchen in the presence of your children, Perry Davis purchased a building on Pond Street in which to mix up his patent vegetable painkiller consisting of opiates and ethanol. It would be asserted that freebie “cases of Davis’ medicine were shipped with every Baptist missionary bound for India and China.”
(Doesn’t that seem a bit like carrying coal to Newcastle? But it is not at all unusual –or so I have heard– for drug pushers to offer young people free samples in order to get them on the hook.)
January: The Rhode Island General Assembly abolished capital punishment for all crimes other than murder and arson.
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January: Since the Dexter Asylum was incapable of offering any treatment to its insane inmates more sophisticated than simple confinement, and since it was only available to the problem people of Providence rather than available to the entire state, the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations chartered the establishment of a “Rhode Island Asylum for the Insane.” The Committee of Incorporators for this new mental hospital appealed to Cyrus Butler, who was in all likelihood the richest man in New England, for assistance in their efforts, and received a conditional pledge of $40,000. To obtain this money, they would have to gather a matching amount from other members of the Rhode Island community. The committee would raise an additional $54,000 by their efforts and the name of the hospital would be changed to “Butler Hospital for the Insane.” PSYCHOLOGY
This American community had been taking steps to limit the influence of alcohol on its public life since April 1827, when the 1st public meeting on the subject of temperance had been organized at the 1st Baptist Church. A “City Temperance Society” had been formed on November 1, 1836, a “Providence Washington Total Abstinence Society” on July 8, 1841, a “Young Men’s Washington Total Abstinence Society” on July 9, 1841, a “Sixth Ward Washington Total Abstinence Society” on April 8, 1842, and a “Marine Washington Total
Abstinence Society” on August 29, 1842. The aggregate number of white citizens making pledges of total abstinence from alcohol in such societies by 1843 had risen to more than 5,000. At this point William J. Brown and his friends organized a new type of temperance society –one that would accept persons of color as members– calling their creation the “Young Men’s Union Friendly Association.” RACE POLITICS PAGES 122, 127-131: Among the varied causes which came up for consideration, and in which the colored people became interested was the temperance cause. Meetings were held and a temperance society was formed ... which was called the Young Men’s Union Friendly Association. It continued to grow and become very prosperous. I became a very active member in it being called upon to fill many prominent offices, and although all our members were married men, they still kept up the organization, proposing to get incorporated. I wrote the petition ... and gave
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it to Mr. Wingate Hayes to carry into the general assembly, and was noticed in the papers. The society expressed great surprise at our next meeting to find that our petition had gone into the general assembly, and at the next meeting I had the pleasure of informing them that our charter was granted. It was the first charter ever granted to a colored society of Rhode Island. The society were proud that they had made such an advancement, and proposed having a banner and paying a visit to some place where we could show ourselves. Some of our members went to a man on Westminster street who did that kind of painting, and asked what he would charge to paint a banner for our society. He inquired about the society, and was told that we had just been chartered. He wanted to see our constitution. We let him see it, and after examining our charter he said that he would get us up a banner for fifteen dollars, but did not wish to have it known as he would paint one for any one for less than fifty dollars. He got us up one with a house and a weeping willow on one side, over which was a star and the letters Y.M.U.F. Society, instituted 1828, and on the other side was a white and colored man joined hands with a flag staff between them, bearing the American flag and encircled by a wreath, having at the bottom the word Union, and above the wreath in a semi-circle form were the words Young Men’s Union Friend Society, incorporated January, 1844. Our uniform was black caps, with glazed tops. On the left breast was a gilt star with a blue ribbon attached, and cream colored patent leather belts with a brass clasp in front, and white pants, dress coats, and white gloves. They made a contract with Mr. Comstock, master of transportation, to carry us at half price. On the morning of the first we started with a large company. It was quite foggy, and rained hard before we reached New Bedford. They had postponed the celebration until the next day. The committee were in waiting for us at the depot, as the rain had ceased, and escorted us up, our banner being covered. The day was clear and bright, and at half-past nine we marched to the place where the line was to be formed. The procession moved at ten a.m., having a cavalcade of one hundred mounted men in front, followed by the Anti-Slavery societies, then our society, making a fine appearance. We marched to the Town Hall, escorted in and welcomed by the citizens. After being addressed by some of the officials the line was again formed and made a parade through some of the principal streets. We then repaired to the grove. A stage was prepared for the speakers and music. The society appointed me as the orator... The next morning we went home well pleased with our visit. After we got our charter, the Young Men’s Friendly Assistant Society, and the Seaman’s Friend Society, applied for an act of incorporation and received charters. We then had three incorporated Societies in our city, besides The Mutual Relief, The Young Men’s Morning Star, The Temperance Society and the Anti-Slavery Societies, making in all seven active societies, ready to unite on any occasion requiring their services. They were called out every year on the first of August, as we generally had a grand demonstration on that day, with a procession which paraded the principal streets of the city, and retired to a grove and spent the day in speaking and
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partaking of refreshments.
April 10, Wednesday: Dorothea Dix began a series of articles in the Providence Journal, describing the manner in which Rhode Island was, at the Dexter Asylum, neglecting its citizens who were victims of mental illness. These articles followed the format of thorough research and graphic descriptions of individual cases which Dix had established in dealing with the Massachusetts legislature. The Butler Hospital for the Insane would result from Dix’s efforts and the philanthropy of businessman Nicholas Brown and industrialist Cyrus Butler.79 PSYCHOLOGY
June: Thomas Wilson Dorr was convicted of treason and sentenced to solitary confinement in Rhode Island at hard labor for life. (Start holding your breath now.)
READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
September: Brook Farm added the following new recruits:
Name Birthplace Birthdate Occupation
Elmira Daniels Keene NH 1819 seamstress
Alex Murray St. Johns, New Brunswick 1820 cabinetmaker
George Pierce ? ? ?
79. Street, W.R. A CHRONOLOGY OF NOTEWORTHY EVENTS IN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 1994
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Name Birthplace Birthdate Occupation
Peter Kleinstrup Denmark 1800 gardener
Charles Hosmer Medford MA 1820 shoemaker
James Clapp Smithfield, Rhode Island 1816 bricklayer
October: Brook Farm added the following new recruits:
Name Birthplace Birthdate Occupation
Alpha Clapp Cumberland, Rhode Island 1820 wife of bricklayer
Caroline Clapp Boston MA 1824 seamstress
Augustina Kleinstrup Denmark 1808 wife of gardener
October: The following article about Thomas Wilson Dorr and his “Dorr War” in Rhode Island appeared in Orestes Augustus Brownson’s Brownson’s Quarterly Review: The Suffrage Party in Rhode Island It is no pleasant task to us to review this work, a professed history of the proceedings of the late suffrage party in Rhode Island. It is a work written with intense feeling, and very considerable ability, by one for whom we entertain, and always must entertain, a very high personal regard. We find in it the spirit of a very high-toned woman, a woman’s deep sympathies, just sense of humanity, and, we may add, a woman’s reasoning, more perplexing than convincing, and better adapted to touch the heart than to satisfy the understanding. Moreover, we once ventured to call the individual principally concerned in these proceedings our personal friend. We esteemed him as a man of no mean intellectual ability, of firm principles, of ardent devotion to popular rights, a true-hearted patriot, and an honest man. And of him, personally, we have seen no cause to change our opinion. We have delighted to meet him, and felt ourselves honored by his friendship. We should regard his friendship, which unhappily we do not retain, no less now he occupies a prisoner’s cell, than formerly. We believe he acted from his convictions of right, that he was sincere in what he attempted, and that his only motive was to benefit the mass of the people of his native state. And yet we have never for one moment approved the proceedings of the suffrage party. We, in common with the great body of the American people, wished to see the elective franchise extended to the great mass of those who could not be electors under the old established freehold qualification. Though not by any means
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accustomed to rate the elective franchise so high as do the members generally of the political party with which we are associated, and though very far from believing the acquisition of universal suffrage equivalent to the acquisition of liberty, or that universal suffrage affords any considerable guaranty, in a country where inequality of property obtains, of wise or just government,- we have yet believed it essential to the perfection of the political system adopted in this country, and have therefore always advocated its general adoption. Accordingly, we were among those who encouraged the formation of the suffrage association, believing, as we did, that its only design was to act on public opinion, and by the force of opinion, to compel the charter government to take measures for the formation and adoption of a more liberal constitution. We willingly accepted an invitation to address the association, in Providence, early in January, 1841, in favor of an extension of suffrage. We watched the progress of the movement up to the time of calling the suffrage convention, when, becoming engrossed with other matters, we paid no more attention to the subject, till about the time when the new government under the people’s constitution was preparing to organize itself. We regarded the whole proceedings under that constitution as illegal and revolutionary; but we were not disposed to condemn them with much severity, because we could not perceive how any amendment could be legally introduced, or the evils complained of legally redressed. We supposed the restriction on suffrage was a provision of the charter, and, if so, it could not be altered by any legal authority in the state, as the charter did not provide for its own amendment. Taking this view of the question, we argued, that, let the measures for the extension of suffrage, or the formation of a new constitution emanate from what source they might, from the suffrage association or from the general assembly, since not authorized by the charter from which existing authorities derive their existence and power, they must needs be, in fact, illegal and revolutionary. The people’s constitution is, we said, confessedly illegal in its origin; but so also must be a constitution framed by a convention called by the general assembly, for the general assembly has no authority from the charter to call a convention. Since, then, the suffrage association have called a convention, since that convention has framed a constitution, and since a majority of the people of Rhode Island, as it is alleged, have voted for it, it is decidedly best to let it go peaceably into operation. It is not, it is true, a good constitution; it contains several very objectionable features; but as it provides for its own amendment, it may hereafter be amended; and, bad as it is, it is better than the old charter. Presuming, from the information we received, that an immense majority of the people were satisfied with it, we concluded that nothing was wanted but a little firmness on the part of Mr. Dorr and his friends in its defense, to induce the charter party to yield, and suffer the new government to go quietly into operation; and being also a little indignant at what we regarded the unwarrantable
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interference of the federal executive, we wrote to Mr. Dorr a letter, which he has since done us the honor to publish, and which we must have received a day or two before his attack on the arsenal, detailing the conversation we had with a Whig member of the Massachusetts legislature, and urging him to firmness in asserting the constitution under which he was elected. That the letter may be construed into the expression of approbation of Mr. Dorr’s principle of proceeding is very possible, for it was hastily written for a special purpose; but it was not intended to express any approbation of any thing but his cause, to wit, extension of suffrage; for that was all in his proceedings we approved. But, after Mr. Dorr’s failure, it came out that the limitation of suffrage to a freehold qualification was not a provision of the charter, but an act of the legislature. This changed the whole aspect of the case; for now it could no longer be pretended that there was no legal authority in the state competent to extend the elective franchise to all to whom it could be advisable to extend it. We saw that we had reasoned from false premises, and had therefore come to false conclusions. And when we met with a very able pamphlet on the subject by Mr. Elisha R. Potter, at present a member of congress from Rhode Island, we found that we could not, without belying our own cherished convictions, any longer countenance, in any form or manner, the proceedings of the suffrage party. Since then, we have expressed, on various occasions, our dissent from them, and in some essays on the Origin and Ground of Government, we discussed the whole doctrine involved in them with as much thoroughness as seemed to us necessary. We have made these personal explanations, because our course in regard to the suffrage movement in Rhode Island has been much misrepresented, and adduced as another instance of our fickleness and frequent changes of doctrine and position; and because it has been made the occasion of bringing us, to no inconsiderable extent, under the ban of our own party. We have no apology to offer, and nothing of which to accuse ourselves, but that of relying on the representations made of the charter by our suffrage friends, instead of consulting the charter itself. Had we taken the proper pains to inform ourselves of its real character, in the first instance, we should have never for a moment seemed to occupy any other position in regard to the suffrage movement than we do now; for our principles have undergone no change, and we had expressed, had even written out and published, the some doctrines as applicable to the case before, that we have since, as any one may satisfy himself by consulting Mr. Potter’s pamphlet to which we have already alluded. On one point, however, the controversy growing out of the Rhode Island suffrage movement has led us to reflect more than we had previously done, and on which our views, if not changed, have at least become clearer and more definite. We refer to what is called the sacred right of revolution. We believe the political sovereignty, under the spiritual sovereignty of Christ, which has always a visible embodiment and organ on earth, resides in the
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body of the nation. We say nation instead of people, because the term is less ambiguous. The term nation conveys always the idea of a corporation, an organic body; while the word people may mean only a numerical collection of individuals. A nation never exists without a legal constitution of some sort, written or unwritten, and some legal forms or modes for collecting the national sense. Now, since the nation has a corporate existence by virtue of the fact that it is a nation, it possesses in itself the supreme political power, which commissions all the officers of government, and to which they are responsible. When these officers, or what is called the government, betray their trust, break the fundamental laws of the nation, whether those laws are written on parchment, or in the customs of the people existing from time immemorial, the nation, acting in accordance with these laws and customs, may unmake the administrators of the government, commission new ones, and institute new guaranties against abuses, and even by force of arms, if necessary. So far as this is a right of revolution, we are advocates of that right, but no further. But so long as the legitimate administrators of the government observe the national laws, and administer the government in accordance with them, honestly, and with a single eye to the maintenance of justice, we hold all resistance to the civil authority to be criminal. A revolution, for the mere purpose of changing the form of government, of substituting one form of government for another, as monarchy for aristocracy, or democracy for monarchy, or vice versa, we hold to be never justifiable. The authorities must themselves transgress the national laws, and put themselves thus out of the protection of the law, before the citizen or subject can have the right to resist them. We may resist tyrants and usurpers, but never the lawful magistrate in the lawful discharge of his official functions. The principles here laid down will justify the colonists in their separation from Great Britain, but not Mr. Dorr in his attempted revolution in Rhode Island. Our fathers took up arms to resist an aggression on their constitutional and chartered rights. They contended, not that the British government had invaded or failed to secure certain assumed abstract rights of man, but their rights as recognized by the British constitution and the colonial charters. It is against George III as a tyrant, as violating the national laws, that they profess to take up arms; not against the king in the legal exercise of his constitutional prerogative. But the suffrage party planted themselves on no national law of Rhode Island, written or unwritten, they alleged, and could allege, no transgression, on the part of the charter government, of any public law, no usurpation, no act of tyranny. They simply alleged that the charter government did not correspond to their notions of the best possible form of government, did not secure what they regarded as the abstract rights of man; and they took up arms, not to expel a tyrant or usurper, but to establish a new form of government, more conformable to their notions of abstract truth and justice. Here is a broad difference between the suffrage men and the
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patriots of the revolution, which the author of the work before us has failed to recognize, and which would have prevented her, had she recognized it, from placing the heroes of Federal Hill and Chepachet on the same line with the heroes of Saratoga and Yorktown. The former were, view them in what light you will, rebels against legitimate authority; but the latter were resisting aggression, and vindicating the violated majesty of the laws. The suffrage men may have meant well, and they may have incurred no great share of moral guilt; for to moral guilt there must be a guilty moral intent, or, what is the same thing, a culpable ignorance. But they were politically rebels, and could be treated only as such by a government that respected itself, and resolved to discharge its legal functions. We regard this question as one of vital importance in our country. The laws have, with us, their chief support in public opinion. Let that opinion become unsound or corrupt, and the laws lose their force, and we are without protection. If the doctrine once obtain among us, that legal authority may be set aside for the purpose of making the government conform to our abstract theories of human rights, there is no foreseeing the lawlessness and anarchy which will ensue. The symptoms are already threatening; and recent riots and mobs, and, worse of all, the delay and hesitancy of authority in using force for their suppression, and the very extensive doubts which obtain as to the rightfulness of resorting to force at all, are to us really not a little alarming. We are, we own, sensitive on this subject; when we reflect that we have recently come to entertain a faith extremely odious to the great majority of our countrymen, and when we see associations formed expressly for its suppression, its adherents shot down by an armed mob in the streets, and its consecrated churches in flames, while the rabble, not composed altogether of those commonly meant by the lower classes, look on and shout, we feel more and more the necessity of rebuking the mobocratic spirit, in whatever form it may manifest itself, and more and more the necessity of inculcating a reverence for law, and strict obedience to the lawful magistrate in the discharge of his lawful duties. We cannot afford, in this country, to insist on “the sacred right of insurrection,” for we shall, if we do, have bands of insurgents in every town, village, and hamlet, in the land. Whatever we may think of Mr. Dorr and his friends personally, we cannot approve their measures, or defend their doctrines, without a terrible hazard to the country, to all security of peace, life, property, and conscience. As to the proceedings of the law and order party in Rhode Island, we are far from believing that they are in all cases defensible. We are glad that that party has succeeded; but it is evident now that it magnified the real danger, and was less calm and collected than it might have been. We think the friends of the government suffered themselves to be exasperated beyond measure, and to practice, in some instances, cruelties which were as cowardly as they were uncalled for. But we must say for the people of Rhode Island of both parties, that in general they came as near making war on Christian principles as could be
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expected. They seem to have had a generous disposition to do as little harm as possible to their friends and neighbors. Still, we wish the friends of the government had shown a little more consideration to the prisoners taken at Chepachet after the war was over, and, as they had shown much tenderness of heart during the battle, that they had continued to show the some in the flush of victory. They must have known that the suffrage men, women, and children, however mistaken or deluded, were not really criminally disposed, and would not have espoused the cause they did, had they felt that it was morally wrong. But making all abatements for the panic and the momentary cruelty, we doubt whether, upon the whole, we ought not to say that the Algerines, as they are called, conducted with singular moderation and leniency, under the circumstances. We cannot wholly approve of their doings, but we do not think that they are deserving any great severity of censure. It seems to us, that, since the panic subsided,- perhaps not an unreasonable panic,- they have been disposed to let off the offenders as easily as possible. The convictions and punishments have been very few; and we believe that there has been no one, charged only with a political offense, but could have escaped all punishment by taking an oath of allegiance to the existing government, and giving moderate bonds to keep the peace. We are sure no government was ever more moderate in its demands, or showed itself more ready to forgive and forget the past. The case of Mr. Dorr is, we own, one of considerable hardship. Mr. Dorr had, we believe, no private ambition to gratify; we know, personally, that he very reluctantly became involved in the proceedings of the suffrage party, and we have no doubt that he himself believed that he was engaged in a great and holy cause, and perfectly justifiable in the course he took. It may be said that he ought to have known better, lawyer as he was, and this cannot be denied; but when we find such men as Mr. Van Buren, Senators Benton and Allen, Governors Hubbard and Morton, and Messrs. Bancroft, M’Neil, Rantoul, and Hallett, supporting him, and maintaining the strict justice and legality of his proceedings, we may, perhaps, find some palliation of his offence. We can easily believe him free from moral guilt. His party is so completely prostrated, and public opinion, notwithstanding appearances, is so decidedly against his proceedings, that we do not believe that considerations of public safety require his incarceration. Personally he has been at least sufficiently punished. The government of Rhode Island is as firmly established as that of any other state in the Union. Let it permit one, whose good intentions it has no reason to distrust, to tell it that it is strong enough to be generous. We own, the insane proceedings of individuals out of the state must be offensive, and that no government that respects itself can yield to their demands. They are wrong. They are cruel to Mr. Dorr, whose friends they pretend they are. They are really his worst enemies. And yet the government can disregard them, and be generous without fear of misconstruction. An act of clemency is sometimes worth more to a government than the infliction of a merited punishment. The government has done
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itself honor by imposing the heaviest penalty on the chief instead of the subalterns. It has vindicated the majesty of the law; it has shown its justice; now let it show its mercy, and blot out the memory of its past. We have been assured that the authorities of Rhode Island are ready to liberate Mr. Dorr the moment he testifies his willingness to submit to the existing government, and to take the oath of allegiance. That he should be reluctant to do this is not strange. He holds that he has committed no offence; that the acts for which he is punished were done by him as the rightful governor of the state, in the conscientious discharge of his constitutional functions. His failure to maintain his authority before superior force did not and could not vitiate his title, or render his acts criminal. Shall he now yield, acknowledge himself guilty, and sue for pardon? No; better die on the scaffold, or rot in the dungeon. This is the view which he takes. We hope we are able to reverence the martyr spirit wherever we see it displayed; and we frankly own, that, if we took Mr. Dorr’s own view of his case, we should look upon him as a sublime example of moral heroism. But he himself must be aware that there is something to be said on the other side. Even his acceptance of the office of governor under the people’s constitution was treason by the law of the state. Of this he cannot doubt. Then he was not the rightful governor of the state; and if not the rightful governor of the state, there can be no question that the acts that he performed rendered him guilty of treason. The act of the general assembly, April 6, 1842, entitled “An act in relation to offences against the sovereign power of the state,” declared his attempt to exercise the office of governor to be treason; and that law was valid, because the general assembly was still in the full exercise of all its legislative functions, had been superseded by no law paramount to its own, and was, in fact, the only known legislative authority in Rhode Island. It is idle to pretend, that, on the 6th of April, 1842, the general assembly had ceased to exist, or in any sense been superseded. An association, unrecognized by any public law or any public authority, had, it is true, framed an instrument which was called a constitution, had sent it out, and a number of persons in Rhode Island, said to be a majority of all the adult males in the state, recorded their names in its favor, and certain individuals, equally unknown to all existing public authority, declared it to be the paramount law of the land. But this could not make it so. Everybody knows that it was not the paramount law of the land de facto. Was it the paramount law de jure? Its advocates say now, indeed, that it was, because a majority of the people of Rhode Island had voted for it. But to this we may reply, 1, That the fact, that a majority did vote for it, has never been legally ascertained, and is more than questionable; 2. That it is well known that the intent of large numbers who did vote for it was, not to establish it as the constitution of the state, but simply to record their opinion in favor of an extension of suffrage; and 3. That, even if a majority had voted for it with the intent to adopt it as a constitution, it would
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not have been the paramount law of the land, because there was no law in Rhode Island, written or unwritten, which declared the will of the majority of the adult male population the supreme law. Furthermore, the existing public authorities ignored it, and its warmest and most influential friends did not hesitate to acknowledge the legality of the existing authorities, by holding seats in the general assembly, and participating in its doings. Mr. Atwill, a legal gentleman of respectable attainments, and subsequently Mr. Dorr’s attorney general, when the question came up in the assembly, was unwilling to give it as his opinion that the people’s constitution was the paramount law of the land, and even expressed a doubt to the contrary. The whole conduct of the suffrage party at the time shows that they entertained the some doubt. The propositions made respectively by Messrs. Burgess and Keech, two of Mr. Dorr’s friends, to the assembly,- propositions to abandon, on certain conditions, the people’s constitution,- showed that it was not regarded by them as having any legal force; for, if they had so regarded it, they could not have made propositions for setting it aside, for they would have regarded such propositions as treasonable. But if this constitution was not at that time the paramount law of the land, as it was not, either in fact or in right, or even in the estimation of its friends, the general assembly was in full force as the supreme legislative authority of the state. Consequently, its legal acts were binding on all the citizens of the state. They were, then, binding on Mr. Dorr, and, by doing what it declared to be treason, he incurred the political guilt of treason, and therefore became obnoxious to the penalty annexed. Now, since nothing can be clearer than that he is guilty of treason according to the laws of his state, there can be no real self-abasement or want of manliness, in admitting the fact, by submitting to the existing authorities, and consenting to receive a pardon. We say further, that, setting all this reasoning aside, Mr. Dorr is bound by his own principles to submit to the existing government, and to take the oath of allegiance. Mr. Dorr contends that the majority of the people have the inherent right to rule. This, with him, is a natural right, as least recognized as such by the American system of government. We, of course, do not admit this; but he does, and that is enough for him. The will of the majority, therefore, however expressed, is the supreme law. The people’s constitution was adopted by the majority of the people; therefore it was the supreme law. He was elected governor under that constitution, and therefore he was legally elected, and therefore was the rightful governor of the state. Be it so. But, subsequently to the adoption of the people’s constitution, a majority of the people of Rhode Island adopted another constitution. This subsequent constitution necessarily overrides the preceding one. Now, if the will of the majority has a right to rule, it has the right to rule through this subsequent constitution; for this is the latest expression of their will. Consequently, Mr. Dorr is bound by his own principles to recognize it as the legitimate government, and may
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therefore take the oath of allegiance without abandoning in the least the principles for which he has contended. We are surprised that he did not see this, and avail himself of this argument, before his trial; for we presume, that, if he had done so, and taken the oath, he would not have been brought to a trial at all. But we have no room to extend our remarks. We have merely wished, while expressing our sympathy with Mr. Dorr, and our earnest desire for his liberation and restoration to his social and civil rights, to say a word in defence of the authorities of Rhode Island. We believe the government of Rhode Island is much calumniated, and that, if the American people fairly understood the case, they would by no means tolerate the abuse so liberally heaped upon it. For ourselves, we believe that the interest of humanity and social progress are fully as likely to be promoted by siding with the public authorities in the legal discharge of their legal functions, as with those who resist them. It is not the part of good citizens to take it for granted that the government is always in the wrong, and that they who resist are always in the right. As a general rule, the interests of social and individual progress and well-being require us to sustain the constituted authorities, and always when these authorities keep within the sphere of their constitutional powers. For the book which we have introduced, we have not much to say. It is ably, in some passages eloquently, and even powerfully, written. It is not always correct in its details, and is very far from possessing the true character of an historical work. The most we can say of it is, that it is an able, an eloquent, apology for Mr. Dorr and his friends,- as able as any thing we have written on the subject. But it is so erroneous in its premises, so false in its conclusions, so dangerous in its doctrines, so well calculated to mislead, and to undermine the foundations of all proper respect for authority, for law, that we dare not recommend it to our readers. READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
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November 20, Wednesday-22, Friday: Frederick Douglass lectured at Mechanics’ Hall in Providence before the annual meeting of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society.
