Introduction
1840s: 1841 • 1842 • 1843 • 1844 • 1845 • 1846 • 1847 • 1848 • 1849
1850s: 1850 • 1851 • 1852 • 1853 • 1854 • 1855 • 1856 • 1857 • 1858 • 1859
1860s: 1860 • 1861 • 1862 • 1863 • 1864 • 1865 • 1866 • 1867 • 1868 • 1869
Index & gloss
1840s: 1841 • 1842 • 1843 • 1844 • 1845 • 1846 • 1847 • 1848 • 1849
1850s: 1850 • 1851 • 1852 • 1853 • 1854 • 1855 • 1856 • 1857 • 1858 • 1859
1860s: 1860 • 1861 • 1862 • 1863 • 1864 • 1865 • 1866 • 1867 • 1868 • 1869
Index & gloss
Francis Abbot (“Hermit of Niagara”; 1802?-1831), who actually lived at the Falls from 1829 to 1831; he settled in an old house on Iris Island, moving to Prospect Point when a family settled too close. In the evenings he read books in several languages or played music: “It was almost surprising to hear,” Lydia Sigourney asserted, “in such depth of solitude, the long-drawn, thrilling tones of the viol, or the softest melodies of the flute, gushing forth from that low-browed hut, or the guitar, breathing out so lightly, amid the rush and thunder of the never slumbering torrent.” Abbot was a tourist attraction in himself, fascinating visitors by sometimes dangling above the Falls from the end of a long plank, and with the fact that such a well-educated man would become a recluse and a “fervent worshipper” of the Falls, “at every hour of the day or night.” He drowned while swimming. In March 1864, Aunt Sue included a piece on Abbot in her column, “Aunt Sue’s Scrap Bag.”
• Lydia Howard Sigourney. Scenes in My Native Land. Boston: James Munroe & Co., 1844; pp. 154-61.
• Patrick V. McGreevey. Imagining Niagara. Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994.
abolitionist, See John Brown • effigies
Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. His mother tried to prevent him from going to Troy by sending him in female dress to the court of Lycomedes. Here Odysseus tricked Achilles into revealing his gender by offering jewelry and weapons to the “ladies” of the court; Achilles chose the weapons.
• J. Lempriere. Bibliotheca Classica, 7th American ed. New York: Collins & Hannay, 1832.
James Capen Adams (1807-1860), perhaps an alias of John Adams (1812-1860), American showman. Adams pursued several careers before going in 1849 to California, where he made and lost three fortunes in as many years and finally became a hunter of bear, elk, and antelope. Adams captured and exhibited his creatures all over California before establishing the “Pacific Museum” in December 1856. For 50 cents, visitors enjoyed a brass band, twelve bears, elk, deer, ant-eaters, eagles, birds “formerly owned by Lola Montez,” a mammoth pig, stuffed animals—and “Grizzly Adams” himself, who dressed the part in fringed buckskins and moccasins and a deerskin cap ornamented with a foxtail. In January 1860, Adams took his animals to New York City, where he contracted with Phineas T. Barnum to exhibit in connection with Barnum’s museum. An old wound became inflamed as he toured; he died in Massachusetts. The Museum published a section from Adams’ memoirs in September 1865.
• Theodore H. Hittell. The Adventures of James Capen Adams, Mountain and Grizzly Bear Hunter of California, new ed. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911.
• “Pacific Museum.” The Pacific. San Francisco, California. 21 May 1857.
John Quincy Adams (1767-1848): in 1844, Representative from Massachusetts (1831-1848). A vocal opponent of slavery, he was known for fieriness: “The eccentricity of thought and action in Mr. Adams,” Harriet Martineau noted, “… arises from the same honest simplicity which crowns his virtues, mingled with a faulty taste and an imperfect temper.”
• Harriet Martineau. Retrospect of Western Travel. London, Saunders and Otley, 1838; vol 1: 183-184.
“Adventures of Thomas Trotter”. See “The Travels, Adventures, and Experiences of Thomas Trotter”
Aeschylus (c525-456 BCE), Greek soldier and poet, the author of at least 80 plays. His bizarre death was recorded thus by Lemprier: “An eagle, with a tortoise in her bill, flew over his bald head, and supposing it to be a stone, dropped her prey upon it to break the shell, and [Aeschylus] instantly died of the blow ….”
• J. Lempriere. Bibliotheca Classica, 7th American ed. New York: Collins & Hannay, 1832.
Monseigneur Denis-Auguste Affre (1793-1848), archbishop of Paris during the revolution of 1848 whose attempt to talk insurgents into surrendering during a cease-fire ended when shooting started. He was apparently killed by government troops.
• Frederick De Luna. The French Republic Under Cavaignac, 1848. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969; pp. 148.
African-American
anecdote of, 1848.2.159 • 1853.1.130-131, 1857.1.29-30
speech pattern of, 1853.1.130-131 • 1857.1.29-30
speech pattern parodied, 1848.2.63
mulattoes, subject of story, 1848.2.93-94
agriculture
in Iowa, 1853.1.98a
in New Orleans, Louisiana, 1853.1.131
in Colchester, New York, 1858.2.158-159
Alabama, 1850.2.186
Letters from : 1848.2.159
Blakeley, 1856.1.189-190
Eufaula, 1855.2.125b
Mobile, U. S. Frigate Potomac, 1862.1.27b
Oak Bowery, 1855.2.28b
Rocky Mount, 1852.2.63
Selma, 1855.1.89a • 1855.2.94a • 1858.1.188 • 1859.1.92
Spring Hill, 1849.1.160
Wetumpka, 1850.2.186
Album : Photographic albums were kept by editors John N. Stearns and Susanna Newbould; they quickly filled with photographs of the Cousins
algebra. See That Problem
Robert Anderson (1805-1871), Union commander at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, who refused to hand over the fort to the state of South Carolina after it seceded on 20 December 1860. However, 34 hours of bombardment by batteries outside Charleston, forced him to surrender on 14 April 1861. Promoted to Brigadier General, Anderson commanded the Department of Kentucky and the Department of the Cumberland, retiring in October 1863. He was present at Ft. Sumter on 14 April 1865, at the celebration of its retaking by the Union.
anecdotes, suggested for Chat, 1864.2.185
See also apple • Bible • canary • caterpillar • chickadees • chicken • child • child’s interpretation of Bible • chipping bird • Cassius M. Clay • dog • editor • fear • firefly • Fuseli • geography • Samuel G. Goodrich • horse; horseback riding • kitten • Latin • martin • Merry Cousins—Memo • merchant • reading • Robert Merry’s Museum • Romeo and Juliet • rooster • school • shoemaker • snow • soldier • sugar • Sunday School • sweet potato • Zachary Taylor • Silas Wright
Aristippus (c435-350 BCE): philosopher and student of Socrates. Diogenes describes him as a man content with what he had and more concerned with the pleasures of life than with money; Lempriere notes that he “distinguished himself for his epicurean voluptuousness.” A grandson by the same name espoused his philosophy.
• J. Lempriere. Bibliotheca Classica, 7th American ed. New York: Collins & Hannay, 1832.
Aroostook War, in Mathews: “A controversy (1836-39) which threatened war between the U. S. and Gt. Britain over the northeastern bounds of the U. S.”
• Mitford M. Mathews, ed. A Dictionary of Americanisms On Historical Principles. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
Astor House, New York, New York, hotel built by John Jacob Astor which opened on 31 May 1836. Costing $350,000, it was the wonder of its time, with 309 rooms filled with black walnut furniture, 17 “bathing rooms”, and a staff of over 100. Under the proprietorship of Charles Stetson, the efficiency of the staff astonished travellers: “[T]here is more order and regularity good attendance than in almost any country inn that I ever saw,” said one, “ … yet for board, lodging, and attendance the price is only two dollars a day; it seems to me quite incomprehensible.”
• “Astor House,” The New-Yorker. 1 (4 June 1836): 173.
• Jefferson Williamson. The American Hotel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930; pp. 33, 49.
• John Robert Godley. Letters from America. London: John Murray, 1844; vol 2: 36.
• Matthew Hale Smith. Sunshine and Shadow in New York. Hartford, Connecticut: J. B. Burr & Co., 1869; p. 322.
Atlantic cable: After two unsuccessful attempts, a telegraph cable was laid across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, beginning in 1854. A failure and a break in the cable later, in 1858 2,500 miles of cable had been laid across uneven ocean bottom, in spite of ocean currents. New York celebrated success with fireworks, a torch-light procession, and building decorations. Also, with souvenirs: sections of the cable were incorporated into jewelry, paperweights, the handles of paper-knives, and the heads of canes. The Museum celebrated with two articles.
Aunt Sue’s Poem: Editor Susanna Newbould offered a long poem in October 1858, answering several riddles; she replied to a subscriber’s criticism of her poem with a worse one: “One would think I had been perpetrating something like this:
‘In that spasmodic region, where mankind
Are deeply synchronous and vaguely blind;
Where elemental anodynes prevail,
And Stygian carboys ventilate the sail; … ’
Now, have I ever done anything as terrible as that?” (1859.1.123)
badge: A pin made available in 1864, which featured an open book with “M” on either page. It was available round or oval, in silver or in gold; engravings appeared in the January 1864 issue. The pins cost between $1.50 and $6; they were also premiums for those finding new subscribers for the Museum. The design was later used for stationery sold by the Museum’s publishers.
1863.2.29 • 1863.2.155 • 1863.2.182 • 1864.1.90 • 1864.1.125 • 1864.2.124a • 1865.2.26
balloon
ascension:
in Franklin, Connecticut, 2 October, 1857.2.153-154
in Hartford, Connecticut, 4 July, 1854.2.311
in Detroit, Michigan, 1852.1.94
electric balloon: subscriber “invents,” 1852.1.191b
“Balloon Travels” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1851-1856): “Balloon Travels Around the World.” This series of imaginary balloon trips—Robert Merry felt too old for the real thing—took Merry and five representative readers around the world. At each point, Merry would tell the children about the region’s history and geography. He also found time to advise readers on morality, economics, and the glories of America.
1852.1.94 • 1852.1.128b • 1852.1.191b • 1853.1.98b • 1853.1.98c • 1853.2.127a • 1853.2.187a • 1854.1.31b • 1854.1.31-32 • 1854.1.159
See also Roderick
Baltimore, Maryland
image of during Civil War, 1861.2.92-93 • 1862.1.187 • 1862.2.28
during Civil War, 1862.1.187
Letters from, 1855.1.91-92 • 1856.1.58 • 1857.1.62-63 • 1858.1.62 • 1859.2.157, 1861.2.92-93 • 1862.1.187
Maryland, 1855.2.94b
P. T. Barnum (1810-1891), great American showman. In 1842, he opened the American Museum in New York, New York. Barnum was a natural showman, masterfully promoting Jenny Lind—a woman he’d never heard sing—and keeping an elephant at his house in Connecticut, to pull a plow whenever a train passed on the nearby railway. In 1871, Barnum opened a circus that became world famous.
Barnum’s American Museum, owned by P. T. Barnum, advertised in the Museum ; a description of it appeared in the magazine in 1857 and 1858. An especially devastating fire in 1868 closed the Museum forever.
battles: Ball’s Bluff, Virginia (21 October 1861): engagement between Union forces commanded by Col. Edward D. Baker and Confederate forces commanded by Col. Nathan George Evans, at Ball’s Bluff, Virginia, on 21 October 1861. Ambushed after a 45-minute crossing of the Potomac River, Union forces were hindered by the muddy morass of the riverbank and by the fact that quick escape across the river was impossible. They suffered enormous losses: 49 dead, 158 wounded, and 714 captured or missing.
• John S. C. Abbott. The History of the Civil War in America. Springfield, Massachusetts: Gurdon Bill, 1863; vol i: 217, 218.
• Mark M. Boatner The Civil War Dictionary, rev. ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.
in Mobile Bay, Alabama (5 August 1864), Admiral David Farragut’s Union fleet captured three important forts here. Alabama’s only seaport, the Bay was guarded not only by well-armed forts, but by two lines of torpedoes that forced ships to pass near Fort Morgan. Farragut’s fleet consisted of four iron-clad monitors—including the U. S. S. Tecumseh, where Henry A. Danker was assistant surgeon—and fourteen wooden steamers lashed together in pairs. As the fleet advanced past Confederate gunboats, it drew heavy fire; at one point, said an observer, “the whole of Mobile Point was a living line of flame.” After the Tecumseh hit a mine and sank with almost all hands, one ship hesitated; Farragut ordered his own ship ahead with words that became famous: “Damn the torpedoes! Jouett, full speed! Four bells, Captain Drayton.” Besides those on the Tecumseh, Union casualties included 52 dead and 170 wounded; casualties in the Confederate fleet included 12 dead and 25 wounded.
• Commodore Foxhall A. Parker. The Battle of Mobile Bay. Boston: A. Williams & Co., 1878.
Turner’s Farm, Virginia (31 May 1864), 1864.2.183
Battle of New Orleans. See Andrew Jackson
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), American theologian and writer. A knack for showmanship and oratory made Beecher a magnetic Congregationalist preacher whose sermons were widely published; he contributed pieces to various newspapers, including the New York Ledger, where early chapters of Norwood appeared a year before the complete novel was published.
behavior
female: 1861.2.58b • 1861.2.120-121
appropriate, in Oakhill, Virginia, 1860.1.94b
female compared with male, 1861.2.58a • 1863.1.58-59
“lady” contrasted with girl, 1861.2.23-24
male compared with female, 1861.2.58a • 1863.1.58-59
Bible
as guide for character, 1867.2.91
anecdotes, 1865.1.156 • 1867.2.91
copy from 1608, 1872.1.243-244
pun, 1862.1.26-27
Hammatt Billings (1816-1874), American artist, designer, illustrator, architect, and watercolor painter who exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum, 1859-1873 (George C. Croce and David H. Wallace. The New-York Historical Society’s Dictionary of Artists in America. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1957). In 1842, his version of an iguanodon was probably the first dinosaur picture published in an American magazine for children; in 1844 he reimagined the cover for the Museum.
“Bird Battle” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; August 1858), a poem by Robert Oakley. When a battle between birds is halted by a rain shower, the author suggests that human battles also can be quelled “hydraulically.”
birds
as pets, 1857.1.119-120
nest found in Fort Beaulieu after battle, 1865.1.88-89
See also blue jay • canary • chickadees • chicken • chipping bird • lark • martin • swallows
Daniel Bixby, bookseller at 142 Merrimack, Lowell, Massachusetts, from at least 1847-1849; in 1849 he was listed as “Bixby & Co.”
• The Lowell Directory and Almanac for 1847. Lowell: Oliver March, 1847.
• The Lowell Directory and Business Key, for 1849. Lowell: Oliver March, 1849.
Black Rock, New York, village four miles north of Buffalo, New York.
• Samuel Griswold Goodrich. A Pictorial History of America. Hartford: House & Brown, 1848; p. 232.
boarding school, 1863.2.89-90
female, 1849.1.156 • 1849.2.62-63 • 1850.2.187-188 • 1852.2.126b • 1859.1.189
female orphans, 1853.1.98b
male, 1849.1.61-62 • 1850.2.30a
New York, 1855.1.29
in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, female, 1849.2.62-63
in Rome, Georgia, female, 1849.1.156
orphan, female, 1853.1.98b
in Bergen, New Jersey, male, 1849.1.61-62
in Cornwall, New York, male, 1855.1.29
Quaker, 1854.1.159
boat: coal, in Selma, Alabama, 1855.1.89a
Passenger vessels, see Bois d’Arc ; Europa • Maid of Kentucky • South-Western. Military vessels, see Courier • Galena • Merrimac #2 • North Carolina • Patapsco • Potomac • Sonoma • Tecumseh • Winona
Bois d’Arc (steamboat), 182-ton sidewheel steamer built in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1843. In 1844 she landed at Shreveport, Port Caddo, Natchitoches, and Alexandria; her master was J. Smoker. She was lost in 1847.
• William M. Lytle, comp. Merchant Steam Vessels of the United States. Mystic, Connecticut: The Steamship Historical Society of America, 1952; p. 21.
• Advertisements of Lower Mississippi River Steamboats, 1812-1920, comp. Leonard V. Huber. West Barrington, Rhode Island: The Steamship Historical Society of America, 1959; p. 11.
Bois de Boulogne, Paris, France, a “thick and beautiful” wood two miles from Paris in 1851. Though “long known as a place for duelling and suicides,” it also was a place “where the most splendid equipages and finest horses of the capital are displayed.”
• Galignani’s New Paris Guide for 1851. Paris: A. & W. Galignani & Co., 1851; pp. 511-512.
books: as Christmas gift, 1856.1.186-187
read by subscriber, 1842.1.89-90 • 1842.1.159 • 1843.2.64, 1851.1.128b • 1857.1.190 • 1864.2.62, 1864.2.92 • 1864.2.157a, 1867.2.156-157 • 1868.1.115-116
subscriber earning money for, 1859.1.156-157
Boston
Letters from, 1848.2.63 • 1849.2.93, 1849.2.95-96 • 1855.2.157-158 • 1856.1.29, 1856.1.187 • 1861.1.56a • 1861.1.56-57, 1867.1.122 • 1867.2.61a • 1871.2.243-244
South Boston, 1858.1.187 • 1860.1.187b
botanical garden, Paris, France, 1851.2.63-64
Tuilerie Gardens, Paris, France, and declaration of Republic, 1851.2.92-93. See also gardens
Bottle-Nose (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1848-1850), a character mentioned in “Billy Bump in Boston.” This Native American neighbor of the Bump family gives Billy a raccoonskin cap that gets the boy into trouble on a trip to Boston; he also provides stories of cleverness overcoming brute strength and of the beautiful land awaiting the good after death.
Brooklyn
Letters from, 1846.1.190b • 1852.1.190 • 1854.2.376 • 1855.1.122a • 1857.1.154-155 • 1859.1.189-190 • 1860.2.122-123 • 1861.1.88 • 1861.1.184 • 1861.2.182 • 1862.1.153a • 1863.1.59 • 1863.2.122 • 1863.2.124 • 1864.1.125 • 1865.1.59a • 1865.2.154
Connecticut, 1860.2.58 • 1860.2.121-122
Michigan, 1851.1.128a
New York, 1853.1.99a • 1857.1.119-120 • 1860.2.88
Ohio, 1866.1.59 • 1866.1.155
U. S. S. Courier, 1864.1.93
Preston Smith Brooks (1819-1857), rabidly anti-North U. S. senator from South Carolina (1853-1857). Brooks took issue with remarks by Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, and, on 22 May 1856, physically attacked him with a cane on the floor of the Senate. Sumner was permanently disabled, but a measure to expell Brooks failed to pass with a two-thirds majority. During a later heated debate with a Massachusetts senator, Brooks challenged him to a duel in Canada, but failed to show up, as he would—in his words—have had to “pass through the enemy’s country” to get to the duel. Subsequently mocked in a poem, Brooks resigned; his constituents unanimously re-elected him.
probably 1857.1.119
• Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, ed. James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1888. (Repr. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1968.)
John Brown (1800-1859), American abolitionist. In 1855, Brown followed his sons to Kansas, where abolitionist beliefs seized him completely. In October 1859, he put into operation plans to develop a free state for blacks, leading 21 men in a failed raid to seize weapons for his enterprise from the U. S. armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Brown was hung after a trial in which he impressed onlookers with his dignity. Subscriber Robert W. North was in the militia group that captured Brown and stood guard at his execution; subscriber P. A. P.’s father was present at the execution.
battle of Buena Vista: During the war between the U. S. and Mexico, on 23 February 1847 then General Zachary Taylor led a force of about 5000 Americans into battle against about 20,000 Mexican soldiers. After a day of what Taylor later described as “the severest contest which he had ever witnessed,” both armies held the same position they had that morning; that night, however, the Mexican army retreated. “Few victories … have been more remarkable,” Samuel Goodrich told young readers a year later, “ … what the Americans lacked in point of numbers they were determined to supply by superior skill and characteristic bravery.”
• Samuel Griswold Goodrich. A Pictorial History of America. Hartford: House & Brown, 1848; pp. 793-794.
Billy and Lucy Bump (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1848-1850), characters in “Billy Bump in Boston” (1848-1849), “Billy Bump Off for California” (1849), and three “Letters from Billy Bump” (1850). In humorous letters between Billy and his mother at home in Sundown, country-bumpkin Billy describes his efforts to fit into the social and cultural life of his Boston relatives and to impress his cousin, Lucy. Billy’s adventures allow the author to comment on society and to teach the reader good manners and ethics. A raccoonskin cap given Billy by an old friend temporarily makes him an object of derision, but he gains the respect of his tormentors. He also gained the respect of his readers, who defended Billy’s blunders and his awkward attempts at poetry. When the family fortunes fail, Billy is off for the gold fields of California and for adventures that teach him and the readers the evils of greed and of immoral living.
