Now, Dasher! in 1826

A Visit from Saint Nicholas. New York: James G. Gregory, 1862
 via Library of Congress <www.loc.gov/item/24005582/>.

The Charleston Mercury was an important and influential medium for the early transmission of the classic Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," first published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel on December 23, 1823. Henry Laurens Pinckney (1794-1863), founder and editor of the Mercury, reprinted the Christmas verses in 1824, 1825, and 1829--and maybe in other years, too. (At Newspapers.com digital images are currently lacking for January 1826, a likely time I'm guessing for the "Account of a visit from St. Nicholas, or Sante Claus," perhaps in the form of a newsboy's address or similar New Year's feature.) In 1826 and after, numerous other newspapers reprinted "A Visit from St. Nicholas, or Sante Claus" from Pinckney's Charleston Mercury, often under the heading "Christmas Times."

Daily National Intelligencer - January 2, 1826
via GenealogyBank

The text of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" aka "The Night Before Christmas" is transcribed below from the Washington, D.C. Daily National Intelligencer (January 2, 1826); found on GenealogyBank.com

CHRISTMAS TIMES.

FROM THE CHARLESTON MERCURY.

Account of a visit from St. Nicholas, or Sante Claus. 

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hope that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
The children were nested all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads,
And Mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap —
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer! and Vixen.
“On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixen;
“To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
“Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys—and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof;
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys was flung on his back,
And he look’d like a pedlar just opening his pack;
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry,
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laugh'd when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And fill’d all the stockings; then turned, with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle:
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night."

Some distinctive features of 1826-7 newspaper reprintings "from the Charleston Mercury," not present in the Troy Sentinel first printing:

1. Singular "hope" in line 4 instead of "hopes." 
2. Children "nested" not "nestled" in line 5. 
3. Reindeer names Dunder and "Blixen" not "Blixem" 
4. Re-ordering of exclamation marks and commas around first three reindeer names, for example "Now, Dasher!" instead of "Now! Dasher, now!" 

A Visit from St. Nicholas. Boston: L. Prang & Co., 1864
via Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/73169323/>.

As indicated by the many versions "from the Charleston Mercury" published in 1826, the editorial re-punctuation of some reindeer names began to occur at least four years before the poem circulated on a decorative broadside that was issued as a holiday gift by Norman Tuttle, publisher of the Troy Sentinel. Now held by the Museum of the City of New York, the 1830 broadsheet is cited by MacDonald P. Jackson as the first instance of such changes:

"It was not until the Sentinel broadsheet of 1830 that the exclamation marks and commas were transposed, to read "Now, Dasher!" --Chapter 3, Who Wrote The Night Before Christmas, (McFarland & Company, 2016) page 18; see also page 23.

The revision to "Now, Dasher!" is not an original feature of the holiday poem as published in 1830 by the Troy Sentinel. Nevertheless, as Jackson correctly states, the 1830 Troy Sentinel broadside did make significant changes to the usual punctuation including exclamation marks in the next line of reindeer names. With revised punctuation the new and metrically improved line in 1830 reads, "On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Dunder and Blixem!" After further investigation, however, I'm finding that these 1830 revisions in the second line of reindeer names had almost no direct influence on subsequent reprintings. Newspapers long continued to favor the weirdly punctuated second line of reindeer names as exemplified in the first printing:

On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder [or Donder] and Blixem [or Blixen, or Bltizen]

So did many books, including the landmark New-York Book of Poetry with text presumably authorized by Clement C. Moore himself.

The New-York Book of Poetry (New York, 1844) page 218

The same old same old placement of exclamation marks occurs in two 1840 anthologies, The Poets of America, edited by John Keese, and Selections from the American Poets, edited for Harper's Family Library by William Cullen Bryant. The version of "Visit" in Moore's 1844 volume Poems finally adopted punctuation around reindeer names from the 1830 Troy broadside. Here and elsewhere, as Jackson has convincingly demonstrated, the 1830 broadside published by Norman Tuttle served as copy text for A Visit from St. Nicholas in Clement C. Moore's 1844 Poems.

Despite the availability of Moore's best text after 1844, the odd punctuation around Comet and Cupid, Dunder and Blixem persisted for decades in published anthologies.

