JOHN JAMES PIATT, REPRESENTATIVE FIGURE
OF A MOMENTOUS PERIOD
By CLARE DOWLER
Biographical and Critical Study.
The development of Ohio from 1830 to
I880 was spectacular.
It characterized, in a fashion, the
development of the whole nation.
In this typical region, it would be hard
to find a more representa-
tive man than John James Piatt. His life
span began as Ohio was
emerging out of the wilderness, as
"Johnny Appleseed's" trees
were bearing abundantly, and as the
completion of a system of
internal canals and waterways filliped
the growth of the State to
an accelerated speed. In his boyhood he
was excited by the new
marvels of steam--by Robert Fulton's
steamboat which, only
twenty-three years before Piatt's birth,
had startled the woods-
men and settlers along the Ohio as it
paddled its way from Pitts-
burgh to New Orleans; by the steam
locomotive which only five
years before Piatt's birth had drawn a
train of cars along twenty-
three miles of track on the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad. Piatt's
images, his themes, his references
illustrate strikingly the imprint
of the new mode of life upon his
generation.
He had not the qualities of a Daniel
Boone. In the periodic
westward movements of frontiersmen,
Boone represented the first,
the trail-blazer-Indian-killer type.
Piatt represented the second,
the tiller of the soil, the man who
subjugated the ruthless forces
of nature, who began to grope for
expression and tried to make
articulate the life he represented. Nor
had he the background of
a James Russell Lowell. Piatt's
forebears should not be dis-
paraged, although they excelled in wars,
rebelling against tyranny,
rather than in literary accomplishment.
It was good that his ancestors were of
the crusading type,
that he himself was what he was, for in
general, the effete east-
erner could not write about the new West
like one actually bred in
(1)
2 OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
it. It took a Piatt to catch in words
the marriage of nature with
new mechanical inventions; to dramatize
the railroads; to feel the
wide prairie; to understand the hard
work, the back-wrenching
toil of the pioneer.
Although his poetry has not and will not
set the world on fire,
yet he has caught and kept for posterity
in such poems as "The
Lost Farm," "The Pioneer's
Chimney," "The Mower in Ohio,"
and "Riding to Vote"1 the
stirring picture of a colossal move-
ment in the midst of which he lived and
which will never come
again.
Furthermore, even though he lacked
actual genius, still he
was better qualified by first hand
information to deal with his
particular subjects than are most
writers. Moreover he caught
the spirit of the men around him, their
sanity, optimism and
energy.
In all these things he was a true
representative of a great his-
torical period. He typified especially
the faith of the nineteenth
century in schooling. He took advantage
of all educational
opportunities. His public school
training, his study at Capital
University Grammar School, his short
sojourn at Kenyon College,
his newspaper training, and his constant
attempt at self-teaching
by writing and reading, all point in the
same direction. He was a
precursor of the thousands of young men
now attending the many
educational institutions of Ohio and the
millions now attending
schools west of the Alleghanies. Kenyon
College and Capital
University are both excellent examples
and forerunners of the
many fine academic institutions which
dot the State of Ohio.
Piatt's family itself was typical of the
time, for it illustrated
the mobility of the frontiersmen. And
not least remarkable
among the phenomena of the time were the
great shifts of popula-
tion in resurgent masses as men sought
new El Dorados--richer
land. He was typical, too, in his
practicality and his combining
of the ideal with the practical. There
was nothing of the retired
prophet in him. He went out of his way
to make contacts with
men who later advanced his interests.
His first position in Wash-
1 All these poems are to be found in John J. Piatt, Idyls
and Lyrics of the
Ohio Valley (Cincinnati,
1881), 9, 27, 75, 60.
JOHN JAMES PIATT 3
ington came to him as a result of his
friendship with an Ohio
statesman, Salmon P. Chase. All through
his life he was in-
volved in politics to the extent of
holding office. Idealism joined
to common sense and shrewdness made the
true representative of
the time--the poet whose writing did not
support his family, but
whose job as a postal clerk did.
In that section where the Ohio River
forms the boundary of
Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky with the
same liquid band, two
poets spent their childhood. One, a
woman, from the hardy
stock of Daniel Boone, grew up in
Kentucky; while the other,
descended from a long line of
illustrious ancestors and destined
to be her husband, was born on March I,
I835, and spent his
early youth in an Indiana village,
James' Mills, now Milton, in
Dearborn County, only a few miles from
the Ohio border. A
picture of the life of a boy in a rural
community at that time is
very well painted in A Boy's Town and
Years of My Youth,2 by
William Dean Howells, who was born but
two years later than
Piatt and who grew up under
circumstances very similar to those
of Piatt's youth. Until 1845 the Piatt
family stayed at Milton
where John James improved himself by
attending school at Rising
Sun, Indiana, a small town near by. One recollection of this
period of his life is mentioned by the
poet in The Hesperian
Tree.3 There he speaks of going to the postoffice at Rising
Sun in
1843 to get a magazine, the May number
of Graham's, in which
he saw a facsimile of Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow's signature
for the first time. His interest in
Longfellow began then and
continued throughout both their
lives. Piatt also related in
Pencilled Fly-leaves4 that as a boy of about ten he had read some
of Shakespeare--Macbeth, King
Richard, Julius Caesar--and cer-
tain sea stories and old romances. Such
reading by a boy only
ten years old is really significant.
When John James was in his tenth year,
his parents moved
to Columbus, Ohio, where he received private
instruction. After
a short time the family moved again,
this time to a place a few
2 William Dean Howells, A Boy's Town (New York, 1890); William
Dean
Howells, Years of My Youth (New
York, 1916).
3 John J. Piatt "An Acquaintance
with Longfellow," in The Hesperian Tree.
Second ed. (Columbus, Ohio, 1903), 134.
4 John
J. Piatt, Pencilled
Fly-leaves (Cincinnati,
1880), 29-30.
4
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
miles north of Columbus. Here the boy
attended a western log
school house typical of the period, but
not for long. In 1849 he
came into Columbus to stay with the
family of his uncle, Charles
Scott, who published the Ohio State
Journal The plan was to
have him learn the printer's trade
although he found time at
scattered intervals to attend school. He
is on the roster of Capital
University for the year 1850-18515 and 1851-18526 as a student
in the Grammar School.
Howells reflected shrewdly in A Boy's
Town that youngsters
are limited in their outlook and that
they see, not reality itself,
but as it affects them. John James spent
eleven of the most
plastic years of his life in the
vicinity of Columbus, the capital of
a rapidly growing state, and what is
more significant, he worked
for a newspaper. It is worth noting,
however, that even allowing
for the idiosyncrasies of childhood, he
picked up a broad knowl-
edge of what was happening to the State
during these important
years. Ohio was passing beyond the
pioneer stage; a good in-
ternal transportation system of canals,
roads, and railroads was
helping the farmers to lessen the
effects of the 1837 depression
by making possible the cheap shipment of
farm produce to other
markets. Industry and wealth of other
forms were springing up.
