BOZ REPORTS ON OHIO
By ROBERT PRICE
On Tuesday, the twenty-sixth of April,
1842, Charles
Dickens writing from America to John
Forster in London began
his letter with the heading:
"Niagara Falls!!! (upon the English
Side)."1 Then, very suggestively,
he drew ten dashes under-
neath the word English!2
Dickens' first tour of the United
States, then just about com-
pleted, had not been altogether
pleasant. The typical British
attitude of the time toward people and
things in the States had
probably set him off to a bad start; an
unpleasant controversy
over international copyrights had added
complications; while nu-
merous annoying adventures with
"the tobacco-spittle we have
wallowed in, the strange customs we have
complied with, the
packing cases in which we have
travelled"3 during his swing
through East, South, and West had
convinced him that any spot
outside the boundaries of the United
States would be a welcome
refuge.
"Oh! the sublimated essence of
comicality that I could distil,
from the materials I have!"4 he wrote to
Forster now as he
looked back upon his experiences since
first boarding the packet
Britannia at Liverpool on January third.
That he did distil much, his readers
were to discover the fol-
lowing October when American Notes was
published; and the
process of distillation becomes for
Ohioans of a hundred years
afterward a very interesting thing, for
although the mass of ad-
denda and apocrypha that have
accumulated on the Dickens trip
since 1842 has long suggested that the American
Notes did not
tell all, the extent to which the
factual reporter in Dickens was in-
1 Charles Dickens to John Forster, Niagara Falls, April 26, 1842, The
Letters of
Charles Dickens, in The Nonesuch Dickens (Bloomsbury, 1938), 1,
441. All references
in this article are to this edition.
2 John Forster, The Life of Charles
Dickens (London, 1899), I, 285.
3 To Henry Austin, May 1, 1842, Letters.
4 April 26, 1842, ibid.
(195)
196
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
fluenced by the literary artist and
emotionalist has been left until
the recent publication of the complete
Dickens Letters for final
judgment.5
Readers know now that the final hook
departed radically
from much in Dickens' original recording
of his impressions.
Nearly half, for example, of Dickens'
famous account of his
stagecoach journey from Cincinnati to
Sandusky, long a favorite
item with Ohioans, was not part of the
author's notes made on
the trip but was added weeks later
largely, apparently, for em-
bellishment.
Dickens did not keep a regularly posted
notebook during his
tour. The body of the American Notes was
eventually compiled
from letters which he wrote to John
Forster and others in England
during the course of the trip.6 Thirty
years later when Forster
was preparing a biography of Dickens, he
too drew upon these
letters but, unfortunately, instead of
always copying out the long
excerpts which he quoted, often merely
mounted Dickens' orig-
inals in his manuscript. Today Forster's
manuscript and with it
many of Dickens' letters seem to have
been lost.7
For the period of the American trip,
Forster in this biography
usually quoted only those portions of
the correspondence which
Dickens himself had not covered with a
fair degree of fullness in
the American Notes. The result is
that for many of Dickens'
American experiences the original
memoranda (when they were
in the form of letters to Forster) no
longer exist, and parallel
accounts do exist only when Dickens
departed so seriously from
the material recorded in his letters
that Forster felt duty bound to
print the original in the biography.
Parallel data are most nearly complete
for the closing weeks
of the tour, the period of the visit to
Ohio, Dickens having here
deviated most markedly from his original
accounts in the letters.
For earlier weeks in the States, Dickens
found as he worked at
his book the following summer that he
could merely copy his
original impressions almost intact. In
fact, he even complained to
5 The Nonesuch Dickens.
6 Cf. letter to Thomas Mitton,
April 4, 1842, Letters: "Forster has the best journal
I have had time to keep in these
conveyances, of our adventures."
7 Ibid., 1, viii.
OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE, 1942 197
Forster that "the subjects at the
beginning of the book are of that
kind that I can't dash at them.
And now and then they fret me
in consequence. When I come to
Washington, I am all right. The
solitary prison at Philadelphia is a
good subject though; I forgot
that for the moment."8
On the other hand, as he relived his
reactions toward Ameri-
can life experienced in New York,
Philadelphia and Washington,
over the mountains and down the Ohio to
the prairies, back to
Ohio and across it in stagecoaches to
the Lake, and finally to Buf-
falo, the Falls and Canada, his account,
in spite of notes, took on
a momentum of its own which toward the
end became in a large
degree its own law. The result was some
of the finest writing in
the American Notes--but it was
correspondingly less accurate
reporting.
