More on Charles Whitney (1815-1885)

From the 1894 Biographical Review of Broome County, New York via Whitney Research Group:

CHARLES WHITNEY, dramatic reader and author of wide celebrity, was born at Chenango Point, now Binghamton, N.Y., April 1, 1815, a son of General Joshua Whitney, of whom see the very interesting biographical sketch on another page. The Whitney family is one of the best known in the annals of this city.

The subject of this brief memoir, who died suddenly, April 17, 1885, at his home, No. 7 North Street, Binghamton, received a good education, attending some of the best institutions of learning in the State of New York at the time of his school-days in the early part of the century. He held first rank as a dramatic reader, and was especially versed in Shakespearean literature, to which he was so devoted that every room in his house had some appropriate quotation from the bard of Avon painted on the walls. He was a man of great ability as a writer, and was a correspondent for various New York papers for many years.

At the age of forty he married Miss Emily Clark, a most gifted and intelligent lady, who was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She died March 10, 1892, on the home farm in the town of Conklin, N.Y., where she and the family had lived since the death of her husband. They had a family of five children, of whom only two are now living, Mary E. and Jennie J. Mary E. was born in Boston, Mass., and is an artist of rare merit, and also a well-known author. She and her sister are graduated of St. Agnes Church School at Albany, N.Y., and are brilliantly educated young women. They managed the farm in the town of Conklin, where they reside, and which consists of one hundred and sixty acres of excellent and productive land. Miss Mary devoted herself principally to her paintings, for which she receives many valuable orders; and her literary work appears in the best magazines of the day.

Mr. and Mrs. Whitney were communicants of the Episcopal church, and in politics he voted with the Democratic party.

In February 1859, Herman Melville opened for Professor Whitney in Chicago. Or put it this way: Whitney closed out Melville's Chicago lecture on The South Seas. In Melville as Lecturer, Merton M. Sealts, Jr. cited Whitney's performance as evidence of the unrefined "western" appetite for popular entertainment:

Here the atmosphere was quite different from that of the eastern lecture halls, for after Melville had finished speaking, "Professor Charles Whitney...announced his entertainment to take place this evening...and gave an admirable impersonation of the eccentric John Randolph, closing with a rendition of Boker's fine ballad of Sir John Franklin."  --Melville as Lecturer, 81-2

Hershel Parker adds:

"Melville was most likely trapped on the stage for this quintessentially academic self-promotion." --Herman Melville: A Biography, v2.393

Despite Whitney's self-promoting title of "Professor," his career as dramatic speaker or "elocutionist" now looks more theatrical than academic. Possibly Melville enjoyed the show, if he stayed. And if, say, Whitney did his celebrated imitation of Red-Jacket. And I'm wondering, too--would Melville have known of Whitney already, before encountering him live in Chicago? In August 1838, a few months after Melville's family moved from Albany to Lansingburgh, Whitney lectured in Troy.

Troy Daily Whig, Monday Evening, August 6, 1838

As advertised in the Daily Whig, Whitney would

"deliver a Lecture on the Art of Speaking, explanatory of his mode of teaching this science, and illustrate its principles, by appropriate reading and recitations--exhibit a natural and easy mode of acquiring the beautiful falsetto, and the Vocal Echo,--Mr. Whitney will also, explain the amusing art of Ventriloquism, or Vocal Modulation."

Notice and ad both found at Fulton History.

In March and early April 1840, Whitney lectured at the Apollo Saloon in Albany. His advertised "third Lecture" included thrilling selections from mostly English authors, starting with scenes from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Lear, and Richard III:

--from the American Masonic Register and Literary Companion (March 14, 1840).

 Charles Whitney's fifth Albany lecture received this rave advance review in the Albany Argus (dated Thursday Morning, April 2, 1840), signed "H.":

Mr. WHITNEY delivers his fifth lecture on Oratory, this evening at the Apollo Saloon, Green street. Among the compositions selected in illustration of his subject, are Milton’s Apostrophe to Light, and the Female Maniac, by Lewis—both admirable subjects—the former as portraying in sublime yet touching language, the loss of those “orbs” for which the lofty conceptions of the poet, could scarcely compensate, and the latter exhibiting a fine mind gradually sinking beneath a weight of injustice and misery into madness.— Mr. W’s delineation is perfect. These two pieces are alone worth the whole price of admission, and no doubt a goodly portion of our citizens will avail themselves of this truly intellectual entertainment. H.

