History of Oregon Literature/Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
Minor Poets from 1850 to 1900
… many poets, worthy of eternal remembrance, have been forgotten, merely because there was not room in our memories for all… There never was an age so prolific of popular poetry as that in which we now live… Now, if this goes on for a hundred years longer, what a task will await poetical readers of 1919.
LORD JEFFREY.
In addition to the widely known 19th century poets who have been considered, there was during the second half of the century a small group of lesser poets, who should be included in any comprehensive survey of Oregon verse. At least a dozen of these had volumes published and some were the authors of several volumes. They failed, deservedly or otherwise, to win wide or permanent renown, and their books may now be found mostly in a few large public libraries or among private collections of Northwest Americana.
They occasionally produced some poems of genuine merit that deserve to be remembered, but their whole output averaged to no high standard imaginatively or in felicity of expression.
They are significant in our cultural history as showing that in between times of the important writers the creative yeast was all the while in ferment, that there were no long lulls in the fresh wind blowing for literature. Their poems, with a few exceptions, were published locally and usually at their own expense, but mainly in simpler and better format than was the rule after 1900 when there was more of them and when the home-town printer, feeling that the subject called for special treatment, had naive aberrations towards lavender and old lace effects, or ribbons and colored cords, or bright covers, or garnitures from his type cases. In the later period, both the poetry and the printing were often bad. In the earlier period, the reviewer, while panning the matter, often praised the printing. Valentine Brown, who set his own type for four of his books, held to an admirable simplicity, and E. M. Waite of Salem and George H. Himes of Portland sent out some beautiful volumes from their pioneer shops.
The minor poets made their living at some practical occupation and wrote verse on the side. Their efforts must have met with some sympathy in their various communities or they would not have felt encouraged to stand the cost of getting out books to be read by their neighbors. It was said that Robert R. Parrish of Independence was better known as a poet than as a harness maker, though he made much excellent harness for Polk County teams. Apparantly a maker of rhymes and a purveyor of sentiment could thereby increase his status and consequence among his fellows. And it is a happy, happy country for literature and for poetry where a condition like that prevails.
The most arid soil for talent is where the weeds are derision; it is still poor and unproductive land where the native growth is indifference; there begins to be fertility with acceptance; it becomes a garden loam with recognition and respect. In Oregon, even in wilderness days, a trapper could compose a poem to Mt. Hood and be thought none the less of by his rough companions; Ewing Young could carry his two-volume Shakespeare up and down thousands of miles of beaver country all during the long years of his wanderings; Sam. L. Simpson could drink and still be highly respected because the Muses dwelt within him, and the Oregon press could ring with the names of a man and his wife from an humble cabin in Can- yon City, their unhappiness in public focus on account of their gift of song; a freshman at the University of Oregon could complain of being kept awake until four in the morning by two sophomore roommates quoting poetry in competition; the Lariat, Colonel E. Hofer's extraordinary poetry magazine, could flourish for several years at Salem; and in 1935 the Oregon City chamber of commerce could jealously rebut the rumor that Edwin Markham's birthplace was on Abiqua Creek.
Is it not indeed by long tradition a happy, happy land for literature, for poetry and for the making of poets—for the making of poets good and bad, since, through the years and by whatever meagerness of ratio, a blessed few will be good; for the making of minor poets in quantity, since, if there are favorable conditions for producing numerous minor ones, some of them in such a nurturing environment will find enough special sun and air to become major ones? Is not this sound doctrine? Else why do gifted individuals spring from folk literature, folk music and folk art? Why are the great poets to be found oftenest in the place and the age where there are the most poets of every sort? Has it not been true of Oregon, out of which, as has been previously stated, have come three men who have given American literature three of its great poems—"Columbus," "Beautiful Willamette," "The Man With the Hoe."
In this chapter are included four of the best known of the minor poets from 1850 to 1900, with brief biographical sketches and selections from their poetry. To make the record as complete as possible, ten others for this period are listed with their books, and several are mentioned who did not write books but contributed to the newspapers and magazines.
