The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-05-01
EARLY POETRY AND SONG.
Literary Output of the Ohio Valley
from z to 8

from 1888 to 1910.
At one of the early meetings of the West
ern Association of Writers a lady read a
brief biography of the late William d. Gal
lagher, who was at the time still living.
There was present at the meeting in the
capacity Of correspondent of a great Chi
oago newspaper a young woman from an
other State, who has since aspired to
authorship, and who then being inspired by
the laudable ambition to make sport of all
that was done or said, remarked in her
humorous report to the great journal she
represented that she supposed That SAID
Gallagher was indebted for the notoriety
that entitled him to a biography to the fact
that he was a near relative to let er go
Gallagher" That learned and remarkable
utterance is a fair illustration of the ignor-
ance that prevails in many parts of the
Ohio valley in reference to it's history ana
the men and women who laid the founda-
lions of it's social and political structures
and at the same time began it's system or
education and wrought it's early literature.
1t is the common remark in these days
that Indiana had no literature until Riley
and and Wallace appeared on
the scene since the close of the war, and
Ohio and Kentucky receive scarcely more
credit for anything that appeared prior to
1865. AS for Illinois, it seems to be the gen.
eraI opinion that it's literature is all an out
growth of the new Chicago and is in some
way connected either with Chicago Uni
yersity or the late Eugene Field.
But, worthy and excellent as as much
of the work of the literary men and women
Of the central West of to-day, there exists
no valid reason why it should be permitted
to eclipse and blot from our memories all
that has gone before.
One of the first and most powerful in
fuences that came INTO the Ohio valley was
the love of letters. To it the new land was
indebted for its first schools, established in
~blockhouses or within the shadows OF
stockades, in which the families were gath
cred for protection from the tomahawks and
scalping knives of the indian
If we go back to Marietta in 17SS, to Lex
ington and Frankfort, KY, at an earlier
period or to Cincinnati in 1889 and 1850 we
will find in those places not only the crude
beginnings of literature, but also some
creditable accomplishment. The men and
women of the Marietta colony were many
of them educated people, and one of the
first interests of the colony was to provide
for the education of the children.
DR.. Manasseh Cutler and General Rufus
Putnam, as the leaders of that colony, may
be justly credited with having first planted
the seeds of education in the wilderness
north of the Ohio. But Lexington, KY, long
known as 1.-The Athens of the West" was
begun nine years before Marietta was laid
out, and it was probably, a year later, in
1850, that the first school was opened there,
just outside of the stockade. This was the
first English school taught in the Ohio val
ley west of Pittsburg. DR.. Venable, in his
admirable work on THE Beginnings of Lit
erature in the Ohio Valley" tells this story
of it's teacher, a scholarly young man, to
illustrate the courageous spirit that car
ried civilization and education into the
Western wilderness:
John Mckinney, the schoolmaster, de-
serves a monument or a statue. One morn
ing John, waiting for his pupils, was sur
prised by q visit from a most unwelcome
examiner, a monstrous wildcat, which
stealthily came in at the open door, and
sprang at the pedagogical throat. The UNI
armed man of letters, after a terrific COM
bat, killed the powerful beast by choking it
and crushing it upon his desk: and while
it's fierce teeth were locked in his side,
he said placidly to some men who rushed
to his rescue: Gentlemen, L have caught a
cat"
The beginning of literature, as well as of
education in the Ohio valley, was at Lex
ington, for there the first newspaper in the
valley was started i'm 1857, the first Western
books were printed, the first seminary and
the first college established, and. the first
public library of the West founded. The
first poem written in the valley, aside from
the boat songs of the early French and Eng
lish voyagers on the "Ouiabache" and La
Belle Riviere, was written by the second
schoolmaster of Lexington. John FiIson,
author of the first Annals of Kentucky"
This first sample of Western verse was pro-
duced on Bear Grass creek, since famous
for its barreled and bottled sources of in
spiration, in the year 17SS. 1t followed
ancient presidents very closely and was but
a repetition in form and sentiment of the
verse of certain of the elder English poets
who had inherited the manner from Greek
and Rome. 1t seems to have been a mourn
full le~ave-taking of pretty much everything
except the 'plains of Asphodel," wherever
or whatever they may have been. The lines
are so artificial that one cannot even be-
lieve that the poet had been Tilted, as he
intimates, by the fair Amanda"
"Adieu to every joy which time evades,
Adieu to. faithful SWANS and beauteous
maids,
Adieu Amanda. whom my soul ensnares,
Adieu till fate this mortal wound repairs,
Adieu my peace, the busy world farewell
Adieu to all but plains of Asphodel."
This John Filson was a surveyor and an
explorer as well as a teacher, and in
August, 1883. went into partnership with
Denman and Patterson in the purchase Of
some land on the north side of the Ohio
opposite to the mouth of the Licking river.
upon which they laid out and plated the
town Of Losantiville, a name which was
afterward changed to Cincinnati. Upon
their plat Plum street was given the sur
yeyor's name, Ellison street. 1t was while
engaged in this work that Filson left, his
companions and wandering into the woods
alone, was never seen nor heard of more.
1t was believed that he had fallen a victim
to the tomahawk or a worse fate at the
hands of the savages. As history does not
record that he ever wrote but the one
poem his fate seems hardly to nave been
merited by the offense.
The second flight across the hills of Par
nassus came from that, afterwards. veteran
o~ficeholder and jurist, Return Jonathan
Meigs, and was read at the celebration of
the Fourth of July held in Marietta, o.. in
the year 17sS. Like Fflson's effort it was
In the peculiar style so much in vogue
after the time of Pope, but had the original
merit of dealing with the scenery and con-
-.