loc_es.00099.jpg
R. M. Pulsifer & Co.
Proprietors.1
R. M. Pulsifer,
E. B. Haskell
C. H. Andrews.
The Herald,
Boston,
Oct. 8, 1887
My dear Friend:
I have yours of yesterday and enclose a list of the subscribers. I cannot send the
amounts since it was understood that the individual sums should not be made known
and some of the largest givers expressly made that stipulation, on the ground that
it might be unjust to those who could give but little and yet in proportion gave
even more loc_es.00100.jpg largely than
themselves. You will see that some are from outside Boston. Mrs. Van Renssalaer is,
I believe, the only representative of New York, but if there had been anybody there
to take hold we could have got many, I am confident. Mrs. Van R. is a genuine friend
and hearing of the project specially send me word
she wished to subscribe. She was visiting here then.
Saw Kennedy2 yesterday: has been working hard reading proof. loc_es.00101.jpg Saw Dr. Bartol the
other day and he spoke warmly of you.
What glorious October weather!
Faithfully yours,
Sylvester Baxter.
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loc_es.00103.jpg
Subscribers to Whitman Cottage Fund.
- J. T. Trowbridge3
- C. A. Bartol4
- William P. Wesselhoeft5
- Mrs. Ole Bull6
- L. N. Fairchild7
- Albert B. Otis8
- A friend
- W. D. Howells9
- John Boyle O'Reilly10
- A friend
- L. N. Fairchild11
- S. L. Clemens, Hartford12
- Charles S. Gleed, Topeka13
- James Wyllis Gleed, Topeka14
- A friend
- Francis Tiffany, Newton, Mass.,15
- H. R. Dorr, Rutland, Vt.16
- Arlo Bates17
- E. B. Haskell18
- Charles S. Sarpent, Brookline, Mass.19
-
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-
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- 2
- M. G. Van Renssalaer, New York20
- Charles Eliot Norton21
- T. B. Aldrich22
- Mellen Chamberlain23
- Mrs. Annie Fields24
- Lawrence Barrett25
- Edwin Booth26
- Laurence Hutton27
- James R. Osgood28
- Susan C. Warren29
- Frank Sanborn30
- Linn Boyd Porter31
- Albert A. Pope32
- Mrs. S. A. Bigelow33
- Daniel S. Ford34
- Roberts Brothers35
- George Fred Williams36
- J. R. Chadwick37
- —Bromley38
-
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-
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- 3
- Hugh Cochrane39
- Charles Levi Woodbury40
- T. R. Sullivan41
- J. J. Roche42
- A. P. Brown43
- Arthur Macy44
- Benjamin Kimball45
- W.S. Kennedy46
- Sylvester Baxter
loc_es.00108.jpg
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see notes sept 10 1888
List of Contributors to the Boston
Cottage Fund
loc_es.00098.jpg
Correspondent:
Sylvester Baxter (1850–1927)
was on the staff of the Boston Herald. Apparently he met
Whitman for the first time when the poet delivered his Lincoln address in Boston
in April, 1881; see Rufus A. Coleman, "Whitman and Trowbridge," PMLA 63 (1948), 268. Baxter wrote many newspaper columns
in praise of Whitman's writings, and in 1886 attempted to obtain a pension for
the poet. For more, see Christopher O. Griffin, "Baxter, Sylvester [1850–1927]," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle St. | Camden | New Jersey. It is postmarked Boston.
Mass. | Oct 8 | 7–16 P. | 1887; Camden N.J. | Oct | 10 | [illegible] | [illegible]. [back]
- 2. William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. John Townsend Trowbridge
(1827–1916) was a novelist, poet, author of juvenile stories, and
anti-slavery reformer. Though Trowbridge became familiar with Whitman's poetry
in 1855, he did not meet Whitman until 1860, when the poet was in Boston
overseeing the Thayer and Eldridge edition of Leaves of
Grass. For several weeks in 1863, Trowbridge stayed with Whitman in
Washington, D.C., along with John Burroughs and William D. O'Connor. [back]
- 4. Rev. Cyrus Augustus Bartol, D.D.
