USA > New York > New York : the planting and the growth of the Empire state, Vol. II > Part 14
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Some of the English governors adorned their positions by their literary abilities. Governor Dongan, General Hunter, and Governor Burnet were men of education and familiar with books. The reports and letters of the first named liave lasting value. Of all who held the executive office in colonial days, Cadwallader Colden has left the fullest testimony of intellectual train- ing and industry. His " History of the Six Nations " has been the source of a great deal of our information about the aborigines ; while his writings on scientific subjects, and especially
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on botany, would have earned him a reputation independently of his political services. Sir William Johnson cannot be omitted from a list of those who wrote well, and have preserved in- structive details relative to the Iroquois and their institutions, gathered from personal in- vestigation. William Smith's " History of the Province " down to 1722 (first published 1757) has the life and movement, and some of the prejudices, of a personal narrative, for he deals with many men and many events with which he was intimately connected.
In the quarter century before the Revolution, the minds and pens of the colonists ventured upon excursions into various departments. If the Muses were as zealously courted here as in other colonies, equal pains were not taken to preserve the verses, for the number of aspirants for poetic laurels at this time is not large. Some of the writers deserve credit, not simply as residents of a country struggling with the hardest material difficulties, but for literary merit rising above unfavorable conditions. Two of these were Mrs. Bleecker and William Liv- ingston.
Mrs. Ann Eliza Bleecker, daughter of Brandt Schuyler (1752), wrote poems for a magazine, and these, with stories and letters, were gath- ered into a volume. which is interesting rather
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as a bud in our anthology than as a full flower. William Livingston (born 1723, died 1790) was a native of Albany, a graduate of Yale College, and a resident of the colony until 1772, when he removed to New Jersey, and in due time became its governor. His poem, " Philosophic Solitude" (1747), is an elaborate, scholarly production, in heroic measure, and may well rank with some of the productions of Dryden and Johnson. Livingston was a pro- lific writer for the newspapers on moral and political topics, and his " Review of the French War," from 1753 to 1756, was first published in London.
These were, indeed, the topics best befitting the times. The newspapers, and the addresses of the governors, and the answers by the as- sembly, enlisted the best talent of the day, un- til the continental congress and the struggles with Great Britain furnished themes, and then the national constitution produced a mass of po- litical literature that can never die. The tories were not without voices to justify their posi- tion, among whom James Rivington, the pub- lisher of the " Gazetteer," was not least in skill of attack and cutting satire. Dr. Myles Cooper, president of King's College, joined in the dis- cussion, with the leaders in the royal council, and more than one of the clergymen. But not
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only the argument, but the mastery in debate, adroitness in the use of words, rugged force and often high eloquence, were on the side of the patriots. One needs not go outside of the chronicles of New York to find the American case stated, the plea for natural rights main- tained, and finally the cause of independence and of national unity asserted, with a power of logic, a wealth of fact and illustration, and a ripeness of scholarship and of far-seeing state- craft, that lack no element of completeness. Men of action there were, to perpetuate whose memories New York has done less than its neighbors for their benefactors. Among phil- osophic statesmen, Hamilton and Jay and Gou- verneur Morris and the Livingstons are not in a second rank in the services which they ren- dered to the infant republic.
The revolutionary period developed a school of political versification, in which Philip Fre- neau was by popular consent the master. Of Huguenot blood, he was born in New York in 1752 (died 1832), was graduated at Princeton, and his genius as a poet, essayist. and satirist cannot be denied. Although one of his many periodical ventures was published in New York, much of his literary work was done in Phila- delphia, where he was the editor of the " Na- tional Gazette," and engaged in a bitter quar-
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rel with Hamilton. One of his eulogists reports that Jeffrey, the Scotch reviewer, predicted a time " when his poetry, like that of Hudibras, would command a commentator like Gray." His writings are so largely controversial, and in partisan warfare he held so marked a place and dealt such hard and sometimes sinister blows, that less than justice has been done to the versatility of his talent, to his humor, his skill in description, and, with occasional marks of carelessness, his choice use of language. Freneau was the author of several ballads, which during the Revolution were adopted as utterances of the general patriotism ; and the incidents of the fights over the liberty pole in- spired other writers to verses which have the stir and movement of action and of courage ; while the tories enlivened Rivington's columns by pasquinades aimed at the patriot leaders. The fate of Major Andre has rendered mem- orable the verses which he wrote burlesquing the American armies, and a ballad from a pa- triot pen eulogizing his captors is preserved by the like cause.
