The Majestic Nature of the North

Description

Thomas Kelah Wharton's travel diaries provide an intimate glimpse into the society of early nineteenth-century America. As a young immigrant from England, the eldest son of a wealthy merchant who fell on hard times, Wharton (1814–1862) navigated the complex world of New York and the Hudson River Valley in the early 1830s and his diaries reveal a vibrant cultural and social scene. Wharton's details of encounters with the Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole; the author Washington Irving; Sylvanus Thayer, superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point; the Greek Revival architect Martin E. Thompson, and many others enliven his story. Skipping two decades to 1853, Wharton—now an established professional living in New Orleans—brought his young family from New Orleans to Boston. The trip to and from Boston illuminates the joys and hazards of traveling aboard steamboats and trains, and touches on the tensions growing between North and South. The diary entries show an inquisitive, observant mind at work. A gifted pen-and-ink artist, the inclusion of Wharton's faithful drawings provide rare and wonderful views of an America from a very unique and personal perspective.
List of Illustrations
A Note on Transcription
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction
Steven A. Walton

1. Thomas Kelah Wharton’s Autobiography

2. New York and the Hudson Valley, 1832–1834

3. Return to the Northeast, 1853

4. Biographical Register

Appendix Known Works by Thomas Kelah Wharton

Notes
Index

Sujets

• Arts visuels
• Histoire des Arts
• Histoire des Arts
• Film
• États-Unis
• Regional
• History of the Americas
• Region
• Visual culture
• Local history
• History of art
• 19th century
• Película fotográfica
• United States of America
• USA

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 14 février 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438473291
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

