The Literary Gazette, which appeared at Cincinnati in 1824, with the motto “Not to display learning, but to excite a taste for it,” numbered Mrs. Julia L. Dumont, of Vevay, among its contributors; and she was the first Indiana writer to become identified with the group of aspirants that now began to appear along the Ohio. The prospectus of another Western Review, published at Cincinnati for three years from May, 1827, declared that “we are a scribbling and forthputting people. Little as they have dreamed of the fact in the Atlantic country, we have our thousand orators and poets.” However this may have been, “the Atlantic country” invaded the Ohio Valley in 1835, when the Western Messenger was begun at Cincinnati, under the auspices of the Western Unitarian Association. It was edited first by the Rev. Ephraim Peabody, and later, at Louisville, by James Freeman Clarke. Clarke left Louisville in 1840, and the Messenger was continued at Cincinnati by the Rev. W. H. Channing. John B. Dillon represented Indiana in its table of contents, and found himself in good company, with Emerson, William Ellery Channing, Jones Very, and C. P. Cranch. The periodical was, as Venable calls it, “an exotic—a Boston flower blooming on the Ohio,” and it ceased to appear in 1841. In the same year, the Ladies’ Repository made its appearance at Cincinnati, under Methodist auspices, and was published continuously for thirty-six years. Mrs. Dumont, Mrs. Sarah T. Bolton, Miss Mary Louise Chitwood, Mrs. Rebecca S. Nichols, Mrs. A. L. Ruter Dufour, Horace P. Biddle, and Isaac H. Julian were the principal Indiana contributors. The number of Indiana writers increased steadily, and the Genius of the West, a Cincinnati magazine dating from 1855, extended the list to include the names of Benjamin S. Parker, John B. Dillon, and Louise E. Vickroy. Peter Fishe Reed, also a contributor to the Genius of the West and similar magazines of the period, combined farming with literary experiments near Mount Vernon (Indiana), and lived for a time at Indianapolis. The majority of these pioneer periodicals lived only a short time, and the Civil War brought a final interruption to most of them; they passed out with the “annuals,” whose literary flavor was similar. Indiana’s ante-bellum writers usually looked to Louisville and Cincinnati for publicity, and no serious effort was made to establish literary magazines within the State.[45] It curiously happened, however, that Emerson Bennett, a voluminous producer of “penny dreadfuls,” published a literary paper called the Casket, at Lawrenceburg (1846), but soon abandoned it. The patient research of Venable discovered the Western Censor, published at Indianapolis in 1823-1824, and The Family Schoolmaster, which had a brief existence at Richmond in 1839. The Querist was conducted by Mrs. Nichols for a few months at Cincinnati in 1844, and Henry Ward Beecher’s Indiana Farmer and Gardener was begun at Indianapolis in 1845, but removed to Cincinnati in the following year. Beecher’s contributions to this paper were the nucleus of his book “A Pleasant Talk about Fruits, Flowers, and Farming.” The Literary Messenger is credited to Versailles, 1854.
Coggeshall included among the Indianians in his anthology William Wallace Harney, who was born (1832) at Bloomington, where his father was a professor in Indiana University; and William Ross Wallace, born (1819) at Lexington, Kentucky, and educated at Bloomington and Hanover colleges; but as the literary life of both began after they had left the State, they may hardly be catalogued as Indiana authors. The Rev. Sidney Dyer, a native of New York State (1814), was for a number of years (1852-1859), a Baptist minister at Indianapolis. He is the author of a number of books, and his writings include many popular songs and poems. Isaac H. Julian, a native of Wayne County (1823), and the brother of George W. Julian, hardly added subsequently to the reputation he had gained prior to the publication of Coggeshall’s book, and the same is true of Granville M. Ballard, who was born in Kentucky (1833), and after his graduation from Asbury University became a resident of Indianapolis, where he is still living. Horace P. Biddle, born in Ohio (1818-1900), removed at an early age to Indiana, where he became prominent in affairs, and held many public offices before his retirement. He aided in the early efforts in behalf of common school education, and was a diligent student and writer. Noble Butler is placed in Kentucky’s list of early writers, though his residence at Hanover gives Indiana a claim upon him. He frequently translated German poetry and wrote original verse occasionally; but the fugitive essays of his nephew, Noble C. Butler, of Indianapolis, are better literature. Coggeshall includes also Jonathan W. Gordon and Henry W. Ellsworth, of Indianapolis, whose contributions to the literature of the period were slight and without distinction. Ellsworth was a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale (1834). Amanda L. Ruter Dufour (1822-1899) and Laura M. Thurston (1812-1842) are properly included among Indiana’s early poets. The latter wrote the lines “On Crossing the Alleghanies” and “The Green Hills of My Fatherland,” which are above the average in the collection and were once much applauded. George W. Cutter, whose “Song of Steam,” beginning,—
“Harness me down with your iron bands;
Be sure of your curb and rein,”—
was once in favor, lived in Indiana, and sat in the General Assembly. He died at Washington in 1865. Rebecca S. Nichols was long associated with the little band of writers who printed verses and tales in Louisville and Cincinnati publications, and her literary instincts were truer than those of most of her contemporaries. She is still living at Indianapolis.
A mournful interest attaches to the work of Mary Louise Chitwood, who was born at Mount Carmel, October 29, 1832, and died there twenty-three years later, sincerely mourned by the whole choir of Western poets. Prentice had encouraged her, and he wrote a memoir to accompany a volume of her verses that appeared in 1857. Her work promised well, though it shared the defects of most of the verse of the day.
Sarah T. Bolton is one of the most interesting figures in Coggeshall, and though born in Kentucky (1820), her long life was spent principally in Indiana. Her husband, Nathaniel Bolton, edited the first newspaper ever published in Indianapolis. Mrs. Bolton began writing at an early age, and through many years it may be said that she stood for poetry in Indiana. Many of her poems are stiff and formal and show little originality; but often her pieces are free and spontaneous, and she had humor, which most of the early poets of the West lacked. Her last volume (1891) is dedicated “To the poets of Indiana, my children after the spirit.” She was known to Willis and Morris, of the Knickerbocker group contemporary with her. Her husband was appointed consul at Geneva in 1855, and she lived for a number of years abroad, finding fresh material for poems in her travels. She died at Indianapolis in 1893. Her best-known poem is “Paddle Your Own Canoe.” She was a loyal Indianian and wrote the lines:—
“The winds of Heaven never fanned,
The circling sunlight never spanned
The borders of a better land