(died 1900) was a pastor of the West Unitarian Church in Boston. [back]
- 5. William P. Wesselhoeft
(1835–1909) was a homeopathic doctor from Pennsylvania and the son of the
famous William Wilhelm Wesselhoeft, one of the most prominent proponents of
Hahnemannian medicine in the United States. [back]
- 6. Sara Chapman Thorp Bull
(1850–1911) was an American writer, philantropist, musicologist, and religious
activist of Vedanta. She was the wife of Ole Bull, a Norwegian violinist. [back]
- 7. Elizabeth "Lily" Nelson
Fairchild (1845–1924) was a Boston socialite and writer, and the wife of
Colonel Charles Fairchild. She assisted in the Boston fundraising for Whitman's
proposed (but never built) small cabin. [back]
- 8. Albert Boyd Otis (1839–1897) was a
Boston lawyer who practiced with John Albion Andrew (1818–1867) and later
Andrew's son John Forester Andrew. On April 20,
1878, G. P. Lathrop wrote to Walt Whitman: "I think you have
corresponded with Albert Otis, a lawyer of Boston, whom I know." A biographical
sketch of Otis appeared in Memorial Biographies of the New
England Historic Genealogical Society, vol. 9 (1908),
387–389. [back]
- 9. William Dean Howells (1837–1920) was the
novelist and "Dean of American Letters" who wrote The Rise of
Silas Lapham (1885) among other works. He described his first meeting
with Walt Whitman at Pfaff's in Literary Friends and
Acquaintances (New York: Harper & Bros., 1900), 73–76. [back]
- 10. John Boyle O'Reilly
(1844–1890) was a fervent Irish patriot who joined the British Army in
order to sabotage it. He was arrested and sentenced to be hanged in 1866. Later
the decree was altered, and O'Reilly was sent to Australia, where he escaped on
an American whaler in 1869. In 1876 he became the coeditor of the Boston Pilot, a position which he held until his death in 1890.
See William G. Schofield, Seek for a Hero: The Story of John
Boyle O'Reilly (New York: Kennedy, 1956). On April 26 O'Reilly informed Whitman that "James R Osgood wants to see
the material for your complete book." Whitman's letter to Osgood was written, as
he indicated, on the verso of O'Reilly's. [back]
- 11. Here, Baxter includes the
name "L.N. Fairchild" for the second time on this list of subscribers. [back]
- 12. Samuel Langhorne Clemens
(1835–1910), better known by his pen name, Mark Twain, was an American
humorist, novelist, lecturer, and publisher. Twain is best known for authoring
such novels as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). Twain had attended Whitman's
New York lecture in April, 1887. He also contributed to Thomas Donaldson's fund for
the purchase of a horse and buggy for Whitman (see Whitman's September 22, 1885 letter [note 4]). Twain was
reported in the Boston Herald of May 24, 1887, to have
said: "What we want to do is to make the splendid old soul comfortable" (Clara
Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs: Comrades [1931],
268). [back]
- 13. Charles Sumner Gleed
(1856–1920) was a Kansas businessman involved in a number of ventures such
as railroads, mining, banking, and communications. He was also a newspaperman,
lawyer and active member of the Republican Party. [back]
- 14. James Willis Gleed
(1859–1926) was a lawyer and would later become the general attorney for
the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company of St. Louis. He was the brother of
Charles S. Gleed. [back]
- 15. Rev. Francis Tiffany
(1810–1891) was a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and the pastor of
the Unitarian church in Newton, Massachusetts. [back]
- 16. Henry Ripley Dorr (1858–1904)
was a journalist and the Vice President of the Vermont Fish and Game League. He
was the son of Vermont poet Julia Dorr. For more on Dorr, see Donald Wickman,
"Henry Ripley Dorr in the Splendid Little War of 1898," Rutland Historical Society Quarterly (1998) 28, no. 3,
43–63. [back]
- 17. Arlo Bates (1850–1919) was an
American author, literary critic, and newspaperman writing for the Boston Sunday Courier. [back]
- 18. Edward B. Haskell was the
editor-in-chief of the Boston Herald, published by R. M.
