Strangely Gifted: Collected Poetry and Recollections of David Gilmour Blythe

Copyright © 2017 by David R. Majka

Print ISBN: 978-1-54390-773-5

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54390-774-2

Original footnotes to poems (un-highlighted text) © 1974 Bruce William Chambers, Ph.D., used with permission of his estate

Poems with given titles are shown in italics; poems with no titles are identified by their first lines which are shown in quotations.

Contents

Dedication

Forward

Acknowledgements

Notes on the Sources and Survival of Blythe’s Poetry

Part I: The Autograph Book of Julia Ann Keffer Blythe (February 8, 1824 – c.1850)

To Miss Julia by Anonymous (with DGB Annotation)

For Julia by Henrietta (Keffer) (with DGB Annotation)

To Julia by Ferdinand (Keffer) (with DGB Annotation)

Oh for a lodge in some vast Wilderness by Anonymous (with DGB Annotation)

Remember Me as I do thee by H.A.G. (with DGB Annotation)

To Julia by Anonymous (with DGB Annotation)

There is a wish implanted here by David Gilmour Blythe (with DGB Annotation)

For Julia by Anonymous

So long as memory wears a crown by David Gilmour Blythe (with DGB Annotation)

How strange, mysterious, wonderful is life! by Wordsworth (with DGB Annotation)

Yes, the sunbeam in tremulous light (DGB Annotation)

Yes, the sun beam, in tremulous light by ?.S.K.

To Miss Julia From her friend, Ann

To Miss Julia by H.M.

To Julia by Father J.J. Conlan

To meet – to part – to weep (DGB Annotation)

To meet to part to smile by Catharine Brawdy (with DGB Annotation)

To Miss Julia by Fielding

To Julia Ann by Mary A. Smith

To Julia by W.J.K.

There is a Hand whos calm caress (DGB Annotation)

To Julia by A.B. (Andrew Blythe)

Not think of thee! by Elizabeth A. Kerrins

Julia, my gentle cousin, good bye by John A. Gross

To Miss Julia by Garrett

Wreath by Eliza F. Hill

There is no hatred so severe (DGB Annotation)

Tis valuable with some to break their word (DGB Annotation)

To Miss Julia by G.Y.C.

Strike the harp gently by Anonymous

Winfried by Anonymous

Thy lovely form in fancy meets my sight by David Gilmour Blythe

Appendix 1

From the Diary of Henrietta Keffer

To Henrietta by Julia Ann Keffer Blythe (with DGB Annotation)

Appendix 2

The Excised Poems of Hester A. Smith

Keep this flower: it is the silent token by Hester A. Smith

True friendship is a gordian knot by Hester A. Smith (with DGB Annotation)

Part II: The Collected Poetry of David Gilmour Blythe

Part II.A: Youthful Hope, Sentimentality and Playfulness

An album should be but a record of pledges

To Louisa

To Somebody

for the views (fragment)

Boots & Shoes

‘Every idle breeze that’s blow’d’

A Night Scene

A Scrap

Night’s mantling shadows had been drawn

Scrap—By Boots

To Mary Lyon

To E--

To ++++ ++++

The Gingum Bonnet

Bobbin ‘Round and Round

Clifty

To W.S.T. on leaving for California

Farewell to Uniontown

Part II.B: The Courtship of Julia

To My Gray Goos Quill

To J--

-Twas midnight

To Miss Julie

To Wife---E-a

We Met

That Yellow Dress

To Miss J--

Part II.C: Social and Political Commentary

Phil-Doddridge-of-Va.

Uniontown’s Big Parade

Greene County Had a Holiday

Boots vs. Waynesburg

Carrier’s Address

Letter to a friend in Illinois, July 10 1856

To H.A.G. of Vermont, Ill.

Who blames the Little Giant"

Part II.D: Desolation and Remembrance

They told me you were dying

-Tis Past

Then let me know the worst of fate

--To--

There are things I know of lying

Farewell! Ah!

To M- Y-

This world? What is this world to me?

There may be some bright spot on Earth

Hope Never Dies

The wing of time has fan’d my brow

A Dream

To the original of a picture—like J-a

Another night has come and gone

Part II.E: Alcoholia

St. Paul he took a little wine"’

Parody on Byron’s Farewell

A Voice of Warning

The Drunkards Doom

The Rude Old Bridge – A Romance by Greams

Speech

A Fragment-A-la-Alex. Smith

Part II.F: Mature Reveries

Boots’ Creed

Nature is one of Gods grandest laws

In Winter, when the nights are cold

To Nell Norwood

The Fair—an imitation of Tom Hood

I stood upon a Bridge of Sighs"’

To M---

For Heber Blythe

An Acrostic

When bright hopes are fading fast

Part III: Recollections of the Life of David Gilmour Blythe

Poet and Painter:

Reminiscences of the Late David G. Blythe

As a Fiddler:

How Artist Blythe Sketched Uncle Jake While He Played

The Quiet Observer

The Correspondence of Hugh F. Gorley and James Hadden

Regarding David Gilmour Blythe (1895-96)

David Blythe, Poet and Painter

Letter from Edmund Watts to James Hadden Regarding David Gilmour Blythe (1900)

David Blythe, Painter - Poet.

