“I was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, during the nineteenth century, of highly respectable parents, and owe what little success I have obtained to the wisdom of my father and the piety of my mother. At the fragrant age of fifteen I set my face westward and followed it until I stood on the banks of the wide Missouri, without any plans for life, and but little better in feelings than a cheerful vagrant. For twenty-five years the various wanderings of a border life made me acquainted with scenes and experiences better calculated to cut the character sharp, than to refine it, and if I escaped without scars, it was simply because the susceptibility of my nature looked upon most things in this life as simply a joke.
“In common with most all Americans who have to push early, to test their own wings, I engaged in all the usual enterprises of a frontiersman, having been at times a land hunter, farmer, drover, steamboat captain, auctioneer, politician, and even pioneer, for I partially organized an enterprise, as early as 1835, to cross the Rocky mountains. This last named enterprise was a profound failure, but its inception and preliminary arrangements afforded me one of the choicest relics of my early adventures, and that in three letters, now in my possession, written to me personally by Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, and Martin Van Buren, recommending me and the undertaking to the kind care and patronage of all people and all nations.
“If I may be said to ever have commenced a literary career it certainly was much later in life than most men commit the folly, for I had passed forty-five years before I ever wrote a line for the publick eye. What little reputation I may have made, has been accomplished within the last nine years, and I consider that I owe all this little to the kindness of the world at large, who, while they have discovered but little wit, or even humor, in what I have written, have done me the credit to acknowledge that my productions have been free from malice. I pin all my faith, hope, and charity upon this one impulse of my nature, and that is, if I could have my way, there would be a smile continually on the face of every human being on God’s footstool, and this smile should ever and anon widen into a broad grin.
“I have not the inclination to go into an extended account of the trials and failures that I have met with since I first put on the cap and bells, but I can assure you that I would not contend with them again for what little glory and stamps they have won for me. I have written two books, but my pet is Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Almanac, which has been issued for the last three years, the annual sale of which has exceeded one hundred thousand copies. This little waif will soon make its appearance for 1873, and I hope to make it a welcome guest for many years to come.
“My lectures, if they can be called lectures, are three in number, rejoicing under the very familiar titles of Milk, What I Know About Hotels, and the Pensive Cockroach. In this last discourse, a large invoice of reptiles, beasts, and fishes are handled, without mercy, commencing with the dreamy cockroach and touching lightly at times the cunning of the fox, the strange uncertainty of the flea, and the wondrous hypocracy of the cat.
“Please excuse, my dear sirs, in this hasty sketch what may appear not to be true, for he who writes about himself is in great danger of telling too much, or too little. My only apology for this monograph is, that it has been written at your request.
“Yours calmly,
Josh Billings.”
Mr. Shaw began writing for the literary weeklies, and even now writes a half column or so of his quaint paragraphs for the New York Weekly. His almanac and other books have been published through the house of George W. Carleton, New York, and have had a wonderful sale. It is said that Josh has made at least $100,000 by his writings. It has been stated that his uncouth manner of spelling was adopted, in the first instance, quite as much through fear of his ability to spell correctly, as through the wish to be odd. He avoided criticism by intentional and habitual misspelling. He is by nature a philosopher, and the experiences of his whole life are classified in his mind, as illustrations of this or that quality of human nature.