POETS.
A curious circumstance surrounds the poetic work of the two Paterson brothers—William and Stephen Van Rensselaer Paterson—and gives it a unique interest apart from its especial merits. The survivor of the two brothers says, in the short and highly interesting introduction to their poems, published in 1882 and called "Poems of Twin Graduates of the College of New Jersey":
"The title explains itself, and shows that the writers were born under the sign of the Gemini. They lived under that sign for rising fifty years, when one was taken and the other left. Two of us came into existence within the same hour of time, and passing through the early part of education together, entered the world-life as twin graduates of the collegiate institution bearing the name of the State of which they were natives. This dual species of psychology was something of a curiosity because outside of common experience. Pleasure and pain seemed to flow like electric currents from the same battery. In a certain sense, we could feel at once, and think at once and act at once. It is problematical whether this proceeded from a real elective affinity, or was mechanical. It was most marked, however, at first, and particularly in the beginning or rudiments of learning. Both then went along exactly at the same rate, and one never was in advance of the other. Both always worked and played together, and whichever discovered something new, would communicate it in an untranslatable language to his companion.
"This dual character, to a greater or less extent, pervaded the joint lives of the writers of these pieces. Not that the similarity extended to the business or pursuits, the tastes or habits of life, for in many respects they were different and apart as those bearing a single relation. Still the influence of the mystic tie, whatever it was or may have been, remained till nature loosed, as it had woven, the bond."
Although Judge William Paterson was born in Perth Amboy and now resides there, his associations with Morristown, as related in a letter under his signature, are those of early boyhood passed on the farm, now occupied by Mrs. Howland. "Morristown was then but a village hamlet," he says, and "the old Academy and the Meeting House on the village green were the only places in which services were held." Still, we gather, that at Morristown, the two poets received their "scholastic and agricultural training." Here, too, was laid the foundation of their "political and religious faith," the latter under the administration of Albert Barnes, and, what may be a noted event in their lives, they heard Mr. Barnes preach the sermon on the "Way of Salvation," which caused the division of the Presbyterian Church.
Judge Paterson is a graduate of Princeton, which is in a double sense his Alma Mater, inasmuch as members of his family were among the first graduates, soon after the removal of the College from Newark and "when that village, then a hamlet amid the primeval forests had become the permanent site for the Academy incorporated by royal charter."
Various positions of importance in the community have been held by Judge Paterson. In 1882, he was made Lay Judge of the Court of Errors and Appeals of the State; he was also Mayor of Newark for ten years, at different times from 1846 to 1878, filling important and non-important municipal and county offices. Thus his work has been mostly legal and political, save, when he has made dashes into the more purely literary fields, rather, perhaps, through inspiration and for recreation from the dry details of practical work.
More than once has Judge Paterson told to amused and interested audiences in Morristown his recollections of boyhood and youth spent here. Notably, many remember his recent graphic address on the occasion of the Centennial of the Morristown Academy.