Walt Whitman with Nigel and Catherine Cholmeley-Jones by George C. Cox, April 15, 1887

On the morning of April 15th, 1887, George Cox took several photographs of Whitman, who was celebrating the success of his New York lecture on Lincoln, delivered the day before. Whitman recalls that "six or seven" photos were made during the session, but the poet's friend Jeannette Gilder, an observer of the session, said there were many more than that: "He must have had twenty pictures taken, yet he never posed for a moment. He simply sat in the big revolving chair and swung himself to the right or to the left, as Mr. Cox directed, or took his hat off or put it on again, his expression and attitude remaining so natural that no one would have supposed he was sitting for a photograph" (The Critic, vol. 7, 23 April 1887, pp. 207–8).

Of twelve extant photographs taken during the Cox sitting, Whitman’s favorite was a large portrait he began referring to as "The Laughing Philosopher." Toward the end of the session, Whitman posed for several shots with Gilder’s nephew and niece, Nigel and Catherine Cholmeley-Jones. In a letter—found pasted into a privately held copy of the Author’s Autograph Edition of The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman (number eight of ten limited edition numbered sets, published after Whitman’s death)—Whitman wrote to Gilder, immediately after receiving photo-proofs from Cox. It reads:

328 Mickle Street
Camden New Jersey Sept. 13 Evn’g

Cox’s photos: came today & I have written my name on them & sent them back (addressing the package to William Carey, Century office—All are good, but the one I like best is a head with hat on, the photo marked No 3—the pictures with the children come out first-rate—Give my love to the dear girl & boy & tell them I remember them well—I am here like an old hulk driven up on the sand or floating with spars & rigging all gone, & no more voyaging—Love to Watson and Joe

Walt Whitman

The photograph, and now this letter, are all the more poignant, because Gilder had recently taken over raising the children after the death of their mother. The loss they had suffered apparently affected Whitman visibly, as Cox remembered the Cholmeley-Jones children as “soul extensions” of the old poet. And the feeling seems to have lingered with Whitman. Several months later, he published a brief poem, “The Dismantled Ship,” in the New York Herald:

In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay,
On sluggish, lonesome, muddy waters, anchor’d near the shore,
An old, dismasted, gray and batter’d ship, disabled, done and broken,
After free voyages to all the seas of earth, haul’d up at last and hawser’d tight,
Lies rusting, mouldering.

When a friend asked about the poem, shortly after its publication, Whitman admitted: “That’s me—that’s my old hulk—laid up at last: no good any more—no good” (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Wednesday, June 27, 1888).

A few months after Whitman sat for the Cox session, he was angry that the photographer apparently was selling copies of the photos with forged signatures and was refusing to send Whitman copies of the proofs to allow Whitman to decide which ones should be printed, but the problem was straightened out and Cox began sending Whitman modest payments for the sale of photos. By October 1888, Whitman was calling Cox "the premier exception" among photographers and claimed to have received around one hundred dollars in royalties (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, October 7th, 1888). Cox copyrighted two of the photos from this sitting, the only time he ever did so, apparently to protect Whitman's financial interest in them, and he sold the photos only to aid Whitman.

This and three other photographs from the session (zzz.00109, zzz.00106, and zzz.00107) echo the 1879 Kurtz pictures of Whitman with Harry and Kitty Johnston (zzz.00072 and zzz.00071).

For more information on George C. Cox, see "Notes on Whitman's Photographers."