The Poets and Poetry of America
Ed. Rufus W. Griswold (Philadelphia, 1858)

Notable exceptions include the article on Clement C. Moore in the Cyclopaedia of American Literature (New York, 1856) edited by Evert A. Duyckinck and George L. Duyckinck; and schoolbook anthologies of texts deemed suitable for public speaking. The example below exhibits the superior punctuation of the 1830 broadside and 1844 Poems, combined with the 1837 reindeer names Donder and Blixen. From William Russell, Sequel to the Primary Reader of Russell's Elementary Series (Boston, c. 1845):

'Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer! now, Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blixen!

It's Dunder not Donder in The Young Speaker (New Haven, 1845), but editor John E. Lovell still gives the improved punctuation in the second line of reindeer names.

Marked passage in "Christmas Times" by "Moore" (Lesson 151)
in The Young Speaker, ed. John E. Lovell (New Haven, 1845) page 200

As Ruth K. MacDonald has pointed out, the roll of eight reindeer names may be indebted to the "alliterative catalog of fairies in Michael Drayton's Nymphidia."

Hop, and Mop, and Drap so clear,
Pip, and Trip, and Skip, that were
To Mab their sovereign dear,
     Her special maids of honour;
Fib, and Tib, and Pinck, and Pin,
Tick, and Quick, and Jill, and Jin,
Tit, and Nit, and Wap, and Win,
     The train that wait upon her.  

--Michael Drayton,  Nymphidia. The History of Queen Mab; or, The Court of Fairy

Wed, Dec 24, 1845 – Page 2 · Wilmington Chronicle (Wilmington, North Carolina) · Newspapers.com
Why then did so many newspaper editors, and apparently even Moore himself in 1837, fail to fix the punctuation in the second line of reindeer names? I blame Dunder and Blixem. Not the reindeer, but their resonant names, in all their varying forms, as triggers of a stereotype with comical and also potentially offensive associations in the 19th century. Moore's St. Nicholas is mainly "Dutch" by association: with the pseudo-Dutch heritage invented by Washington Irving in the guise of Diedrich Knickerbocker; and according to T. W. C. Moore, by mental association with a "portly rubicund Dutchman" living near the poet's family home in Chelsea. Readers with real Dutch ancestry might justly protest with Irving's friend (and Clement C. Moore's seminary colleague) Gulian Crommelin Verplanck that Americans had "imbibed much of the English habit of arrogance and injustice towards the Dutch character.” In Verplanck's view, Irving's "burlesque History of New York" betrayed a talented mind

"wasting the riches of its fancy on an ungrateful theme, and its exuberant humour in a coarse caricature"  --Quoted by Derek Kane O’Leary, Journal of the History of Ideas blog,  Dutch Pasts and the American Archive.

Fans or haters, readers of A History of New-York would have been well-prepared for caricature. They already knew that St. Nicholas smoked like a chimney and had been witnessed "laying his finger beside his nose" before flying away "over the treetops" in his aerial wagon. Elsewhere in his influential History, Irving also quoted the oath supposedly characteristic of Dutchmen, "Dunder and blixum!" Moore's St. Nick whistles, shouts, and calls the roll of reindeer names. By the time he gets to Dunder and Blixem, he could be swearing at the lot.

Below, another reprinting "FROM THE CHARLESTON MERCURY" headed "Christmas Times," this one in the Lexington, Kentucky Reporter of January 23, 1826:

Mon, Jan 23, 1826 – 4 · Kentucky Reporter (Lexington, Kentucky) · Newspapers.com
Additional reprintings "From the Charleston Mercury," all with the variant forms "nested"; "Blixen"; and "Now, Dasher!"

• Frankfort, Kentucky Commentator, January 28, 1826

• Leesburg, Virginia Genius of Liberty, December 26, 1826

• Poultney, Vermont Northern Spectator, December 27, 1826

Wed, Dec 27, 1826 – 1 · Northern Spectator (Poultney, Vermont) · Newspapers.com

• Poulson's American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia, PA) December 24, 1828 [Headed "Christmas Times," without crediting the Charleston Mercury or any source.]