A glance at some of the more significant
changes in the Ohio
material is ample proof. The first
immediately obvious alterations
consist, as one would expect, of tactful
omissions and tonings
down. Actual names and personalities
nearly all dropped out--as,
for instance, the name of Judge Timothy
Walker, who entertained
the Dickens party in Cincinnati.9
The travelers consisting of Mr. and Mrs.
Dickens, their
woman companion, Mrs. Anne Cornelius,
and Dickens' secretary,
George W. Putnam, whom he had engaged in
Boston, had arrived
in Cincinnati from Pittsburgh, Monday
morning, April fourth, on
the steamer Messenger.10 They
were stopping for a couple of
days en route down the river to St.
Louis for a glimpse of the
prairies. At 8:30 they came ashore and
drove to the Broadway
House. Before they could issue a
"not at home," two judges of
8 July 18, 1842. Cf. letter to
Forster, September 16, 1842: "The Philadelphia
chapter I think very good, but I am
sorry to say it has not made as much in print
as I hoped," Letters.
9 To Forster, April 15, 1842, ibid.
10 The present article makes no attempt
to retell the story of Dickens' visit to
Ohio already available in many printed
accounts. See especially Charles Dickens,
American Notes (London, 1842), and Letters, I; Forster, Life
of Charles Dickens, I;
Harlan Hatcher, The Buckeye Country (New
York, 1940); Archer Butler Hulbert,
Historic Highways of America (Cleveland), XII (1904); William T. Martin, History
of Franklin County (Columbus, 1858); Basil Meek, The Twentieth Century
History of
Sandusky County, Ohio (Chicago, 1910); Hewson L. Peeke, "Charles Dickens
in
Ohio in 1842," Ohio State
Archeological and Historical Quarterly, XXVIII (1919),
72-81; Charles Sumner Van Tassel, Charles
Dickens' 1842 Visit to Ohio (n.p., 1937);
William Clyde Wilkins, Charles
Dickens in America (New York, 1911); and many
articles in various Ohio newspapers from
1842 to the present.
198
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
the city called on behalf of the
townspeople to know when Dickens
would receive. Arrangements were made at
once to see the town
and for a ball the next evening.
Dickens eventually described the city
quite favorably. Judge
Walker he liked. "I saw a good deal
of Walker in Cincinnati. I
like him very much," he wrote to C.
C. Felton of Cambridge.11
Dickens, however, did not publish his
original account of the ball
--which included his comments to Forster
that he had been intro-
duced "to at least one hundred and
fifty first-rate bores, separately
and singly," and had been
"required to sit down by the greater
part of them and talk."12
Neither did he mention that three weeks
later after returning
to Cincinnati and then crossing Ohio to
the Lake, he had refused,
because of a fit of anger over a
newspaper editorial, to receive
Cleveland's mayor, Dr. Joshua Mills, who
came on board the
steamer Constitution to greet
him.l3
Deleted too were some of Dickens' more
violent descriptive
statements. His note, for example, that
during his half hour levee
at the Neil House in Columbus, the
people pressed in dressed and
acting exactly like the chorus in
"God Save the Queen"! Dickens
had said:
They wear their clothes, precisely as
the chorus people do; and stand--
supposing Kate and me to be in the
centre of the stage, with our backs to
the footlights--just as the company
would, on the first night of the season.
They shake hands exactly after the
manner of the guests at a ball at the
Adelphi or the Haymarket; receive any
facetiousness on my part, as if there
were a stage direction "all
laugh"; and have rather more difficulty in "get-
ting off" than the last gentlemen,
in white pantaloons, polished boots and
berlins, usually displayed under the
most trying circumstances.14
He omitted also his remark describing
his concern at having
to spend a night in the wild-appearing
Indian town of Upper
Sandusky with f750 in gold on his person:
for no more than the
middle one of those figures (£5), he
said, there were "not a few
men in the West who would murder their
fathers."15
11 April 29, 1842, Letters.
12 April 15, 1842, ibid.
13 To Forster, April 26, 1842, ibid.
14
To Forster, April 24, 1842, ibid.
