Sunday, August 7, 2016

Missions to the Western Indians by "Melville" - No. 5 of 6

From the Christian Watchman [Boston, Massachusetts] Friday, June 22, 1838; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank.

For the Watchman.
Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 5.

The tract called the Indian or Western Territory, and, more recently, Neosho, which has been assigned as a residence for such of the Indians as may be removed from the States under the direction of the government, is situated between the States of Missouri, and Arkansas, and the Rocky Mountains. Several unsuccessful attempts have been made to settle its boundaries, but no efforts have yet produced a final adjustment of them.

The general location of the territory, however, has been definitively settled; and though a formal proposition has been submitted to Congress, during the present session, greatly to extend the limits originally proposed, yet it will probably be considered expedient to adhere to the former arrangement, which furnishes nearly the following boundaries.— A small river, called the Puncah, from a tribe of Indians, forms the northern boundary, from the twenty-third degree of longitude, eastwardly, to where that river discharges its waters into the Missouri. The latter river bounds the Territory on the northeast, and on the east until we meet the western boundaries of Missouri and Arkansas. These states complete the eastern boundary. Red River is the boundary on the southern side, and separates the country from Texas. On the west, it is proposed to make the twenty-third degree of longitude the boundary. These limits will be seen to include a tract about six hundred miles in length, with an average width of about two hundred miles.

The country presents an aspect of great uniformity. It is mostly an elevated prairie, or a tract naturally destitute of wood. In some parts the land is uneven; but by far the greater portion is a plain with only occasional undulations. The soil is extremely fertile; the climate pleasant and healthful. From the extent and position of the country, however, a considerable variety of temperature must be observable in different sections; the northern part of the Territory being in nearly the same latitude with Massachusetts, and the southern with the Carolinas.

The Territory is well watered; being intersected by numerous rivers, creeks, and rivulets. It also affords extensive facilities for the manufacture of salt; and has mines of iron, lead, and coal. A scarcity of wood, in many parts of the Territory, is an apparent deficiency; but the supply is calculated to be adequate to the wants of the present, and one or two future generations. It has also been proved by experiment that the settlement of the country conduces to the growth of wood in the vicinity of the settlements. This seeming paradox is explained in the following manner. The great obstacle to the growth of wood is the annual fires, which sweep across the prairies, and consume the tender shrubs. In the case of settlements, the cattle of the Indian colonists, by devouring the dry grass which supports the fires, proportionably diminish its ravages. In these spots, trees arise, and grow with astonishing rapidity. The united testimony of the most intelligent persons, who have enjoyed opportunities for observation upon this subject, goes to prove that the scarcity of wood in the Territory is owing, not to any natural unadaptedness of the soil to the production of that article, for nowhere do trees, if unmolested, ascend with richer luxuriance, but to the fact alluded to above. When this inconvenience shall be obviated by the population of the country, it is reasonable to suppose that the forest and the coal-mine will each furnish its stores in such abundance as to preclude all fears of a destitution of fuel.

The grass which covers the prairies is, in many places, suitable for the scythe. Some parts of the country abound with excellent game, and are thus fitted to afford a ready subsistence to those tribes who are unaccustomed to the labors of the field, and ignorant of the arts of agriculture.

In the occupation of the lands, each emigrant tribe is to have a distinct portion assigned to it, and each of these districts is to be sufficiently extensive to afford the most ample accommodations to its inhabitants, to render the close neighborhood of two tribes unnecessary, and thus to avoid the principal occasions of those bloody and interminable wars, which, under ordinary circumstances, are so apt to occur between proximate tribes of hostile savages.

The expenses incurred in the removal of the tribes are to be borne by the United States. The Indians are furnished with provisions and necessaries for their journey, and assisted to locate themselves in their new possessions. Each tribe is to receive more or less from the United States in the form of annuities, the appointment and support of teachers, agricultural implements, the preparation of land for planting and sowing, the erection of grist mills and saw mills, and, in short, in the supply of whatever may seem necessary to their comfortable subsistence and residence in the Territory assigned them.