Newspapers in the latter 1820's continued to reprint the Christmas poem "From the Troy Sentinel" with "Blixem" and other distinctive features of the 1823 Sentinel text, as in the Burlington VT Free Press on December 21, 1827. Reprintings from another influential conduit, the Philadelphia National Gazette (December 24, 1827) typically keep "Blixem" as in the Troy Sentinel but also read "nested" as in the Charleston Mercury. Examples of published texts "from the National Gazette" with forms "nested" AND "Blixem" include the Alexandria, Virginia Gazette (December 28, 1827); Boston Daily Advertiser (December 29, 1827); and Poughkeepsie Journal of January 16, 1828.

Related  posts:

• Charleston Mercury, early printings of A Visit from St Nicholas
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/12/charleston-mercury-early-printings-of.html

• Genius of Liberty, 1826 reprinting of A Visit from St Nicholas
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/12/genius-of-liberty-1826-reprinting-of.html

• First printing of A Visit from St Nicholas
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/04/first-printing-of-visit-from-st-nicholas.html

• Dunder-Donder, Blixem-Blixen, Dunder Mifflin, Donder and Blitzenhttp://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/03/dunder-donder-blixem-blixen-dunder.html

• Pre-1844 attributions to Clement C. Moore
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/08/pre-1844-attributions-of-visit-from-st.html

Charleston Mercury, early printings of A Visit from St Nicholas

Just in time for the holidays, Newspapers.com has added loads of new pages from the Charleston Mercury to their great and growing online archive. The Mercury was founded and edited in Charleston, South Carolina by Henry Laurens Pinckney. From the trove of digital mages only added in the past three months, here are three early printings of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" in the Charleston Mercury: on January 16, 1824; December 24, 1825; and December 25, 1829. The earliest two versions have the sweet-dreaming children "nested" instead of "nestled" in their beds, but retain the reindeer names "Dunder and Blixem" as in the original first printing in the Troy Sentinel on December 23, 1823. As in the Sentinel, the verses appear anonymously in each version.

Fri, Jan 16, 1824 – 2 · The Charleston Mercury, and Morning Advertiser (Charleston, South Carolina) · Newspapers.com
The anonymous lines were reprinted the following year on Christmas Eve, still with "nested" and "Dunder and Blixem." The original prose intro by Troy editor Orville L. Holley has been dropped in the 1825 version, shown below, but the expanded title incorporates Holley's helpful identification of  St. Nicholas as "Sante Claus," thus:

ACCOUNT 

Of a visit from St. Nicholas or Sante Claus.

Sat, Dec 24, 1825 – 2 · The Charleston Mercury (Charleston, South Carolina) · Newspapers.com\
The same reading of "nested" instead of "nestled" occurs in the version of "Visit" published on December 26, 1826 in the Leesburg, Virginia Genius of Liberty. The Leesburg newspaper reprinted the Christmas poem "from the Charleston Mercury," under the same title that the Mercury had presented on Christmas Eve, 1825. However, the 1826 Genius of Liberty version gives the form "Blixen" where the Charleston Mercury in 1824 and 1825 had printed "Blixem." Likewise, the text of the still anonymous poem in the Lexington, Kentucky Reporter for January 23, 1826 also credits "the Charleston Mercury" and prints "Dunder and Blixen," along with "nested."

Another even earlier reprinting of "Visit" from the Charleston Mercury appears in the Washington, D.C. National Intelligencer for January 2, 1826. As in the Kentucky Reporter, the National Intelligencer text is headed "Christmas Times" and includes the variant forms "nested"; "Blixen"; and singular "hope" instead of "hopes" in the fourth line. Oddly, in the next-to-last line, the December 1825 Charleston Mercury version has Santa Claus "explain" rather than "exclaim" his parting benediction. The 1826 reprintings "from the Charleston Mercury" in the National Intelligencer, Kentucky Reporter, and Leesburg Genius of Liberty all exhibit the usual verb, exclaim.

Washington Daily National Intelligencer 
January 2, 1826 via GenealogyBank

At present, no digital images are available on Newspapers.com for the Charleston Mercury in the month of January, 1826. Eventually another version of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" may turn up in the Mercury on or about New Year's Day 1826--one headed "Christmas Times," perhaps, with the distinctive variants "hope," "nested," and "Blixen."

