Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-09-11
ORIGIN OF wHITTlER's BALLADS

these pleasing stories in verse would be
hard to find, and equally rare is the man in
whose mind are not stored many OF their
more striking stanzas. This fact of their
being common literary property makes
their origin Of unusual interest, and not q
little discussion has at different times been
INDUCED in relative to the seeds which bore
such literary fruit. Most of the following
facts are drawn from the latest biography
OF their author, one published within a few
months
or all Whittier's ballads the best known
is probably "Maud Muller" who con a sum-
mer day raked the meadow sweet with hay"
This is almost entirely creation of pure
fancy. its only reality being that one day
as Whittier was driving along dusty
road he stopped at wayside spring to
drink. In an adjoining field was girl clad
in the scan ntiest summer attire, who en-
deavored to cover her bare ieet with the
hay she was raking, blushing all the, time
through the brown sun tan of her cheeks.
From such trif1ing incident grew this
famous poem, of which its author said: "If
had had any idea that the plaguey thing
would have been so liked, l would have
taken more pains with it"
John Brown and the Negro Child.
The barefoot boy is autobiographical in
its character, being drawn entirely from the
youthful experiences of its author. Whether
John Brown, OF Ossawatomie really "stooped
between the jeering ranks and kissed the
negro's child" will never be known. The
men who guarded him as he was taken to
execution claim that nothing of the kind
occurred, but persons who were presen
just rs decidedly insist that it did occur 1t
is not unlikely that without the knowledge
OF the guards, with one OF dis quick nervous
movements he did stoop and kiss some
child in the crowd through which he was
passing.
1t is an old English custom to tell the bees
of the death of any of the family owning
them, and in many places the hives are
draped in black. Superstition says that if
this is not done the bees will leave their
hives. which may have its origin In the fact
that pees are very sensitive to the presence
OF any dead body. This custom Is main
tanned in parts of New England. and from it
has been drawn the pathetic ballad entitled
"Telling the Bees" q ballad in which
lover long separated from the one he loves
rides to her home and sees the servant drap-
ing the hives. He at once concludes that
his Mary is mourning the loss of her aged
grandsire, but in q moment he sees the old
man on the step, and finds that it is of the
death of Mary that the bees are learning.
The Story of Skipper Ireson.
The story of Skipper Ireson was told
Whittier by q schoolmate, young girl from
Marblehead, and 30 years later It
proved the foundation of the ballad.
1t seems that in the early part of the
century Captain Benjamin Ireson was re-
turning from the Grand Banks in command
of the schooner Betty. Off Cape COD one
midnight he deserted a lumber schooner in
sinking condition. With high sea run
ming and strong wind blowing the skipper
and his equally guilty crow made no attempt
to rescue its doomed sailors, but fastened
on toward home. Once there his COM
panlons placed all the blame on the Captain
and ST course he had no de ense.
Nothing was said or some time, but finally
secret meeting was held to discuss the
matter. On the following day Irescn was
thrown into q condemned dory and his
hands were bound. A bucket of tar had
been prepared and the crowd, a hundred
strong, laid hold of long rope attached to
town. Having received gift of two pill
lows from the wife of one Captain Bruce as
they went along, they proceeded to the out
skirts of she village where the tar and feath-
ers were applied and well rubbed in. two
Jumps of tar on his temples being decorated
with goose feathers. The march was then
ing out of the dory their victim was placed
in a cart. The authorities refusing to let
them come into Salem they released their
prisoner, who said: Il thank you for my
ride, gentlemen; but you will live to re-
gret it, This was the only time he spoke
during the proceedings.
Marblehead Never Got Over 1t.
One of his townsmen being asked what
effect the tarrfng had on the skipper, re-
piled: "Cowed him to death, cowed him to
DEATH" The original doggeral, as sung by
the boys of Marblehead, ran thus:
Old FLUID Oirson. for his horrd hort.
Was torred and feathere and corred in a cort;
He left foive men upon a wrack,
And was torred and feathered all over his back.
The fact that the feathers were provided
by woman probably gave Whittier the
Fl sl.z x1Io x.zt.-z
flicted by the women. The ballad has ex-
cited the unappeasable wrath of the Marble
headers, especially the women, who are not
proud OF their portrait as sketched by the
Dalladist, and they have no use at all for the
Quaker poet.
In the summer of 1889 some young ladies
from Salem went over to Marbehead on
boating trip, and while there went in search
OF Floyd Ireson's house. As they were in
quirins their way, woman thrust her head
out OF the window, crying, "Want to find
Flood Ireson's house, do ye7 Well, you
Ireson was every bit as good as you be; and
you treatin' his house s if t was curiosity.
You better go right away from here" And
errand were pelted with mud by the street
urchins.
The PiI1ags of the Palatine.
Edward Everett Hale says that "the most
charming AMI best authenticated of all our
Whittier's. beautiful ballad, the Pala-
tine" 1t is story of the pillage and
burning of a ship by wreckers, and its an
nual temperance as q phan tom ship of
fire. The ship Palatine drifted, ashore one
night on Block Island. The wreckers
boarded her, and landed all the miserable
passengers except one woman who had |
much gold and silver plate on board and |
refused to leave her treasure. The ship was |
towed into u cove by the wreckers, vino, |
having pillaged her, fired her and set her |
adrift with the unfor unate woman on |
boa rd. In the darkness of a stormy winter |
night the ship drifted away, her spars and |
cordage painted in fire on the sky, and the |
sea blood-red below, while the shrieks OF the |
abandoned woman gradually grew fainter. |
And there is no better authenticated phe-
than the mass of flame which to
this day frequently appears on the sea
about Block Island, phenomenon which
has never been fully and satisfactorily ex-
planned.
Barbara Frietchis and Her Flag.
Whittier says that the story of Barbara
Frietchie was no invention of his, but came
to him from sources which he considered
entirely reliable; that it had been published
in the newspapers and had gained public
credence in Washington and Maryland be-
fore his poem was written. But later, when
the story had been denied in toto by cer-
tain prominent persons, he wrote as fol-
lows:
.'The story was probably incorrect in some
of its details. 1t is admitted by all that
Barbara Frietch lie was no myth, but a worthy
and highly esteemed gentlewoman, intense
y Iowa, and a hater of the slavery rebellion.
holding her Union flag sacred and keeping
1t with her Bible; that when the Confeder-
ates halted before her house and entered
her doorway, she denounced them in vigor-
ous language, shook hor cane in their faces.
md drove them out; and. when General