It is proposed to tender to the tribes a simple and practicable system of confederative government for the Territory. The following are the outlines of the proposed organization. “Delegates are to be chosen by the several tribes, to represent them in general council, once a year, or oftener, if necessary. The character of this council will be similar to that of the legislative council of one of our Territories. It will be competent to enact laws of a general nature for the Territory. These laws will take effect after they have been approved by the President of the United States. Each tribe will enact laws which relate merely to its own internal concerns; similar to the action of townships or of city corporations. The tribes thus confederated will choose a delegate, who must be an Indian, to represent them at the seat of government of the United States, during each session of Congress. He will be paid by the United States, and his compensation will be equal to that of a member of Congress. All civil offices, excepting two, which shall be created in the Territory by this organization, will be filled by Indians, if such be found competent to discharge the duties.”

Such are some of the general features of the natural condition and proposed civil organization of Neosho, or the Indian Territory. Assigned by the general government as the future home of the Indians, it possesses an interest for their friends in the United States, and in other places, and especially for those self-consecrated individuals who propose to spend their lives in efforts to dispense the blessings of Christianity to this unfortunate people.

MELVILLE.
Source of the quoted section (highlighted above) and most of the factual information is the Periodical Account of Baptist Missions for 1836, published in 1837 by frontier Baptist missionary Isaac McCoy.



So then. Our professedly Baptist writer, call him "Melville," likes to re-write his sources, and in revision introduces bits of his own such as "proved by experiment." Proved by experiment?!

Herman Melville, re-writing one of his whaling sources, William Scoresby or Desmoulins via Beale:
But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo negro in summer.  --Moby-Dick, The Blanket
My spell-check automatically underscored "proportionably" and "unadaptedness," neither in Isaac McCoy's 1837 publication.

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Saturday, August 6, 2016

Missions to the Western Indians by "Melville" - No. 4 of 6

From the Christian Watchman [Boston, Massachusetts] Friday, April 27, 1838; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank.

For the Watchman.
Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 4.

The Seminoles are about four thousand in number. They occupy a tract on the western coast of the peninsula of Florida. This tribe is descended from another who were named Yemassees. They have made but small advances in civilization, and are extremely warlike.— About twenty-five years since, they became engaged in a war with the United States. The contest proved most disastrous to the Seminoles. The American troops under Gen. Jackson, drove them into the then Spanish towns of St. Marks and Pensacola, then taking possession of those places, held the fugitives completely in their power. Under these circumstances, the disheartened Indians accepted a proffered treaty of peace.

In 1835, arose a second war with the Seminoles. Their country had previously been ceded to the United States; and stipulations had been made for their removal to the Indian territory. Discontent subsequently arose, however, between the parties to this treaty, and the sparks of disaffection were soon fanned into a flame. Slaves belonging to the Florida planters escaped from their masters, and sought a refuge among the Seminoles. When the agents of the United States, in the name of the government, claimed the occupancy of the country, and the removal of the Indians, a violent spirit of resistance was instantly manifested. One of the principal chiefs having advised to yield to the demands of the United States, a number of his fellow chiefs sought his hut, and despatched him, sending each an arrow through his body.

The Seminoles immediately fled to arms. Troops from the United States were sent against them; but from the nature of the country the latter could contend with the Indians only at a tremendous disadvantage. Florida abounds in treacherous swamps and stagnant pools, which are thickly infested with noxious serpents and most troublesome insects. The Indians possessing an intimate acquaintance with the country, would frequently sally forth against the invading foe, and then retire to those swamps which were inaccessible to the foot of civilized man.

The war is still raging without a prospect of a speedy conclusion though the principal chiefs have been captured, and the Indians defeated in several engagements. The issue can only be known from the developments of the future. Under the present circumstances, it would necessarily be idle to speak of the Seminoles in Florida as the subjects of missionary labor. The Christian can only beseech Him who performs his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, to hush the commotions of war into the stillness and security of peace. It will then be more rational to hope that the benign influences of the gospel may be borne to the hearts of the degraded and unfortunate Seminoles.

MELVILLE.
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Missions to the Western Indians by "Melville" - No. 3 of 6

In 1838 the U. S. Secreatry of War was Joel Roberts Poinsett. Before that, Lewis Cass.

From the Christian Watchman [Boston, Massachusetts] Wednesday, April 4, 1838; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank.

For the Watchman.
Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 3.

The first settlements founded in this country by our emigrant ancestors were naturally formed near the original points of landing, upon the north eastern or Atlantic coast. The tide of population thence proceeded to the South and West. In consequence of this fact, the Indians are principally found inhabiting the vast territorial tract on the western border of the United States, included under the names of the North West and Missouri Territories. In 1836, a portion of the former was erected into a separate territory, under the name of Wisconsin, a fact of which it may be desirable to retain a remembrance in considering the localities of some of the Indian tribes.

