THE WHISTLERS—A FAMILY ILLUSTRIOUS IN WAR AND PEACE.
BY JOSEPH SMITH, LOWELL, MASS.
The following sketch of the Whistler family appeared originally in the Illustrated American of May 25, 1895, and is reproduced with some few slight emendations, because it is germane to the work of the American-Irish Historical Society. It was the intention of the writer to make a brief sketch of the famous artist, whose birthplace was at that time the subject of much amusing discussion, but he found the antecedents of the artist such interesting personalities and their history so romantic, that he amplified his first sketch into a brief story of the family.
Major Whistler’s connection with the beginnings of Lowell, Mass., led the writer further afield and gave him material that may at some future time be added to the literature of the society. It is sufficient to say here that this splendid seat of American industry—Lowell—was conceived, founded, cradled and fostered by the grandson of an Irishman and the husband of that grandson’s sister, Patrick Tracy Jackson and Francis E. Lowell, from the latter of whom it received its name.
The French savant, Guèrinsen, may or may not have been scientifically correct when he wrote, “Genius is a disease of the nerves;” but certainly the eccentricities of genius point too frequently to neurotic degenerations, to aberrations from the normal, and to symptoms that are “conceived in spleen and born in madness.” Modern instances of this truism are on every hand. There is that in James Abbot McNeill Whistler, for instance, which marks him distinctly as standing among the eccentrics of genius; and which, in his splenetic vagaries, shows him to be hovering on the borderland of madness.
While his affectations in art, his “harmonies,” “symphonies” and “arrangements” in blue and gold, and gray and green, and so on ad nauseam, might seem to set him down among the Barnums of art, with the poseurs of the æsthetic, Whistler’s work shows him to be a man of undoubted genius, a most uncomfortable and irritating genius perhaps, but still a genius whose brilliancy is flawed by his aggressive ego-mania. When we have discounted all the theatrical “isms” in which he frames his art, we are compelled to recognize the fact that he is an artist whose work will live. No ordinary man, no merely artistic charlatan, could make the impression on the age that Whistler has done. Whistler is a writer of deliciously clever and disagreeable things; he has a literary quality whose acidity has etched his personality on this decade; he is a brilliant talker, overflowing with quirk and bon mot, satire and repartee, alert and resourceful in the battle of wits, and he is easily the central figure at the social functions he honors, outshining all other lights, out-roaring other lions, a meteor among the stars.
While English in his remote racial root, his forbears lived long enough in Ulster to extract from the soil and atmosphere of Ireland that Celtic wit and pugnacity, that brilliance and originality so characteristic of the man. The transplantation of his immediate ancestors to American soil added to the mental celerity and nervous alertness of his fiber, giving to his personality that Gaelic flavor which the English-speaking races acquire under our skies in sloughing off the heavy heritage of insularity of the land of fogs.
Great talents are seldom transmitted from one generation to another, yet certain characteristics which are physiological rather than psychological, may mark the branches of a common family tree. Whistler owes his intellectual qualities to his racial fiber, to his mixture of blood and the changing environments of his ancestors; they are in fact highly developed racial characteristics, while his artistic instincts—raised in him to the plane of genius—are a family inheritance. His wit, humor and mental dynamics he owes to his Irish fathers; his merciless mockery, his acidulous aggressiveness, his satirical sardonism, are the Calvinism of his Scottish strain run to seed and sprouting in the soil of Bohemia: a sparkling champagne, which has been spoiled with vinegar.
The son of a great father, standing in the glare of a great light, has his own brilliance minimized and is deprived of that natural light and shade so necessary to his artistic proportion. If he be great himself, his contemporaries will institute comparisons that are ever odious, unless their greatness be in different directions. On the other hand, when the son is great his glory only adds to the aureole of the great father.
Whistler’s father was a famous man in his day; but time has done for the father what it has yet to do for the son—it has stilled the voices of contemporary panegyric and detraction, it has estimated his true worth, measured and ascertained his proportion and given him a definite historical verdict.
A glance at Whistler’s antecedents will be of interest to all, for they have added to the glory of the Republic and given it as loyal service as any one family in its history.
The Whistler family is remotely of English origin, and it was Ralph, son of Hugh Whistler of Goring, in Oxfordshire, who founded its Irish branch, removing to Ulster as a tenant of one of those predacious London guilds which exchanged its guineas for the broad acres which that thrifty monarch, James Stuart, had despoiled from the O’Neills and O’Donnells of Ulster.