The Life of a Strangely Gifted East Liverpool Boy

Excerpts from A History of Uniontown, County Seat of Fayette County, Pennsylvania by James Hadden (1913)

Part IV. Images of the Life, Death, Works, Family and Acquaintances of David Gilmour Blythe

Annotated Bibliography

Dedication

To the eternal memory of Dr. Bruce W. Chambers (1941-2007), James Hadden (1845-1923), and Harold B. Barth (1884-1974), without whose intercession and devotion the poetry of David Gilmour Blythe would have passed largely unnoticed from history.

Illustrations

Photograph of David Gilmour Blythe

Watercolor, Lily of the Valley and Poppies by DGB

Pencil Sketch of Julia Ann Keffer Blythe by DGB

Sketch of Jacob Miller by DGB

Etching of David Gilmour Blythe

Uniontown News Standard, April 16, 1896, p.1.

Sketch of Jacob Miller by DGB

Cover: Portrait of David Gilmour Blythe (1815-1865), hand-colored tintype. Keffer family collection, previously unpublished. (Keffer family photograph)

Frontispiece: Clipping from an unknown newspaper. Blythe archives, East Liverpool Historical Society. Emigravit is an abbreviation of a Latin phrase meaning he has gone to be with the Lord (Majka photograph)

Dedication: Photograph of Bruce W. Chambers, Ph.D. courtesy of Margaret Chambers, AIA. Photograph of James Hadden originally published in his History of Uniontown (1913), courtesy of the Pennsylvania Room, Uniontown Public Library. Photograph of Harold Bradshaw Barth courtesy of the East Liverpool Historical Society.

Forward

Photograph of David Gilmour Blythe

(Collection of the Museum of Ceramics, East Liverpool, OH)

The Ever-Learning Genius

Artists pass in and out of fashion, and often long periods of scholarly inactivity regarding their works ensue. The 1974 publication of Dr. Bruce W. Chambers’ exhaustive dissertation on the works of David Gilmour Blythe (1815-1865) closed a twenty-five year period of relatively little scholarship regarding that artist. Dr. Chamber’s dissertation, subsequently recast into a lengthy Blythe exhibition catalog in 1980, was preceded by Dr. Dorothy Miller’s 1950 The Life and Work of David G. Blythe , the first book-length examination of Blythe’s paintings and the events of his life. Dr. Miller’s book was a product of her 1946 dissertation at the University of Pittsburgh.

Although discussions of Blythe continue to appear in articles and as parts of scholarly treatises, it has now been over 40 years since any part of Blythe’s artistic output has received book-length examination. A pause of that duration is usually lengthy enough for new discoveries to emerge that eventually warrant a book, and that is what is presented for the reader’s examination in these pages.

While this project started off as a book solely devoted to a comprehensive re-examination of Blythe’s poetry, other good things are often discovered in the course of scholarly research that change the trajectory of the finished product. The re-discovery and personal examination of the original Julia Ann Keffer Blythe autograph book in Florida; finding treasure troves of heretofore un-transcripted near-contemporary accounts of Blythe’s life and times in East Liverpool and Uniontown; discovery of more complete or alternative versions of Blythe’s poetry in various archives; and the serendipitous unearthing in East Liverpool of old images related to Blythe’s life offered the author the chance to present new insights regarding the poet-painter as part of this volume.

Blythe is primarily famous today for his genre paintings. However, one fortuitous offshoot of Dr. Chambers’ methodical review of primary source material related to Blythe was unearthing the latter’s written works from the obscure depositories where they had reposed for the latter part of the nineteenth and the better part of the 20th centuries. An entire 69 page appendix to Dr. Chambers’ 1974 dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania was devoted to a compendium of poems, and a few prose works, written by Blythe.

What comprised a side discovery made in the course of Dr. Chambers’ dissertation research reveals a completely different aspect of Blythe’s character and talent when singled out for some independent evaluation. His poetry is an important accomplishment in 19th century American literature that deserves a far greater degree of recognition than it has previously received. Although the poetry has gotten cursory examination as curiosa, or as a sort of Rosetta Stone to Blythe’s psychology and artistic inspiration – and observations rooted in that line of inquiry are indeed valuable – his poetry also stands alone as an artistic accomplishment of separate and notable distinction.