It is understood to be the settled policy of the national government to remove the principal part of the Indians within the limits of the States to a territory allotted for the purpose West of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Experience has shown this measure to be, under present circumstances, essential to the welfare, if not to the existence, of the Indians. This plan has already been executed, to a considerable extent. By a return made to the appropriate department on the first of December, 1837, it appears that more than fifty-one thousand Indians had been removed from their former grounds to the new territory. At the same date, thirty-seven thousand were under treaty stipulations to remove; and a few more than twelve thousand, including the small tribes in New York, and some others in the vicinity of the lakes, were not under such stipulations. The document also contains a list of twenty-eight tribes, with an aggregate population of two hundred and thirty-two thousand, who are native in the above mentioned territory west of the Mississippi, or near the western frontier.

It may possibly be unknown to some of my readers that the business of our Indian relations devolves primarily upon the Secretary of War. In 1832, provision was made by an act of Congress for the appointment of an officer with the title of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, who was to take the special charge of this branch of the public service. This person resides at Washington, and acts under the direction of the Secretary of War. The intercourse with the Indians is effected by the aid of Superintendents, Agents, Sub-agents and Interpreters. The office of Commissioner is at present filled by the Hon. C. A. Harris.

I shall conclude this article with some account of the principal tribes still resident East of the Mississippi river.

The Chippeways occupy an extensive country in the northern part of the North West Territory, to the South and West of Lake Superior. They probably number about three thousand. Several bands of their brethren have removed to the Indian country. Of those who remain a portion residing near the Lakes are not under treaty stipulations to remove. The Menominies, in the central part of the Territory, and, I believe, mostly within the bounds of Wisconsin, number about four thousand. This tribe, like the Wyandots and Miamies, are not under treaty stipulations to remove beyond the Mississippi.

The Winnebagoes inhabit a tract to the South of the Menominies. The tribe comprises about four thousand and five hundred persons. By the stipulations of a treaty concluded in August, 1829, they ceded the territory occupied by them to the United States, and consented to remove to the neighborhood of their brethren in the West.

The Sacs and Foxes inhabit the country adjacent to the northern border of Illinois. They remain mostly in a savage state. By two treaties concluded with them in 1830 and 1832, respectively, they ceded their lands, comprising some twenty millions of acres to the United States. They are of a martial disposition, and frequently engaged in war.

The Putawattimies occupy a portion of country in the northern part of Indiana. They have become partially civilized; and chiefly subsist upon the productions of agriculture. The number of this tribe still living in Indiana is about three thousand. Several bands consisting together of fifteen thousand souls, have exchanged their former lands for others West of the Mississippi.

The Chickasaws are a small tribe dwelling in the northern part of Mississippi. This nation has been amalgamated, to some extent, with the white settlers in their neighborhood. One thousand of their number have removed westward, leaving but about six hundred on their former lands. The national government has appropriated one million three hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars to furnish them with the advantages of education. More than a million and a half has also been paid to them in land, money, clothing, and provisions.

The Choctaws dwell near the middle of the common boundary line between Mississippi and Alabama. They are a powerful tribe about fifteen thousand in number. They are far advanced in civilization.

The Cherokees dwell in the northern parts of Alabama and Georgia. They are the foremost of the Indian tribes in civilization, cultivating all the more important arts of life. Many of them are professors of religion; and their conduct as members of a civil community and as Christians will probably compare, without disadvantage, with that of any nation on the globe. They number twenty-two thousand, of whom about one third have removed to the Indian country.

The Seminoles, five thousand in number, occupy the southern part of Florida. They are under treaty stipulations to remove West of the Mississippi; but a disastrous war, said to have been induced by excesses committed by the Seminoles, and by the fact of their having afforded a refuge to the fugitive slaves of the Florida planters, has been raging, for several years, between this nation and the United States.

MELVILLE.
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Friday, August 5, 2016

Missions to the Western Indians by "Mellville" - 1 of 6

Herman Melville we know was baptized and brought up in the Dutch Reformed Church of his mother and the Gansevoort clan. Herman's father and the Boston Melvilles were Unitarians. The writer of this 1837-8 series on "Missions to the Western Indians" seems happily Baptist and writes for a Baptist newspaper over the pseudonym "Melville" (here spelled with an extra "L," "MELLVILLE, later corrected to "MELVILLE")" So I don't suppose evangelizing MELVILLE of the Christian Watchman can really be farmhand-schoolteacher Herman Melville at the age of 18. For the sake of my own inner peace, however, I would prefer that this "MELLVILLE" (whoever he is) had not wished anything from his "inmost soul." Or generalized so favorably about the "strong affection" of the native people he is trying to describe. sense of honor? Forget about it...