Later in his career as a dramatic speaker Whitney won a reputation for

"celebrated impersonations of orators and imitations of American and Indian speeches."  --Washington Daily Union, February 7, 1851

Related melvilliana post: Melville's lecture on The South Seas 

Melville's lecture on The South Seas--Chicago, February 24, 1859

THE YOUNG MEN’S ASSOCIATION LECTURE TONIGHT. 

— Most of our readers have doubtless heard of, if they have not read, those most delightful volumes anent Pacific ocean and island life, entitled "Typee" and "Omoo," which were so highly praised, at the date of their publication, by the pen of this country and Great Britain. The author of them, Herman Mellville, Esq., delivers a lecture before the Young Men's Association, this evening, in Metropolitan Hall. Subject, “The South Seas." Prof. Whitney will, on the conclusion of the lecture, give a number of his inimitable impersonations. Admittance twenty five cents. We trust there will be a full house. --Chicago Daily Press and Tribune, Thursday Morning, February 24, 1859.

The next day Melville's South Sea lecture received this extensive review in the Chicago Tribune:

Found on Newspapers.com

More on the performance of Professor Whitney:

EVENINGS WITH THE ORATORS.—Prof. Charles Whitney’s entertainment of impersonations, readings and recitations, should not be forgotten by the lovers of elocution and good reading. The specimen of his style at the close of Mr. Melville’s lecture on Thursday evening, was received with much applause.

He was to have made his appearance before an audience in his first entertainment in this city, at Mechanics’ Institute Hall, last evening, but generously yielded the use of the Hall for the Republican Ratification meeting. He will make his first appearance on Monday evening next, and deserves a full house. He stands confessedly among he foremost in his art of impersonating those who have in their day moved listening Senates, and swayed the people by the magic power of eloquence.  --Chicago Daily Press and Tribune, Saturday Morning, February 26, 1859.

This Whitney was a well-traveled speaker and showman. Almost twenty years before he closed Melville's "South Seas" lecture in Chicago, "Charles Whitney, Professor of Elocution" was giving lectures in Albany and Schenectady “upon the art of speaking." Whitney's performances back then featured illustrative imitations of "distinguished orators and tragedians" including scenes from Shakespeare declaimed in the manner of celebrated actors like Vandenhoff, Forest, Booth, Garrick, McCready, Kean. Whitney in 1840 also did impressions of politicians, specifically "McDuffie, Clay, Wise, Hayne, Preston, &c.” (Schenectady Cabinet, Tuesday, February 25, 1840)

On February 7, 1851, the Washington Daily Union announced Whitney's return from a tour of England and Ireland:

Professor Charles Whitney has arrived in this city, and purposes to give lectures, as well as his celebrated impersonations of orators and imitations of American and Indian speeches. The English papers were full of complimentary paragraphs upon his exhibitions when he was in England and Ireland. He returned to this country about six weeks ago. The Dublin Freeman’s Journal speaks of his depicting with effect “the finest and tenderest feelings.” Messers. Clay, Webster, John Randolph, Wirt, Calhoun, McDuffie, and Preston, are among the orators whom he impersonates. He is the person whose repetition of Patrick Henry’s speech on liberty in Dublin, whilst Ireland was so much excited, called down upon him the surveillance of the government. His first night’s lecture in Washington will be announced hereafter.

Wait, Indian speeches? Yes, Whitney could do Red Jacket as well as Hamlet. From the Albany Atlas and Argus, Saturday Morning, April 12, 1856:

So delighted were the large and fashionable audience at the marvelous transformation of Mr. Charles Whitney into Hayne and Webster, Shiel and John Randolph, Hamlet and Red Jacket, that they have requested him to appear once more, on Monday evening, 14th inst.

What can be more enchanting than the play and strife of intellect as portrayed in the Senatorial conflict between Hayne and Webster, Clay and Randolph, McDuffie and Tristram Burgess? Or, the passage in the British Parliament,—Shiel’s scathing invective against Lord Lyndhurst; or the Indian Council fire, where Red Jacket portrays the usurpations of the white man; or, the ridiculous appearance of Counsellor Scolper? Mr. Whitney’s voice is both full and majestic, and its low tones search every thread and fibre of the heart. We are sure Association Hall will again be crowded with the beauty and fashion of the town.