In the library of the British Museum, while in London for a meeting of the Geological Society, Charles Darwin read Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation: Large parts of what moved other readers, such as the stirring account of the nebular hypothesis or the future of humanity, were quickly skimmed. Darwin approached the text not as a sweeping cosmological narrative but as a botched version of his own manuscript. [H]is geology strikes me as bad, & his zoology far worse.
1845
London Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends had a leading in regard to capital punishment: This punishment fails to produce the effect of deterring others.... [I]t is even the means of hardening in sin many who witness public executions.
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Meanwhile, the person being awarded the distinction of being the last to hang in Rhode Island was an immigrant named John Gordon. Many believed at that time that this 20-year-old was simply a victim of local prejudice against the Irish — and the consensus now seems to be that indeed he was most likely innocent of the crime for which he was being hanged. (But who knows, maybe he had something else reprehensible on his conscience and was able to muse on that error as they placed the hood over his head — there’s precious few of us who aren’t guilty of something!) COLDBLOODED MURDER
WOMEN HANGED IN ENGLAND DURING 1845
Date Name Age Place of execution Crime
11/01 Mary Sheming 51 Bury St Edmunds Murder of son
23/04 Sarah Freeman 28 Taunton Murder of brother
At the facilities of the R.G. Hazard & Co cotton cloth company on the Saugatucket River in Peace Dale in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, one of the buildings burned (it would be rebuilt).
Between this point and 1850 ownership of the Machine Shop property at Saylesville passed from the Olney family to Elisha Godfrey and Steven Clark. Ultimately, Clark would pass his interest on to Arnold Moffett of Attleboro, Massachusetts.
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Henry Thoreau, in describing the French Canadian Catholic Alek Therien in this year, was supposing him to be 28 years old although actually he was 34:
WALDEN: Who should come to my lodge this morning but a true Homeric or PEOPLE OF Paphlagonian man, –he had so suitable and poetic a name that I am sorry WALDEN I cannot print it here,– a Canadian, a wood-chopper and post-maker, who can hole fifty posts in a day, who make his last supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. He, too, has heard of Homer, and, “if it were not for books,” would “not know what to do rainy days,” though perhaps he has not read one wholly through for many rainy seasons. Some priest who could pronounce the Greek itself taught him to read his verse in the testament in his native parish far away; and now I must translate to him, while he holds the book, Achilles’ reproof to Patroclus for his sad countenance. –“Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?” – “Or have you alone heard some news from Phthia? They say Menœtius lives yet, son of Actor, And Peleus lives, son of Æacus, among the Myrmidons, Either of whom having died, we should greatly grieve.” He says, “That’s good.” He has a great bundle of white-oak bark under his arm for a sick man, gathered this Sunday morning. “I suppose there’s no harm in going after such a thing to-day,” says he. To him Homer was a great writer, though what his writing was about he did not know. A more simple and natural man it would be hard to find. Vice and disease, which cast such a sombre moral hue over the world, seemed to have hardly any existence for him. He was about twenty-eight years old, and had left Canada and his father’s house a dozen years before to work in the States, and earn money to buy a farm with at last, perhaps in his native country. He was cast in the coarsest mould; a stout but sluggish body, yet gracefully carried, with a thick sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and dull sleepy blue eyes, which were occasionally lit up with expression. He wore a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy wool-colored greatcoat, and cowhide boots. He was a great consumer of meat, usually carrying his dinner to his work a couple of miles past my house, –for he chopped all summer,– in a tin pail; cold meats, often cold woodchucks, and coffee in a stone bottle which dangled by a string from his belt; and sometimes he offered me a drink. He came along early, crossing my bean-field, though without anxiety or haste to get to his work, such as Yankees exhibit. He wasn’t a-going to hurt himself. He didn’t care if he only earned his board. Frequently he would leave his dinner in the bushes, when his dog had caught a woodchuck by the way, and go back a mile and a half to dress it and leave it in the cellar of the house where he boarded, after deliberating first for half an hour whether he could not sink it in the pond safely till nightfall, –loving to dwell long upon these themes. He would say, as he went by in the morning, “How thick the pigeons are! If working every day were not my trade, I could get all the meat I should want by hunting, –pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges,– by gosh! I could get all I should want for a week in one day.”
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He was a skilful chopper, and indulged in some flourishes and ornaments in his art. He cut his trees level and close to the ground, that the sprouts which came up afterward might be more vigorous and a sled might slide over the stumps; and instead of leaving a whole tree to support his corded wood, he would pare it away to a slender stake or splinter which you could break off with your hand at last. He interested me because he was so quiet and solitary and so happy withal; a well of good humor and contentment which overflowed at his eyes. His mirth was without alloy. Sometimes I saw him at his work in the woods, felling trees, and he would greet me with a laugh of inexpressible satisfaction, and a salutation in Canadian French, though he spoke English as well. When I approached him he would suspend his work, and with half-suppressed mirth lie along the trunk of a pine which he had felled, and, peeling off the inner bark, roll it up into a ball and chew it while he laughed and talked. Such an exuberance of animal spirits had he that he sometimes tumbled down and rolled on the ground with laughter at any thing which made him think and tickled him. Looking round upon the trees he would exclaim, – “By George! I can enjoy myself well enough here chopping; I want no better sport.” Sometimes, when at leisure, he amused himself all day in the woods with a pocket pistol, firing salutes to himself at regular intervals as he walked. In the winter he had a fire by which at noon he warmed his coffee in a kettle; and as he sat on a log to eat his dinner the chicadees would sometimes come round and alight on his arm and peck at the potato in his fingers; and he said that he “liked to have the little fellers about him.” In him the animal man chiefly was developed. In physical endurance and contentment he was cousin to the pine and the rock. I asked him once if he was not sometimes tired at night, after working all day; and he answered, with a sincere and serious look, “Gorrappit, I never was tired in my life.” But the intellectual and what is called spiritual man in him were slumbering as in an infant. He had been instructed only in that innocent and ineffectual way in which the Catholic priests teach the aborigines, by which the pupil is never educated to the degree of consciousness, but only to the degree of trust and reverence, and a child is not made a man, but kept a child. When Nature made him, she gave him a strong body and contentment for his portion, and propped him on every side with reverence and reliance, that he might live out his threescore years and ten a child. He was so genuine and unsophisticated that no introduction would serve to introduce him, more than if you introduced a woodchuck to your neighbor. He had got to find him out as you did. He would not play any part. Men paid him wages for work, and so helped to feed and clothe him; but he never exchanged opinions with them. He was so simply and naturally humble –if he can be called humble who never aspires– that humility was no distinct quality in him, nor could he conceive of it. Wiser men were demigods to him. If you told him that such a one was coming, he did as if he thought that any thing so grand would expect nothing of himself, but take all the responsibility on itself, and let him be forgotten still. He never heard the sound of praise. He particularly reverenced the writer and the preacher. Their performances were miracles.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4757 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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When I told him that I wrote considerably, he thought for a long time that it was merely the handwriting which I meant, for he could write a remarkably good hand himself. I sometimes found the name of his native parish handsomely written in the snow by the highway, with the proper French accent, and knew that he had passed. I asked him if he ever wished to write his thoughts. He said that he had read and written letters for those who could not, but he never tried to write thoughts, –no, he could not, he could not tell what to put first, it would kill him, and then there was spelling to be attended to at the same time! I heard that a distinguished wise man and reformer [Waldo Emerson?] asked him if he did not want the world to be changed; but he answered with a chuckle of surprise in his Canadian accent, not knowing that the question had ever been entertained before, “No, I like it well enough.” It would have suggested many things to a philosopher to have dealings with him. To a stranger he appeared to know nothing of things in general; yet I sometimes saw in him a man whom I had not seen before, and I did not know whether he was as wise as Shakspeare or simply ignorant as a child, whether to suspect him of a fine poetic consciousness or of stupidity. A townsman [Waldo Emerson?] told me that when he met him sauntering through the village in his small close-fitting cap, and whistling to himself, he reminded him of a prince in disguise. His only books were an almanac and an arithmetic, in which last he was considerably expert. The former was a sort of cyclopaedia to him, which he supposed to contain an abstract of human knowledge, as indeed it does to a considerable extent. I loved to sound him on the various reforms of the day, and he never failed to look at them in the most simple and practical light. He had never heard of such things before. Could he do without factories? I asked. He had worn the home-made Vermont gray, he said, and that was good. Could he dispense with tea and coffee? Did this country afford any beverage beside water? He had soaked hemlock leaves in water and drank it, and thought that was better than water in warm weather. When I asked him if he could do without money, he showed the convenience of money in such a way as to suggest and coincide with the most philosophical accounts of the origin of this institution, and the very derivation of the word pecunia.” If an ox were his property, and he wished to get needles and thread at the store, he thought it would be inconvenient and impossible soon to go on mortgaging some portion of the creature each time to that amount. He could defend many institutions better than any philosopher, because, in describing them as they concerned him, he gave the true reason for their prevalence, and speculation had not suggested to him any other. At another time, hearing Plato’s definition of a man, –a biped without feathers,– and that one exhibited a cock plucked and called it Plato’s man, he thought it an important difference that the knees bent the wrong way. He would sometimes exclaim, “How I love to talk! By George, I could talk all day” I asked him once, when I had not seen him for many months, if he had got a new idea this summer. “Good Lord,” said he, “a man that has to work as I do, if he does not forget the ideas he has had, he will do well.
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May be the man you hoe with is inclined to race; then, by gorry, your mind must be there; you think of weeds.” He would sometimes ask me first on such occasions, if I had made any improvement. One winter day I asked him if he was always satisfied with himself, wishing to suggest a substitute within him for the priest without, and some higher motive for living. “Satisfied!” said he; “some men are satisfied with one thing, and some with another. One man, perhaps, if he has got enough, will be satisfied to sit all day with his back to the fire and his belly to the table, by George!” Yet I never, by any manœuvring, could get him to take the spiritual view of things; the highest that he appeared to conceive of was a simple expediency, such as you might expect an animal to appreciate; and this, practically, is true of most men. If I suggested any improvement in his mode of life, he merely answered, without expressing any regret, that it was too late. Yet he thoroughly believed in honesty and like virtues. There was a certain positive originality, however slight, to be detected in him, and I occasionally observed that he was thinking for himself and expressing his own opinion, a phenomenon so rare that I would any day walk ten miles to observe it, and it amounted to the re-origination of many of the institutions of society. Though he hesitated, and perhaps failed to express himself distinctly, he always had a presentable thought behind. Yet his thinking was so primitive and immersed in his animal life, that, though more promising than a merely learned man’s, it rarely ripened to any thing which can be reported. He suggested that there might be men of genius in the lowest grades of life, however permanently humble and illiterate, who take their own view always, or do not pretend to see at all; who are as bottomless even as Walden Pond was thought to be, though they may be dark and muddy.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4759 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Since we may wonder, what is a Paphlagonian man, here was Paphlagonia:
Since in this passage Thoreau commented on the publishing institution known as the “almanac,” here are a couple of the almanacs that were being issued in this year, in Providence, Rhode Island:
•THE PROVIDENCE ALMANAC FOR 1845. •THE RHODE-ISLAND ALMANAC FOR 1845. By Isaac Bickerstaff
WALDEN: His [Alek Therien the woodchopper’s] only books were an almanac and an arithmetic, in which last he was considerably expert. The former was a sort of cyclopaedia to him, which he supposed to contain an abstract of human knowledge, as indeed it does to a considerable extent.
Douglas R. Anderson, in A House Undivided, has commented on Alek Therien’s recorded comment about the world, “I like it well enough,” that “Thoreau, by and large, likes it well enough too, and Walden is the record of this curiously adversarial contentment.” It has been noted that Therien’s name evokes the Greek for “animal,” therion. This was not a reason for Thoreau to alter the name in publishing his comments, for truly the more respectable citizens of Concord town, from their own point of view at least, would have been looking down on Therien the French-Canadian day laborer as virtually an animal, lower than an Indian, lower even than the Irish, and also, Thoreau, from his point of view, would have looked up to Therien as an animal, a truly natural part of the Walden Woods biome.80 Ancient Taoists apparently believed that people overemphasized differences in individual human virtue. According to them, everyone shared a basic goodness, which striving could only confuse and conceal. Similarly, the ancient Greek Cynics advocated lives of simplicity, naturalness, and lack of striving. Like the Taoists, they mocked social conventions and philosophical theorizing. Therien does not strive or question, 80. Douglas R. Anderson. A HOUSE UNDIVIDED: DOMESTICITY AND COMMUNITY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990
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yet he exhibits the sort of natural goodness and acceptance of his lot in life that the Taoists and Cynics would have equated with virtue. Such ideas have been largely ignored in the contemporary virtue ethics revival; not because they are rationally untenable, I believe, but because they are uncongenial to the scholarly mandarins writing the books. yet these are perennial alternatives within virtue ethics, ineradicably grounded in human experience. Thoreau to his credit seriously considers them, entertaining both the ideas that Therien is subhuman and superhuman. Like the ancient moralists, Thoreau countenances no distinction between pure and applied ethics.
The Quaker monthly meeting of South Kingstown, Rhode Island, which had in 1842 been suspended due to religious dissension, at this point divided itself into a Gurneyite group and a Wilburite group. In 1847 divided worship would resume — until 1881 when the local Wilburite meeting would be laid down (discontinued), and 1899 when the local Gurneyite meeting would also be laid down.