15 Ibid.
OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE, 1942 199
Missing too is a choice collection of
epithets recorded at San-
dusky against Ohioans generally:
"invariably morose, sullen,
clownish, and repulsive"
"entirely destitute of humor,
vivacity, or the capacity of enjoyment"
"I am quite serious when I say that
I have not heard a hearty laugh
these six weeks, except my own; nor have
I seen a merry face on any
shoulders but a blackman's."
"Lounging listlessly about, idling
in bar-rooms; smoking; spitting; and
lalling on the pavement in
rocking-chairs . . ."
"I don't think the national
shrewdness extends beyond the Yankees;
that is, the Eastern men. The rest are
heavy, dull, and ignorant."16
Dickens could find little indeed to
praise in these Westerners.
Earlier when writing to Forster he had
said of Congress that in
both houses there were "some very
noble specimens, too, out of
the West. Splendid men to look
at."17 But rewriting his de-
scription the next summer, having
actually visited trans-Appala-
chian America, he decided to omit
"out of the West"!
There are other small omissions of the
same sort, either for
tact or to emphasize a final point of
view. Perhaps they are not
so serious, historically considered, as
certain other alterations
which suggest deliberate playing with
fact or, at least, interpola-
tions.
A dozen pages of the American Notes were
devoted to the
journey from Cincinnati to Columbus on
Wednesday and Thurs-
day, April 20 and 21.18
Dickens commented upon the beautiful
country, the promise of abundant
harvest, the young corn like a
crop of walking sticks, the green wheat
among a labyrinth of
stumps, worm fences, and neat farms
reminding him of Kent.
Nothing is definitely localized. It is a
charming description, one
that has long been a favorite of
Ohioans, although it contains very
little but generalities. Practically all
of it, the record shows, was
missing from the original description
written down for Forster on
the Sunday immediately following the
trip, while Dickens was
waiting over at Sandusky for a steamer.19
Much of it seems to
have been created the next summer out of
literary whole cloth.
16 Ibid.
17 To Forster, April 26, 1842, ibid.
18 The Nonesuch Dickens, 187-198.
19 April 24, 1842, Letters.
200
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Most colorful of all these descriptive
bits are the humorous
sketches supposedly chronicling the
changing of horses, the stops
at a couple of typical taverns, the
crude manners of natives, etc.
The writing reveals the true Dickens at
his finest, but it also
reveals no identifiable Ohio. A student
of Ohio lore would, of
course, like to localize the tavern
scenes at Lebanon where a
vigorous local legend has grown big
through the century, but
that legend has never been accepted
within the canon.20
One of the most conspicuous of the
interpolations in this sec-
tion can be traced to a precise date of
origin. It is the remarkable
"Brown Hat" and "Straw
Hat" conversation, a supposed occur-
rence during the Cincinnati to Columbus
leg of the trip and the
anecdote which in the book epitomizes
the absurdities Dickens had
been noting in American speech.21
These oddities had been amus-
ing Dickens ever since his first
contacts with railway passengers
in New England, and there is no hint
whatever in his original
letters that he had any reason for
attaching the conversation
specifically to Ohio. As a matter of
fact, the sketch was not part
of the original description of Ohio sent
to Forster, but was written
out in a later letter of May third.22
During his rest at Niagara,
Dickens seems to have composed several
such descriptions and
sketches, seemingly for distribution at
appropriate places to en-
liven the coming book. "One of the
most amusing phrases in use
all through the country," he wrote
to Forster, "for its constant
repetition, and adaptation in every
emergency, is 'Yes, Sir.' Let
me give you a specimen." Then
followed the sketch which even-
tually graced the account of the trip to
Columbus.
The stage from Columbus to Tiffin
running only three times
a week and Friday, April 22,
1842, being an off-day, it was
necessary for Dickens to hire an
exclusive "Extra" in the form of
a four-horse coach. According to the American
Notes, they were
off at 6:30 (at 7, said Dickens in his
letter to Forster) and in fine
spirits. The turnpike company was
sending along an agent on the
box to insure the success of the trip,
and R. B. Cowles, proprietor
20 See Frank Jerome Riley, "The
Town That Poisoned Dickens," Esquire (Chicago)
XII
(1939), 72, 267-270.