A brief notice in New York Evening Post, February 11, 1868, finds Whitney still doing "remarkably good imitations of famous orators" at Dodworth Hall.

For more of Melville's lecturing, see the related Melvilliana post on Melville's Statues in Rome lecture. Scholarly reconstructions of Melville's three known lectures on "Statues in Rome," "The South Seas," and "Traveling: Its Pleasures, Pains, and Profits" are available in Melville as Lecturer by Merton M. Sealts, Jr. and the Northwestern-Newberry edition of The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860.

Related posts:

• Paddling through the South Seas - 1859 lecture in Baltimore
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/08/paddling-through-south-seas-melville-in.html 

• Can Art, not life, make the ideal? - Herman Melville's lecture on Roman Statuary

• Melville's Lecture on Travel

• Young Charles Whitney in Albany, 1840 

• More on Charles Whitney

More reviews in the Newark Daily Advertiser

Below, mostly positive reviews of Melville's Mardi, Redburn, and White-Jacket in the Newark Daily Advertiser. For the disapproving review (by Augustus Kinsley Gardner?) of Pierre, see the previous melvilliana post. All reviews from the Newark Daily Advertiser are available online in the historical newspaper archives at Genealogy Bank.

Newark Daily Advertiser - April 24, 1849
via Genealogy Bank

From the Newark [New Jersey] Daily Advertiser, Tuesday, April 24, 1849:

Literary Notices.

MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER. By Herman Melville. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 387.

A brief, pointed notice by the author, of itself commends a book, and the reader is seldom disappointed in what follows. But without Mr. Melville’s terse presentation of his new work, the pleasant memories of its singularly fascinating predecessors would secure him at least a hearing. He tells the public that when his veritable narrative of voyages in the Pacific were taken by many for romance, he determined to write a fiction, "thinking it might possibly be received for a verity.” To this novel idea we are indebted for a pair of volumes which, equaling TYPEE AND OMOO in wild interest and picturesque beauty, possess a high[e]r degree of merit—exhibiting through stirring and diverse scenes an intimate acquaintance with human nature, and an unlooked for love of high philosophical speculation. The author’s romances of the real appeal mostly to the love of the sensuous and adventurous; this, his real romance, addresses also the imaginative and reasoning faculties.— It is, on the whole, a remarkable book: one, of course, to be sought for by all who have read Mr. Melville’s previous works, and the few who have not had that pleasure, may, by reading this, find out why his writings are so popular. 

Below, the review of Redburn (listed but not transcribed in Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews, ed. Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker) in the Newark [New Jersey] Daily Advertiser, December 11, 1849:

REDBURN: his first voyage. Being the Confessions and Reminiscences of the son of a gentleman in the merchant service. By HERMAN MELVILLE, author of Typee, Omoo, and Mardi. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1849. pp. 390.

We quote the title in full, because it gives as correct an idea of the nature of the work as could be given in any other form. It is an interesting book for juvenile readers, and others who are much interested in the impulses of boyhood, or the minute incidents of a sea-faring life; but the reader who expects to find another romance like “Typee,” will be disappointed. It is the simple narrative of a country boy who leaves home for the first time on a voyage from New York to Liverpool, before the mast; giving his first impressions at starting, the details of sailor life, trials, pastimes, perils, &c., both at sea and in port. 

The work is written with commendable simplicity of style, and gives some entertaining and instructive incidents, drawn out, however, with rather tedious minuteness.

Below, the review of White-Jacket in the Newark [New Jersey] Daily Advertiser, May 11, 1850:

WHITE JACKET, OR THE WORLD ON A MAN OF WAR, by Herman Melville: Harpers, N. Y. 

The industry of this popular writer seems to us only surpassed by his ability. The press is scarcely cool which has printed the numerous editions of Redburn, when it is again set at work. The scenes of the one before us, are, as its title suggests, taken from the element from which he has drawn forth his coral wreaths of fame and honor—the ever-productive ocean. Changeable as it is, he seems to imitate its many moods and his sketches are as wanting in any approach to monotony as the hoary monarch himself. 