Ewing Young's two-volume Shakespeare was sold to C. M. Walker for $3.50 at the first auction sale of the estate on May 26, 1841. Three years before this Mrs. Jason Lee of Willamette Settlement had written to her husband the farewell poem given on page 67, and five years later Mrs. Margaret Jewett Bailey of French Prairie, author subsequently of Ruth Rover, contributed to the Oregon Spectator such verses as "Affliction," with the beginning stanza—
A roof withheld the falling dew,
And once I wondered much to see
A drop as pure as drop can be,
Sit laughingly upon each leaf
Like joy upon the eye of grief.
and "May Morning in Oregon," which is printed on page 166. Edwin Markham has been quoted as saying that his mother, Elizabeth Markham, who wrote verses for the Oregon Spectator for several years, beginning in 1848, was "the earliest woman writer recorded in Oregon." In fact, these two women preceded her, one by ten years, the other by two, and Mrs. Bailey was a considerably more competent poet than Mrs. Markham, with whom, however, this chapter will begin, since the other two have been previously considered.
1
Elizabeth Markham
In 1847, five years before Edwin Markham's birth, his father, and his mother, Elizabeth Markham, came to Oregon City, where they lived for ten years. In 1857, when the poet was five, they moved to California, taking up sheep and cattle raising in a little valley in the Suisun Hills of Mendocino County. His father died in 1859, but his mother, who seems to have been at all times the better manager of the two, continued to run the ranch, justifying her son's description, "My mother was a Roman matron, a woman of power, one who could have led an army to battle. . . ."
Dr. J. B. Horner referred to her as "a stern mother with a poetic taste." Of the character of her poetry her son has said, "Her verse celebrated all the local affairs, such as the arrival of ships, the deaths of pioneers, the flight of strange birds." She began contributing to the Oregon Spectator in 1848, and, in sober truth, that paper printed much local verse that was better than hers. It is to be feared that if her son had not become a great poet nothing would have been heard in these late times of her poetic efforts. While he was in Oregon in May, 1921, he was given a souvenir pamphlet of his mother's verses collected by J. D. Lee from the early numbers of the Spectator, from 1848 to 1851. There were twelve of them for those three years, so that if she was not the Spectator's best poet she was perhaps its most prolific and steadfast. The pieces bore the following titles: "A Contrast on Matrimony," "Hearts May Warm the Winter," "The Maiden's Dream," "Imaginary Ship Wreck," "The Departure," "My Native Home," "Voice of Intemperance," "The Dream of Ambition," "Woman," "Road to Oregon," "Lines," "Friendship."
Lines
Composed whilst the hot Whitcomb made
her first ascent of the Rapids.
Her banners are flying—
She walks up the rapids with speed;
She ploughs through the water,
Her steps never falter—
Oh! that's independence, indeed.
Male and female, to greet her,
And the waves lash the shore as they pass.
Oh! she's welcome, thrice welcome,
To Oregon City;
Lot Whitcomb is with us at last.
Her Captain and crew,
She has our best wishes attained.
Oh! that she may never
While running this river
Fall back on the sand bar again.
E. M.
OREGON SPECTATOR, JUNE 5. 1851.
2
John Minto of Salem
John Minto was a pioneer leader in horticulture and sheep husbandry in Oregon, and is best known for his prose writings on these subjects and for his historical sketches on the early days. His inclusion among the early poets is based on a small group of swinging, buoyant rhymes.
He was born in 1822 in England, coming to the United States in 1840 and to Oregon in 1844, where he took up a claim south of Salem. In 1847 he married Martha A. Morrison, the eldest daughter of Captain R. W. Morrison of Clatsop Plains. After the Whitman massacre he was a member of Captain Levi Scott's company that unsuccessfully attempted to cross the Siskiyous in winter to California as an escort to Jesse Applegate. "It was probably at his house that the first Farmers' Club ever formed in Oregon met in 1853." He was later manager of the Oregon State Agricultural Society, and edited the Willamette Farmer for a year. He was a member of the State Legislature for several terms. He died in Salem in 1915.
He wrote frequently for the Oregon Historical Quarterly. Although his Rhymes on Life in Oregon was not published in book form until 1909, the eleven pieces in it were written at various times from 1861 to 1896. The same collection appeared later, with the addition of some prose, under the title Rhymes of Early Life in Oregon and Historical and Biographical Facts.
