The record-union., 1892-10-29

Traveller.
The REcoRD-UNIoN has entered into a
new contract with Edgar L. Wakeman,
the famous ''poet-traveler," under which
it will secure for publication his copy
righted letters called ''Wakeman's
Wanderings" for 1893.
For three years past the readers of the
RECoRD-UNIoN have enjoyed these de-
lightful contributions, which are alone
worth twice the price of the whole paper.
They will therefore be glad to know that
we have secured the letters for another
year.
That our readers may know some
thing of the life and career of this charm
ing writer we present below liberal eX-
tracts from an article published in the
Independent, of Harvard, McHenry
County, H., which will be found deeply
interesting:
While our county of McHenry, the gar
den county of Illinois, has given birth TO
many lawyers, jurists and politicians OF
note, the reputation OF these has been, as
rule, confined within the boundaries Of
Illinois, or of adjoining States.
1T has, however, produced one man
who, born here among us, brown
faced, tunicked country boy" and prac-
tically self-educated and selt-made, has,
through the splendid quality Of his ma
tive genius, already won for himself
genuine literary renown in every land in
which the English tongue is spoken and
read; and, through the product Of his
brilliant, tender and powerful pen, is des-
tined to bestow upon Americans by
Hugo to France, Scott to Scotland and
Dickens to England-an added lustre in
pure and fadeless literature.
The man whose personality the indie
pendent is proud 10 revive among old
neighbors and friends, after his absence
and ceaSelesS activity for more than Il
quarter OF a century in the outer world of
affairs and thought, is Edgar Lewis
Wakeman, author, essayist, traveller and
poet, who was born August %, 1913, on
the old Wakeman or Quality HIP
homestead, about six miles north OF the
city of Harvard.
His father was the late Hon. Thaddeus
Burr Wakeman, in the earlier days the
intimate friend of Washburne Yates and
Lincoln. He was of New England stock,
with direct descent from the land-hold-
ing nobility of Shropshire, Gloucester
shire, SomersetShire and Wales, some of
the Wakeman estates and titles still re-
manning intact. John Wakemau, last
Abbot of Tewkesbury, chaplain of Henry
VIII, and the first Bishop of Gloucester
1915, was one OF the same family, and
was noted man OF his time. In science
art, antiquary lore and general literature,
various members Of the family have al
ways been highly honored in England.
In 1887 t. B. Wakeman and wife. with
quite colony OF old and well-to-do
friends and neighbors, came, it being an
ante-railway period, overland in wagons
to the West. They halted for little time
on the Wabash River in Indiana. That
region proving unattractive, T. b. Wake
man and George Ward, who had married
sisters, made a prospecting tour into
Northern Illinois and Southern Wiscon-
sin. Outside the villages of Chicago.
Waukegan (or Little Fort, Kenosha
Racine and Milwaukee, and few scat
tered, scanty settlements, this country
was practically a primeval wilderness.
Here they found the most beautiful farm
ing region in middle America.
The new neighborhood was soon filed
up with New York and New England
folk. 1t embraced the central northern
the southern portion of Walworth
County, Wis, the district lying both
sides of the State line;i while legend
haunted Lake Geneva was but five
miles due north of the Wakeman home
stead, the latter being located one mile
south of the Wisconsin line, midway
between Alden and Bigfoot Corners
just at the western shoulder of the
highest range of hills.
The farmhouse itself, a roomy, old
fashioned structure, stood beneath an
cient oaks, embedded in lilacs and
locusts. 1t was at the very head of a
gentle valley of well-kept farms, over
which the eye could sweep a long dis
tance to the west to the edge of the
burr Oaks district.
One of the thrilling poems of the
heart written by Edgar l.. Wakeman, q
poem whose matchless picturing and
pathos has caused its translation into
many foreign languages, and rendered
Its publication as perennial as Long
fellows Rainy Day" or Tennyson's
Break, Break" was thought by the
literary world at the time of its appear
ance to be merely the cry of the authors
heart
From out the lairs and lives of men,
to the universal youthtide of humanity.
1t was all that, but more. 1t embodied,
true as the lights and shades of the ca
mera, an exact picture of the old Wake
man.homestead and its surroundings. Our
older McHenry County people will know
the scene in this wondrous word-paint-
ing which he called
UNREST
Here in the years wherein stand
gaze across the fallow land;
Across the conquest and its cost:
Beyond the sought-for and the lost;
And look into thine eyes of Joy
Inou brown-taeed, tuniclled country boy!
Just thou and thine, with naught between,
Make up that sweetest olden scene
9 tender scene and sight and sound
The farmhouse with its lilaes round:
The poppy-bed; the locust trees;
The stlllicidlc hum OF bees;
The well, with sturdy oaken sweep:
The morning rlOrieS hnlf a slam.
The swallows. gossiping; the Groom
OF doves about the barn; the noon
When kline, breast-deep, stand in the stream.
And thy world pauses in dream!
BEYOND. the uplands; then the hills,
Where, interlacIng. creep the rills;
Here, forests, sentinels OF peace;
There. fields with opulent Increase;
Below, the valley, stretching far
And dim to the horizons bar.
My brown-faced lad. look again
From out the lairs and lives of men.
see the longing in thy face
10 grow beyond the commonplace;
know the hurts that tween us lie,
anu pity thee! For thou wert-l.
Not only was the region like New
England, but the folk and their ways
We're full of the New England feeling and
color. In the neighborhood, from which
most of the old families are now gone,
put all of whom will be well remem bered,
peslqe the Wakemans were the Helms,
the Wedgwoods, the Potters, the Yudels,
the Garretts, the Sargents, the Browns,
me Wlikinsons, the Whiteleys, the Null
4ofds, the Pierce and Pease families, the
BentIeys, the Tookers, the Wards, the
Bennetts, the Hutchinsons, the Rogers,
me LoWellS. the Smiths. the WakeleyS,
ana many others-nearly all good old
New england families with good old New