We like Melville because he is so thoroughly American, because he is so eminently a man. Throughout all his writings there breathes forth so high and earnest a spirit, so pure an intent, that the reader catches the high inspiration and if not permanently made better, he for a time at least, thinks better. Melville is the best sailors’ advocate that ever spoke. Redburn did much for the merchant sailor—White Jacket is the most forcible word yet uttered for the man-o’-war’s man. But persuade our Congressmen to read it—they would require no urging when commenced—and the next day they would vote unanimously to abolish the use of the cat in the Navy of the United States. Our own Stockton has proved by a three years trip on the Pacific the little necessity for this degrading punishment. Honor to the men who forcibly denounce its use, and who practically abolish it! 

Various other evils—abuses of power, &c., are therein pointed out. This is the utility of the work, which is incidental. The book itself is a narrative of personal adventure as a sailor, and comprises some most artistic portraits of Ben Brace, the Gunner, the Doctor, the old man-o’-war’s man drawn with a pen which would have been creditable to Smollet. His description of a storm while rounding Cape Horn is equal in interest to anything of Falconer, and must be an attractive chapter to many whose friends are now in the same perilous locality. 

Unlike most writers upon sea-life, Melville’s works are relished by ladies. His poetical mind and refined tastes elevate his topics and his heroes, while his deep feeling finds ready sympathy where kindness and love exist. We would gladly extract from its pages, could we find space which would convey an idea of his various moods. We think this by far the most successful of his works.

Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews (pages 392-3) has the review of Moby-Dick in the Newark Daily Advertiser.

Related posts:

• Review of Melville's Pierre in the Newark Daily Advertiser
• New York correspondent Proteus on the departure of "our own Melville"

Review of Melville's Pierre in the Newark Daily Advertiser

Newark [New Jersey] Daily Advertiser / September 7, 1852
Found in the Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank

Although strongly critical of Melville's supposed extravagance in Pierre, the review transcribed below nevertheless conveys the informed critical judgment of a friend and professed admirer--probably either Augustus Kinsley Gardner, who wrote New York letters for the Daily Advertiser under the pseudonym "Proteus," or (more likely?) AKG's father Samuel Jackson Gardner. According to the Cyclopaedia of American Literature, the elder Gardner had assumed editorial duties in 1850:

 Leaving a life of ease and leisure at the solicitation of his friend, Mr. Kinney, he had entered upon this duty in 1850, at the age of sixty-two, and persevered in it daily for ten years—a remarkable instance of literary success, involving an. entire change of habit at an advanced period of life. But Mr. Gardner’s mental discipline was such, his mode of life so quiet and methodical, and his temper so uniformly cheered by good humor, that he felt little inconvenience from his new vocation. On the contrary, it doubtless invigorated his powers, and inspired new interest in the daily concerns of life, and the grander movements of society which he chronicled. He always wrote with ease and perspicuity, and with perfect truthfulness and simplicity. Mr. Gardner, after retiring from the editorship, passed his time mostly in the country, among his friends and relatives. He was in New York in the spring of 1864, planning the publication of a volume of selections from his writings for the press, to which he had given the title, Autumn Leaves.  --Cyclopædia of American Literature

Samuel Jackson Gardner stepped in just before Thomas Talmadge Kinney (1821-1890) formally took over as editor and manager of the Newark Daily Advertiser in 1851, upon the retirement of his father.

At first I favored the senior Gardner as the more likely reviewer. But now after re-reading the son's tribute to Dr. Francis and catching his assessment of the Doctor's mode of writing as "polysyllabic,' I'm leaning towards Augustus Kinsley Gardner. So then, long words are a fault in Melville's style but a sign of literary prowess in John Wakefield Francis:

He is an exceedingly able writer; while strength of thought most characterizes his literary productions, few would pass them by without particular noticing the Johnsonian elegance of his language. Somewhat pollysyllabic in his words there is an aptitude of expression and an affluence of language which never wearies by its tautology, or tires by its sameness.  --The Knickerbocker

Melville's critical friend of the Newark Daily Advertiser urged the author of Pierre in strong but well-intended terms to "leave off the constant straining for Pantagruellian effect for novelty":

New Publication.