The Oregon Cow-Boy's Song
Written in 1881
Who fondly think your love to be the sweetest, loveliest lass:
I'll sing you of one I esteem fit theme for poet's strains,
Who of all your beauties takes the pass as Belle of Wasco Plains.
There may be those as fair as she, but none such have I seen;
And forms as perfect there may be, but none where I have been.
With many a graceful, lovely lass I've danced to music's strains,
But of such Nellie takes the pass—she's Belle of Wasco Plains.
'Tis not the skin so smoothly fair, 'tis not the cheek so red,
'Tis not the wealth of auburn hair that crowns her stately head,
'Tis not the eyes of steely blue, beaming with luster rare,
And indicating power to love, to suffer, or to dare.
'Tis not the shapely hands and feet, the perfect bust and limbs,
Forming a beauty as complete as fills a sculptor's dreams,
Nor yet the grace of movement which from all attention gains,
But tis all of these combined that make her Belle of Wasco Plains.
Is gentle kindliness of soul—that is her chiefest charm.
Goodness and beauty joined in one, Love's deep devotion claims;
Such has the subject of my song—she's Belle of Wasco Plains.
3
Rob Roy Parrish of Independence
Rob Roy Parrish, whose full name was Rob Roy McGregor Parrish, entertained poetic fancies while he made harness amidst the fresh, leathery smells of his shop at Independence. He was born in Ohio on January 15, 1846, but at the age of eight moved to Iowa, where he mastered the harness trade. In 1863, at the age of 17, he crossed the plains to Oregon with his brother. They came to Salem but left the next day for Independence. There for 27 years the poet made bridles, halters, reins, traces and all the articles of gear worn by many hard-working horses in Polk county and across the river in Marion. In 1900 he left for California, where he lived until his tragic death in 1924. On March 11 of that year, after a period of deep despondency, he took his own life in a boarding house at Schulavista. The Oregonian of March the 12th, giving a report from San Diego, stated that Parrish had been there for some time, coming "with a few hundred dollars which he deposited in a bank. Saturday he drew his last $10 and remarked to the paying teller at the time that it meant the end of everything for him. Among his effects was found a copy of the last song he wrote and in this he predicted death for himself. The verse said that spring was calling for the youth and that the fields were bright for the maid,
And I pass into the night."
His 159-page book, Echoes from the Valley, was published by George H. Himes in Portland in 1884.
Steaming up the Bright Willamette
From Echoes from the Valley
In the happy month of May,
When the verdant hills and mountains
Form a picture bright and gay.
As we swiftly onward go,
While a stream of foam and bubbles
Far behind us glinting flow.
Of a summer evening's dream,
Lightly float those airy bubbles,
On the bosom of the stream.
Or the pleasure we have won,
They are brilliant for a moment,
Then forever after gone.
It is pleasant as we glide
Swiftly on the passing moments,
To leave bubbles on the tide.
4
Valentine Brown of Portland
Valentine Brown was his own publisher and his own printer. He was the author of about a thousand pages of verse, all of which he put into type with his own hands. Although the first of his five books was not published until 1900, he is placed in the 19th century because his writing began back in the middle 80's. He was a poet entirely for his own enjoyment and he printed his books to give away to his many friends.
He was born in what is now the Irvington district of Portland on November 10, 1862. He had a newspaper route when he was 11 years old. Later he was flyboy on the Bee office press and printer's devil on the East Portland Vindicator. In 1877 he entered Bishop Scott Academy, remaining there for three years. For the succeeding three years he followed the seas, and then for four years was a railway mail clerk between Portland and Spokane. While on the mail run he made $20,000 trading in Portland eastside property, and increased this to $35,000 when he opened a real estate office of his own. He lost it all in the panic of 1893. He married Jennie Ham, the daughter of Isaac Ham, in 1889. After the panic and his loss he studied law, passed the bar examination, and spent the remainder of his life as an attorney and poet.
His books are: Poems, 1900; Armageddon, a long poem in blank verse, 1902; The Chieftain and Satires, 1903; Tales and Other Verse, 1904; Aidenn Triumphant, 1917.
In the preface to Tales and Other Verse he said:
“With this, my fourth volume completed, my verse is placed in book form. The writing and type setting of these volumes cover a period of twenty years, and the four books contain about nine hundred pages of verse.
