The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-07-24
THE HOOSIER POET
DIED OF PARALYSIS
James Whitcomb Riley, Sang the joys,
Sorrows, Fancies and HumorS of
the Middle West.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind, July "A. Il
James Whitcomb Riley, known the
world over as 1.-The Hoosier Poet,
died in his home in this city at 1870
Saturday night, having earlier i'll the
day suffered a violent shock of paraly
sis. He sustained his first shock July
10, 1910.
James Whitcomb Riley, born of the
Middle West, sang the joys, sorrows,
fancies and humors of its folk, largely
in It's own dialect. The world was so
touched by his inspiration and the
realism of his homelv symbols that he
was one of the few, that, devoting their
lives to poetry, gained a fortune.
Mr. Riley was peculiarly sensitive as
to the advance of age and evadcd in
quirics as to the date of his birth, but
the most accurate information availa-
BILE indicates that he was born in lS4S.
Should You ask his age, - one of
his friends said, ''hc would answer
This side of forty and leave you to
guess which side.
The poet was the son of Reuben 4.
| Riley, a lawyer and political speaker of
!
| brought ia the dun routine of school
| DAYS, but he was wise in the lore of
streams and fields. His mother, who was
| Elizabeth Marine before her marriage,
was 4 writer of verse and Riley in later
! life attributed some of his Impractical
bility to her.
Instead of preparing for the practice
eff law, as his father wished, the son
turned itinerant sigs painter. For ten
years he roved through the Ohio valley,
! painting signs on fences. He had the
trick of the brush and pencil and clever
| lv drew sketches illustrating the vir
tues Of merchandise. He was naturally
musical and shonc as a fiddler III the
villages at which his party stopped at
night. He played for dances and al
concerts in country hotels. He wrote
rhymes, which sometimes found THEN
way into country newspapers.
He led this cheerful, free and easy
life late in the 20 5. then he took en-
plovment as a reporter on a newspapel
in Anderson, Ind. In 1877, for the pur
lposc, as he said of proving that h,
could write poetry of value, he perpe
tratcd the Poe hoax which for years wa.
la literary sensation. He wrote a poem
in the style Of Edgar Allen Poe, t,
which he gave the characteristic It'll,
Of Leonanie, - and it was offered t,
the public as a hitherto unpublished
product of the genius of Poe. One O
the stanzas was:
Leonanie-angeIs named her,
And they took the light
OF the laughing stars and framed he
In n smile of white.
And they made her hair of gloom,
Midnight and her eyes of bloom,
Moonshinc and they brought he
to me
In the solemn night
In some quarters the poem was ac
t ccptcd as genuine; i'll others it was dc
: nounced as fraud. After the con
4 trovcrsy had wagcd for months Rile
confessed
4 In the early SOS he began writin
verse IN ''Hoosicr' dialect for the oil
Indianapolis Journal He sent some O
his poems to Henry Wadsworth Lon;
% fellow and they received his praise.
= volume was published and the Hoosic
/ poet began to win a public. He wa
a an excellent reader of his own dialeC
. verses and for the following - year
t. or until 1898, he made tours Of til