A Trip to Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY (Part 3)

Henry Chadwick's grave, Green-Wood Cemetery

After I found one of the families at the center of my current book project, I sauntered over to the final resting place of Henry Chadwick. An engraved plaque affixed to the monument that the National League dedicated to Chadwick at Green-Wood grandiosely declared him "Father of Base Ball." But Chadwick, an Englishman whose skill lay in his pen rather than a bat, was known as the preeminent writer on baseball. The English born player of ball games such as rounders and cricket arrived in the United States in 1837 and later took a job as a cricket reporter for the New York Times. He first observed the American game of "base ball" in 1856 when he happened upon a spirited match played by two New York clubs on the Elysian Fields that reflected an aggressive, high-energized characteristic of mid-nineteenth century Americans: “Americans do not care to dawdle over a sleep-inspiring game, all through the heat of a June or July day,” Chadwick wrote. “What they do they want to do in a hurry. In baseball all is lightning; every action is as swift as a seabird’s flight.”


Henry Chadwick, 1874

Thus the title of "father of base ball" bestowed upon Chadwick at the time of his death in 1908 must be a mistake if the game and rules of base ball had already been developed by the time Chadwick observed his match. Recent research seems to indicate that others, such as Daniel "Doc" Lucius  Adams, are perhaps more fitting of that title due to their part in developing the rules of the national game. At the very least, Adams and those who developed the rules in the 1840s, are among the "founding fathers of baseball." Chadwick, however, popularized baseball among working-class Americans by translating his passion for the sport into regular columns that he contributed to the New York Clipper and Sunday Mercury. According to baseball historian John Thorn, Chadwick was baseball's greatest booster, who pioneered the box-score with copious statistics that aided his reporting. Chadwick later wrote in his 1868 Game of Base Ball:

"I was struck with the idea that base ball was just the game for a national sport for Americans . . . as much so as cricket is for England. . . . I began to invent a method of giving detailed reports of leading contests at base ball, and, seeing that every thing connected with the game, almost, was new, its rules crude and hastily prepared, with no systematized plan of recording the details of a game, and, in fact, no fixed method of either playing or scoring it, as soon as I became earnestly interested in the subject I began to submit amendments to the rules of the game to the consideration of the fraternity, generally in the form of suggestions through the press, my first improvement introduced being an innovation on the simple method of scoring then in vogue. Step by step, little by little, either directly or indirectly, did I succeed in assisting to change the game from the almost simple field exercise it was . . . to the manly, scientific game of ball it is now."

For more on Chadwick and his role in scoring the national game, see this 2009 NPR piece.

Chadwick biographer, Andrew Schiff contributed the following brief biography for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

A diamond complete with bases surrounds Chadwick's monument at Green-Wood Cemetery.

 

 

Henry Chadwick's plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame

A Trip to Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY (Part 2)

Before I got on the subway for the ride back into Manhattan, I made one last stop in Green-Wood to see the final resting place of George Catlin, American painter, author, and traveler who specialized in portraits of American Indians in the Old West (more on Catlin's life and artwork below). Apparently, Catlin's in-laws did not think much of him. Instead of being buried next to his wife, who his in-laws made the centerpiece of their family lot, Catlin and his son were placed in the back of the lot.



George Catlin, by William Fisk 1849

However, in 2012, sculptor John Coleman honored Catlin by donating "The Greeter," a depiction of Black Moccasin, a Hidasta chief who met Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in council on the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota during their expedition of the Louisiana Territory and the West.

 

 

Catlin journeyed to meet Black Moccasin in 1832 and painted the elder chief for his Indian gallery. Here is Catlin's 1832 portrait of Black Moccasin:

George Catlin, Eh-toh'k-pah-she-pée-shah, Black Moccasin, aged Chief (1832)
“The chief sachem of this tribe [Hidatsa/Minitari] is a very ancient and patriarchal looking man . . . and counts, undoubtedly, more than a hundred snows. I have been for some days an inmate of his hospitable lodge, where he sits tottering with age, and silently reigns sole monarch of his little community around him, who are continually dropping in to cheer his sinking energies, and render him their homage. His voice and his sight are nearly gone; but the gestures of his hands are yet energetic and youthful, and freely speak the language of his kind heart . . . I have . . . painted his portrait as he was seated on the floor of his wigwam, smoking his pipe, whilst he was recounting over to me some of the extraordinary feats of his life, with a beautiful Crow robe wrapped around him, and his hair wound up in a conical form upon his head, and fastened with a small wooden pin, to keep it in its place . . . This man has many distinct recollections of Lewis and Clark, who were the first explorers of this country, and who crossed the Rocky Mountains thirty years ago.” According to George Catlin, Black Moccasin’s long-stemmed pipe was a calumet, or peace pipe, “mutually smoked by the chiefs, after the terms of the treaty are agreed upon.” Black Moccasin had been a chief when Lewis and Clark visited the Hidatsa village in the winter of 1804-05; Catlin reckoned he was 105 years old in 1832. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 1, nos. 23, 29, 1841; reprint 1973)

 

George Catlin was born July 26, 1796 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. His interest in Native Americans may have begun at an early age with tales of his mother’s capture (and safe return) when she was seven by Iroquois Indians and his family’s friendly contact with an Oneida family. Many details about him remain a mystery, but he was determined to paint and document as many American Indians as possible, afraid westward expansion would destroy them and their ways of life. Catlin started his professional life as a lawyer, studying in Litchfield, Connecticut, being admitted to the Bar in 1818 and working with his brother Charles. George began trying his hand at being a miniature painter and portraitist soon after. In 1820 he moved to Philadelphia, living and working as an artist becoming close friends with portraitist Thomas Sully’s future son-in-law, John Neagle. Catlin began exhibiting artwork at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts being elected an academician in 1824. In 1826 Catlin moved to New York and became a member of the National Academy of Design. During this time he painted his first Indian portrait, the Seneca Chief, Red Jacket.

George married Clara Bartlett Gregory in Albany, New York in 1828, with George continuing to work as a portraitist on the East Coast. Wanting to travel west George went to St. Louis in 1830 to meet with Gen. William Clark, commissioner of the new Missouri Territory, hoping to travel with Clark and other military expeditions. In 1832 George began what was to become his most famous era of travel, first traveling up the Missouri River to Fort Union. During this trip Catlin painted a number of Indian tribes, including Sioux, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, and Mandan. George exhibited his growing collection in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, and New Orleans. Catlin continued to travel including with an 1834 expedition led by General Leavenworth and Colonel Dodge to Fort Gibson, near Pawnee and Comanche territories in today’s southern Oklahoma. George and Clara traveled up the Mississippi River to Fort Snelling where he was able to paint Sioux, Chippewa, Saux, and Fox. Catlin opened his Indian Gallery in New York City in 1837 with shows in D.C., Baltimore, Boston, and Philadelphia. During this time George tried unsuccessfully many times to have the U.S. Government buy his collection.

With declining interest in his exhibit and the failure to have his collection bought by Congress, George set off for England in 1839. The Indian Gallery opened at the Egyptian Hall in London in 1840. With great personal expense, George self-published Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians in 1841. Catlin exhibited his collection in England and elsewhere in Europe, eventually storing the paintings and traveling with performers while he told of his encounters in the American West with artifacts and props. In 1843, he hired nine Ojibwa Indians to travel with the show throughout the U.K. He then hired and toured with 14 Iowa Indians. In 1845, Catlin moved his family and the Iowa to Paris. He toured with the Iowa in Europe while also enjoying the patronage of the French King, Louis-Phillippe. During this period Catlin also painted a series of works depicting the LaSalle Expedition. Unfortunately, the French monarchy fell and George fled to England with his children. Having incurred massive debts throughout his life and now in England, he was forced to put his Indian Gallery up for auction. Railroad tycoon Joseph Harrison agreed to buy the collection in its entirety in exchange for paying off most of Catlin’s debt. Catlin spent much of the rest of his life trying to replicate his Gallery from notes, sketches, and memory making up his Cartoon Collection, which was exhibited at the Smithsonian (1872) after returning to America in 1870, having spent 31 years abroad. Catlin died in New Jersey surrounded by remaining family December 23, 1872.