Certainly the discovery of gold in
California in 1848 was known
in Columbus, and the impetus given by it
to the westward trek
would surely be remarked in a city
through which one of the
best roads to the West, the National
Highway, passed. The boy,
fourteen years old in 1849, was no doubt
aware of what was
happening. His best poems reflect this
influence. They mirror a
transient but important phase of
American national life.
Several references to this early,
Columbus period of Piatt's
life are to be found in the biographical
writings of Howells. Two
of the most pertinent are here quoted:
There must have been some mention in it [Howells'
Diary] of the tre-
mendous combat with wet sponges I saw
there [composing room of the
Ohio State Journal] one day between two
of the boys who hurled them
back and forth at each other. This
amiable fray, carried on during the
foreman's absence, forced upon my notice
for the first time the boy who
5 Catalog of Capital University,
Columbus, Ohio, 1850-1851, 7.
6 Catalog of Capital University, Columbus, Ohio,
1851-1852, 6.
-
-I r
JOHN JAMES PIATT 5
has come to be a name well-known in
literature. I admired his vigor as
a combatant, but I never spoke to him at
that time, and I never dreamed
that he, too, was effervescing with
verse, probably as fiercely as myself.
Six or seven years later we met again,
when we had both become journal-
ists, and both had poems accepted by Mr.
Lowell for the Atlantic Monthly,
and then we formed a literary friendship
which eventuated in the joint pub-
lication of a volume of verse.7
I believe I did not think any great
things of other pieces which he
printed in the State Journal; and
it was in the book room, where I was
afterward transferred, that I all
unwittingly met the truest poet of our
Middle West, and one of the truest poets
of any time or place. With the
name of John James Piatt I would gladly
relate my own more memorably
than in the Poems of Two Friends, long
since promptly forgotten, where
I joined him in our first literary
venture. We are now old men, hard upon
our eighties, but we were then boys of
thirteen or fourteen, with no dream
of our adventure in joint-authorship,
and we had our boyish escapades in
the long leisure of the spring
afternoons of 1850, when we did not yet
know each other even by the nature of
poets which we shared.
I can see Piatt now, his blue eyes
laughing to tears in our romps and
scuffles, and I can hear the trickling
mirth of his reluctant chuckle, distinct
across the days of the years that have
brought us so far. He was setting
up House Bills and Senate Bills too,
with whatever 'subjective effect, in
the intervals of our frolic, but his
head must have been involved in the
sunny mists that wrapt mine round.8
Later he spent some time at Kenyon
College, Gambier, Ohio.
There is a stirring allusion to his
feelings as a freshman in a
poem entitled "A Boy on Gambler
Hill."9 He sung of "the dull
pang, the eager thrill," of the
emotions which overpower the nor-
mal boy when he first sees the campus of
his college. He is
listed as a freshman from Columbus, in
the Kenyon College
catalog for 1853-1854. There is no
catalog extant in the Kenyon
College library for the year 1854-1855,
and his name does not
appear in the catalog for 1855-1856. The
General Catalogue of
Kenyon College published in 1899
includes his name among the
Non-graduates of the class of 1857.
During Piatt's residence either in
Columbus or at Kenyon
College, he began to write verse.
Emerson Venable is authority
for the assertion that he was inspired
to do it by reading Leigh
Hunt's "Imagination and
Fancy."10 Whether or not that was
the source of inspiration, he persisted
in his efforts for many
years.
7 William
Dean Howells, My Literary Passions (New York, 1891), 45.
8 Howells, Years of My Youth, 79.
9 John J. Piatt, Odes in Ohio and Other Poems
(Cincinnati, 1897), 37.
10 Emerson Venable, Poets of Ohio (Cincinnati,
1919), 166.
6
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
In 1856 the family, probably actuated by
the pioneer spirit,
for by this time the frontier had gone
west of Ohio, moved to
Shelby County, Illinois. A common
practice among the early
pioneers was for the boldest spirits to
go to the frontier, carve a
home and farm out of the wilderness, and
then when the region
became settled, to move on to the new
frontier and repeat the
process. This did not ordinarily happen
often during one man's
lifetime, but during the lifetime of
Piatt's father the frontier
moved westward so rapidly that at least
three changes were neces-
sary to keep him on or near it. Illinois
did not become a per-
manent home for the poet's father, for
some time after young
Piatt had struck out for himself, his
father made a jump from
Illinois to Montana--the new frontier.
On November 11, 1889,
in Queenstown, Ireland, Piatt wrote a
poem "To My Father on
His Eighty-fourth Birthday,"
indicating in a note that at that
time the elder Piatt was a resident of
Montana.1l
Illinois with its new settlements and
its wide plains offered
practically untouched subjects for
poetry. Piatt had begun to
write verse in Ohio, but it was in
Illinois that he showed his true
mettle. In Mac-a-Cheek Castle, the
famous home of Donn Piatt
near West Liberty, Ohio, is a copy of Western
Windows. Since
Donn and John James were kinsmen and
close friends, it is prob-
able that Western Windows had
been left there by the author
himself. This seems still more likely
because after almost every
poem in the book is a statement in ink
of the date and place of
composition, written in a hand that is,
if not Piatt's, certainly one
with remarkable resemblance to it. The
poems ascribed to the
Illinois period in this book are:
"To My Brother Guy," 1856;
"Fires in Illinois," October,
1856; "The Morning Street," Aug-
ust, 1858; and "Taking the Night
Train," September, 1859.12
Not all of Piatt's time in Illinois was
spent with his parents
on the newly made farm. Since Scott,
with whom he had studied
the printing business in Columbus, had
removed to Chicago, he
spent several months with him there. One
interesting incident in
the young man's life occurred on the
return journey from this
11 Piatt, Odes in
Ohio, 49.
12 John J. Piatt, Western Windows and
Other Poems (Cincinnati, 1881).
- -
7- j
JOHN JAMES PIATT
visit with his uncle. Piatt himself
tells about it in an article,
"An Old Bit of Schoolboy
Manuscript."13 The gist of the inci-
dent is that in Tolono, Illinois, where
he had to change trains,
he sat during breakfast at the right of
Abraham Lincoln, who was
enroute to debate with Stephen A.
Douglas. Piatt at first mistook
Lincoln for a clergyman. The privilege
of having eaten with the
great President was appreciated by him
more in later life than it
was at the time it happened. This bit of
good fortune came to
him in September, 1858.
During the prairie farm days several
poems contributed to
the Louisville (Kentucky) Journal were
accepted (1857), among
them being "The Forgotten
Street" and "Fires in Illinois."