From the Christian Watchman [Boston, Massachusetts] Friday, November 10, 1837; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank.

For the Watchman.
MISSIONS TO THE WESTERN INDIANS.


It is a very proper subject of gratulation for every disciple of the Saviour that the spirit of missions appears to be gaining a steady prevalence over the minds of the Christian community. The church evinces at least a disposition to act upon the conviction that [a responsibility], of which she cannot divest herself, invokes her immediate attention to the spiritual wants of the heathen. The communicative and benevolent nature of her creed inspires her with zeal to transmit to the poor idolater, wherever he may be found, a sweet hope of immortality and blessedness, founded on the precious faith of the gospel.

It is devoutly to be hoped that the church may continue to indulge this spirit, and to obey its impulses, till she shall behold the accomplishment of her glorious object in the evangelization of the world.

A laudable zeal is manifested for the conversion of the heathen in Burmah and other countries of Asia. This is precisely as it should be. Let not our interest in Eastern missions, however, cause us to forget the claims of our unfortunate brethren at the West. The Indians of our own country, I conceive, have peculiar claims on our Christian sympathy. We possess the inheritance of their ancestors. They have permitted our countrymen to advance step by step, while themselves have receded farther and farther towards the setting sun.

It is touching to consider how rapidly this brave and unfortunate people are dwindling and perishing before the encroachments of the whites. The pleasant hills of our own New-England, where the forest delights us with its calm and somber aspect, or a view of the golden harvest soothes us into tranquility and satisfaction; and our picturesque valleys, with their neat and modest villages, where the murmur of industry is constantly heard, are now the principal objects which meet the eye, in the survey of a country which was once the undisputed domain of the red man. The former inhabitants have mingled their dust with the earth which we tread or withdrawn beyond the pale of civilization, into the rude fastnesses of the West.

Rev. Isaac M’Coy, of the Shawanoe Baptist Mission, who has consecrated himself, with praiseworthy devotion, to the welfare of the Indians, estimated the whole number in North America, in 1836, at four and a half millions; and those within the United States at three hundred and thirty-one thousand, nine hundred and thirty-seven. He ascertained the number of missionaries and assistants in the Indian Territory, at that time, to be eighty-two, of whom but twenty-two were Baptists. This fact affords our friends little reason for complacency in view of their past and present efforts for the Indians. Can the Baptist church furnish and sustain but a score of missionaries to these destitute tribes? Our denomination in the United States numbers nearly half a million. A comparison of these statistics will disclose the humiliating fact that we supply but a single missionary to more than fifteen thousand Indians.

I wish from my inmost soul the number of our missionaries to the Eastward might be increased an hundred fold. But it is to be observed that candidates for missionary labor have generally discovered a greater readiness to go to Burmah, or to some other of the Asiatic provinces, than to the forlorn tribes of our own frontiers. A state of things like this ought manifestly no longer to exist. A far greater share of attention and effort should be directed to the hapless survivors of the once powerful, the brave and interesting, but unfortunate people to whom we have referred. They are near our homes, and means expended for their benefit will go much farther than the same means appropriated to the distant idolaters of Asia. I trust I shall not be misapprehended. I desire not to be understood as saying that we should exert ourselves more to establish and sustain missions to the Indians than to convert the Burmese. I only mean to intimate that we should bestow greater attention than heretofore on missions to the former. We ought to do this and not leave the other undone.