The influential printing in The National Gazette (Philadelphia, PA) on December 24, 1827 follows the 1825 Charleston printing in keeping "Blixem," as well as in the phrasing of the title and the printing of "hope" for "hopes"; and "nested" for "nestled." But the speaker in the National Gazette version hears Santa "exclaim," not "explain," before driving off.

A different, untitled version was submitted "FOR THE MERCURY" and published in the Charleston Mercury on December 25, 1829. In the 1829 version, shown below, the "Children were nestled" not "nested" as in the earlier Charleston printings. Dunder is still Dunder, but Blixem has become Blixen. And St. Nick in 1829 wishes all a Merry Christmas, instead of a Happy one.

Fri, Dec 25, 1829 – 2 · The Charleston Mercury (Charleston, South Carolina) · Newspapers.com
Editor Orville L. Holley did not know who wrote "A Visit from St. Nicholas" when he first published it in the Troy Sentinel on December 23, 1823. In January 1829, however, Holley would confidently allude to New York scholar and seminary professor Clement C. Moore as the author. Later, and still without naming Moore directly, Holley revealed in print that he had learned the author's identity only a few months after publishing the merry Christmas lines. Moore himself finally acknowledged his authorship in 1837 by submitting "A Visit from St Nicholas" with three other poems of his for publication in The New-York Book of Poetry. Moore is also credited with authorship of "A Visit from St. Nicholas in two important 1840 anthologies of American poetry, The Poets of America, edited by John Keese; and Selections from the American Poets, edited by William Cullen Bryant.

Early in 1844, a false attribution in the Washington National Intelligencer on Christmas Day 1843 prompted Moore to contact ex-publisher Norman Tuttle in Troy, and to state his claim openly and directly in a letter to his good friend Charles King, then editor of the New York American. On March 1, 1844 King published Moore's claim, really the confession of an embarrassed academic and bereaved husband and father, that he wrote the Christmas lines

"not for publication, but to amuse my children."  --Clement C. Moore, letter to Charles King dated February 27, 1844; published March 1, 1844 in the New York American.

Moore subsequently included A Visit from St. Nicholas aka 'Twas the Night Before Christmas in his 1844 volume Poems.


Related posts:

• Now, Dasher! in 1826
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/12/now-dasher-in-1826.html

• Genius of Liberty, 1826 reprinting of A Visit from St Nicholas
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/12/genius-of-liberty-1826-reprinting-of.html

• First printing of A Visit from St Nicholas
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/04/first-printing-of-visit-from-st-nicholas.html

• Lines written after a snow-storm, 1824 and 1844 versions
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/04/lines-written-after-snow-storm-by.html

Genius of Liberty, 1826 reprinting of A Visit from St Nicholas from the Charleston Mercury

In brackets, The Genius of Liberty (Leesburg, Virginia) acknowledges "the Charleston Mercury" as its source for the holiday piece titled, as in the Charleston, South Carolina Mercury of December 25, 1825, "Account of a visit from St. Nicholas, or Sante Claus." The Genius of Liberty was then owned by Brook Watson Sower (1784-1864). The borrowed holiday verses appear below an original paragraph of introduction (by Sower?) explaining the Christmas Eve custom of hanging up stockings for Santa or "Sante Claus" to fill overnight "with nuts, raisins, apples, cakes, toys, &c. &c."

The text of "A Visit from St.Nicholas" is transcribed below from the Leesburg VA Genius of Liberty, December 26, 1826. Also reprinted there on December 26, 1835, with minor changes in punctuation. Like the Charleston Mercury, both versions print "nested" for "nestled" in the fifth line. However, where the earliest Charleston Mercury versions in 1824 and 1825 read "Dunder and Blixem," following the first printing of the Christmas poem in the Troy Sentinel, Sower's Genius of Liberty has "Dunder and Blixen." Images of both the 1826 and 1835 printings of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" in the Genius of Liberty are accessible online via Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive.

Genius of Liberty (Leesburg, VA) December 26, 1826
via Virginia Chronicle

THE RECESS.