For more on George Catlin and many of his works, see the Smithsonian American Art Museum's George Catlin webpage.

Battle between Sioux and Sauk and Fox by George Catlin (painted in Paris 1846-48)
George Catlin prized the authenticity of his depictions of Native Americans, and cited the “historical fact” that the Sioux warrior “killed and scalped on his horse’s back.” Catlin painted this work in Paris between 1846 and 1848, when he was creating dramatic, more highly finished paintings for a European clientele hungry for the romance of the American West.

George Catlin, Ball-play of the Women, Prairie du Chien (1835-1836)
George Catlin witnessed Choctaw lacrosse in Indian Territory in 1834, but a year later, at Prairie du Chien in today’s Wisconsin, Catlin saw and recorded the Eastern Sioux/Dakota version of ball-play. He later described the game: “In the ball-play of the women, they have two balls attached to the ends of a string, about a foot and a half long; and each woman has a short stick in each hand, on which she catches the string with the two balls, and throws them, endeavoring to force them over the goal of her own party.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 52, 1841, reprint 1973; Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 1979)

Note: Catlin biographical information courtesy of the Sid Richardson Museum

A Trip to Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn NY (Part 1)

During my recent trip to New York City, while visiting Col. Frank McNulty and his family, who I have written about in Knoxville's Million Dollar Fire, I just had to stop in and see a couple folks that I teach about in my American history survey courses. 

In Part 1, I will be sharing some pictures that I took of the final resting places of Henry Ward Beecher and Horace Greeley. But first, a little history on the place that they call home--Green-Wood Cemetery.

Founded in 1838 and now a National Historic Landmark, Green-Wood was one of the first rural cemeteries in America. By the early 1860s, it had earned an international reputation for its magnificent beauty and became the prestigious place to be buried in New York, attracting 500,000 visitors a year, second only to Niagara Falls as the nation’s greatest tourist attraction. Crowds flocked there to enjoy family outings, carriage rides, and sculpture viewing in the finest of first generation American landscapes. Green-Wood’s popularity helped inspire the creation of public parks, including New York City’s Central and Prospect Parks.

Green-Wood is 478 acres of hills (lots of hills!), valleys, glacial ponds and paths, throughout which exists one of the largest outdoor collections of 19th- and 20th-century statuary and mausoleums. Four seasons of beauty from century-and-a-half-old trees offer a peaceful oasis to visitors, as well as its 560,000 permanent residents. A magnet for history buffs and bird watchers, Green-Wood is a Revolutionary War historic site (the Battle of Long Island was fought in 1776 across what is now its grounds), a designated site on the Civil War Discovery Trail and a registered member of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary System.
  

The Statue of Liberty can be seen from the gates of Green-Wood at 25th Street & 5th Avenue. 

Before the trees bloom, Greenwood's west side includes some beautiful views of Manhattan.

 

The highest portion of the cemetery is also the highest elevation of Brooklyn. It also the point that honors New Yorkers in the military. The monument on top of the hill honors New York's Union soldiers.

First up, Henry Ward Beecher, whose recent biographer labeled him "the most famous man in America." Beecher, a brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, found fame when he shed his father's Old Testament style fire-and-brimstone theology for a New Testament based gospel of unconditional love and healing. By the 1850s, his sermons in Brooklyn Heights became a large draw and he soon immersed himself into nearly every important drama of the era, most notably the anti-slavery and women's suffrage movements.

 

Second, is Horace Greeley, who possibly sported the coolest neck-beard of the 19th century. Founder and editor of the New York Tribune, Greeley was an eccentric social reformer, an ardent opponent of slavery, and erratic political strategist and failed presidential aspirant. Greeley continuously pressed Lincoln to emancipate the South's four million slaves during the Civil War. After a powerful mid-August 1862 editorial, Lincoln responded in an August 22 letter (perhaps the most significant letter written during by Lincoln as president) addressed to Greeley that was intended to both prepare and shape northern public opinion as he waited patiently for a Union victory to announce what only a few insiders knew at the time--that the president intended to use his broad executive powers as Commander-in-Chief to emancipate all slaves behind Confederate lines.