The first Whistler on American soil was John, a scion of this Ulster settler of the Plantation. While little that is definite is known of this branch, the internal evidence forces us to conclude that it was one of some social and political importance, for it was on terms of intimacy with the landed proprietors of the province. The character of this John indicates that whatever the religious and political opinions of the Irish Whistlers may have been, they had grown on the soil to be Irish of the Irish. John Whistler was a high-strung, bold, brave, devil-may-care blade, who loved adventure and excitement and had the Irishman’s love of a fight and a soldier’s life. While yet a mere boy he ran off from home, enlisted in King George’s army and was hustled off in a transport to America to aid in the work of subduing the rebellious colonies.
He reached Canada in season to march with the luckless Burgoyne and to come to grief and captivity with his superior at Saratoga. He fell in love with his captors and the country, and doubtless registered a vow that he would make his home in America at some future period. In time he was exchanged and sent back to England. He was poor, yet, with that amusing contempt of poverty so characteristic of the Irish gentleman, he aggravated his troubles by falling rapturously in love with the pretty daughter of his father’s friend, Sir Edward Bishop. The maid was as ardent and foolish as her lover, but the father looked askance at the suit of the young soldier of fortune. The lovers solved the problem for themselves in Irish fashion by running away, marrying and taking ship for the rebellious colonies before the elders woke up. The young couple landed at Baltimore with full hearts and empty pockets and settled down at Hagerstown to begin the battle of life.
It is certain that fortune continued as unkind and capricious under American skies as she had been under Irish ones, and we next hear of the young husband bidding adieu to his young wife and child, and marching with a musket on his shoulder, as a soldier of the United States, into the wilderness of the West, under General St. Clair.
Fighting and soldiering in those days were done in rough and ready fashion under conditions that called for courage and endurance, when pluck and dash and personal prowess were the prime essentials of a soldier; and in such a school an Irish daredevil like Whistler easily made his mark. In that disastrous battle on the Miami in 1791, where the forces of St. Clair were surprised and routed by the vengeful tribesmen under Blue Jacket and the renegade, Simon Girty, young Whistler was wounded, but his gallant conduct in the battle and on the retreat earned him his shoulder-straps, and gave him a position that his birth, breeding and education enabled him to fill with honor to himself and credit to the republic. It gave him an assured position in the calling he loved best, and for which his talents and taste fitted him.
As the years rolled by, he served in many a hard-fought campaign against the enemies of his adopted country, earning promotion and fighting the soldiers of King George with as much enthusiasm as in other days he had served that fat-witted monarch. His devoted wife followed his fortune, traveling in the military train, and living at lonely frontier forts with as much content as she would had fortune strewn their paths with brighter flowers. This heroic woman had much to do in forming the character of the children born to their marriage, and her brave and gentle personality made a lasting impression on them. The Whistlers were good fighting stock, and when his sturdy boys were old enough, the fighting old major placed a sword in their hands and gave them to the land he loved, and true, loyal soldiers they were in every emergency. When age, disease and wounds stiffened the old warrior, and rendered him unfit for active service in the field, the government appointed him storekeeper at the military post at Newport, Ky., and later transferred him to Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Mo., where he died in 1829, at the age of seventy-three.
The splendid old soldier had served the land of his adoption bravely, faithfully and loyally, and, dying, he bequeathed to his sons an unsullied reputation, and to the republic children who never failed her in the hour of need.
William Whistler, the major’s first-born, first saw the light of day in 1780 at Hagerstown, Md., and grew up with drums for his music and swords for his toys, and became a lieutenant in the army in 1801. He fought against Indians and British on the frontier with gallantry, and was badly wounded at the battle of Maguaga, Mich., in the year 1812. He passed through the various grades, fought in nearly every war the army was engaged in, and was retired with the rank of colonel of the Fourth United States infantry in 1861. Next to Gen. Winfield Scott, William Whistler was then the oldest soldier in the American army. William’s son, Joseph Nelson Garland Whistler, was, like his father, a soldier. He was graduated from the West Point Military Academy in 1846, served with distinction in the Mexican War and the Rebellion, and was colonel of the Fifteenth United States infantry, when he was placed on the retired list in 1886.