“The time has passed serenely, and to-day, without gratification, regret or censure to express, I look upon these twenty years of my life as a person might who has climbed a cloud-encompassed hill, beholding no vista beyond, yet, through a rift beneath him viewing his path, where he had known many happy hours. . . .
“All my books were written by me because I enjoyed the occupation; they were placed in type by me for the reason I could not procure a publisher; they were bound as they appear because my pocket book was limited, and for the reason they would not sell they were given away. . . .
“Making no appeal to any person, not caring what any one thinks of me, or my books, regardless of every conceivable question which may arise, or not arise; equally careless whether my books are read or not, I write this preface. Desiring to be no cynic, altruist, or reformer, having followed my environed path with submission, and courted none other, possessing the full knowledge that the twenty years passed by me with my verse have been pleasurable, granting content to me and non-injury to others, I feel like one who has spent a life not in solitude, but in a room filled with congenial companions.
“As I set this type, composing as I go, even as much of my verse was composed while in the process of being placed in book form, I look upon the spiders in my retreat, and desire to linger in their company awhile, for their presence is more desirable than the company of human strangers; and, perhaps, sometime you will receive another book, dear people.
“Feeling it my duty, and therefore a pleasure, to thank a few strangers, less friends, and no relatives for kind words spoken to encourage me in the continuation of my chosen and unabated work, I end this preface.”
Brave, self-reliant soul, undefeated in its inviolability by defeat! There are few prefaces in literature to compare with this one, but its sad eloquence apparently fell upon heedless ears like his poetry. After 31 years a stranger has lifted it from the obscure little book of verse onto the pages of this history, in the hope that a later generation will read and be uplifted by the record of such a spirit, though denied an illumination equal to its strength. Occasionally, however, during those twenty years, the Goddess of Poetry, with compassion for his long labors and devotion, rewarded him with the grace of her radiance. It was then that he wrote such poems as “The Chinook Wind,” “Cliff of Tillamook” and “Memaloose Island,” all included in Tales and Other Verse.
Memaloose Island
Between its ramparts sere and grand,
Began the fabled bridge of souls
That spirits crossed to Tamath land;
Bleak Memaloose it rested on,
That rock is still its earthly pier,
Clothed with a myth of Oregon
Which bids no passer linger near.
The lampless skulls upon the rock;
There sightless eyes look up at you,
The dry bones seem to move and mock.
The night falls down, the beating waves
Are chanting ghostly music then,
The sand is rattling o'er the graves,
And souls recross the bridge again.
He sees the slender bridge of thread,
He feels the touch of Spirit hands,
He sees the spirits of the dead;
The skulls are lit, the bones arise,
The waves and winds in stillness seem,
He looks no more on lampless eyes,
He hears a chant which ends a scream.
The prairie wolf howls near the rock,
And gaunt coyotes wake the night
With cries which might death’s gate unlock.
Though sunlight shines upon the crest
Though starlight gleams upon the sand,
No steamer dents the barren strand.
Its own at every mound is seen;
Though elsewhere live the skulless souls,
Their soulless skulls rot there serene;
Serene, although the startled ear,
And haunting thoughts find ghosts anon,
Where Memaloose stands lone and drear,
Clothed with a myth of Oregon.
5
Other Books of Verse in the Early Period
The "other poems" include two on Oregon and several relating to Washington and the Pacific Northwest. In 1907 he had printed in Seattle another book of "poems and rhymes" entitled On the Sun set Shore, with 211 pages and with many full-page half-tones of Pacific Coast scenery. One long poem on the Oregon Trail, to which he gave the sub-title "A Variegated Epic," was divided into 13 parts — The Old Home, The Ox Team, A Muddy Rubicon, The Platte River, The Desert, The Mirage, The Graves, The Sage Brush, The Indians, The Buffalo, The Coyote, The Mountains, The New Home. It is a poem of considerable merit.
David and Anna Matson. New York. S. R. Wells & Co., Publishers. 1876.
Mrs. Duniway has been considered at some length as one of the authors of the first five literary books, with special reference to Captain Gray's Company. These are her two books of poetry. The first edition of David and Anna Matson can still be picked up for a few dollars, but My Musings is practically unobtainable, being even scarcer than Captain Gray's Company. It is a little pamphlet 3¾ by 5½ inches, 32 pages, plus thin blue-green paper covers.
