PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: CAPTAIN CHARLES WILKES “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY The People of Walden: Captain Charles Wilkes “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN WALDEN : What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring PEOPLE OF Expedition, with all its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact, that there are continents and seas in WALDEN the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone.– “Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos. Plus habet hic vitæ, plus habet ille viæ.” Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians. I have more of God, they more of the road. CHARLES WILKES HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN:CAPTAIN CHARLES WILKES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1798 April 3, Tuesday: Charles Wilkes was born in New-York, son of John de Ponthieu and Mary Seton Wilkes. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT The People of Walden: Captain Charles Wilkes “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN:CAPTAIN CHARLES WILKES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1815 Charles Wilkes entered the merchant service. 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. Charles Wilkes studied under the founder of the U.S. Coast Survey, Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler. The People of Walden: Captain Charles Wilkes “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN:CAPTAIN CHARLES WILKES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1818 January 1, Thursday: Forces of the Peshwa were defeated by British at Koregaon. The Black Ball Lines began regular packet service between Britain and the United States as the Courier departed from Liverpool for New-York. The town of Ipswich dealt with the need of its paupers for an alms-house: “Voted that the Town Treasurer hire 10,500 dollars to purchase a farm for the paupers.” The visitors to the President’s home in Washington DC, which had recently been refurbished and painted a glowing white after being burned by the British army in 1814, were referring to it as Washington’s “white house” (since back on the plantation in Virginia, where the President resided for the remainder of the year with his slaves, the main plantation house was also known as the White House). Charles Wilkes received an appointment as a midshipman in the US Navy. In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 1 of 1st M 1818 / I have been thankful in beginning the New Year under a precious sense of favor, but have to regret the loss of Meeting. I was in expectation of going but had a little buisness to attend to which I could not avoid & it took about 20 minutes more than the time & being unwilling to go in late & set the example concluded it was best not to go - My H attended & said Hannah Dennis preached - Our cousins George Gould & Lydia his wife set the Afternoon with us & took tea. - This was a pleasant visit, there is something pleasant & comfortable in brethren’s dwelling in harmony HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN:CAPTAIN CHARLES WILKES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN Rec'd a Letter from Uncle Stanton1 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 1. Stephen Wanton Gould Diary, 1815-1823: The Gould family papers are stored under control number 2033 at the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections of Cornell University Library, Box 7 Folder 12 for August 24, 1815-September 25, 1823; also on microfilm, see Series 7 HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN:CAPTAIN CHARLES WILKES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1826 April 16, Sunday: Charles Wilkes got married with Jane Jeffrey Renwick. In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 16th of 4th M / D Buffum again at Meeting but set in silence tho’ Father Rodman had a short testimony in the morning & in the Afternoon J Dennis also in the Afternoon had a few words -5th day 20th of 4th M / Silent Meeting & in my mind some arisings of life for which I was in degree thankful & glad — In the last (Preparative) The Queries were all Answerd, it being the Preparative Meeting before the Quarter, preceding the Yearly Meeting. - to some of the Answers, I thought some pertinent & seasonable observations were made. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS April 28, Friday: Charles Wilkes was promoted to lieutenant in the US Navy. Which wasn’t nearly good enough — once he was safely out onto the Pacific Ocean and beyond scrutiny, he would promote himself to captain and begin to fly a commodore’s flag. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN:CAPTAIN CHARLES WILKES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. The People of Walden: Captain Charles Wilkes “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN:CAPTAIN CHARLES WILKES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1829 December: Returning from Mexico, where his office had been to cause the term poinsettismo to enter the Spanish language as a shorthand for “officious and intrusive,” US Minister Joel Roberts Poinsett brought north some cuttings of the Euphorbia pulcherrima, known in Mexico as La Flor de Noche Buena, the plant which would be publicized in the US as the “poinsettia,” the red bracts of which (they’re not red flowers, the flowers are the little knobs) have become a synonym in all the nations of Christendom and in all the department stores of all the cities on the planet for the holy night of Xmas Eve. Back home in our nation’s puzzle palace, Poinsett became a player in President Andrew Jackson’s deal to force Mexico to “sell” Texas to the United States. The asking price (the US asking price) for Texas was to be US$5,000,000.2 There was no living American who was more truly a citizen of the world, in the old Jeffersonian way, than Joel R. Poinsett, the Charleston friend of Petigru and William J. Grayson, the poet, who were also opposed to the sectionalism of the adored Calhoun. [In a footnote: Both Calhoun and Poinsett were pupils of Timothy Dwight in Connecticut, Poinsett at the Greenfield Hill Academy, Calhoun at Yale.] This first American minister to Mexico, whence he had brought back the Christmas flower and plant that bore his name, retained the universal mind, with the courtier’s manner and the versatile charm, of the days before cotton filled the horizon of the South. In years of travel in his youth he had visited Madam de Staël, studied at Edinburgh, lived for a while in Russia, and in 1811 President Madison had sent him to Chile and Argentina to cultivate friendly relations with these embryo republics. As one of the Americans, like Madison and Clay, for whom their country was ordained to establish an order superior to that of the old world, he encouraged the liberals in these insurgent colonies of Spain on this first of the inter-American “good will” missions. Then Poinsett, as secretary of war, furthered the exploration of the West, enabling the Charlestonian Frémont to show what he was made of, while he appointed Charles Wilkes to command the South Sea expedition and tried to secure George Catlin’s pictures for the nation. A naturalist and an antiquarian, always a patron of learning and art, he had helped Prescott in his work on the Mexican conquest, preserved examples of the Indian crafts, rescued Peruvian manuscripts and made a collection of ancient Mexican sculpture. Still later, on the Pedee river, he had experimented with grapes and rice, assembling countless specimens of trees and shrubs from all over the world in the park that surrounded his plantation-house. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN:CAPTAIN CHARLES WILKES PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1830 December 6, Monday: By the order of Secretary of the Navy John Branch, what eventually would become the US Naval Observatory began as a straightforward Depot of Charts and Instruments with an annual budget of $330, under the direction of Lieutenant Louis M. Goldsborough. Its function was merely the restoration, repair, and rating of navigational instruments. Charles Wilkes, put to work at the new Depot, would begin to build a rudimentary astronomical observatory which would become, in 1842 with an appropriation of $25,000, the National Observatory, forerunner of the US Naval Observatory. During the early 1800s American sealing and whaling ships had been harvesting huge rewards. Demand was insatiable for furs, whale bone, lamp oil, and ambergris as a base for perfumes. Unfortunately, the hunting grounds off Chile and Peru were quickly diminishing and by the 1820s the New England sailors had been forced farther and farther to the south in search of their reward. Penetration into the icy seas had created diverse problems for the sailors as the captains were reluctant to share information as to the location of their new hunting grounds. Ships would suddenly find themselves in danger of running against unreported and uncharged islets and submerged reefs. A number of vessels foundered or were wrecked. Demands came that the US Government sponsor exploring expeditions to the Antarctic to make all this information public knowledge for the good of commerce.