This would seem to be a relevant endpoint at which to insert into the database, the accumulated contents of this meeting’s marriage record, and birth and death record, for the Towns of South Kingstown, Charlestown, Westerly, Hopkinton, and Richmond: Marriages A Anthony, Sarah, and Joseph Irish, 2 mo., 7, 1754. B Babcock, Jonathan, of South Kingstown, son of Jonathan and Esther, of Stonington, Connecticut; and Ruth Rodman, of Benjamin and Hannah, of South Kingstown; 1 mo., 29, 1795. Babcock, Hezekiah, of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, son of Caleb and Waite, of South Kingstown; and Dorcas Peckham, of William and Mercy, of South Kingstown; 1 mo., 28, 1813. Babcock, John, son of Hezekiah and Dorcas, and Mary P. Perry, of William S. and Lois; all of South Kingstown, 9 mo., 25, 1856. Borden, Elizabeth, and Stephen Perry, 6 mo., 2, 1763. Borden, Sarah, and Joshua Rathbun, 10 mo., 30, 1766. Borden, Martha, and Peter Davis, 10 mo., 16, 1782. Boss, Solomon B., son of Jabez and Sarah, and Catherine Knowles, of Robert an Lucy Anna, all of South Kingstown, 5 mo., 25, 1813. Bowen, Elizabeth, and John Collins, 3 mo., 15, 1744. Bradley, Joshua, of New London, Connecticut, son of Joshua and Sarah, and Dorcas Rathbun, of [Acors?] and Lydia, of Stonington, Connecticut, 1 mo., 1, 1801. Bragg, Anna, and William Wilbur, 6 mo., 3, 1790. Bragg, Temperance, and Ethan Foster, 3 mo., 12, 1801.
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Brayton, Preserved, son of Stephen, deceased, and Hannah, of Rehoboth, Massachusetts; and Patience Greene, of David and Mary, of North Kingstown, 5 mo., 18, 1758. Browning, Thomas, of Charlestown, son of John and Anne, of South Kingstown; and Anne Hoxsie, of Solomon and Mary, of Richmond, 6 mo., 2, 1767. Browning, Anne, and Simeon Perry, 4 mo., 29, 1776. Browning, Eunice, and Othniel Foster, 11 mo., 10, 1803. Browning, Jeremiah 3d, of Stonington, Connecticut, son of Jeremiah and Sarah, and Martha Foster, of John and Ruth, of Stonington, 11 mo., 12, 1805. Browning, Amie, and Samuel Sheffield, 9 mo., 13, 1829. Brown, Hannah, and John D. Williams, 10 mo., 3, 1822. Brown, Anna, and Thomas Williams, 9 mo., 12, 1826. Brown, Sarah W., and Francis H. Rathbun, 9 mo., 24, 1832. Brown, William F., of Betterments, Otsego Co., New York, son of Joseph and Mary of this place; and Elizabeth N. Collins, of Lewis and Lydia, deceased, of Hopkinton, 10 mo., 7, 1839. C Carr, Joanna, and Benjamin Hazard, 5 mo., 12, 1814. Carr, George W., of Jamestown, son of Benjamin, deceased, and Elizabeth, and Sarah Foster, of Othniel and Eunice, of South Kingstown, 4 mo., 4, 1838. Chase, Stephen Abbott, of New Market, N. H., son of Abijah and Mary, of Essex, Massachusetts; and Anna Atmore Robinson, of James and Mary, of South Kingstown, 7 mo., 26, 1830. Collins, John, of John, of Charlestown, and Elizabeth Bowen, of Dan and Mehitabel, 3 mo., 15, 1744. Collins, Joseph, of Hezekiah and Catherine, of Hopkinton, and Bathsheba Hoxsie, of Solomon and Mary, of Richmond, 3 mo., 8, 1764. Collins, Catherine, and Benjamin Hoxsie, 2 mo., 7, 1782. Collins, Joseph, Jr., of Joseph and Bathsheba, and Hannah Sheffield, of Samuel and Elizabeth; all of Hopkinton, 2 mo., 5, 1789. Collins, Abel, of Stonington, of Abel and Thankful, and Mary Wilbur, of Thomas and Mary, of Hopkinton, 10 mo., 14, 1790. Collins, Solomon, of Hopkinton, of Joseph and Bathsheba, and Sarah Perry, of Stephen and Elizabeth, deceased, of Newport, 3 mo., 8, 1792. Collins, Isaac, of Stonington, of Amos and Thankful, and Mary Collins, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 3 mo., 15, 1792. Collins, Mary, and Isaac Collins, 3 mo., 15, 1792. Collins, Lydia, and John Wilbur, 10 mo., 17, 1793. Collins, Ruth, and John H. Kenyon, 11 mo., 8, 1804. Collins, Deborah, and Peter Collins, 11 mo., 12, 1807. Collins, Peter, of Hopkinton, of Joseph and Bathsheba, and Deborah Collins, of Abel and Mary, of North Stonington, 11 mo., 12, 1807. Collins, Lewis, of Jabez and Sarah, and Lydia Kenyon, of George and Martha; all of Hopkinton, 12 mo., 5, 1811.
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Collins, Hannah, and William Earle, 10 mo., 28, 1812. Collins, Thankful, and Peleg Kenyon, 3 mo., 3, 1814. Collins, Dinah, and Asa Sisson, 5 mo., 27, 1818. Collins, Phebe, and Job Monroe, 11 mo., 25, 1818. Collins, Isaac, of Hopkinton, of Isaac and Mary, and Rachel Kenyon, of George, deceased, and Rachel, 2 mo., 13, 1823. Collins, Timothy C., of Abel and Mary, of North Stonington, and Mary Ann Gardiner, of Peleg and Hannah, of South Kingstown, 10 mo., 2, 1823. Collins, Sarah, and Joseph Greene, 4 mo., 28, 1824. Collins, Catherine E., and John H. Knowles, 10 mo., 4, 1827. Collins, Catherine, and William Earle, 9 mo., 22, 1829. Collins, Elizabeth N., and William F. Brown, 10 mo., 7, 1839. Collins, Ephraim C., of Hopkinton, of Isaac and Mary, and Mary Foster, of Othniel and Eunice, of South Kingstown, 4 mo., 6, 1836. Collins, Luke, of Brookfield, Madison Co., N. Y.,. son of Hezekiah and Mary, of this place; and Elizabeth Foster, of Ethan and Temperance, 5 mo., 13, 1841. Collins, Abel Francis, and Electa Jane Collins; married at New Hartford, N. Y., 1 mo., 11, 1844. Collins, Electa Jane, and Abel F. Collins, 1 mo., 11, 1844. Collins, Thankful, and John Spencer, 3 mo., 2, 1848. Collins, Mary A., and Nathaniel Hawkes, 1 mo., 29, 1856. Collins, Charles G., of Hopkinton, of Lewis and Lydia F., and Mary S. Knowles, of John H. and Catherine E., 3 mo., 10, 1859. Collins, Anna Elizabeth, and Frederic Augustus Dalton, 8 mo., 9, 1877. Congdon, Martha, and Jonathan Hoag, 4 mo., 25, 1768. Congdon, John, of William and Freelove, and Alice Knowles, of Joseph and Bathsheba; all of South Kingstown, 12 mo., 21, 1780. Congdon, Charles, of William and Freelove, and Sarah Knowles, of Joseph and Bathsheba; all of South Kingstown, 11 mo., 14, 1782. Congdon, Sarah, and Simeon Perry, 5 mo., 30, 1787. Congdon, John, of South Kingstown, of William and Freelove, and Sarah Kenyon, of George and Martha, 11 mo., 7, 1799. Congdon, Joseph, of Joseph and Susannah, and Deborah Rodman, of Benjamin and Hannah; all of South Kingstown, 2 mo., 6, 1807. Congdon, Ann, and Thomas Wilbur, 11 mo., 23, 1825. Cross, Dorcas, and Joshua Gardiner, 2 mo., 10, 1803. p. 70 - 72: D Dalton, Frederic Augustus, of Providence, of Hiram A., and Maria S., of New York City; and Anna Elizabeth Collins, of Peter H. and Ruth Ann, of Hopkinton, 8 mo., 9, 1877.
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Dalton, Lizzie Maria, and Isaac Sutton, 8 mo., 23, 1880. Davis, John, of Peter and Mary, of Westerly, and Patience Palmer, of William and Mary, of Stonington, 9 mo., 26, 1747. Davis, Lydia, and William Palmer, 12 mo., 8, 1749. Davis, Benjamin, of Peter and Mary, of Westerly, and Mehitable Moon, of Robert and Ann, of Exeter, 1 mo., 23, 1752. Davis, Peter, of Westerly, and Martha Borden, widow of Abraham, late of Westerly, deceased, 10 mo., 16, 1782. Davis, Martha, and Joseph Healey, 9 mo., 11, 1794. Davis, Lois, and William S. Perry, 7 mo., 4, 1821. Dockray, John, of Newport, son of Benjamin, of Wigton, England, County of Cumberland; and Mary Robinson, of William and Abigail, of South Kingstown, 2 mo., 17, 1757. Dockray, John Bigland, of John and Mary, and Mercy Peckham, of William and Mercy; all of South Kingstown, 11 mo., 8, 1809. Dye, Richard, of Richmond, of John and Thankful, and Zerviah Rogers, of Thomas and Elizabeth, 12 mo., 5, 1782. Dye, Samuel, of Richmond, of John and Thankful, and Anna Rogers, of Thomas and Elizabeth, deceased, 1 mo., 20, 1785. E Earle, William, of Swansey, Massachusetts, of Caleb and Hannah, and Hannah Collins, of Amos and Thankful, of Stonington, 10 mo. 28, 1812. Earle, William, of Swansey, Massachusetts, of Caleb and Hannah, both deceased; and Catherine Collins, of Jabez and Sarah, deceased, of Hopkinton, 9 mo., 22, 1829. Eldred, Emma L., and George E. Perry, 10 mo., 6, 1879. F Foster, Card, of John and Margery, of Westerly, and Sarah Mumford, of John and Judeth; both of Exeter, 8 mo., 4, 1750. Foster, John, of Card and Sarah, of Richmond, deceased, and Ruth Hoxsie, of Stephen and Elizabeth, of Richmond, 4 mo., 4, 1776. Foster, Sarah, and James Sheffield, 1 mo., 15, 1795. Foster, Ethan, of Stonington, of John and Ruth, and Temperance Bragg, of Hopkinton, of Nicholas and Sarah, of Easton, N. Y., 3 mo., 12, 1801. Foster, Othniel, of Stonington, of John and Ruth, and Eunice Browning, of Jeremiah Jr., and Sarah, of this place, 11 mo., 10, 1803. Foster, Martha, and Jeremiah Browning, 11 mo., 12, 1805. Foster, Elizabeth, and Thomas Perry, 11 mo., 10, 1808. Foster, Ethan, of Groton son of John and Ruth, of Charlestown; and Mary Wilbur, of William and Anna, of Hopkinton, 6 mo., 3, 1824. Foster, Thomas, of Ethan and Temperance, and Phebe Wilbur, of John and Lydia; all of Hopkinton, 11 mo., 15, 1827. Foster, Judith, and John Peckham, 10 mo. 28, 1828. Foster, Mary Ann, and George Shove, 11 mo. 30, 1833. Foster, Mary, and Ephraim C. Collins, 4 mo., 6, 1836.
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Foster, Ethan Jr., of Westerly, of Ethan and Temperance, of Hopkinton; and Anna A. Wilbur, of John and Lydia, of the latter place, 10 mo. 24, 1837. Foster, Sarah, and George W. Carr, 4 mo., 4, 1838. Foster, Elizabeth, and Luke Collins, 5 mo., 13, 1841. Fry, James N., of Northbridge, Massachusetts, of Jonathan and Amime, of Bolton, Massachusetts; and Mary Elizabeth Munroe, of Job and Phebe C.,. of North Stonington, 11 mo. 22, 1847. G Gardiner, Abigail, and Richard Smith, 4 mo., 21, 1744. Gardiner, Joshua, of Stonington, of Abiel, deceased, and Ruth, and Dorcas Cross, of John and Susannah, of South Kingstown, 2 mo., 10, 1803. Gardiner, Mary Ann, and Timothy C. Collins, 10 mo., 2, 1823. Gardiner, Joshua, of Joshua and Dorcas, of Stonington, and Elizabeth Wilbur, of Isaac and Susanna, of Hopkinton, 11 mo., 10, 1825. Gardiner, Susan, and Gideon Wilbur, 11 mo., 13, 1828. Gifford, William, of John and Dinah, of Westerly, and Martha Wilkinson, widow of John, of Charlestown, 3 mo., 9, 1745. Gorton, Elizabeth, and Nathan Spencer, 3 mo., 30, 1785. Greene, Patience, and Preserved Brayton, 5 mo., 18, 1758. Greene, Waite, and Stephen Kilton, 12 mo., 20, 1764. Greene, Joseph, of Jamestown, of Joseph and Abigail, both deceased; and Sarah Collins, of Jabez and Sarah, of Hopkinton, 4 mo., 28, 1824. H Hadsall, James, of Joseph, of Westerly, and Rachel his wife, deceased; and Content Worden, of Peter, deceased, and Rebecca, 8 mo., 12, 1752. Hawkes, Nathaniel, of Ezra and Hannah, of Jackson, Waldo Co., Maine; and Mary A. Collins, of Timothy C. and Mary Ann, of South Kingstown, 1 mo., 29, 1856. Hazard, Thomas, of Robert of Boston Neck, and Elizabeth Robinson, of William, 3 mo., 27, 1742. Hazard, Thomas, of Benjamin and Mehitable, deceased, and Hannah Knowles, of Joseph and Bathsheba; all of South Kingstown, 10 mo., 2, 1783. Hazard, George, of Richard and Susannah, both deceased, and Sarah Knowles, of John and Susannah, deceased, 8 mo., 30, 1786. Hazard, Benjamin, of Thomas B. and Hannah, of South Kingstown, and Joanna Carr, of Peleg and Sarah, of Hopkinton, 5 mo., 12, 1814. Hazard, William R., of Rowland and Mary, of South Kingstown, and Mary Wilbur, of John and Lydia, of Hopkinton, 10 mo., 2, 1828. Hazard, Sarah, and Amos C. Wilbur, 1 mo., 4, 1838. Healey, Christopher, of Hopkinton of Joseph and Rachel, and Alice Sheffield, of Samuel and Elizabeth, 12 mo., 12, 1793.
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Healey, Joseph, of Hopkinton, of Joseph and Prudence, of Greenwich, and Martha Davis, of William, deceased, and Mary, of Westerly, 9 mo., 11, 1794. Healey, Peter D., of Hopkinton, of Joseph and Martha, deceased, and Elizabeth Read, of Martin and Abigail, of South Kingstown, 6 mo., 3, 1819. Hoag, Jonathan, of Portage, Dutchess Co., N. Y., and Martha Congdon, of James, late of Charlestown, 4 mo., 25, 1768. Hoxsie, Benjamin, of Charlestown, son of John, of Westerly, and Sarah Knowles, of Robert and Ann, of Charlestown, 9 mo., 19, 1741. Hoxsie, Benjamin, of Charlestown, of John, of Westerly, and Mary Stanton, of Thomas and Mary, of Charlestown, 11 mo., 16, 1752. Hoxsie, Martha, and George Kenyon, 3 mo., 16, 1758. Hoxsie, Mary, and Thomas Wilbur, 7 mo., 27, 1761. Hoxsie, Barnabus, of Stephen and Elizabeth, of Richmond, and Elizabeth Wilbur, of Thomas and Edge, deceased, 12 mo., 8, 1763. Hoxsie, Bathsheba, and Joseph Collins, 3 mo., 8, 1764. Hoxsie, Anne, and Thomas Browning, 6 mo., 2, 1767. Hoxsie, Ruth, and John Foster, 4 mo., 4, 1776. Hoxsie, Dorcas, and Zebulon Weaver, 11 mo., 6, 1777. Hoxsie, Mary, and John Knowles, 1 mo., 1, 1778. Hoxsie, Benjamin, of Charlestown and Catherine Collins of Hopkinton, 2 mo., 7, 1782. Hoxsie, Peter, of Richmond, of Solomon, deceased, and Mary, and Sarah Rathbun, widow of Joshua 3d, deceased, 12 mo., 30, 1784. Hoxsie, Stephen, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, of Richmond, and Anna Kenyon, of George and Martha, of Hopkinton, 2 mo., 17, 1791. Hoxsie, Hannah, and Simeon Perry, 2 mo., 6, 1794. Hoxsie, Esther, and John Warner Knowles, 2 mo., 5, 1801. Hoxsie, Joshua, of Richmond, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Kenyon, of George and Martha, of Hopkinton, 4 mo., 5, 1804. Hoxsie, Elizabeth, and Joshua Rathbun, 10 mo., 18, 1804. Hoxsie, Lydia, and Thomas Rodman Knowles, 9 mo., 6, 1810. I Irish, Joseph, of Jebediah and Mary, of Westerly, and Dorcas Sheffield, widow of Nathan, late of South Kingstown, 10 mo., 1, 1748. Irish, Job, of Jedediah and Mary, of Westerly, and Mary Weaver, of Thomas, deceased, and Mary, of this place, 5 mo., 3, 1753. Irish, Joseph, of Jedediah, of Stonington, and Sarah Anthony, of South Kingstown, 2 mo., 7, 1754. K Kenyon, George, of Thomas and Catherine, and Martha Hoxsie, of Solomon and Mary, all of Richmond, 3 mo., 16, 1758.