See also Bottle-Nose
1848.2.160 • 1849.1.62-63 • 1849.1.64 • 1849.1.95 • 1849.1.152-153 • 1849.1.153-154 • 1849.2.64 • 1849.2.127 • 1849.2.188 • 1850.1.32a • 1850.1.32b • 1850.1.63, 1850.1.63-64 • 1850.1.127a • 1850.1.127-128, 1850.1.159 • 1850.2.31 • 1850.2.64, 1851.1.32a • 1851.1.93 • 1851.1.127b • 1851.1.128a • 1851.2.95-96 • 1851.2.160 • 1852.1.63 • 1852.1.94 • 1852.1.191b
story inspires bet, 1850.1.32b
Cadets of Temperance, American temperance organization for children, originally founded in Pennsylvania in 1846; in 1847, the organization had 12,000 members in 22 states.
• Ernest Hurst Cherrington, ed. Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem. Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Publishing Co., 1924.
John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850), U. S. vice-president, secretary of war, and secretary of state. He was vice-president of the U. S. twice, the second time under Andrew Jackson. As abolitionism began to take hold of the country, he became one of the South’s strongest advocates; when Congress worked to prevent the spread of slavery to the new territories, Calhoun argued that a citizen moving to those territories was entitled to carry with him any property he owned—even if that property were human.
California: gold rush, 1849.1.154-155 • 1849.2.29-30 • 1849.2.127-128 • 1850.1.32a
image of, 1861.2.93b
life in, 1861.2.93b
Letters from : San Francisco, 1858.1.152
San Juan, 1861.2.93b
Thomas Campbell (1774-1844), English poet who wrote “Gertrude of Wyoming” (1809), a long poem about the Wyoming Massacre which details the childhood and tragic death of its title character in a landscape more Arcadian than Pennsylvanian.
canary
anecdote of, 1851.2.95-96
as pet, 1858.2.126
exhibited in Baltimore, Maryland, 1850.1.63
named for Robert Merry, 1855.2.93b
career
female, 1856.1.187-188 • 1856.1.188
plans: of female subscriber, 1859.1.156b
as writer, 1850.1.157-159. of male subscriber, 1869.1.50
subscriber’s: telegraph operator, 1865.1.94
cat
1842.1.89-90 • 1849.2.31-32, 1850.2.63 • 1851.2.160 • 1857.1.91-92, 1859.1.61 • 1861.1.124 • 1861.2.120, 1865.2.121 • 1871.2.99
subject of poem, 1851.1.95
subject of pun, 1859.1.61
See also Kit • kitten • Thomas Dydimus
Charleston, Tennessee
Letter from, 1856.1.188
U. S. Steamer Sonoma, 1865.1.88-89
shelling of mentioned, 1861.2.25
the Chat: the monthly letters column of the Museum .
Chat as gathering place, 1861.1.156 • 1862.1.188
as medium of consolation, 1862.1.24-25 • 1862.1.155-156 • 1865.1.186-187
as “secret society,” 1865.1.89-90
effect of, 1865.2.27a
long-time subscribers accused of crowding out newer, 1863.2.28
meaning of to subscriber, 1865.2.123 • 1866.1.58-59
reading of, 1867.2.58
subject of poem, 1868.1.164-165
subscriber “drugs” editor to keep from editing letter, 1861.2.59
suggestions for Chat, 1846.1.59-60 • 1864.2.185, 1867.1.122 • 1867.2.58-59 • 1867.2.156-157
Letters to :
authenticity of questioned, 1851.2.94 • 1852.1.64a, 1852.1.128b • 1853.2.187b • 1867.1.122
bad, parodied, 1849.2.61
complaints about, 1867.1.122
edited to keep peace in the Chat, 1859.2.60-61 • 1866.1.90-91
exchange of, 1863.2.155-156
in form of poem, 1855.1.187-188 • 1865.2.27a • 1868.1.164-165
written to earn subscription, 1850.2.186
Letter writing described, 1842.1.89-90 • 1846.1.190a • 1850.1.190 • 1855.1.186-187 • 1856.1.31, 1856.1.188 • 1856.2.122a • 1857.2.153-154
relative writes for subscriber:
cousin, 1852.1.128d
father, 1850.2.188a • 51.1.158b
mother, 1850.2.159
sister, 1843.2.64 • 1850.1.32c, 1853.1.99a • 1856.2.123
Subscriber’s first letter is written for Chat, 1850.1.127-128 • 1851.2.160 • 1854.2.314 • 1868.1.166
Reactions to letters:
Alice B. Corner, 1856.2.26-27 • 1856.2.122-123
Lizzy G., 1850.1.63 • 1852.2.30
Hawthorne, 1859.2.185b • 1860.1.60-61 • 1860.2.27
Nonpareil Smallcaps • 1850.1.63-64
Tennessean, 1858.1.126a • 1858.1.153d • 1859.1.93a, 1865.1.157 • 1865.2.120 • 1866.1.59
reaction to his unideal wife, 1859.2.60
Wilforley, 1861.1.123 • 1861.1.124 • 1861.1.153-154, 1861.1.156 • 1861.1.184 • 1861.2.23-24
See also “Merry Cousins”
Cherokee subscriber. See Merry Cousins—Cousin Sally
Chicago, Illinois
contrasted with country, 1856.2.125 • 1857.2.185
fair, 1864.1.90
Letters from, 1856.2.93 • 1856.2.125 • 1857.2.185 • 1858.1.122 • 1858.1.153d • 1858.2.125 • 1865.1.157 • 1865.2.27a
Chickasaw, in Texas, 1859.2.60
Chickasaw pony, 1854.1.126-127
Chickasaw subscriber, activities of, 1859.2.60
chicken, 1844.1.125-126 • 1868.1.419
anecdote of, 1845.1.63a • 1851.2.64, 1856.2.30 • 1857.2.58
philosophical question about, 1858.1.92b
Shanghaes, anecdote of, 1858.1.188-189
subject of story, 1845.2.222-223
child
as “pet,” 1867.2.58
anecdotes of, 1842.2.63 • 1851.1.96b • 1858.2.127 • 1859.1.125b • 1864.2.185 • 1865.1.89-90 • 1865.1.93 • 1865.1.155b • 1865.2.25 • 1865.2.59 • 1865.2.91a • 1865.2.91b • 1867.1.91 • 1867.1.188 • 1867.2.29-30 • 1867.2.58 • 1867.2.61b • 1867.2.126
and Bible verse, 1867.2.91
and cat, 1865.2.121
and caterpillar, 1866.2.94
and firefly, 1865.2.59
and Romeo and Juliet, 1868.1.287
and snow, 1866.2.94
and sweet potatoes, 65.2.91; interpretation of Bible, anecdote of, 1865.1.156
learning to read, 1867.2.60b
of child’s fear, 1865.1.89-90
of school, 1867.2.60a
of school child, 1867.2.61b
younger sister, 1855.2.29b
sister’s reaction to, 1865.1.59b
Christmas: 1859.2.155-156 • 1861.1.56a
image of, 1860.1.29
celebrated:
in Brooklyn, 1852.1.190
in East Windsor Hill, Connecticut, 1856.1.90-91
in Marksville, Louisiana, 1854.1.60b
in Baltimore, Maryland, 1857.1.62-63
in Hopedale, Massachusetts, 1854.1.60a
in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, 1853.1.66
in Buffalo, New York, 1856.1.60a
in Cornwall, New York, 1855.1.59
in North Carolina, 1853.1.66-67
in Memphis, Tennessee, 1855.1.58-59
in Fredericksburg, Texas, 1854.1.126-127
Christmas Eve, falling on Sunday is celebrated on Saturday, 1854.1.60a • is celebrated on Monday, 1855.1.58-59
gift: 1852.1.190 • 1853.1.66 • 1853.2.31 • 1856.1.186-187 • 1858.1.188 • 1859.1.93-94 • 1859.2.155-156 • 1860.1.29
subscriber uses to pay for Museum, 1852.1.128d
poem: 1855.1.58-59 • 1855.1.91-92
recreation: 1865.1.60
stocking: 1859.2.155-156 • 1860.1.29 • 1861.1.56a
tree: 1855.1.59
in Brooklyn, 1852.1.190
in East Windsor Hill, Connecticut, 1856.1.90-91
in Marksville, Louisiana, 1854.1.60b
in Hopedale, Massachusetts, 1854.1.60a
in school, 1864.2.126
city contrasted with country, 1855.2.28a • 1855.2.60a • 1855.2.91 • 1855.2.126-127 • 1856.2.29
Chicago, Illinois, 1856.2.125
New York, New York, 1860.2.58
Civil War, 1862.1.24
supposed to end by November, 1861.2.182
Images of:
as metaphor for battle of the sexes in the Chat, 1861.2.92
equated with American Revolution, 1863.2.123
as cleansing the nation, 1865.2.58a
Death in, 1865.1.27
as sacred, 1865.2.27b
guerilla activity during in Missouri, 1868.1.166
Effect:
on Chat, 1865.1.187c
on Southern family, 1868.1.419
End of: 1865.1.153 • 1865.1.187c • 1865.2.88
and forgiveness, 1865.2.120
Rev. Theodore Clapp (1792-1866), popular American clergyman. Coming to New Orleans in 1822 as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, he became a Unitarian in 1834, but kept most of his congregation when the church was re-organized. The church that C. T. B. visited was owned by Judah Touro, a Jew who gave Clapp use of it free. Ill health forced Clapp to resign in 1857.
• Francis Drake. Dictionary of American Biography. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1872. Supplement; p. 188.
clergy, 1849.1.123-124 • 1850.1.63
in Geneseo, Illinois, 1855.1.123a
lives with parishioners, 1849.1.123-124; Presbyterian, 1848.2.93-94 • 1857.1.159
college
Michigan University, Ann Arbor, Michigan, subscriber attends, 1849.2.124-125
West Tennessee College, Jackson, Tennessee, college reorganized in 1843-1844, from the Southwestern Baptist University (itself originating from the Madison Male Academy). The College was known for the high quality of the work done there.
• Emma Inman Williams. Historic Madison, 3rd ed. Np: np, 1986; p. 278.
Christopher Columbus; Christoval Colon, 1856.2.124
Columbus and the egg: an anecdote supposed to exhibit the explorer’s clear thinking. Challenged to stand an egg on its end, Columbus did—by cracking the end of the egg. The Museum printed an illustration of the feat in the October 1855 issue.
Confederacy of Southern States
Northern image of, 1863.2.123
Northern soldier on subscribers, 1861.2.154
soldiers of, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, 1863.1.154
advance into Pennsylvania, 1863.2.59
Congress
and sectionalism, 1857.2.184-185 • 1858.1.61 • 1858.1.126b
manners and speech patterns of, 1844.1.31
Connecticut
Letters from : 1849.1.159
Brooklyn, 1860.2.58 • 1860.2.121-122
Connecticut Literary Institute, 1850.1.32a
East Windsor Hill, 1855.1.87-88 • 1855.2.29a • 1855.2.93a • 1856.1.90-91 • 1858.1.186-187 • 1860.1.61 • 1865.1.59b
Franklin, 1857.2.153-154
Hartford, 1854.2.311
New Haven, 1853.2.127b • 1857.2.156b
Norwalk, 1845.2.286-287 • 1859.1.124
Plainville, 1855.1.187-188
Stamford, 1849.1.63
Vernon, 1850.2.30b
Waterbury, 1848.2.92 • 1854.2.348
West Hartford, 1867.2.92a
Woodbury, 1855.2.91
Places in :
East and West Rock, 1844.2.95
East Windsor Hill, academy, 1855.1.87-88
Hartford, Charter Oak: Connecticut’s charter was hidden in an oak tree on 31 October 1687 after the governor of Massachusetts demanded it in a bid to extend his power over all of New England and New York. The oak provided souvenirs even before its death: “Some of its pressed leaves,” Lydia Sigourney noted in 1844, “or small articles made from a supernumerary branch, in the form of boxes, letter-folders, &c., are found to be acceptable gifts both to the antiquarian, and the patriot.” [Lydia Howard Sigourney. Scenes in My Native Land. Boston: James Munroe & Co., 1844; p. 81.] Willie Coleman’s “sketch” was published as “The Charter Oak” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; November 1856).
Stamford, vacationing in, 1849.1.63
cotton
growth and processing of, 1847.1.30-31
shipping of, 1845.2.221-222
waste, collected by subscriber, 1855.1.89a • 1855.2.94a
country
subscriber spends summer in, 1857.2.93a
country contrasted with city: 1855.2.28a • 1855.2.60a • 1855.2.91 • 1855.2.126-127 • 1860.2.58
Chicago, Illinois, 1856.2.125
country boy sees contrast with urban subscribers, 1857.2.183b
country girl worries about manners, 1858.1.153b
U. S. S. Courier, a sailing ship purchased on 7 September 1861 and used as a storeship by the U. S. government. It was 556 tons and 135 feet long, with a depth of 15 feet. The Courier sailed from New York City to the Gulf, delivering along the way supplies which rarely included the copies of the Museum that Osceola delivered to George McKinney in 1863. The Courier was a total loss after running aground on Abaco Island, in the Bahamas, on 14 June 1864.
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 2, vol 1: 67; series 1, vol 21: 476-477, 720, 721.
Cousin Hannah (author in Robert Merry’s Museum), Hiram Hatchet’s “niece”. Between 1855 and 1864, she published at least 22 pieces in the Museum, including the popular “Holidays at Uncle Hiram’s” (1855).
Creek Nation/Agency, Tallahassee Mission, Presbyterian mission in the Creek Nation, in what is now Wagoner County, Oklahoma. Having earned the respect of the Creeks, Robert McGill Loughridge was given permission in 1848 to establish at “Tullahassee” a boarding school and mission for Creek children. Eventually the Mission included several missionary families, as well as the Creeks. Robert, jr, may have considered the nearby lake a “pond”, but his missionary father had high hopes for it, hoping to seine it for much of the Mission’s food.
• Robert McGill Loughridge. Robert McGill Loughridge papers, Office of Presbyterian History, Presbyterian Church (U. S. A. ), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Repr. American Indian Correspondence. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1978.
David Crockett (1786-1836), hunter and U. S. Congressman from Tennessee. As a legislator, Crockett relied on his own brand of common-sense to make decisions and generally opposing President Andrew Jackson, which may have cost him re-election. Rejected by his constituents and attracted by the movement for Texas independence from Mexico, he left Tennessee for Texas. Crockett died in the bloody defence of the Alamo.
“Cuffy,” referring to African-Americans and taken from a traditional West African name; the earliest use listed in the DARE is spelled “Cuffee” (1713).
• Dictionary of American Regional English, ed. Frederic G. Cassidy and Joan Houston Hall. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 1985-2012.
General James Adams Cunningham (died 1892), breveted Brigadier-General in 1865.
• Mark M. Boatner The Civil War Dictionary, rev. ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.
currency: 1863.2.29
in Constantinople, 1861.1.124
from state bank, 1850.2.186
“white money,” probably bank-notes, often printed on white paper. Small coins were relatively scarce in the antebellum U. S., and state banks filled currency gaps by issuing notes in various denominations. Though most were for $1 or $5, bills for amounts between 5 and 25 cents also were circulated.
• Neil Carothers. Fractional Money. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1930. (Repr. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1967); pp. 103, 79.
Jefferson Davis (1808-1889), U. S. senator (1847-1851, 1857-1861), secretary of war (1853-1857), and president of the Confederate States of America (1861-1865). Captured during the last days of the Civil War, Davis spent two years as a state prisoner in Fort Monroe, at first held in chains. Later, his health having failed, he was given comfortable quarters to share with his family. The Museum published a humorous anecdote about him in September 1864.
Northern view of, 1865.2.120
Southern view of, 1865.2.88
John Dabney Dawson (born 1808, Danville, Kentucky; buried 19 July 1892, Missouri), father of T. B. Dawson. John was ordained a minister of the Disciples of Christ; he was the first superintendent of the Kentucky Female Orphan School (1849-1857) and a professor at Christian (now Columbia) College, Columbia, Missouri, for three years before retiring to a farm near Louisiana, Missouri.
• Harry W. Mills, comp. Dawson Family History. 1941.
death: 1865.1.25-26 • 1865.1.154
image of, 1864.2.125
subject of poem, 1842.1.159-160
subject of story, 1849.1.153
briefness of life, subject of poem, 1857.2.27-28
in battle, attitude toward, 1862.1.155-156 • 1865.1.88
meditation on, 1865.2.153
of Abraham Lincoln, reaction to, 1865.1.186-187 • 1865.1.187a
of child, poem on, 1845.2.318
of Francis Woodworth, reaction to, 1860.2.157
of pet, 1857.1.63
of relative: 1865.2.58b
reaction to, 1857.1.62-63 • 1865.2.120
brother: soldier, 1865.2.27b
younger, subject of poem, 1854.1.31-32
father: 1855.1.123a • 1862.1.153a • 1865.2.155 • 1868.1.419 • 1872.1.244
mother: 1857.2.157b • 1862.1.24-25
sister: 1855.2.94a • 1857.2.157b • 1857.1.159
of Samuel Griswold Goodrich, reaction to, 1860.2.58 • 1860.2.157
of schoolmate, 1856.2.29
of soldier, 1862.1.155-156 • 1865.1.154
brother, 1865.2.27b
reaction to, 1862.1.188
of subscriber: 1845.1.63b, 1855.2.94b • 1865.2.123 • 1866.1.59 • 1867.2.58-59
subject of poem, 1846.1.190-192. mitigated by story of Eugene Fales • 1865.1.92
See also, Abraham Lincoln
See also the deaths of subscribers: Henry A. Danker • Ella • William Forrest Oakley • Adelbert Older • Stranger • Benjamin Latimer Tompkins • Violet Forest • Charles F. Warren
Declaration of Independence
read at Independence Day celebration, 1849.2.94a
in Hartford, Connecticut, 1854.2.311
Detroit: 1850.1.159 • 1855.2.90a
Letters from, 1850.1.159 • 1852.1.94 • 1862.1.24-25
Michigan, 1851.2.95-96 • 1852.2.93
District of Columbia, Washington
Letters from : 1844.1.31 • 1849.2.126 • 1853.2.187a • 1856.2.94a
Camp Graham, 1861.2.154
Patent-Office Hospital, 1863.1.23-24
Places and events in :
Concerts, 1856.2.94a
Patent-Office Hospital, 1863.1.23-24
Mary Abigail Dodge (1833-1896), American essayist. In pieces alternately humorous, satirical, and sentimental, Dodge covered domestic subjects, the American Civil War, and women’s rights.
1864.2.62 • 1864.2.92 • 1864.2.157a • 1865.1.91-92 • 1867.2.93
dog: 1851.2.160 • 1854.2.376, 1857.1.63 • 1858.1.26
behavior of, 1867.1.58
naming of, 1842.1.159
subject of anecdote, 1850.2.32
“the dog Noble,” dog in a piece by Henry Ward Beecher which may have appeared first in the New York Independent. In this often-quoted work, the dog so intently pursues a squirrel that when it nips down a hole the dog earnestly watches the hole, unaware that the squirrel has escaped out the other end. Beecher used the anecdote to criticize the New York Express, which had printed what Beecher felt were lies about presidential candidate John C. Fremont.
• “Henry Ward Beecher’s Dog Noble and the New York Express.” Supplement to the Courant (Hartford, Connecticut). 21 (16 August 1856): p. 155; via books.google.com
draft, Union: In 1863, the U. S. government was forced to pass a very unpopular national conscription act in order to bolster Union ranks, which had been filled by volunteers or by men drafted by their states; names were drawn in New York City beginning July 13. For a number of reasons—among them resentment that well-to-do draftees could, like subscriber Wilforley, hire substitutes or purchase exemptions for $300—in New York, the draft sparked violent rioting that lasted close to a week.
East Windsor Hill
Letters from, 1855.1.87-88 • 1855.2.29a • 1858.1.186-187 • 1860.1.61 • 1865.1.59b
Connecticut, 1855.2.93a • 1856.1.90-91
editor: W. C. Cutter (Uncle Hiram Hatchet), probably William Cutter (born 15 May 1801, North Yarmouth, Maine; died 8 February 1867, Brooklyn, New York); married 29 May 1828, Margaret W. Dicks; they had three boys and three girls. A graduate of Bowdoin College, Cutter attended Andover Theological Seminary before weak eyes forced him out. He became a writer for periodicals; in 1831 he edited The Juvenile Reformer and Sabbath-School Instructor and, later, the Monthly Miscellany (1839). Cutter wrote books for children and published poems anonymously, among them “Who is My Neighbor?” In 1854 he became associated with the Museum, when “Hiram Hatchet” temporarily took Robert Merry’s place in the Chat; Cutter bought an interest in the magazine in Jan 1857. “Uncle Hiram” was a master of the subtle art of the pun and gleefully wielded his imaginary hatchet to cut the Cousins’ ever-longer letters. Cutter’s portrait—as Uncle Hiram—was sent to subscribers in 1864.
described, 1859.2.92
image of, 1860.2.26
subscriber guesses name, 1858.1.57
travels, 1860.1.60-61 • 1860.1.123b
visits subscriber, 1859.2.92
• William H. Coleman. “The Children’s ‘Robert Merry’ and the Late John N. Stearns.” The New York Evangelist 16 May 1895: 19.