Pulsifer and Company. [back]
- 19. Charles Sprague Sargent
(1841–1927) was an American botanist. [back]
- 20. Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer
(1851–1934) was an influential American architectural critic. [back]
- 21. Charles Eliot Norton
(1827–1908) was an American professor of art and a literary critic. Norton
authored one of the few (cautiously) positive reviews of Whitman's 1855 edition
of Leaves of Grass. It was published in Putnam's Monthly. [back]
- 22. Thomas Bailey Aldrich
(1836–1907) was associated with Henry Clapp's Saturday
Press from 1858 until its final number in 1860; see Ferris Greenslet,
the Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, Co., 1908), 37–49. In 1865 Aldrich left New York and returned to
Boston—to gentility and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Aldrich was editor of
the Atlantic Monthly from 1881 to 1890. For Aldrich's
opinion of Whitman's poetry, see Greenslet, 138–139. [back]
- 23. Mellen Chamberlain
(1821–1900) was the librarian of the Boston Public Library as well as a
lawyer and historian. [back]
- 24. Annie Adams Fields
(1834–1915) was a Bostonian writer. She was the wife of James Thomas
Fields (of Ticknor & Fields) and had a literary salon at 148 Charles
St. [back]
- 25. Lawrence Barrett (1838–1891)
was an American actor, noted for his Shakespearean roles. [back]
- 26. Edwin Thomas Booth
(1833–1893) was an American actor, famous for performing Shakespeare in
the U.S. and Europe, the son of actor Junius Brutus Booth (1796–1852), and
the brother of Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth (1838–1865),
also an actor. He was the owner of Booth's Theatre in New York. [back]
- 27. Laurence Hutton (1843–1904)
was a literary critic, writing for Harper's Magazine. He
also authored a biography of Edwin Booth. [back]
- 28. James R. Osgood (1836–1892)
agreed to publish Whitman's Leaves of Grass in 1881, but
the firm stopped publication after Whitman refused to comply with the Boston
district attorney, who had written to the publisher demanding some poems and
passages removed. Osgood was also the publisher of Browning, Arnold, Holmes,
Henry James, and Howells; see Carl J. Weber, The Rise and Fall
of James Ripley Osgood (1959). [back]
- 29. Susan Cornelia Clarke Warren
(1825–1901) was an art collector and philantropist in Boston. She was
married to paper manufacturer and merchant Samuel Dennis Warren. [back]
- 30. Franklin B. Sanborn
(1831–1917) was an abolitionist and a friend of John Brown. In 1860, when
he was tried in Boston because of his refusal to testify before a committee of
the U.S. Senate, Whitman was in the courtroom (Gay Wilson Allen, The Solitary Singer [New York: Macmillan, 1955], 242). He
reviewed Drum-Taps in the Boston
Commonwealth on February 24, 1866. He was editor of the Springfield
Republican from 1868 to 1872, and was the author of books dealing with
his friends Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott. "A Visit to the Good Gray Poet"
appeared without Sanborn's name in the Springfield
Republican on April 19, 1876. For more on Sanborn, see Linda K. Walker,
"Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin (Frank) (1831–1917)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 31. Linn Boyd Porter (1851–1916)
was a literary critic from New York and a novelist writing under the pen name of
Albert Ross. [back]
- 32. Albert Augustus Pope
(1843–1909) was a Union Army veteran and industrialist. [back]
- 33. Mrs. S. A. Bigelow may be
the Ella H. Bigelow who, along with Thomas Wentworth Higginson, compiled American Sonnets (1890), a volume that collected
approximately 250 sonnets. She has been described as "a lady well-known in
Boston society, a member of the 'Round Table' and the 'Browning Society.'" She
also wrote several book notices for the Boston
Transcript. See "News and Notes," The Writer 4.4
(April 1890), 93. [back]
- 34. Daniel Sharp Ford (1822–1899)
was the owner and editor of The Youth's Companion. [back]
- 35. The Roberts Brothers firm was established in
Boston in 1863. Though it introduced such authors as Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
William Morris, Joaquin Miller, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Emily
Dickinson, it became famous for the works of Louisa May Alcott. After All, Not to Create Only was the only work of Walt
Whitman that the firm published. It has been suggested that Bronson Alcott
persuaded Roberts to undertake the work; see Raymond L. Kilgour, Messrs. Roberts Brothers, Publishers (1952), 107. The
house merged with Little, Brown and Co. in 1898. [back]
- 36. George Fred Williams
(1852–1932) was a member of the Democratic Party and a U.S. Representative
from Massachusetts. He later became involved with the Walt Whitman
Fellowship. [back]
- 37. James Read Chadwick
(1844–1905) was a Boston gynecologist and founder of the Boston Medical
Library. [back]
- 38. As yet we have no
information about this person. [back]
- 39. Hugh Cochrane was,
presumably, a chemical manufacturer from Massachusetts. [back]
- 40. Charles Levi Woodbury
(1820–1898) was a District Attorney from Massachusetts and a book
collector. [back]
- 41. Thomas Russell Sullivan
(1849–1916) was a novelist and dramatist and an active member of Boston
society and literary community. [back]
- 42. James Jeffrey Roche was an author and editor, whose
works included Story of the Filibusters (1891) and a
biography of John Boyle O'Reilly (1901), among others. He was O'Reilly's
associate editor on the Boston Pilot and became editor
after O'Reilly's death in 1890 [back]
- 43. A. P. Brown was, perhaps, an inventor from Worcester,
Massachusetts. [back]
- 44. Arthur Macy (1842–1904) was a
patriotic poet and Civil War veteran from Nantucket, Massachusetts. [back]
- 45. Perhaps this is Benjamin Kimball
(1833–1919), a railroad director from New Hampshire. [back]
- 46. William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]