THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Theodore Sedgwick Fay HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY 1799 December 22, Sunday evening: On Manhattan Island, 21-year-old Gulielma “Elma” Sands was seen for the last time. December 24, Tuesday: Some of the belongings of the missing Gulielma “Elma” Sands were discovered in Lispenard Meadows (this locale on Manhattan Island is today in the SoHo district, near the intersection of Greene and Spring Streets). (This is going to turn into a murder trial mystery, that would be being read about by Henry Thoreau during his college years.) DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Theodore Sedgwick Fay “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY 1800 January 2, Thursday: The gruesome remains of Gulielma “Elma” Sands were recovered from a new Manhattan Well in the Lispenard Meadows district of Manhattan Island. She had been beaten before being dumped. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. March 31, Monday: The Northwest Territory Ordinance passed in the federal House of Representatives. Johann Friedrich Reichardt’s liederspiel Lieb’ und Treue to his own words was performed for the initial time, in the Nationaltheater, Berlin. In a New-York courtroom, a high-powered team of attorneys showed up to defend a 24-year-old carpenter accused of murder. Levi Weeks had well-to-do relatives who were going to stand up for him, and not allow him to be herded by newspaper publicity onto the hanging platform! The Dream Team to defend this client, who was being prosecuted by District Attorney Cadwallader David Colden in The People v. Levi Weeks on the charge of having thrown his supposed fiancee Gulielma “Elma” Sands down a well, was made up of Henry Brockholst Livingston, Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton (Chief Justice John Lansing, Jr. would serve as the trial judge). Later on this would be written about by Theodore Sedgwick Fay –whose father Joseph Dewey Fay (1779- 1825) had read for the law at Hamilton’s office– and what Fay had written would be read by Henry Thoreau while he was in college. April 1, Tuesday: The Manhattan trial jury needed but five minutes of deliberation to find the young carpenter Levi Weeks not guilty of having been the murderer of Gulielma “Elma” Sands. There really had been no evidence whatever against him (other than that he had been residing in the same boardinghouse as this young lady — and that someone had recollected that on the day in question, he had gotten a goofy look on his face)! The general public would however be so enraged –having seen the accused tried and convicted in the press– that the court recorder for this case would be able to make a bunch of money by publishing the legal transcript he had been paid by the Court of Oyer and Terminer to produce: REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF LEVI WEEKS ON AN INDICTMENT FOR THE MURDER OF GULIELMA SANDS, ON MONDAY THE THIRTY-FIRST DAY OF MARCH, AND TUESDAY THE FIRST DAY OF APRIL, 1800 (New York: John Furman, 1800). “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Theodore Sedgwick Fay HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Theodore Sedgwick Fay HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY 1807 February 10, Tuesday: The US Congress authorized a survey of the nation’s coasts and harbors: “An Act to Provide for Surveying the Coasts of the United States.” READ THE FULL TEXT Theodore Sedgwick Fay was born in New-York, a son of the attorney Joseph Dewey Fay (1779-1825). Like his father, who had studied law in the office of Alexander Hamilton, would study for the law, although he would never practice, going instead into the field of diplomacy. Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3 day 10 of 2 M / Our friend Asa Russel of New Bedford called at the shop this afternoon, with whom I had much conversation on a subject which has deeply affected the minds of many & caused the Land to mourn for the wound which Zion has felt from the fall of a late dignified Servant Asa spoke feelingly on the subject & hoped it might be a warning to those who think they stand to take heed lest they fall. ——————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Theodore Sedgwick Fay “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY 1828 Theodore Sedgwick Fay was hired as an associate editor at The New York Mirror, A Weekly Journal, Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts, where he would work with George Pope Morris and Nathaniel Parker Willis. Soon he would depart for Europe, and send back to the gazette a series of letters for publication. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Theodore Sedgwick Fay HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY 1832 Theodore Sedgwick Fay’s DREAMS AND REVERIES OF A QUIET MAN: CONSISTING OF THE LITTLE GENIUS, AND OTHER ESSAYS (two volumes written in collaboration with his cousin Joseph Dewey Fay, consisting of a collection of articles previously published in the New-York literary gazette The New-York Mirror, A Weekly Journal, Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts, including a series on high society). THE GAZETTE’S 7TH YEAR THE GAZETTE’S 8TH YEAR The 1st student was admitted to the University of the City of New-York, located on Washington Square. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Theodore Sedgwick Fay “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY 1833 1 Theodore Sedgwick Fay “edited” two volumes of CRAYON SKETCHES. BY AN AMATEUR. He got married (to someone whose name is not mentioned anywhere that I can find). He sailed for Europe (presumably accompanied by his bride, although the record makes no mention of this). The first product of this adventure would be THE MINUTE BOOK, A RECORD OF TRAVEL. Said travel would continue for three years. The Handsome Bridegroom 1. The amateur in question supposedly had been named “William Cox” and supposedly had been a visiting Englishman, and these essays had originally been presented in the The New York Mirror, A Weekly Journal, Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts under the initial “C.” However, I have no date of birth or date of demise, and doubt that this was anything more than a pseudonym. THE GAZETTE’S 10TH YEAR HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY 1834 Theodore Sedgwick Fay’s “The Author,” “An Outline Sketch,” “Snorers,” and “The Little Hard-Faced Old Gentleman” got included in the two volumes of THE ATLANTIC CLUB-BOOK: BEING SKETCHES IN PROSE AND VERSE, BY MESSRS. PAULDING, HALLECK, COX, BRYANT, LEGGETT, MARTIN, SIMMS, STUART, WILLIS, PALMER, WOODWORTH, POWER, HACKETT, SANFORD, BIRD, MRS. LEARNED, MRS. SIGOURNEY, MRS. EMBURY, MISS KEMBLE, AND OTHER AUTHORS. HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY 1835 November: Theodore Sedgwick Fay’s 1st novel, NORMAN LESLIE: A TALE OF THE PRESENT TIMES (Harper and Brothers, two volumes), was based on a murder that had occurred on Manhattan Island in New-York at the beginning of the century, the “Lispenard Meadow Well Mystery,” that had won enduring fame because District Attorney Cadwallader David Colden had been the prosecutor while the defense attorneys had been the Dream Team of Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, and Henry Brockholst Livingston. This would be produced as a play by Miss Louisa H. Medina that would run for several nights at the Bowery Theatre, and for almost a month at the American Theatre. December: Though Theodore Sedgwick Fay’s NORMAN LESLIE: A TALE OF THE PRESENT TIMES was immediately very popular, Edgar Allan Poe wrote of it: “Here we have a blistering detail, a blistering truth, a blistering story, and a blistering brand, to say nothing of innumerable other blisters interspersed throughout the book. But we have done with Norman Leslie, — if ever we saw as silly a thing, may be we — blistered.” HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY 1836 February: Edgar Allan Poe continued his attack on Theodore Sedgwick Fay’s NORMAN LESLIE: A TALE OF THE PRESENT TIMES, which amounted, he insisted, to “the most inestimable piece of balderdash with which the common sense of the good people of America were ever so openly or so villainously insulted.” This would bring on endless discussion, and endless published commentary, and as we Americans well know — all publicity is good publicity. At Harvard College, Henry Thoreau would be perusing this notorious novel: NORMAN LESLIE, VOL. I the blistered author NORMAN LESLIE, VOL. II WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Theodore Sedgwick Fay “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY 1837 Theodore Sedgwick Fay became Secretary to the American Legation in London and was soon forwarded to be Secretary to the American Legation in Berlin (until 1853). One of his delicate challenges while in Berlin would be to prevent, insofar as possible, a frequently intoxicated political appointee named Hannigan from embarrassing the United States of America. HDT WHAT? INDEX THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY THEODORE SEDGWICK FAY 1839 Theodore Sedgwick Fay’s SYDNEY CLIFTON; OR, VICISSITUDES IN BOTH HEMISPHERES.