George D. Prentice, the rather famous
editor of that newspaper,
was very favorably impressed with the
poems and arranged for
the young man to become his confidential
secretary. Prentice had
come to Louisville from the East, had
built up one of the
most powerful and best newspapers west
of the Alleghanies and
had endeared himself to the people of
the region. Witty, intelli-
gent, level-headed, a competent editor
in every way, he also
achieved some distinction as a poet. He
recognized merit un-
grudgingly and was especially
sympathetic to young writers of the
frontier. Among others, he encouraged
Sarah Morgan Bryan,
who was later to become Mrs. John James
Piatt, and published
some of her poetry in the Journal. Both
Prentice and Piatt, who
was then a member of the editorial staff
as well as confidential
secretary to the editor, thought her
poetry original and beautiful.
Piatt went so far as to make a journey
into the interior of the
state to see her, and thus began the
acquaintanceship that cul-
minated in their marriage.
Prentice was very much pleased with
several of Piatt's poems
and sent "The Morning Street"
to Lowell, editor of the Atlantic
Monthly. Lowell also admired the poem and personally wrote to
the author congratulating him.14 A
more substantial acknowledge-
ment of Lowell's appreciation was made
when "The Morning
Street" appeared in the Atlantic
Monthly.15
13 The Hesperian Tree (1903), 36.
14 Venable, op. cit., 166.
15 The Atlantic Monthly (Boston, 1857-), III (February, 1859), 150.
8
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Early in 1859 Piatt visited Columbus and
met Howells, who
was then on the staff of a paper there.
Although they had not
known one another very well in former
years, and had long
been separated since that time, the two
men found much in com-
mon. Together they wrote The Poems of
Two Friends, and the
title expressed a relationship which
lasted for a lifetime. Al-
though the little volume had a small
sale, less than two hundred
copies, according to Howells,l6 it
has since become rather valuable
to collectors because it is the first
volume of both the authors.
The influence of his environment begins
to show itself in his
first book. The best of Piatt's poetry,
that part on which his repu-
tation rests, deals with contemporary
life in the newly settled
West. In 1859 the young poet was
twenty-four years old; he was
in his most plastic period, during which
he gained perforce an
intimate knowledge of the lives,
troubles, and work of the pio-
neers. Although the ominous threat of
civil war, the secession of
states, and the slavery question
expressed in incidents like the
Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858 and John
Brown's Raid in 1859
were coming to a head and looming large
in the emotions of many
people, no sign of this stirring
influence is to be seen in Piatt's
first book of poetry nor in his actions
as far as they are known.
The pioneer influence of his youth
remained, but the political
changes seemed to leave no mark on him.
Personally he was alert to political
opportunities; one can-
not doubt that, considering his later
service with the Federal
Government; but perhaps because of his
youth, perhaps because
of the difference between the newspaper
service of that time and
this, national questions of moment from
1850 to 1860 apparently
passed over him.
Piatt's finest poem in Poems of Two
Friends shows the in-
fluence of his early environment. It is
"The Western Pioneer"
in which the bees presage the coming of
the white man to the
red man's country:
16 Howells, My Literary Passions, 45.
JOHN JAMES PIATT 9
THE WESTERN PIONEER
(The bees are said to have ever swarmed
westward before the steps
of the whites.)
Into the prairies' boundless blossom,
Into the Wide West's sunburnt bosom,
The earliest emigrants came:
The flowers, like sunny miracles, grew
Before them, fragrant, from the dew,
Filling the grass like flame!
From some old land of song and life--
Of man, in manhood's glowing strife,
Departing all alone,
And journeying with the journeying sun,
They came--their busy empire won--
Before the white man known.
The Indian saw the moving Bees,
From flower to flower, in dream-like
breeze
Blowing their pilgrim way;
Or, deep in honey of the flower,
Hanging in sunshine hour by hour,
Dream through the dreaming day.
He saw the Future's garment gleam
O'er mounds of tribes and
legend-stream--
O'er the sweet waste of flowers;
He saw his hunting ground--the Past!
Lit with the domes of cities vast--
Glory of spires and towers!
Those other Bees! He felt--he saw,
With sorrowing eye, in dreamy awe,
The blossom of the West
Thrill with the sunny-toiling Bees
Of busy Freedom, happy Peace--
Wide blessings and the blest.
They come! They came! Lo! they
are here!
The Indian heart-beat everywhere
Starts echoes wild no more;
The leaves have fallen from his trees
Of life; dead leaves, in every breeze,
Rustle forevermore!
At the age of twenty-six Piatt was
co-author of a volume of
poetry but was not financially able to
do what he pleased. Lin-
coln, however, chose Chase, an Ohio man,
for his secretary of
the treasury, and in less than a month
after Lincoln's administra-
tion began (March, 1861), Chase had
appointed his friend, Piatt,
as a clerk in the Treasury Department.
With an assured income
1O
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Piatt felt free to bring his romance
with Sarah Morgan Bryan
to its logical conclusion. On the
eighteenth of the following June
he married her at Newcastle, Kentucky.
The Piatts lived at Woodley, Georgetown
Heights, District
of Columbia (Georgetown has since been
brought within the
incorporate limits of Washington) at a
distance of about one mile
from the Executive Mansion; indeed,
Piatt always walked from
his home to the Treasury Department.
Those were happy days
for the young couple. The poet,
twenty-six years old, and his
twenty-five-year-old poet-wife surely
thought of the political tur-
moil and the incipient war as something
outside themselves. Real
life for the poet-lovers was in their
home where they spent many
serene hours planning their first joint
volume.
While living in Washington, Piatt became
acquainted with
many famous men, not the least of whom
was Walt Whitman. A
notable year in Piatt's life was 1863,
for it was in May of this
year that he first visited Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and while
there visited Lowell. Chase had sent
after Piatt a letter of in-
troduction to Longfellow, but it was an
unnecessary gesture be-
cause Lowell took Piatt to call upon the
author of "The Chil-
dren's Hour." This was on May 28,
and from that day Piatt's
friendship with Longfellow continued
until the latter's death in
1882. Let Piatt describe the call:
The elder poet--the editor was twelve
years younger--greeted me
very pleasantly, invited me to a seat by
the open fire (for the day was a
New England May-day), offered me a
cigar, and, since I had come from
Washington, he began to speak of friends
there, asking me if I knew
Charles Sumner (I had only seen him; I
had never known him); and then
inquired about Mr. Chase with whom I
believe, his relations were very
friendly. It will be remembered that
Stephen Longfellow, the poet's
father, had studied law with Mr. Chase's
uncle, Salmon Chase. He also
inquired about Solger, a German writer,
long since dead, then like myself,
in the Treasury Department, seeming to
feel gratified at having recently
learned that he had secured a place--I
dare say he had recommended him.
(I remember to have seen a private
letter to Secretary Chase in March,
1861, in which the poet suggested the
propriety or policy of appointing
Senator Sumner as minister to England.)
Later he spoke of Mr. William
D. Howells, remarking on the peculiar
and striking opening to the latter's
poem, "Louis Labeau's
Conversion", then recently printed in the Atlantic
Monthly, wherein the poet makes the sound of bells from the
Venetian
Campanile suggest the pioneer
camp-meeting and "the fair humanities of
old religion" (the Wesleyan or
Methodist denomination) on the Ohio River
near Gallipolis. He asked also about Mr.
