Posts Tagged ‘19th Century’
Burts, Robert
by Peter H. McCracken BURTS, ROBERT (17??-1839). Robert Burts was born in Maryland and entered the navy in 1833 as a midshipman. He sailed to the Mediterranean on the sloop Ontario, but upon return in 1836 he began a string of extended leaves. After fourteen months of continuous leave he was assigned to the Navy…
Read MoreBryant, William Cullen
by Joseph Flibbert (2000) BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN (1794-1878). William Cullen Bryant was born and raised in the back country of western Massachusetts, where an early talent for versifying displayed in religious, sentimental, and satiric poems culminated in the publication in the North American Review of his best-known poem, “Thanatopsis” (1817). Thereafter, editions of his poems appeared regularly,…
Read MoreBrowne, J. Ross
by Sally C. Hoople (2000) BROWNE, JOHN ROSS (1821-1875). Author of Etchings of a Whaling Cruise (1846), J. Ross Browne was born in Beggars Bush, Ireland, and emigrated to America when he was twelve years old. In 1838 Browne journeyed on a trading boat from Louisville to New Orleans. Lacking funds to take a grand European tour,…
Read MoreBriggs, Charles Frederick
by Gail H. Coffler (2000) BRIGGS, CHARLES FREDERICK (1804-1877). Born a Nantucket Yankee (his mother was a Coffin), Charles Frederick Briggs was a real sailor before he became a professional writer. Though he would later turn to the magazines to earn a living, Briggs began his career as a sea novelist. The Adventures of Harry Franco,…
Read MoreBridge, Horatio
by John B. Hattendorf (2000) BRIDGE, HORATIO (1806-1893). A naval officer, Horatio Bridge is most famous for his close friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne, for whom he found a publisher for Twice-told Tales (1837) and to whom Hawthorne dedicated The Snow Image (1851). Born in Augusta, Maine, Bridge graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825 with Hawthorne. Upon graduation, Bridge attended…
Read MoreBrewer, Lucy
by Margherita M. Desy (2000) “BREWER, LUCY.” Lucy Brewer is the pseudonym of either Nathaniel Coverly Jr. (1775?-1824), an early nineteenth-century Boston broadside and pamphlet publisher, or a writer in his employ, Nathaniel Hill Wright (1787-1824). Brewer’s The Adventures of Louisa Baker (1815) is purportedly a “true” tale of Brewer/Baker’s seduction, pregnancy, abandonment, life of prostitution,…
Read MoreBrady, Cyrus Townsend
by C. Herbert Gilliland (2000) BRADY, CYRUS [TOWNSEND] (1861-1920). Author of some seventy volumes of fiction and nonfiction, some having to do with seagoing or naval heroes, Cyrus Brady was born 20 December 1861 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in June 1883, he resigned from the navy that October. Employed by…
Read MoreBrackenridge, Henry Marie
by Philip Barnard (2000) BRACKENRIDGE, HENRY MARIE (1786-1871). Henry Marie Brackenridge, writer, lawyer, legislator, and diplomat, was born in Pittsburgh, the son of well-known writer and jurist Hugh Henry Brackenridge. Most of Brackenridge’s career was devoted to legal work and wide-ranging writings on US. political, territorial, and economic expansion into the trans-Appalachian South and West.…
Read MoreBowditch, Nathaniel
by Daniel Finamore (2000) BOWDITCH, NATHANIEL (1773-1838). Mathematician, navigator, and astronomer, Nathaniel Bowditch authored the book that since 1802 has been the standard reference for celestial navigators worldwide. Schooled only to age ten, Bowditch taught himself mathematics and several foreign languages in the course of his academic pursuits. While on a voyage to Manila in…
Read MoreBeach, Edward Latimer Sr.
by C. Herbert Gilliland (2000) BEACH, EDWARD LATIMER, SR. (1867-1943). Edward Latimer Beach Sr., novelist, was born 30 June 1867 in Toledo, Ohio. Graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1888, he took part in the Battle of Manila Bay on 1 May 1898 and in the capture of Manila 13 August 1898. Beach was…
Read MoreBates, Martha E. Cram
by Robert Beasecker (2000) BATES, MARTHA E. CRAM (1839-1905). Scant biographical detail exists concerning M.E.C. Bates. She was born in Northville, Michigan, and attended the State Normal School, now Eastern Michigan University. It appears that she taught school for at least two years in the 1860s in Traverse City, Michigan, where she met and married…
Read MoreBarnes, James
by Richard J. Williamson (2000) BARNES, JAMES (1866-1936). Author of books about naval history and naval wartime campaigns, as well as juvenile works on naval leaders, Colonel James Barnes was a prolific writer, historian, journalist, and naval officer. His depiction of seafaring individuals is characterized by what he called “hard service” in peace and war. Born…
Read MoreBarker, Benjamin
by Dean DeFino (2000) BARKER, BENJAMIN (1817-18??). Beyond birth records in Salem, Massachusetts, the only documents that survive of Benjamin Barker are twenty short novels published under that name between 1845 and 1847 and one in 1855. Those with authors’ prefaces all indicate that he was living in Salem at the time of their composition.…
Read MoreAverill, Charles
by Peter H. McCracken (2000) AVERILL, CHARLES (1825?-1868). Charles Averill wrote around a dozen adventure and romance novels between 1847 and 1850, about half of which take place wholly or mostly at sea. The Pirates of Cape Ann (1848) is representative. Here, “Paul Perril, the Pirate,” scourge of postcolonial Cape Ann, Massachusetts, is estranged from his family…
Read MoreAudubon, John James
by R.D Madison (2000) AUDUBON, JOHN JAMES (1785-1851). Born in Haiti and raised in France, John James Audubon became the world’s premier bird artist with the publication of The Birds of America (1827-1838). Audubon accompanied his life-size drawings with five volumes of text, the Ornithological Biography (1831-1839). In the first three of these volumes, Audubon varied his bird biographies…
Read MoreAmes, Nathaniel
by Hugh Egan (2000) AMES, NATHANIEL (1805-1835). Son of the Federalist statesman Fisher Ames and grandson of a famous colonial almanac publisher, Nathaniel Ames was a blueblood who went to sea and later wrote about it. In this way he served as a literary forerunner of Richard Henry Dana Jr., Herman Melville and others. Like…
Read MoreAldrich, Thomas Bailey
by Frank Rotsaert (2000) ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY (1836-1907). Thomas Bailey Aldrich, known chiefly as the author of The Story of a Bad Boy (1869), edited Every Saturday (1866-1874) and The Atlantic Monthly (1881-1890) and also wrote poems, short stories, and five novels. Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Aldrich lived for brief periods in the seaports of New York and New Orleans,…
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