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Kenyon, Mary, and John Taylor Nichols, 1 mo., 18, 1787. Kenyon, Solomon, of George and Martha, of Hopkinton, and Eunice Sheffield, of Elisha and Lydia, of South Kingstown, 3 mo., 5, 1789. Kenyon, Anna, and Stephen Hoxsie, 2 mo., 17, 1791. Kenyon, George, of Hopkinton, of George and Martha, and Rachel Sheffield, of Elisha and Lydia, of South Kingstown, 11 mo., 14, 1793. Kenyon, Sarah, and John Congdon, 11 mo., 7, 1799. Kenyon, Catherine, and Woodman Wilbur, 12 mo., 8, 1803. Kenyon, Elizabeth, and Joshua Hoxsie, 4 mo., 5, 1804. Kenyon, John H., of George and Martha, of Hopkinton, and Ruth Collins, of Amos and Thankful of Stonington, 11 mo., 8, 1804. Kenyon, Lydia, and Lewis Collins, 12 mo., 5, 1811. Kenyon, Peleg, of Solomon and Eunice, and Thankful Collins, of Isaac and Mary; all of Richmond, 3 mo., 3, 1814. Kenyon, Rachel, and Isaac Collins, 2 mo., 13, 1823. Kenyon, John T., of Solomon and Eunice, and Sarah S. Wilbur, of John and Lydia; all of Hopkinton, 5 mo., 13, 1824. Kenyon, Bathsheba, and Isaiah Ray, 1 mo., 13, 1828. Kenyon, Mary C., and William A. Sherman, 4 mo., 28, 1841. Kilton, Stephen, of Providence, and Waite Greene, of David and Mary, of North Kingstown, 12 mo., 20, 1764. Knowles, Sarah, and Benjamin Hoxsie, 9 mo., 19, 1741. Knowles, Susannah, and William Underwood, 11 mo., 19, 1743. Knowles, Joseph, of Robert and Ann, and Bathsheba Seager, of John and Alice; all of South Kingstown, 10 mo., 11, 1753. Knowles, Ann, and Jonathan Reynolds, 12 mo., 11, 1755. Knowles, Robert, of John, and Catherine Rodman, of Benjamin; all of South Kingstown, 10 mo., 31, 1774. Knowles, John, of Richmond, of John and Hannah, deceased, and Mary Hoxsie, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 1 mo., 1, 1778. Knowles, Alice, and John Congdon, 12 mo., 21, 1780. Knowles, Sarah, and Charles Congdon, 11 mo., 14,1782. Knowles, Robert, of Joseph and Bathsheba, and Lucy Anna Rodman, of Benjamin and Hannah; all of South Kingstown, 11 mo., 21, 1782. Knowles, Hannah, and Thomas Hazard, 10 mo., 2, 1783. Knowles, Sarah, and George Hazard, 8 mo., 30, 1786. Knowles, John Warner, of South Kingstown, of Robert and Catherine, and Esther Hoxsie, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, of Richmond, 2 mo., 5, 1801. Knowles, Hannah, and John Knowles, 4 mo., 14, 1803. Knowles, John, of Richmond, of John, deceased, and Mary, and Hannah Knowles, of Robert and Lucy Anna, of South Kingstown, 4 mo., 14, 1803.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4767 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Knowles, Thomas Rodman, of Robert and Catherine, of South Kingstown, and Lydia Hoxsie, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, of Richmond, 9 mo., 6, 1810. Knowles, Catherine, and Solomon B. Boss, 5 mo., 25, 1813. Knowles, John H., of Richmond, of John and Hannah, and Catherine E. Collins, of Hopkinton, of Isaac and Mary, 10 mo., 4, 1827. Knowles, Mary S., and Charles G. Collins, 3 mo., 10, 1859. M Mitchell, Joseph, of Nantucket, of George and Phebe, and Elizabeth Ray, of Isaiah and Mary, of Hopkinton, 6 mo., 8, 1841. Moon, Sarah, and Card Foster, 8 mo., 4, 1750. Moon, Mehitable, and Benjamin Davis, 1 mo., 23, 1752. Munroe, Job, of John and Parthenia, of Plainfield, Connecticut, and Phebe Collins, of Abel and Mary, of Stonington, 11 mo., 25, 1818. Munroe, Mary Elizabeth, and James N. Fry, 11 mo., 22, 1847. N Nichols, John Taylor, of South Kingstown, of Andrew, and Anne, and Mary Kenyon, of George and Martha, of Hopkinton, 1 mo., 18, 1787. Nichols, Sarah Ann, and William H. Perry, 11 mo., 9, 1854. Niles, Hannah, and Benjamin Rodman, 3 mo., 29, 1753. P Palmer, Patience, and John Davis, 9 mo., 26, 1747. Palmer, William, of William and Mary, of Stonington, and Lydia Davis, of Peter and Mary of Westerly, 12 mo., 8, 1749. Palmer, Elizabeth, and Rowland Robinson, 7 mo., 26, 1756. Parker, James, of George, deceased, and Elizabeth of West Greenwich, and Elizabeth Sherman, of Ezekiel and Margaret of Richmond, 2 mo., 1, 1763. Parke, John, of Nathaniel, of Preston, Connecticut, and Patience Wage, of Joshua, deceased, 3 mo., 30, 1767. Peckham, Sarah, and Acors Rathbun, 2 mo., 12, 1794. Peckham, Alice, and Rowland Rathbun, 10 mo., 14, 1801. Peckham, Mercy, and John Bigland Dockray, 11 mo., 8, 1809. Peckham, Dorcas, and Hezekiah Babcock, 1 mo., 28, 1813. Peckham, John, of Little Compton, of Isaac and Phebe, deceased, and Judith Foster, of Charlestown, of John and Ruth, 10 mo., 28, 1828. Perry, James, of James, of South Kingstown, and Mercy Potter, of John, deceased, 3 mo., 3, 1750. Perry, Alice and Sylvester Robinson, 12 mo., 18, 1755. Perry, Stephen, of Charlestown, of Samuel, deceased, and Elizabeth Borden, of Abraham, of Westerly, 6 mo., 2, 1763. Perry, Simeon, of Charlestown, of Samuel and Susannah, both deceased, and Anna Browning, of South Kingstown, widow of Thomas, and daughter of Solomon and Mary Hoxsie, of Richmond, 4 mo., 29, 1776.
4768 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
Perry, Simeon, of Charlestown, of Samuel and Susannah, both deceased, and Sarah Congdon, widow of John and daughter of Joseph and Mary Hoxsie, 5 mo., 30, 1787. Perry, Sarah, and Solomon Collins, 3 mo., 8, 1792. Perry, Simeon, of Charlestown, of Samuel and Susannah, and Hannah Hoxsie, of Richmond, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 2 mo., 6, 1794. Perry, Thomas, of Simeon and Anna, of Charlestown, and Elizabeth Foster, of John and Ruth, of North Stonington, 11 mo., 10, 1808. Perry, William S., and Lois Davis, both of South Kingstown, 7 mo., 4, 1821. Perry, William H., of William S. and Lois, and Sarah Ann Nichols, 11 mo., 9, 1854. Perry, Mary P., and John Babcock, 9 mo., 23, 1856. Perry, George E., and Emma L. Eldred, 10 mo., 6, 1879. Potter, Mercy and James Perry, 3 mo., 3, 1750. R Rathbun, Joshua, of Joshua, of Westerly and Sarah Borden, of Abraham, 10 mo., 30, 1766. Rathbun, Acors, and Lydia Robinson, of John, 11 mo., 9, 1775. Rathbun, Sarah, and Peter Hoxsie, 12 mo., 30, 1784. Rathbun, Acors, of Joshua and Sarah, of Stonington, and Sarah Peckham, of William and Mercy, of So. Kingstown, 2 mo., 12, 1794. Rathbun, Dorcas, and Joshua Bradley, 1 mo., 1, 1801. Rathbun, Rowland, of Acors and Lydia, of Stonington, and Alice Peckham, of William and Mercy, of So. Kingstown, 10 mo., 14, 1801. Rathbun, Lydia, and John H. Weaver, 11 mo., 10, 1803. Rathbun, Joshua, of Acors and Lydia, of Stonington, and Elizabeth Hoxsie, of Peter and Sarah, of Richmond, 10 mo., 18, 1804. Rathbun, Francis H., of Rowland, of Smithfield, and Sarah W. Brown, of William and Ann, of So. Kingstown, 9 mo., 24, 1832. Ray, Isaiah, of Alexander and Elizabeth, and Bathsheba Kenyon, of George and Martha, deceased, all of Hopkinton, 1 mo., 31, 1828. Ray, Isaiah, of Alexander and Elizabeth, and Susan C. Wilbur, of John and Lydia, of Hopkinton, 3 mo., 4, 1841. Ray, Elizabeth, and Joseph Mitchell, 6 mo., 8, 1841. Read, Elizabeth, and Peter D. Healey, 6 mo., 3, 1819. Reynolds, Jonathan of John and Hannah, of Exeter, and Ann Knowles, of Robert and Ann, of South Kingstown, 12 mo., 11, 1755. Robinson, Elizabeth, and Thomas Hazard, 3 mo., 27, 1742. Robinson, Abigail, and John Wanton, 10 mo., 8, 1752. Robinson, Sylvester, of South Kingstown, of William and Abigail, and Alice Perry, of James and Anna, 12 mo., 18, 1755. Robinson, Rowland, of Westerly, of John and Elizabeth Palmer, of William, of Stonington, 7 mo., 26, 1756.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4769 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Robinson, Mary, and John Dockray, 2 mo., 17, 1757. Robinson, John, of Hopkinton, and Sarah Weaver, daughter of Peter Davis, of Westerly, 6 mo, 3, 1773. Robinson, Lydia, and Acors Rathbun, 11 mo., 9, 1775. Robinson, Anna Atmore, and Stephen Abbott Chase, 7 mo., 26, 1830. Rodman, Benjamin, of South Kingstown, of Thomas, and Hannah Niles, of Jamestown, of Nathaniel, 3 mo., 29, 1753. Rodman, Catherine, and Robert Knowles, 10 mo., 31, 1774. Rodman, Lucy Anna, and Robert Knowles, 11 mo., 21, 1782. Rodman, Ruth, and Jonathan Babcock, 1 mo.,. 29, 1795. Rodman, Deborah, and Joseph Congdon, 2 mo., 6, 1807. Rogers, Zerniah, and Richard Dye, 12 mo., 5, 1782. Rogers, Anna, and Samuel Dye, 1 mo., 20, 1785. S Seager, Joseph, of John and Alice, of South Kingstown, and Mary Taylor, of William and Ann, of said town, 11 mo., 24, 1750. Seager, Bathsheba, and Joseph Knowles, 10 mo., 11, 1753. Sheffield, Dorcas, and Joseph Irish, 10 mo., 1, 1748. Sheffield, Dorcas, and Woodman Wilbur, 4 mo., 6, 1769. Sheffield, Sarah, and Thomas Wilbur, 1 mo., 15, 1784. Sheffield, Hannah, and Joseph Collins, 2 mo., 5, 1789. Sheffield, Eunice, and Solomon Kenyon, 3 mo., 5, 1789. Sheffield, Rachel, and George Kenyon, 11 mo., 14, 1793. Sheffield, Alice, and Christopher Healey, 12 mo., 12, 1793. Sheffield, James, of Hopkinton, son of Samuel and Elizabeth, and Sarah Foster, of John and Ruth, of Richmond, 1 mo., 15, 1795. Sheffield, John, of James and Sarah, of Richmond, and Anna Wilbur, of William and Anna, of Hopkinton, 6 mo., 28, 1820. Sheffield, Samuel, of Richmond, son of James, deceased, and Sarah, and Amie Browning, of Christopher and Martha, of South Kingstown, 9 mo., 13, 1829. Sherman, Elizabeth, and James Parker, 2 mo., 1, 1763. Sherman, William A., of Fall River, of Lot, deceased, and Isabella, and Mary C. Kenyon, of Peleg and Thankful, of Hopkinton, 4 mo., 28, 1841. Shove, Josiah, of Mendon, Massachusetts, son of Nathaniel and Hannah, late of Dighton, Massachusetts; and Sarah Wilbur, of Hopkinton, of William Sheffield and Louis [sic], 9 mo., 22, 1818. Shove, Calvin, of Thomas and Hannah, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, and Sarah T. Wilbur, of William and Anna, of Hopkinton, 9 mo., 23, 1823. Shove, George, of Smithfield, of Thomas B., and Hannah, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts; and Mary Ann Foster, of Ethan and Temperance, of Hopkinton, 11 mo., 30, 1833.
4770 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Sisson, Asa, of North Providence, of Joseph and Ruth, of Seakonk [sic], Massachusetts; and Dinah Collins, of Jabez and Sarah, of Hopkinton, 5 mo., 27, 1818. Smith, Richard, of James, of Groton, Connecticut, and Abigail Gardiner, of Stephen, late of Warwick, Connecticut, 4 mo., 21, 1744. Spencer, Nathan, of East Greenwich, of William and Margaret, and Elizabeth Gorton, of John, of South Kingstown, 3 mo., 30, 1785. Spencer, John, of Westerly, of Fones and Sarah of East Greenwich; and Thankful Collins, of North Stonington, daughter of Abel and Mary A.,. 3 mo., 2, 1848. Stanton, Mary, and Benjamin Hoxsie, 11 mo., 16, 1752. Sutton, Isaac, of Providence, of Aaron and Mary, and Lizzie Maria Dalton, of Hiram A., and Maria S., of New York City, 8 mo., 23, 1880. T Taylor, Mary, and Joseph Seager, 11 mo., 24, 1750. U Underwood, William, of South Kingstown, of William, deceased, of Newport; and Susannah Knowles, of Henry, deceased, of South Kingstown, 11 mo., 19, 1743. W Wage, Patience, and John Parke, 3 mo., 30, 1767. Wanton, John, of Gideon and Mary, of Newport, and Abigail Robinson, of William, deceased, and Abigail, of South Kingstown, 10 mo., 8, 1752. Weaver, Mary, and Job Irish, 5 mo., 3, 1753. Weaver, Sarah, and John Robinson, 6 mo., 3, 1773. Weaver, Zebulon, of Thomas, deceased, and Sarah, of Westerly, and Dorcas Hoxsie, of John, late of Newport, deceased, and Mary, 11 mo., 6, 1777. Weaver, John H., of Hopkinton, of Zebulon and Dorcas, and Lydia Rathbun, of Stonington, of Acors and Lydia, 11 mo., 10, 1803. Wilbur, Thomas, of Hopkinton, son of William and Esther, of Little Compton; and Mary Hoxsie, of Solomon and Mary, of Richmond, 7 mo., 27, 1761. Wilbur, Elizabeth, and Barnabus Hoxsie, 12 mo., 8, 1763. Wilbur, Woodman, of Thomas and Edith, deceased, of Hopkinton, and Dorcas Sheffield, of same town, daughter of Nathan and Dorcas, deceased, 4 mo., 6, 1769. Wilbur, Thomas, Jr., of Hopkinton, of Thomas and Mary, and Sarah Sheffield, of William and Lois, of South Kingstown, 1 mo., 15, 1784. Wilbur, William, of Thomas and Mary, of Hopkinton, and Anna Bragg, of Nicholas and Sarah, of Easton, Albany Co., N. Y., 6 mo., 3, 1790. Wilbur, Mary, and Abel Collins, 10 mo., 14, 1790. Wilbur, John, son of Thomas and Mary, of Hopkinton, and Lydia Collins, of Stonington, daughter of Amos and Thankful, 10 mo., 17, 1793.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4771 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
Wilbur, Isaac, son of Thomas and Mary, of Hopkinton, and Susanna Wilcox, of Elisha and Elizabeth, of Exeter, 10 mo., 15, 1794. Wilbur, Mary, and Jabez Wing, 1 mo., 30, 1799. Wilbur, Woodman, of Thomas and Edith, of Hopkinton, and Catherine Kenyon, of George and Martha, of this town, 12 mo., 8, 1803. Wilbur, Sarah, and Josiah Shove, 9 mo., 22, 1818. Wilbur, Anna, and John Sheffield, 6 mo., 28, 1820. Wilbur, Sarah T., and Calvin Shove, 9 mo., 23, 1823. Wilbur, Sarah S., and John T. Kenyon, 5 mo., 13, 1824. Wilbur, Mary, and Ethan Foster, 6 mo., 3, 1824. Wilbur, Elizabeth, and Joshua Gardiner, 11 mo., 10, 1825. Wilbur, Thomas, of Swansey, Massachusetts, son of John and Lydia, of Hopkinton, and Ann Congdon, of John and Sarah, of the latter town, 11 mo., 23, 1825. Wilbur, Phebe, and Thomas Foster, 11 mo., 15, 1827. Wilbur, Mary, and William R. Hazard, 10 mo., 2, 1828. Wilbur, Gideon, of Hopkinton, of Isaac and Susannah, and Susan Gardiner, of Joshua and Dorcas, of Stonington, 11 mo., 13, 1828. Wilbur, Anna A., and Ethan Foster, 10 mo., 24, 1837. Wilbur, Amos C., of South Kingstown, son of John and Lydia, of Hopkinton, and Sarah Hazard, of So. Kingstown, daughter of Benjamin and Joanna, 1 mo., 4, 1838. Wilbur, Susan C., and Isaiah Ray, 3 mo., 4, 1841. Wilcox, Susanna, and Isaac Wilbur, 10 mo., 15, 1794. Wilkinson, Martha, and William Gifford, 3 mo., 9, 1745. Williams, John D., of South Kingstown, son of David and Mary, of Newport, and Hannah Brown, of William and Ann, of South Kingstown, 10 mo., 3, 1822. Williams, Thomas of Troy, N. Y., son of John and Jane, both deceased, of South Kingstown; and Anna Brown, of South Kingstown, daughter of William and Ann, 9 mo., 12, 1826. Wing, Jabez, of Smithfield, and Mary Wilbur, widow of Thomas, of Hopkinton, 1 mo., 30, 1799. Worden, Content, and James Hadsall, 8 mo., 12, 1752. Births and Deaths B Babcock, Peleg, born 4m. 29, 1742, died 6m. 7, 1826. Babcock, Esther Hazard, (his daughter) born 5m. 24, 1772, died 4m. 25, 1819. Babcock, Susan Perry, (his daughter) born 1mo. 28, 1787, died 5m. 3, 1824. Babcock, Lucy, (his daughter) died 4m. 14, 1813. Babcock, Ruth Hannah, of Jonathan and Ruth, 11m. 26, 1795. Babcock, Ruth, wife of Jonathan, died 12m. 16, 1795.
4772 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Babcock, Dorcas Gardiner of Hezekiah and Dorcas, 2m. 26, 1816. Babcock, William Peckham, of Hezekiah and Dorcas, 4m. 28, 1818. Babcock, Hezekiah, of Hezekiah and Dorcas, 10m. 31, 1820. Babcock, Adam, of Hezekiah and Dorcas, 12m. 24, 1822, died at Providence, 10m. 26, 1872. Babcock, John, of Hezekiah and Dorcas, 5m. 23, 1831. Babcock, Hezekiah Sen. died 3m. 4, 1870. Babcock, Dorcas (Peckham of William,) his wife, died 10m. 22, 1859. Babcock, Waite, widow of Caleb and mother of Hezekiah, died 4m. 12, 1836. Babcock, Lucy, of Peleg and Lucy, died 4m. 14, 1813. Babcock, Lois Elma, of John and Mary, 9m. 6, 1857. Babcock, John Edward, of John and Mary, 10m. 7, 1858. Babcock, William H., of John and Mary, 12m. 15, 1864. Bicknell, Mary Alma, of Japheth and Julia, 2nd wife, 4m. 6, 1830. Bicknell, Julia Ann, of Japheth and Julia, 2nd wife, 5m. 17, 1832. Bicknell, Japheth, died 9 m. --- 1831. Bicknell, Ruth, wife of Japheth, died age 49 years, 3m. 5, 1824. Bradley, Joshua, born 4m. 30, 1775. Bradley, Dorcas, his wife, born 12m. 29, 1782. Bradley, Lydia, of Joshua and Dorcas, 6m. 15, 1803. Bradley, Mary, of Joshua and Dorcas, 6m. 6, 1805. Bradley, Sally M., of Joshua and Dorcas, 5m. 6, 1807. Bradley, Joshua T. C., of Joshua and Dorcas, 4m. 4, 1809. Bradley, Deborah, of Joshua and Dorcas, 5m. 6, 1811. Bradley, Abby Ann, of Joshua and Dorcas, 6m. 13, 1813. Bradley, Clarinda W., of Joshua and Dorcas, 10m. 13, 1815. Bragg, Daniel, of Nicholas and Sarah, 4m. 22, 1769. Bragg, Temperance, of Nicholas and Sarah, 4m. 28, 1771. Bragg, Benjamin, of Nicholas and Sarah, 7m. 2, 1773. Bragg, Isreal, of Nicholas and Sarah, 3m. 24, 1775. Bragg, Isreal, of Nicholas and Sarah, died 10m. 27, 1783. Bragg, Sarah, of Nicholas and Sarah, 8m. 21, 1777. Briggs, Prudence Autum [sic], died aged 70 years, 1786. Boss, Lucy Anna, of Solomon B. and Catherine, 6m. 27, 1814. Bowen, Mehitable, widow of John, died aged 92 years wanting 8 days, 11m. 15, 1792; buried 18th. in Friends burial yard Hopkinton.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4773 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
Browning, Jeremiah Jr., born 9m. 7, 1758. Browning, Sarah, his wife, born 10m. 10, 1762. Browning, Jeremiah 3d of Jeremiah and Sarah, 10m. 23, 1783. Browning, Eunice, of Jeremiah and Sarah, 7m. 26, 1785. Browning, Robert, of Jeremiah and Sarah, 9m. 17, 1788. Browning, Sarah, of Jeremiah and Sarah, 3m. 29, 1791. Browning, Catherine, of Jeremiah and Sarah, 4m. 21, 1793. Browning, Peter Yarnall, of Jeremiah and Sarah, 5m. 7, 1795. Browning, Anna, of Jeremiah and Sarah, 4m. 8, 1797. Browning, Hannah, of Jeremiah and Sarah, 5m. 21, 1799, died 1m. 18, 1805; buried 20th. in Friends’ burial yard Hopkinton. Browning, Christopher, born 9m. 25, 1758, died 11m. 3, 1840. Browning, Amie, (his daughter) born 5m. 24, 1804, died 2m. 8, 1845; wife of Samuel Sheffield. Browning, Elizabeth, (his daughter) born 7m. 28, 1795. Bull, Hannah, of Ephraim and Patience, 7m. 26, 1727. Bull, Ephraim, of Ephraim and Patience, 7m. 6, 1729. Bull, Jerah, of Ephraim and Patience, 11m. 15, 1731. Bull, Joseph, of Ephraim and Patience, 12m. 28, 1733. Bull, Hannah, of Ephraim and Patience, 3m. 9, 1736. Bull, Henry, of Ephraim and Patience, 5m. 4, 1738. Bull, Thomas, of Ephraim and Patience, 9m. 7, 1740. Bull, Thomas, of Ephraim and Patience, 12m. 19, 1742. Bull, Patience, of Ephraim and Patience, 6m. 13, 1745. Burdick, Willie Lincoln, born 3m. 20, 1865. C Carr, Sarah, 5m 29, 1765, died 7m, 16, 1817. Carr, Mary, of Sarah, 8m, 4, 1790, died 4m 18, 1833. Carr, Myra, of Sarah, 3m, 14, 1792. Carr, Sarah, of Sarah, 9m, 9, 1793. Carr, Joanna, of Sarah, 7m, 1, 1795. Collins, Susannah, wife of John, of Charlestown, died aged 68 years, 11m. 8d; 1m. 14, 1753. Collins, Samuel, of John and Susannah, of Charlestown; died 8m. 13, 1753. Accidently struck overboard of a sloop in Egg Harbor and buried there. Collins, John of Charlestown, died aged 75 years 3m. 9d.; 10m. 20, buried 21, 1755, in Charlestown. Collins, John of Stonington, son of John and Susannah of Charlestown, died aged 63 years, 10m. 1, 1778; buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton.