Qualitative opinions on Blythe’s poetry have varied over time. As shown in the frontispiece to this volume, Blythe’s poems were greatly admired by his contemporaries, who invariably referred to Blythe as a poet-painter or a painter-poet. However, that prevailing view changed from the turn of the 20th century through Dorothy Miller’s dissertation and subsequent book in the 1940s.¹

Just as is the case with his paintings, partial or superficial reading of Blythe’s poetry has led many commentators to badly underestimate its sophistication and quality, viz: "In addition to anecdotes, Thompson² has collected a sheaf of poetry, mostly of a merry & disjointed nature, and usually dedicated to alcohol."³ Even faithful Hadden, to whom posterity owes so much for his role in saving Blythe’s memory and poetry, had this to say in his 1913 History of Uniontown: While some of Blythe’s productions in verse possessed considerable merit, he wrote much that was groveling, and some that otherwise would have been creditable, was marred by the use of slang.⁴ Et tu, Brute? Dr. Miller went so far as to characterize some of Blythe’s poetry as barely escapes doggerel, and perhaps some of it is; he wrote screeds, sentimental nostrums and juvenilia just like more schooled and famous poets did in less inspired or mature times in their creative lives.⁵

However, projecting the worth of the complete extent of the man’s written output from his earlier or sillier effluvia is no fairer than judging his paintings solely on the basis of his primitive early portraits. Hadden, Thompson, and Miller were not literary scholars, nor did they have access to the entire canon of Blythe’s written work. There is much more substance to both of Blythe’s genres of artistic expression that will reward those who take the time to engage with them.

Blythe’s mourning poems, and his mature observations on the human condition, often contain the same spark of the divine evidenced by the people who appear in the Norton Anthology. No one with any degree of human empathy can read the naked anguish and sense of loss projected from the annotations in Julia Blythe’s autograph book and other lamentations related to her death without being moved by them. Likewise, David Gilmour Blythe’s mature poetic musings on a wide variety of topics reveal a unique sensibility that is enriching to experience. As Sarah Burns put it, His poetic output ranged from pensive and sentimental to satirical and extravagantly bizarre.⁶ It is well past time for a comprehensive look at Blythe’s written works and a re-appraisal of their literary value. The quality and extent of his output is remarkable for someone primarily famous in another medium and, like the paintings, it encompasses a wide range of topics.

At a bare minimum, Blythe’s poetry reveals a sensitive man who was quite proficient at articulating sophisticated insights into events of the day, emotions, aesthetics and abstract concepts. Blythe was articulate, heartfelt, insightful and often playful in his writing. His poems are approachable in the sense that, with the exception of a few of his social and political satires, most are brief and not abstract. They address their subject clearly, directly and succinctly in his own distinctive style. As noted by Dr. Chambers, Blythe frequently folds in references to other poets’ works in his own canon. Although some of these are obscure in our day, it is much more common and extremely interesting to see English Romantic poets such as Byron and Shelley, as well as leading American poets of Blythe’s time, such as Longfellow and Poe, often quoted in his works.

One of the most striking aspects of David Gilmour Blythe is his autodidacticism. Dr. Chambers and other commentators have noted that Blythe left school to be apprenticed as a woodcarver at age 16 and was completely self-taught as an artist, yet both his written works and paintings show tremendous improvement throughout his life. A commonly used barometer of true talent is whether an artist progresses throughout his or her career; the Beatles and a few other musical acts of our time are accounted geniuses for that very reason. Even a schooled eye would have trouble linking Blythe’s early works to those he produced later in life.

Blythe evidently read and studied voraciously, and he was fully capable of expressing exalted and abstract thought in both words and paint. Blythe’s poetry mirrors his art in its development; both have three distinct phases:

Art – 1) early folk portraits and the Panorama; 2) late, sophisticated portraits; 3) genre paintings.

Poetry – 1) autograph book-era treacle and juvenilia; 2) poems of loss and satires such as the Greene County poetry war; 3) mature reflections and observations on the human condition.

While the author makes no claim of Blythe’s standing being equal to William Blake’s, they have interesting parallels in their lives in a uniquely nineteenth century way that is near-extinct nowadays. Both men left formal education at a young age to be trained via apprenticeship as artisans, Blake in engraving and Blythe in woodcarving. Both were highly proficient in two different artistic media. Each artist had a high degree of output in both of their areas of endeavor; Blake produced about 120 poems during his life and Blythe about 85, in addition to their large volume of visual works. While artists with standing in two different fields aren’t unknown (Burns cites Thomas Cole as one example of another American painter-poet), they are not common either. Someone with a reasonable claim to inclusion in that exclusive club deserves some extra attention.