William D. Gallagher, our earliest
JOHN JAMES PIATT II
Western poet--then sojourning at
Washington--saying that he used to
write very spirited verses. Thomas
Buchanan Read was mentioned in re-
calling Western poets, and Mr.
Longfellow told of a recent visit from Read,
and laughingly related how enthusiastic the
artist-poet--then living at Cin-
cinnati--had been in speaking of the war
(he had been serving as staff-officer
under General Lew Wallace). Political
matters in Ohio, Vallandigham and
the Dayton mob, were discussed, the
editor--who was always more of a
politician than neighbor--taking a
leading part in the talk. Mr. Longfellow
had the warm, genial and hearty
expression of health and vigorous life;
age had scarcely begun to show itself,
though he had suffered much. The
second great grief of his life had come
to him less than two years before.17
His hair was only iron gray, and his
full beard had not yet that fall of
snow which covered it when next I saw
him. I was greatly pleased with
the visit, as I told the kind friend who
accompanied me, after leaving the
house.18
While in Washington Piatt and his wife
collaborated to pro-
duce a volume, The Nests at
Washington and Other Poems, which
was published in 1864 by a New York
firm, Walter Low. A
complimentary copy of the book elicited
the following letter
from
Longfellow:
CAMBRIDGE, May 12, 1864.
MY DEAR SIR:
I have had the pleasure of receiving
your book of poems, and have
read it through, from cover to cover,
with very uncommon satisfaction and
delight. I congratulate you upon your
success.
I beg that you will make my
congratulations acceptable to your "other
me," who, like the feminine rhyme
in French poetry, or the double ending
in our own, so beautifully and
gracefully closes the volume.
I was in Washington last Decemberi but
was so driven from pillar
to post in your City of the Lost
Footsteps, and between Alexandria and
the capitol, that I did not find time to
hunt you up, which I very much
regretted.
I remain, dear sir, with cordial good
wishes,
Yours very truly,
HENRY W. LONGFELOW.19
Poems in Sunshine and Firelight, the first volume of which
Piatt was the sole author, was published
in 1866 and received
much favorable comment from reviewers.20
A year later his service in Washington
was terminated, and
in 1868 the family made its permanent
abode at North Bend, Ohio,
a small town on the river near
Cincinnati, known chiefly as the
17 The first grief referred to was the
death of Longfellow's wife, Mary S.
Potter Longfellow, who became ill and
died while they were traveling in Holland in
1835. In 1843 he married Frances
Elizabeth Appleton who was tragically burned to
death in 1861--this being Longfellow's
second great grief.
18 Piatt, "An Acquaintance with
Longfellow," loc. cit., 135.
19 The Hesperian Tree (1903), 137.
20 See especially the Atlantic
Monthly, XVII (May, 1866), 653-55.
12 OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
location of the home and of the tomb of
President William Henry
Harrison. Here Piatt lived
intermittently for the remainder of
his life.
The Piatt home was in a very desirable
location, for it was
situated on a hill about three hundred
feet above the Ohio River
at a place where it makes a bend. Not
far from this point the
Great Miami River flows into the Ohio,
so that there was a river
view from nearly all the windows in the
house. The two-acre
estate slopes to the river from the
house, the slope being covered,
and still is, with natural growth
unspoiled by man's landscaping
efforts. Only one undesirable feature is
evident, and this Piatt
did not regard as a defect, if one can
judge by his poems. The
Ohio and Mississippi Railroad passed
along the foot of the hill so
that the house was at times shaken by
the passing of a heavy
freight train. In Piatt's poetry trains are colorful, exciting,
dramatic. See, for instance, "Taking the Night Train,"21
"Walking to the Station,"22 and
"Passengers."23 When Piatt
was working in Cincinnati and commuting,
he found that having
a train pass across his front yard was a
convenience; during the
winter he probably wished the track were
at his doorstep. In a
letter to Paul Hamilton Hayne he wrote:
. . . We have had nothing but snow and
ice since Thanksgiving Day.
It was fine for the little boys with
their sleds but--to me, going early and
coming late, up and down our river
hill--to and from the train--it has
nearly worn me out.24
The house itself was a frame building,
one story and a half
high, with French windows in the ends
and with a broad front
porch. Inside were many books. Hanging
above the mantel was
an oil painting of Mrs. Piatt by
Theodore Kauffman, and on a
bracket between the long front windows
was a small bust of Long-
fellow with an engraving of Ary
Schaeffer's "Hebe" over it;
among numerous engravings and
photographs hung a framed
autographed letter from Charles Dickens
to Piatt; and a portrait
and autograph of Christina Rosetti. He
evidently lost no oppor-
21 John J. Piatt, Poems in Sunshine and Firelight (Cincinnati,
1866), 50.
22 "John J. Piatt, Landmarks and Other Poems (New York,
1872), 35.
23 Piatt, Poems in Sunshine
and Firelight, 31-32.
24 John J. Piatt to Paul Hamilton Hayne,
February 20, 1881, Paul Hamilton
Hayne MSS. (In
Manuscript Collection, Duke University Library.)
JOHN JAMES PIATT 13
tunity in making the acquaintance of
writers, and consequently
was on speaking, or perhaps one should
say, writing terms with
many persons of literary consequence and
many more of near
prominence.
In order to support the establishment at
North Bend, Piatt
filled an editorial position on the
Cincinnati Chronicle, a daily
newspaper, during part of 1868 and 1869.
In 1869, he became
affiliated with another Cincinnati
newspaper, the Commercial.
This connection lasted until 1878
although for several years of
this period he occupied an official
position at Washington.
About the time of publication and
republication of Western
Windows and Other Poems, that is, from
1868 through 1872, the
poet reached the zenith of his
popularity. Life seemed to hold
high promise. The first edition of the
book was reviewed in at
least nine places.25
During these busy years Piatt had time
while in Cambridge
to visit Longfellow and John Greenleaf
Whittier at Amsbury.
Shortly after this journey to Cambridge,
in 1870,
he took his
second official position in Washington.
First he was enrolling
clerk in the House of Representatives;
then in 1871 he became
librarian of the House of
Representatives.
This same year he published a new volume
of verse, The
Pioneer's Chimney, and the following year two more volumes;
one, Landmarks and Other Poems; the
other, a new edition of
Western Windows and Other Poems.
From Landmarks and Other Poems comes
the following:
SNOW FALLING
The wonderful snow is falling,
Over river and woodland and wold;
The trees bear spectral blossom
In the moonshine blurr'd and cold.
There's a beautiful garden in Heaven;
And these are the banished flowers,
Falling and driven and drifted
Into this dark world of ours!