Poetry continued to attract no small num- ber of writers in the last two decades of the eighteenth century. Their verses show that aspiration and effort were not lacking, and that there were no little taste and promise in effu-
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sions which are now forgotten. William Dun- lap (born 1766, died 1839), son of an Irish officer who came out in 1759 with Wolfe to attack Quebec, was successful in producing a comedy, entitled " The Father," which was put on the stage in September, 1789, and was so well received that he wrote other plays, which were acted. He became a theatrical manager, painted portraits and more ambitious subjects, and wrote " A History of the Arts of Design in the United States," but he is best known by his " History of New York," first published in 1839. A type of an activity which has since been marvelously developed, in school-books, was presented by Lindley Murray (born 1745. died 1826), who published in 1795 an " Eng- lish Grammar," and some years after an " Eng- lish Reader," with selections from the best au- thors, so wisely made that it is doubtful if it has ever been surpassed. A higher standard of scholarship was illustrated by Charles An- thon (born 1797, died 1867), whose editions of the classics and " Dictionary of Greek and Ri- man Antiquities " were early contributions of our commonwealth for the use of students. Missionaries like Rev. David Brainerd. Rov. Gideon Hawley, and Rev. John Taylor, and travelers, who, regarding the country as strange and interesting, mingled religious observation
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with pleasure excursions, like President Timo- thy Dwight of Yale College, have left, in their journals and letters, sketchies of the country and the people, from which age will not detract. The years from 1783 to 1800 are not so much marked, outside of politics, by actual achieve- ment as by struggle and advance in various de- partments which proved to be preparation for a literature with distinct qualities and unques- tionable merit.
With the new century intellectual activity became intense. The journals and periodicals multiplied, and. becoming the vehicles of liter- ary miscellany. developed a school of humor, criticism and fiction. In New York city, the readers were in sufficient number and of taste ripened to the point of encouraging such au- thors. Washington Irving (born 1783, died 1859) began in 1802 as a writer for the " Morning Chronicle " of his brother, Dr. Pe- ter Irving. In 1807 he projected, with his uncle by marriage, James K. Paulding (born 1799, died 1800), a humorous serial under the title of " Salmagundi." Two years later appeared " Knickerbocker's History of New York," by Irving. Both writers were wel- comed as their successive and numerous publi- cations came from the press. They were racy of the soil, and were genuine in thought and
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treatment. Irving chose at a later period for- eign themes, which his grace and elegance and delicate humor adorned, and no one can take from him the laurels of the chief as well as the earliest of our belles-lettres authors. Paulding was a worthy colaborer, and at that time di- vided the laurels, and won some peculiarly his own in dramas. Both were creative and pro- lific and tried several departments of author- ship. Their best successes are in the sphere of the sketching of local events and characters, and in that of humorous narratives and essays. Irving especially was recognized at once as an author of American type, and has no more lost caste by the change of fashion than has Addi- son. Paulding added to his literary labors po- litical service as secretary of the navy in the cabinet of President Van Buren from 1838 to 1841.
Even more distinctively American. finding his incidents and characters still more largely in this commonwealth, and the father of a school in which he has had no successful rivals. is James Fenimore Cooper. Born in New Jer- sey in 1789, he was taken the next year to Ot- sego county, where his father owned a large estate and gave name to a town where the nov- elist died in 1851. He published . Precaution," a novel of the prevalent fashion, in 1809. It
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was not until 1821 that "The Spy " appeared. a tale of the Revolution, and redolent with the atmosphere and stirring with the action of the scenes of the war. " The Pioneers," and the series of Leather-Stocking Tales, are original with the life of adventure and the flavor of the woods and the waters. They gave the Indian and the frontiersman a place in literature which they can never lose, and created characters that have become types of a class that civilization has banished. Cooper's novels of the sea have peculiar merits, and few rivals have equaled his success in this sphere. He was a fertile writer and prone to controversy, and over his treatment of the events and commanders of the war of 1812 disputes arose, in which he became plaintiff in libel suits which arrayed against him powerful interests, that for a time clouded his literary reputation. The freshness of his themes, the dashing romance of his incidents, the purity and vigor of his language, remain to insure for his American tales a duration linked with the Hudson and its shores, and the inland lakes and valleys, which he has peopled with his creations.
