Book Notes
A fortnightly publication of the JRBS
Vol. 1, No. 11
November 1–15, 2020
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SAVE THE DATES!!
Saturday, December 12, 2020 at 2:00pm (via Zoom)
VIRTUAL TOUR of Providence Public Library SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
By Jordon Goffin, Head Curator of Collections
Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 2:00pm (via Zoom)
Collecting Currents: New Practices for Collectors Today
A Talk by Spencer W. Stuart
Zoom links will be provided a week before the events
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The Many Facets of John Russell Bartlett—Part I
John Russell Bartlett was born in Providence on October 23, 1805, two days after Nelson's victory at Trafalgar, and five days after William Clark caught sight of Mount Hood, the first proof that he and Meriwether Lewis were nearing the Pacific Ocean.
Bartlett's father was from Cumberland, Rhode Island, and his mother from Providence—a city of about 8,000 people in 1805. By that time Providence was a humming port—merchants were routinely sending ships to Asia from the docks of "India Point," seizing the opportunity to take part in the China trade as the British focused on war with Napoleon. According to his autobiography, Bartlett was still an infant when his father, Smith Bartlett, "removed to Utica, New York, then called 'the West,' . . . [for] a short time. Believing that a better opening for business existed in Upper Canada he removed to Kingston [Ontario] . . . and established himself in business as a merchant." Smith Bartlett would purchase dry goods such as crockery, iron and steel, saddles, boots and shoes, paper and stationery, and grocery staples in Montreal, and then ship them up the St. Lawrence to re-sell in Upper Canada.
When the War of 1812 broke out, Smith Bartlett decided not to return to the US, even though in order to stay in Canada and preserve his business he had to swear allegiance to George III. John Russell, then just seven years old, remembered a British officer who was billeted with the family, "a gentlemanly man who made himself quite agreeable." He also remembered the bombardment of Kingston by American ships, which happened in early November, 1812. A small American fleet stationed on the eastern end of Lake Ontario had chased a British ship into the Kingston harbor, but the shore batteries managed to keep the Americans at bay. Bartlett recalls, "My father took his musket and with other citizens went a few miles into the interior to protect the town from attack . . . our family . . . went to the house of Mr. Alcott, who kept a tavern in Store Street . . . I distinctly remember the roar of the artillery the whole of the day. From the top of the house, we could see the enemy's fleet." After the war, the Bartletts moved to Brooklyn, and after 6 months to Providence, and soon after back to Kingston. The moving proved too much for Bartlett's mother, who died when Bartlett was 13, leaving her husband to care for six children.
Bartlett was sent to Lowville Academy in New York, and boarded there for two years, after which he went to a boarding school in Montreal. By this time his father had bought a small estate, with an orchard and cultivated fields. Bartlett's youth in the country sounds rather idyllic:
I was never so happy as in a sail-boat, and was familiar with all the bays, islands, shoals and fishing grounds in the St. Lawrence for miles around and near Kingston . . . I thought nothing of walking to Collin's Bay, seven miles distant with my gun on my shoulder; sometimes carrying home a few ducks . . . in the winter I skated a great deal, and long distances on the St. Lawrence. I used to have an ice boat which I built myself. When there was a stiff breeze I would get eight or ten boys on my boat, and dash off over the glassy ice for five or ten miles at a speed scarcely attained by a locomotive on a railroad.
On February 1st, 1824, Smith Bartlett married his former wife's older sister, Sarah Russell Gladding, a widow. That same year, perhaps not coincidentally, the nineteen-year-old John Russell decided he was going nowhere by staying on the farm. He moved to Providence to work for his maternal uncle, William Russell, who ran a dry goods store on Westminster Street, across from the site that was to become the Arcade. In fact, Bartlett "saw every column raised" when the Arcade was erected in 1828, and William Russell's store became the first business to move in.
In 1829 Bartlett was offered a place in Cyrus Butler's Bank of North America. "[I] entered upon the duties of bookeeper; acting also as teller . . . It was part of my duty to open the bank, make the fire and sweep out the office. I then went to Mr. Butler's house, over the bank, got the keys of the vault, [and] took out the money, papers and books preparatory to business." While employed at the bank he had many leisure hours which were devoted to reading and study. He also spent time painting and drawing, which he did throughout his life. Most of his surviving artwork is pencil and ink sketches and watercolors—only one oil painting of his survives, and is by far his most famous piece. Done in the mid-1830s, and entitled "The Great Gale of 1815" (owned by the RIHS), it depicts the first recorded hurricane in Rhode Island, and is a view of the Providence River (waves tossing broken ships and debris) from the eastern end of the Weybosset bridge. Although none of the buildings in the painting are standing today, anyone familiar with the city at the time would have recognized them.
In 1831 Bartlett left the Bank of North America to become a cashier of the new Globe Bank; he married Eliza Allen Rhodes of Pawtuxet; and he was elected a member of no less than four learned societies. Indeed, it was that very year that De Tocqueville famously said, "Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations." Bartlett was no exception. He joined the Rhode Island Historical Society, helped form the Providence Franklin Society (a Lyceum)[1]; and attended a meeting in room 51 of the Arcade to consider "the expediency and practicability of founding an Athenaeum."[2] This was the meeting where the Providence Athenaeum as we know it on Benefit Street was conceived.