• Dorothy B. Dechert. “The Merry Family: A Study of Merry’s Museum, 1841-1872, and of the Various Periodicals that Merged with It.” M. S., Columbia University, 1942; pp. 161-162, 166.
• Evert A. and George L. Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. Np: np, 1875; vol 2: 850.
editor: Samuel G. Goodrich (Uncle Robert Merry, Uncle Peter Parley; born 19 August 1793; died 9 May 1860); married 1818, Adeline Gratia Bradley (died 1822), with whom he had a daughter; married 1826, Mary Boott; he and Mary had six children. Goodrich was the sixth of ten children. After working as a clerk for several years, he went into business with George Sheldon, publishing American authors. A visit with Hannah More during a trip to Europe inspired him to write works for children that would educate and entertain them without the violence and nonsense he had despised as a child. His most popular character was Peter Parley, who first appeared in 1827. Goodrich’s talent lay in mixing clear explanations with interesting incidents, and adding illustrations and a dollop of charm; though later generations find the books too didactic, early readers adored them—so much so that he was mobbed by excited fans during a tour of the South in 1846. Goodrich founded Parley’s Magazine in 1833 and Robert Merry’s Museum in 1841; he was responsible for creating the memorable figure of Robert Merry. Goodrich’s portrait was sent to subscribers who paid their subscriptions in advance in 1850 and to all subscribers in 1853. From 1851 to 1853, he was U. S. consul at Paris, where he may have met subscriber Lizzie G., who lived at the same hotel.
anecdote of, 1853.2.127b
tour of the South, 1851.1.128b
in Louisiana, New Orleans, 1853.2.187b
portrait sent to subscribers, 1850.1.127b • 1850.1.187 • 1850.2.30a • 1850.2.30b • 1850.2.64 • 1850.2.127-128 • 1851.1.94 • 1851.1.127b • 1851.1.190 • 1856.1.88
anecdote about, 1851.1.96b
of Peter Parley, 1859.1.94
Goodrich sent to Paris, France, 1851.2.94 • 1851.2.94-95
subscriber confuses with Robert Merry, 1844.2.63; visited by subscriber’s father, 1852.1.128b
death of, reaction to, 1860.2.58 • 1860.2.157
• Emily Goodrich Smith. “ ‘Peter Parley’—As Known to His Daughter.” Connecticut Quarterly: pp. 304-315; 399-407.
• Samuel Griswold Goodrich. Recollections of a Lifetime. New York: Miller, Orton and Mulligan, 1856.
editor: Susanna Newbould (Aunt Sue; born 1821, near London, England; died January 1882, Brooklyn, New York); married John A. Newbould (died 31 May 1871, New York); they had at least three children, two girls and a boy. John was a merchant with $25,000 in real estate in 1850; in 1870 he called himself a “hoop skirt dealer”, with $50,000 in personal assets, $45,000 of it in real estate. Susanna contributed to Woodworth’s Youth’s Cabinet and began to edit its puzzle column in 1852; her portrait was sent to subscribers in 1854, when she became assistant editor. By 1855, she also may have been subscribing to the Museum, which printed her chatty letters and answers to puzzles. When the Cabinet was absorbed by the Museum in 1857, Newbould edited the “Puzzle Drawer”; her portrait as Aunt Sue was sent to subscribers in 1862. As “Aunt Sue”, Newbould was a comfortable, motherly presence not above a very bad pun or two. By 1868, she also contributed pieces to Haney’s Journal. Newbould published at least one collection of puzzles that was reprinted into the 1880s.
daughter’s illness, reaction to, 1864.2.62 • 1864.2.87-88 • 1864.2.124b
marital status guessed at, 1856.1.90 • 1857.1.62
name guessed, 1857.2.154-155 • 1858.1.29-30 • 1858.2.28 • 1859.2.126-127 • 1860.1.186
name and relation to Robert Merry wondered at, 1857.1.62-63
portrait printed in Cabinet, 1858.2.126 • 1865.1.121-122.
See also Aunt Sue’s Poem • Aunt Sue’s Puzzle Drawer • Aunt Sue’s Puzzler
• M432 #517, 72.
• M653. 1860 United States Census; reel #764: 632-633.
• M593. 1870 United States Census; reel #946: 250.
• Obituary of John A. Newbould. Evening Post [New York, New York] 70 (1 June 1871): 3.
• Obituary. Boston Journal [Boston, Massachusetts] 49 (16 Jan 1882): 2.
• Dorothy B. Dechert. “The Merry Family: A Study of Merry’s Museum, 1841-1872, and of the Various Periodicals that Merged with It.” M. S., Columbia University, 1942; pp. 95-96.
• William Cushing. Initials and Pseudonyms. New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co., 1885; vol 1, part 2.
editor: John N[ewton] Stearns (Uncle Robert Merry; born 24 May 1829, New Ipswich, New Hampshire; died 21 April 1896, Greenpoint, New York); married 1854, Matilda C. Loring. Son of Jesse Stearns (born 29 August 1784, Ashburnham, Massachusetts; died 18 November 1866, New Ipswich, Massachusetts) and Lucinda Davis (born 13 February 1791, New Ipswich, Massachusetts; died 9 October 1868); youngest of seven children, three of them girls. He had a daughter. He was the biological uncle of subscribers Abby Marietta Stearns and Flora P. Stearns. Until age 21, John worked on his father’s farm; he then taught school for a time before becoming a magazine agent for Forrester’s Boys’ and Girls’ Magazine. He moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1851. Around 1855, he became editor of the Museum, first with his brother, then with William C. Cutter. His portrait—as Robert Merry—was sent to the magazine’s subscribers in 1863. Stearns also was a Sunday-school superintendent and was County Clerk of Kings County (1862-1865); it was as County Clerk that he petitioned for a prisoner exchange to release the Museum’s office boy, Eugene H. Fales. Stearns joined the temperance movement as a child, and his interest in the movement can be seen in the temperance pieces published in the Museum under his editorship. Under his editorship, too, the Chat came into its own. In 1866, Stearns sold the Museum and focused on temperance work, editing several temperance publications; at his death, he was a member of the national bodies of the world’s three major temperance organizations.
illness of, 1864.2.88a • 1864.2.123-124
• Willard E. Stearns. Memoranda of the Stearns Family. Fitchburg: Sentinel Printing Co., 1901; vol 1: 46-47, 543.
• “Noble Life, A: John N. Stearns.” New York: National Temperance Society and Publications House, nd.
• compiled military record—Eugene Fales.
• William H. Coleman. “The Children’s ‘Robert Merry’ and the Late John N. Stearns.” The New York Evangelist 16 May 1895: 19.
editor: Francis Chandler Woodworth (Uncle Frank; born 12 February 1818, Colchester, Connecticut; died 1859) Son of Vanaiah/Veniah (born 14 October 1776, Bozrah, Connecticut; died 14 February 1848, Lebanon, Connecticut) and Lavinia Phelps (born Lebanon, Connecticut); middle of three children. Woodworth often had trouble with his lungs; becoming ill during a lecture tour in Michigan in 1858, he spent months recovering.
1858.1.125a • 1858.2.62 • 1862.1.24-25
portrait of, 1859.1.156b
death of, reaction to, 1860.2.157
• Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1858.1.190-192.
• Jeanette Woodworth Behan. The Woodworth Family of America. Np: Jeanette Woodworth Behan, 1988; p. 369.
education: 1863.2.92
importance of, 1867.2.91
subscriber’s attitude toward, 1855.2.123
General, by gender:
female:
male, boarding school, 1850.2.30a • 1854.1.159
Of subscriber, 1842.1.89-90, 1843.1.184 • 1845.1.187 • 1845.1.188-189 • 1845.1.189-190 • 1846.1.190b • 1846.2.31 • 1846.2.125-126 • 1849.1.123-124 • 1849.2.188 • 1850.1.127-128 • 1850.2.159 • 1851.1.93 • 51.1.158b • 1851.2.160 • 1852.1.64a • 1852.2.93-94 • 1854.1.60b • 1855.2.29a • 1855.2.29c • 1855.2.94b • 1855.2.126-127 • 1855.2.156 • 1856.1.158 • 1856.2.61-62 • 1856.2.123 • 1856.2.186 • 1858.1.155 • 1858.1.186-187 • 1859.2.92 • 1859.2.93 • 1859.2.185a • 1864.2.126-127 • 1864.2.157b • 1867.2.59 • 1867.2.157 • 1868.1.419
in Choctaw Nation: The Spencer Academy here was founded by the Choctaws in 1842 and administered by the Presbyterians, beginning in 1845. Before the Civil War, the boarding school had at least 100 students.
• Clifford Merrill Drury. Presbyterian Panorama. Philadelphia: Board of Christian Education, 1952; p. 146.
Northern, 1852.2.32
at home, 1867.2.92b
at Mt. Holyoke Academy, West Hartford, Connecticut, 1867.2.92a
at Dartmouth College, 1867.2.93
at Harvard College, 1867.2.93
in Tennessee, 1859.1.93a
at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, founded in 1830, when Oberlin, Ohio, was founded, both with a Christian emphasis. The school’s name was changed to Oberlin College in 1850.
• History of Lorain County, Ohio. Philadelphia: Williams Bros., 1879; pp. 170, 172.
By gender :
female, 1849.1.156 • 1849.1.62-63 • 1849.2.158-160 • 1849.2.187a • 1852.2.30 • 1854.1.95b • 1854.2.314 • 1855.1.87-88 • 1857.1.62 • 1857.2.27-28 • 1857.2.57-58 • 1859.1.189 • 1861.1.91a • 1864.2.126
boarding school, 1849.2.62-63 • 1850.2.30a • 1850.2.187-188
in Eufaula, Alabama, the Union Female College, organized in 1853 and opened in January 1854. The large building was built of lumber from trees grown in Barbour County and sawed at a mill near Eufaula. On the roof of its chapel stood a statue of Minerva, carved from a pine tree four feet in diameter by a Philadelphia artist. The building later served another college and the public school before being torn down to make way for an infirmary.
• Mattie Thomas Thompson. History of Barbour County, Alabama. Eufaula, Alabama: np, 1939; pp. 262-263.
in Auburn, Kansas, 1861.1.91a
at Indian Orphan Institute (also, “the Orphan Indian Institute”): In 1846, a boarding school was opened at the Presbyterian mission for the Iowa, Sac, and Fox nations. By 1851, the school—near what is now Highland, Kansas, in the northeastern part of the state—had attracted students from several Native American nations. Several were orphans. When the Iowa and Sac were removed to a new reservation, the school became the Orphan Indian Institute, with about 40 students. It closed in 1867, after the U. S. government withdrew support.
• Clifford Merrill Drury. Presbyterian Panorama. Philadelphia: Board of Christian Education, 1952; pp. 142-144.
male, 1849.1.61-62 • 1849.2.63 • 1849.2.94a • 1849.2.124-125 • 1850.1.32a • 1850.1.159 • 1854.1.159 • 1856.1.90-91 • 1856.2.26 • 1857.1.120a
boarding school, 1855.1.29
in Bergen, New Jersey, 1849.1.61-62
in West Randolph, Vermont, 1855.2.156
effigies
shot, 1857.1.29-30
reaction to: 1857.1.92-93 • 1857.2.155-156
Southerner’s, 1857.1.59-60 • 1857.1.119
hung, 1857.1.186
Verdine D. Ellsworth (born c1794), of Fairfield, Connecticut. In 1850, Ellsworth and his 46-year-old wife, Jane, had 17-year-old Julia and 12-year-old Charles living at home.
• M432. 1850 United States Census reel #38: 5
“Elva Seeking Her Fortune,” by “Sophie May” (Rebecca Clarke; Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1865), novel. Unhappy with her adoptive parents, Elva romanticizes her biological parents and runs away to Boston to find them. Instead, she is robbed and must work as a drudge before being rescued.
That Enigma. See That Problem
Europa, wooden-hulled steamship of the Cunard Line. Built in Port Glasgow, Scotland, she was 251 feet by 38 feet, and 1834 tons; she had three masts and one funnel. Her maiden voyage, from Liverpool to Halifax and Boston, was in July 1848. With her paddle wheels, the Europa was capable of 10 knots. She was lost by stranding in 1874.
• Eugene W. Smith. Passenger Ships of the World Past and Present. Boston: George H. Dean Company, 1978; p. 91.
exchange of letters outside the Chat
Museum office provides addresses, 1863.2.182 • 1865.1.94 • 1867.2.92b
subscribers send letters to each other, 1867.2.61a
exhibit
canary, in Baltimore, Maryland, 1850.1.63
at Pacific Museum, San Francisco, California, 1858.1.152
eye-color, of importance and amusement to the “Merry Cousins”: In the “Address to the Reader” introducing Robert Merry’s Museum in 1841, the putative editor addressed his words to “all those young people who have black eyes, and all those who have not black eyes.” As a result, when subscribers wrote to the magazine, they sometimes mentioned the color of their eyes. Some readers added eye color to their names.
subject of poem, 1856.2.94b
Mrs. Eyes. See Merry Cousins—Black-eyes
fair: at Chicago, Illinois, 1864.1.90
at Syracuse, New York, 1849.2.187b
at Belmont, Ohio, 1858.2.155-156
Eugene H. Fales (“Eugene Merry”) (born 1840/1843, Thomaston, Maine; died 12 July 1868, St. Paul, Minnesota); married 23 January 1865, Harriet M. Lee; one son, apparently died as an infant. Eugene was the clerk in the Museum’s offices before going to war and enduring adventures that would have done justice to the hero of a romantic novel. Joining Company E, 84th New York Infantry on 18 April 1861, he ended up in Company C., 131st New York Infantry as a lieutenant. John N. Stearns kept the Cousins up-to-date on his activities, telling them in June 1863 that, “ … [Eugene] was in the first battle of Bull Run, and received several bullet-holes in his clothes; he … is now with our favorite general, N. P. Banks, in his triumphant march through Louisiana.” (185) Eugene was one of several hundred who volunteered on 15 June 1863 for a storming party on Port Hudson, Louisiana, but was wounded and taken prisoner. He was confined at Richmond from 14 July 1863 until 7 May 1864, when he was sent to Macon, Georgia; later he was sent to Charleston, South Carolina. Stearns did more than just update the Cousins: he sent boxes to Eugene and worked to have him freed. Eugene escaped on 4 October 1864, by donning a Confederate uniform provided by a rebel deserter and walking out of the Charleston prison. He was hidden by sympathetic South Carolinians, finally making his way to Savannah, where he reported on 21 December 1864 to the Union forces who had just taken the city. In true romantic style, on his return to New York he married before returning to his unit for the duration of the War. His adventures were detailed in the Museum as “Adventures of a ‘Merry’ Boy” (February 1865). In 1867 the former office boy bought the magazine. During his escape, however, Eugene was stricken with yellow fever, from which he never recovered; he developed tuberculosis and died on a trip to regain his health.
1863.2.182 • 1865.1.187a • 1866.1.155
as Union prisoner of war, 1864.2.183
reaction to story of, 1865.1.92
• compiled military record.
• RG 15. Records of the Veterans Administration, pension certificate #160591.
• United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901; series 1, vol 26, pt 1: 64, 57.
• St. Paul, Minnesota. “Mortuary Register, 1866-1884.” Public Health Center, St. Paul; vol 1: 15, 119.
family
separated by death and illness of parents, 1857.2.157b
Southerner with Northern relatives, 1844.1.124 • 1852.1.126b, 1855.1.89a • 1856.2.123
Northerner with Southern relatives, 1845.2.222 • 1852.2.32 • 1860.2.155-156
family life: 1864.1.188
of only child, 1849.2.158-160
in Brooklyn, 1852.1.190
in Memphis, Tennessee, 1850.1.63-64
in South, 1849.1.123-124
farm
Cheshire (no state), 1860.1.94b
East Windsor Hill, Connecticut, 1860.1.61
Winton, Maryland, 1849.2.31
Ouquaga, New York, 1865.2.121
Silver Lake (no state), 1857.2.93a
farmer
raises sheep, 1854.1.159
should believe in God, 1867.2.156-157
in West Randolph, Vermont, 1855.2.156
Fetridge’s Balm of a Thousand Flowers, a liquid soap developed by Dr. Le Fontaine in 1846; because it contained honey, he named it the “Balm of a Thousand Flowers.” Honey was replaced by sugar after the recipe was sold to W. P. Fetridge & Co., but the name remained, and Fetridge sued several manufacturers who attempted to use it. The perfumed mixture of palm oil, lye, alcohol, and sugar was sold in a bottle wrapped in a paper of instructions and of extravagant claims of efficacy.
• Fetridge v. Wells, 4 Abb. Pr. 144 (New York Super. Ct. 1857); Fetridge v. Merchant, 4 Abb. Pr. 144 (New York Super. Ct. 1857)
fever: typhoid, 1865.2.58b
in army, 1862.1.186. yellow, in Woodville, Mississippi, apparently spread to Woodville, Mississippi, from New Orleans. On 6 September 1853 a quarantine went into effect at the Woodville Factory; by 18 October, there were 168 cases and 9 deaths in the area. Woodville had a warm autumn that year, and in November, doctors warned those from the country not to come into town, where one to two new cases occurred every day. The epidemic ended in December, after some hard frosts.
• The Woodville Republican, comp. O’Levia Neil Wilson Wiese. Bowie, Maryland: Heritage Book, 1992; vol 3: 173, 174, 177, 181.
Millard Fillmore (1800-1874), U. S. Congressman and thirteenth president of the U. S. (1850-1853); as Zachary Taylor’s vice president, he stepped into the role of president on Taylor’s death. An anti-slavery moderate, Fillmore was more concerned with preserving the Union than with settling the slave question. As a result, in presidential race of 1852 he was supported by Southern Whigs; however, he failed to win the nomination. In 1856 Fillmore was the presidential candidate of the Know Nothing Party.
Gustav Fincke (1848-1893), American soldier. Born in Germany, he grew up in New York City and Brooklyn and enlisted in the U. S. Navy in February 1862, at age 14. During action on the Cayuga in April, he was wounded in the left foot; it was eventually amputated. After being transferred back to Brooklyn, he was appointed as a Mate on 1 June 1864 and then attached to the Post Office in 1865. Unfortunately, the appointment was revoked when he was accused of stealing. Soon after, he emigrated to Australia, where he died in poverty.
• Terry Foenander. E-mail correspondence, 4 Jan 2000, 6 Jan 2000.
• Terry Foenander. “Veterans of the American Civil War Buried in Australia.” geocities.com page accessed 4 January 2000.
fire
burns subscriber’s house, 1858.1.29-30 • 1867.2.62
in Burlington, Iowa, 16 January, 1853.1.98a
in Ogdensburg, New York, 1855.1.89b
See also Robert Merry’s Museum
fish. See sturgeon
Florida
Letters from : Fernandina, 1865.2.26; Madison Court House, 1856.2.122-123
Sheramoore, 1861.1.156
The Flower People: book by Mary Tyler Peabody Mann (Hartford, Connecticut: Tyler & Porter, 1842). In 1836, two chapters appeared in the two issues of The Family School, edited by Mann’s sister.
food
for Christmas, in North Carolina, 1853.1.66-67
for journey to California, 1849.1.154-155 • 1849.2.29-30
importance of, 1867.1.155
in tall tale, 1849.1.157
in Tuilerie Gardens, Paris, France, 1851.2.92-93
on journey to California, 1849.2.127-128
at spa, Wisconsin, Madison, 1856.2.61. See also pumpkin pie
football: In the 1860s the game was very much like soccer, though at Harvard it was played more like rugby. In the 1850s, the game often was part of freshman hazing at U. S. colleges.
• David Levinson and Karen Christensen, ed. Encyclopedia of World Sport. Denver, Colorado: ABC-CLIO, 1996.
Fort Beaulieu, on the Vernon River; the U. S. S. Winona and Sonoma were part of the fleet that took the fort on 21 December 1864.
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 1, vol 16: 137.
Fort Benton, Montana Territory: Originally a fur post, Fort Benton was built in 1846 as Fort Clay; it was called “Fort Lewis” in 1847 and named “Fort Benton” in 1850. It lay at the junction of the Missouri and Teton rivers. 1867 saw a lot of steamboat traffic up the Missouri to the fort; subscriber Cis may have been on board the Waverly, the first boat that year, which landed 120 passengers on May 25.