It contains eight poems: "Our Fallen Heroes," "Lines Suggested by Scenes of Long Ago," "The Destiny of Our Republic," "A Hundred Years Ago," "After Twenty Years," "Thoughts in Storm and Solitude," "The Nocturnal Wedding," "The Dirge of the Sea." Never reticent in her prefaces, she said in this one:
"In submitting my unpretending rhymes to public criticism in the present form, I frankly acknowledge my motives to be mercenary. If the friends who have urged their publication will now purchase them and save me from a pecuniary loss which I am not able to sustain, I shall be satisfied—no matter what the opinion of the critics.
"Should this venture be successful, it will be followed by a larger one in blue and gold. Should it fail, no matter—mine wouldn't be the first of the kind. Others have survived such shocks, and so (no doubt) shall I."
Major Eckerson was a rhyming army officer stationed in Oregon in early territorial days, and he came back to the state to spend his old age. In 1850 he contributed to the Oregon Spectator a poem called "Oregon," a copy of which was deposited in the corner stone of the Lewis and Clark monument on May 21, 1903. When My Ship Comes In, however, contains no poems about Oregon. Frederick W. Skiff has a copy of an edition of 1891 with the line "Second Thousand" proudly appearing on the title page. Though to be the cynosure of all eyes seems not to have been disagreeable to the Major, he spoke with great modesty in his Preface and Dedication, the latter being to Mrs. Eckerson: "These rhymes are now, at the request of friends whose judgment is perhaps warped by their partiality, thrown together in their present form. Criticism upon these effusions is not invited, as no poetic merit whatever is claimed for them. They are simply rhymes jotted down from time to time, and extending over many years."
A compilation. A little 30-page book that is now very rare.
This poem was read at the Fifth Annual Reunion of the Oregon Pioneer Association in 1877, “which was rendered as admirably as it was beautiful.” Elwood Evans, giving the annual address, referred to the author, then living at Olympia, W. T., as “scholar, humorist and wit. This idyll proves also that he can revel in the field of poesy and with rare fidelity cull its brightest flowers to weave into a chaplet of never fading beauty.” He read seven verses and then said: “I could not more profitably and pleasantly detain you than in reading through this glorious production. I trust that some reader who will do ample justice to its literary merit, its pure pathos, its hidden humor, its admirable descriptive vein will during these festivities read it, ... Mr. President, accept from me this well thumbed copy presented to me by the author.”
Franklin Johnson. Home Missionaries. 1899.
Walter Phillips. Crossing the Plains in '46. Oregon City. Courier-Herald. 1900.
Signal Fires on the Trail of the Pathfinder. New York. Dayton and Burdick. 1856.
No author given. The book contains several poems in description of the explorations and adventures of Fremont. There is one fine Oregon poem entitled “A Night by Lake Tlamath,” having the lines—
When its mirror moves with
a waving flow,
As odorous winds from the forest blow.
Henry W. Woodward. Lyrics of the Umpqua. New York. John B. Alden. 1889.
Carrie Blake Morgan. The Path of Gold. New Whatcom, Washington. Edson & Irish. 1900.
A paper-bound book of 28 pages and 34 short poems. The subject matter is general, with the exception of one poem, “The Old Emigrant Trail.” The author was an elder sister of Ella Higginson.
P. J. P. Souvenir of Rhyme. Portland. Schwab. 1888.
6
A Land of Many Poets
To catalogue all the Oregon poets, verse writers and rhyme-makers between 1850 and 1900 would serve no useful purpose. The accumulated number for that half century would make a long list, counting all those who did not have books or pamphlets published but contributed to the magazines and newspapers, or had their poems used as songs, or reached the people without publication through oral recitation, sometimes at big annual occasions very effectively so. They were the many necessary to make the few and as a group must remain in their obscurity, though in their total output there would be at least enough for one bright volume, which some day ought to be carefully collected and printed.
As an example of the number of minor poets writing at some single time in Oregon, let us take August of 1880. In that month and that year Eva L. Burbank of Lafayette, a talented 19-year-old musician, went to Long Beach, Washington, with an East Portland excursion. She was drowned in the surf and her body was never found. We are told that "more than twenty pieces of beautiful poetry have been written and published with reference to her sad death."