Together with the blessing of God, which should be constantly invoked in the prosecution of this sacred enterprise, we want the men and the means. A requisition for the former must be made on the great body of our pious middle-aged and young men whom the Spirit and Providence of God may seem to designate for the work of evangelization, and especially on the pious members of our literary and theological institutions, together with those who have already received the advantages of these disciplinary establishments. Nor let the pious female consider herself excluded from this labor of love. A young lady with whom I was acquainted, after encountering and overcoming almost every conceivable disadvantage, in the ultimately successful pursuit of a respectable education, set out for one of our South-western States, selected a place for labor among the Indian inhabitants, I believe, and located herself there. The last I heard of her, she had a flourishing school of a hundred or more. I would here mention for the encouragement of some who may be destined to encounter similar trials, that this devoted young female, in addition to her other discouragements, was frequently met by coldness and incredulity, sometimes expressed in words, but more frequently exhibited in the plainer language of action, by not a few of her professedly Christian friends. But she did not waver and retire on account of their indifference; and in this she acted rightly. If we are to wait till our own hearts, the church, the world, and the devil, shall unite to countenance our benevolent efforts, we may as well fold our arms for the rest of our lives, at least, so far as it relates to any thing we might do in the cause of religion.

In conclusion, let me be permitted to say that I hope my youthful Christian friends will give this subject a candid and prayerful consideration. Let them seriously reflect whether the voice of Providence and of duty does not invite them to this sacred work. For the means to sustain them, they must rely on the blessing of God, and on the benevolence of the church. The Lord will smile on every disinterested effort to do good; and the church has certainly ample means, if they could be commanded. The country abounds in natural and commercial wealth; and it is but a comfortable maintenance that the missionaries would desire. This, under ordinary circumstances, would require but a small sum annually for each individual, as each would find it indispensable to use simplicity, industry and strict frugality, in this mode of life. The hundred thousand dollars which Madame Celeste gained with her heels, in this country, would support, for a year, a host of missionaries to the Indians. Most thankful should we be, if a tithe of this wasted wealth could be put into the missionary fund. But let not the parsimony of the church discourage those who burn with the spirit of evangelization. With unwavering resolution, let them proceed to the work. The shall find in the natives of our western wilds, a race possessing some of the noblest qualities which the fall of man has left to the world,—hospitality, generosity, strong affection, and a delicate sense of honor. Let the missionary, then, endeavor to impart to these children of nature that blessed gospel, which shall refine and crown all these estimable qualities. He shall assuredly find an inexhaustible fountain of consolation, and a sweet reward of his labor, in the consciousness of doing good, and in the beneficence of the Divine Being, who has promised that they who turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever.

MELLVILLE.

“two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale”
--Moby-Dick
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Tuesday, August 2, 2016

"Melville" on "Missions to the Western Indians" and "a celebrated infidel book"

Communications to the Boston Christian Watchman signed "MELVILLE" appeared as early as 1828 ("Profitable Pleasure," March 7, 1828, commending the Solar Microscope to families with children) and 1833 (promoting "Wayland's Discourses," July 26, 1833). The numbered "Western Indians" series is more substantial and elaborately argued than anything previously by "MELVILLE" in the Baptist newspaper published by William Nichols and at that time edited by Ebenezer Thresher, then William Crowell. From the Christian Watchman [Boston, Massachusetts], Friday, March 23, 1838; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank.

Missions to the Western Indians.—No. 2.


It will readily be conceded by every person disposed to reason upon Christian principles, that the church is bound to prosecute, with resolute and unremitting energy, those measures which appear best adapted to spread the gospel through every country on the globe. But it would certainly seem that the claims of the Indian tribes upon the American church, for the light of divine truth, partake more of the nature of strict and imperative justice than any which can be preferred in behalf of another people. The nation is under a deep obligation to the race of red men for the soil of this country. Disguise it as we will, it was hard, on the part of the Indians, to be dispossessed of the territory in the manner they were; and that, too, by a people, whom they had received, on their first landing, as a handful of feeble and forlorn adventurers; and to whom they had manifested that spirit of kind hospitality which may exist as truly in a savage breast as in that of the most enlightened European.

There is something painful in the contemplation of this subject; even after all the mitigating circumstances connected with it has been explained and acknowledged. It has been gravely adduced in justification of Anglo-American rapacity, that the country being capable of affording sustenance to a far more dense population, might permit the expulsion of the former to make room for their civilized neighbors. If this argument proves any thing, it proves too much for ourselves. On the same principle, a deputation from the swarming hordes of China might land on the Atlantic coast and take possession of New England itself. A body of Irish emigrants direct from their over-peopled native island, where a family must contrive to subsist on the produce of half an acre, and pay an enormous rent besides, might prefer a similar and far more urgent claim to the country.