25 The London Athenaeum, London
Spectator The Independent The North
American Review, Putnam's Monthly New York Tribune, Harper's Weekly, Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, Press and Atlantic
Monthly. Quotations from these critical
opinions appeared in an advertisement by
Hurd and Houghton, New York, in an
edition of Western Windows and Other
Poems, published by them in 1872.
14 OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Doubtless hundreds of children over a
period of years learned
these two stanzas, because they had the
distinction of appearing
in one of the well-known McGuffey Readers.26
In 1874 a pathetic incident happened
which shows the stuff
the Piatt family was made of.
The family came home from a long stay in
Washington, one evening
in summer, July 3rd, glad, father and
mother and children, to reach the
fresh, green fragrant, spot, after a
tedious and dusty journey. Gayest of
all was the little eldest son, Victor, a
gentle, lovely boy, especially attached
to his mother. He had a merry day on the
morrow, "the Fourth". Just
at dusk, as his father came home from
the city, he was playing with some
powder which he had stored in a bottle,
when it exploded--and the same
instant the little fellow ran toward
them crying assuringly, "Mamma, I am
not hurt much!" But the next moment
he was no longer with them.27
It recalls Robert Browning's "An Incident
in a French
Camp."
Piatt evidently at this time became
interested in stories of
men's lives, for much of his literary
endeavor during the next
two years was in the biographical field.
Prentice had died in
1870, and in 1875 Piatt edited a volume
of the poems of his old
friend and benefactor.28 Among
the features of the book was
a thirty-eight page biographical sketch
by Piatt. The same year
he wrote a twelve page biography of
Forceythe Willson, another
minor poet of Kentucky, for the Atlantic
Monthly.29 Piatt
also
wrote a review of Edmund C. Stedman's
poetry for the Atlantic
Monthly in 1878.30
In 1879 Piatt collected all his own
poems that were pertinent
to the title into a volume which he
called Poems of House and
Home.
The same year finds him working as
money-order issuing
clerk in the Cincinnati Postoffice, a
position that he held for sev-
eral years. This work was more or less
uncongenial to him.
26 William Holmes McGuffey, Fifth
Eclectic Reader. Revised ed. (New York
and Cincinnati, 1879), 246. The poem was
accompanied by a note stating that its
author began to write verses at the age
of fourteen. For a discussion of the influence
of McGuffey's Readers, see Henry
I. Brock, "Six Books That Helped Mold the
Nation," in New York Times
Magazine (February 25, 1984) 10.
27 Richard
Henry Stoddard and others, Poet's Homes tBoston, 1877), 69.
28 John J. Piatt (ed.), Poems of
George D. Prentice, with a Biographical Sketch
(Cincinnati, 1876).
29 Atlantic Monthly, XXXV (March, 1876), 832-44. Ralph Waldo
Emerson, too,
was interested in Forceythe Willson and
published one of his poems, "In State,"
in his Parnassus (Boston, 1874),
255-57.
30 John J. Piatt, "Mr. Stedman's
Poetry," in Atlantic Monthly, XLI (March,
1878), 818-19.
JOHN JAMES PIATT 15
The hours were long; the work itself,
drudgery. However, the
income was absolutely necessary to
support his family. Some
idea of his attitude toward the job can
be obtained from a letter
to Hayne, a southern poet with whom
Piatt had some corre-
spondence.
But I am, . . . the hapless slave of a
government office--the Cincin-
nati Post-Office--in which I hold one of
the most exacting and{ despotic
posts that of Money-Order Issuing Clerk;
and during the last month I
have been driven, driven, all the time
by . . . the constantly coming man
at the window (ten of him at a time,
sometimes):
Oh it was pitiful--
Near a whole city-ful!
He has at last become fiend like to me
and tortures me like some poor
devil.31
One consequence of the Christmas rush at
the postoffice to
which Piatt alludes in the above
quotation was to prevent his
attending the birthday dinner given by
the Atlantic Monthly in
Boston, on December 3, 1879, for its
contributors in honor of the
seventieth birthday of Oliver Wendell
Holmes.
During the years 1879 and 1880 Piatt
expended most of his
literary effort on The Union of
American Poetry and Art, an
anthology which he was preparing at the
request of a publisher,
W. E. Dibble. It was a monumental work,
published and dis-
tributed in sections to subscribers.
Each part contained poetry
representative of a geographical section
of the country. Through
this work came a rift in the growing
friendship between Piatt and
Hayne. The southern section was the last
to be published. Piatt
had early asked Hayne for suggestions
and permission to use
some of his poems. Hayne replied
generously, sending not only
his own poems, some of them laboriously
copied by hand, but
other southern poets' as well. Piatt was
graciously grateful, as
was to be expected in 1880, but when the
southern section was
published and Hayne saw a copy, their
correspondence, hitherto
very friendly, ceased abruptly. Hayne's
personal copy of The
Union of American Poetry and Art, the sections bound together
in two fine, large volumes, contains no
mark to show why Hayne
31 Piatt to Hayne, January 1, 1879 (1880), Hayne MSS.
16 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
was displeased with it. That he was
displeased there can be no
doubt, for he wrote to a friend:
Glancing over the pages of two large
octavo vols--edited by Jno.
James Piatt, called "American
Poetry and Art,"--I find myself represented
as the most atrocious of wooden-headed
donkeys; a son, or twin brother
of the immortal Capt. Buzzby in Dombey
& Son.32
It may be that Hayne felt slighted
because the southern sec-
tion, originally planned for earlier
publication, was postponed
until last when, because money was
short, it had to be somewhat
curtailed. To a southern gentleman of
Hayne's stamp, made
doubly touchy by the Civil War, the
neglect of his section and of
himself, although unintended
and slight, might be considered a
personal affront.
Concurrently with the preparation and
publication of The
Union of American Poetry and Art, Piatt's affairs were coming
to a crisis at the postoffice. There was
much political intrigue
involved, but one charge, poor
handwriting, against the poet seems
to have a firm foundation. The
postmaster, Loge, was evidently
afraid of losing his job, a justifiable
fear because General Thomas
Lowry Young used to come to the
postoffice for private confer-
ences with the clerk, Piatt, no doubt a
suspicious circumstance to
the postmaster since Young had suggested
Piatt as a possible
successor to Loge. Then too, there was
the charge of illegibility
of handwriting which the postmaster,
with reason, brought against
Piatt. Whatever the reason, the
postmaster removed Piatt from
his clerkship on July 16, 1881.
During the last few months of his
incumbency at the post-
office Piatt had been trying to get a
federal appointment to some
consulship. He sent a remarkable
petition for such an appoint-
ment (The idea was Stedman's.) to the
President. Many famous
men signed it, among them Longfellow,
Holmes, Whittier,
Stedman, Howells, Hayne, Dr. Joseph
Gilbert Holland, Thomas
Bailey Aldrich and John Hay. Probably no
like document was
ever before presented to a President on
behalf of an American
32 Paul
Hamilton Hayne to Charles Etienne Arthur Gayarre, April 28, 1886,
Copse Hill, Georgia (Hayne's home), ibid.