Poetry was so much in the air that its practice was not always limited to one in a family. In the case of the Millers, there were not only Joaquin and Minnie Myrtle, but there was Lischen Miller, their sister-in-law, the wife of George Melvin Miller of Eugene. Their daughter Maud also had a few poems published, and Minnie Myrtle's sister composed verses. There was a minor poet along with a major one in another family. J. D. Lee, the speaker at the 41st annual Pioneer Reunion in 1913, said of Sam. L. Simpson's brother: "Sylvester Confucius Simpson, a man of brilliant intellect, passed away recently in San Francisco. . . . Sylvester was no mean poet, and a man of great learning." Ella Higginson's sister, Carrie Blake Morgan, was also a poet and contributed to several magazines, in addition to being author of The Path of Gold. Of two others Frances Fuller Victor has said: "E. L. and O. C. Applegate are men with the hereditary strain of literary talent in their composition—neglected, as in the case of their uncle, 'the sage of Yoncalla.'"
Men who reached prominence in various other fields, wrote and published some poetry. Among these was Governor George L. Curry; Edward Dickinson Baker, the brilliant orator and United States Senator from Oregon; President P. L. Campbell of the University of Oregon; B. F. Irvine, editor of the Oregon Journal; Willis T. Hawley, for many years a United States congressman; and Dr. George B. Kuykendall. Poems by the first four may be found in Oregon Literature by Dr. J. B. Horner.
Maybe not enough for a generalization but at least here and there a community leaven is noticeable. At Independence, where Robert R. Parrish made harness and rhymes for 27 years, the weekly paper, the West Side, for the issue of March 21, 1890, contained: 1. "A. B. and Doc.", an acrostic by S. S., with "compliments of the writer to Doc. and his fair bride, may their lives be strewn with pleasing joys, their conjugal relations be those of uninterrupted pleasures"; 2, a dialect poem of three verses called "Falls City" by Ozias Sampson; 3. An obituary in rhyme.
This employment of poetry in folk ways was extensive, and, by way of further example of poetry in the hands of the people, "Peter the Poet" signed himself so in sending news letters to the Democratic Times, Jacksonville, in 1888, and the Klamath County Star, Linkville, in 1889. In 1886 the Oregonian referred to N. W. Dee as "Oregon's Philosopher-Poet," who said of himself: "I think I am a true poet, because poesy with me is a labor of love. I would rather compose a poem any day than saw a cord of wood."
Two specialized classes of poets—humorists and columnists—will be considered in later chapters, and the stimulus given to poetry by the hospitality of editors is indicated in a general way in the chapter on literary magazines and book publishers.
Perhaps enough has now been said to show that poetry was in good repute in Oregon from 1850 to 1900 and that it is such a situation which causes the rise of poets—many poets, of whom a few will be good.
The Hermit of the Siskiyous
A prolific instance of topical verse nas been mentioned, when the drowning of a young woman at Long Beach in 1880 brought out 20 melancholy poems. The present composition, having, as will be seen, a good deal of merit, was inspired by the reported marriage of the Hermit of the Siskiyous—Andrew J. Walls, a Southern Oregon character of some renown, also known as the Hero of the Green Siskiyous. The poem was published in the Ashland Tidings in 1878 and was reprinted in the West Shore in February of that year. It was good enough for the author to claim but he gave it to the world anonymously, possibly in discreet modesty in case the Hermit might not like its sentiments.
And the bear-traps fall to dust,
E'en the long Kentucky rifle
Hang upon its peg and rust.
No more among the whispering fir-trees
Will our Andrew take his place
Burying memories, sad, distressing,
In the clamors of the chase.
"Through the midnight", by the door
Of the ragged Siskiyou hovel
Where A. J. will come no more;
Undisturbed, may squirrels burrough,
And the spiders spread their snares,
And around the hermit's cabin
Let the grey-wolves chase the hares.
Of his ox-whip or his shout—
Stand the ox-yoke in the corner;
Turn the raw-boned oxen out;
Let them have, at last, a respite
From their labor rough and hard,
For a brighter day is dawning
For the clawed and battle-scarred.