What has been done, however, cannot be undone. It would probably be impossible, and certainly inexpedient to reinstate the Indians in the country of their ancestors. No eligible course remains, therefore, but to hasten forward with promptness and alacrity to the discharge of the duties growing out of our present relations to the Aborigines without consuming time in unavailing regret for the past. The country is wide enough for both races. Let them maintain a friendly neighborhood, and dwell together as brethren. Our people are called to this duty, on their part, by every consideration which should influence a magnanimous and powerful nation, and, above all, by the spirit of that divine gospel which is tacitly recognized as the national faith.

The Christian church, too, owe it to themselves, to the missionaries whom they have dispatched to this field of labor, and to whom they have pledged their zealous and constant co-operation; to their peculiar relations and locality in respect to the Indians as a nation; and above all to their assured obligations of fidelity to the interests of the divine Saviour, in humble reliance on the efficacy of the Spirit to be dispensed from on high, to make a more general and vigorous effort to give the gospel to the Indian tribes, within the jurisdiction and neighborhood of the United States. Here is a great moral and religious enterprise, worthy of the most strenuous exertions and the most ardent prayers of Christian philanthropy. It is a work, too, which circumstances appear to have devolved exclusively upon American Christians. On the Eastern continent and on the Pacific Islands, England and Denmark may very properly divide with ourselves the field of missionary labor. It is not so in respect to the North American Indians; especially as it relates to the tribes inhabiting the territorial lands of the United States, or dwelling in the vicarage [vicinage] of our Western or Southern border.

MELVILLE.
The editorial correction to vicinage (meaning "vicinity") appeared in the Christian Watchman on March 30, 1838. Articles in the series on "Missions to the Western Indians" appeared over the signature "Melville" during 1837-8 in the Christian Watchman as follows:
On October 19, 1838 a missionary signing himself "J. G. P." wrote to correct "Melville's" benign view of Indian character, as presented in the first installment of "Missions to the Western Indians" on November 10, 1837. "Melville" had written that missionaries to the Indians
“shall find in the natives of our western wilds, a race possessing some of the noblest qualities which the fall of man has left to the world—hospitality, generosity, strong affection, and a delicate sense of honor. Let the missionary, then, endeavor to impart to these children of nature that blessed gospel, which shall refine and crown all these estimable qualities.”  --"Melville" in the Christian Watchman, November 10, 1837
"Melville" defended this view in a reply to J. G. P.,  published in the Christian Watchman November 23, 1838. Coincidentally, in his unsigned 1849 review of The Oregon Trail, Herman Melville would tangle with Francis Parkman over the same issue of Indian character. Also employing biblical references and evangelical rhetoric, Melville rebutted Parkman's negative stereotypes as follows:
It is too often the case, that civilized beings sojourning among savages soon come to regard them with disdain and contempt. But though in many cases this feeling is almost natural, it is not defensible; and it is wholly wrong. Why should we contemn them? Because we are better than they? Assuredly not; for herein we are rebuked by the story of the Publican and the Pharisee. Because, then, that in many things we are happier? But this should be ground for commiseration, not disdain. Xavier and Elliot despised not the savages; and had Newton or Milton dwelt among them they would not have done so. When we affect to contemn savages, we should remember that by so doing we asperse our own progenitors; for they were savages also. Who can swear, that among the naked British barbarians sent to Rome to be stared at more than 1500 years ago, the ancestor of Bacon might not have been found? Why, among the very Thugs of India, or the bloody Dyaks of Borneo, exists the germ of all that is intellectually elevated and grand. We are all of us—Anglo-Saxons, Dyaks, and Indians—sprung from one head, and made in one image. And if we regret this brotherhood now, we shall be forced to join hands hereafter. A misfortune is not a fault; and good luck is not meritorious. The savage is born a savage; and the civilized being but inherits his civilization, nothing more. Let us not disdain, then, but pity. And wherever we recognise the image of God, let us reverence it, though it hung from the gallows.  
--The Literary World, Volume 4 - March 31, 1849.
In September 1838 "Melville" wrote the Watchman from Union, Connecticut after attending a Sabbath-School convention in Pomfret on September 26, 1838. The letter from "Melville" closes with a reference to Israel Putnam and his legendary killing of the last wolf in Connecticut:
"God speed to our Connecticut brethren in their spirited enterprize; and from the town where Putnam killed the wolf, which was mentioned as the place of the proposed seminary, may an efficient influence go forth to tame down the fierce dispositions of men to the bland and amiable spirit of Christian virtue."
Poems by "Melville" in the Christian Watchman
  • "LINES / WRITTEN ON READING A CELEBRATED INFIDEL BOOK." Friday, March 2, 1838
Christian Watchman / March 2, 1838
This "celebrated infidel book" sounds kind of like the unnamed one that troubled young Nathan in Herman Melville's long poem of spiritual questing, Clarel--especially since "Melville" identifies his book with the "boastful creed of reason." Melville scholar William Schurr in The Mystery of Iniquity identifies Nathan's volume as most likely "Paine's Age of Reason, or possibly Ethan Allan's Reason the Only Oracle of Man." And how about that prayer of "Melville" to preserve illusory hopes in the face of doubt:
"O, let the sweet delusion last!"
 whew! there's nothing more Melvillean than that.
"When now—enlightened, undeceived—
What gain I, barrenly bereaved!"  --After the Pleasure Party
In the same vein, "Nor wake the peaceful dreamer thou" is basically what Vine instructs a monk in the first part of Clarel, telling him not to wake up the sleeping Nehemiah:
... Spare to molest
Let this poor dreamer take his rest.  --Clarel Part 1 - Canto 30
On the other hand, you wouldn't expect to find Herman Melville in late September 1838 at a Baptist Sunday-school convention in Pomfret, Connecticut. Eh? Let's see, where was the young scamp (just 19), anyway? Uh-oh:
"There is no evidence as to where he was from mid-September until early November."
--Hershel Parker, Herman Melville: A Biography - Volume 1 page 132
  • "THANKSGIVING HYMN." November 28, 1838. This is the last item signed "Melville" that I have been able to find so far in the Christian Watchman. 
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Monday, August 1, 2016