4774 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
Collins, Samuel, of John and Mehitable, of Stonington, died aged 26 years; 6m. 3, 1779; buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton. Collins, Hezekiah, 8m. 1707, died 10m. 10, 1775. Collins, Catharine (Hoxsie) his wife, d, aged 83 years; 5m. 13, 1801. Collins, Joseph, 4m. 18, 1738, died 9m. 26, 1827. Collins, Bethsheba, his wife, 5m. 14, 1740, died 1m. 27, 1823. Collins, Hezekiah, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 1m. 15, 1765. Collins, Solomon, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 3m. 17, 1766. Collins, Joseph, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 10m. 8, 1767. Collins, William, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 1m. 10, 1770. Collins, Beriah, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 1m. 25, 1772. Collins, Mary, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 5m. 1, 1774. Collins, Peter, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 2m. 1, 1776. Collins, Catherine, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 7m. 6, 1778. Collins, Catherine, of Joseph and Bathsheba, died, 8m. ---, 1779. Collins, Joshua, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 6m. 1, 1780. Collins, John, (born Charlestown) of John and Mehitable, 2m. 2, 1745. Collins, Susannah, (born Charlestown) of John and Mehitable, 12m. 5, 1746. Collins, Amos, (born Charlestown) of John and Mehitable, 5m. 16, 1749. Collins, Benjamin, (born Charlestown) of John and Mehitable, 7m. 5, 1751. Collins, Samuel, (born Charlestown) of John and Mehitable, 4m. 24, 1754. Collins, Sarah, (born Charlestown) of John and Mehitable, 12m. 6, 1756. Collins, Abigail, (Stonington), of John and Mehitable, 4m. 6, 1760. Collins, Stephen, (Stonington), of John and Mehitable, 2m. 6, 1763. Collins, Ruth, (Stonington), of John and Mehitable, 7m. 20, 1765. Collins, Timothy, (born Stonington), of Amos, 5m. 25, 1768. Collins, Abel, (Hopkinton), of Amos, 5m. 2, 1770. Collins, Isaac, (Stonington), of Amos, 12m. 13, 1771. Collins, Amos, (Stonington), of Amos, 2m. 20, 1773. Collins, Susannah, (Stonington), of Amos, 3m. 12, 1775. Collins, Timothy, of Amos, died 3m. 25, 1776. Collins, Lydia, (Stonington), of Amos, 4m. 29, 1778. Collins, William, (Stonington), of Amos, 3m. 26, 1780. Collins, John, (Stonington), of Amos, 11m. 19, 1781. Collins, Ruth, (Hopkinton), of Amos, 5m. 2, 1784.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4775 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
Collins, William, (Stonington), of Amos, died 5m. 11, 1785. Collins, Hannah, (Stonington), of Amos, 8m. 29, 1786. Collins, Nancy, (Stonington), of Amos, 5m. 2, 1789, died 9m. 11, 1790. The above who died buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton. Collins, Amos W., died aged 72 y. 9m. 14, died 12m. 22, 1845. Collins, Lucy F., his wife, born 2m. 1, 1810, died 3m. 21, 1863. Collins, Abel James, of Amos W. and Lucy F., died 5m. 12, 1840. Collins, Jonathan Fry, of Amos W. and Lucy F., died 4m. 18, 1848. Collins, Mary Amie, of Amos W. and Lucy F., died 11m. 18, 1849. Collins, Giffard, of Jabez, 7m. 25, 1776. Collins, Dinah, of Jabez, 10m. 17, 1777. Collins, Lewis, of Jabez, 3m. 7, 1779. Collins, Sarah, of Jabez, 10m. 14, 1780. Collins, Catherine, of Jabez, 4m. 21, 1783. Collins, Susanna, of Jabez, born 3m. 17, 1785, died 2m. 17, 1812. Collins, Martha, of Jabez, 8m. 12, 1787. Collins, Catherine, of Hezekiah and Mary, 1m. 24, 1789. Collins, Hezekiah, of Hezekiah and Mary, 12m. 10, 1790. Collins, Elizabeth, of Hezekiah and Mary, 8m. 26, 1792. Collins, Joseph, of Joseph Jr., 2m. 13, 1790. Collins, Beriah, of Joseph Jr., 3m. 25, 1792. Collins, Sheffield, of Joseph Jr., 7m. 24, 1793. Collins, Job, of Joseph Jr., 12m. 25, 1794. Collins, Hannah, of Joseph Jr., 8m. 22, 1796. Collins, Rhoda, of Joseph Jr., 8m. 19, 1798. Collins, Bathsheba, of Joseph Jr., 6m. 5, 1800. Collins, Elizabeth, of Joseph Jr., 3m. 24, 1802. Collins, Peter, of Joseph Jr., 5m. 16, 1804. Collins, Obediah, of Joseph Jr., born 8m. 16, 1807, died 3m. 2, 1808 buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton. Collins, Deborah, of Abel and Mary, 9m. 30, 1791. Collins, Ira, of Abel and Mary, 3m. 3, 1793. Collins, Phebe, of Abel and Mary, 8m. 25, 1794. Collins, Mary Wilbur, of Abel and Mary, 6m. 7, 1796. Collins, Timothy Clarke, of Abel and Mary, 1m. 4, 1799. Collins, Abigail, of Abel and Mary, 3m. 12, 1801.
4776 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Collins, Amos, of Abel and Mary, 3m. 8, 1803. Collins, Thankful, of Abel and Mary, 3m. 8, 1803. Collins, Gulielma, of Abel and Mary, 6m. 22, 1805. Collins, Abel, of Abel and Mary, 1m. 22, 1809. Collins, Ira, (died) of Abel and Mary, 3m. 10, 1793. Collins, Abigail, (died) of Abel and Mary, 7m. 00, 1834. [sic] Collins, Gulielma, (died), of Abel and Mary, 7m. 4, 1845. Collins, Abel, died aged 64y, 4m. 19; died 9m. 17, 1834. The above children born in Stonington. Collins, Elizabeth, of Solomon and Elizabeth, 12m. 8, 1792. Collins, Solomon, of Solomon and Elizabeth, 8m. 18, 1796. Collins, Hezekiah, of Solomon and Elizabeth, 9m. 27, 1798. Collins, Stephen Perry, of Solomon and Elizabeth, 6m. 3, 1800. Collins, Sarah, of Solomon and Elizabeth, 7m. 22, 1802. Collins, William C., of Isaac and Mary, 5m. 31, 1793. Collins, Nancy, of Isaac and Mary, 1794 [born], died in Hopkinton 12m. 7, 1879. Collins, Thankful, of Isaac and Mary, 8m. 31, 1795. Collins, Amos, of Isaac and Mary, 3m. 29, 1797. Collins, Mary, of Isaac and Mary, 3m. 23, 1799. Collins, Isaac, of Isaac and Mary, 12m. 20, 1801. Collins, Catherine Eliza, of Isaac and Mary, 1m. 28, 1803. Collins, Joseph, of Isaac and Mary, 12m. 27, 1805. Collins, Ephraim, of Isaac and Mary, 4m. 12, 1807. Collins, John W., of Isaac and Mary, 8m. 15, 1811. Collins, Charles Willetts, of Isaac and Mary, 5m. 22, 1813. Collins, Thomas J., of Isaac and Mary, 3m. 7, 1815. The five eldest of the above children born in Stonington, the others Richmond. Collins, Isaac, died, 1m. 3, 1841. Collins, Mary J., died 12m. 3, 1863. Collins, Bathsheba, died 10m. 8, 1847. Collins, William C., died 8m. 17, 1832. Collins, Mary, died 5m. 9, 1853. Collins, John W., died 10m. 5, 1873. Collins, Joseph, died 8m. 12, 1874. Collins, Mary, wife of Dr. Isaac, died 12m. 3, 1863. Collins, Amos, died, 5m. 22, buried 25, 1796.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4777 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
Collins, Thankful, his wife, died, 7m. 30, buried 31, 1831. Both buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton. Collins, Timothy, born 1m. 4, 1799, died 5m. 5, 1867. Collins, Mary Ann, his wife, born 11m. 15, 1800, died 11m. 19, 1863. Collins, Mary Ann, of Timothy and Mary Ann, 12m. 24, 1825, died, 2m. 19, 1847. Collins, Abel Clarke, of Timothy and Mary A., 8m. 17, 1828. Collins, Peleg G., of Timothy and Mary A., 8m. 17, 1828. Collins, Hannah Clarke, of Timothy and Mary A., 10m. 15, 1831. Collins, John, of Timothy and Mary A., 4m. 23, 1836, died, 2m. 29, 1847. Collins, Lydia W., of Lewis and Lydia, 8m. 21, 1812, died, 1m. 3, 1833. Collins, Mary D., of Lewis and Lydia, 6m. 25, 1814, died, 3m. 29, 1815. Collins, Sarah Ann, of Lewis and Lydia, 4m. 2, 1816, died, 8m. 10, 1853. Collins, Eliza N., of Lewis and Lydia, 11m. 6, 1817, died (wife of William Brown), 1m. 1, 1840. Collins, George Lewis, of Lewis and Lydia, 12m. 31, 1820, died in Providence, 8m. 10, 1853. Collins, Charles Gilbert, of Lewis and Lydia, 7m. 4, 1828. Collins, Lydia, wife of Lewis, died aged 58y. 00m. 27d., 4m. 13, 1834. Collins, Catherine Hosena (Gifford), wife of Hezekiah, died aged 83 years, 5m. 13, 1801. Collins, Samuel, of Hezekiah and Catherine H., died aged 61y. 11m. 25., 7m. 29, 1811. Collins, Abel Francis, born 1m. 22, 1809. Collins, Electa Jane, his wife, (born New Hartford, New York), 8m. 22, 1818. Collins, Clarkson Abel, of A. F. and E. J., 12m. 16, 1853. Collins, Francis Wendall, of A. F. and E. J., 6m. 2, 1845. [sic] Collins, Abel Chalkley, of A. F. and E. J., 3m. 27, 1857. Collins, Peter Hoxsie, of Peter and Deborah, 6m. 5, 1809. Collins, Mary D., of Peter and Deborah, 12m. 25, 1810, died, 7m. 9, 1873. Collins, Hannah Dennis, of Peter and Deborah, 8m. 16, 1812, died, 5m. 19, 1842. Collins, Abel T., of Peter and Deborah, 5m. 12, 1814. Collins, Joseph W., of Peter and Deborah, 8m. 24, 1816. Collins, Anna Maria, of Peter and Deborah, 3m. 21, 1821. Collins, Edward William, of Peter and Deborah, 4m. 16, 1826. Collins, Peter Sen., died aged 63y. 6m. 27d., 8m. 18, 1839. Collins, Deborah his wife, (daughter of Abel), died aged 66y. 1m. 27 d., 11m. 26, 1857. Collins, Peter H., born 6m. 5, 1809. Collins, Ruth Ann, his wife, born 6m. 12, 1814. Collins, Wm., Thurston, of Peter H., & Ruth A., 8m. 29, 1848. Collins, James Robinson, of Peter H. & Ruth A., 8m. 3, 1850.
4778 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
Collins, Anne Elizabeth, of Peter H. & Ruth A., 8m. 2, 1858, died, 11m. 26, 1878. Collins, George W., of Isaac, 4m. 15, 1824. Collins, Gilbert, of Isaac, 10m. 1, 1826, died 11m. 14, 1826. Collins, Charles R., of Isaac, 10m. 6, 1830, died 3m. 7, 1831. Collins, William C., of Isaac, 10m. 20, 1832. Collins, Mary E., of Isaac, 5m. 12, 1836. Collins, Peleg G., born 5m. 17, 1828. Collins, Mary W., his wife, born 6m. 2, 1826. Collins, Hannah Clarke, of P. G. & M. W., 7m. 1, 1852. Collins, Charles Atherton, of P. G. & M. W., 9m. 30, 1853. Collins, Alfred Gardiner, of P. G. & M. W., 3m. 18, 1855. Collins, Ella Winslow, of P. G. & M. W., 4m. 11, 1857. Collins, Mary Winslow, of P. G. & M. W., 12m. 16, 1858. Collins, Lillian Gardiner, of P. G. & M. W., 5m. 3, 1862. Collins, Sarah Stanton, of P. G. & M. W., 5m. 25, 1864. Collins, Peleg Clarke, of P. G. & M. W., 12m. 14, 1868. Collins, Charles A., of P. G. & M. W., died 12m. 23, 1854. Collins, Abel, born 5m. 17, 1828. Collins, Mary Tabor, his wife, born 10m. 11, 1835. Collins, Francis Wendall, of Abel and Mary T., 2m. 6, 1845. [sic] Collins, Alice Victoria, of Abel and Mary T., 9m. 17, 1855. Collins, Mary Anna, of Abel and Mary T., 12m. 13, 1864. Collins, Mary Anna, of Abel and Mary T., 4m. 18, 1877. Collins, Francis Winfield, of Abel and Mary T., 12m. 12, 1878. Collins, Thomas Foster, of Ephraim, 6m. 6, 1837. Collins, Abel James, of Amos W. and Lucy F., 5m. 12, 1846. Collins, Mary A., wife of Abel, and daughter of Thomas and Mary Wilbur; died aged 85y. 3m. 11d.,. 2m. 20, 1858, and buried in Hopkinton. Collins, Deborah, died 11m. 26, 1857. Collins, Mary Wilbur, died aged 65y. 2m. 10d., 8m. 17, 1861. Collins, Abby R., of Abel and Mary A., died 7m. 6, 1834. Collins, Abel, died in his 65th years, 9m. 17, 1835. Collins, Lydia F., 2nd wife of Lewis, died, 1m. 5, 1862. Collins, Lewis, died, 6m. 11, 1848. Collins, Gilbert Lewis, of Charles G. & Mary S., 8m. 31, 1860.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4779 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
Collins, Mary Lydia, of Charles G. & Mary S., 12m. 15, 1862. Collins, Catherine Elvira, of Charles G. & Mary S., 5m. 26, 1865. Congdon, John, born 11m. 21, 1752, died 9m. 27, 1831. Congdon, Alice, his wife, born ...., died 5m. 26, 1798. Congdon, Sarah, his wife, born 5m. 30, 1767. Congdon, Hannah, of John and Alice, born 1m. 19, 1782, died 2m. 13, 1782. Congdon, Mary Alice, of John and Sarah, 9m. 12, 1800. Congdon, Sarah Ann, of John and Sarah, 5m. 29, 1803. Congdon, Bathsheba, of Charles and Sarah, 9m. 23, 1783. Congdon, William, of Charles and Sarah, 12m. 10, 1785. Congdon, Mary, of Charles and Sarah, 3m. 23, 1789. Congdon, Joseph, of Charles and Sarah, 5m. 26, 1792. Congdon, Charles, of Charles and Sarah, 8m. 2, 1794. Congdon, Sarah, wife of Charles, died, 3m. 3, 1796. Congdon, Freelove, wife of William, of South Kingstown, died, 8m. 17, 1812. Cook, Rebecca, died, 3m. 18, buried 20, 1792. D Davis, Content, wife of Peter, died in her 64th year, 1m. 4, 1781. Davis, Martha, wife of Peter, died aged 88 years, 4m. 12, 1809. Davis, Peter, died aged 100y. 11m. 5d., 9m. 22, 1812, buried 24. All the above buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton. Davis, Lois, 6m. 13, 1796. Davis, Moses, died 12m. 27, buried 29, 1815. Dockray, Mary, wife of John B., died at South Kingstown, 3m. 12, 1814. Dockray, Mercy, (Peckham of William), wife of John B., died, 11m. 29, 1850. Dockray, John Bigland, Jr., of John B. and Mercy, of South Kingstown, 4m. 24, 1813. Dockray, William Peckham, of same parents, 1m. 14, 1815. Dockray, Mercy, of same parents, 10m. 23, 1819. Dockray, James Perry, of same parents, 5m. 18, 1820. Dye, Samuel, of John and Thankful, 2m. 26, 1757. Dye, Richard, of John and Thankful, 10m. 18, 1760. Dye, Elizabeth, of John and Thankful, 2m. 8, 1765. Dye, Jonah, of John and Thankful, 6m. 15, 1770. Dye, John, of John and Thankful, 10m. 7, 1776. Dye, William, of John and Thankful, 10m. 21, 1781.