21 The Nonesuch Dickens, 189-191.
22 May
3, 1842, Letters.
OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE, 1942 201
at the Neil House, had packed a large
hamper of eatables. The
arrangement for reaching Tiffin cost $40.
Dickens' printed statement of his
journey to the Lake can be
accepted as probably true to
actualities, for he noted down the
details at Sandusky while they were
fresh in mind, and the book
version followed his original
impressions carefully. It is the best
literary record at hand of a stage trip
over corduroy roads through
central and northern Ohio of this
period. All evidence indicates
that the jolts, twists and hazardous
swaying which Dickens de-
scribed in exciting detail was anything
but exaggerations. The
first part of the road immediately out
of Columbus was not bad,
but farther this particular turnpike was
one of the most notoriously
unsatisfactory pieces of road at the
time, a common matter of com-
plaint. The line had been operated for a
number of years by the
Columbus and Sandusky Turnpike Company.
It was a clay and
mud pike with only the crudest of
improvements, chiefly corduroy.
People protested grievously at paying
tolls on such a road, and
the act incorporating the company was
finally repealed by the
legislature on February 28, 1843.23
The physical tortures as the journey
progressed are sug-
gested by one incident which Dickens for
some reason chose to
omit from his book, but which he had
related in a letter to Henry
Austin from Niagara.24 Mrs.
Dickens was the particular suf-
ferer:
Once in going over a coaching road which
is made by throwing trunks
of trees into a marsh, she very nearly
had her head broken off. It was a
very hot day, she was lying in a
languishing manner with her neck upon
the open window. Bang--crash! It's a
little on one side to this hour.
Putnam recorded of this ride that he
finally tied two hand-
kerchiefs to the doorposts of the coach,
the ends of which Mrs.
Dickens wound around her wrists and
hands in an effort to break
the violence of the jolts.25
Ohio whittlers, however, received one of
the most interesting
bits of revision in the whole American
Notes. Dickens had be-
23 William T. Martin, History of
Franklin County (Columbus, 1858), 70-72.
24 May 1, 1842, Letters.
25 Wilkins, Charles Dickens, 228.
202
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
come highly conscious of the Westerner's
propensity for whittling.
If the local tradition is true, this
consciousness had been sharp-
ened during his stop in Columbus, by a
joke played upon him by
a group of whittling socialites.26 Yet
his notes to Forster men-
tioned whittling only in connection with
his account of the Cleve-
land mayor. Mayor Mills, when he found
that Dickens refused
to honor the call by coming out of his
cabin, took the matter quite
coolly, Dickens reported to Forster, and
"retired to the top of the
wharf, with a big stick and a whittling
knife, with which he worked
so lustily (staring at the closed door
of our cabin all the time)
that long before the boat left, the big
stick was no bigger than a
cribbage peg!"27
When the Cleveland mayor along with
other personalities
dropped out of the narrative the
following summer, the whittling
touch was too precious to discard
completely. Accordingly, an-
other whittler popped up (though he had
not been mentioned
anywhere in Dickens' version written
from America) conveniently
enough during the boatride from Sandusky
to Cleveland. The
boat, says the American Notes, was
a 500-ton vessel with high-
pressure engines, which made Dickens
feel as if he were taking
"lodgings on the first floor of a
powder mill." It bore a cargo of
flour, several barrels of which were
carried on deck. The cap-
tain's custom whenever he came up for
some conversation or to
introduce a friend was to straddle one
of these barrels like Bacchus
on a keg of wine and begin to whittle.
Pulling a great clasp-knife
out of his pocket, wrote Dickens, he
would "whittle it as he
talked, by paring the thin slices off
the edges. He whittled with
such industry and hearty good-will, that
but for his being called
away very soon, it must have disappeared
bodily, and left noth-
ing in its place but grist and
shavings."
Perhaps these whittlers were all
real--socialites, mayor, and
barrel-straddling captain--but we'll
never be quite sure now. Our
doubts will, of course, merely pay
compliment to the consummate
skill of Boz in distilling the
"essence of comicality."
26 Osman C. Hooper, "Literary
Landmarks of Columbus," Columbus Dispatch,
Aug. 4, 1938.
27 April 26, 1842; also the letter to David C. Colden, April 29, 1842, Letters.