Henry Russell in Melville's Albany

Henry Russell
Robert Street, 1796-1865, lithographer. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
English singer and composer Henry Russell (1813-1900) was the father of Herman Melville's friend W. Clark Russell, to whom Melville dedicated John Marr and other Sailors in 1888. You can find the electronic text with other of Melville's dedications here. In print, the Northwestern-Newberry edition of Melville's Published Poems has the edited text of Melville's dedication to W. Clark Russell. The facsimile edition of John Marr and Other Sailors, edited by Douglas Robillard, is published by the Kent State University Press.


In the dedication to John Marr Melville notes the fact of WCR's birth in New York City, but does not name his famous and flamboyant sire Henry Russell. Melville would have known of Henry Russell (he wrote the music for Woodman! Spare that Tree! and A Life on the Ocean Wave) from the popular singer's time in Albany, where another son was born in 1837. Russell had first gone to Canada around 1833-4, then made his way eventually from Toronto to Rochester, New York. Russell did not stay long. He continued to tour America in 1837-1841 and then returned to England.

In February 1837, Albany newspapers reported and welcomed the rumor of Russell's decision to become a permanent resident:
"We have great pleasure in announcing the arrival in this city of Mr. HENRY RUSSELL, the justly celebrated composer and vocalist. We understand it is his intention to become a resident, and to establish a musical institution amongst us, which shall be worthy of his reputation, and of the capital of the state.” --Albany Daily Advertiser (February 23, 1837), quoted approvingly in the Albany Argus, Friday, February 24, 1837.
The Albany Female Academy sponsored Russell, after Trustees
“resolved to appropriate the Chapel of their Academy, at such times as it may not be required for the ordinary exercises of the institution, to the use of a school, or ACADEMY OF MUSIC, and have guaranteed to Mr. Russell such compensation for his services as has induced him to determine to remain with us, in the full confidence that they will be sustained by their fellow citizens in this enterprize, and that they shall be suffered to sustain no pecuniary loss.”  --Albany Argus, February 1837
As announced in the Argus, Russell ("with whose rich melody our citizens are always charmed") gave a concert on the Fourth of July, 1837 "at the Female Academy, North pearl-street." Herman Melville's sister Augusta Melville was enrolled that year in the Second Department of the Albany Female Academy. Herman himself was in and out of Albany that year, working over the summer at his uncle's farm in Pittsfield, then teaching for a term in the Sikes District School. The proposed Academy of Music was never realized, as recalled in the Albany Evening Journal, December 23, 1837.

