Walworth County, Wisconsin - Chapter 18: Editorship Authorship the Fine Arts, 1912

Since no country nor generation of men is permitted to foreknow how much of its own literature shall live and become classic, it is, of course, yet too early to say what and how much of the Walworthian product of seventyfive vears will outlive contractor-built state houses and the everywhere seen triumphs of statuary art. If another Sidney Smith should ask who reads a book, goes to a play, looks at a picture or statue, of Walworthian make, or what the world owes to Walworthian science or industrial skill, the answer must be a re-echo of the unkindly needless question. But, if there is a great uncaring world outside of Walworth, there is, too, a modestly self-esteeming world-in-little within her borders - one which lives not alone by the products of her fertile acres. As vet it is true ( not too true, but simply true i that neither son nor daughter of one of these seventeen towns has gained greatest distinction in literature or other form of art, or has greatly enlarged the domain of pure or applied science, or has added to the list of best-selling patent rights. But there were early signs and are yet tokens of aspiration in all these directions.

The foundations of written history, for this county, were laid chiefly by Mr. Dwinnell, Judges Gale and Baker, Prosper Cravath and James Simmons. Others have contributed their personal recollections and impressions, of less historical value, but interesting and useful. But if these five forethoughtful men had not made and preserved notes concerning men they knew and events in which they had a part, the county's history would be but gleanings from the broken files of newspaper, from the sometimes discontinuous official lists, and from the meager and disjointed minutes of clerks and secretaries of the courts and boards - often needing for their interpretation the intelligent memory of men long ago dead. It is not much which these early chroniclers and annalists have left to posterity, hut. such as it is, it supplies the <\r\ bones of clerical entries with -Mine flesh and blood to give them more human aspect.

Rev. Solomon A. Dwinnell, for nearly fourteen year- resident in Lafayette, removed in [850 to Reedsburg. lie then seems to have planned a history of the pioneer period of the count) he had left. lie made a considerable roll of scrappy notes - historical, descriptive, reminiscent and reflective. His papers contain autobiographical sketches, prepared at his request by Dr. Mills and Judge Allen. In these papers Judge Allen, though not excessively diffident nor sparing of words, tells too little; while Dr. Mills, thought quite modest enough and not too lavish of words, tells too much. Mr. Dwinnell died in 1879, and Mrs. Dwinnell gave his manuscripts to the State Historical Society, and part of their contents have been published in that body's "Collections."

Judge Gale made sixteen very orderly, legible and helpful foolscap pages of notes on the settlement and organization of the county, its early school meetings, temperance movements, and the first newspaper - his own. at Elkhorn in 1845. He knew that of which he wrote, and his accuracy may easily enough be trusted. His interest in public affairs was active and intelligent, and his judgment of men with whom he acted appears to have been calmly favorable - neither censorious nor eulogistic.

ludge Baker's chief service to local history is contained in a paper first read at a meeting of old settlers in [869, then revised by himself and. with an introduction by Lyman C. Draper, published in the State Historical Societv. sixth volume of "Collections." It naturally lacks Judge Gale's conciseness, since it covers a longer period of time and includes greatly more detail of local interest. His estimate of Judge Irvin proves himself an indulgent judge of his fellow men.

fames Simmons published his carefully compiled "Annals of Lake Geneva." 222 pages octavo, in [897. lie was in every way qualified a- to judgment, taste and literary turn of mind, and by his personal knowledge and his wide acquaintance with men of the county, for the preparation of this valuable local history, lie should have been, had other pursuits allowed, the historian of the county. In such case, his work would have l>een done with all possible fullness and accuracy, and in kindliest spirit - and in his own clear, graceful style.

Prosper Cravath, surveyor and lawyer, and not unskilled in the art of telling himself "for many years really the foremost citizen of Whitewater" in tS;N published his recollections and impressions of the village a- he knew it between [837 and [857. This was in a series of articles for the Whitewater Register. Pitt X. Cravath began a continuation of his father's ik by compiling from the local columns of thai helpful newspaper. His friend. Spencer S Steele, who had promised to share the proposed labors, presently found himself sole compiler. Cravath's notes having been lost, Mr. Steele u.i- obliged to begin at [858, and he carried the work forward t" [868. The Civil war, as it affected the town and village, received full attention, and several circumstances of long later interest to soldiers and their friends are thus preserved permanently. In [906 these partial histories, with shod papers by Airs. Melinda I Mack) Pratt, Julius C. Birge, Mrs. Louise I Woodbury 1 Palmiter. Daniel Seymour Cook. Mrs. Rachel O. (Shepard) Cook, Edwin D. Coe and Albert Salisbury, were published as "Annals of Whitewater," a duodecimo volume of 283 pages, edited by Prof. Salisbury and published by the "Federation of Women's Clubs in Whitewater."