• Joel Overholser. Fort Benton. Fort Benton, Montana: Joel Overholser, 1987.
Fort Kearney: Established in 1848 on the south bank of the Platte River in what is now Nebraska, this fort was the point where several trails from the Missouri River came together and became an important landmark on the Oregon Trail.
• Howard Robert Lamar. The New Encyclopedia of the American West. New York: Yale University Press, 1998.
Fort Sumter, South Carolina: Built on an artificial island in the harbor at Charleston. In 1860, the unfinished fort was commanded by Major Robert Anderson, who refused to hand it over to the state of South Carolina after it seceded; intense bombardment from outside batteries, however, changed his mind. On 14 April 1865, Anderson raised over the fort the same flag he had lowered there exactly four years before. The celebration was augmented by the Union ships—including the U. S. S. Sonoma : in part, their orders read, “When the flag is hoisted on Sumter, each vessel will man yards—or rigging, if without yards—and then give three cheers; then … each vessel will fire a salute of 100 guns ….”
Letters from, 1865.1.122b • 1865.2.26
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 1, vol 16: 315-316.
State of Franklin, formed in 1784 from what were then the western counties of North Carolina. Ceded to the newly formed U. S, government to help pay off the nation’s huge debts and worried that North Carolina would not protect it, the area declared its independence so inhabitants could govern themselves during the two years Congress had in which to accept. “Franklinites” established a government with a legal tender that recognized a lack of hard money: taxes could be paid in cloth, furs, sugar, beeswax, tallow, “bacon, well cured,” rye whiskey, “good peach or apple brandy”, and tobacco. Many letters, speeches, and recriminations later, a compromise allowed the counties to resubmit to the laws of North Carolina, with the understanding that they would form their own, new state when more populated—the state of Tennessee.
• J. G. M. Ramsey. The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1853. (Repr. New York: Arno Press, 1971); pp. 282-300.
“Franklin Institute,” St. Mary’s Parish, Louisiana: the largest of over a dozen schools in mid-nineteenth-century St. Mary’s Parish; it offered courses in everything from ancient and modern history, evolution, chemistry, and astronomy, to French needlework, painting, and piano.
• Bernard Broussard. A History of St. Mary Parish. Np: np, 1977; p. 25.
Jessie Fremont (1824-1902), American writer. Bright, lively Jessie was conversant in three languages and worked with her explorer husband, John, on reports that made him famous. Not averse to taking matters into her own hands, she resorted to subterfuge to ensure that Fremont set off on a planned expedition after he received a summons to Washington, DC. When John ran for president in 1856, her charm was exploited—the first time a woman was featured in a political campaign—and Jessie became as popular and well known as he. For the first time, women (who, of course, didn’t have the vote at the time) began to swell the crowds at political gatherings, and some worked actively for the Republican cause.
1856.2.93-94 • 1856.2.121 • 1856.2.122-123 • 1861.2.155-156
“Jessie Circle”, 1856.2.122-123
John Charles Fremont (1813-1890) American explorer and politician. Handsome, daring John developed a taste for exploration when he served in the U. S. Topographical Corps; expeditions west of the Rocky Mountains in the 1840s led to reports written with his wife, Jessie, that made him one of the celebrities of his day. Fremont’s career was rocky: he was court martialed after the war with Mexico; his penalty was remitted by the president, but Fremont resigned and moved to California; a year later he became a U.S. Senator. A national hero, he was the Republican candidate for president in 1856, losing to James Buchanan.
• Pamela Herr. Jessie Benton Fremont. New York: Franklin Watts, 1987; pp. 259-263.
“Frontier Terribles” (Ogdensburg, New York), group whose capers entertained everyone in Ogdensburg, New York, “from grand sire to babe.”
• “The Fourth of July.” St. Lawrence Republican. 7 July 1857: p. 3, col 3.
funeral. See Merry Cousins—William Forrest Oakley, funeral of
Gala Days, by Abigail Dodge (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863), a collection of eight essays—six of which had been published in the Atlantic Monthly—on the serious and the frivolous: from the family canary, to a journey through New York and Canada, to young children and women with loved ones fighting the War.
U. S. S. Galena, Union ironclad screw steamer launched and commissioned in 1862 and re-commissioned in 1864. She was 210 feet long, with a depth of 12 feet 8 inches; with her two engines, six furnaces, and two boilers, she was capable of a maximum speed of eight knots and an average of six knots. The well-armed Galena steamed up the James River with General George Brinton McClellan on board in late June and early July 1862.
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 2, vol 1: 90; series 1, vol 7: 709.
• United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901; series 1, vol 11: 223-224.
games: 1868.1.115-116
in Paris, France, 1851.2.92-93
See also blind man’s buff • “I spy” • puss-in-the-corner
gardens: in Aberdeen, Mississippi, 1857.2.59a
See also botanical gardens • Tuilerie Gardens • zoological garden
Georgia
Letters from :
Cave Spring, 1849.1.62-63
Decatur, 1844.1.124 • 1850.2.127-128
Riceboro’, 1846.1.29-30 • 1847.1.30-31
Rome, 1849.1.156
Social Circle, 1860.1.60b
Zebulon, 1850.1.127b
Places in :
Atlanta, 1864.2.158
Cave Spring, 1849.1.62-63
Rome, boarding-school, 1849.1.156
Stone Mountain, 1844.1.124 • 1850.1.127b
Zebulon, 1850.1.127b
gift
at Christmas, 1856.1.186-187 • 1859.1.93-94 • 1859.2.155-156 • 1860.1.29
at New Year’s, 1851.1.158a • 1851.1.190, 1853.2.31 • 1853.2.127c
East Windsor Hill, Connecticut, 1856.1.90-91
Gilbert Go-ahead, title character in “The Adventures of Gilbert Go-Ahead.” It was the Museum’s longest-running serial (1851-1855, 1856). The quintessential Connecticut Yankee, Gilbert relies on shrewdness, pragmatism, luck, and a large collection of aphorisms on his journey through Asia in search of trade. Adventures that include shipwreck, enslavement, escape (once, via hippopotamus), and philosophical arguments with those he meets teach Gilbert and the reader about the lands through which he travels, the value of education, and the evils of greed. Not every reader believed Gilbert’s adventures—especially the hippo ride—but the serial was the most popular in the magazine’s history.
1851.1.128c • 1851.2.94-95 • 1851.2.95 • 1851.2.95-96 • 1852.1.94 • 1852.1.127c • 1852.2.63 • 1852.2.93 • 1852.2.93-94 • 1852.2.126a • 1853.1.98a • 1853.1.98b • 1853.1.99b • 1853.1.99-100 • 1853.1.131 • 1853.2.127c • 1854.1.31a • 1854.1.31-32 • 1854.1.126-127 • 1854.1.159 • 1854.2.375
Authenticity questioned, 1852.2.93 • 1852.2.126a
See also Grin
great raft, Red River, a massive collection of fallen trees accumulated on the Red River and was dismantled in the 1830s by Captain Henry Miller Shreve; “The great raft on Red river extended twenty miles,” Bartlett wrote in 1848, “and required an immense outlay of money to remove it.”
• John Russell Bartlett. Dictionary of Americanisms. New York: Bartlett and Welford, 1848.
Grin (in Robert Merry’s Museum), orangutan befriended by Gilbert Go-ahead, in “The Adventures of Gilbert Go-ahead.” After several adventures, Gilbert sends mischievous Grin as a gift to his maiden aunt, hoping thus to ensure that she leaves him her fortune. She leaves Gilbert six cents.
Emily Hacket, May Queen in Easton, Pennsylvania, for 1856. After being crowned, she “delivered an address, which was very creditably done.”
• “Pic Nic”. Easton Daily Express [Easton, Pennsylvania]. 1 July 1856: p. 2, col 2.
Happy Family (Barnum’s Museum), exhibit in P. T. Barnum’s American Museum in the 1850s; he purchased it in England in 1844. It was described in the Museum in January 1858: in one cage were displayed a variety of animals, including cats, dogs, mice, birds, monkeys, an ant-eater, and snakes and toads, all apparently living peacefully together. !—! suggested that, were Barnum to learn of the final “submission” of the Merry cousins after the algebra war, he would wish to exhibit them: “I think I hear the showman: ‘Here, leddies and gen’lemen, is one of the greatest nateral cu’osities of the age! The “Merry Family,” consistin’ of critters as wiolent and antagonistic as ever you see, but by great care and patience reduced to their present state of civilization. Walk up, gen’lemen, and don’t be afeard of the hanimal with “black eyes.” She’s perfectly harmless now, though she does look savagewus.’”
• Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1857.1.59.
• A. H. Saxon. P. T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989; p. 137.
Hartford
Letters from, 1848.2.94 • 1856.2.58 • 1856.2.122a
Connecticut, 1854.2.311
Wisconsin, 1859.1.61
Hattie Lee (worked in office of Merry’s Museum). See Merry Cousins—Hattie Lee
Dirk Heldriver (in Robert Merry’s Museum), title character in a story in the series “Bill and the Boys” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1844). After am embezzler cheats his father out of the family fortune, Heldriver travels the world to exact revenge. It was reprinted in A Tale of the Revolution, and Other Sketches (New York: Sheldon & Co., 1845)..
Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819-1881), editor and writer. As “Timothy Titcomb,” he wrote essays of moral advice, first for the Springfield Massachusetts Republican, then, after 1857, in book form.
• Henry Houston Peckham. Josiah Gilbert Holland. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1940.
Hopedale, Massachusetts: Christian commune formed in 1841 and led by the Reverend Adin Ballou. It emphasized temperance, non-violence, and equality of the races and the sexes; at first, women were paid for doing domestic work. Children played at scheduled times and worked for the commune after about age 12; after 1854, they attended the commune’s school. While individuals owned their houses and furniture, the whole commune owned farms and shops. However, W. F. Draper’s father owned the textile business that was an important economic asset. Financial reorganizations and economic problems altered the commune enough that members began to leave; Hopedale ceased to exist as a Christian commune in 1873.
Letter from, 1854.1.60a
• William F. Draper. Recollections of a Varied Career. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1908.
Jack Horner (in nursery rhyme): hero of a nursery rhyme:
Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said, What a good boy am I!
• Iona and Peter Opie, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rymes. Np: Oxford University Press, 1951; rhyme #262.
horse: 1856.2.124 • 1860.1.94b • 1861.2.120-121
anecdote of, 1860.1.155
elderly, anecdote of, 1852.1.64a
used in lumbering, Aroostook, Maine, 1854.2.252
wild, in Texas, 1854.1.126-127
hospital, Patent Office, Washington, DC: From 1862 to early 1863, the Office was used as a Union hospital, with beds fitted between glass cases filled with models submitted by inventors: “It was indeed a curious scene at night when lit up,” Walt Whitman wrote in 1863. “The glass cases, the beds, the sick, the gallery above, and the marble pavement under foot ….”
• Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman’s Civil War. Ed. Walter Lowenfels. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960; p. 87.
hotel: Hartford, Connecticut, 1848.2.94
Oswego, New York, during Syracuse State Fair, 1849.2.187b
Paris, France, 1849.2.158-160
Illinois: emigration to, 1856.1.157
Peru, 1849.2.29-30
Letters from : 1862.1.26 • 1864.2.158
Alida, 51.1.158b
Cairo, 1858.1.127
Carlinville, 1856.1.157
Chicago, 1856.2.93 • 1856.2.125 • 1857.2.185 • 1858.1.122 • 1858.1.153d • 1858.2.125 • 1865.1.157 • 1865.2.27a
Galena, 1845.1.189-190
Geneseo, Henry County, 1855.1.123a
Jacksonville, 1864.2.124a • 1865.1.93
Littleton, 1858.1.126c
Mt. Carroll, 1856.1.158
Quincy, 1849.1.95
Rock River, 1844.1.30-31
illness of subscriber, 1858.2.126 • 1863.2.155-156
See also consumption • ileus • typhoid • yellow fever
Independence Day, 1865.2.58a
celebration:
sounds of, 1858.2.59b
in Hartford, Connecticut, 1854.2.311 • 1856.2.58
in Ogdensburgh, New York, 1857.2.59b
in Pennsylvania, 1849.2.94a
Union soldier mustered out on, 1865.2.58c
Indian Orphan Institute (also, “the Orphan Indian Institute”): In 1846, a boarding school was opened at the Presbyterian mission for the Iowa, Sac, and Fox nations. By 1851, the school—near what is now Highland, Kansas, in the northeastern part of the state—had attracted students from several Native American nations. Several were orphans. When the Iowa and Sac were removed to a new reservation, the school became the Orphan Indian Institute, with about 40 students. It closed in 1867, after the U. S. government withdrew support.
Letter from, 1866.1.123
• Clifford Merrill Drury. Presbyterian Panorama. Philadelphia: Board of Christian Education, 1952; pp. 142-144.
“Inquisitive Jack” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1843 and 1844): 16-part serial originally published as part of “Little Leaves for Little Readers.” Jack learns about the natural world by observing instead of asking questions; from the story the reader learns about insects, birds, and plants. In chapter 3 (May 1844), the hero studies and describes the instinctive behavior of birds, especially those in his own poultry yard. The story was reprinted as The Truth-finder; or, The Story of Inquisitive Jack (New York: n.p., 1845). In 1854 the first seven chapters were reprinted in the Museum at readers’ request.
Iowa
Letters from
Beechgrove, 1858.1.29-30
Burlington, 1853.1.98a
Cannelton, 1855.2.126
Mt. Vernon, 1857.2.156a
Tuscarora, 1850.1.127a
“I spy”, a game in which a player who is “it” searches for others who have hidden, shouting, “I spy” and the player’s name, at each sighting. “It” then chases the player to an established goal, trying to “tag” him or her with a touch. As Lydia Maria Child described it in The Girl’s Book in 1833, the players called “Whoop!” to announce that they were hidden.
• Lydia Maria Child. The Girl’s Own Book. New York: Clark, Austin & Co., 1833. (Repr. Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Applewood Books, 1992); p. 55.
Jack Frost 1846.1.30-31
“Jack Frost” (in Robert Merry’s Museum): song (January 1841). Jack Frost has caused the birds to leave and winter to come.
Alfred Jaell (1832-1882), Austrian pianist and composer. He toured the U. S. in 1856; 1855.2.157-158
Jumping Rabbit’s story (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1843): a six-part serial. Taken by Kickapoo warriors, the narrator lives in their village for 6 years and runs away to save a white family—the one he was born into. Details of Kickapoo life alternate with scenes of high adventure. Reprinted in Faggots for the Fireside (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1854).
Elisha Kane (1820-1857), American explorer of the Arctic. Overcoming a diseased heart, he became a doctor and enjoyed a series of adventures during the war between the U. S. and Mexico. In 1850, he joined an unsuccessful expedition to find British explorer John Franklin, who had disappeared in the Arctic in 1845. Kane led another expedition to find Franklin in 1853; the unsuccessful attempt unexpectedly lasted until summer 1855. During the adventure, Kane came into his own as a strong and intelligent leader; and he became a celebrity in the U. S. Deteriorating health led him to the warmth of Cuba, where he died; as Kane’s body traveled by ship to Philadelphia, thousands gathered at every port along the way to honor him. William Hoyt Coleman wrote for the Museum of meeting one of the dogs from Kane’s expedition and visiting Kane’s boat.
Kansas
Letters from :
Auburn, 1861.1.91a
Cedar Point, Chase County, 1861.2.93a
Drought of 1860, 1861.1.91a
Ladies’ Garland: The Ladies’ Garland and Family Magazine (1837-1846), monthly magazine “Devoted to Literature, Amusement and Instruction, Containing Original Essays, Female Biography—Historical Narratives—Sketches of Society—Topographical Descriptions—Moral Tales—Anecdotes, &c.” It also published music; 1841.2.127
“Lady-bug, lady-bug” (nursery rhyme),
Ladybird, ladybird,
Fly away home,
Your house is on fire
And your children all gone …
• [Iona and Peter Opie, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rymes. Np: Oxford University Press, 1951; rhyme #296] The American version substitutes “ladybug” for “ladybird.” After reciting the chant to a ladybug perched on one’s finger, the chanter blows on the insect, which flies away.
“Land of Gold.” See California
Latin: anecdote of, 1857.2.57-58
female learns, 1857.2.57-58 • 1857.2.155-156
subscriber studies, 1856.2.186
Henry A. and George W. Lee (merchants, New Orleans, Louisiana): Henry A. Lee (born c1824) and George W. Lee (born c1822), in 1855 commercial merchants at 124 Canal St., in New Orleans, Louisiana.
• Cohen’s New Orleans Directory for 1855. New Orleans: Picayune, 1855; p. 142.
• M432. 1850 United States Census; reel #237: 248.
William and Susan Leigh (La Grange Seminary, Kentucky), probably William Leigh (born c1790, Virginia), listed in the 1850 census as a teacher; with him lived Susan Leigh (born c1814, North Carolina).
• M432. 1850 United States Census; reel #216, 163
letter-writing: correspondence kept in portfolio, 1857.2.156b
child sends letter to God, 1865.1.155b
Jenny Lind (1820-1887): the “Swedish Nightingale” who mesmerized America in the 1850s. Hearing of Lind’s popularity in Europe—though not hearing her sing—P. T. Barnum choreographed a concert tour in America that resulted in a Lind-mania that began before Lind set foot in the country. In August 1850, in the New York Daily Tribune, Barnum offered a prize of $100—later raised to $200—for a piece of poetry to be set to music and sung by Lind. It was won by Bayard Taylor for a poem on very much the same theme as Infanta’s. Accounts of Lind’s doings filled newspapers wherever she went, with one breathlessly describing the newly refurnished rooms Lind occupied in the Revere House hotel during her first concerts in September 1850; among the furnishings was a piano from Chickering’s costing $1,000—considerably more than the Chickering piano P. A. P. named for Lind. Lind sang 95 concerts in 18 cities in 1850 and 1851; Blue-eyed Mary of Ohio could have heard her in one of five concerts in Cincinnati, Ohio, April 14-21, 1851.
1850.2.128 • 1851.1.127a • 1851.2.94 • 1852.2.126a • 1855.2.93-94
poem for, 1850.2.128
• W. Porter Ware, and Thaddeus C. Lockard, Jr. P. T. Barnum Presents Jenny Lind. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980; pp. 5, 14-15, 35-36, 89-90, 185.
The Little Pilgrim, magazine (October 1853-April 1869) edited by Sara J. Lippincott (also known as Grace Greenwood). Publishing stories and poems, it also included contributions from readers and a page of puzzles.
long-eared or mule-eared rabbit, probably the black-tailed jack rabbit (Lepus californicus ), also called the “jackass rabbit” (Mathews) and the only jack rabbit species found in Texas.
• Mitford M. Mathews, ed. A Dictionary of Americanisms On Historical Principles. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
Louisiana: image of, 1846.2.125-126
Letters from
Altior Place, 1860.2.124
Asphodel, 1851.1.93
Baton Rouge, 1844.2.31-32
Bayou Sara, 1855.2.90b
Franklin, 1846.2.125-126
Jefferson, 1851.1.94
Magnolia Falls, 1852.2.159
Marksville, 1854.1.60b
Minden, 1859.2.155-156
New Iberia, 1857.1.61
New Orleans, 1853.1.131
Point Coupee, 1851.1.32a
Places in
the Pine Woods 1845.2.221-222
Shreveport, 1845.2.221-222
Martin Luther (1484-1546), German religious reformer credited as “the parent of the protestant reformation.” His friendship with Melanchthon dated from early in Luther’s career as a reformer. In 1844, the Museum printed a two-part biography.
Lynch law, named for Captain William Lynch. Mathews: “The practice or custom by which persons are punished for real or alleged crimes without due process of law; the punishment so meted out.”
• Mitford M. Mathews, ed. A Dictionary of Americanisms On Historical Principles. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
General George Brinton McClellan (1826-1885), U. S. soldier. In 1861, McClellan was appointed major-general in the regular army, in command of the Department of the Ohio. Success led to his appointment to command the Division of the Potomac, where his hard work raised the morale and efficiency of troops demoralized by defeat at Bull Run. Hopes were high. However, McClellan’s career during the War was marked by a frustrating tendency toward inaction, as he consistently overestimated enemy strength. His build-up as “the new Napoleon” and his early failures were ridiculed by Southerners in a popular poem titled “McClellan’s Retreat.”