JOHN JAMES PIATT 17
citizen. And it brought results; in
June, 1882, Piatt sailed from
New York for Cork, Ireland, to become
United States consul.33
Piatt's creative period ends here. From
1882 until April,
1893, he was United States consul at
Cork, Ireland; from April
until September of the same year, he was
consul at Dublin, Ire-
land. While in Ireland he published a
few volumes (mostly
filled with old poems) through Cork,
Dublin, and London book
publishers. Almost all of his creative
work was completed,
though, before he left the United
States. After his return to
America in 1894 he lived at North Bend,
Ohio, on his estate
overlooking the Ohio River. Either
shortly before or after he
returned to North Bend, a fire destroyed
his first home; then he
had a house remodelled to resemble an
Irish house that had
seemed attractive to him abroad.
He edited, in 1900, The
Hesperian Tree, a collection of poetry
and prose pieces referring to or written
by authors of the Ohio
Valley. He collected some new material
and published a second
edition of the work in 1903. During a
few months in 1907 he
was co-editor with E. J. Wohlgemuth of a
fortnightly magazine
called Midland which, as the name
suggests, was of particular
interest to people in the Ohio Valley.
The last years of his life were spent in
quiet retirement on
his estate where in the summer he and
his wife--both very fond
of birds--would take daily walks among the
trees and under-
growth. Often on Sundays his daughter,
Miriam, whom he
called "Birdie," would play
the piano and sing for him. He
frequently spent the winters in the city
of Cincinnati. In I914,
Piatt was permanently injured by being
accidentally thrown from
his carriage when a wheel came off a
short distance from home.
He died three years later at the age of
eighty-two.
Piatt lived through the period when
frontier influences were
at their height. As has been seen, he
spent his boyhood in a
33 It
became the custom many years ago for the king to patronize the arts.
Even in a democratic country the feeling
that the Government should support literary
men survived as late as the nineteenth
century. The United States Government sent
Washington Irving, Lowell, Howells, Bret
Harte, and Piatt to Europe with jobs
which would support them while allowing
them leisure to write. Irving went to
Spain and England, Lowell to Spain and
England, Howells to Italy, Harte to Ger-
many, and Piatt to Ireland, whereas
Hawthorne had his custom house appointment.
18
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
frontier country under conditions that
indelibly impressed them-
selves on his mind. His locale was
changed at least seven times
during the first twenty-five years of
his life, the change taking
him back and forth from a farm on the
Ohio River in Indiana
to a farm near Columbus, Ohio; from the
farm near Columbus
to Columbus itself, where he attended
the Capital University
Grammar School and worked for that
common training place of
little-schooled, early, mid-western
writers, a daily newspaper;
from there to Kenyon College, the
history of which Piatt de-
scribed so well in How the Bishop
Built His College in the
Woods; from this small, typical, mid-western frontier college
he went to the vast plains of Illinois,
where he helped settle and
make a prairie farm; from thence after a
visit to Chicago, he
went to Louisville, Kentucky, to work
for Prentice (typical, too,
because he had come from the East to
make himself, as editor of
the Louisville Journal, a
powerful, civilizing, and much respected
influence in the growing, developing,
Boone country), editor of
a newspaper which, besides being
politically influential, encour-
aged young writers, especially poets of
the region. Piatt's work
as secretary to the editor and as
contributor to the Journal was
the final step in a preparation not
unusual in a pioneer existence
and yet a preparation which offered a
splendid background of the
time and the place where he lived and
which he represented in
his best poetry.
Piatt's literary career has been
followed from his first
rather timid adventure in
authorship--the collaboration with
Howells in The Poems of Two Friends, a
first book for two
Ohioans with much the same training and
inclinations but whose
careers veered far apart: Howells to
become an important liter-
ary influence for a quarter of a century
as writer and critic, but
not until he had left behind him much,
of the frontier influence
which clung to his boyhood and which was
revived only in the
autobiographical books of his old age;
Piatt to become the writer
of many poems expressing the spirit of
the frontier but lacking
that certain quality which would make
him rank with the best
American poets.
During the twenty-two years following
the publication of
JOHN JAMES PIATT 19
The Poems of Two Friends, Piatt produced practically all his
best work, came in contact with the most
important American
writers then alive, and worked for the
Federal Government, for
newspapers, or for his own literary
advancement.
His reputation, after an auspicious
beginning, reached a point
where many of the leading magazines
reviewed his books, but
there his popularity stopped. Many of
his books went through a
second edition, and that there was a
sustained market for his
books is shown by his frequent
publication of new volumes--at
least of volumes with new names. Too
often his work is mild
and flat, but although all his poetry is
not worth saving, the
judgment of posterity should be not to
discard the good with the
bad. A thorough student of the period
and section of American
literature which he represents cannot
wisely ignore some of his
work.
He knew whereof he spoke.
He not only was articulate,
a quality few frontiersmen could claim,
but he also read widely.
Recent as well as older works on
American literary history
recognize him.
The best estimate of Piatt that has been
found is the fol-
lowing:
He was a classicist who caught the new
vision and sought to com-
promise. Everywhere is his work a
blending of the new and the old; the
Western spirit that would voice the new
notes of the Wabash rather than
echo the old music of the Thames, that
syren melody that had been the
undoing of Taylor and Stoddard. In all
his volumes conventional work like
"Rose and Root," "The
Sunshine of Shadows," and "The Unheard"' alter-
nates with more original poems native in
theme and to a degree native in
spirit, like "The Mower in
Ohio," "The Pioneer's 'Chimney," "Fires in
Illinois," and "Riding to
Vote." There is no dialect, no straining for
realistic effect, no sentimentality. In
all that makes for art the poems have
little for criticism: they are classical
and finished and beautiful. But they
lack life. There is nothing about them
that grips the reader's heart, nothing
that fixes itself in the memory, no
single line that has distinction of phrase.
Even in the Western poems like "The
Mower in Ohio" there is no sharp-
ness, no atmosphere, no feeling of
reality. It is art rather than life; it
is a conscious effort to make a poem.
The case is typical. With the
criticism one may sweep away once for
all great areas of the poetry of the
time.34
In a way Piatt was a transitional figure
struggling with the
Victorian influence which hung over him,
and which tended to
34 Fred Lewis Pattee, History of American Literature,
since 1870 (New York,
1916), 328-24.
20
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
devitalize his poetry. Nevertheless, in
spite of eastern and
European influence, Piatt broke forth
occasionally in a poem
which caught the spirit of his native
soil. We have in his work
something definitely indigenous to the
Ohio Valley, the drama,
the fever, the poetry of railroads, the
bleakness and also the
beauty of cold winters in isolated
homes. He was, in his early
writing, a little ahead of the drift to
realism. As he grew older,
the drift passed far beyond him. He was
an authentic voice of
the middle-western frontier; not a loud,
compelling voice, but one
that sometimes made statements which are
worth remembering.