As these are holiday times, the following piece is quite appropriate to the season. But as many readers may not be acquainted with the attributes and province of ST NICHOLAS, or SANTE CLAUS, it may not be amiss to remark, that in some families, in different parts of the country, it is customary on the eve before Christmas, for the children, on retiring to bed, to hang up their stockings round and about the chimney, and it is the province of SANTE CLAUS, on such occasions, to fill them before morning, with nuts, raisins, apples, cakes, toys, &c. &c. We know not whence the custom is derived, farther than that the saint, or patron deity, is of German extraction, and generally, we believe, dispenses his favours accordingly -- In the morning of life, when the gilded visions of childhood enchained the affections, we remember to have hailed the approach of this festive season, as well in anticipation of the munificence of SANTE CLAUS, as of other festivities. That period, though long since past, is still grateful to the recollection; and, if ever deception deserved the appellation of pious fraud, it would seem to be when ministering to the sum of infantine happiness.-- [Gen. Lib. 

 [From the Charleston Mercury]

Account of a visit from St. Nicholas, or Sante Claus.

’TWAS the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hope that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
The children were nested all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads,
And Mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap —
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter,
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call’d them by name;
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer! and Vixen.
“On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixen;
“To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
“Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys—and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof;
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys was flung on his back,
And he look’d like a pedlar just opening his pack;
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry,
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And fill’d all the stockings; then turned, with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle:
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night."

Related posts:

•  Now, Dasher! in 1826
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/12/now-dasher-in-1826.html

• Charleston Mercury, early printings of A Visit from St Nicholas
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/12/charleston-mercury-early-printings-of.html

• First printing of A Visit from St Nicholas
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/04/first-printing-of-visit-from-st-nicholas.html

Whale's Fountain in the Troy Daily Whig

Troy NY Daily Whig - November 13, 1851 via FultonHistory

This brief notice of Moby-Dick from the Troy Daily Whig is included in the Checklist of Additional Reviews but not transcribed in Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews, edited by Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker (Cambridge University Press, 1995; paperback 2009) page 416. Found in Tom Tryniski's great archive of old New York newspapers on fultonhistory.com:

MOBY DICK; OR THE WHALE. BY HARMAN MELVILE. HARPER & BROTHERS.

The author of "Typee" and "Omoo" is an indefatigable as well as popular writer. The reading public (and that in this country comprises almost every body) had hardly ceased its expressions of admiration for "White Jackett" and its predecessors, when it is presented by the same author with a thick octavo volume of some 650 pages characterized by all that clearness and depth of observation, quaintness, and originality, which have served to give his previous productions such wide popularity. From a hasty glance at its pages, we predict that "Moby Dick" will be universally regarded as "Melville's best."  [WM. H. YOUNG, 216 River-st.

According to the masthead, the Troy Daily Whig was then owned and edited by Charles David Brigham (1819-1894).



Two days later, the Troy Daily Whig reprinted all of chapter 85, The Fountain under the heading "The Whale's Fountain. / From Herman Melville's New Work -- 'Moby-Dick.' "

Troy NY Daily Whig - November 15, 1851 via via FultonHistory

The Whale's Fountain. 

From Herman Melville's New Work — "Moby Dick."

That for six thousand years—and no one knows how many millions of ages before—the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings—that all this should be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o'clock P. M. of this sixteenth day of October, A. D. 1851,) it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapor—this is surely a noteworthy thing.

The first paragraph features an intriguing variant in the month that Melville's narrator Ishmael gives when supposedly identifying the precise time of his writing on "this sixteenth day of December, A. D. 1851" in the first American edition, "1850" in Bentley's London edition. Published on November 15, 1851, the Troy Daily Whig version reads "October" instead of "December." The choice of "October" avoids the potential objection that Melville's narrator could not be writing the sentence a month after publication of the Harper edition. But the neat fix in the Daily Whig conveys a jolt of super-immediacy to contemporary readers that Melville might not have intended--unless the fix was somehow authorial, rather than strictly editorial. Another solution of the same textual problem would be to follow the British edition here, keeping "December" but emending "1851" to "1850," as in the 1988 Northwestern-Newberry Edition of Moby-Dick or The Whale.