George Washington Whistler, the father of the artist and writer of “the gentle art of making enemies,” was the second son of Maj. John Whistler. He was born on the ragged edge of civilization, in the shabby frontier post of Fort Wayne, in the territory of Indiana, on May 19, 1800. He traveled up and down the rough trails of the Western wilderness with his father’s regiment, receiving what education he could from his mother until he was sent, while yet a boy, to West Point. He had a well-developed talent for draughtsmanship, and was a man of refined and artistic tastes; he was a charming companion, and withal a handsome, soldierly gentleman. One of the brightest men ever turned out of West Point, he was graduated high in his class, and commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States artillery corps; but his engineering talents were utilized by the government in topographical surveys while in the service, except for the brief period when he was an assistant professor at the academy. One of the burning questions of those days of the early twenties was the frontier between the republic and the British dominions, our government claiming much that is still a fishing and hunting-ground in the province of New Brunswick; John Bull, with unerring instinct, seeking to push his lines south to include the country that has blossomed into the commonwealths of Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas.
From 1822 to 1826 the young lieutenant was engaged in tracing and defining the boundary in the terrible wilderness that stretches from Lake Superior west to the Lake of the Woods, enduring cold, hunger and incredible hardships, and laying the seeds of disease that was to cut him off in the prime of manhood and the zenith of his success. When he came back to civilization from these arduous duties, he found the country agog with railroad excitement, caused by the work of the Stephensons in England. American capitalists were eager to build railroads, but they realized that the radically different conditions of the two countries necessitated essentially different systems of construction and operation.
Needing the best engineering skill in the country, they applied to the government, and Whistler was, with others, detailed to survey the routes, report on systems and supervise construction of the roads. He was engaged in this responsible work for years, but, knowing that such talents as his—and he was recognized as one of the ablest engineers in the country—found but slender rewards in the service of the republic, and were better appreciated in civil life, he resigned his commission in December, 1833. His services were secured at once by the railroads, and he was sent with Jonathan Knight, William Gibbs McNeill and Ross Winans to England to examine the system there, and returning he occupied himself with the affairs of the Baltimore & Ohio and Boston & Albany railroads.
It is not too much to say that, practically, George Washington Whistler laid down the lines upon which the American railroad system was built, and along which it has grown to be the most splendid and advanced in the world, the most potent agency in the progress and civilization of the republic.
In 1834 Whistler became the engineer of the proprietors of the Locks and Canals of Lowell, Mass., the corporation whose wisdom and shrewdness have been instrumental in changing the fields and pastures along the slopes of the Merrimack into the foremost and most prosperous manufacturing city devoted to textile industries on this continent. Besides looking keenly after their strictly local interests, he spent months in the corporation’s machine shops, drawing plans, evolving inventions and improvements and supervising the construction and remodeling of a Stephenson locomotive, in order to adapt it to the needs and peculiar requirements of American railroads. Those most familiar with railroads and their history in this country are best equipped to appreciate the work done in that little machine shop by Whistler and to understand its value.
Whistler lived in Lowell from 1834 to 1837, in a modest house on Worthen street, and there his famous son, James Abbot McNeill Whistler, was born, probably in 1834. The parish records of the old Episcopal church of St. Anne state “James Abbot Whistler, son of George W. and Anna M. Whistler,” was baptized there Nov. 9, 1834, by him who was long and reverently known to the people of Lowell as Father Edson. This is the artist who is alleged to have been born in Baltimore and Stonington, and who himself rather oddly claims Moscow in Russia as his birthplace; but this is the record, given under the signature of the present rector, the Rev. A. St. John. Chambre of Lowell.
In 1837, Mr. Whistler left Lowell for Stonington, Conn., where he took charge of the affairs of the Stonington railroad, and three years later he removed to Springfield, Mass., to take up the duties of chief engineer of the Boston & Albany road. His reputation had grown apace with his work and achievements and it was now thoroughly established as that of a wise, prudent, skilful engineer, masterful and resourceful in all emergencies. He had been engaged on the most difficult and puzzling engineering problems of the day and had successfully overcome them. His fame was commensurate with his success; he was patient, industrious, ingenious, bold, sagacious, tenacious and incorruptibly honest; he had the confidence, trust and affection of those with whom he labored, and his manly, scholarly, soldierly and tactful personality brought him a wide and well-earned esteem.
