Lincoln's Favorite Humorist Artemus Ward and His Wartime Bohemian New York Crowd 1864

Source: - Artemus Ward (CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE) A Biography and Bibliography BY DON C. SEITZ 1919 (Don Carlos Seitz 1862-1935) 

(original copyright expired)

The long island of Manhattan seems at every point in history to have staked a claim on the horizon and built its boulevards and structures toward that point towards the rising, setting or noonday New York City sun. And later upward to that very same star itself.

I would guess that around the middle of the American Civil War, that Manhattan was headed toward that turn in Broadway at Grace Church around Tenth Street and headed further uptown to Union Square and uncharted points beyond, and toward those then great sheep meadows and cow pastures of Central Park.

The literary and artsy cognoscenti of the day, the then Bohemians of New York in a watered down crowd, thinned out by the ranks of war, kept up the spirits and voice of culture around the hub of Broadway and Bleecker Street and referenced below.

The spirit or flavor of the moment, the "in" people of the moment, might have been best described by a favorite of the Walt Whitman’s Pfaff cellar crowd Ada Clare defining a Bohemian as a:

 "cosmopolite, with a general sympathy for the fine arts, and for all things above and beyond convention". 
                                                                                       http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/pfaffs/p23/

“…The De Soto, a restaurant on Bleecker Street just

east of Broadway, was his favorite dining-place. Here

there was usually a coterie of choice spirits to aid in

enjoyment of the meal. One of these survives in the

person of George H. Story, the eminent artist, long

curator of paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of

Art, whose wife, Eunice Emerson Kimball, had been a

fellow-member with A. W. in the Thespian Club at

Norway, Maine, long before.

Dining here one day with Story, David Wambold,

the minstrel, Dan Bryant, and some others, one of

the unknown persisted in making some boresome, child-

ish remarks in competition with the genuine wits.

He became a nuisance, but was silenced at last by

A. W., who took out his note-book and gravely inquired,

"What is your age, sir?"

Mrs. Story was a relative of Ralph Waldo Emerson,

who had been a familiar figure in Waterford, and was

a sister of Charles P. and Hannibal I. Kimball, both

men of note in Norway when young and who later in

life had distinguished careers, the first as a great

manufacturer in Chicago and the second as the recreator

of Atlanta, Georgia.

One night the Storys went to the show, sitting well

up front. Cracking a joke that elicited much applause,

Artemus explained, much to the confusion of the lady,

that it was an old one, first used in Norway, Maine,

when he and "Eune Kimball played together in the

Thespian Society!" …

[169]

- Artemus Ward (CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE) A Biography and Bibliography BY DON C. SEITZ 1919 - https://archive.org/stream/artemuswardchar00seituoft#page/169/mode/1up

http://archive.org/stream/artemuswardchar00seituoft/artemuswardchar00seituoft_djvu.txt

(Photos - Above Link) (original copyrights expired)

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George Henry Story - American Artist (1835-1922)

George Henry Story - Self Portrait 1902 - Gift to Metropolitan Museum of Art by Mrs. George Henry Story 1906

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_the_Artist_by_George_Henry_Story,_1902.JPG

George Henry Story. Born Fair Haven, New Haven Conn. January 22, 1835, son of James Story, a sea captain and Clarissa Barnes Story. 

Died November 24, 1922, the Hubert Co-op Apartments 230 West 59^th Street New York City.

Started his career apprenticed as a wood carver for three years 1849-1852 to a Mr. Northrop. Studied art under Charles Hines 1852-1855.  Then studied art in Europe for one year.

Set up a portrait studio in rented space in a corner of the photographer M.B. Brady’s business space in Washington DC in 1860 and 1861. Was subsequently asked as a favor by Brady’s assistant to help pose president-elect Abraham Lincoln for a photograph. 

From there he gained access to White House for several days to sit in on Lincoln at work to make pencil sketches which later were worked into his famous series of Lincoln portraits over the years, some 12 or so in total, one of which is now in the Oval Office, West Wing of the White House. He also painted a portrait of Lincoln's Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase.

Abraham Lincoln by George Henry Story

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lincoln_by_George_H_Story_c1915.jpg

Married Eunice Berry Emerson Kimball June 5, 1856 in New Haven Conn.. Eunice, born June 9, 1835, daughter of Peter Kimball, a carriage maker in Norway Maine and Betsey Emerson, first cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Died Jan 14, 1908.