PIERRE, or the Ambiguities. By Herman Melville.—Harpers.

Melville established himself in his early works as one of the first writers in this country, but most strangely does he belie in this last the judgement formerly passed upon him. He is apparently engaged in reading Rabelais and authors of olden time, and being much pleased therewith, endeavors to imitate them, but fails to copy their excellencies. He evidently has the idea that the public desire quaintness and oddity, and he strives to give them what comes to him only with an effort. The large polysyllabic words in which he endeavors to clothe his thoughts, appear as ridiculous as the stripling dressed in his fathers ample clothes. The sooner Melville gets these conceits out of his head and writes naturally, “is himself again,” the sooner will he attain that success to which his eminent abilities, when not distorted by a wild fancy, so will entitle him. Pierre contains much to admire, but far more to reprobate. The plot of the story is bad. There is either an immorality or nothing at all in the opening narration of the relationship between the mother and son. As it goes on, the son marries his own sister for no necessity, discarding for that purpose one to whom he is attached and who so fondly loves him, that she leaves her friends and home comforts, and goes to share his property and his love. In this state of polygamy he lives, in a burlesque Fourierite Association, till shooting both his own cousin and the brother of his last wife, he is arrested, and in jail, with poison furnished by her, they all destroy themselves. Such is the plot; the language is little better. Here is a sentence: “In mature age, the rose still miraculously clung to her cheek; litheness had not yet completely uncoiled itself from her waist, nor smoothness unscrolled itself from her brow, nor diamondness departed from her eyes.”

Here is a paragraph in contrast:

"Too often the American that himself makes his fortune, builds him a great metropolitan house, in the most metropolitan street of the most metropolitan town. Whereas, a European of the same sort would thereupon migrate into the country. That herein the European hath the better of it, no poet, no philosopher and no aristocrat will deny. For the country is not only the most political [poetical] and philosophical, but it is the most aristocratic part of the earth, for it is the most venerable, and numerous bards have ennobled it by many fine titles. Whereas the town is the more plebeian portion; which beside many other things, is plainly evinced by the dirty unwashed face perpetually worn by the town; but the country, like any Queen, is ever attended by scrupulous lady's maids in the guize of the seasons, and the town hath but one dress of brick turned up with stone; but the country hath a brave dress for every week in the year; sometimes she changeth her dress twenty four times in the twenty four hours; and the country weareth her sun by day as a diamond on a Queen's brow; and the stars by night as necklaces of gold beads; whereas the town's sun is smoky paste, and no diamond, and the town's stars are pinchbeck and not gold."

We are among Melville’s warmest admirers. We think him possessed of uncommon faculties, but his garden is run to weeds, and produces little worth the plucking. We write in all kindness, hoping to show and induce him to renounce his errors, leave off the constant straining for Pantagruellian effect for novelty, and in simplicity of language to allow vigor of thought to take the place of petty conceits.

Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews (392-3) has the review of Moby-Dick in the Newark Daily Advertiser.

Related melvilliana posts: 

• More reviews in the Newark Daily Advertiser
• New York correspondent Proteus on the departure of "our own Melville"

Cholo not coined by Melville

"Amancaes' Fete"
Chapter on Peru in Wilkes's  Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition

The recent birthday tribute by Angela Tung at Wordnik offers ten lexical treats, introduced if not invented by Herman Melville:

1. ballyhoo of blazes
2. cetology
3. cholo
4. curio
5. cetology
6. nightlife
7. plum-puddinger
8. slobgollion
9. snivelization
10. whiffy

Minor correction (our specialty, eh?): Melville's reference in Moby-Dick is not really the first recorded use in English of Cholo, meaning “an Indian or mixed-race person of Latin America.” Earlier usages of the word Cholo appear in one of Melville's known sources, the first volume of Charles Wilkes's Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition. From the chapter on Peru in 1839:

There are three classes of inhabitants, viz.: whites, Indians, and negroes. The union of the two first produces the cholo, of the two last, the zambo, and of the first and last, the mulatto. The Spaniards, or whites, are a tall race, particularly the females. They have brown complexions, but occasionally a brilliant colour, black hair and eyes. Some of them are extremely beautiful. The cholos are shorter, but well made, and have particularly small feet and hands. All classes of people are addicted to the smoking of cigars, even in carriages and at the dinner-table. It does not seem to be considered by any one as unpleasant, and foreigners have adopted the custom.