Confederate view of, 1865.1.121-122
“McClellan’s Retreat,” poem satirizing General George Brinton McClellan. It satirizes General George Brinton McClellan’s retreat from Mechanicsville, Virginia, in June 1862 and seems to have several variations. According to John W. Stevens, McClellan’s “battle cry had been ‘On to Richmond.’ The whole northern press … took up the refrain and it went raging through the north from center to circumference. ‘On to Richmond; break the back bone of the rebellion, hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree!’ [r]ang out from every regimental band in his grand army, which was so confidently believed to be invincible.” [p. 31] However, McClellan’s failure to press an advantage led to his army being forced to retreat to waiting Union gunboats on the James River, and “[s]omebody, I don’t know who, but my recollection now is that he was a member of the First Texas regiment, gave expression to the changed condition of affairs, with the new battle cry in verse as follows, which was soon chanted by the boys throughout the command, up and down the line, and known as”
M’CLELLAN’S RETREAT.
’Twas at Mechanicsville,
As the balls began to fly,
McClellan wheeled about,
And changed his battle cry.
CHORUS.
Away from Richmond; down
To your gun-boats, run, boys, run
Never mind your haversack,
Never mind your gun,
This fightin’ ’o the rebels
Is anything but fun. …
• John W. Stevens. Reminiscences of the Civil War. Hillsboro, Texas: Hillsboro Mirror Print, 1902. archive.org; pp. 31-32.
Charles McIntire (Easton, Pennsylvania), names of father (c1816-1890) and son (c1849-1899) in Easton, Pennsylvania. Charles, sr, was an architect and surveyor who may have built the first Easton High School; in the 1860 census he was listed as having $3700 in assets, $3400 of it in real estate.
• M653. 1860 United States Census; reel #1147: 418.
• Jane S. Moyer, comp. Marriages and Deaths, Northampton County, 1885-1902: Newspaper Extracts. Easton, Pennsylvania: np, 1976; vol 12: 50.
Maid of Kentucky (steamboat), 192-ton sidewheel steamboat built at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1840. In 1844 she was advertised as a passenger steamer, the “regular Yazoo Packet” landing at Greenwood, Marion, Yazoo City, Satartia, and Vicksburg. She was abandoned or dismantled in 1847.
• William M. Lytle, comp. Merchant Steam Vessels of the United States. Mystic, Connecticut: The Steamship Historical Society of America, 1952; p. 118.
• Advertisements of Lower Mississippi River Steamboats, 1812-1920, comp. Leonard V. Huber. West Barrington, Rhode Island: The Steamship Historical Society of America, 1959; p. 45.
Maine
life in subject of poem, 1857.2.94
Letters from : 1846.1.59-60
Fort Kent, 1854.2.252
Westbrook, 1855.2.29c
“Maine Law,” in Mathews: “A law forbidding the sale or manufacture of intoxicating liquor in Maine, enacted in 1851. Also any state or local law enacted with similar provisions;” earliest example dated 1852.
• Mitford M. Mathews, ed. A Dictionary of Americanisms On Historical Principles. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
marriage, 1858.1.56b • 1858.1.126a • 1858.1.153d • 1858.1.154 • 1858.2.60-61 • 1859.1.189-190 • 1862.1.155a
Black-Eyes on, 1859.2.126-127
Fanny Fern on, 1858.1.188-189
Maryland
Letters from : Baltimore, 1855.1.91-92 • 1855.2.94b • 1856.1.58 • 1857.1.62-63 • 1858.1.62 • 1859.2.157 • 1861.2.92-93 • 1862.1.187
Massachusetts
image of, 1863.1.121
Letters from : 1863.1.58-59 • 1865.2.58a
Cambridge, 1867.2.93
Fall River, 1851.2.95 • 1855.2.89
Foxboro, 1852.1.127b
Framingham, 1855.2.93b
Harvard, 1845.1.188-189
Hopedale, 1854.1.60a
Jamaica Plain, 1852.1.126a
M., 1870.2.100
Newburyport, 1846.1.160
Springfield, 1842.1.89-90 • 1844.1.126-128 • 1846.1.190a
Places in :
Boston, 1860.1.187b • 1867.2.93
Cabotville, 1844.1.126-128
Chickopee Falls, 1844.1.126-128
Harvard University, 1867.2.93
Hopedale, 1854.1.60a
Mount Holyoke Seminary, 1867.2.92a
Mount Tom, 1844.1.126-128
May Day
activities on: 1855.1.188b
celebration
in Boston, Massachusetts, 1856.1.187
in Ohio, 1856.2.26-27
in Palmyra, 1856.2.29
in Easton, Pennsylvania, 30 June, 1856.2.61-62
moving on, 1856.2.29
Philip Melanchthon (1496-1560), German Protestant reformer. He formed a friendship with Martin Luther at Wittemberg, where the two were professors.
• Samuel Griswold Goodrich, comp. Popular Biography. New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1832.
Memphis
Letters from, 1861.1.56b
Tennessee, 1849.2.94b • 1850.1.63-64 • 1852.1.128a • 1854.1.94 • 1855.1.58-59 • 1856.1.186-187 • 1860.2.157 • 1861.2.25
The Mentor: a 32-page monthly magazine (July 1850-December 1851?) edited by Horation Hastings Weld and published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; it was absorbed by Woodworth’s Youth’s Cabinet.
Robert Merry: the guiding spirit of the Museum. The magazine’s editors traditionally took on his persona and made their announcements in his name. As created by Samuel G. Goodrich, Robert Merry was a distinct personality with a checkered past: having led an undisciplined youth, he spent time in prison and fought in the War of 1812 before going to sea and, finally, retiring to New England to live the quiet life of an old bachelor. In the process, he lost one leg. When John N. Stearns took over, he gave the old man his own children and his own personality, enrolling him as a Son of Temperance. The one-legged Merry pictured on the magazine’s cover now had two legs, and when readers received a picture of the editor in 1863, Robert Merry had John Stearns’ face. When Louisa May Alcott took over in 1868, however, Merry became a nonentity: crisp, but loving, as likely to scold as to praise, with no discernible history or personality, a name on the cover of the Museum.
1865.2.120-121 • 1868.1.115-116
canary named for, 1855.2.93b
confusion about identity of, 1846.1.63 • 1851.2.94-95
image of, 1844.1.94-95 • 1850.1.127-128 • 1850.2.30b • 1852.1.191b • 1856.1.186 • 1857.2.93b • 1859.1.94
supposed to look like Santa Claus, 1855.1.122b
poem addressed to, 1852.2.126c
subject of dream, 1846.1.189-190 • 1850.1.127-128
subject of poem, 1844.1.125 • 1846.1.189-190
wooden leg, 1858.1.122
Merry convention: The Cousins met (appropriately enough) in the parlor of editor John N. Stearns in 1865, at the suggestion of subscriber Jasper. The meeting was announced in the December 1865 issue of the Museum ; see 1865.2.154 • 1865.2.183-184
Merry Cousins, the readers
Authenticity questioned, 1862.1.26 • 1867.1.155 • 1867.2.59
Disabled, 1865.2.184-185
Emigrating, sends “final messages,” 1864.2.88a
Gender questioned: 1858.2.28 • 1861.2.58a
Sybil Grey, 1861.1.153-154
female: mistaken for male, 1857.2.184b
female wrote as male, 1861.2.58a
male posing as female, 1861.1.88
Image of, 1860.2.26 • 1861.2.23-24 • 1868.1.164-165
Look for each other: not known to each other, 1864.2.88-89
Married, 1860.2.182-183
Meet, see Merry convention
Poor, 1872.1.244
Southern hesitant to return to Chat after Civl War, 1865.1.121-122 • 1865.2.88
Subject of poem, 1868.1.164-165
Too young to write, 1850.2.159 • 1850.2.188a • 51.1.158b • 1851.2.160 • 1853.1.99a
Mexico (Vera Cruz), in Civil War: When the U. S. S. Potomac arrived here in February 1862 to protect Union interests, it found an impressive British naval force in perfect position to attack the Union blockade of Southern ports, should the order arrive. It didn’t, and the British fleet withdrew by the end of March 1862. The Potomac herself withdrew in May.
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 1, vol 17: 39; series 1, vol 1: 307-308, 354, 368, 390.
Michigan
Letters from : 1849.2.127-128 • 1849.2.29-30
Ann Arbor, 1858.1.125a • 1858.2.127 • 1859.1.125a • 1859.2.92-93
Brooklyn, 1851.1.128a
Centreville, 1852.1.64a
Delta, 1852.2.126c
Detroit, 1850.1.159 • 1851.2.95-96 • 1852.1.94 • 1852.2.93
Kalamazoo, 1854.1.95b • 1856.1.90
Matherton, 1858.1.92a
Mich. University, 1849.2.124-125
Monroe, 1849.1.154-155
Wayne, 1848.1.114
milking described, and milking machine extolled: L. O. Colvin patented an “improved” milking machine which “imitate[d] the natural action of the calf in a very perfect manner,” in May, 1860.
• “Improved Cow-Milker.” Scientific American, 58 (2 July 1860): 4.
“Misfortunes of a Yellow-Bird” (in Robert Merry’s Museum), reprinted from the Juvenile Miscellany (July 1845), the autobiography of a bird from its hatching through its being caught, caged, and thus reduced to “slavery” and to luring other birds into the same trap.
Mississippi
Letters from : 1868.1.419
Aberdeen, 1857.2.59a
Auburn, 1856.2.123
Fulton, 1852.1.64b
Natchez, 1849.2.94-95
Vicksburg, 1858.2.62 • 1858.2.93 • 1861.1.89-90 • 1861.1.91b
Woodville, 1853.2.187b
See also University of Mississippi
Missouri
St. Louis, 1855.2.90a
Letters from :
Boone County, 1860.1.92-93
Otterville, 1862.1.88
Parkville, 1868.1.166
St. Joseph, 1857.2.93c
St. Louis, 1850.2.30a • 1867.1.155-156
Mother’s Magazine, a periodical with a complex publication history (1833-?) which focused on child-rearing and Christianity. From 1851 to 1855 it was published by S. T. Allen & Co., which was how Harriet received it instead of the Museum.
“Mound City.” See St. Louis, Missouri
Murfreesboro
Letters from, 1852.1.125 • 1865.2.88
Tennessee, 1852.1.126c • 1855.1.92 • 1856.1.60b • 1865.1.121-122
music
enjoyed by subscriber, 1864.2.62 (note)
printed in the Museum : see “Snow-Bird Song” • “Temperance Life-Boat” • “Those Evening Bells”
“my mamma’s maid”: orange thief in a nursery rhyme:
Dingty diddlety,
My mammy’s maid,
She stole oranges,
I am afraid;
Some in her pocket,
Some in her sleeve,
She stole oranges,
I do believe.
• Iona and Peter Opie, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rymes. Np: Oxford University Press, 1951; rhyme #316.
“My Own Life and Adventures, by Robert Merry”: The serialized “autobiography” of “Robert Merry” (1841-1842), which detailed his childhood and early adventures. It was reprinted as Wit bought; or, The life and adventures of Robert Merry (New York: Sheldon & Co., 1844).
Native Americans
image of, 1846.1.59-60
Geographical :
Rome, Georgia, burial site, 1849.1.156
Indiana, 1858.1.153b
Louisiana, 1846.2.125-126
Maine, 1846.1.59-60
Winton, Maryland, 1849.2.31
Anoka, Minnesota, 1859.2.126b
Natchez, Mississippi, 1849.2.94-95
New Hampshire, belief system, 1864.1.60
Dover, New Jersey, legend about, 1855.2.126-127
in Ontonagon, as mail-carriers, 1860.1.187a
in Texas, 1854.1.126-127
Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, 1846.1.60-61
burial site, 1846.1.60-61 • 1846.2.123-124
Subscribe to the Museum :
Chickasaw subscriber; Merry Cousins—Choctaw; Choctaw subscriber; Merry Cousins—Cousin Sally • Merry Cousins—Tsee-nee-lung-kee • Merry Cousins—Wild One
See also Cherokee nation • Cheyenne nation • Creek nation • Natchez nation • Pawnee nation • Scaghticoke • Sioux nation
Newbern, North Carolina, battle: Newbern was captured by Union forces on 14 March 1862 and remained under Union control for the rest of the Civil War, though there were skirmishes here in 1863 and 1864.
• Frederick H. Dyer. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959.
• Mark M. Boatner The Civil War Dictionary, rev. ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.
New Hampshire
Letters from : 1855.1.188c • 1863.2.155
Mason Village, 1856.1.91
New Ipswich, 1859.1.93-94 • 1858.1.122-123 • 1859.1.156-157
Wentworth, 1851.1.96b • 1864.1.60
New Haven, Connecticut
Letters from, 1853.2.127b • 1857.1.29-30 • 1857.1.92-93 • 1857.2.156b • 1859.1.123-124 • 1860.2.89-90
New Jersey
Letters from :
Places in :
Bergen, Bergen Columbia Academy, boarding school established in 1790 in Bergen, New Jersey. This school, in its two-story stone building, had two departments: one for classical education, the other for elementary. At least at the end of its existence, it was coeducational.
• William H. Shaw, comp. History of Essex and Hudson Counties, New Jersey. Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1884; vol 2: 1123.
• Daniel Van Winkle. Old Bergen. Jersey City, New Jersey: John W. Harrison, 1902; p. 212.
Bloomfield, Bloomfield Institute, a private academy established by the Rev. Ebenezer Seymour; it was open from 1847 to 1860. The academy had separate departments for young men and women and attracted students from the U. S. and abroad, many of whom went on to college and to the ministry.
• William H. Shaw, comp. History of Essex and Hudson Counties, New Jersey. Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1884; vol 2: 869.
Dover, described, 1855.2.126-127
New Year’s Day, 1848.2.94
celebration, East Windsor Hill, Connecticut, 1856.1.90-91
gift, 1851.1.190 • 1853.2.31 • 1853.2.127c • 1859.1.125a
meditation on, 1865.1.25-26 • 1865.1.26 • 1867.1.60-61
New York
Letters from : 1842.1.124 • 1850.2.32 • 1851.1.128c • 1851.1.190 • 1853.1.130-131 • 1855.1.186-187 • 1857.2.155 • 1858.1.25 • 1858.1.56b • 1859.1.60 • 1859.2.185b • 1861.1.153-154
Albion, 1856.1.60c
Brooklyn, 1853.1.99a • 1857.1.119-120 • 1860.2.88
Buffalo, 1855.2.90a
Carmel, 1841.2.127
Chester, 1850.2.188a
Chili, 1857.2.157b
Colchester, 1858.2.158-159
Cornwall, 1855.2.125a
Elmira, 1865.1.187a
Genesee County, 1856.1.31
Miller’s Place, Long Island, 1865.2.91b
Mt. Morris, 1859.1.125c
New York, 1855.2.126-127 • 1856.1.81-83 • 1864.2.88a
Orange County, 1864.1.90
Otisville, 1858.1.92b
Ouaquaga, 1865.2.121
Patchogue, 1849.1.125
Perry, 1855.2.93-94
Rome, 1850.1.127-128
Syracuse, 1844.2.63
Places in :
Canandaigua, Ontario Female Seminary, founded in 1825. In 1848 Edward G. Tyler and his wife took charge, enlarging the 2-story brick building in 1852 to accomodate 80 boarding students, over 12 teachers, and a large day school. In 1850 it had about 60 students ranging in age from 13 to 20. The school closed in 1875.
• M432. 1850 United States Census; reel #571: 183.
• George S. Conover, ed. History of Ontario County, New York. Syracuse, New York: D. Mason & Co., 1893; vol 1: 228.
• Charles F. Milliken. A History of Ontario County, New York, and Its People. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1911; vol 1: 283.
Canandaigua Academy, founded in 1791. The building itself was begun in 1796 and was rebuilt in 1836. In 1850 the Academy had twenty-two male students ranging in age from 12 to 18.
• George S. Conover, ed. History of Ontario County, New York. Syracuse, New York: D. Mason & Co., 1893; vol 1: 225.
• Charles F. Milliken. A History of Ontario County, New York, and Its People. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1911; vol 1: 282.
• The Academian, March 1916; pp. 13, 15.
• M432. 1850 United States Census; reel #571: 160.
Cornwall, the Cornwall Collegiate School, established in 1853 by Alfred C. Roe. Purchasing a fairly large house in Cornwall, Roe added a schoolroom at the back. At first, the school emphasized a general education; gradually mathematics and civil engineering became the focus, with students surveying nearby land. Roe closed the school after fall, 1863.
• E. M. Ruttenber and L. H. Clark, comp. History of Orange County, New York. Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1881. (Repr. Interlaken, New York: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1980); vol 2: 765-766.
• Janet Dempsey, et al. Cornwall, New York: Images from the Past, 1788-1920. Np: Friends of the Cornwall Public Library, 1988; p. 23
Cornwall, Idlewild, sixty-acre estate owned by N. P. Willis. In 1851 Willis visited Cornwall and became enamored of the area. On a rugged tract of land, he built a Victorian-Gothic “cottage” designed for the site and altered the landscape to emphasize its ruggedness and beauty; he moved into the house in 1853. While Willis was forced to shut out the hogs people let run wild, he welcomed beauty-lovers: “[T]o shut up a glen, or a waterfall for one man’s exclusive knowing and enjoying … would be an embezzlement by one man of God’s gift to all. A capitalist might as well curtain off a star, or have the monopoly of an hour.” In 1861 the boys at Alfred C. Roe’s boarding school practiced their surveying at Idlewild.
• Lewis Beach. Cornwall. Newburgh, New York: E. M. Ruttenber & Son, 1873; pp. 83-96.
• Janet Dempsey, et al. Cornwall, New York: Images from the Past, 1788-1920. Np: Friends of the Cornwall Public Library, 1988; p. 23.
Fort Stanwix, 1850.1.127-128
New York, New York: contrasted with country, 1860.2.58
life in, 1867.1.155
snow-storm of 5 January 1856, 1856.1.81-83
Letters from, 1855.2.126-127 • 1856.1.81-83 • 1864.2.88a
New York Free Academy, school established in January 1849. Designed to offer a “Collegiate course” to male students over age 13, the school required each student to pass rigorous examinations in writing, geography, elementary bookkeeping, U. S. history, and elementary algebra, among other subjects; students then pursued one of three five-year courses of study. It was literally free: No tuition was charged, and all books and supplies were provided by the school. The Museum gave the readers a detailed and illustrated description of the school in May 1855.
Niagara Falls, 1845.2.375-376
Ogdensburgh, St. Lawrence Hotel: Lippincott’s Pronouncing Gazetteer : “Among the hotels, the St. Lawrence Hotel has a front of 132 feet on State, and 94 feet on Ford Street, and contains, besides public halls, parlors, &c., 86 sleeping apartments.”
• Lippincott’s Pronouncing Gazetteer, ed. J. Thomas and T. Baldwin. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1855.
Rome, Rome Free Academy, incorporated in 1848. In this two-story brick building were a laboratory, a lecture room, and separate study rooms for girls and boys; the school had male, female, and primary departments. In 1850 the Liberty Street School was built.
• Henry J. Cookinham. History of Oneida County, New York. Chicago: S. J. Publishing Co., 1912; vol 1: 371-372.
Salina, 1844.2.63
Syracuse, 1844.2.63
“Nightingale”. See Jenny Lind
North Carolina
Letters from : 1859.1.156b
Wilmington, 1858.1.153a
Wilmington, Sugar-plum Hill, 1859.2.126a
U. S. S. North Carolina, U. S. warship. This wooden sailing ship-of-the-line was built at Philadelphia Navy Yard and launched 7 September 1821. Pierced for 102 guns, she seems to have carried 94. After a lively career in the Mediterranean, she did service in the Pacific squadron until 1839. The North Carolina was a receiving ship in New York harbor until 7 September 1865, when she was decommissioned and sold.
• Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Washington, DC: Navy Department, Naval History Division, 1959 (at HathiTrust Digital Library); vol 4: 592-596.]
• John Robert Godley. Letters from America. London: John Murray, 1844.
Norwood (Henry Ward Beecher), serialized in the New York Ledger before being published in hardcover (New York: Charles Scribner & Co., 1868). A handful of Yankee eccentrics, a couple of love stories, the Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln rub elbows with discussions philosophical and religious.
Robert Strong Oakley (Wilforley’s father; baptized 26 February 1812, New York; died January 1862); husband of Mary Ellen (born c1815, New York) and father of at least eight children, the oldest, William Forrest Oakley. Robert was the president of a bank note company. He died at his home on Washington Ave., Brooklyn, New York, of “fatty degeneration of the heart,” aged 49 years, 11 months.
• M653. 1860 United States Census; reel #767, 272.
• “Records of the South Reformed Dutch Church in Garden Street, in the City of New York,” transcribed Royden Woodward Vosburgh. New York City: np, 1921; p. 2.
• Brooklyn, New York. Certificate of Death; #473.