Bartlett was always on the lookout for books for the Athenaeum. Years later in New York, he raised $500 by subscription to purchase the great 23-volume Description de l’Égypte which Napoleon ordered to be published after his military and scientific expedition of Egypt in 1798. It remains one of the treasures of the Athenaeum—in fact, the table-size replica of an Egyptian temple that houses the set was painted by Bartlett. The columns of the temple were sent to him in New York—all the hieroglyphs were done from examples in the text.
The fourth group he joined in 1831 was the Providence Exploring and Trading Company, which funded an ill-fated expedition to the Niger River in West Africa. A brig (the Agenoria), two schooners (the Dove and the Triton), and seventeen men were launched from Providence in 1832 with instructions to explore the Niger River, trade with the Africans living along its banks, and collect indigenous animals and zoological specimens.[3] Bartlett's interest, as always, was both scientific and financial. As Secretary and 1/10th owner of the Brig Agenoria, he directed the men to collect ivory, indigo, ostrich plumes, and palm oil, as well as a giraffe, a hippo, and a wildebeest. Due to the shallowness of the river delta and the hostilities of the natives (a previous British voyage had aroused the hostility of the delta traders), only one ship and five men returned after a year and a half—a financial and human disaster. It is not surprising that Bartlett chose not to include this endeavor in his autobiography.
As nature took its course and Bartlett's family grew, he found that he required a more lucrative salary than that of a bank cashier, which was then $1,000 a year. He moved to New York in 1836 to become a partner in a dry goods commission house—which failed in the Panic of 1837. To make ends meet Bartlett began scouting books for institutional clients like the Athenaeum, and individual collectors like Peter Force of Washington DC. Force was a great collector of Americana, and actually trained Henry Stevens, the bookseller upon whom JCB depended so much in the early years of his collecting. Among Bartlett's contacts was William C. Hall, a London bookseller who asked Bartlett to distribute his stock in America. Bartlett agreed, and joined forces with another Londoner, Charles Welford, who was then a clerk in a New York publishing firm. Bartlett & Welford opened its doors on the first floor of the Astor House, a hotel on Broadway between Vesey & Barclay streets. The firm issued catalogues, published books, and became a well-known hub of intellectual culture—catering to the literati of the day. Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, Edgar Allen Poe, and William Gilmore Simms were all customers. The JCB has a letter[4] from Simms, a southern writer whose novels some claim are better than Cooper's, dickering over the price of a set of Hakluyt he ordered from the firm. James Fenimore Cooper and the poet Fitz-Green Halleck were daily visitors, and apparently spent hours at the shop in conversation.
Another letter in the Bartlett Papers of the JCB is from Jared Sparks, America's first American history professor, to Bartlett, introducing a student of his—just graduated from Harvard—by the name of Francis Parkman. "Mr. Parkman is engaged in making inquiries into certain parts of American History," Sparks explained. The letter is dated January 13, 1846—just two months before John Carter Brown ordered his first batch of Americana from Henry Stevens in London, which is interpreted as the “founding” of the JCB. It was about this time that Bartlett began corresponding with John Carter Brown about his collection of books. In one such letter, JCB says "My library already contains almost everything in your Cat. prior to the present Century, & as since that time the Works regarding America have become so numerous & cover such a vast field, that I do not pretend to go much into them, altho’ I have a few of modern date."
[To be continued in the next issue]
[1] Incorporated by the state in 1832, the Providence Franklin Society held weekly lectures, displayed collections of specimens, and assembled a library. The Society disbanded in 1922—its books were donated to the Providence Public Library in 1916.
[2]In 1753 various prominent Rhode Islanders had founded the Providence Library Company, which flourished for many decades under the leadership of the Brown family. By the 1820s, however, the books were well out of date, and no longer met the needs of patrons, especially those looking for more recent works on current topics. Rather than attempt to resurrect a morbid institution, Bartlett, the Rev. Frederick Farley [Harvard Grad, first minister of the Westminster Congregational Society], and Dr. Thomas Webb [Grad of Brown & Harvard, a physician, and editor of the Providence Journal] began a new one, called simply "The Athenaeum." It took five years of discussion to affect a merger of the Providence Library Company and the newly formed Athenaeum, which was finally accomplished in 1836, the date of the Athenaeum's incorporation by the General Assembly. When it was chartered, there were 283 shareholders (Bartlett was shareholder number 279—the original certificate issued to Bartlett is in the JCB).
[3] The full story of the expedition can be found in "The Providence Exploring and Trading Company's Expedition to the Niger River in 1832-1833," by George E. Brooks & Frances K. Tallbot. American Neptune 35: April 1975, pp. 77-96.
[4] October 2, 1845—Bartlett Correspondence
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Rick Ring, President
The John Russell Bartlett Society
Celebrating our 37th year of promoting book culture
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