4780 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
Dye, Stephen, of John and Thankful, 8m. 1, 1784. Dye, Richard, of John and Thankful, 6m. 15, 1786. Dye, Thankful, of John and Thankful, 2m. 4, 1790. Dye, Russell, of John and Thankful, 5m. 16, 1792. Dye, Elizabeth, of John and Thankful, 3m. 16, 1795. Dye, Daniel, 5m. 28, 1771. Dye, Elizabeth Nichols, 2m. 9, 1776. Dye, Andrew, 3m. 19, 1778. Dye, James, 1m. 10, 1780. Dye, Rachel Nichols, 3m. 12, 1782. Dye, Daniel, of Samuel and Anne, 10m. 4, 1785. Dye, Elizabeth, of Samuel and Anne, 4m. 30, 1788. Dye, George, of Samuel and Anne, 11m. 22, 1790. Dye, Deborah, of Samuel and Anne, 10m. 4, 1794. F Foster, Martha, born Richmond, of Card & Sarah, 7m. 8, 1751. Foster, Judeth, born Richmond, of Card & Sarah, 11m. 6, 1752. Foster, John, born 8m. 18, 1755; died, 9m. 27, 1825. Foster, Ruth, [no dates given] Foster, Sarah, of John and Ruth, 3m. 22, 1777. Foster, Ethan, of John and Ruth, 8m. 15, 1779. Foster, Othniel, of John and Ruth, 6m. 13, 1782. Foster, Martha, of John and Ruth, 12m. 22, 1785. Foster, Elizabeth, of John and Ruth, 6m. 18, 1788. Foster, Judeth, of John and Ruth, 12m. 1, 1790. Foster, John, of John and Ruth, 2m. 13, 1793, died, 11m. 3, 1833. Foster, Temperance, of Thomas and Phebe, 3m. 9, 1829, died, 1861. Foster, John Wilbur, of Thomas and Phebe, 9m. 1, 1830. Foster, Ethan Bragg, of Thomas and Phebe, 1m. 26, 1832. Foster, Thomas Wilbur, of Thomas and Phebe, 3m. 20, 1834. Foster, George Garfield, of Thomas and Phebe, 9m. 20, 1835. Foster, Lydia Wilbur, of Thomas and Phebe, 10m. 19, 1837, died, 1861. Foster, Phebe Hannah, of Thomas and Phebe, 6m. 7, 1840, died, 5m. 10, 1862. Foster, John, of Ethan and Temperance, 9m. 24, 1802. Foster, Thomas, of Ethan and Temperance, 4m. 22, 1804.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4781 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
Foster, Elizabeth, of Ethan and Temperance, 3m. 15, 1806. Foster, Ethan, of Ethan and Temperance, 6m. 5, 1808. Foster, Mary Ann, of Ethan and Temperance, 9m. 1, 1812. Foster, Sarah W., of Ethan and Temperance, 1m. 12, 1815. Two eldest of above born in Richmond, the others not stated. Foster, John, Jr., born 9m. 25, 1802. Foster, Pelina, his wife, born 5m. 17, 1819. Foster, John H., of John and Pelina, 6m. 5, 1839. Foster, Charles, of John and Pelina, 10m. 28, 1840. Foster, Eunice, of Othniel and Eunice, 11m. 26, 1804, died 2m. 31, 1808. Foster, Sarah, of Othniel and Eunice, 7m. 25, 1807. Foster, Ruth Anna, of Othniel and Eunice, 2m. 14, 1809. Foster, Jeremiah, of Othniel and Eunice, 7m. 3, 1811. Foster, John B., of Othniel and Eunice, 3m. 30, 1813. Foster, Mary, of Othniel and Eunice, 1m. 26, 1815. Foster, George, of Othniel and Eunice, 8m. 30, 1816. Foster, Elizabeth, of Othniel and Eunice, 4m. 15, 1818. Foster, Stephen Hoxsie, of Othniel and Eunice, 2m. 1, 1820. Foster, Martha, of Othniel and Eunice, 1m. 29, 1823. Foster, Lydia Mitchell, of Othniel and Eunice, 7m. 27, 1824. Foster, Dorcas Peckham, of Othniel and Eunice, 10m. 26, 1827. Foster, Mary, (formerly Wilbur), died, 9m. 8, 1831. Foster, Ruth, widow of John and daughter of Stephen and Elizabeth Hoxsie, died aged 86 years and about 9 months; 9m. 9, 1836. Foster, Ethan, died 8m. 5, 1838. G Gardiner, Abiel, born 1m. 20, 1727, died 1m. 8, 1801. Gardiner, Hannah, born 4m. 10, 1760, died 6m. 13, 1839. Gardiner, Joshua, born 4m. 12, 1762. Gardiner, Dorcas, his wife, born 12m. 22, 1767. Gardiner, Joshua, of Joshua and Dorcas, 12m. 25, 1803. Gardiner, Abiel, of Joshua and Dorcas, 12m. 25, 1804. Gardiner, Susannah, of Joshua and Dorcas, 4m. 2, 1807. Gardiner, John W., of Joshua and Elizabeth, 1m. 9, 1829. Gardiner, Abbie Wilbur, of Joshua and Elizabeth, 1m. 21, 1838. Gardiner, Mary Ann, of Joshua and Elizabeth, 9m. 8, 1839.
4782 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
Gifford, Hannah, of William and Martha, 2m. 16, 1746. Gifford, Jabez, of William and Martha, 12m. 5, 1747. Gifford, William, of William and Martha, 1m. 28, 1750. Greene, Sarah, born 1m. 14, 1793. Greene, Elizabeth, born 9m. 19, 1805. H Hazard, Sarah, of Thomas (of Robert) and Elizabeth (Robinson of William), born 11m. 10, 1747, died, 5m. 26, 1753. Hazard, Robert, of same parents, 10m. 17, 1753. Hazard, Thomas, of same parents, born 11m. 13, 1755, died 3m. 15, 1756. Hazard, Thomas, 2nd, of same parents, born 11m. 15, 1758. Hazard, Sarah, wife of George, died, aged 26y. 10m.; 4m. 12, 1783; buried in old Meeting-house yard So. Kingstown. Hazard, Benjamin, of Thomas (of Benj’n), and Hannah, 11m. 4, 1784. Hazard, Thomas, of same parents, 5m. 8, 1787. Hazard, Hannah, of same parents, 11m. 14, 1791. Hazard, Isaac Senter, of same parents, born 3m. 27, died 29, 1795. Hazard, Isaac Senter, 2nd, of same parents, born 5m. 10, died 11, 1796. Hazard, Thomas, of Robert and Sarah, died in his 78 year, 8m. 26, 1798. Hazard, Sarah, of Benjamin and Joanna, 9m. 11, 1815. Hazard, Hannah, of Benjamin and Joanna, 6m. 9, 1817. Hazard, Esther, died in her 47 year, 4m. 21, 1819. Hazard, Mary Abbie, of Jonathan Nichols and Mary (Congdon), his wife, 4m. 29, 1828. Hazard, Anna Congdon, of same parents, 3m. 19, 1830, died, 7m. 10, 1832. Hazard, Sarah Congdon, of same parents, 12m. 28, 1831. Hazard, Anna Congdon 2nd, of same parents, 1m. 26, 1834, died, 10m. 11, 1835. Hazard, John Congdon, of same parents, 3m. 31, 1836. Hazard, Rowland, of same parents, 4m. 20, 1838. Hazard, George, died, 8m. 1, 1825. Hazard, Sarah, his wife, died, 10m. 31, 1834. Hazard, Alice R., died, 1m. 1, 1837. Hazard, Mary R., died, 3m. 26, 1837. Hazard, Jane, died aged 73y. 4m. 11d., 4m. 13, 1862. Hazard, Thomas B., died 9m. 28, buried 30, 1845. Healey, Mary Davis, of Martha, 4m. 11, 1782. Healey, Martha, of Martha, 3m. 4, 1790. Healey, Hannah, of Christopher and Alice, 10m. 28, 1794, died, 9m. 28, 1796.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4783 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
Healey, Samuel, of Christopher and Alice, 4m. 28, 1796. Healey, Elizabeth, of Christopher and Alice, 6m. 6, 1797. Healey, Peter Davis, of Joseph and Martha, 8m. 11, 1795. Healey, Hannah, of Joseph and Martha, 10m. 3, 1798. above children born in Hopkinton. Healey, Joseph S., 2m. 21, 1799. Healey, Rachel, 8m. 30, 1800. Healey, Thomas, 12m. 10, 1802. Hoxsie, Martha, of Solomon and Mary, 3m. 2, 1735. Hoxsie, Mary, of Solomon and Mary, 7m. 9, 1736. Hoxsie, Bathsheba, of Solomon and Mary, 3m. 14, 1740. Hoxsie, John, of Solomon and Mary, 6m. 29, 1742. Hoxsie, Peter, of Solomon and Mary, 11m. 17, 1744. Hoxsie, Anne, of Solomon and Mary, 1m. 15, 1747. Hoxsie, Solomon, of Solomon and Mary, 6m. 00, 1751. [sic] above children born in Charlestown. Hoxsie, Barnabus, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 9m. 1, 1735. Hoxsie, Stephen, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 3m. 8, 1738. Hoxsie, Elizabeth, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 5m. 13, 1740. Hoxsie, Edward, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 11m. 9, 1742, died, 9m. 4, 1750. Hoxsie, Hannah, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 11m. 7, 1744. Hoxsie, Samuel, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 6m. 13, 1747. Hoxsie, Ruth, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 11m. 4, 1749. Hoxsie, John, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 5m. 28, 1752. Hoxsie, Edward, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 11m. 11, 1754. Hoxsie, Mary, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 3m. 23, 1757. Hoxsie, Gideon, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 9m. 9, 1759. Hoxsie, Presberry, of Stephen and Elizabeth, 1m. 14, 1762. The eldest of the above born Westerly, the next six Charlestown, the rest Richmond. Hoxsie, Elizabeth, wife of Stephen, died age 59 years, 10m. 25, 1778. Hoxsie, Benjamin, of Benjamin and Sarah, 1m. 14, 1743. Hoxsie, Bathsheba, of Benjamin and Sarah, 9m. 13, 1744. Hoxsie, Sarah, of Benjamin and Sarah, 8m. 22, 1746. Hoxsie, Ann, of Benjamin and Sarah, 6m. 3, 1748. above children born in Charlestown. Hoxsie, Dorcas, of John and Mercy, of South Kingstown, 5m. 18, 1749. Hoxsie, Editha, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, 7m. 31, 1764. Hoxsie, Stephen, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, 1m. 00, 1768. [sic]
4784 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
ROGUE ISLAND RHODE ISLAND
Hoxsie, Enock, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, 7m. 27, 1769. Hoxsie, Elizabeth, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, 4m. 1, 1772. Hoxsie, Esther, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, 5m. 21, 1772 [sic], died, 4m. 10, 1778. Hoxsie, Joshua, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, 4m. 8, 1776. Hoxsie, Esther, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, 5m. 7, 1782. Hoxsie, Lydia, of Barnabus and Elizabeth, 6m. 22, 1788. Hoxsie, Barnabus, died, 4m. 11, 1799. Hoxsie, Elizabeth, his wife, died, 4m. 12, 1799. buried in one grave in Friends burial yard Richmond. Hoxsie, Solomon, of Peter and Sarah, 10m. 14, 1784, died, 11m. 3, 1793; buried in Friend’s burial yard Richmond. Hoxsie, Elizabeth, of Peter and Sarah, 10m. 22, 1787. Hoxsie, Solomon, died, 3m. 23, 1781, buried near his house Richmond. Hoxsie, Stephen, died aged 80y. 00m. 26d.; 10m. 24, 1793, buried 27, in Friend’s burial yard Richmond. Hoxsie, Elizabeth, of Stephen and Anna, 1m. 12, 1792. Hoxsie, Thomas W., of Stephen and Anna, 9m. 8, 1794. Hoxsie, William B., of Stephen and Anna, 10m. 25, 1795. Hoxsie, Stephen, of Stephen and Anna, 8m. 31, 1797. Hoxsie, Anna, of Stephen and Anna, 10m. 7, 1799. Hoxsie, George, of Stephen and Anna, 10m. 14, 1801. Hoxsie, Martha, of Stephen and Anna, 9m. 30, 1803. Hoxsie, Edith, of Stephen and Anna, 10m. 23, 1805. Hoxsie, Edward, of Stephen and Anna, 1m. 7, 1808. Hoxsie, Solomon Kenyon, of Stephen and Anna, 9m. 9, 1811. Hoxsie, John Woodman, of Stephen and Anna, 8m. 3, 1815. Hoxsie, Benjamin, died at Westerly, aged 78 years lacking 1m. 11d.; 1m. 14, buried 16, 1795. Hoxsie, Mary, died, aged 90 years and about 5 months, buried 20th. near where she lived; 3m. 18, 1797. Hoxsie, Joshua, Jr., of Joshua and Elizabeth, 4m. 12, 1805, died, 7m. 16, 1806. Hoxsie, Solomon W., of Joshua and Elizabeth, 8m. 11, 1806. Hoxsie, Edith Ann, of Joshua and Elizabeth, 6m. 23, 1809. Hoxsie, Rowland K., of Joshua and Elizabeth, 4m. 1, 1811. Hoxsie, Gideon K., of Joshua and Elizabeth, 2m. 19, 1815. Hoxsie, Eliza N., of Joshua and Elizabeth, 2m. 26, 1818. Hoxsie, Peter, died, 8m. 1, 1819. Hoxsie, Sarah, (supposed widow of Peter), died aged 79y. 3m. 2.; 3m. 29, 1828. Hoxsie, John, died, 3m. 19, 1833. Hoxsie, Anne, widow of Stephen, died, 1m. 23, 1838.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4785 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
Hull, Joseph, of Joseph and Susanna, 8m. 14, 1714. Hull, Susanna, of Joseph and Susanna, 2m. 20, 1716. Hull, Mary, of Joseph and Susanna, 12m. 19, 1718. Hull, Experience, of Joseph and Susanna, 6m. 21, 1722, died 10m. 31, 1748. Hull, Susanna, wife of Joseph, died in her 62nd year, 7m. 25, 1748. Hull, Joseph, died aged 67y. 4m. 10d.; 3m. 24, 1791 buried 26th, in Friend’s burial yard near Tower Hill, South Kingstown. I Irish, Benjamin , of Joseph and Dorcas, of South Kingstown, born 3m. 16, 1750. Irish, Mary, of same parents, 6m. 24, 1751. Irish, Dorcas, wife of Joseph, of South Kingstown, died, 7m. 24, 1752. Irish, Dorcas, of Joseph and Sarah, 7m. 20, 1755. Irish, Assa [sic], of Joseph and Sarah, 7m. 20, 1755. Irish, Amos, of Joseph and Sarah, 5m. 20, 1757. above children born in South Kingstown. Irish, Benjamin, of Job and Mary, 11m. 1, 1753. Irish, Elizabeth, of Job and Mary, 2m. 20, 1756. Irish, Lydia, of Job and Mary, 5m. 4, 1759. Irish, Jedediah, of Job and Mary, 3m. 3, 1762. Irish, Mary, of Job and Mary, 10m. 19, 1765. Irish, Peter Davis, of Job and Mary, 7m. 14, 1768. the first four of the children born South Kingstown, the next Pomfret, the last Stonington. Irish, Mary, wife of John, of Stonington, died in her 75 year buried 15th. in Friends burial yard Westerly; died 4m. 13, 1799. K Kenyon, George, 2m. 4, 1733, died 12m. 8, 1819. Kenyon, Martha, his wife, 5m. 2, 1735, died 11m. 22, 1818. Kenyon, Mary, of George and Martha, 3m. 25, 1759. Kenyon, Catherine, of George and Martha, 3m. 25, 1759. Kenyon, Martha, of George and Martha, 11m. 15, 1760. Kenyon, Thomas, of George and Martha, 2m. 57 [sic], 1762. Kenyon, Solomon, of George and Martha, 2m. 27, 1762. Kenyon, George, of George and Martha, 4m. 23, 1764. Kenyon, Bathsheba, of George and Martha, 11m. 20, 1765. Kenyon, Sarah, of George and Martha, 5m. 30, 1767. Kenyon, Gideon, of George and Martha, 5m. 16, 1770.
4786 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Kenyon, Anne, of George and Martha, 4m. 6, 1772. Kenyon, Elizabeth, of George and Martha, 1m. 31, 1774. Kenyon, Lydia, of George and Martha, 3m. 17, 1776. Kenyon, Bathsheba, of George and Martha, 4m. 9, 1778. Kenyon, John H., of George and Martha, 5m. 24, 1780. Kenyon, Martha, of Solomon and Eunice, 2m. 27, 1790. Kenyon, Peleg, of Solomon and Eunice, 2m. 24, 1892. [sic] Kenyon, Solomon, of Solomon and Eunice, 5m. 19, 1793. Kenyon, Catherine, of Solomon and Eunice, 4m. 20, 1795. Kenyon, George C., of Solomon and Eunice, 11m. 26, 1797. Kenyon, Elisha, of Solomon and Eunice, 7m. 29, 1799. Kenyon, Elisha, of Solomon and Eunice, died, 8m. 9, 1799. Kenyon, John T., of Solomon and Eunice, 1m. 11, 1801. Kenyon, Eunice, of Solomon and Eunice, 2m. 9, 1805. Kenyon, Elwood, of Solomon and Eunice, 4m. 21, 1807. Kenyon, Lydia, of Solomon and Eunice, 11m. 29, 1809. Kenyon, Lydia, of Solomon and Eunice, died, 1m. 30, 1810. Kenyon, Thomas Elwood, of Solomon and Eunice, 4m. 21, 1807. the first seven of the above children born in South Kingstown, the others in Richmond. Kenyon, Mary, of Gideon and Sarah, 11m. 30, 1793. Kenyon, Sarah, of Gideon and Sarah, 1m. 7, 1796. Kenyon, Martha, of Gideon and Sarah, 4m. 22, 1798. Kenyon, Martha, of Gideon and Sarah, died, 5m. 15, 1829. Kenyon, Deborah, of Gideon and Sarah, 4m. 9, 1800. Kenyon, Gideon H., of Gideon and Sarah, 4m. 9, 1802. Kenyon, Gideon H., of Gideon and Sarah, died, 5m. 24, 1810. Kenyon, Catherine, of Gideon and Sarah, 5m. 16, 1804. Kenyon, Elijah, of Gideon and Sarah, 6m. 21, 1807. Kenyon, Gideon, of Gideon and Sarah, 2m. 19, 1811. Kenyon, George S., of George and Rachel, 1m. 23, 1795. Kenyon, Elisha, of George and Rachel, 12m. 30, 1796. Kenyon, Lydia, of George and Rachel, 8m. 25, 1799. Kenyon, Elizabeth, of George and Rachel, 9m. 17, 1802. Kenyon, Rachel, of George and Rachel, 4m. 20, 1804. Kenyon, Mary, of George and Rachel, 7m. 27, 1806.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4787 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RHODE ISLAND ROGUE ISLAND
Kenyon, David, of George and Rachel, 11m. 28, 1808. Kenyon, Abel Collins, of George and Rachel, 10m. 3, 1811. the first four of the above children born South Kingstown, the next two Hopkinton, the two last Richmond. Kenyon, Rowland, of John H. and Ruth, 11m. 21, 1805, died, 9m. 14, 1807. Kenyon, Rowland, 2nd, of same parents, 8m. 2, 1808, died, 5m. 30, 1814. Kenyon, Mary Ann, of the same parents, 9m. 19, 1810. Kenyon, Julina, of the same parents, 5m. 17, 1814. Kenyon, John H., of the same parents, 4m. 20, 1816. Kenyon, Eunice, died, 9m. 13, 1819. Knowles, John, born 5m. 25, 1720, died 2m. 9, 1793. buried in Friend’s burial yard Richmond. Knowles, Susanna, his wife, born 7m. 1724, died 9m. 1767. Knowles, Sarah, of Robert and Ann, 3m. 9, 1722. Knowles, William, of Robert and Ann, 8m. 13, 1725. Knowles, Robert, of Robert and Ann, 12m. 27, 1727. Knowles, Joseph, of Robert and Ann, 1m. 16, 1730. Knowles, Ann, of Robert and Ann, 8m. 20, 1737. Knowles, Robert, son of John, born 6m. 16, 1749. Knowles, Catherine, his wife, born 12m. 29, 1753. Knowles, John Warner, of Robert and Catherine, 1m. 31, 1776. Knowles, Elizabeth, of Robert and Catherine, 4m. 13, 1784. Knowles, Thomas Rodman, of Robert and Catherine, 12m. 19, 1786. Knowles, Catherine Fry, of Robert and Catherine, 1m. 15, 1790. Knowles, Benjamin, of Robert and Catherine, 9m. 1, 1792. Knowles, Ruth, of Robert and Catherine, 6m. 29, 1796. Knowles, Alice, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 10m. 24, 1754. Knowles, Robert, of Joseph and Bathsheba, 8m. 29, 1758. above children born South Kingstown. Knowles, Bathsheba, wife of Joseph, died aged near 68 years; buried 31st., in new meeting house yard South Kingstown; 1m. 29, 1800. Knowles, Joseph, died aged 79 years wanting 9 days, 3m. 7, 1809. Knowles, Mary (Hoxsie), wife of John, died, 3m. 23, 1757. Knowles, Susanna, of John and Mary, 6m. 2, 1779. Knowles, John, of John and Mary, 3m. 2, 1781. Knowles, William, of John and Mary, 4m. 25, 1783. Knowles, Daniel, of John and Mary, 6m. 25, 1785. Knowles, Stephen, of John and Mary, 7m. 27, 1787. Knowles, Elizabeth, of John and Mary, 1m. 19, 1789.