In September 1837 one reviewer in Albany criticized Russell for the "idle comic songs" in his repertoire.
Mr. RUSSELL’S Concert, last evening, went off admirably. The large hall of the Institute was filled with a highly fashionable audience. The interest produced by Mr. R’s singing is as fresh and exciting as when he first appeared among us. On this occasion, he was assisted by Professor ANDREWS and Mr. UNDERNER, whose Violin and Flute solos were delightfully executed. Mr. RUSSELL was himself in fine voice and gave several of his best pieces with the happiest effect. He is indeed a most gifted singer. Few melodists, like him, have the power, for a whole evening, to keep an audience entranced with emotion and delight.

But Mr. R., in our judgment, is acquiring one injurious habit. His comic songs are in bad taste. He destroys the effect and mars the beauty of his great powers, by descending from the touching sweetness of “The Old English Gentleman,” the rich, rolling melody of “The Bare Old Oak,” the thrilling interest of the “Wind of the Winter’s Night,” and above all, the sublimity of the “Sceptic’s Lament,” down to the light, vapid, senseless nothings which he too frequently introduces. These idle comic songs are unworthy of Mr. R.’s voice and powers. And besides, we can hear them better sung at the Theatres, the Circus and the Museum.
To mistake its forte, however, is one of the infirmities of genius. GARRICK, the soul of comedy, always had a passion for the tragic muse.— JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, the ablest prose writer in America, runs into the folly of perpetrating doggerels which all but disgrace him. Mr. RUSSELL, in the kindest manner, volunteered several songs last Evening, but they were all calculated to undervalue his genius. His admirers are from the intellectual classes, and cannot be interested with trifles and frivolity. They want the gold without the dross. --Albany Evening Journal, Wednesday, September 13, 1837
The closing aesthetic judgement of John Quincy Adams and his weakness for "perpetrating doggerels" sheds light on Melville's marginal comment in his Milton volume. Annotating Milton's reference to Caesar's abandoned tragedy of Ajax in the preface to Samson Agonistes, Melville wrote
 "J. Q. A. might have followed his example."  --Melville's Marginalia Online
As the unsigned review of Henry Russell's concert shows, JQA's "folly" of versifying was already a staple of cultural criticism in Melville's Albany by September 1837.
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Centennial Birthday Poem

By proofreader and army librarian Warren Handel Cudworth (1877-1927):

Found on Newspapers.com

HERMAN MELVILLE.
Born in New York City, Aug. 1, 1819.

A blue, blue sky above a blue, blue ocean,
   White canvas bellying to a lashing breeze,
Yielding the very poetry of motion
   To those who sail the sun-bathed Southern seas;
Moonlit lagoons behind long sandy reaches
   Against whose coral barriers breakers toss,
While brightly gleam above the shell-strewn beaches
   Canopus and the Cross;
Low bluffs where oft the zephyrs idly dally,
   Sheer mountains drowned at times in sultry calm,
The haunting glamour of the storied Valley
   Fronded with lithe bamboo and coco palm;
The whaler’s deck where all is eager hurry
   When comes the lookout’s call of “There she blows!”
The chase, harpoon, “Stern all!” and then the flurry
   That marks the drama’s close—
These scenes and hosts of fantasies and fancies
   Come, Melville, at the mention of your name,
And conjure up the time when youth’s romances
   Were quickened by your vivifying flame.
New fads and vapid cults can ne’er unseat you,
   Throned with a fame that deepens and abides.
Hence, loving well your magic page, we greet you
   Across a century’s tides.

WARREN H. CUDWORTH.

Obviously not Rev. Warren Handel Cudworth, the chaplain and historian of the First Massachusetts Regiment who died in 1883--in the pulpit.

Our poet of the "blue blue sky" and "blue, blue ocean" must be Warren Handel Cudworth the army librarian. Born January 23, 1877 and named with the library staff of Camp Upton in Long Island, New York in the November 1918 ALA Handbook. Died January 13, 1927 in Freetown, Bristol County, Massachusetts. Find A Grave has more info including names of parents and presumed siblings.

Warren Handel Cudworth's draft registration dated September 12, 1918 gives his occupation as "Proofreader" for Plimpton Press in Norwood, Massachusetts.

Somebody in the Melville family saved Cudworth's poetic tribute. It's listed as Item # 15, Folder 3 in the online inventory of the Osborne Collection at Southwestern University.

Cudworth's 1917 translation of The Odes of Horace is digitized in the Hathi Trust Digital Library.
The Internet Archive has the same privately printed first edition,and also the limited second edition of 250 copies "For public sale" by Alfred A. Knopf:

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