The newspaper, from 1845 onward, afforded an outlet for the breathing thoughts and unfrozen words of men who cared not to go to the length of pamphlet or book on politics, temperance, public morals, currency, state revenue and many another more or less fiercely burning question of their time; and on the less combustible topics of schools, farmers' interests and local improvements. These articles, even if unsigned, were often, if not usually, too carefully thought and too ably and forcibly written to be mistaken for editorial effort; though editorship here was not inferior to that of other counties. At the least, these volunteer contributors gave wholesome variety to the weekly editorial entertainment. Among the occasional writers now mosl easily and clearly recalled were Judges Baker, Gale, Colder, Spooner and Wentworth, Cyrus Church. Cravath, Eastman, George Esterly, Milton Gardner. Osborn Hand, Dr. Henderson. Menzie, Dr. Reynolds, Simmons, H. F. Smith and A. S. Spooner.

Whatever may be other or final judgment as to the relative merits of these men. considered as writers, for the purpose of this volume. Wvman master of that classic English prose of which his long study and great love had availed him much, preferring "high seriousness," but not scornful of occasional lighter graces of literary composition. Mr. Church wrote of (he earlier schools of Walworth, in new-paper articles preserved in the Historical Society's much-containing scrap-books. Mr. Hand, a nearly self-taught teacher and very thorough in the rudiments, had also read the English classics with pleasure and profit: but his written matter was less weighty than Spooner's. He had some eccentricities in conversation, but he wrote candidly and clearly. Hi-; friend. Eastman. loved paradox so well that hi- simplerminded friends knew not when he was sincere. Dr. Samuel Win Henderson wrote in the spirit of the duelisl who lire- to kill, and sometimes illustrated with hi- own jack-knife "it white pine, a- wickedly Funny as Nast's pictorial persecution-, though in other ways quite unlike. Menzie wrote with much abilitv and vigor, but a- if duly retained, like a practical lawyer. Mr. Simmons was possessed of nearly all the mental, moral and personal qualities, and in not noticeably lower degree, that lie so generously ascribed to Judge Baker. It is not unlikely that he had a finer, nicer literary sense than his friend; though one would not willingly compare these men to the lessening of either. He wrote with a natural grace of his own and with seeming ease, though his materials were often enough collected with patient care. He could write in terms of partisan warfare, but that was not his chosen task. In his later life he was employed in "digesting" the vast bulk of decisions of the higher courts of New York and of Wisconsin. His older fellow citizens had long hoped that whenever Judge Golder should lay off the burden of the county judgeship its honors and salary would pass to such a worthy successor; but a little- revering generation gave a small plurality to a younger man, a nearly newcomer, though Mr. Simmons was second among four candidates. The other aforenamed writers wrote with much ability, and with more or less vigor and elegance, like decently educated gentlemen, but with no strongly marked distinctiveness of style.

In newspaper editorship the highest place must be accorded, as his birthright and his conquest, to Edwin Delos Coe. He was equipped for duty by various experiences, as student, soldier, lawyer, before he began "to turn the crank of an opinion mill" at Whitewater. The Register had always been one of the best village newspapers in the state. Mr. Coe soon placed it beside the "first among equals." His well-filled local page reflected his most likable personality, and he was not hidden or disguised in his incomparable editorial column. I k- wrote with no air of superior wisdom or authority, but bestowed freely upon his fellow editors his professional and personal courtesy, which fell like the dew of ITermon upon the half-deserving and the nearly undeserving, lie affected nothing, not even modesty, though never a man with a press at his hark was less self-assertive. When the sterner duty of a party organ called upon him to smite and spare not, his pen became indeed a wea]>on of offense. I If was wholly free from editorial or literary jealous), hut overgenerously gave others "more praise than niggard truth would willingly impart." In short, lie brought to his work' learning, world-knowledge, judgment, tact, insight, wide-ranging fellow feeling, humor, and with these all the armory of wordy war.