While fiction reveled in these fields, investi- gation was diligent and fruitful in them. Wil- liam L. Stone (born 1792, died 1844), in addi- tion to his laborious tasks as editor of the " New
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York Commercial Advertiser," wrote biogra- phies of Joseph Brant, of Red Jacket, and of Uncas, dealing thoroughly with the character and acts of the Iroquois and their neighbors, and gathering materials vital to a knowledge of our early history. In the " Biography of Sir William Johnson," his own labors of study and preparation have been well supplemented by his son of the same name, and the result is a treas- ury of incident and fact admirably presented in connection with one of the chief figures in the history of New York.
A similar work was prosecuted by Henry R. Schoolcraft (born 1793, died 1864), who de- voted much research to the red men in New York and in the far West, as well as to various branches of science. His writings are prolific, original, and occupy a field little cultivated. The Iroquois have also been studied closely and very thoroughly by Lewis H. Morgan ( born 1818, died 1881), who has become the latest and best recognized authority on the confeder- ated tribes whom the French and Dutch found masters in New York, and who has fulfilled admirably the task which was due from the heirs of their domain.
For the Dutch period John R. Brodhead per- formed a like duty. Born in Albany, 1814 (died 1873), the great-grandson of an English captain
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in the expedition against New Netherland in 1664, and the son of a daughter of John R. Bleecker, of Holland family, he represented the mixed population of the commonwealth in the diligent study of its history. As agent of the State he searched the archives of Holland, Eng- land, and France for documents relating to our colonial period, and brought back what Mr. Ban- croft pronounced " the richest freight of new materials for American history that ever crossed the Atlantic." These documents have been published by the State ; and Mr. Brodhead has rendered their substance still more accessible by his " History of New York," a thorough and exhaustive work, which however he brought down only to 1691. the governorship of Slough- ter and the execution of Leisler. His researches and studies constitute him, for the period of which he treats. the foremost authority, and his volumes an enduring classic. In a related sphere, Henry C. Murphy (born 1810, died 1882) has, in the intervals of his legal practice, and service in the State senate and in congress, thrown much light on the Dutch period; and his "Anthology of New Netherland, translations from and memoirs of the early Dutch Poets of New York," is unique. Leading into more lim- ited fields, but all full of incident and attraction, William W. Campbell, in his "Annals of Tryon
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County," brought out the significance of central New York in the early struggles ; and Jeptha R. Simms, in the " Frontiersmen of New York," has gathered a fund of personal anecdote and local adventure that have the zest of a new country and of unconventional experience. Benson J. Lossing has devoted himself to the latter generations of our history, and has con- nected great events with the localities where they occurred. The most elaborate of his works, the " Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution," and the " War of 1812," add the attraction of illustrations from drawings taken on the spot and of portraits to a sprightly and flowing nar- rative worthy of the old chronicles. Henry B. Dawson, born in England in 1821, but since 1834 a resident of this State, has published an elaborate narrative of the " Battles of the Uni- ted States," and has been diligent and success- ful in antiquarian researches, and by his books and the " Historical Magazine " has deserved well of the commonwealth. Among the histories of the city of New York, that by Mrs. Martha J. Lamb is the most complete and satisfactory, as it is the most recent ; and in the " Magazine of American History " she is gathering abundant material, new and old, for historical students. Franklin B. Hough (born 1822, died 1885) was a most diligent investigator and fruitful
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writer on many subjects, and on statistics, for- estry, and the history of northern New York. he is a recognized authority. This devotion to themes born of its own soil has produced. if not the largest body, some of the most valuable of the contributions made by New York to lit- erature.