Ohio
Letters from :
Ashtabula, 1857.2.93b
Brooklyn, 1866.1.59 • 1866.1.155
Cleveland, 1844.2.95
Columbus, 1856.2.93-94
Dayton, 1860.1.60a
East Rockport, 1865.2.27b • 1865.2.120
Marietta, 1851.2.94 • 1852.1.128d
Marion, 1854.1.159
McConnelsville, 1856.1.187-188
Ostrander, 1867.2.61b
St. Clairsville, 1858.1.56a • 1860.1.60-61 • 1863.2.155-156 • 1866.1.62
Tremainsville, 1858.1.31-32
Zebraville, 1861.1.123
Places and events in :
Belmont, fair here, 1858.2.155-156
Columbus, State House opens, 1857.1.93
Marion, Marion Academy, The Marion Academy—the first of its kind in Marion County—opened in 1841 by John J. Williams, with 35 pupils, in the Masonic Hall; a new building was finished in 1844. The Academy focused on fitting its students for college. After free schools opened in Marion, the academy declined; it closed in 1853.
An Old-Fashioned Girl (Louisa May Alcott; Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1869), book serialized in the Museum before being published in hardcover (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1870). Sweet Polly earns the admiration of all with her obliging simplicity and her eagerness not to take on the trappings of adulthood just yet; she embodied the ideal of unsophisticated childhood that Alcott was not alone in promoting at that time.
reaction to, 1869.1.484
“Old Man in the Corner” (in Robert Merry’s Museum), collection of four pieces (1844). Purportedly left in Robert Merry’s office by an old man who looked like Peter Parley, the works include a “scientific” discussion of melancholy, the reminiscences of a cotton rag, a story in which a boy learns not to be lazy, and a tale in which a philosopher’s daughter argues him into believing in God.
E. H. Olds, daguerreotypist. In 1857 he had a “Daguerreotype, Ambrotype & Photographic Picture Gallery” at 8 Eagle Block, Ford St., Ogdensburg, New York; he advertised that he did not “intend to keep any but the best of material nor let any but First Class Pictures go out of his gallery.”
• Ogdensburg directory: James, Hopkins & Foster. Ogdensburgh Business Directory, 1857. (Repr. Ogdensburgh (New York) City Directories. Woodridge, Connecticut: Research Publications, 1980-1984); p. 18.
old woman in the shoe, overburdened mother in a nursery rhyme: “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,/ She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.”
• Iona and Peter Opie, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rymes. Np: Oxford University Press, 1951; rhyme #546
“old woman … tossed up in a blanket,” English nursery rhyme:
There was an old woman toss’d in a blanket,
Seventeen times as high as the moon;
But where she was going no mortal could tell,
For under her arm she carried a broom.
Old woman, old woman, old woman, said I!
Whither, ah whither, ah whither so high?
To sweep the cobwebs from the sky,
And I’ll be with you by and by.
A popular variant substitutes “basket” for “blanket.”
• The Annotated Mother Goose. Ed. William S. Baring-Gould and Ceil Baring-Gould. New York: Clarkson N. Potter Inc., 1962; p. 50.
• Iona and Peter Opie, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rymes. Np: Oxford University Press, 1951; rhyme #545
“P. G. question”/ “p. g. war,” a facetious contest inadvertently launched by Daniel H. Burnham to discover the “prettiest girl” among the subscribers, using photographs the Cousins were sending to each other. In a way, it helped to alleviate the tensions caused by the Civil War.
Paris, France
Letters from : 1848.2.163-166 • 1849.2.158-160 • 1850.1.157-159 • 1851.2.63-64 • 1851.2.92-93 • 1859.2.184
Places in :
Bois de Boulogne, 1849.2.158-160
Garden of Plants, the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, France, a collection of natural history libraries and exhibits founded in 1635. In 1851 it consisted of a botanical garden with greenhouses; galleries with zoological, botanical, and mineralogical exhibits; an animal menagerie; a natural history library; and an amphitheater for free public lectures.
• Galignani’s New Paris Guide for 1851. Paris: A. & W. Galignani & Co., 1851; pp. 469-473.
Tuileries, 1849.2.158-160
Revolution of June 1848, 1848.2.163-166
Republic declared, 1851.2.92-93
Peter Parley: the extremely-popular character created by Samuel G. Goodrich; beginning in 1827, Peter Parley directly addressed young readers in books calculated to educate them about the world and its inhabitants. Children reacted immediately, loving the old man with the gouty foot so much that unscrupulous publishers appropriated Parley for their own works. Frustrated by the flood of counterfeit Parleys, Goodrich actually “killed off” his creation in Peter Parley’s Farewell, a study of metaphysics published in 1840, and announced his death in the Museum in 1841—to the surprise of several readers. Parley was “resurrected” in 1845, when Parley’s Magazine was absorbed by the Museum. He joined “Robert Merry” as a putative editor of the magazine.
1842.1.89-90 • 1842.1.159 • 1843.2.64 • 1844.1.94-95 • 1844.1.126-128 • 1844.2.31-32 • 1845.1.189-190 • 1845.2.223-224 • 1846.1.63 • 1848.2.92 • 1849.1.62-63 • 1849.2.31-32 • 1849.2.63 • 1850.1.127b • 1850.2.30a • 1850.2.62 • 51.1.128 • 1851.2.94 • 1851.2.94-95 • 1851.2.95 • 1852.1.63 • 1852.1.128b • 1853.2.187b • 1856.2.58 • 1859.1.94 • 1859.1.125c • 1868.1.115-116
Books read by subscriber, 1851.1.128b • 1851.1.128c • 1851.2.95
portrait of, 1859.1.94
seen by subscriber, 1851.1.128b
in Buffalo, New York, 1850.2.62
Biography of, 1856.2.58
Peter Parley’s Method of Telling About Geography to Children, 1849.2.158-160
Peter Parley’s Universal History, 1849.2.63
Tales of Peter Parley About America, by Samuel Griswold Goodrich (Boston: Carter, Hendee & Co., 1827), 1844.1.126-128
Parley’s Magazine: periodical (16 March 1833-1844), founded by Samuel G. Goodrich. A precursor to the Museum, Parley’s emphasized non-fiction, poetry, and moral fiction; articles covered geography, biology, astronomy, manufacturing, anthropology, and biography. Though the magazine ceased publication in 1844, its merger with the Museum was not officially announced until August 1845.
1844.1.94-95 • 1858.1.122 • 1865.2.123 • 1866.1.58-59 • 1868.1.115-116
“Art of Pen Making” (article) 1842.1.89-90
the parlor, the imaginary room in which the Merry Cousins “met” each month. Hiram Hatchet first used the image in 1854, when he took over the Chat and greeted readers as if they were all together in a room, each waiting to speak; in later columns, references were made to furnishings and Cousins began to offer each other seats: “Commodore, there is an empty chair on this side of the room, if you are not too bashful to sit among the girls,” Sallie offered in 1858. (1858.1.127)
image of Cousins in, 1861.2.23-24
parody
of endless story, 1850.2.32
of illiterate letter-writer, 1849.2.61
of The Song of Hiawatha, 1856.1.189-190
party, in Ogdensburg, New York, hosted by George Parish’s mistress, Madame Maria Helena Amerigo Vespucci (died 1866), who left the town soon afterward. Refreshments included oranges and bananas—exotic treats for the party-goers. The party was one of the most memorable events in 19th-century Ogdensburg.
11 June, 1859.2.61
• St. Lawrence Republican. 14 June 1859.
• Gouverneur, New York. City Clerk’s Office. Return of Town Clerk: Births in the Town of Gouverneur … 1850.
Passe L’Outre, on the Mississippi River. The U. S. S. Winona cruised near it in March 1862.
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 1, vol 18: 817.
U. S. S. Patapsco, single-turret wood and iron monitor built in 1862. She was sunk by a torpedo off Charleston, South Carolina, on 16 January 1865.
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 2, vol 1: 171.
Pelopidas, Theban general. After a Spartan oligarchy was established at Thebes, he disguised himself and 11 men, not as women, but as hunters, in order to get into the city and kill the tyrants.
• J. Lempriere. Bibliotheca Classica, 7th American ed. New York: Collins & Hannay, 1832.
• Charles Anton. A Classical Dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856.
Pennsylvania: invaded by Confederacy, 1863.2.59. Letters from :
Easton, 1856.2.61-62
Harrisburg, 1863.2.59
Lewistown, 1845.2.319
Philadelphia, 1845.1.31b
Smithfield, 1848.2.93-94
Somerset, 1849.2.94a
Places in :
Delaware Water Gap, 1848.2.93-94
Wyoming Valley, 1846.1.60-61 • 1846.2.123-124
periodicals: agent sells, 1845.2.286-287 • 1848.2.31
compared with Museum, 1868.1.115-116
edited at Harvard College, 1854.2.375
literary, proposed, 1860.2.88
periodicals merging with Museum, 1857.2.183a
read by family:
in Norwalk, Connecticut, 1859.1.124
in Bayou Sara, Louisiana, 1855.2.90b
in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1855.1.92
read by older sister, 1852.2.93-94
read by subscriber: 1868.1.115-116
in Union Square, 1856.1.122-123
in Chicago, Illinois, 1858.1.122
rival to Museum, criticized, 1856.1.60b
subject of quarrel, 1852.1.63
See also Godey’s Lady’s Book • Graham’s Magazine • “Home Casket” • Ladies’ Garland • Little Pilgrim • Mentor • Mother’s Magazine • Parley’s Magazine • Robert Merry’s Museum • Saturday Courier • Schoolfellow • Spiritual Telegraph • True Southern • Woodworth’s Youth’s Cabinet
“The Pet Chicken” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; December 1856), the story of how a boy profits from his care of an injured hen. The “slander” mentioned by Willie Phelps may refer to what is said about why the injured chicken is abandoned by the others: “Chickens do not show much affection for each other, and never seem to care much if one of their companions is hurt; they probably do not know any better.”
pets, 1856.2.30 • 1857.2.157b
on farm, 1865.2.121. See, cat • canary • chicken • kitten • lamb • pony
photographs exchanged, 1861.1.184 • 1861.2.58a • 1861.2.92 • 1861.2.182 • 1862.1.123 • 1862.1.124 • 1862.1.153a • 1862.2.28 • 1863.2.155-156 • 1863.2.182 • 1865.1.88-89 • 1865.1.121-122 • 1867.2.58-59
plantation life, Louisiana
East Feliciana, “Asphodel,” 1851.1.93
Parish of Point Coupee, “Hermitage,” 1851.1.32a
Jefferson Parish, “Pasture Plantation,” 1849.2.63
“Plea for Cats” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; May 1856), by “Pansy” (Frances Adeline Seward), a piece asking readers not to break their pets’ trust by treating them harshly.
poetry
bad parodied, 1860.2.89-90
Christmas, 1855.1.58-59 • 1855.1.91-92
for Jenny Lind • 1850.2.128
Latin, 1854.2.375
letter in form of, 1865.2.27a
parody of The Song of Hiawatha, 1856.1.189-190
requesting stories for young readers, 1849.1.127-128
sent as payment for the Museum, 1849.1.152-153
Subjects of, see briefness of life • the Chat • cold • death • editors • eye-color • friendship • girl, ideal • kitten • Kriss Kringle • lark • love • Maine • Rober Merry • Merry Cousins • Merry Cousins—William F. Oakley • Ontonagon, Lake Superior • presidential election • rabbit • Robert Merry’s Museum • Santa Claus • sewing machine • spring • star • winter
politics. See presidential election
pony: 1852.1.128c • 1854.1.95b • 1859.1.92
sold to buy Museum, 1859.2.155-156
Chickasaw, 1854.1.126-127
postal system: 1858.1.91-92
Southern, after Civil War, 1865.2.156
mail carried by Native Americans, Ontonagon, Lake Superior, 1860.1.187a
Post-Office Bill: A statute titled “An act to reduce the rates of postage,” dated 3 Mar 1845 in part reduced postage to five cents for a single letter sent under 300 miles and to 10 cents for a letter sent over 300 miles.
• The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from the Organization of the Government in 1789, to March 3, 1845, ed. Richard Peters. Boston: Charles C. Little & James Brown, 1846; vol 5: 732-739.
U. S. S. Potomac, Union wooden sailing frigate launched in 1822 and commissioned in Aug 1861. Built by the U. S. Government, she was 1,708 tons.
Letter from, 1862.1.187-188
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 2, vol 1: 182-183.
presidential election, 1855.2.157-158 • 1856.1.29 • 1856.2.121 • 1856.2.122-123 • 1856.2.123
subject of poem, 1848.2.63
Pride of China or China tree, according to Mathews, also called the “pride of India, the China tree” (Melia azedarach ), the chinaberry or bead tree. This deciduous tree, native to Asia, also grows in the tropics and the subtropics.
• Mitford M. Mathews, ed. A Dictionary of Americanisms On Historical Principles. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
That Problem: appeared in February 1855. It seems simple enough: x2 + y2 = 8 (x = 2 and y = 2). The difficulty, however, lies in proving the equation; for months the Chat contained proof after proof—all pooh-poohed by the Museum’s readers. By the time “that problem” was solved, the tone of the Chat had changed, and the column had been taken over by its readers. Reprinting the puzzle in Merry’s Book of Puzzles, the editor noted dryly, “If any choose to work this out algebraicially, it will be found to be no trifling puzzle. See Merry’s Museum for 1856.” (Those interested in the solutions should also see the following in copies of the magazine: 1855.2.95-96, 1855.2.124-125, 1855.2.153-155, 1855.2.185, 1856.1.56-58, 1856.1.90, 1856.1.124-125, 1856.1.189) In 2002, Matthew McIrvin pointed out that probably subscribers had difficulty solving the equation because there are at least two solutions.
1855.2.60b • 1855.2.125a • 1855.2.157-158 • 1856.1.29 • 1856.1.187-188 • 1856.1.189-190
Pukkwana, title character in “Pukkwana,” by Susanna Newbould (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; April 1858). When a white farmer helps save the life of a Native American woman’s son, years later she returns the favor.
pun
Bible, 1862.1.26-27
on cat, 1859.1.61
on Sherman’s march through Georgia, 1865.1.59a
on Joan of Arc, 1867.2.60b
on temperance, 1867.2.60a
puss-in-the-corner, game which usually involves at least five players and a lot of running: one player stands in each corner of a room, with one player—the “puss”—in the center. At a signal, the corner players switch corners, while “puss” tries to get into a corner first.
• Lydia Maria Child. The Girl’s Own Book. New York: Clark, Austin & Co., 1833. (Repr. Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Applewood Books, 1992); p. 28.
“Queens”: candidates for the “pretty girl” contest inadvertently sparked when subscriber Daniel H. Burnham asked, “Will the best-looking cousin in the Chat favor me with his or her carte?” (1862.2.28) The candidates included Fleta Forrester and Winifred.
1864.2.88-89 • 1865.1.25-26 • 1865.1.26 • 1865.1.27 • 1865.1.60 • 1865.1.157
See also “p. g. contest”
raft, Red River, a massive collection of fallen trees accumulated on the Red River and was dismantled in the 1830s by Captain Henry Miller Shreve; “The great raft on Red river extended twenty miles,” Bartlett wrote in 1848, “and required an immense outlay of money to remove it.”
• John Russell Bartlett. Dictionary of Americanisms. New York: Bartlett and Welford, 1848.
railroad: etiquette, 1863.2.155
travel, 1855.2.90a
Geographical locations :
Georgia, 1850.1.127b
Moline, Illinois, 1857.2.157a
Wabash Valley, Delphi, Indiana, 1854.1.31b
Springfield, Massachusetts, 1844.1.126-128
Detroit, Michigan, 1850.1.159
Oswego, New York, 1849.2.187b • 1850.2.62
Lines :
Central Ohio, 1860.1.123b
Lynchburg & Tennessee, 1851.1.32b
Rutland & Washington, 1852.2.32
Wabash Valley, 1854.1.31b
Robert Rambler (pseudonym), an alias with several possibilities: “Robert Ramble” was the pseudonym of John Frost (1800-1859), American educator and compiler; “Rambles of Richard Rover” appeared in Parley’s Magazine, founded by Samuel Goodrich, in 1836.
reading, 1844.1.30-31
anecdote of, 1867.2.60b
five-year-old’s, 1862.1.88-89
purpose of, 1852.1.63
subscriber enjoys, 1856.1.186-187 • 1861.1.91b
subscriber reads Homer, 1858.1.186-187
See also books
Recollections of a Lifetime (Samuel G. Goodrich), published in 1856 (New York: Miller, Orton, and Mulligan). At two volumes of over 500 pages each, it was hardly appealing to children; an abridged version for children, Peter Parley’s Own Story (New York: Sheldon and Company), was published in 1864.
“Reconstruction,” Southerner’s parody of, 1865.2.156
unabashed Southerner faces outraged Northerner,
Tennessean, 1865.1.121-122
Cousin Jennie, 1865.2.27b
Tennessean, 1865.2.88
Cousin Jennie, 1865.2.120, & reaction, 1865.2.155
Tennessean, 1865.2.156
Cousin Jennie, 1866.1.59, & reaction, 1866.1.61
Tennessean, 1866.1.90-91
Cousin Jennie, 1866.1.155
recreation, 1849.1.61-62 • 1849.1.159 • 1849.2.94a • 1853.1.35-36 • 1854.1.95b
evening: 1849.1.123-124 • 1849.2.94-95 • 1855.2.123 • 1856.1.60a • 1857.1.90 • 1859.1.61
in Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1854.1.95b
in Brooklyn, New York, 1854.2.376
female, 1863.1.58-59
outdoor, 1852.1.192
in New York, 1856.1.31
See also chestnutting
Geographical locations :
Georgia, 1846.1.29-30
Evanston, Illinois, 1856.2.125
on steamboat, Red River, 1845.2.221-222
Paris, France, Tuilerie Gardens, 1851.2.63-64 • 1851.2.92-93
Seasonal :
spring, Boston Common, Boston, Massachusetts, 1856.1.187
summer: 1842.1.89-90 • 1844.1.126-128 • 1845.1.187 • 1846.1.59-60 • 1849.1.63 • 1850.1.188-189 • 1857.2.185 • 1864.1.188
winter, 1845.1.31a • 1846.1.160 • 1846.1.189-190 • 1846.1.59-60 • 1846.2.31 • 1849.1.123-124 • 1849.1.61-62 • 1849.2.124-125 • 1850.1.63-64 • 1852.1.64a • 1855.2.123 • 1856.1.60a • 1856.1.60c • 1859.1.123-124 • 1860.2.89-90 • 1861.1.57 • 1864.1.188 • 1864.2.157b • 1865.1.60
Connecticut, 1856.1.90-91
Detroit, Michigan, 1852.1.94
Wentworth, New Hampshire, 1864.1.60
Cornwall, New York, 1855.1.29
See also horseback riding • swimming
Richmond, Virginia
Letters from, 1851.1.128b • 1865.1.187b • 1867.1.93
Occupied by Union forces on 3 April 1865; 1865.1.153
Robert Merry’s Museum, 1856.2.58
Anecdote of, 1842.2.63
lateness of subject of poem, 1857.1.28
mailing of: 1843.1.184 • 1844.1.30-31 • 1845.2.223-224 • 1848.2.159 • 1850.2.188a • 1857.2.156a • 1858.1.91-92 • 1858.1.155 • 1858.2.155-156 • 1866.1.58-59 • 1866.1.62
South after Civil War, 1865.2.88
to Union sailor, 1862.1.157 • 1865.1.88-89
mergers, 1857.2.183a
with Cabinet, subject of poem, 1857.1.154-155
new ownership, reaction to, 1866.1.155
raises price, 1863.2.155-156
subject of poem, 1842.1.124 • 1844.1.94-95 • 1849.1.152-153 • 1860.1.60a • 1868.1.164-165
Physical magazine :
bound by subscriber, 1843.1.184 • 1844.1.125-126 • 1846.1.160 • 1855.1.89a • 1859.2.157
described, 1845.2.223-224
illustrations, 1858.1.122-123
used as art models, 1852.1.125
Office of :
burns, 1860.1.155 • 1861.1.153-154 • 1861.1.155-156 • 1861.1.184 • 1861.2.23
described, 1858.1.122-123
distributes medical supplies, 1862.2.122-123
letters exchanged through, 1862.1.187-188
provides addresses for exchange of letters, 1863.2.182 • 1865.1.94 • 1867.2.92b
subscriber visits, 1857.1.62-63 • 1858.1.56b • 1858.1.59 • 1858.1.122-123 • 1864.2.88a • 1865.2.184-185
Magazine’s meaning to and use by subscribers :
as education aid, 1868.1.419
credited for subscriber’s reading skill, 1853.2.187a
credited with “saving” subscriber, 1872.2.November cover
illustrations used as art models, 1852.1.125
meaning to reader, 1863.2.155-156 • 1865.2.123 • 1868.1.115-116 • 1870.2.100 • 1872.1.52
place among juvenile magazines, 1868.1.115-116
sparks subscriber’s interest in school, 1851.2.160
story re-enacted by subscriber, 1856.2.61-62
subscriber defends physically, 1852.1.63
quarrelling in, 1856.2.157 • 1857.1.29-30
Subscribers to : 1848.2.160 • 1849.1.64 • 1849.2.62-63 • 1852.1.127b • 1852.1.160
in England, 1851.1.64
in Texas, 1857.2.184-185
See also the Merry Cousins
adult who took as child now takes for own children, 1863.2.155-156 • 1865.1.155a • 1866.1.61 • 1870.2.100
readers: adults, 1854.2.347-348 • 1872.1.294 • 1872.2.November cover
reading pattern of, 1846.1.59-60 • 1851.1.128a • 1852.1.126b • 1852.1.126c • 1852.2.126c • 1854.1.95b • 1855.1.87-88 • 1855.1.90 • 1855.1.188c • 1856.1.60c • 1856.1.88 • 1856.1.90 • 1857.2.93c • 1856.2.123, 1862.1.88-89 • 1866.1.123 • 1868.1.419 • 1872.1.52
read by family:
cousin, 1849.2.31
parents and siblings, 1860.2.90
sibling: 1850.1.127b • 1851.1.64 • 1855.2.28b
younger, 1849.2.30-31 • 1852.2.126c
brother, 1843.2.64 • 1849.1.63 • 1849.1.153-154 • 1849.2.124-125 • 1851.2.95 • 1852.1.125 • 1856.2.186
sister, 1845.1.188-189 • 1846.1.190b • 1851.1.96b
younger, 1843.1.184 • 1845.2.223-224 • 1849.1.62-63, 1849.1.152-153 • 1850.2.62 • 1852.1.128a • 1853.2.31 • 1854.2.348 • 1855.1.90
read in military camp, 1862.1.124
read in school, 1856.2.61-62
read to subscriber, 1852.2.126c
subscriber loans to others, 1852.1.64a
subscriber reads to others, 1850.2.31
to mother, 1846.1.29-30
to younger brother, 1849.2.63 • 1852.1.126b
will read to younger sister, 1853.1.162
Subscribing to :
process described, 1865.2.184-185
agent sells, 1845.2.286-287 • 1849.2.94a • 1850.1.127-128 • 1861.2.58b
subscribed to after fight, 1852.1.63
as replacement for disappointing magazine, 1853.1.99b
library takes, 1853.1.131.