SONNET--IN 186235
Stern be the Pilot in the dreadful hour
When a great nation, like a ship at sea
With the wroth breakers whitening at her
lee,
Feels her last shudder if her Helmsman
cower;
A godlike manhood be his mighty dower!
Such and so gifted, Lincoln, may'st thou
be
With thy high wisdom's low simplicity
And awful tenderness of voted power:
From our hot records then thy name shall
stand
On Time's calm ledger out of passionate
days--
With the pure debt of gratitude begun
And only paid in never-ending praise--
One of the many of a mighty Land
Made by God's providence the Anointed
One.
TORCH-LIGHT IN FALL-TIME36
I lift this sumach-bough with crimson
flare
And, touch'd with subtle pangs of dreamy
pain,
Through the dark wood a torch I seem to
bear
In Autumn's funeral train.
THE MOWER IN OHIO37
(June, MDCCCLXIV.)
The bees in the clover are making honey,
and I am making my hay:
The air is fresh, I seem to draw a young
man's breath today.
The bees and I are alone in the grass:
the air is so very still
I hear the dam, so loud, that shines
beyond the sullen mill.
Yes, the air is so still that I hear
almost the sounds I can not hear--
That, when no other sound is plain, ring
in my empty ear:
35 Piatt, Western Windows, 178.
36 Ibid., 106.
37 Piatt, Idylls and Lyrics of the
Ohio Valley, 27-82. Cf. with Walt Whitman's
"Come up from the Fields," or James Whitcomb
Riley's "The Old Man and Jim."
T
JOHN JAMES PIATT 21
The chime of striking scythes, the fall
of the heavy swaths they
sweep--
They ring about me, resting, when I
waver half asleep;
So still I am not sure if a cloud, low
down, unseen there be,
Or if something brings a rumor home of
the cannon so far from me:
Far away in Virginia where Joseph and
Grant, I know,
Will tell them what I meant when first I
had my mowers gol
Joseph, he is my eldest one, the only
boy of my three
Whose shadow can darken my door again,
and lighten my heart
for me.
Joseph, he is my eldest--how his scythe
was striking ahead!
William was better at shorter heats, but
Jo in the long-run led.
William, he was my youngest; John,
between them, I somehow see,
When my eyes are shut, with a little
board at his head in Tennessee.
But William came home one morning early,
from Gettysburg, last
July,
(The mowing was over already, although
the only mower was I:)
William, my captain, came home for good
to his mother; and I'll
be bound
We were proud and cried to see the flag
that wrapt his coffin around;
For a company from the town came up ten
miles with music and gun!
It seemed his country claimed him
then--as well as his mother--her
son.
But Joseph is yonder with Grant today, a
thousand miles or near,
And only the bees are abroad at work
with me in the clover here.
Was it a murmur of thunder I heard that
hummed again in the air?
Yet, may be, the cannon are sounding now
their Onward to Richmond
there.
But under the beech by the orchard, at
noon, I sat an hour it would
seem--
It may be I slept a minute, too, or
wavered into a dream.
For I saw my boys, across the field, by
the flashes as they went,
Tramping a steady tramp as of old, with
the strength in their arms
unspent;
Tramping a steady tramp, they moved like
soldiers that march to the
beat
Of music that seems, a part of
themselves, to rise and fall with their
feet;
Tramping a steady tramp, they came with
flashes of silver that shone,
Every step, from their scythes that rang
as if they needed the stone--
22 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY (The field is wide and heavy with grass)--and, coming toward me, they beamed With a shine of light in their faces at once, and--surely I must have dreamed! For I sat alone in the clover-field, the bees were working ahead. There were three in my vision--remember, old man: and what if Joseph were dead But I hope that he and Grant (the flag above them both, to boot,) Will go into Richmond together, no matter which is ahead or afoot! Meantime, alone at the mowing here--an old man somewhat gray-- I must stay at home as long as I can, making, myself, the hay. And so another round--the quail in the orchard whistles blithe;-- But first I'll drink at the spring below, and whet again my scythe. Chart Showing Piatt Ancestry.38 Traceable to Middle Ages in France Frances Van Vlit John Piatt of France, a judge (Mrs. Wykoff) who died in 1760. Frances Margaret Elizabeth Daniel Abraham John Jacob Hannah Cook McCullough of Captain Jacob Piatt, on Asbury, New Jersey, who General George Washing- owned the first carriage in ton's staff, an original Asbury. member of the Society of the Cincinnati. Captain William Piatt--In Rev- Sarah Smith of Somerset olutionary War, original County, New Jersey. member of Society of the Cincinnati. Killed at St. Clair's Defeat, November 4, 1791. 38 This chart was compiled from information taken from the following sources: Venable, op. cit., 166; Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society Publications (Columbus, 1887-), XIII (1904) 555; Elizabeth Budd McCullough Smith and Caroline Piatt Morrison, A Memorial Biography: Benjamin M. Piatt and Elizabeth, His Wife (Washington, 1887); and Miss Juliet Bertha Piatt, Mac-a-Check Castle, West Liberty, Ohio. |
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JOHN JAMES PIATT 23 Frances Jemima William F. James Rachel Bear Captain James Piatt, in War of 1812. Emily Scott John Bear Piatt Sarah Morgan Bryan John James Piatt Marian Victor Guy Cecil Dougal Donn Chronological Bibliography of the Works of John James Piatt. Books After each book are listed the libraries that have been visited by the author of this paper, where the books can be found. The following abbreviations are used: Antioch College Library, Yellow Springs, Ohio .......Ant. Cincinnati Public Library, Cincinnati, Ohio...........Cin. Dayton Public Library, Dayton, Ohio ............... Day. Duke University Library, Durham, North Carolina.... Duke Greene County Public Library, Xenia, Ohio.........Greene Library of Congress, Washington, D. C............Cong. Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society Library, Columbus, Ohio ............................... Arch. Starred titles were not located, nor could the name and loca- tion of the publisher be found. Poems of Two Friends (with William Dean Howells), Columbus, Ohio, Follett, Foster and Company, 1860 [Cin., Arch.]. The Nests at Washington and Other Poems (with Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt). New York, Walter Low, 1864 [Cin., Cong.]. Poems in Sunshine and Firelight. Cincinnati, R. W. Carroll and Company, 1866 [Cin., Cong., Arch.]. Western Windows and Other Poems (also known as Poems). Cincinnati, R. W. Carroll and Company, 1868; New York, Hurd |
24
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
and Houghton; Boston, Houghton, Osgood
and Company, 1872,
1877; London, Trubner and Company [Cin.,
Cong., Arch.].
*The Pioneer's Chimney and Other
Poems. 1871.
Landmarks and Other Poems. New York,
Hurd and
Houghton, 1872; Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1871,
1877 [Cin., Day., Duke, Cong., Arch.].