4788 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Knowles, John, died, 8m. 24, 1791; buried 25, in Friend’s burial yard Richmond. Knowles, William T., born 5m. 22, 1758, died 8m. 20, buried 22, 1803; in Friend’s burial yard, Richmond. Knowles, Avis, his wife, born 3m. 8, 1758. Knowles, Avis, of William T. and Avis, 12m. 5, 1791. Knowles, Sarah, of William T. and Avis, 1m. 22, 1793. Knowles, John, of William T. and Avis, 4m. 12, 1794. Knowles, Benjamin, of William T. and Avis, 8m. 28, 1796. Knowles, Jonathan, of William T. and Avis, 9m. 6, 1797. Knowles, William, of William T. and Avis, 1m. 21, 1799. Knowles, Susanna, of William T. and Avis, 5m. 12, 1801. Knowles, George, of William T. and Avis, 6m. 4, 1802. Knowles, Amie, born 2m. 15, 1769, died 7m. 23, 1850. Knowles, Elizabeth, died, 2m. 1, 1785; buried at Friend’s burial yard, Tower Hill. Knowles, Hannah, of Robert and Lucy Anna, 10m. 14, 1783. Knowles, Henry, of Robert and Lucy Anna, 1m. 27, 1786. Knowles, Bathsheba, of Robert and Lucy Anna, 4m. 19, 1788. Knowles, Alice, of Robert and Lucy Anna, 7m. 8, 1790. Knowles, Catherine, of Robert and Lucy Anna, 7m. 20, 1792. Knowles, Anna, of Robert and Lucy Anna, 7m. 30, 1795. Knowles, Benjamin Rodman; of above parents, 8m. 15, 1797. Knowles, Sarah, of above parents, 6m. 10, 1799. Knowles, Jonathan, of William, 9m. 14, 1797. Knowles, George, of William, died aged 13m.; 7m. 14, 1803. Knowles, Elizabeth, of John W. and Esther, 1m. 5, 1802. Knowles, Barnabus, of John W. and Esther, 8m. 30, 1804. Knowles, Deborah, of John W. and Esther, 10m. 19, 1805. Knowles, John H., of John and Hannah, 7m. 1, 1804. Knowles, Solomon R., of John and Hannah, 9m. 3, 1807. Knowles, Sarah, of John and Hannah, 1m. 9, 1810. Knowles, Mary, of John and Hannah, 3m. 9, 1813. Knowles, Calvin, of John and Hannah, 5m. 22, 1816. Knowles, Robert R., of John and Hannah, [no date given - could be twin to next child] Knowles, Anna Almy, of John and Hannah, 9m. 6, 1821. Knowles, Horace Browning, of John and Hannah, 1m. 27, 1824. Knowles, John, of John, died, 11m. 30, 1864.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4789 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Knowles, Hannah, his wife died, 12m. 31, 1871. Knowles, John Hoxsie, born 7m. 1, 1804. Knowles, Catherine E., his wife, died, 12m. 2, 1880. Knowles, William Collins, of John H. and Catherine E., 7m. 12, 1828. Knowles, Robert, died in his 61st. year, 2m. 1, 1810; buried in Friend’s burial yard Richmond. Knowles, Henry A., of Henry and Susanna, 2m. 21, 1811. Knowles, Abraham, of Henry and Susanna, 1m. 10, 1813. Knowles, Susanna, of Henry and Susanna, 5m. 7, 1815. Knowles, Mary, of Henry and Susanna, 9m. 13, 1816. Knowles, Abraham, of Henry and Susanna, died, 7m. 18, 1814. above children born in South Kingstown. Knowles, Catherine, died, 3m. 24, 1825. M Munroe, Phebe, of Collins, died aged 59 years 6 1-5 m. [sic] buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton; died 12m. 3, 1854. Munroe, Thankful, 3m. 28, 1855. N Nichols, Martha, born 10m. 24, 1741. Nichols, John Taylor, of Andrew and Anne, 9m. 3, 1764. Nichols, John Taylor, of Andrew and Anne, died, 1m. 20, 1835. Nichols, Andrew, of Andrew and Anne, 1m. 3, 1766. Nichols, Elizabeth, of Andrew and Anne, 9m. 10, 1768. Nichols, William, of Andrew and Anne, 11m. 22, 1770. Nichols, Elizabeth, of Andrew and Anne, 8m. 29, 1773. Nichols, Susanna Neau, of Andrew and Anne, 7m. 17, 1796. Nichols, Andrew, of Andrew and Anne, 6m. 28, 1808. Nichols, Rachel, died aged 88 y. 7m. 3d., and buried in Friend’s burial yard; died, 5m. 15, 1792. Nichols, John, of Andrew and Rachel, died aged 64 years; 9m. 17, 1800; buried in Friend’s burial yard. Nichols, Mary, wife of John Taylor Nichols, died 12m. 9, 1841, aged 82 years. Nichols, John Taylor, Jr., died aged 73 years, 2m. 17, 1870. Nichols, Andrew, died aged 82 years, 9m. 4, 1841. Nichols, Mary, his wife, died aged 80 years, 4m. 1, 1844. Nichols, Elizbeth, died at her birth, buried next day. [no date given] Nichols, William, died 1m. 27, 1853, buried the 30th.
4790 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Nichols, Elizabeth, died 11m. 27, buried 30, 1882. The burials of the above family were in the Friend’s burial yard near Tower Hill. O Oatley, Mary, died aged 83y. 5m. 24d., was buried near house in lower meeting house lot South Kingstown, died 5m. 20, buried 22, 1786. P Parker, Catherine, died aged 77y. 11m. 19d., 11m. 14, 1781, buried in Friend’s burial yard Tower Hill. Peckham, Sarah, of William and Mercy, 11m. 28, 1777. Peckham, Alice, of William and Mercy, 1m. 19, 1780. Pekcham, William, of William and Mercy, 11m. 4, 1781. Peckham, Mercy, of William and Mercy, 7m. 11, 1783. Peckham, Dorcas, of William and Mercy, 2m. 7, 1787. Peckham, Perry, of William and Mercy, 6m. 30, 1789. Peckham, Elizabeth, of William and Mercy, 11m. 9, 1792. Peckham, Elizabeth, of William and Mercy, 3m. 1, 1878 [sic - year of death?] Peckham, Mary, of William and Mercy, 3m. 27, 1795. Peckham, Mary, of William and Mercy, died, 1m. 27, 1827. Peckham, William, died aged 68 years, 5m. 19, 1820. Peckham, Mercy, his wife, died, 7m. 24, 1810. Peckham, Dorcas, widow of William, died, 4m. 15, 1831. Peckham, Elizabeth, wife of Peleg, died, 9m. 12, 1788. Peckham, Mary, died, 10m. 1, 1827. Perry, Mary, of James and Alice, 8m. 25, 1719. Perry, James, of James and Alice, 8m. 27, 1728. Perry, Alice, of James and Anna, 5m. 20, 1736. Perry, Jonathan, of James and Anna, 7m. 2, 1738. Perry, Samuel, of James and Anna, 12m. 24, 1739. Perry, Alice, wife of James, died, 12m. 7, 1731. Perry, Thomas, of Simeon and Anne, 12m. 7, 1776. Perry, Hoxsie, of Simeon and Anne, 5m. 10, 1778. Perry, Sarah, of Simeon and Anne, 8m. 17, 1780. Perry, Solomon, of Simeon and Anne, 6m. 25, 1782. Perry, Anne, wife of Simeon and daughter of Solomon Hoxsie, deceased, died, 10m. 27, 1785. Perry, Elizabeth, wife of Simeon, died aged 35y. 10m., buried 22, near house in Hopkinton, died, 6m. 20, 1778. Perry, Martha, of Stephen and Elizabeth, died, 4m. 2, 1789, buried near house in Hopkinton.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4791 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Perry, Sarah, wife of Simeon of Charlestown, died 6m. 1, 1792. Perry, Simeon of Charlestown, died, 12m. 2, 1802. Perry, Hannah, widow of Simeon, died 4m. 10, 1817. Perry, William S., born 3m. 1, 1799, died, 8m. 4, 1862. Perry, Lois, his wife, born 6m. 13, 1796. Perry, Edward Burrough, of Wm. S. & Lois, 3m. 3, 1822. Perry, Francis Howgall, of Wm. S. & Lois, 9m. 5, 1824. Perry, Lois Anthony, of Wm. S. & Lois, 7m. 6, 1827. Perry, Mary Peckham, of Wm. S. & Lois, 3m. 29, 1829. Perry, William Henry, of Wm. S. & Lois, 5m. 1, 1831. Perry, Robert Barclay, of Wm. S. & Lois, 11m. 23, 1833. Perry, Robert Barclay, of Wm. S. & Lois, died 9m. 12, 1854. Perry, Preserved, of Wm. S. & Lois, 1m. 22, 1837. Perry, Preserved, of Wm. S. & Lois, 9m. 19, 1841. [sic - died??] Perry, Susan Amie, of Wm. S. & Lois, 5m. 2, 1840. Perry, Susan Amie, of Wm. S. & Lois, died 9m. 23, 1841. Perry, Susan Amie, 2nd, of Wm. S. & Lois, 9m. 4, 1843. Perry, Charles, of Thomas and Elizabeth, 9m. 27, 1809. Perry, Anna, of Thomas and Elizabeth, 9m. 2, 1812. Perry, Thomas, of Thomas and Elizabeth, 6m. 6, 1814. Perry, William Henry, born 5m. 1, 1831. Perry, Sarah Anna (Nichols), his wife, born 6m. 15, 1836, died, 5m. 29, 1880. Perry, Elizabeth, his wife, born 6m. 4, 1837. Perry, George E., of William H. and Sarah, 8m. 26, 1855. Perry, William F.,. of William H. and Sarah, 3m. 12, 1857. Perry, Herbert Burton, of William H. and Sarah, 1m. 28, 1859. Perry, Elvira Maria, of William H. and Sarah, 5m. 14, 1861. Perry, Daniel Edward, of William H. and Sarah, 10m. 31, 1863. Perry, Albert Henry, of William H. and Sarah, 11m. 14, 1865. Perry, John Branch, of William H. and Sarah, 11m. 14, 1867. Perry, Sidney Howard, of William H. and Sarah, 11m. 5, 1869. Perry, Lois Anna, of William H. and Sarah, 10m. 19, 1871. R Rathbun, Joshua, of Joshua (deceased) and Sarah, 8m. 25, 1767. Rathbun, Abraham Borden, of same parents, 11m. 10, 1769.
4792 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Rathbun, Acors, (born Stonington), of same parents, 1m. 23, 1772. Rathbun, Benjamin Bagnall, of same parents, 3m. 17, 1774. Rathbun, Rowland R., of Acors and Lydia, 9m. 1, 1776. Rathbun, Mary, of Acors and Lydia, 8m. 27, 1778, died in her 5th year. Rathbun, Joshua, of Acors and Lydia, 10m. 4, 1780. Rathbun, Dorcas, of Acors and Lydia, 12m. 29, 1782. Rathbun, Lydia, of Acors and Lydia, 11m. 29, 1785. Rathbun, Lydia, wife of Acors, died, 8m. 14, 1788. died at Stonington Point, buried with her father and mother in Hopkinton. Rathbun, Sarah, of Abraham B. and Deborah, 7m. 21, 1793. Rathbun, Joshua, of Acors and Sarah, 11m. 24, 1794, died 1m. 24, 1795. Rathbun, William, of Acors and Sarah, 2m. 18, 1796. Rathbun, Sarah, of Acors and Sarah, 11m. 11, 1797. Rathbun, Solomon, of Acors and Sarah, 6m. 30, 1799. Rathbun, Wells, of Acors and Sarah, 2m. 12, 1801. Rathbun, Deborah, wife of Abraham Borden Rathbun, of South Kingstown, died aged 27y. 6m. 10d., buried 29th. in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton, died, 5m. 16, 1795. Rathbun, Solomon Hoxsie, of Joshua and Elizabeth, 10m. 19, 1805. Rathbun, Sarah, of Joshua and Elizabeth, 8m. 15, 1807. Rathbun, George, of Joshua and Elizabeth, 10m. 27, 1810. Rathbun, George, of Joshua and Elizabeth, died, 4m. 19, 1812. Rathbun, George Fox, of Joshua and Elizabeth, 6m. 10, 1813. Rathbun, Peter Hoxsie, of Joshua and Elizabeth, 11m. 4, 1815. Rathbun, Mary Alice, of Joshua and Elizabeth, 3m. 4, 1818. Rathbun, Rowland Robinson, of above parents, 9m. 11, 1822. Ray, Bathsheba, 2nd wife of Isaiah, died, 10m. 20, 1838. Read, Elizabeth, 2m. 16, 1796. Richmond, Stephen, born 8m. 3, 1704, died 6m. 26, 1787. Richmond, Anne, born 9m. 1, 1706, died, 5m. 12, 1785, married John Hoxsie. Richmond, Jane, of Cyrus and Phebe, 4m. 7, 1733. Richmond, Cyrus, of Cyrus and Phebe, 3m. 6, 1737. Richmond, Phebe, of Cyrus and Phebe, 8m. 25, 1739. Richmond, Abigail, of Cyrus and Phebe, 5m. 16, 1743. Richmond, Mary, of Cyrus and Phebe, 5m. 15, 1745. Robinson, William A.,. (born Huntington, New Jersey) 10m. 18, 1797. Robinson, Dorcas (Brown), his wife, (born Danby, Vermont) 3m. 26, 1807.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4793 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Robinson, Mary Atmore, of William A. and Dorcas, 8m. 28, 1829. Robinson, James, of same parents, 5m. 19, 1831. Robinson, Edward Hadwin, of same parents, 1m. 16, 1833. Robinson, Caroline, of same parents, 6m. 8, 1834. Robinson, Anne Atmore, of same parents, 5m. 30, 1837. Robinson, William Atmore, of same parents, 5m. 7, 1841. above children born in South Kingstown. Robinson, Rowland, of James and Mary A.,. 5m. 29, 1806. Robinson, Sylvester C., of James and Mary A., 11m. 19, 1808, died at Salem, Massachusetts, 3m. 2, 1883. Rodman, Robert, of Samuel and Penelope, 9m. 28, 1745. Rodman, Daniel, of Samuel and Penelope, 3m. 4, 1747. Rodman, William, of Samuel and Penelope, 9m. 19, 1748. Rodman, Catherine, of Samuel and Penelope, 5m. 9, 1751. Rodman, Penelope, of Samuel and Penelope, 5m. 9, 1751. above children born in South Kingstown. Rodman, Catherine, of Benjamin and Hannah, 12m. 29, 1753. Rodman, Mary, of Benjamin and Hannah, 12m. 16, 1755. Rodman, Anne, of Benjamin and Hannah, 12m. 11, 1757. Rodman, Lucy Anna, of Benjamin and Hannah, 4m. 28, 1760. Rodman, Ruth, of Benjamin and Hannah, 8m. 12, 1763. Rodman, Deborah, of Benjamin and Hannah, 8m. 5, 1766. above children born in South Kingstown. Rodman, Abigail, wife of Thomas of South Kingstown, died aged 78 years 5 months, and buried 19th. in the Friend’s burial yard near Tower Hill, died, 1m. 16, 1761. Rogers, Anna, 1m. 28, 1764. Rogers, Zerniah, 4m. 29, 1765. S Seager, Hannah, of John Jr. and Elizabeth, 11m. 12, 1746. Seager, Alice, of John Jr. and Elizabeth, 3m. 16, 1748. Seager, John, of John Jr. and Elizabeth, 7m. 18, 1749. Seager, Samuel, of John Jr. and Elizabeth, 7m. 19, 1740. [sic] Seager, John, of John Jr. and Elizabeth, 1m. 14, 1743. [sic] Seager, Elizabeth, of John Jr. and Elizabeth, 1m. 23, 1755. Seager, John, of John Jr. and Elizabeth, died, 2m. 18, 1750. Seager, John Jr., died, 9m. 24, 1754. Seager, Elizbeth, wife of John Jr., died, 3m. 3, 1755. above children born in South Kingstown. Seager, Rebecca, born 3m. 13, 1762, died, 2m. 11, 1850. Sheffield, Hannah, 12m. 15, 1770.
4794 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Sheffield, James, 1m. 27, 1773, died 6m. 10, 1825. Sheffield, Alice, 8m. 8, 1775. Sheffield, Joshua, 12m. 1, 1777. Sheffield, Samuel, 10m. 1, 1780. Sheffield, Elizabeth, 6m. 2, 1783. Sheffield, John, 6m. 7, 1786. Sheffield, Mary, 11m. 5, 1788. Sheffield, James, born 1m. 27, 1773, died 6m. 10, 1825. Sheffield, Sarah, his wife, 3m. 22, 1777. Sheffield, John, of James and Sarah, 7m. 20, 1796. Sheffield, Ruth, of James and Sarah, 9m. 3, 1798. Sheffield, Samuel, of James and Sarah, 11m. 4, 1803. Sheffield, Card Foster, of James and Sarah, 2m. 28, 1816. Sheffield, John, died at Richmond, aged 31 years 3 months, 10m. 19, 1827. Sheffield, Eunice, of John and Ann, 3m. 4, 1821. Sheffield, Edward, of John and Ann, 3m. 22, 1823. Sheffield, Edward, of John and Ann, died, 3m. 2--, 1823. Sheffield, Edward K., of John and Ann, 10m. 31, 1824. Sheffield, Mary P., of John and Ann, 1m. 25, 1826. Sheffield, Mary P., of John and Ann, died, 10m. 19, 1826. Sheffield, Martha, of Samuel and Amie, 11m. 8, 1830. Sheffield, Elizabeth, of Samuel and Amie, 12m. 19, 1833. Sheffield, James, of Samuel and Amie, 1m. 18, 1838. Sheffield, Amie Knowles, of Samuel and Amie, 9m. 17, 1835. Sheffield, Samuel Christopher, of Samuel and Amie, 2m. 2, 1845. Slocum, Jonathan, 3m. 10, 1808. Smith, Mehitable, of Richard and Abigail, 7m. 20, 1745. Smith, Abigail, of Richard, of Groton, Connecticut, died, 6m. 15, 1799. Smith, Richard, of Groton, Connecticut, died, 8m. 28, 1800. T Tripp, Ann, of Lot and Susannah, 7m. 11, 1743. Tripp, Mary, of Lot and Susannah, 6m. 11, 1745. Tripp, Lot, of Lot and Susannah, 5m. 18, 1747. Tripp, Joseph, of Lot and Susannah, 3m. 5, 1750. Tripp, Joseph, of Lot and Susannah, died, 9m. 25, 1752.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4795 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Tripp, Experience, of Lot and Susannah, 11m. 4, 1752. Tripp, Experience, of Lot and Susannah, died, 12m. 10, 1752. Tripp, Experience, 2d, of Lot and Susannah, 2m. 22, 1754. Tripp, Tabitha, of Lot and Susannah, 8m. 29, 1755. Tucker, Joshua, born 9m. 4, 1750, died, 2m. 19, 1832. W Watson, Jeffrey, born 8m. 30, 1786, died, 1m. 6, 1838. Watson, Elizabeth, his wife, born 8m. 19, 1794. Watson, Ezekiel, of Jeffrey and Elizabeth, 12m. 17, 1812. Watson, Dorcas G., of Jeffrey and Elizabeth, 3m. 9, 1814. Watson, Elizabeth B., of Jeffrey and Elizabeth, 5m. 30, 1821. Watson, William T., of Jeffrey and Elizabeth, 4m. 27, 1824. Watson, Elizabeth B., of Jeffrey and Elizabeth, died, 8m. 2, 1837. Watson, Hannah, widow of Ezekiel, born 6m. 5, 1767, died, 2m. 5, 1832. Waud, Eliza, of Eliphalet, 5m. 12, 1807. Weaver, Anne, of Zebulon and Dorcas, 10m. 1, 1778. Weaver, John Hoxsie, of Zebulon and Dorcas, 5m. 3, 1780. Weaver, Ruth, of Zebulon and Dorcas, 12m. 24, 1781. Weaver, Zebulon, of Zebulon and Dorcas, 9m. 26, 1783. Weaver, Lydia, of Zebulon and Dorcas, 11m. 3, 1785. Weaver, Joshua, of Zebulon and Dorcas, 2m. 21, 1788. Weaver, Dorcas, of Zebulon and Dorcas, 8m. 7, 1792. Wilbur, Woodman, born 10m. 13, 1743, died, 7m. 24, 1825. Buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton. Wilbur, Dorcas, [no dates listed] Wilbur, Esther, 12m. 17, 1769. Wilbur, Thomas, of Thomas and Mary, 5m. 7, 1762. Wilbur, William, of Thomas and Mary, 6m. 10, 1765. Wilbur, Solomon, of Thomas and Mary, 2m. 11, 1768. Wilbur, Isaac, of Thomas and Mary, 6m. 2, 1771. Wilbur, Mary, of Thomas and Mary, 11m. 9, 1772. Wilbur, John, of Thomas and Mary, 7m. 17, 1774. Wilbur, Dorcas, died, 1m. 1, 1770. Wilbur, Thomas Burgeuss, of William and Anna, 3m. 7, 1791, died, 3m. 25, 1795; buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton. Wilbur, Mary, of William and Anna, 4m. 25, 1792.