school has subscription, 1853.2.187a • 1856.2.61-62 • 1866.1.123
subscription shared, 1869.1.196
father takes, 1860.2.155
sibling takes, 1850.1.63-64 • 1853.1.98a
sibling relinquishes, 1852.1.128d • 1852.1.192 • 1852.2.93-94 • 1853.1.99a • 1855.1.58-59 • 1858.1.122
Subscription is gift: 1846.1.29-30 • 1846.2.31 • 1848.2.159 • 1850.2.30a • 1854.2.347-348 • 1865.2.184-185
Christmas gift, 1859.1.93-94
New Year’s gift, 1853.2.127c
from aunt, 1859.1.125a
from father, 1851.1.190
Of relative:
aunt, 1859.2.92-93
brother, 1859.1.124
father, 1849.1.159 • 1851.1.64
in place of Jenny Lind ticket, 1851.2.94
New Year’s gift, 1851.1.190
grandfather, 1872.1.243-244
grandmother, 1848.2.93-94
uncle, 1852.1.126b
Of Robert Merry, 1848.2.93-94
To poor reader, 1872.1.244
to relative, 1844.1.124 • 1845.2.222
to sibling, 1860.1.123a
Subscriber pays for:
earns, 1850.2.159 • 1851.1.128a
by giving up coffee and tea, 1848.2.94 • 1859.1.93b • 1860.2.60b
by learning song, 1858.1.125b
by writing letter, 1850.1.127b • 1850.2.186
earns money for, 1841.2.127 • 1844.1.94-95 • 51.1.158b • 1853.1.99a • 1853.2.127a • 1854.2.252 • 1855.1.89a • 1855.1.89b • 1855.1.123b • 1859.1.125b • 1869.1.196 • 1872.2.November cover
by selling pony, 1859.2.155-156
by speaking, 1860.2.60b
earns prize money for, 1857.2.60
gets money for from Union officer, 1868.1.166
pays for with poems, 1849.1.152-153
raises chickens to earn, 1868.1.419
saves for, 1848.2.94
sells pet for, 1858.1.92a
trades dahlia bulbs for, 51.1.158b
tries to win, 1854.2.348
Subscriber receives money for, 1851.1.158a
as birthday gift, 1855.2.94a
as gift, 1858.1.188
as Christmas gift, 1852.1.128d • 1853.1.66 • 1853.2.31 • 1859.2.155-156
as New Year’s gift, 1853.2.31
from father, 1858.1.92b
Rumor that magazine will fail, 1855.2.125a
Frontispiece for 1844, 1844.1.125-126
Cover for 1845, 1845.2.223-224
Subscription price for 1852, 1852.1.64a
Woodcuts reused, 1856.2.58
Cover for 1859, 1859.1.61
Alfred C. Roe (born 1823), American educator and clergyman. Educated in Cornwall, he had a school here before buying a larger building and establishing the Cornwall Collegiate School. In autumn 1863, Roe was ordained by the Presbytery of North River; he closed the school soon after and became a chaplain in the Union army. After the Civil War, he did mission work in New York and Massachusetts. In 1877, Roe returned to Cornwall and established a school for young ladies.
• E. M. Ruttenber and L. H. Clark, comp. History of Orange County, New York. Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1881. (Repr. Interlaken, New York: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1980); vol 2: 765-766.
sailor, Union, 1863.2.90
requests letters, 1862.1.187-188
See also Merry Cousins—Jasper • Merry Cousins—Osceola • Merry Cousins—Tommy
Sanitary Fair, in Brooklyn, New York: Organized to raise money for the Sanitary Commission, the Fair opened on George Washington’s birthday and featured tableaux and exhibits honoring the spirit of 1776. Among these was the New England Kitchen, which served such “New England delicacies” as crackers, doughnuts, pies, pickles, apple-sauce, cider, and pork and beans. Paintings, engravings, and mechanical devices were exhibited in several buildings, along with a 336-pound bale of Sea-Island cotton, “the product of free labor”; and a bazaar offered “more than 10,000 sofa-cushions” and, probably, “a pin-cushion for every pin in the city.” Susanna Newbould took part in the Fair, appropriately enough in the “Post-Office”—“where any body can find as many letters as he desires—postage not paid.”
• Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1864.1.122.
• “Brooklyn Sanitary Fair.” Harper’s Weekly, 8 (5 March 1864): 152-158.
Santa Claus: 1855.1.59 • 1856.1.90-91 • 1860.1.29 • 1861.1.56a
“author” of poem, 1855.1.58-59
“author” of poem, 1855.1.91-92
Robert Merry supposed to look like, 1855.1.122b
Saturday Courier: Perhaps the Philadelphia Saturday Courier (1831-?), a popular weekly newspaper offering its readers stories and poems—most copied from other periodicals; one contributor of original material was Edgar Allan Poe.
• Mary Noel. Villains Galore. New York: Macmillan Company, 1954.
Scaghticoke, a village in Connecticut established either by a Paugusett in 1730, or by Potatuck hunting groups previously. Native Americans of various groups came to live there; by 1744, some lived near the Housatonic River, while others lived on 2,000 acres in the mountains. The number of people and amount of land they controlled dwindled drastically in the face of white encroachment.
• Bruce G. Trigger, ed. Northeast. Handbook of North American Indians. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978.
school
anecdote of, 1867.2.60a • 1867.2.61b
classical, 1849.2.94a
discipline in, 1851.2.160
exhibition, speaking at, 1860.2.60b
singing, in Zumbrota, Minnesota, 1858.1.59
subscriber enjoys, 1861.1.91b
See also academy • boarding school • education
Schoolfellow, magazine published in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1849; it was absorbed by the Museum in 1857. †*†’s letter is the earliest indication that the merger took place; the Museum’s title did not expand to read Merry’s Museum, Parley’s Magazine, Woodworth’s Cabinet and the Schoolfellow until 1859.
1857.2.183a • 1859.1.93b • 1859.1.125b • 1859.1.156a • 1859.2.157
“Secessia,” in Mathews: “The land of the secessionists or the Souther Confederacy.” The earliest use is dated 1861.
• Mitford M. Mathews, ed. A Dictionary of Americanisms On Historical Principles. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
secession, 1861.1.90-91 • 1861.1.156 (note) • 1861.2.23
Southern subscribers asked about, 1861.1.56-57
Southerner answers about, 1861.1.90
Southerner leaves Chat, 1862.1.27a
reaction to, Northern subscribers, 1861.1.184 • 1861.2.119-120 • 1861.2.155-156 • 1861.2.182 • 1862.1.58 • 1862.1.123
sailor will seek out Confederate subscriber, 1862.2.59
winter as metaphor for, 1865.1.121-122
sectionalism, 1858.2.59c. East-West: 1858.2.60a • 1858.2.125 • 1859.2.92 • 1860.1.123a
North-South: 1856.2.27-28 • 1860.1.123a • 1860.1.186-187 • 1860.2.27 • 1861.2.25
battle of the sexes and, 1859.2.60-61
retracted, 1859.2.185b
deplored, 1858.1.61
horseback riding and, 1858.1.126b
in Congress, 1858.1.61
in pen names, 1858.1.25
Northerner: 1854.2.252 • 1858.1.126a • 1858.2.60a • 1860.2.59 • 1860.2.89-90
on “exclusiveness” of Southern readers, 1860.2.122-123
on ideal Southern wife, 1859.1.123-124
reaction to, 1856.2.93-94 • 1860.2.122-123
to Hawthorne, 1860.2.155-156
to post-War Southerners, 1865.1.157
Southerner: 1849.1.160 • 1850.1.127b • 1851.1.127a • 1852.2.159 • 1854.1.94 • 1857.1.59-60 • 1857.2.155-156 • 1857.2.184-185 • 1858.1.58 • 1858.2.59b • 1858.2.93 • 1859.1.93a • 1861.1.89-90 • 1861.1.156
reaction to, 1860.1.186
claims Southerners don’t write, 1860.1.60b
Hawthorn on Southern girls, 1860.1.186-187
post-War Southerner is not a rebel, 1865.1.122a
Southerner on North, 1860.1.186-187
Southerner’s closing, 1858.1.57
Westerner on, 1860.2.27
Use of term “Yankee,” 1848.2.159 • 1849.1.95 • 1850.1.127-128 • 1851.2.94 • 1852.1.160 • 1852.1.63 • 1854.1.94 • 1855.1.89a • 1855.2.29c • 1858.1.29 • 1858.1.57 • 1858.2.28 • 1859.1.125c • 1861.1.56b • 1862.2.59 • 1863.1.121 • 1867.1.93
“The Sewing-Machine”, by Somebody’s Daughter, a poem probably inspired by “The Sewing-Machine” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; December 1857), which praised the machine for freeing women from the toil of hand sewing for families.
William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891), U. S. soldier. A graduate of West Point, he was superintendent of the military college which would become Louisiana State University, leaving when Louisiana seceded from the Union in 1861. Sherman’s career during the Civil War included command at Bull Run and a prominent part in the battle of Shiloh. After Atlanta, Georgia, was taken by Union troops on 2 September 1864, Sherman’s headquarters here was a house formerly occupied by subscriber Louisa J. Neal. (Though her father repurchased the house after the War, the family never lived there again.) In November Grant’s forces started the controversial—but effective—march through Georgia. In early 1865 his forces marched north through the Carolinas;
1864.2.158 • 1865.1.26 • 1865.1.59a, 1865.1.122b
March through Georgia, subject of pun, 1865.1.59a
• Franklin M. Garrett. Atlanta and Environs. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., Inc., 1954; vol 1: 127, 572. vol 2: 127, 638-639.
“Siamese twins”, see Chang and Eng
“The Siberian Sable-Hunter” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1841-1842), a 14-part series . The son and daughter of a Russian exiled to Siberia work hard and succeed because of their goodness and patience. The story includes education on matters geographical and moral, punctuated by hair-breadth escapes.
1842.1.159 • 1843.1.184 • 1843.2.64 • 1848.2.125 • 1849.2.63 • 1851.1.94 • 1870.2.100
sibling of subscriber
brother: older satirized, 1855.1.58-59
younger, 1849.2.30-31 • 1856.1.186-187 • 1858.2.127 • 1860.2.155-156
sister: 1849.2.30-31
younger, 1842.2.63 • 1849.1.62-63 • 1852.1.128a • 1859.1.125b • 1860.2.155
Sigma: name taken by two correspondents in the Chat. The first was female; see Merry Cousins—Fleta Forrester. The second was male; see Merry Cousins—C. M. E.
skating, 1859.1.123-124 • 1860.2.89-90 • 1861.2.58a • 1864.1.188 • 1864.2.157b
as healthy exercise, 1862.1.88-89
in Wentworth, New Hampshire, 1864.1.60
“Skating—Woman’s Rights” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; January 1857), poem by Hiram Hatchet. Six times he asks, “Why may not a woman skate?” and answers that there is no reason; skating is good exercise that strengthens the ankles and is “right good fun”.
sleighing, 1846.1.160 • 1852.1.64a • 1859.1.62 • 1859.1.93c • 1859.1.154-155 • 1860.2.89-90 • 1861.1.57 • 1862.1.155a
in Brooklyn, 1852.1.190
in New York, New York, 1856.1.81-83
Mike Smiley, title character in “Mike Smiley”, a six-part serial by William Cutter (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1857-1858). Observing the misery around him as a result of alcohol, Mike—and the reader—learn that hard work, temperance, and perseverance are the key to success.
Richard M. Smith (born c1819): school teacher. In 1850 he was the husband of Elen H. and the father of Rebecca D. and William W. S. In 1850 Smith may have owned a school in Warrenton, Virginia; he is listed as owning real estate worth $17,000. At this time the school employed three other teachers and had sixteen students ranging in age from 12 to 23.
• M432. 1850 United States Census. reel #943: 262.
Captain J. Smoker (of Bois d’Arc ), master of the Bois d’Arc in 1844.
• Advertisements of Lower Mississippi River Steamboats, 1812-1920, comp. Leonard V. Huber. West Barrington, Rhode Island: The Steamship Historical Society of America, 1959; p. 11.
Francis M. Snow (Frank Snow’s cousin; born 2 March 1829; died 28 September 1861, Buffalo, New York); married 1856, Julia F. Miller (born 4 July 1832, New York, Buffalo; died 16 March 1911, Buffalo, New York); their son was Francis Albert. Frank was a dealer in dry goods by 1854. He died of typhoid.
• George Burwell Snow, comp. The Richard Snow Family. Np: np, 1923; p. 293.
soldier
asks for letters from subscribers, 1863.1.59
attitude toward, 1862.1.24 • 1862.1.26-27 • 1862.1.187
camp life, 1861.2.154
child of, Museum as gift to, 1865.2.184-185
illness of, 1863.2.91
in anecdote, 1865.2.25
life of, 1863.2.124
mustering out, 1865.2.58c
picnic given to, 1863.2.89-90
relative, 1862.1.24
death of, 1862.1.155-156
Union, description of, 1863.2.89-90
Union, see also Merry Cousins—Henry A. Danker • Merry Cousins—Adelbert Older • Merry Cousins—Oliver Onley
The Song of Hiawatha (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), poem published in 1855. Like many readers, the Merry Cousins found the poem’s rhythm a good vehicle for parodies.
parody of, 1856.1.189-190
reaction to, 1856.2.26-27
“The Song of the Snow-Bird” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; January 1858), accompaniment by S. N. (perhaps Susanna Newbould), words and air by Francis C. Woodworth. A chickadee sings merrily despite the cold, for God has given it what it needs to stay warm. The song had already appeared twice in Woodworth’s Youth’s Cabinet.
U. S. S. Sonoma, Union wooden steamship launched 15 April 1862 and commissioned 28 Sept 1863 for the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. She was 233 feet long, with a depth of 12 feet; with her single engine and two boilers, the Sonoma was capable of a maximum speed of 11 knots and an average of 9 knots. In February 1865, she was sent to South Carolina as part of an expeditionary force “against the rear of Charleston”. After the fall of Richmond, Virginia, on 3 April 1865, the Sonoma was ordered to Ft. Sumter, South Carolina, for the raising of the Union flag over the fort by Major-General Robert Anderson on the fourth anniversary of his surrender of that fort.
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 2, vol 1: 210; series 1, vol 15: 9, 254; series 1, vol 16: 239, 315.
South after Civil War
description of, 1867.1.155-156
postal service, 1865.2.88
Southern family reduced to poverty by Civil War, 1868.1.419
South-Western (steamboat), 202-ton sidewheel steamship built in New Albany, Indiana, in 1839. Until 1844, she regularly made trips from New Orleans to Natchitoches and Alexandria; she was abandoned or dismantled in 1852.
• William M. Lytle, comp. Merchant Steam Vessels of the United States. Mystic, Connecticut: The Steamship Historical Society of America, 1952; p. 177.
• Advertisements of Lower Mississippi River Steamboats, 1812-1920, comp. Leonard V. Huber. West Barrington, Rhode Island: The Steamship Historical Society of America, 1959; p. 62.
speech pattern
English through a stuffed nose, 1862.1.155b
of African-American, 1853.1.130-131 • 1857.1.29-30
parodied, 1848.2.63
of baby, 1865.1.59b
of farmer in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 1849.2.127
of illiterate, parodied, 1849.2.61
of “lady,” 1861.1.153-154 • 1861.1.184 • 1861.2.58a
of members of Congress, 1844.1.31
Regional :
Spiritual Telegraph (1852-1860?), a weekly magazine on the subject of spiritualism edited by S. B. Brittan and Charles Partridge.
• Frank Podmore. Mediums of the 19th Century. New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, Inc., 1963; vol i: 204.
spring (season), 1851.2.95-96 • 1855.1.123b
in East Windsor Hill, Connecticut, 1858.1.186-187
See also, weather
“The Squirrel” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; December 1841), a celebration of the fact that every living thing is adapted to its environment and of squirrels themselves: “[H]ow pleasing, as an object of mere beauty, is the squirrel! How graceful his form—how cheerful his aspect—how seemingly happy his existence!” An illustration of a squirrel, used as frontispiece when subscribers’ issues were bound, was included in this issue.
steamship
taken by emigrants to California, 1849.2.29-30
burns coal, 1855.2.126
Travel in, 1843.2.64 • 1855.2.90a
on Arkansas River, 1857.2.156-157 • 1858.1.153c
on Chatahoochee River, 1848.2.159
on Mississippi River, 1849.2.94b
on Red River, 1845.2.221-222
Geographical locations :
See also Bois d’Arc • Europa • Maid of Kentucky • Sonoma • South-Western
Charles A. Stetson (1810-1888), hotel-keeper of the Astor House from 1837 to 1868. Stetson was known for generosity: during the Civil War he gave the stewards of the hospitals free run of the kitchen and kept open house for Union soldiers.
• Matthew Hale Smith. Sunshine and Shadow in New York. Hartford, Connecticut: J. B. Burr & Co., 1869; pp. 313-314.
Stone’s River, battle of, fought at Stone’s River, Murfreesborough, Tennessee (31 December 1862-3 January 1863). Union losses included 1,730 killed.
• Frederick H. Dyer. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959.
story
endless, parody of, 1850.2.32
of Tom Titmouse, parody of, 1850.2.32
serialized, reader requests, 1849.1.64
Subjects of, see bubble • chickens • death • dog • drop of water • Echo • geranium • gossip • hermit of Niagara Falls • mirror • philosophers, Greek • pin • snow-flake
“Story of Philip Brusque” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1841-1842): Poorly educated Philip doesn’t believe in government; but after a shipwreck he learns the value and weaknesses of several forms of government. The story was reprinted as A Home in the Sea; or, The Adventures of Philip Brusque (Philadelphia: Sorin & Ball, 1845).
John Henry Stringfellow, (1819-1905), doctor and politician. He settled in Kansas as one of the proslavery forces, editing the Squatter Sovereign in 1855. That year he also was elected to the territorial House in Kansas, elected Speaker by his colleagues. When the Civil War broke out, Stringfellow was living in Virginia; not unsurprisingly, he served in the Confederate army.