THE MAJESTIC NATURE OF THE NORTH
THE MAJESTIC NATURE OF THE NORTH



Thomas Kelah Wharton’s Journeys in Antebellum America through the Hudson River Valley and New England
Edited by
Steven A. Walton and Michael J. Armstrong
Cover images: “Portrait of Thomas Kelah Wharton from biographical note.” Manuscripts and Archives Division. The New York Public Library Digital Collections . 1914.
“West Point from the North.” Manuscripts and Archives Division. The New York Public Library Digital Collections . 1832.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2019 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wharton, Thomas Kelah, 1814–1862, author. | Walton, Steven A., editor. | Armstrong, Mike (Michael J.), editor.
Title: The majestic nature of the north : Thomas Kelah Wharton’s journeys in antebellum America through the Hudson River Valley and New England / edited by Steven A. Walton and Michael J. Armstrong.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018017082 | ISBN 9781438473277 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438473291 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Wharton, Thomas Kelah, 1814–1862—Diaries. | Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.)—Social life and customs—19th century. | New England—Social life and customs—19th century. | Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.)—Description and travel. | New England—Description and travel. | Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.)—Biography. | New England—Biography. | Architects—United States—Biography.
Classification: LCC F127.H8 W53 2019 | DDC 917.47/304—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018017082
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Contents
List of Illustrations
A Note on Transcription
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
Steven A. Walton
Chapter 1 Thomas Kelah Wharton’s Autobiography
Chapter 2 New York and the Hudson Valley, 1832–1834
Chapter 3 Return to the Northeast, 1853
Chapter 4 Biographical Register
Appendix Known Works by Thomas Kelah Wharton
Notes
Index
Illustrations Figure I.1 Only known likeness of Thomas Kelah Wharton, a steel-plate engraving from ca. 1860. Figure 1.1 The Diana and New York Bay from the Battery, 1830. Figure 1.2 Bhurtpore Cottage, New Haven, CT. Figure 1.3 The Flushing Institute (later St. Paul’s College), Flushing, NY. Figure 2.1 David Hosack Estate, Hyde Park, NY, 1832. Figure 2.2 David Hosack Estate, Hyde Park, NY, 1832. Figure 2.3 West Point from the North, 1832. Figure 2.4 Works of the West Point Foundry from the head of the ravine, 1832. Figure 2.5 Works of the West Point Foundry, Cold Spring, NY, 1832. Figure 2.6 Crow’s Nest and the Point of Constitution Island opposite West Point, 1832. Figure 2.7 Village of Cold Spring and the Chapel of Our Lady, ca. 1835. Figure 2.8 Residence of Gov. Kemble Esq., Cold Spring, NY, 1833. Figure 2.9 Euterpe Knoll, Hyde Park, NY, 1839. Figure 2.10 Crystal Cove, Hyde Park, NY, 1839. Figure 2.11 Flushing Bay, Long Island with the Palisades in the distance, 1833. Figure 2.12 College Point, Long Island, 1839. Figure 2.13 New York from Brooklyn Heights, 1834. Figure 2.14 Catskill Mountains from W. Young’s, Saugerties, NY, 1840. Figure 2.15 Falls of the Indian Brook opposite West Point, NY, 1834. Figure 2.16 Village of Fishkill, NY from the Old Stone Bridge on Albany Road, 1834. Figure 2.17 Chapel of Our Lady, Cold Spring, by Robert W. Weir, 1834. Figure 3.1 View across the river looking over the Custom House, New Orleans, 1855. Figure 3.2 Commerce, first high land above Cairo, 1853. Figure 3.3 Peoria, Illinois River at sunset, 1853. Figure 3.4 Canadian and American falls, Niagara from the Ferry Slips, 1853. Figure 3.5 St. Lawrence River near Brockville, ON, 1853. Figure 3.6 Rapids on the Canada side, Niagara, 1853. Figure 3.7 Central gateway at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, 1853. Figure 3.8 Old house, corner of Ann St. and Market Square, Boston, 1853. Figure 3.9 Bridge and unfinished works at the “ ‘Prison,” Lawrence, MA, 1853. Figure 3.10 Fort Warren and Boston Harbor from Hull, MA, 1853. Figure 3.11 Fresh Pond near Boston, MA, 1853. Figure 3.12 Old Mile Stone near Saxonville, MA, 1853. Figure 3.13 Sylvan Bridge, Sudbury River, MA, 1853. Figure 3.14 Chestnut tree and ferns near Saxonville, MA, 1853. Figure 3.15 Cochituate Pond and Gatehouse, MA, 1853. Figure 3.16 Framingham Village, MA from the Saxonville road, 1853. Figure 3.17 Rapids between Goat and Moss Islands, Niagara, 1853. Figure 3.18 Episcopal Church, Brookline, MA, 1853. Figure 3.19 Plum Island Lights, mouth of Merrimac River, 1853. Figure 3.20 Capstones on stonework at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, 1853. Figure 3.21 City of Boston from the harbor, 1853. Figure 3.22 Stone quarries in Quincy, MA, 1853. Figure 3.23 Boston Harbor from Quincy quarries, 1853. Figure 3.24 Bluff Head, Apple Island, Governors’ Island, and Deer Island, Boston Harbor, 1853. Figure 3.25 “Machine for Reducing Wood to Slivers,” 1854. Figure 3.26 Ohio River, 1853. Figure 3.27 Passing through the canal at Louisville by starlight, 1853. Figure 3.28 Mississippi River near Memphis, TN, 1853. Figure 3.29 Approach to Baton Rouge and state capitol of Louisiana, 1853. Figure 3.30 Map of Thomas Kelah Wharton’s travels, 1853. Figure 4.1 Wharton and Prescott/Ladd family genealogy.
A Note on Transcription
W harton’s journals have been transcribed as written, with period spellings and abbreviations. Some modernization has been allowed, such as the normalization of punctuation (Wharton had a habit of using long dashes in some places where we would use either a comma or a full stop, and he rarely included the comma that should set off temporal introductory clauses), the capitalization of proper nouns and the beginning word of sentences, italicization of publication titles and ships’ names, and the normalization of his erratic separation of compound words (e.g., “every where,” where we would say “everywhere”). We have retained his sometimes-erratic capitalization of other nouns and his idiosyncratic spelling of place names.
Preface
T he following product is the labor of many hands that have come together to make what we hope is a seamless whole. It was inspired by a little chapel overlooking the Hudson River. The chapel, Wharton’s very first commission and one of his few surviving architectural designs, sits atop a granite headland at water’s edge in the village of Cold Spring, NY, just above and opposite West Point (see figures 3.7 and 3.17 ). Built in 1833 by the proprietor of the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, Gouverneur Kemble, for his mainly Irish, Roman Catholic workers, the chapel was restored and reopened in 1977 as a nondenominational space by the nonprofit Chapel of Our Lady Restoration, Inc. (now The Chapel Restoration, Inc.). There is an attractive account in the New-York Mirror of the consecration by the third Bishop of New York, John Dubois, on September 21, 1834, of this “most classical and beautiful little church,” a “chaste and elegant little building,” a “little temple” with a “portico … of the Tuscan order, of the most correct proportions,” wherein it was hoped that it “might form the commencement of an era of good will among all religious denominations.” 1 Although his Journal entry of March 19, 1833 makes clear that Wharton furnished the design details, the newspaper credits Kemble with the plan and Wharton’s connection with the project is not mentioned at all in the article. 2 This may be because the illustration for the article was furnished by Robert W. Weir, the drawing instructor at West Point and the principal artist for the New-York Mirror , with whom—as one will see in the Journal entries for 1834—Wharton clashed. It is just this sort of elision of Wharton’s contributions where he has fallen out of the record—of the newspaper engraving set in the 1830s and early 1840s, of the early Hudson River School of artists, and of the influential architectural circles of New York just when he might have flourished—that encouraged us to bring his autobiographical Journal to press.
As Mike Armstrong of Cold Spring was devoting his energies to the board of The Chapel Restoration, Steve Walton was at the same time researching the history of the West Point Foundry as an outgrowth of his then former and now renewed association with the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program at Michigan Technological University, which conducted extensive archaeological investigations at the foundry from 2002–2008. The local Putnam County Historical Society knew of the Journal , and Michigan Tech researchers used some short extracts as invaluable sources for the social and visual history of the foundry. Since it was known that Wharton had designed the chapel, both researchers (who serendipitously already knew each other through an entirely unrelated academic connection to Mike’s wife) lighted on the journals and discovered in them the wealth of information that cast astounding light on the antebellum world of New York and the wider Northeast.
The material for this book is all to be found in volumes one and two of the eight-volume journal now preserved in the New York Public Library with the title of Voyage across the Atlantic in 1830 and journey from New York to our new home at Pequa [sic], Ohio. T.K. Wharton , which was purchased from Wharton’s widow in April 1919. 3 The first volume has an inscription in the