- Eunice was sister to a whole family of brothers, carriage makers including C.P. Kimball of Chicago and Hannibal Ingalls Kimball, the “recreator of Atlanta” in post-civil war Georgia.

- Father of adopted son Paul Story Kimball born January 28, 1872 in Newtown Mass., a nephew of wife Eunice and original child of George Franklin Kimball, a carriage maker of Boston Mass. and Lucretia J. (Wright) Morton Kimball. Died June 20, 1896, aged 24. Was model for Story painting "Dutch Cavalier" and or "Cavalier" at the Wadsworth Museum in Hartford.

Exhibited at 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia received a – Gold Medal – for his showing of three paintings, “The Young Mother” (a first version, lost, as opposed to a later 1881 version at the Wadsworth), “The Young Student” (then owned by Wall Street broker financier David Groesbeck), and “Echoes of the Sea”.

Curator of Painting at Metropolitan Museum of Art NYC 1889-1906, Acting Director of same museum 1904-1905, Curator Emeritus after 1906.

Curator of Painting at Wadsworth Athenaeum Hartford Conn. 1899-1922.

Buried in Green-Wood Cemetery Brooklyn with wife Eunice and son Paul.

Story Family Plot Green-Wood Cemetery Brooklyn New York
(Photo by Bob Collins)

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=58039388

April 21, 2014 - Many Thanks to Bob Collins who has provided Inscription below of above stone, a presumed final statement of love by husband George Henry Story :

Green-Wood Cemetery
Section 145, Lot 29429.
----INSCRIPTION, top and front:'

This memorial was erected to perpetuate the grateful sense of pleasure I had in the conversation of an accomplished woman, a sincere friend, and an agreeable companion.


.

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Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter - The South Shall Not Rise Again!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1611224/

"President Lincoln's mother is killed by a supernatural creature, which fuels his passion to crush vampires and their slave-owning helpers."


Now you know why they are called red-necks!


Thank you Tim Burton.

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Cousin Darwinius Welcome

Hello distant cousin. Distant, distant, distant cousin of creation.

Darwinius masillae was found in the year 124 A.D. (after Darwin – or more accurately after On the Origin of Species was published in the old style date 1859 C.E.)

Now that the levees are breached so to speak, now that the neo-con blinders from the Bush Cheney regime are no longer in effect in the New America, it is interesting to be allowed to see a new global world dawning in the fanfare of the finding of a new so-called missing link specimen. Anyway it is more interesting than seeing Jesus sitting on a dinosaur.

Missing link found?

I had mentioned in my article Cultural Christian Sensibility about how the world would one day see everything and or date things in a secular light as in before or after Darwin. I redefine this general idea in that Darwin was not divine, his ideas were close to being that in terms of how the world scientific and secular cultures have evolved since the publication of the idea – day zero in our brave new secular world.

There is nothing to stop you from reading your bible in America. It is however no longer the only book on the shelf in the library. So much of what I would call ignorance in the American history has to do with gaps. As an example, it was a lack of books in upstate New York in pre civil war America that gave rise to writing your own book down and of prophecy no less of new religions and beliefs – a form of deconstruction and reconstruction of Christianity as found in the Book of Mormon.

On the Origin of the Species is a deconstruction and reconstruction of accumulated human knowledge and the use of that knowledge in some way to trace the face of God and feel the thread of creation through all things – living and dead. The theory of evolution is not evil. Man, the creation of God, is not intrinsically evil. A work of man, a book about the concept of evolution, is only as good or as evil as what man does with it.

I was amused to find out that Darwin was born on the very same day as our secular saint Abraham Lincoln. I am also amazed that On the Origin of the Species was published on the eve of the American Civil War when an obsolete economic idea like slavery was such a current consuming important thing in this part of the globe and far away from Victorian and Albertian London. It takes time for all good or reasonable ideas to take hold and change the world.

Many things, many efforts, many ideas and institutions have taken hold in the sixty odd years since World War Two – the United Nations, the International Court of Justice etc. – the foundation stones of the future are moving into place. We are capable of great and wonderous things and, the collective we, the secular and or Christian we, are also still capable of total destruction.

Getting back on track. The reason I mentioned our friend Darwinius Masaillae is because it was imprinted, artistically embedded into the Google Logo today. How many hits does the secular Darwinius get today? A billion? Well we are talking about American Google. I do not know the limitations of Google in other political or religious geographical settings where they will not see Darwinius – today – but he, she, it – our presumed ancestor is now part of the Global Commonality of Thought, the virtual planetary library of human knowledge.

Big words. Big thoughts. Have a nice day.