The inspiration and influences which devel- oped Irving and Cooper produced also a poet who deserves to be remembered for the quality of his verses, not less than as a pioneer in his branch of literature. Joseph Rodman Drake (born 1795, died 1820) established fairyland in the highlands of the Hudson by his " Cul- prit Fay," published in 1819, affluent in the liquid melody of its rhyme, and in the splendors of its imagination. His miscellaneous poems might make a reputation for a less worthy writer. Drake was closely connected, in a se- ries of verses in the " Evening Post," with Fitz- Greene Halleck (born 1795, died 1867), who came to New York from Connecticut at the age of eighteen, and in stirring lyrics like " Marco Bozzaris," and in satire like "Fanny," exhib- ited rare elegance of versification and of taste. A name now forgotten, but once conspicuous, is that of James Lawson (born 1799), who came from Scotland to New York in 1815, and wrote tales, sketches, and a tragedy (" Giordano "),
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performed in 1828. More remarkable, with a genius to madness near allied, was McDonald Clarke (born 1798, died 1842), who was a leader in the multitude of versifiers who belong to this period. Clement C. Moore (born 1779, died 1863), by his brief poem, " A Visit from St. Nicholas," has perpetuated a Dutch legend with local coloring, but deserves higher recog- nition for his Hebrew and English Lexicon, published in New York, 1809, and the first work of its class produced in this country.
Easily foremost in the elevation of his mind, in the sustained excellence of his art, and in the reputation which has been conceded to him, among the flock of singers who began their melodies together, is William Cullen Bryant (born 1794, died 1878). He began his career in Boston, but he came to New York in 1825, and enjoyed intercourse with the circle of ac- tive and cultivated minds who were then ren- dering the newspapers brilliant and attractive. Becoming permanently connected with the " Evening Post " in 1826, he identified himself with the city and the State, which have de- lighted to honor the individual. the scholar and the author, and to pronounce his poetic works among the first of our classics.
The vast currents of song and fiction which have flowed from New York's hills and valleys
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into the ocean of literature were already nu- merous and varied. Lucretia Davidson (born 1808, died 1825) attracted notice for the pre- cocious merit of her verses, and with her sister, Margaret Miller (born 1823, died 1837), was fortunate in finding Professor S. F. B. Morse and Washington Irving for editors. They were prophets of the era at hand when so many girls were to lisp in song, and so many women to attain distinction as writers. With an imagi- nation as glowing as her philanthropy, Lydia Maria Child (born 1802, died 1880) brought with her in 1841 a reputation, which for a long generation she maintained, as a writer in the " Anti-Slavery Standard," and in letters, tales, and romances. One of the earliest of women correspondents for the press. she was also one of the most brilliant : and while her romances were much praised, her letters added more to her circle of readers, and not less to her fame. In fiction, Susan (in 1849) and Anna B. War- ner (in 1853) proved the hospitality of publish- ers and readers for American authors ; and Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland in 1839 began a career which lasted for many years. In 1850 came to New York Alice Cary ( born 1820, died 1870), and in 1851 Phoebe Cary (born 1824, died 1871), natives of Ohio, who were busy with productive pens ; and here, by tales and letters
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and poems, they attracted the attention of crit- ics at home and abroad for the freshness of their sketches of nature and character, and the purity and depth of their emotions.
Early types of writers who have since mul- tiplied in numbers, were Charles Fenno Hoff- man (born 1806), whose songs have the melody of music, and his literary sketches strong draw- ing and rich colors ; and Theodore S. Fay (born 1807), whose " Reveries of a Quiet Man,"" published in 1832, was the forerunner of novels some of them with scenes located in and about New York. T. S. Arthur (born 1809) and Joel T. Headley (born 1814) are probably the most prolific authors native to the State; the former deals with social and moral questions, often in mild fiction, while the latter ranges from travels and biography to historical sketches.