Poems of George D. Prentice; ed. with a Biographical Sketch
by John James Piatt. Cincinnati, Robert
Clarke and Company,
1876, 1877, 1878, 1883 [Cin., Duke,
Cong., Arch.].
May Festival, 1878; Ode for the
Opening of the Cincinnati
Music Hall. Cincinnati, Robert Clarke and Company, 1878
[Cong.].
Poems of House and Home (also known as A Dream of
Church Windows). New York, Hurd and Houghton, 1878;
Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company,
1879; Cambridge,
Massachusetts, Houghton, Mifflin and
Company, 1888 [Cin.,
Day., Duke, Cong., Arch.].
Pencilled Fly-leaves: A Book of
Essays in Town and Coun-
try. Cincinnati, Robert Clarke and Company, 1880 [Cin.,
Duke,
Cong., Arch.].
The Union of American Poetry and Art;
ed. by John James
Piatt. Cincinnati, W. E. Dibble, 1880.
2v. [Cin., Cong., Duke].
Idyls and Lyrics of the Ohio Valley. Cincinnati, W. E.
Dibble, 1881; Boston and New York,
Houghton, Mifflin and
Company, 1888 [Cin., Day., Cong.,
Arch.].
The Children Out-of-doors by Two in
One House (with
Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt). Cincinnati,
Robert Clarke and
Company, 1885 [Cin., Cong.].
At the Holy Well with a Handful of
New Verses. Dublin,
N. H. Gill and Son, 1887; Cork, D.
Muleahy and Company;
Cincinnati, Robert Clarke and Company;
London, Simpkin, Mar-
chall and Company [Cin., Cong.].
A Book of Gold and Other Sonnets. London, Elliot Stock,
1889 [Cong.].
A Return to Paradise and Other
Fly-leaf Essays in Town
and Country. London, Elliot Stock, 1891 [Cin.].
JOHN JAMES PIATT 25
*The Lost Hunting Ground. 1893.
*Little New World Idyls. 1893.
*The Ghost's Entry and Other Poems. 1895.
Odes in Ohio and Other Poems. Cincinnati, Robert Clarke
and Company, 1897.
The Hesperian Tree; ed. by John James Piatt. Three
Rivers Elm, North Bend, Ohio, John Scott
and Company, 1900;
Columbus, Ohio, S. F. Harriman, 1903
[Ant., Cin., Day., Duke,
Greene, Arch.].
How the Bishop Built His College in
the Woods. Cincin-
nati, The Western Literary Press [1906],
[Cin., Cong.].
The Swallow-flight Series. Three Rivers Elm, North Bend,
Ohio, John Scott and Company [1906].
[This series is composed
of single poems, each printed in a small
book with very attractive
binding and illustrations.]
Midland, a Fortnightly Magazine; ed. by John James Piatt
and E. J. Wohlgemuth. October, 1907, to
January, 1908 [Cong.].
Contributions to Magazines
"The Morning Street," in Atlantic
Monthly, III (February,
1859), 150.
"The Old Man and the Leaves,"
in Harper's Monthly Maga-
zine, XXII (March, 1861), 528.
"The Bronze Statue," in Harper's
Monthly Magazine, XXIV
(March, 1862), 521.
"The Master Key," in Harper's
Monthly Magazine, XXVI
(April, 1863), 699.
"The Lost Genius," in Atlantic
Monthly, XX (August,
1867), 288.
"The Outside of the Window,"
in Harper's Monthly Maga-
zine, XLVIII (March, 1874), 578.
"The Moth," in Atlantic
Monthly, XXXIV (August, 1874),
167.
"One behind Time," in Atlantic
Monthly, XXXIV (Octo-
ber, 1874), 422.
"Forceythe Willson" (biography
and criticism), in Atlantic
Monthly, XXXV (March, 1875), 332-44.
26
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
"Quick and Dead," in Atlantic
Monthly, XXXVI (Decem-
ber, 1875), 721.
"The Ghost's Entry," in Harper's
Monthly Magazine, LII
(January, 1876), 271.
"Mr. Stedman's Poetry"
(criticism), in Atlantic Monthly,
XLI (March, 1878), 313-9.
"Flower in a Book," in Atlantic
Monthly, XLII (December,
1878), 768.
"The Children Out-of-doors,"
in Atlantic Monthly, XLIV
(July, 1879), 97.
"Letter of Regret" for absence
from Holmes' seventieth
birthday anniversary dinner given by the
Atlantic Monthly to its
contributors, in Atlantic Monthly, XLVI
(November, 1879),
supplement, 21.
"The Guerdon," in Atlantic
Monthly, XLIX (January,
1882), 30.
"At Kilcolman Castle," in Atlantic
Monthly, XC (November,
1902), 702.
Manuscript Material
Duke University has seventeen letters
from John James
Piatt to Colonel Paul Hamilton Hayne and
his wife, in the Paul
Hamilton Hayne Manuscript Collection.
Dr. Lewis Chase, of
Washington, D. C., has the original of a
letter to a Miss Myers,
dated February 10, 1881. Mr. Cecil
Piatt, the poet's son, of 55
Cedar Street, New York, N. Y., is
reputed to possess most of the
original manuscript material.
JOHN JAMES PIATT, REPRESENTATIVE FIGURE
OF A MOMENTOUS PERIOD
By CLARE DOWLER
Biographical and Critical Study.
The development of Ohio from 1830 to
I880 was spectacular.
It characterized, in a fashion, the
development of the whole nation.
In this typical region, it would be hard
to find a more representa-
tive man than John James Piatt. His life
span began as Ohio was
emerging out of the wilderness, as
"Johnny Appleseed's" trees
were bearing abundantly, and as the
completion of a system of
internal canals and waterways filliped
the growth of the State to
an accelerated speed. In his boyhood he
was excited by the new
marvels of steam--by Robert Fulton's
steamboat which, only
twenty-three years before Piatt's birth,
had startled the woods-
men and settlers along the Ohio as it
paddled its way from Pitts-
burgh to New Orleans; by the steam
locomotive which only five
years before Piatt's birth had drawn a
train of cars along twenty-
three miles of track on the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad. Piatt's
images, his themes, his references
illustrate strikingly the imprint
of the new mode of life upon his
generation.
He had not the qualities of a Daniel
Boone. In the periodic
westward movements of frontiersmen,
Boone represented the first,
the trail-blazer-Indian-killer type.
Piatt represented the second,
the tiller of the soil, the man who
subjugated the ruthless forces
of nature, who began to grope for
expression and tried to make
articulate the life he represented. Nor
had he the background of
a James Russell Lowell. Piatt's
forebears should not be dis-
paraged, although they excelled in wars,
rebelling against tyranny,
rather than in literary accomplishment.
It was good that his ancestors were of
the crusading type,
that he himself was what he was, for in
general, the effete east-
erner could not write about the new West
like one actually bred in
(1)