It was at this time that the Emperor Nicholas of Russia sent a commission of officers to the United States to study the American railroad system, with a view of introducing it into the empire if better adapted to its needs than the English system, which they had already investigated. Colonels Menlikoff and Krofft not only reported emphatically in favor of the American system, but spoke in terms of highest admiration of the impression made on them by the ability and courtesy of Whistler. The emperor made up his mind that Whistler was the one man to introduce the railroad system into Russia, and he made a flattering offer for his services, among many other inducements being that of an annual salary of $12,000. Major Whistler accepted the offer of the emperor and sailed for St. Petersburg in 1842, in company with Major Boultattz of the Russian Engineer Corps, who had been sent to escort him to Russia.
An extraordinary task lay before Whistler in Russia, and one that might have made an ordinary man hesitate. The route had to be surveyed for the contemplated road between Moscow and St. Petersburg, the road-bed had to be constructed, the tracks laid, bridges, stations and engine-houses designed and built, gauges considered and decided upon, machine shops constructed, mechanics trained, locomotives and rolling-stock planned and built, and, in fact, every detail of the immense undertaking had to be deliberated over, thought out and carried to completion under this one man’s supervision. It was an herculean task that his marvelous executive capacity was to meet and conquer.
The jealousies of officials, suspicious of a foreigner and imperial favorite, the impediments thrown in his way by a corrupt officialdom, the delays of the bureaus, the greed of contractors, the importunities of inventors and the solicitations of a horde of corrupt harpies that gather round such an enterprise, had to be reckoned with; and these he did with consummate skill and tact, taxing the resources of his urbane but firm diplomacy and exhausting the vitality of his physical being. He overcame all obstacles, he earned the respect, admiration and affection of his Russian associates, he smoothed the friction of bureaus and officials, he made the fortune of his American associate, Winans, and others, he obtained the sincere regard and respect of the autocrat of the empire and was content to remain a poor man and an honest man. His monument was the finest and best-equipped railroad on the continent of Europe. The Emperor Nicholas, anxious to show his admiration and esteem for the American, urged him in vain to accept a high commission in the Russian army, but he refused everything, contenting himself with the decoration of the Order of St. Anne.
But Whistler’s work was nearly done; he had worked too hard and too faithfully. Beside his railroad work he planned many important improvements in the fortifications at Cronstadt, which balked the British under Napier a few years later; he made useful and needed changes in the naval school and docks at St. Petersburg, and planned many other public works. In November, 1848, he had an attack of Asiatic cholera, which precipitated upon his already exhausted system a complication of diseases, and he lingered along until April, 1849, when he died in the Russian capital in his 49th year.
Posthumous honors were paid the distinguished dead by the emperor; Whistler’s family were treated with great kindness and consideration by the government, and it was ordered that no changes of any nature would be permitted in completing the great railroad enterprise he had created.
Major Whistler’s first wife was Mary, daughter of Dr. Foster Smith of the United States army, who fell in love with him as a cadet at the academy where her father was stationed. The son by this marriage, George William Whistler, followed in his father’s footsteps and became a famous railroad engineer. His second wife was Anna Matilda McNeill, a daughter of Dr. C. D. McNeill of Wilmington, N. C., and a sister of William Gibbs McNeill, his friend and associate. She was the mother of the artist, James Abbot McNeill Whistler.
Major Whistler’s body was carried to America and deposited in St. Paul’s church, Boston, but it was subsequently buried at Stonington, the place of all places that this wanderer loved best and which he called home. A beautiful monument stands in Twilight Dell, in Greenwood cemetery, erected to his memory by the Society of American Engineers, which bears upon it this inscription:
“In memory of George Washington Whistler, Civil Engineer. Born at Fort Wayne, Indiana, May, 1800. Died at St. Petersburg, Russia, April, 1849. Educated at the U. S. Military Academy. He retired from the army in 1833 and became associated with William Gibbs McNeill. They were, in their time, acknowledged to be at the head of their profession in this country. He was distinguished for theoretical and practical ability, coupled with sound judgment and great integrity. In 1842 he was invited to Russia by the Emperor Nicholas, and died there while constructing the St. Petersburg & Moscow Railroad. This cenotaph is a memorial of the esteem and affection of his friends and companions.”
It can well be said that Whistler, the artist, has come honestly and honorably by his brilliant gifts, and it can be stated with equal emphasis that the Genesis of a Genius is seldom as great and worthy.