• Charles F. Ritter, et al. American Legislative Leaders, 1850-1910. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989.
sugar
in anecdote of child, 1865.2.91a
making, in Louisiana, 1844.2.31-32
maple, 1858.2.28
making, 1865.1.91-92
in New Hampshire, 1855.1.188c
summer, 1867.2.58-59
recreation, 1857.2.185 • 1864.1.188
Long Island Sound, 1867.2.59
See also, weather
sun, riddle about. See riddle
Sunday school
anecdote of, 1860.1.155
attendance, 1867.2.62
festival, Ogdensburg, New York, 1858.1.60
picnic, Chicago, Illinois, 1856.2.125
“Sunshine,” by H. H. (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; March 1856), one of three sets of lyrics (another is “Voices”) which can be sung to the same tune. All is sunshine when one’s lips speak kindness and one’s heart is full of love.
teacher, 1863.2.92 • 1864.2.157a
in anecdote, 1867.2.60a
Northern, introduces Christmas tree in Marksville, Louisiana, 1854.1.60b
recreates with students, 1854.1.95b
subscriber as, 1867.2.29-30 • 1867.2.61b
U. S. S. Tecumseh, single-turret wood and iron monitor launched in 1863. At 7:40 a.m. on 5 August 1865 it was struck by a torpedo in Mobile Bay, Alabama, and sank in 30 seconds: “A few of her crew were observed to leap wildly from her turret; for an instant her screw was seen revolving in air—and then there was nothing left to show that the Tecumseh had ever formed one of that proud Union fleet but a small boat washed from her deck, and a number of half-drowned men struggling fiercely for life in the seething waters which had closed over their vessel forever.”
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 2, vol 1: 220-221.
• Commodore Foxhall A. Parker. The Battle of Mobile Bay. Boston: A. Williams & Co., 1878; pp. 89, 26
teenage years
appropriate female behavior, 1861.2.120-121
characteristics of, 1859.1.60 • 1860.2.89-90
male, 1860.2.90
temperance, 1844.1.126-128 • 1856.2.30 • 1867.2.91
Cadets of Temperance, subscriber a member of, 1849.2.94a
society, subscriber establishes, 1865.1.122b
Tennessee
Letters from : 1852.2.93-94 • 1857.1.59-60 • 1857.1.119 • 1857.2.155-156 • 1858.1.57 • 1859.1.93a • 1866.1.90-91
Charleston, 1856.1.188
Maclura, 1860.1.123a
Memphis, 1849.2.94b • 1850.1.63-64 • 1852.1.128a • 1854.1.94 • 1855.1.58-59 • 1856.1.186-187 • 1860.2.157 • 1861.1.56b • 1861.2.25
Murfreesboro, 1852.1.125 • 1852.1.126c • 1855.1.92 • 1856.1.60b • 1865.1.121-122 • 1865.2.88
Nashville, 1865.1.122a
Places in : West Tennessee College, Jackson, 1850.1.63-64
Texas
Letters from : 1859.2.60
Corpus Christi, 1854.1.126-127
Texana, 1857.2.184-185 • 1858.1.61
Places in :
Alamo, Fort Martin Scott, Fort Mason, Fort Merrill, 1854.1.126-127
Greenwood, 1845.2.221-222
Mission Conception, Nuestra Señora de la Purisima Concepcion de Acuna, established in 1731 and famous for its frescoes.
Port Caddo, Shreveport, 1845.2.221-222
“Thorwald, the Norwegian Rover” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1850: eleven-part serial. Set during the 800s, the story follows young Thorwald as he searches for his father, first in Iceland, then in North America. His adventures allow the author to not only teach geography, but to comment satirically on human nature, European social customs, and the miseries of alcoholic intemperance.
1850.2.30b • 1850.2.62 • 1850.2.64 • 1850.2.187-188 • 1851.1.32a • 1851.1.64 • 1851.1.94 • 1851.1.96b • 1851.1.127b • 1851.1.190 • 1851.2.94 • 1851.2.95-96
Tiffany’s Monthly (1856-1859?), periodical on the subject of spiritualism edited by Joel Tiffany and apparently published by Brittan and Partridge; it focused on to both “the investigation of spiritual science” and “the investigation of the science of mind.”
• Frank Podmore. Mediums of the 19th Century. New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, Inc., 1963; vol i: 204.
tourism
Stamford, Connecticut, 1849.1.63
Europe, 1859.2.184
Italy, 1860.1.186
Boston, Massachusetts, 1867.2.93
Niagara Falls, New York, 1857.2.184b
Scotland, 1861.1.185-186
White Mountains, 1863.2.62 • 1864.1.60
Fincastle, Virginia, 1850.2.96
toys
boy’s, see stilts
girl’s, 1850.1.32a • 1850.1.32c
See also doll • hoop • rope-skipping. outdoor, Massachusetts, Boston, 1856.1.187
travel, 1855.2.89 • 1855.2.90a
at Christmas, 1855.1.59
Geographical areas :
Arkansas River, 1857.2.156-157
Europe, 1845.1.31b • 1859.2.184
Illinois, 1865.2.155
Red River, 1845.2.221-222
Routes :
to California, 1849.1.154-155 • 1849.2.29-30 • 1849.2.127-128
to Creek Nation, 1858.1.153c
Midwest, 1864.1.90
Buffalo, New York, to St. Louis, Missouri, 1855.2.90a
Tennessee to Illinois, 1856.1.157
Texas, Fort Mason to Corpus Christi, 1854.1.126-127
Ohio to Wisconsin, 1857.2.184a
Methods :
boat on Hudson River, New York, 1857.2.184b. stagecoach, 1857.2.184b
in Tennessee, 1850.1.63-64
railroad, Buffalo, New York, to Missouri, St. Louis, 1855.2.90a
steamboat, 1843.2.64 • 1855.2.90a
on Arkansas River, 1858.1.153c
on Red River, 1845.2.221-222
tree: named, 1851.1.127a
planted at subscriber’s birth, 1850.2.127-128
See also Charter Oak • china tree • Christmas tree • hemlock • magnolia • oak • orange tree • pecan
Tom Trudge and his wife (in Robert Merry’s Museum): peddler and his wife in the satirical “The Lottery Ticket.” When Tom wins the lottery, his wife’s ambitions and her quest for “jinnysyquaw” soon bankrupt the family. It was reprinted in A Tale of the Revolution, and Other Sketches (New York: Sheldon & Co., 1845).
True Southern, a vehemently pro-slavery newspaper published in Vicksburg, Mississippi; a writer in The British Controversialist and Literary Magazine pointed out in 1864 that the editor of the Southern had promoted Southerners’ argument for slavery when it “proposed ‘to offer a prize for the best sermon in favour of free trade in human flesh.’ ”
• W. R. “Was Slavery the Real Cause of the American War?” The British Controversialist and Literary Magazine. 1864 vol: 287-294; p. 292; via books.google.com.
“Truman Lane; and All About What He Wanted to be, and How Well He Succeeded” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; December 1852), story reprinted from the Youth’s Casket. Truman wants to be a hermit, but homesickness and bad weather soon drive him home, and he learns to think through his whims before acting on them.
Tuilerie Gardens, Paris, France, gardens laid out in 1665 near the Tuileries Palace. In 1851, the flower gardens, statues, fountains, and groves of elms, limes, and chestnut trees spread over 67 acres. It was a favorite place for Parisians, who gathered near a terrace where orange trees were set every year: “On Sunday afternoons, … the alley of orange trees frequently forms a compact mass, presenting every variety and colour of dress …. The garden … is also the favourite rendezvous of children … [who] come come there for exercise and air.… ”
• Galignani’s New Paris Guide for 1851. Paris: A. & W. Galignani & Co., 1851; pp. 167-70.
Turner’s Farm, Virginia, battle, a skirmish fought on 31 May 1864. Subscriber Adelbert Older was wounded in the battle and subsequently captured by Confederate troops.
Edward G. (born c1817) and Mary C. Tyler, American educators. Parents of Maria L. The Tylers moved from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in July 1848 to run the Ontario Female Seminary; Edward may have owned it, as in 1850 he is listed as owning real estate worth $13,000. Tyler remained connected with the Academy until 1867.
• M432. 1850 United States Census; reel #571: 183.
• George S. Conover, ed. History of Ontario County, New York. Syracuse, New York: D. Mason & Co., 1893; vol 1: 228.
• Charles F. Milliken. A History of Ontario County, New York, and Its People. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1911; vol 1: 283.
“Uncle Frank’s Monthly Table-Talk”, Francis Woodworth’s editorial column, carried over from Woodworth’s Youth’s Cabinet. As in the Chat, letters from subscribers were printed, though Uncle Frank gave less space to letters than to his own editorials.
“Uncle Hiram’s Pilgrimage” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; 1857-1860), 30-part serial following Hiram Hatchet on a journey through New York City, a place as alien as a foreign country.
“Union schools,” in Mathews: “A school serving two or more contiguous school districts”; the earliest example is dated 1851.
• Mitford M. Mathews, ed. A Dictionary of Americanisms On Historical Principles. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
Union Ticket: in Mathews, a phrase used since 1813 to denote a political ticket including candidates of different political views; in 1860, a political ticket purporting to support the Union; in the Museum, a ticket suggesting the editors as president and vice-president
1860.1.187b • 1860.2.58 • 1860.2.59 • 1861.1.89-90
As metaphor for marriage, 1862.1.26-27
• Mitford M. Mathews, ed. A Dictionary of Americanisms On Historical Principles. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, founded in 1840. In 1855, under A. B. Longstreet’s presidency, it had 134 students and 6 instructors; the library contained 2,450 volumes.
• Lippincott’s Pronouncing Gazetteer, ed. J. Thomas and T. Baldwin. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1855.
“The Unrepaired Shoe,” by Almira, a tale of tragedy that includes a pathetic heroine of the type often created by amateur writers
Vermont
Letters from : 1863.2.91
Burlington, 1855.2.123
Castleton, 1852.2.32
Jericho, 1853.1.99b
Middlebury, 1844.1.125-126
West Randolph, 1855.2.156
Weybridge, 1854.1.32
Places in :
Castleton, Castleton Medical College, chartered in 1818; it taught everything from anatomy to operative obstetrics and medical jurisprudence before closing in 1861.
• History of Rutland County, Vermont. Syracuse, New York: D. Mason & Co., 1886; pp. 235, 536-537.
White River Valley, 1855.2.156
C. S. S. Virginia 2, an ironclad, was built in Richmond, Virginia, in 1863 in place of the first Virginia. The first Virginia was built on the remains of the U. S. S. Merrimack, burned by retreating Union forces; the second Virginia was sometimes referred to as the Merrimack 2 by officers on both sides. It patrolled the James River in July 1863. Confederates blew it up on 4 April 1864.
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 2, vol 1: 271; series 1, vol 17: 548, 549; series 1, vol 9: 116.
Virginia
Letters from :
Falmouth, Army of the Potomac, 1863.1.154
Fredericksburg, 1849.2.30-31
Lee County, 1872.2.148
Lexington, 1851.1.127a
Loudon County, 1851.2.64
Marion, 1858.1.126b
Middleburgh, 1850.1.187
Oak Hill, 1860.1.94b • 1860.2.91
Old Church, 1849.1.123-124
Petersburgh, 1842.1.159
Princeton, 1858.1.125b
Richmond, 1851.1.128b • 1865.1.187b • 1867.1.93
Warrenton, 1845.1.187
Winchester, 1858.1.58
Union advance into, 1862.1.186
Places in :
Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, 1845.1.187
James River and Kanawha canal, 1851.1.32b
Lexington, academy, 1851.1.127a
Richmond, General Hospital #21, 1864.2.183
“Voyage of the Salt Mackerel” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; May-June 1872), two-part serial by Charles Barnard. Inspired by stories in the Youth’s Banner (presumably, a story paper), two boys build a raft and set out for adventure in a humorous parody of sensational fiction.
War of the Queens. See Queens
Washington, DC. See District of Columbia, Washington
Watchie, a dog belonging to the William H. Seward family. After the dog was poisoned, Fanny Seward—writing as “Pansy”—wrote a small eulogy titled “Our Watchie,” published in the December 1856 issue.
weather, 1858.2.59a
Chronological :
1851: July, Paris, France, 1851.2.92-93
1852: January 18, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, 1852.1.126a
1853: February, Wisconsin, 1853.1.98c
1853-1854, winter, Aroostook, Maine, 1854.2.252
1854: January, 1854.1.126-127 • July 4, Hartford, Connecticut, 1854.2.311
1855: May-June, Terre Haute, Indiana, 1855.2.29d
1856: January 5, New York, New York, 1856.1.81-83 • February 7, Mason Village, New Hampshire, 1856.1.91 • February 13, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1856.1.90 • March 4, Memphis, Tennessee, 1856.1.186-187 • March 13, Union Square, 1856.1.122-123 • May, Ohio, 1856.2.26-27 • July 4, Hartford, Connecticut, 1856.2.58
1857: January 27, Columbia, (no state), 1857.1.90 • June 17, Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1857.2.56 • September, Columbia (no state), 1857.2.154-155
1858: 1858.2.59a • September, Tremainsville, Ohio, 1858.1.31-32
1859: January, New Ipswich, New Hampshire, 1859.1.93-94 • March, Lecovia (no state), 1859.1.154-155 • November 13, Painsville (no state), 1859.1.62 • December, Jerseyville, Illinois, 1859.1.93c
1860: Kansas, drought of 1860, 1861.1.91a • April, 1860.1.186-187
1861: March 9, Longmeadow (no state), 1861.1.124 • August 8, Batavia (no state), 1861.2.120-121
1862: February, Wisconsin, 1862.1.155a • November 5, Gouverneur, New York, 1862.1.26-27
1867: winter, 1867.1.60-61
1868: March 2, 1868.1.165-166
see also Letters from individual geographical locations
Daniel Webster (1782-1852), American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the U. S. House and Senate. Intellectually brilliant, he was a gifted orator; his “now and forever, one and inseparable” was quoted several times in the Chat
Quoted, 1858.1.58 • 1858.1.61 • 1858.2.59b
“What Ben and the Twins Did for Chicago” (in Robert Merry’s Museum ; September 1871), story by Sara Conant. The title characters work hard and hold a fair to earn money for the homeless after the Chicago Fire.
White Mountains, New Hampshire, 1864.1.60
excursion: In 1871, 22 male subscribers and at least one editor travelled to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Starting on 24 July from the Museum’s office in Boston, the group traveled by steamship, train, and foot to Mount Washington, climbed it, and took a stagecoach, train, and steamship back. The trip of several days cost each traveller about $16. It was written up as “The White Mountain Excursion” in the October issue.
wife, ideal: Chickasaw subscriber’s, 1859.2.60
ideal Southern, image of, 1859.1.123-124
unideal, 1859.1.93a
reaction to, 1859.1.123-124
N. P. Willis (1807-1867), American writer and brother of Sara Payson Willis (“Fanny Fern”). N. P. established several literary journals, but is best known for his lyrical poetry. He bought land on the Hudson River and moved into “Idlewild” in 1853. Works like Out Doors at Idle-wild brought public attention to the wild beauty of the area.
• Lewis Beach. Cornwall. Newburgh, New York: E. M. Ruttenber & Son, 1873; pp. 83-96.
Marcius Willson (1813-1905), American educator and writer. Husband of Frances A; in 1850 father of Caroline A., Pierpont, Frances E., and Robert. A former student of the Canandaigua Academy, Marcius was its principal (1849-1853); he wrote several histories and readers to be used in schools.
• M432. 1850 United States Census; reel #571: 160.
• The Academian, March 1916; p. 15.
• George S. Conover, ed. History of Ontario County, New York. Syracuse, New York: D. Mason & Co., 1893; vol 1: 225.
• Charles F. Milliken. A History of Ontario County, New York, and Its People. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1911; vol 1: 282.
U. S. Gunboat Winona, Union wooden steamship launched 26 November 1861. This gunboat was 158 feet long, with a depth of 12 feet, and had an average speed of seven knots. In 1862, when Tommy was on board, the ship was often engaged on the Mississippi River: it cruised near Passe L’Outre in March 1862 and attacked Forts Jackson and St. Philip on 24 April 1862. The latter engagement was brutal, and the ship was forced to retreat downstream with crew and officers lying flat on the deck. When the forts were taken by Union forces a few days later, the commander of the Winona took possession of Fort St. Philip. The ship went on to New Orleans at the end of April 1862 before steaming upriver to join in the attacks on Natchez and Vicksburg, Mississippi. It went out of commission June 1865.
• United States Navy Department. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DC: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922; series 2, vol 1: 242; series 1, vol 18: 226-227, 490-491, 817, 820-821.
winter, 1846.1.30-31
as character-building, 1856.1.91
as metaphor for secession, 1865.1.121-122
extolled, 1855.1.188a
subject of poem, 1844.1.94-95 • 1860.1.187a
family life in, 1850.1.63-64
recreation in, 1856.1.60c • 1859.1.123-124 • 1860.2.89-90 • 1861.1.57 • 1864.1.188 • 1864.2.157b • 1865.1.60
Connecticut, 1856.1.90-91
Wentworth, New Hampshire, 1864.1.60
evening recreation, 1855.2.123 • 1856.1.60a
Geographical location :
Georgia, 1846.1.29-30
Louisiana, 1851.1.94
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, 1852.1.126a
Detroit, Michigan, 1852.1.94
New York, New York, 1856.1.81-83
Wisconsin, 1853.1.98c
See also, weather
Wisconsin
Euro-American settling, 1852.1.191a
Letters from : 1852.1.191a • 1862.1.155a
Fond du Lac, 1859.2.92
Gratiot, 1857.1.62
Hartford, 1859.1.61
Janesville, 1855.2.93b
Madison, 1856.2.61
Milwaukee, 1850.2.128 • 1853.1.98c • 1857.2.184a • 1872.1.294
Packwaukee, Marquette County, 1864.2.183 • 1865.1.88
Places in :
Madison, Lake-Side Water-Cure, medical spa built by the company of George Delaplaine—Blanche’s father—in June 1855. Ninety-two by 40 feet, it was four stories and could accomodate from 80 to 100 guests. Steam heat warmed the spa and heated the water for its many baths (one two-story wing was mostly bath rooms). The spa was not a success; it was made into a popular public house and by 1874 had become a summer hotel.
• Daniel Durrie. A History of Madison. Madison, Wisconsin: np, 1874; pp. 241-242.
women
attitude about, 1845.2.221-222
image of, 1849.1.32 • 1849.2.30-31 • 1860.2.27 • 1860.2.59
“proper” behavior of, 1867.2.91
women’s rights, 1856.2.26-27 • 1856.2.93-94 • 1857.1.62 • 1857.1.90 • 1867.2.60a
championed, 1856.1.187-188
deplored, 1856.1.187-188 • 1860.2.25
extolled, 1860.2.25
Woodworth’s Youth’s Cabinet: magazine founded and edited by Francis C. Woodworth (1846-1857). It printed stories, songs, poems, and articles with an emphasis on morality; “Uncle Frank” had his own letters column, which emphasized his editorials rather than letters from subscribers. When the Cabinet was absorbed by the Museum, the latter was sent to “Cabinet-makers” to fill out their subscriptions; several continued to refer to the magazine they received as the “Cabinet.”
father took for family, 1858.2.28
merger with Museum, subject of poem, 1857.1.154-155
older siblings relinquish, 1859.1.156a
reading pattern of, 1859.2.92-93
subscriber credits, 1858.1.125a
subscriber reads at school, 1859.1.156a
The Youth’s Companion (periodical), long-lived American children’s magazine (1827-1829). Founded by Nathaniel Willis, the Companion grew out of the children’s section of the Recorder, a religious newspaper. Under Willis, the magazine focused on religion. After he sold the Companion in 1857, the emphasis gradually shifted to entertainment, and it became one of the most famous family magazines published in the U. S., printing the work of the many important writers of the time. It absorbed the Museum in 1872.
Zouaves, regiments—both North and South—whose elaborate uniforms and precise drills were modeled on those of the original Zouaves of the French colonial armies.
• Mark M. Boatner The Civil War Dictionary, rev. ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.
1840s: 1841 • 1842 • 1843 • 1844 • 1845 • 1846 • 1847 • 1848 • 1849
1850s: 1850 • 1851 • 1852 • 1853 • 1854 • 1855 • 1856 • 1857 • 1858 • 1859
1860s: 1860 • 1861 • 1862 • 1863 • 1864 • 1865 • 1866 • 1867 • 1868 • 1869
Index & gloss
Copyright 2000-2024, Pat Pflieger
To “Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read”
Some of the children |
Some of their books |
Some of their magazines
Numbers given are those of letters: year.volume in that year.page number(s). All are linked to the letter appearing in this work. Some subjects are explained in a note, with sources.
Page numbers in issues, 1841-1867:
year.1.33-64; February
year.1.65-96; March
year.1.97-128; April
year.1.129-160; May
year.1.161-192; June
year.2.1-32; July
year.2.33-64; August
year.2.65-96; September
year.2.97-128; October
year.2.129-160; November
year.2.161-192; December