The Buffalo, NY Western Literary Messenger version gives the same title, "The Whale's Fountain," and same credit line, "From Herman Melville's New Work—'Moby-Dick.'" Although published in February 1852, this text also reads "October" where the first British and American editions have "December."

Perhaps Western Literary Messenger editor Jesse Clement copied "The Whale's Fountain" from Charles D. Brigham's newspaper the Troy Daily Whig. Alternatively, both the Buffalo and Troy versions of chapter 85 in Moby-Dick with "October" instead of "December" could derive from a common exemplar.

Jamestown NY Journal - January 2, 1852 via NYS Historic Newspapers

Additional newspaper reprintings of "The Whale's Fountain" with the "October" variant:

• Jamestown Journal (Jamestown, NY), January 2, 1852
  http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn83031315/1852-01-02/ed-1/seq-1/

• Northern New York Journal (Watertown, NY), January 14, 1852 http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn86053169/1852-01-14/ed-1/seq-2/

Below, "The Whale's Fountain" as it appeared in the Troy Daily Whig for November 15, 1851; found on fultonhistory.com.

"The Whale's Fountain."
Troy Daily Whig, Nov. 15, 1851, 1 of 2

"The Whale's Fountain." 2 of 2

Related posts:

• Notice of Pierre in Troy Daily Whig
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/01/notice-of-pierre-in-troy-daily-whig.html

• Moby-Dick in the Western Literary Messenger
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/01/moby-dick-in-western-literary-messenger.html

Steamboats Chancellor Livingston and Connecticut

Steamship Chancellor Livingston. 1822 by Richard Varick DeWitt (1800-1868).
Image Credit: Albany Institute of History and Art

The steamboat Chancellor Livingston was under the command of popular river captain Joab Center (1777-1857) when Herman Melville, age 4, rode it to Albany on August 20, 1823:

Allan Melvill's diary:   

Left New York with Mrs. Melvill, five children, Miss Adams & Nurse in the Steam Boat Chancellor Livingston at 4 P M -  

August 21     Arrived at Albany at 11 A M  --as quoted by Jay Leyda in The Melville Log, 2 vols. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1951) volume 1, page 15.

Allan Melvill's actual diary is held with Correspondence and miscellaneous manuscripts in the Herman Melville Papers at Houghton Library, Harvard. Citation:

Melville, Allan, 1782-1832.Diary. A.Ms.s.(variously); [v.p.] 1800-1831., 1800-1831. Herman Melville papers, MS Am 188-188.6, MS Am 188, (118). Houghton Library, Harvard College Library. https://id.lib.harvard.edu/ead/c/hou00338c00127/catalog Accessed November 27, 2019

New York National Advocate - August 19, 1823 via GenealogyBank

 In August 1823 the five children of Allan and Maria Gansevoort, were

• Gansevoort, age 7 (b. December 6, 1815)
• Helen, 6 (b. August 4, 1817)
• Augusta, almost 2 (b. August 24, 1821)
• Herman, 4 (b. August 1, 1819)
• Allan, 4 months (b. April 7, 1823)

(Catherine/Kate was born on May 21, 1825;  Frances Priscilla/Fanny on August 26, 1827; and Thomas/Tom on January 24, 1830.)

The summer before (August 7, 1822), Herman and family left New York for Providence on the steamboat Connecticut, then commanded by Captain Elihu S. Bunker (1772-1847).

Tue, Aug 6, 1822 – Page 4 · The Evening Post (New York, New York) · Newspapers.com
After a night at Sanford Horton's Globe Tavern aka Golden Ball Inn on the corner of Benefit and South Court Streets they proceeded on to Boston "in a private Carriage" for a long visit with Herman's grandfather Thomas Melvill and family (Melville Log Vol 1, page 11).

Golden Ball Inn, Providence RI via Library of Congress

What Allan Melvill called "Horton's Tavern" in his diary was formerly Chappotin's Tavern, refurbished and re-opened as the Globe Tavern in June 1822 by Sanford Horton.