Blythe traveled widely. Although his life centered on East Liverpool, Uniontown and Pittsburgh at various points, biographical accounts have him journeying to the Caribbean and Mexico, New Orleans, Indiana, New York, etc. Drs. Miller and Chambers postulate that he may have viewed exhibitions in some of these larger cities that improved his art, just as reading the leading poets of his day undoubtedly improved his poetry.

The author’s study of the corpus of Blythe’s poems revealed the themes that are reflected in the poems’ assignment to the chapters in this book. The poems’ topical categories are more easily ascertained then their chronology, although early poems can be stylistically differentiated from later ones with relative ease even if undated. The quality of Blythe’s written works cannot be fully appreciated unless they are viewed in their totality and with an eye to his artistic progression. The author hopes that the reader will not slight Blythe’s mature work even if the skill level or topics evidenced in his earlier work are less rewarding to read.

All of Blythe’s works, written or painted, reflect the chiaroscuro of the events of his life where darkness often overshadowed light. Many writers have noted the impact that personal tragedy, including the death of Blythe’s wife, Julia, and the failure and loss of The Great Panorama of the Allegheny Mountains, had upon his personality and late period genre paintings. There is a dark flavor to much of Blythe’s written work, paralleling what we see in his paintings. However, the man’s apparently inextinguishable sense of humor and playfulness sometimes delights the reader or viewer with an appearance that leavens the prevailing twilight.

Hopefully, the material presented herein will stimulate the attention of future scholars to one of America’s great and unique nineteenth century artists. David Gilmour Blythe’s life had many of the elements and scope that one finds in a great motion picture: adventure, romance, pathos and loss, art and the artistic temperament. All of these themes play out against the movement of American society into the Industrial Revolution, and its subsequent descent towards the greatest schism our country has ever endured. One could hardly ask for a more interesting backdrop or character. Those who have studied Blythe and his works tend to get to like him as a person, and the author’s hope is that you will too. As John O’Connor, Jr., then director of the Department of Fine Arts at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh eloquently said of David Gilmour Blythe in 1944:

His native talent, his originality, his ability to see the foibles and shortcomings of his day, his satire, his love of the ridiculous, his humanity, and his sense of humor of everyday living made his art an art of the people. He seems to be an everlasting Puck, saying in as many languages as he had at his command, What fools these mortals be!"⁷

David R. Majka, Ed.D.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

March, 2017

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the kind assistance, encouragement or inspiration of the following persons:

Although he is sadly no longer alive, the author pays first homage to the memory of Bruce W. Chambers, Ph.D., the standard by which all other Blythe scholars are measured (and often found wanting). The author is indebted to his widow, Margaret J. Chambers, AIA, for her kind permission to reprint Dr. Chambers’ insightful dissertation footnotes to Blythe’s poems as well as his photograph.

Timothy Brookes, Esq., President of the East Liverpool Historical Society, always welcoming, encouraging and generous with his time in allowing the author access to the archives of the Society and their precious contents, and for his insights into the history of East Liverpool.

Sarah Webster Vodrey, (then director), Museum of Ceramics, East Liverpool, for her kind assistance in providing access to the Museum’s extensive holdings of Blythe-related images.

Kay and Ken Drews, for answering an email inquiry from a stranger regarding their family’s patrimony and for their incredible generosity in sharing it and other familial Blythiana with the author and other future Blythe scholars

David G. Wilkins, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts, University of Pittsburgh, for patiently listening to a cocktail party bore babble on regarding his plans for a book on Blythe’s poetry, and for being gracious enough to say that book should be written.

Michael Dabrishus, Assistant University Librarian, and the librarians of the Special Collections and Frick Fine Arts Libraries, University of Pittsburgh, both for their unfailing courtesy and helpfulness in the research for this book as well as for their willingness to provide a safe and caring permanent home for the Julia Ann Keffer Blythe autograph book.

Maria Sholtis, Curator of the Pennsylvania Room, Uniontown Public Library, for her cheerful and expert assistance in providing the author with access to the UPL’s wonderful Blythe-related collection. The Pennsylvania Room is a place of pilgrimage for anyone with a serious interest in Blythe and his works.

Constance L. Eads, CPA, for permitting her husband to expend so much personal and vacation time in pursuit of the material presented herein, and for her patience and support throughout the process of researching and writing this book.

Notes on