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Book Notes
A fortnightly publication of the JRBS
Vol. 1, No. 12
November 15–30, 2020
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The Many Facets of John Russell Bartlett—Part II
While in New York, Bartlett simply could not resist forming another society—this one with the help of the venerable Albert Gallatin.[1] The American Ethnological Society's early membership was a mix of New York professionals interested in archeology, anthropology, geography, history, literature, travel, etc., but as these fields became specialized, its later members narrowed the focus to socio-cultural anthropology. It survives today as an international organization of about 4,000 anthropologists, and publishes a journal, American Ethnologist. A few pages of a paper that Bartlett delivered to the Society are in the exhibition—the paper examines the legend that North America had been discovered in 1170 A.D. by Prince Madoc of Wales. Much has been written about the supposed entry of Madoc's ships into Mobile Bay and the subsequent settlements of the Welsh in various parts of the Mississippi River Basin. The interaction of the Welsh with the Native Americans is purported to have produced light-skinned Indians who spoke a Welsh-like language—the Mandans, whose numbers were eventually decimated by smallpox.
Bartlett's long-standing interest in philology took published form in the late 1840s. His account of its genesis portrays his life-long obsessive habit of compiling bits of information until a critical mass of material is achieved, and then published.
In the year [1848] I published my Dictionary of Americanisms . . . [which I began] while travelling in a canal boat from Utica, west, on the way to visit my father at Cape Vincent. I amused myself in reading a late work in which the vulgar language of the United States abounded. I marked them on the margin of the book, and on my return to New York noted them down in an interleaved copy of Pickering's Vocabulary . . . [after more collecting] I soon found that I had . . . collected sufficient to make a volume much larger than that of Mr. Pickering . . . I now set vigorously to work . . . [and] carried a memo book in my pocket in which I noted down all the new words and phrases that I heard spoken, or read in the newspapers . . . When finished the work was published by Bartlett and Welford and met with a ready sale.
The Dictionary of Americanisms was Bartlett's greatest commercial writing success. The work had a wide and various influence, most importantly on H. L. Mencken's American Language, which cited Bartlett's work repeatedly.
By 1849 Bartlett was supporting a wife and four children, and the book business was not paying enough. In his autobiography he reveals "I had long desired to go abroad and thought if I could get some foreign appointment from the government, it would . . . enable me to educate my children in Europe." He moved the family back to Providence, settling them in the house of his father-in-law, and went to Washington with letters of introduction. He met with dozens of officials, including John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis, and applied for the only diplomatic position open at the time, which was the chargéship of Denmark. Political appointments in Washington were subject to cronyism and nepotism—more so than today, if you can believe it. Unfortunately, Bartlett's connections were not strong enough to place him at Copenhagen. The best government post that could be found was the recently vacated—and in retrospect thankless—job of heading the Commission to run the boundary between the US and Mexico, following the Mexican War. It took Bartlett six months to secure the appointment in the face of great opposition. One of the New York papers called him "the author of two or three books which fell stillborn from the press" who was "physically and intellectually incapable" of doing the job, and that his appointment was an "imposition and swindle upon the administration."
Bartlett finally got the job. If it were today, one can imagine the phone conversation with his wife—"Honey, I did my best—but, ah, we're not going to Copenhagen. In fact, we're not going to Europe at all. Where? Well, that's the really interesting part. You see, there's this job out west—". The letters in the JCB suggest that I am not far off. In fact, Eliza wrote to him and said, "I fear and tremble at the responsibility you have upon you. It seems to me like a formidable undertaking for one of your quiet domestic habits." Bartlett recalls his first days on the job:
On assuming the duties of my new office, I found hundreds of applications for places in the Boundary Commission which I proceeded to fill, nearly all upon the recommendations of Senators and Members of Congress. Col. John McClellan of the U.S. Topographical Engineers had been appointed . . . as Chief Engineer, and had promised places to many of his friends, which appointments I made. The most disagreeable duties I ever had to perform were the appointments of officers and assistants for the Commission . . . too many were urged on me by their Congressional friends merely to get them away from Washington.