The cholo women partake of the dark brown skin of the Indian, have low figures, short round faces, high cheek bones, good teeth, and small hands and feet. Their whole figure is robust in the extreme.

... The cholo women, who ride astride, are remarkably good horsewomen, and extremely expert in managing their horses. Their dress is peculiar: a large broad-brimmed hat, with flowing ribands of gay colours, short spencer or jacket of silk, a gaudy calico or painted muslin skirt, silk stockings, blue, pink, or white satin shoes, and over the whole is sometimes worn a white poncho. Large wooden stirrups, ornamented with silver, numerous pillions, a saddle-cloth, and richly ornamented bridle, all decked with amancaes, form the caparison of the steeds. 

 --Wilkes's Narrative, vol. 1

Coincidentally, John Gretchko was just reminding us about the influence of Wilkes's Narrative on Moby-Dick. A few years after Moby-Dick, Melville made a Cholo woman named Hunilla the hero of his "Sketch Eighth" in The Encantadas, Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow. The story of Hunilla was first published in the April 1854 issue of Putnam's Monthly Magazine (mis-numbered there as "Sketch Ninth").

Not that Wilkes is the first to mention Cholos, either. A substantial treatment in English translation was available by 1819, the year of Melville's birth. In Letters on the United Provinces of South America, Don Vicente Pazos wrote a lengthy description of Cholos in Letter 13 to Henry Clay--translated by Platt H. Crosby in the 1819 London edition of Pazos' Letters.

Cholo is Peruvian for "dog," according to the 1835 Progressive Dictionary by Samuel Fallows:

CHOLO. Cho lo (kolo), n. [Peruvian, a dog.] A name given in Peru, to a person of mixed descent; particularly a term of contempt applied to cross-bred natives as mulattoes and the like.

Melville animates the lexical or etymological association of Cholo and dog in the sad scene near the end of the Norfolk isle sketch. Having buried and long mourned her drowned husband, the abandoned Hunilla finally gets rescued but has to leave behind eight of her ten dogs:

... the dogs could not well leap into the little craft. But their busy paws hard scraped the prow, as it had been some farmer's door shutting them out from shelter in a winter storm. A clamorous agony of alarm. They did not howl, or whine; they all but spoke. 

"Push off! Give way!" cried the mate. The boat gave one heavy drag and lurch, and next moment shot swiftly from the beach, turned on her heel, and sped. The dogs ran howling along the water's marge, now pausing to gaze at the flying boat, then motioning as if to leap in chase, but mysteriously withheld themselves, and again ran howling along the beach. Had they been human beings, hardly would they have more vividly inspired the sense of desolation.  

--The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles Sketch Ninth [Eighth] in Putnam's magazine for April 1854, page 355.

Ungar's forest name

UNCAS AND MIANTONOMOH.
Edmund Ollier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The name "Ungar" of the unhappy ex-Confederate in Clarel sounds like and possibly suggests "hunger" or "anger." Both of which English words might fit the self-exile whom critics often call "embittered." Few of them ever get round to saying exactly how is Ungar Indian. One sparkling exception is Vincent Kenny, quoted below. Before looking up Kenny on Clarel, I was trying to work it out. Well, Ungar's ancestors are supposedly Maryland Catholic and Indian. As suggested in a previous post, Ungar seems descended from somebody quite like Giles Bent who married princess Mary Kittamaquund,

orphaned daughter of a Piscataway leader who had been raised by Margaret Brent and Jesuit missionaries who had converted her and her father to Christianity.

Musing on Ungar's mixed blood a fellow pilgrim imagines

An Anglo brain, but Indian heart

 and describes the name "Ungar" as his "forest name," the Indian name he adopts as a whim or "freak":

(In freak, his forest name alone
Retained he now)....  --Clarel part 4 canto 5

Maybe the "R" in UNGAR marks the way Melville pronounced his a's. Lecturing in Detroit, Melville spoke of Padua and the newspaper reporter heard "Ardua," meaning that Melville must have said PARDUA.