Rhode Island American - June 28, 1822, page 2
via GenealogyBank

Rhode Island American - June 28, 1822, page 3
via GenealogyBank

On the 1823 trip to Albany, "Miss Adams" was the new family governess hired in late December 1822, as Hershel Parker recounts in Herman Melville: A Biography Volume 1, 1819-1851 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) pages 26-27.

More facts about the steamboat Chancellor Livingston can be found with the drawing by Samuel Ward Stanton in American Steam Vessels (New York, 1895). Accessible online courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library:

CHANCELLOR LIVINGSTON

https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015018442189?urlappend=%3Bseq=24

Swiftsure drawing by Samuel Ward Stanton

SWIFTSURE 1825, pencil drawing by Samuel Ward Stanton (1870-1912)
in American Steam Vessels series no. 5, Steamboats of the River Hudson

Number 5 in the American Steam Vessels series (Meriden Gravure Company, 1962-5) of drawings by marine artist and historian Samuel Ward Stanton (1870-1912) is titled Steamboats of the River Hudson. Published by Stanton's daughter Elizabeth Stanton Anderson, this pamphlet edition reproduces some early work not found in American Steam Vessels (New York, 1895), including the rare pencil drawing of the Swiftsure in 1825, towing the "safety barge" Lady Van Rensselaer.

Numbers 1-5 in the American Steam Vessels series of drawings by Samuel Ward Stanton are collected in one volume at the University of Michigan Library, now Google-digitized and accessible online courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library.

Pertinent history of the Swiftsure is given under Stanton's picture of the "SWIFTSURE 1825 pulling safety barge LADY VAN RENSSELAER":

Built at Brooklyn, N. Y., wood, 265 tons, by C. Bergh for A. Van Santvoord's Steam Navigation Co. for route between New York and Albany. SWIFTSURE and COMMERCE usually had in tow, for those afraid of steamboats, so-called safety barges connected to them by swivelled platforms over which passengers could walk. Practice discontinued after 1829 due to resulting slowness, and barges converted for freight. SWIFTSURE abandoned in 1856. -- Steamboats of the River Hudson, American Steam Vessels series no. 5 (Meriden Gravure Company, 1965). 

Tue, Sep 6, 1825 – Page 1 · The Evening Post (New York, New York) · Newspapers.com
Samuel Ward Stanton died at sea on April 12, 1912 in the Titanic disaster. Stanton's early Swiftsure drawing did not appear in American Steam Vessels. His model is not identified exactly, but in the 1895 Preface Stanton avowed that his illustrations were all "drawn from reliable sources" such as "early prints, lithographs, drawings and paintings, mostly in the possession of private parties or steamboat companies." Also acknowledging his use of old newspapers and hand-bills, Stanton further specified that he had drawn

the United States from a wood cut that appeared in the New York Evening Post, of June 23, 1821; the Constitution from a wood cut on a hand-bill of 1826, and the Albany, 1839, is likewise from a wood cut.

For representations of some early Hudson River steamboats including the Commerce, DeWitt Clinton, and Highlander, Stanton credited "the pictures of Mr. James Bard, a gentleman who began this class of work before 1830."



Shown above via Wikimedia Commons, the image of the steamboat Highlander from American Steam Vessels by Samuel Ward Stanton is also accessible online courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library

• https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015018442189?urlappend=%3Bseq=48

and Google Books

• https://books.google.com/books?id=lQ8fAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false

Stanton describes the Highlander, built in 1835 for the Hudson River, as 

"one of the best boats on the river when she first came out, as well as one of the fastest. She ran on the Newburgh and New York line until the Thomas Powell appeared, 1846. She was then used as an excursion boat."  --American Steam Vessels

Wed, Oct 9, 1839 – Page 4 · The Evening Post (New York, New York) · Newspapers.com
In Redburn (1849) Herman Melville gave the name "Highlander" to the merchant vessel that takes the green hero Wellingborough Redburn across the Atlantic and back. The Highlander in Redburn is a fictionalized version of the real St. Lawrence which did in fact sail to Liverpool in June 1839 with Herman Melville on board. Melville shipped as an inexperienced "boy," although he would celebrate his 20th birthday in Liverpool, waiting to sail home. As William H. Gilman reported in Melville's Liverpool Trip, Modern Language Notes Vol. 61, No. 8 (December 1946) pages 543-547, the crew list of the St. Lawrence had Herman Melville enrolled under the name "Norman Melville."