Bartlett found himself in charge of 100 soldiers and 100 others, from butchers and teamsters to engineers and astronomers. His annual salary was $3,000. The full tale of his experience with the Boundary Commission has been published, both in his 2-volume Personal Narrative and in other monographs such as Robert Hine's Bartlett's West. Suffice it to say that during the three years he was Commissioner, he had to deal with military desertions; death by misadventure, suicide, and murder (and the summary justice of hanging the murderers); accusations of incompetence and fraud from his own people; a constant stream of criticism of his decisions in Washington; and to top it all, the news of the death of his four-year-old daughter Leila.[2] In the end, due to politics, he had to disband the Commission and return to face charges of mismanagement of funds, mishandling of supplies, incompetence, and inattention to duty. The resolution of his accounts with the government and others related to the Commission took decades.
Bartlett retreated with his family to his father's home in Cape Vincent, New York, and composed his Personal Narrative, intended to answer the charges of his critics. Through this publication we can see a different Bartlett than his critics presented—a man of refined artistic and linguistic talent. In it were 110 drawings and maps of the lands, peoples, settlements, flora, and fauna of the southwest, as well as twenty-five Native American vocabularies, taken down from tribes in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora and Chihuahua. Bartlett's interest in science and anthropology had truly gotten in the way of his primary mission.
Bartlett returned to Providence with his family in 1853, only to experience another tragedy—the death of his wife at age 42. Needing employment, Bartlett fell back on his bookish interests. In 1849, when he was still in New York, John Carter Brown had suggested a possible arrangement— "I notice that you contemplate dissolving your business with Mr. Welford. When you are more at leisure in Rhode Island, I shall be glad to have your advice and suggestions regarding some part of my library." Bartlett began advising Brown and acting as his agent to booksellers, and for thirty years thereafter he advised Brown until his death, and Brown's widow Sophia Augusta and his two sons John Nicholas and Harold in the care and feeding of the books. His stamp upon the collection is as firm as that of the founder or any other librarian in its history.
In 1855, Bartlett's friends urged him to run for RI Secretary of State, which he did. He was successful, and was annually re-elected on the Republican ticket for the next seventeen years. In addition to presiding over the senate, he filled requests for copies of bills and resolutions, distributed state publications, and issued commissions to court clerks and notaries public. When the Civil War broke out, Bartlett served as acting Governor when Governor Sprague left the state with RI troops. He also began compiling scrapbooks of newspaper articles about the progress of the war—59 volumes of these scrapbooks, on which he spent 2-3 hours a day every day of the war in compiling, are in the Providence Public Library special collections. He also secured, at no expense to the state, some two dozen portraits of notable Rhode Islanders, many of which hang in the statehouse. But perhaps his greatest achievement as Secretary of State was the 10-volume Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New England—which covered the years 1636-1792 and were issued one volume a year from 1856 to 1865. It was definitely a different time—Bartlett prepared the text for the printer by making pencil marks on the source documents, a practice that makes us cringe today.
In 1863, Bartlett at 58 married Ellen Eddy, who was 34. In his papers is a charming little poem she wrote to him, which he was apparently wise enough to heed—
Dear Mr. B—Good Mr. B—
Do for a while attend to me.
Nothing but in old records musing
Or with assemblymen carousing,
Will so convert you to a very
Ancient, brass-mounted secretary.
Then close your books as you are told
And praise my locks of shining gold—
And say my eyes are bright and fine
And be a darling valentine.
In fact, it was during their honeymoon that they attended the dedication of the Soldier's National Cemetery at Gettysburg on November 19. They sat on the raised platform not ten feet from President Lincoln when he delivered the Gettysburg Address.
[1] Albert Gallatin (1761-1849) was the fourth treasury secretary, and one of the key diplomats who negotiated the peace with Great Britain ending the War of 1812.
[2] Of dysentery—apparently there was a limited epidemic in Pawtuxet at the time.
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__________________________
Rick Ring, President
The John Russell Bartlett Society
Celebrating our 37th year of promoting book culture
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