--Can Art not Life make the Ideal?

So, forgetting the R:

UNGAR = UNGA.

Albert Gallatin in A Synopisis of the Indian Tribes within the United States East of the Rocky Mountains has a grammar chart of Indian pronouns and the first one is

I, unga

More specifically, the name Ungar evokes "Uncas" the Mohegan chief of historical fact and Cooper's fictions. Here is a suggestively worded overview from late in the 19th century:

Un-cas, an American Indian who was famous in the early annals of New England. He was originally a Pequod (see PEQUOD), who, with his following, revolted against Saasacus (about 1635), and formed a new band, called Mohegans, after the ancient name of the tribe. He acquired considerable power, and, with great foresight, allied himself steadily with the whites, and shared in their victories over the Pequods and other tribes, receiving grants of conquered territory. This made him new enemies among the red men, by whom lie was regarded as a traitor, and unsuccessful attempts were made to assassinate him. This led to his attacking hie old allies the Narragansetts, and in 1643 he overpowered them and captured their chief, Miantonomioh, in a battle that look place near Norwich, Ct, The English authorities at Hartford consented that this powerful and hitherto friendly chief should be savagely put to death by Uncas, and a monument now marks the spot on Sachem's Plain, north of Norwich, where he was slain. This whole episode was doubtless a quarrel fomented by the English in the hope of getting rid of the red race by each other's tomahawks. The remainder of the Narragansetts continued the struggle for some years, and once would have overcome Uncas had he not boon assisted at the last moment by English troops. Thus the whites played one against the other. He lived in the neighborhood of Norwich, Conn., to a great age, always a man of mental force as well as physical power, but always an unregenerate savage. He died in 1682, and is buried in a little plot in the city of Norwich, known as the royal Mohegan burying-ground, among the bones of ancestors long antedating his momentous career and the coming of Europeans. He was the "Last of the Mohicans," and, as such became the hero of Cooper's novel; and President Andrew Jackson dedicated the granite obelisk which now marks his grave.  --Imperial Reference Library

Originally a Pequod. A romantic hero then, after Cooper, type of the "noble savage" and "vanishing American" whose treason (in one view) might be said to parallel the treason of Ungar as rebel southerner.

Image Credit: Society of Colonial Wars

Vincent Kenny pointed out Ungar's nominal association with Uncas way back in 1973. What's more, along with the allusion to Uncas, Kenny sees a pun on "gar" as "spear" and ha!
G. A. R. (= Grand Army of the Republic, the patriotic and powerful organization of Union veterans):

Equally severe [as the name Mortmain] is the harsh sound of Ungar, the Anglo-American Indian. It echoes Cooper's famous Uncas; it also rhymes with the livid scar on Ungar's neck. Melville punned with the name; first, with the "gar" as a spear, or Ungar's prominent sword; and second as a jibe on the enemy he fought, the G. A. R. reduced by the negative prefix.  --Herman Melville's Clarel: A Spiritual Autobiography p126

Ex-confederate Ungar, un-G.A.R., obviously does not wear the Grand Army badge:

Neither does the Union hero Jack Gentian, who in one of Melville's "Jack Gentian" sketches, stubbornly sports the aristocratic badge of the Cincinnati Society. Major Gentian's political rival Colonel J. Bunkum glories rather in the democratic symbolism of the Grand Army badge:

“the badge of the national brotherhood of veterans in whose Chapters the grade of the field is ignored, and the general salutes the private—comrade!”  --Great Short Works of Herman Melville

Getting back to Uncas, the description at CT Monuments of the Norwich monument refers to uncertainty about the spelling of his name:

The Uncas monument sits in a small burial ground on Sachem Street. The square base of the monument was dedicated in 1833, with President Andrew Jackson participating in the dedication ceremonies. The granite column was dedicated nine years later in 1842, after organizers had resolved several problems with the monument, including quarrying granite that met their specifications and reaching a consensus on the proper spelling of “Uncas.”

 For further study this looks too good to miss: Uncas, First of the Mohegans (Cornell University Press, 2003) by Michael Leroy Oberg. 

Fragments from a Writing Desk: Oliver Sacks, Uniqueness of Genius, and "the likes...

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