Wed, Jun 5, 1839 – Page 3 · The Evening Post (New York, New York) · Newspapers.com
Related posts:

• Swiftsure Line in 1830
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/11/swiftsure-line-in-1830.html

• Captain Hart L Murray
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/11/captain-hart-l-murray.html

Captain Hart L. Murray

Here's more about Hart Leverett Murray (1798-1887), captain of the Swiftsure when that Hudson River steamboat brought Allan Melvill and his son Herman (age 11) up to Albany from NYC in October 1830. Towing the Melvill family's furniture on the freight barge Ontario, as demonstrated in the previous post on the Swiftsure Line in 1830.

From William B. Murray, The Descendants of Jonathan Murray (Peoria, Illinois, 1950) pages 89-90:

HART  L. MURRAY 

Son of Jesse b 9 Nov. 1798 in Essex, Conn. d 7 May 1887 in Deep River, Middlesex Co. Conn. m 25 Sept. 1823 to Temperance H. Brockway b 19 Oct. 1798 d 26 May 1898. Lived in Essex, Conn. & Albany, N.Y. 

Children
i Leverett Wendell b 1 June 1829 d 6 Apt 1889
ii Angenora Manuella b 24 Jan,1834 d 29 Oct. 1927 m John L. Brownell

Starting in 1824 as Capt of the Hudson River steamboat 'Swiftsure' he continued to be a popular captain of the Hudson River boats for 27 yrs, contemporaneous with Alfred Vantvoord, Isaac Newton and Dean Richmond. He was appointed Harbor Master of the Port of New York by Gov Morgan in 1860 and retired from active life in 1867. He was a resident of Albany for 28 yrs, and earnest anti-slavery man and a member of the Baptist church for more than 60 years; a devoted husband and valued citizen. 

In Albany, Murray lived at 60 Westerlo Street. That's according to Joel Munsell's Albany Annual Register for 1849-50 where his name "Murray H L" appears in the alphabetized list of fifteen Albany "Skippers." Same address for "skipper" Murray in the 1853-4 Albany City Directory. In Brooklyn Hart L. Murray resided at 12 Cheever Place.

Tue, May 17, 1887 – Page 1 · The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York) · Newspapers.com

OBITUARY.
Captain Hart L. Murray.

Captain Hart L. Murray, who died recently at the old homestead at Deep River, Conn., in the 89th year of his age, was born in the town of old Saybrook, Conn., in 1798. Early in life he worked at his trade of spar making and boat and ship building in Essex, Conn., and commenced steam navigation on the Hudson River in 1824, as captain of the Swiftsure, and for twenty-seven years was a popular commander of Hudson River steamers--contemporaneous with Alford Van Santvoord, Isaac Newton and Daniel Drew. He was appointed Harbor Master of the Port of New York in 1860 by Governor E. D. Morgan, having charge of the Atlantic Dock district. He resided for twenty-eight years in Albany and subsequently was a resident of South Brooklyn fifteen years. He retired from active life in 1865 and has since lived in Deep River on the banks of the Connecticut, near his birthplace. He was married in 1823 to Temperance Brockway, with whom he lived over sixty-three years. They celebrated their golden wedding nearly fourteen years ago, at which time the bridesmaid of fifty years previous came from her Wisconsin home to grace the occasion. Captain Murray was a man of strong convictions, an earnest anti slavery man when it cost something to openly advocate the cause. A real Christian in life and work and a member of the First Baptist Church of Albany, N. Y., for more than sixty years. He was a devoted husband, a loving father, and a valued citizen. He leaves two children--Leverett W. Murray, of Chicago, and Mrs. John L. Brownell, of Nyack on the Hudson. --Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 17, 1887. 

Related post:

• Swiftsure Line in 1830
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/11/swiftsure-line-in-1830.html

• Swiftsure drawing by Samuel Ward Stanton
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/11/swiftsure-drawing-by-samuel-ward-stanton.html