Major Shepard S. Rockwood, an infant settler of Lafayette, ex-soldier, normal school professor of literature and mathematics, poet, elocutionist and scholar in politics, was in his own way as editorially Forceful as Coe and more industrious and laborious, lie wrote with the precision, directness and conclusiveness of geometrical demonstration. As a means to his political advancement he bought the senior paper at Elkhorn, in 1882, and for one vear edited even' line of it, even to its stereotype plates. He made the Independent a positive quantity and an appreciable force in Wisconsin newspaperdom. His hope was to sit in the Assembly of 1883 and in the forty-ninth and subsequent Congresses; but the men of the district which he had left in boyhood and to which he had but lately returned, knew little of him, except that he seemed "too far up the gulch" for them. Besides. 1882 was a politically bad year for many another honorably aspiring citizen. He passed early in [883 to a daily paper at Janesville, and thence to the Register, at Portage, where he died in 1905.

Ely B. Dewing's education was of common schools and printing offices. He had an early liking for the best in literature, and his style was formed, not by conscious or unconscious imitation of any of the masters, but by catching something of the breath and finer spirit of many. He never accepted himself as a great writer, and thence, perhaps, was a greater than he knew. His knowledge of men best worth knowing was not so state-wide as that of Coe, Rockwood or Cravath; but his work and ways were not provincial. To these contemporary editors he was not a jealous rival, but a kindred soul. As acting editor of the Independent from mid-1884 to the end of 18S8. he gave that paper some distinction in Wisconsin pressdom. His was within that golden period when Horace Rublee, John Xagle. Governors Hoard and Peck, Lute Niemann, James Monahan, Nicholas Smith. Champion Ingersoll and Colonel Watrous gave wholesome substance and variously pleasing and stimulant flavor to editorial discussion and local commentary.

In most ways different from these three rare spirits, though in his own way fit to make them four, was Pitt Noble Cravath. Apparently unlike' his father and mother in body, mind and spirit, though, no doubt, he was in some way their true heir, he seemed rather Gallic than Anglo-Saxon. Tie was readily drawn to new things in politics, but not disposed to overturn the social order, and he loved the clamor of partisan discussion - himself one of the noisiest, but least likely to degenerate to demagogism or fanaticism. The work of party organization was very much to his liking. His paper, al first named the "Ptiddingstick." was edited with sufficient vivacity and originality, but did not much reflect his personal qualities. Ili^ tongue, organ of his impulsiveness, might move him to much radical utterance: hut his pen subdued him to editorial decorum. A second newspaper at a city or village of Walworth may bring a little fleeting fame, hut it requires mure than brilliant editorship to make it live and support a family, 1 ravath had other abilities, and the county was not yet ready for political revolution and reconstruction.

is yet pleasant to such as live and remember, though it be regretfully, to have known them. It was not editorship that passed away with their death or retirement, but only the quality or flavor that each gave it from his own personality. Men whose shadows now lengthen in the low westering sun may recall, without morbidness, the memory of thing's that "come not back with time and tears."

It would be as easy to tell who first broke the surface of the county with a factory-made garden spade as to name the first to "build the lofty rhyme." She may have been one of the Misses Bigfoot, in Algonquin elegiacs, not translatable without damage to its sense and beauty. He may have been Christopher Payne, whose life was a Homeric epic, and whose precious manuscript may have been destroyed in the war with Brink. Since chronological order is impossible, no order at all may answer here.

If this county ever really had a poet the critics must determine between George W. Steele and Shepard S. Rockwood. In 1904 Mr. Steele published a small volume, "Dierdre, a Tale of Erin, and Other Verse." The legends of the Celtic maiden are as numerous as those of the Arthurian heroines, and tlu- lawyer of Whitewater owed nothing to Mr. Yeats. It is not the general purpose here to assort, grade or appraise the poetic product of the county, but a few words may not lie useless. The diction and idiom of these poems are English and intelligible, neither "gaud} nor inane." There is in them neither Greek nor Browningese, no affectations of obsolete words and grammar, even those of Chaucerian or Spenserian kind or flavor, no ingenious coinages, no new licenses or excess of old ones, no patent-applied- for philosophy of life, nebulous metaphysics, questioning of omnipotent purpose, and not too much of Arnoldian high seriousness. Neither is there more echo of the ancient and modern (lassies than one likes to meet in reading new authors. If these negatives do not prove this volume poetry, they may indicate that the author wrote with judgment and taste, and that his work may claim fairly thus much ii' 'I ice in this compilation.

The total sum of Major Rockwood's published poetry would not till more than ,1 vest-pocket volume, lie was not unknown as a paid contributor to Eastern magazines, and wrote poems for greal occasions One of his more notable efforts "l" the latter kind, recited in his intense manner of declamation t" a state mass meeting "i Republicans at Madison in 1880, was said to have drawn iron tears down Zachariah Chandler's cheeks, lu his not too frequent lighter moods Rockwood dropped into politico-satirical lyrics; but. in general, his muse was a well behaved, sobei minded member of the sacred nine, lie had strong common sense and well controlled feeling, and also sense of poetic form with feeling for the sweetness of unheard melody. Thus, his thought was not commonplace, his expression mawkish, nor his lines left half-filled.