William H. C. Hosmer (born 1814) pre- sented in verse Indian legends and songs, and portrayed the birds of our country, in a style which should secure for his writings more at- tention than has been given to them. Fore- most in his services in depicting the scenery of the commonwealth and its various beanties, is Alfred B. Street (born 1811, died 181), who also caught the spirit of its formative period. In his " Burning of Schenectady " (18442), and still more in his " Frontenac " (1849), he has im-
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mortalized the heroism and suffering of our pio- neers. In " Woods and Waters " he describes the Saranac and Racket Rivers, and the Adirondack Hills, with the art of a master and the glow of a lover. He also contributed a useful chapter to the history of the commonwealth in his " Council of Revision," in which he described the members and the proceedings of that pecu- liar body. If he does not as a poet add the excitement of high imagination to the perfec- tion of rhythm, he exhibits the qualities of Chaucer in wealth of detail, and, as Tucker- man observes, is "a true Flemish painter, seiz- ing upon objects in all their verisimilitude." His poems will, in the future, attract readers who seek to know the State in its youth, its landscapes in their beauty, and its early ad- ventures in their swift and varied and bloody movement.
No phenomenon of our age is more remark- able than the production of the " Mormon Bi- ble," alleged by Joseph Smith to have been found in 1819 on Mormon Hill, in the town of Manchester, Ontario county. The develop- ment of Smith himself into a clairvoyant, and then into the spiritual leader of a new revela- tion, and the father of a sect that more than once has threatened the peace of the republic, is one of the marvels of human experience.
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The " Book of Mormon " was first printed in Palmyra in 1830, and there and in the vicinity his first converts were made. Its real author, Rev. Solomon Spaulding, was before 1809 set- tled in Cherry Valley, and after seven years' residence in Ohio returned to New York, and lived in Amity until he died in 1827. He had written a romance, in the form of an an- cient manuscript, representing a colony of Is- raelites in America, and embodying his archæe- ological lore. The manuscript, quaint, origi- nal, mystical, was left in the hands of his widow, and was read by several persons, and finally stolen or copied by a printer, Sidney Rigdon, who became one of Smith's apostles. With some changes, the romance of the clergy- man, written with purely literary aims, was adopted as the Bible of a propaganda. Within a few years the interior of New York was trav- ersed by preachers bearing its message. To Ohio, to Nauvoo, to Utah, the "Latter Dav Saints " advanced, gathering numbers and wealth, while persons still living remember the first converts in the church which is master of a territory, and defies the government of the United States.
Samuel F. B. Morse (born 1791, died 1872), although a native of Massachusetts, became a resident of New York in 1815 as an artist, and
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there he won his enduring laurels. He founded the National Academy of Design, and took in- telligent interest in science and literature, and his contributions to the press were many and varied. The electric telegraph, so promptly and so cordially accepted and developed in his adopted State, perpetuates his genius and his fame ; and many companies have followed the first, organized in 1845, the New York, Albany and Buffalo Telegraph Company, with its head- quarters in Utica.
The growth of the press in New York has been due to its enlistment of talent of every sort from every quarter. Pennsylvania gare George P. Morris, and Maine Nathaniel P. Wil- lis, to address readers who sought light and graceful verses and letters. and the gossip of society. Mordecai Manuel Noah, whose name indicates his race, might figure as an editor of the modern era. Horace Greeley, James Gordon Bennett, James Watson Webb, Henry J. Ray- mond, James and Erastus Brooks, are striking types of diverse characters, who contributed to build up the journalism which is now dominant in the metropolis, and even more prominent and influential in the interior of the State. More versatile than most of his colleagues, and training himself to broad and generous scholar- ship in several branches, was Bayard Taylor,
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born in Kennett Square, Philadelphia, in 1825, but coming to New York in 1847, where, al- though not always his home, he found the cen- tre of his labors. First winning note as a trav- eler, he wrote novels that were read and poetry that was admired, and as a translator of Goethe's " Faust " he took rank among American masters of German literature. When he died in Berlin in 1878, he was minister of the United States to the German empire.
From the pulpit, literary talent has turned to labors in fields allied to religion, with note- worthy results ; and our jurists and teachers have added a full roster of recruits to the army of authors.
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