4796 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Wilbur, Sarah Greene, of William and Anna, 2m. 10, 1794. Wilbur, Ann, of William and Anna, 6m. 4, 1797. Wilbur, William, of William and Anna, 5m. 30, 1799. Wilbur, Hannah S., of William and Anna, 4m. 14, 1805. Wilbur, Thomas, of Isaac and Susanna, 12m. 8, 1795. Wilbur, Isaac, of Isaac and Susanna, 6m. 7, 1798. Wilbur, Isaac, of Isaac and Susanna, died, 7m. 19, 1799. Wilbur, Elizabeth, of Isaac and Susanna, 5m. 22, 1800. Wilbur, Gideon, of Isaac and Susanna, 4m. 6, 1803. Wilbur, Abbie, of Isaac and Susanna, 3m. 20, 1806. Wilbur, Alice, of Isaac and Susanna, 2m. 8, 1809. Wilbur, Daniel, of Isaac and Susanna, 1m. 22, 1812. Wilbur, Isaac Peckham, of Isaac and Susanna, 2m. 3, 1815. Wilbur, Mary Ann, of Isaac and Susanna, 1m. 11, 1818. the first of the above children born Richmond, the second South Kingstown, the rest Hopkinton. Wilbur, Thomas, of John and Lydia, 1m. 16, 1795. Wilbur, Amos Collins, of John and Lydia, 11m. 25, 1796. Wilbur, Lydia, of John and Lydia, 8m. 23, 1798. Wilbur, Phebe, of John and Lydia, 5m. 29, 1800. Wilbur, Susan Cole, of John and Lydia, 4m. 12, 1802. Wilbur, Sarah S., of John and Lydia, 5m. 4, 1804. Wilbur, Mary, of John and Lydia, 10m. 2, 1806. above children, eldest born Stonington, the next four Hopkinton, two youngest not stated. Wilbur, Thomas, died, 8m. 3, 1796, buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton. Wilbur, Solomon, died, 5m. 17, buried 18, 1779. Wilbur, Thomas, of Thomas and Mary, died aged 39y. 4m. 18d.; buried 28, died, 3m. 26, 1821. both of the above buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton. Wilbur, John, of John and Lydia, 7m. 4, 1809. Wilbur, Hannah Collins, of John and Lydia, 8m. 19, 1811. Wilbur, Ruth, of John and Lydia, 12m. 24, 1813. Wilbur, Ruth, of John and Lydia, died, 8m. 5, 1814. Wilbur, William Hale, of John and Lydia, 3m. 10, 1816. Wilbur, Anna A., of John and Lydia, 4m. 20, 1818. Wilbur, Elizabeth Walker, of John and Lydia, 1m. 16, 1821. Wilbur, Isaac, died aged 54y. 5m., 2m. 11, 1825, buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton. Wilbur, Isaac Gardiner, of Gideon and Susan, 3m. 15, 1830.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 4797 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Wilbur, Benjamin Knowles, of Gideon and Susan, 7m. 8, 1832. Wilbur, Benjamin Hammond, of Gideon and Susan, died, 1m. 4, 1878. Wilbur, Susan Howland, of Gideon and Susan, 11m. 7, 1835. Wilbur, Susan Howland, of Gideon and Susan, died, 1m. 17, 1878. Wilbur, Benjamin T., died, 3m. 6, 1879. Wilbur, Hannah Collins, of John and Lydia, died aged 21 y. 00m. 3d.; 6m. 21, 1832. Wilbur, Lydia, of John and Lydia, died aged 38y. 9m. 21d., 6m. 14, 1837. Wilcox, Susanna, 11m. 27, 1773. Wilkinson, Mary, of John and Martha, 3m. 16, 1735. Wilkinson, William, of John and Martha, 10m. 14, 1736. Wilkinson, Dinah, of John and Martha, 9m. 14, 1738. Wilkinson, Mary, of John and Martha, 12m. 16, 1740. Wilkinson, John, of John and Martha, 3m. 9, 1742. Wilkinson, Mary, of John and Martha, died, 1m. 28, 1738. Wilkinson, Mary, 2nd, of John and Mary, died, 1m. 6, 1750. two youngest of the above born in Charlestown. Williams, Caroline Smith, of John Dockray and Hannah (Brown) 3m. 24, 1826, died, 1m. 27, 1838. Williams, Edward Brown, of same parents, 2m. 2, 1828. Williams, Charles, of same parents, 12m. 22, 1833. Williams, John Dockray, of same parents, 12m. 22, 1835. Wing, Mary, widow of John, and formerly wife of Thomas Wilbur, died, 8m. 4, 1827, buried in Friend’s burial yard Hopkinton.
In about this year an oil portrait was made on canvas by Edward Dalton Marchant of Elisha Reynolds Potter, Junior (1811-1882) of South Kingstown, Rhode Island.
During this year in Rhode Island, Charles Jackson was in charge.
4798 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Thomas Allen Jenckes became Rhode Island’s Adjutant General. He would serve in this capacity until 1855, when he would be appointed as one of the commissioners to revise the state’s laws.
The proposal was made that the line of mysterious symbols, that had been first noticed in about 1835 on a rock at the tide line at Mount Hope, Rhode Island had been carved there by Norsemen in the 11th Century. This was of course a preposterous inference as none of the symbols resembled any known Norse symbols, and more recently, in 1919, the symbols would be discovered to be merely from the Cherokee syllabary — but stupid self-important ideas die hard, and so even today this thing is being referred to as “Norse Rock.”
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It was at approximately this point that George Thomas Downing, the black New-York restaurateur, arrived in Newport, Rhode Island. There, along with his business activities, he would be the operator of the local Underground Railroad station. In this year Ocean House, the 1st lavish accommodation in Newport for rich summer visitors, opened its doors (there wasn’t as yet a line of Gilded-Age “cottages” to provide at-home services for the visiting snobs and swells).
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During a visit to Providence, Rhode Island, Edgar Allan Poe, always a man with an eye for the ladies despite the fact that he was already married, laid an eye upon Friend Sarah Helen Power Whitman. At this time she
was unaware of the attention, and he was unaware that she was a widow possessed of funds. Poe’s “The Raven” appeared, first in the New-York Evening Mirror and then in Wiley and Putnam’s THE RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS, and its author was made the lead reviewer of the Broadway Journal and purchased that journal
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on credit. It was possibly in this year that Walt Whitman met him: “Specimen Days”
BROADWAY SIGHTS Besides Fulton ferry, off and on for years, I knew and frequented Broadway — that noted avenue of New York’s crowded and mixed humanity, and of so many notables. Here I saw, during those times, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster, Clay, William Henry Seward, Martin Van Buren, filibuster Walker, Lajos Kossuth, Fitz Greene Halleck, Bryant, the Prince of Wales, Charles Dickens, the first Japanese ambassadors, and lots of other celebrities of the time. Always something novel or inspiriting; yet mostly to me the hurrying and vast amplitude of those never-ending human currents. I remember seeing James Fenimore Cooper in a court-room in Chambers street, back of the city hall, where he was carrying on a law case — (I think it was a charge of libel he had brought against some one.) I also remember seeing Edgar A. Poe, and having a short interview with him, (it must have been in 1845 or ’6,) in his office, second story of a corner building, (Duane or Pearl street.) He was editor and owner or part owner of “the Broadway Journal.” [Page 702] The visit was about a piece of mine he had publish’d. Poe was very cordial, in a quiet way, appear’d well in person, dress, &c. I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner and matter; very kindly and human, but subdued, perhaps a little jaded. For another of my reminiscences, here on the west side, just below Houston street, I once saw (it must have been about 1832, of a sharp, bright January day) a bent, feeble but stout-built very old man, bearded, swathed in rich furs, with a great ermine cap on his head, led and assisted, almost carried, down the steps of his high front stoop (a dozen friends and servants, emulous, carefully holding, guiding him) and then lifted and tuck’d in a gorgeous sleigh, envelop’d in other furs, for a ride. The sleigh was drawn by as fine a team of horses as I ever saw. (You needn’t think all the best animals are brought up nowadays; never was such horseflesh as fifty years ago on Long Island, or south, or in New York city; folks look’d for spirit and mettle in a nag, not tame speed merely.) Well, I, a boy of perhaps thirteen or fourteen, stopp’d and gazed long at the spectacle of that fur- swathed old man, surrounded by friends and servants, and the careful seating of him in the sleigh. I remember the spirited, champing horses, the driver with his whip, and a fellow-driver by his side, for extra prudence. The old man, the subject of so much attention, I can almost see now. It was John Jacob Astor. The years 1846, ’47, and there along, see me still in New York city, working as writer and printer, having my usual good health, and a good time generally.
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Dr. Isaac Ray, one of the founders of the American Psychiatric Association, a former classmate of Hawthorne at Bowdoin College, was appointed as the first superintendant of Butler Hospital for the Insane in Providence, Rhode Island and departed for a European tour on which he would examine methods of hospital construction and administration. Dr. Ray would serve until his retirement in 1867. Upon his death in 1881 the hospital would receive a bequest of $77,000. PSYCHOLOGY
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The Providence Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends was split by the great Wilburite schism of 1844, having to do with the message of Friend John Wilbur, a Rhode Island farmer and traveling Friend (minister). At the New England Yearly Meeting they disowned, not only Friend John, but his entire monthly meeting as well. (These separated Friends formed a separate body which they called the “New England Yearly Meeting of Friends” to distinguish it from the “Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England,” or simply “the smaller body” in distinction from “the larger body,” the Gurneyite bolsheviks –adherents of the English evangelical Friend Joseph John Gurney– claiming 8,136 adherents, the Wilburite mensheviks claiming only 629. One group, the Wilburites, became the Providence Monthly Meeting of North Providence/Pawtucket. This meeting would be laid down in 1881, its members joining to South Kingstown Monthly Meeting and worshiping until 1892 as the Pawtucket Worship Group.)
As the Yearly Meeting School affiliated with the Gurneyite grouping, letting the Wilburites depart, its enrollment plunged to 55 resident young scholars.
Friends Olney Thompson and Lydia Thompson came to the school as superintendents.
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Superintendents.
1819-1824. Purinton, Matthew and Betsy. 1824-1835. Breed, Enoch and Lydia. 1829-1835. Gould, Stephen and Hannah, Asst. Supts. 1835-1836. Davis, Seth and Mary. 1837. Breed, Enoch and Lydia. 1838-1839. Rathbun, Rowland and Alice. 1840-1844. Wing, Allen and Olive. 1845-1846. Thompson, Olney and Lydia. 1847. Congdon, Jarvia and Lydia. 1847-1852. Cornell, Silas and Sarah M.
The Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends on Nantucket Island declared itself to be a Wilburite meeting, following the teachings of Friend John Wilbur in regard to the ongoing divine inspiration provided by an Inner Light. With the Gurneyite split among the Quakers, some of the former members of the disbanded Hicksite meeting on Nantucket Island joined this new Gurneyite meeting.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Thomas Davis, jewelry manufacturer of Providence, became a member of the Rhode Island Senate. He would serve until 1853, at which point he would be elected as a Democrat to the federal congress.
Francis Wright, the 1st husband of Paulina Kellogg (Wright), died. His widow would continue to be active in reform work, and for a time would be on tour with a lecture on physiology and hygiene. PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS
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Prosper Merimee’s novel about CARMEN, a feisty Gypsy girl in an Andalusian cigarette factory.
Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley was invalided by what would eventually be discovered to be a tumor in her brain.
John Quincy Adams wrote to the Reverend Samuel H. Cox: “In my early youth I was addicted to the use of tobacco in two of its mysteries, smoking and chewing. I was warned by a medical friend of the pernicious operation of this habit upon the stomach and the nerves.”
Thomas De Quincey’s “Coleridge and Opium-Eating” and “Suspiria de Profundis” appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine. His “On Wordsworth’s Poetry” and “Notes on Gilfillan’s Gallery of Literary Portraits: Godwin, Foster, Hazlitt, Shelley, Keats” (which would run until 1846) appeared in Tait’s Magazine. SUSPIRA DE PROFUNDIS
Perry Davis’s patent vegetable painkiller consisted of opiates and ethanol and –as is evident in the globe map on its label– originated from that known center of “Joy to the World” sensory satisfaction, Providence, Rhode Island:
April: A party calling itself the Liberation Party won the Rhode Island elections, with the agenda of freeing Thomas Wilson Dorr and other Dorrites.
READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
April 22, Tuesday: A politician very active in the “Law and Order” party in Providence, Rhode Island commented that “I am very desirous that the General Assembly, (Law & Order as it is) should liberate Dorr by passing a general act of Amnesty & Pardon, evidently required by good policy.”
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June: Charles James Fox and Catherine P. Abbot Fox returned to Nashua, New Hampshire from their voyage to the West Indies. Charles, although he had become very ill, provided a series of letters to the Nashua gazette and Hillsborough advertiser relating their experiences on this voyage. THE NASHUA GAZETTE
The “traitor” of Rhode Island, Thomas Wilson Dorr, was released from prison. “Go thou and govern no more.”
READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT
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July 3, Thursday: In Boston, Thomas Barrett was hanged for a multiple murder.
Frederick Douglass lectured in Westminster, Massachusetts.
In approximately this year John William Davis, who would eventually become governor of Rhode Island (1887/1888, 1890/1891), was a young man serving his apprenticeship. It was the custom of the boss to give us a day off and a dollar for spending money Fourth of July and College Commencement days. Mr. Vanderbilt the elder was fighting for a share of the eastern travel, and at this Fourth of July his old boat Neptune was carrying passengers from Providence to New-York for twenty five cents each, deck-passage. The boat sailed from India Point near our lodging and when the boss gave me the dollar I started straight for the craft, paid my quarter and went on board. It was my first voyage down the bay and out upon the ocean by Point Judith and I did not miss much that could be seen by night. Arrived in the great city I got a breakfast of coffee and steak for a quarter and then started out down West St. across the Battery. The Battery proper then stood out in the harbor beyond
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the shore — then the Quincy Slip where there were acres of Canal boats, up Whitehall St. to Bowling Green where I first saw a fountain flowing from a pile of rough stones in the pool in the green. Water was belching in every direction. Then I went up Broadway to the Park where another fountain was showering a pool, and the City Hall was trimmed with flags. Thence I went up Broadway and across to North River side and so on and on all day long, stopping to inspect a company of Scottish Highlanders out in parade in tartans and philibegs until nightfall called me again to the Neptune. I supped on a sandwich and cup of coffee costing a New York shilling and had three bits left out of my dollar. I paid two for my passage and one for a mattress to lie upon, sleeping through the night and arriving home for breakfast went to work that morning. I have been to New York many times since then, supped and lodged at the Fifth Ave. and the Waldorf at the expense of the state but I never went at less personal cost or had greater enjoyment than on the memorable occasion related. CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY
July 10, Thursday: Frederick Douglass lectured in West Brookfield, Massachusetts.
Michele Felice Cornè died in Newport, Rhode Island. His grave in the Common Burial Ground has a 6-foot obelisk. His house bears a plaque crediting him with having introduced to Rhode Islanders the eating of the tomato: HOME OF THE ARTIST MICHELE FELICE CORNE WHO INTRODUCED THE TOMATO INTO THIS COUNTRY
(Since Mr. Cornè had not appeared in Rhode Island until 1822, and since tomatoes had been being grown for human consumption in Thomas Jefferson’s garden in Virginia since 1806, it is clear that although this artist may deserve some local credit, for having introduced residents of Newport to the edibility of the fruit of the tomato plant, he definitely was not the first to introduce tomatoes to white people in general, or to the white people of the United States in general. Also, it is well to remember that although the actual person who introduced the tomato to Americans is unknown –we weren’t paying attention– we know that that person had been a Peruvian native and that he had flourished prior to 1544, which is to say, fully three centuries, which is to say, some dozen human generations, earlier.)81
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81. According to Dr. Edward Jarvis’s TRADITIONS AND REMINISCENCES OF CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS 1779-1878, page 62: [Tomatoes] were a late introduction. They were never raised in my father’s garden, nor eaten in his house. The first I ever saw were in 1845, a great rarity and eaten in very few families. None of the farmers raised them then. Now they are among the most common articles of diet.
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October 3, Friday: The Concord Freeman noticed the death of a Hugh Coyle.
PEOPLE OF WALDEN
WALDEN: The last inhabitant of these woods before me was an Irishman, Hugh Quoil, (if I have spelt his name with coil enough,) who occupied Wyman’s tenement, –Col. Quoil, he was called. Rumor said that he had been a soldier at Waterloo. If he had lived I should have made him fight his battles over again. His trade here was that of a ditcher. Napoleon went to St. Helena; Quoil came to Walden Woods. All I know of him is tragic. He was a man of manners, like one who has seen the world, and was capable of more civil speech than you could well attend to. He wore a great coat in mid-summer, being affected with the trembling delirium, and his face was the color of carmine. He died in the road at the foot of Brister’s Hill shortly after I came to the woods, so that I have not remembered him as a neighbor. Before his house was pulled down, when his comrades avoided it as “an unlucky castle,” I visited it. There lay his old clothes curled up by use, as if they were himself, upon his raised plank bed. His pipe lay broken on the hearth, instead of a bowl broken at the fountain. The last could never have been the symbol of his death, for he confessed to me that, though he had heard of Brister’s Spring, he had never seen it; and soiled cards, kings of diamonds spades and hearts, were scattered over the floor. One black chicken which the administrator could not catch, black as night and as silent, not even croaking, awaiting Reynard, still went to roost in the next apartment. In the rear there was the dim outline of a garden, which had been planted but had never received its first hoeing, owing to those terrible shaking fits, thought it was now harvest time. It was over-run with Roman wormwood and beggar-ticks, which last stuck to my clothes for all fruit. The skin of a woodchuck was freshly stretched upon the back of the house, a trophy of his last Waterloo; but no warm cap or mittens would he want more.
HUGH QUOIL
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The pages of William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator carried a story reprinted from the Morning Chronicle, about an unnamed young black American who had applied to be tested as to his preparedness for admission to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and had been turned away without this admissions testing, explicitly on the grounds that were he to be considered for admission it was feared that some Southern white young Americans would no longer be willing to attend at that institution of higher education. Very clearly, at this 1845 point in its trajectory, “Brown was for White only:”
As we can see below, the commentary on this reprinted news item was being offered by William Cooper Nell.
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December: Charles King Newcomb had been in the Brook Farm experiment, with extended visits home to Providence, Rhode Island, since May 1841. At this point he left the community.
CONTINUE TO READ CHRONOLOGICALLY
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 2013. 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
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Prepared: September 16, 2013
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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, upon someone’s request we have pulled it out of the hat of a pirate that has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (depicted above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of data modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture. This is data mining. To respond to such a request for information, we merely push a button.
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Commonly, the first output of the program has obvious deficiencies and so we need to go back into the data modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and do a recompile of the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process which 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 your requests with
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