Most spontaneous, facile, fluent of home poets was in the fifties, a young man of Elkhorn, at once, and in proportions about equal, a poet, mechanical inventor, journalist and critic. Horace Lucian Arnold's fast-driven pen dropped eight-syllable rhymed couplets as if their flow were endless, and no verse form was beyond its achievement. This promising young man's poetical reading had given him a standard for measurement of his own product, and he was too self-critical to print his clever crudities. Nor would he revise. recast, or redress them. It was easier to write a wholly new poem tonight than to perfect last night's work. In the course of more than fifty years he has contributed poems, stories, reporter work, reviews, mechanical and scientific discussion to the press of Chicago, New York, Edinburgh and elsewhere. Though his work has never quite reached greatness, it is virile, and it usually compels some reader's attention. A collection, with due selection, of his lyrics would show that here was one more of Walworth to whom poetrv was not a thing of rhyme-ends onlv.

The county has known and sometimes honored its own song writers, poets of occasions and casual contributors to the poet's corner. Rev. Henry De Lancey Webster, Ely B. Dewing. John L. Forrest, John T. Wentworth, James Simmons. S. Fillmore Bennett, Charles H. Burdick and Mrs. Harriet Marian | Perkins) Leland are among the best remembered. Of the living there are many more, no doubt, than can be named here; and their modest merit is known to a few friendly readers. Though the wide world may never find out these younger children of the muse, the sweetness of a wellremembered line, stanza, or poem may linger yet long in some kindly memory. Seth Knapp Warren, son of the pioneer mill owner, had more education and a better reading habit than most of his schoolmates at Lake Geneva, and in later life turned more than the\ to the story of the universe, as told bj the

"i" and the later scientists He digested his reading at leasl partially, and the resull of his reading and thinking or musing was a bound volume of ii\ four small pages, printed at home in [888. His matter is chiefly a compact and generall) fairly and temperately worded, though possibly inaccurate restatement of the theorj of evolution a- to the origin of stars and solar system-. His own attitude is indicated in few words at page i (.: "Bui until some theorj i which can show clearly that thi i natural powers * * * could form solar stems, with all their motions, from chaos we would better follow and teach the biblical accounl of creation; as ii is, even in its literal sense, the most reasonable that has ever been written." He objects to science that while it has found much of the laws of the universe, it lias wholly failed to find the law-giver ; and he shrewdly takes into his account the differences he finds among scientists. His work had the approval of the late Rev. Isaac N. Marks, of the Episcopal church at Lake Geneva. It is at least easy to read, for it is seasoned with fewest technical terms and is wholly free from mathematical formulae and scientific tabulations. Mr. Warren wrote and talked like an intelligent gentleman, and he had, moreover, some artistic tastes and aspirations.

In the art of musical composition the county for long heard but one name, that of Joseph P. Webster, who came from Racine to Elkhorn in 1857 as a teacher of music. Between that year and his death in 1875, it is believed, he produced most of his songs, cantatas and other compositions. His publishers were Higgins & Company. Lyon & Healy and Root & Cady, of Chicago, and Ditson, of Boston. A flood of newer music has half-effaced the recollection of his once familiar titles, though nut all have thus been retired from public favor. The little story of one of these seems worth preserving.

In 1865, L. J. Bates, of Detroit, submitted to Lyon & Healy the words of a song and asked for a suitable composer. He was advised to write to Air. Webster, and in the same year these publishers put forth "It Will Be Summertime, By and By," words by L. J. Bates, music by J. 1'. Webster. It is not here known how much favor this song found, but it is recalled that it was sung at the dedication of the Normal School at Whitewater in 1870. Five four-line stanzas, with each a varying five-line chorus, contained these lines, the second of each chorus: "Wait we the dawn of the bright by and by; Watch for the day-star of the dear by and 1>\ : I 'ray for the dawn of the sweet by and by; Is there, oh! is there a glad by and by: Herald the dawn of the blest by and by." The closing lines of these choruses were: "It will lie summertime by and by; Earth will be happier, bv and by; Truth will be verified, by and by; Faith will be justified, by and by; Right will be glorified, by and by." The principal lines recited the several wrongs endured by poor humanity.

