St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1904-10-12
!. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur at
the AthenRum.


During Rev. Father BoissonnauIt's
recent visit to New York he visited St.
Peters church, which is the oldest Catho-
lie church In that city of which St. John
de Crevecoeur was first trustee in 1852.
This was four years before our town
received from him its name.
That same year, 1892, he published in
London, book entitled Letters from an
American Farmer. copy of which the
Athenaum has for two years been en-
deavoring to obtain. The original edi-
tions being long out of print are very
scarce, but we now have a copy of a
reprint which seemed to be demanded by
the revival of popular interest in early
American literature. This is brought
out by Ludwig Lewisohn, and Prof. w.
P. Trent of Columbia University.
Apart from its interest in the town
that bears the authors name this book
has a literary merit which has been quite
widely recognized. It got the attention
of Charles Lamb, and of Hazlitt, who
told the reader of the Edinburgh Review
with what lively poetic interest Ameri.
can scenery and manner are therein
treated. There is no sequence in the
chapters; they form rambling collec-
tion of descriptions and observations
which Washington said would "afford a
great deal OF profitable and amusive
information" The chapter on the situa-
ton, Feelings and Pleasures of an Ameri
can Farmer, are in the vein of Ike Mar
vels' Rural Studies. What is an Ameri-
can" is a portraiture OF colonial country
life, pronounced by Barrett Wendell
rather ideal than real, indeed Washing
ton called it rather hattering; but as to
it's impression, Prof. Moses Colt Tyler
thinks it may have stirred the imagina-
tion of Byron and Coleridge. The Visit to
Mr. Bertram the Botanist, is an interest
ing sample of the interview of Colonial
times before interviewers had become a
pestering host. Among pictures of real
lifenorth and south are Peculiar Customs
at Nantucket and Reflections on Negro
Slavery, with Melancholy Scene that
out-Herods the twentieth century lynch
ings. The chapter on Snakes and the
Humming Bird, including A Furious
Battle between Two Snakes, is probably
the first monograph in the interesting
series of nature studies by gifted Ameri-
can authors.
In an appendix letter describing New
York City in ITO, we are informed that
1.-THE streets are frequently cleaned and
are lighted during the dark nights" and
on many other pages OF the book are bits
OF what, in the phrase of Washington,
we would call "amusive information.''
II Washington had been a newspaper
editor we might be tempted to discover
between the lines OF his cemmendation
the fact of presentation copy; the same
which is so designated, now in posses
sion of the Boston Athenaum. The
London edition of 1882 was translated
into German, Dutch and French, the
tours has 355 pages). The original Ms.
in English filled three folio volumes, and
is still preserved in France, much of it
remaining unpublished.
The authors full name was Michel
William Jean Hector St. Jean de Creve-
occur; as a naturalized citizen of America
he signed himself ]. Hector St. John. He
was of noble family, born in Caen,
Normandy, 1871, educated in France
and England. At age of % he came to
New York and established a country seat
near that city. During the revolution
ary war he got permission to sail for
England on private business, but was
arrested as spy and imprisoned three
months. He was, however, acquitted,
and reached his boyhood home in Caen
after an absence of Fl years. In 1888
he was sent to New York as French
Consul, which position he held for ten
years, during which time his intimacy
with Ethan Allen led the latter to ask,
as compliment to the consul, that one
of the forthcoming townships of the new
state of Vermont might bear his name.
This was done, being continued" as
de Crevecoeur writes. by the appella-
tion of St. Johnsbury." At his sugges-
tion the names of two other distin-
guished Frenchmen, viz. the Comte de
Vergennes, and the geographer, D'Anville,
were given to Vermont towns.
St. Johnsbury has the name of a man
not widely known, but greatly esteemed
and honored for nobility of character,