These lines seemed to Mr. Webster to express the thought which he had no skill to utter but in music, and their writer became at once his dear friend. One of these phrases he repeated so often that another song-writer in 1868 fol'owed its hint and gave it a new setting. Mr. Webster went home, and choosing from his store of musical memoranda that which besl suited his sense of the occasion's propriety, he worked out with his habitual care and patience the "Sweet By and By." on which the world lias been pleased to rest his fame as a composer. For him there was no such word as '"impromptu" in art. Passages, long 01 short, might he "inspired," but the entire and perfect work must be reached by the methods of other artists, lie worked by the laws of his own intellect and feeling, which he obeyed because he could not suspend or change them. He was self-critical, and he knew well when he could work and when he must wait. Xo publisher could urge him, no fellow-composer advise him, no friend lead him. He was little critical as to the literary quality of songs offered him. but only required that their sentiment should be humane and decent, and that harsh consonantal sounds should be filed to smoothness.

Frank S. Harrington I 1 854-1909), a son of Nicholas M. Harrington, of Delavan and Darien, became at an early age a singer of more than usual promise. Fncouraged by the friendly appreciation and advice of Professor Webster, he subjected himself to thorough training in the principles of musical composition, and for several years was known to eastern publishers as a composer of organ music. At the time of bis death he seemed on the way to greater distinction in his art.

The schools of Boston. London, Paris and Rome have drawn from the county several pupils of the higher culture and instruction in vocal and instrumental music. The art of hearing music is also cultivated, and the lights of the operatic or lyric stage draw yearly hundreds of hearers to Chicago and Milwaukee, each for at least one evening's soul-felt delight. Such singers and performers of national fame as do not scorn the smaller audiences find appreciative hearers at the cities of Walworth. Local philharmonic clubs lend their not negligible influence to elevate the public taste for immortal music. In olden time, too, the county has had its string bands, cornetists, flutists, pianists and vocalists, their various performances, once thought incomparable, yet recalled as remembered pleasures.

The palette and brush have drawn many young men and maidens aside from commoner things, though few have persevered, and fewer are within any one person's present recollections. This, of course, by reason of their long absence. One of these was John Bullock, at Lake Geneva, who painted landscapes with some success and who seemed born for further achievement hail not fate been untoward. David Walling Humphrey, a school boy at Elkhorn and art student at Chicago, has won recognition among artists. William T. Thorne, of Delavan, has reached a high place as a portrait painter, and has his studio at New York. Adolph T. Schultz, also of Delavan, lianas his landscapes at the Chicago Art Institute. Clifford Francis Snyder, of Elkborn, practiced as a doctor of dental surgery for some years at Berlin, having. though a young man. imperial patronage, for American dentistry was then in high favor there. He sold his business and placed himself under Benjamin Constant's instruction at Paris, and later under that of Albert Nieuwhuis, at Laren, Holland. From boyhood his aptness in portrait drawing was marked. He went in jcjoo to "Munich, there to sojourn, it may be, until overtaken by fame, wealth, or death.

Oratory, as an art. has had here but one true votary, namely, John Luther Lamkin (1854-1896), of that part of Sharon town called South Grove. He wedded himself to a possibly original theory of his art: in effect, that voice and action are all, - if, only the voice be trained to the hoarseness of thunder and the action be suited to the orator's conception of the beautifully terrific in muscular motion. His words need have no meaning, if but polysyllabic and sonorous. He imagined or boasted that he could crack a plate glass window by an abrupt emission of sound from the lower cells of his lungs. But Lamkin threw thunderbolts gracefully, and his meeting, saluting, passing, parting, even on the street, were fine-art illustrations. For the rest, he was a thrifty farmer and a worthy citizen.

Since 1856 the only lawyers who seem to have cultivated a great forensic style were Norton and Ingalls. William C. Norton was son of a farmer of Lafayette. I lis voice and manner were somewhat dramatic. Inn lie was regarded as a forceful speaker. None better than he could raise an ant-hill matter to the height of the tree tops, and none could better move his client to self-pitying. Wallace [ngalls, a native of Linn, acquired an agreeable and effective delivery and never forgot to adjust his words and actions to the needs of his carefully considered matter. Alphonso G. Kellam, Alfred D. Thomas, Thompson 1). Weeks and Charles B. Sumner never attempted the higher flights; but the) are Favorablj remembered for their clear, candidly persuasive and gentlemanly manner of laying their cases before jurors - often the most effective eloquence. Each of these men was often called upon as speaker for more public occasions. None of them, excepl [ngalls, now at Racine, is yet living.