Trowbridge, John Townsend 1827-1916 (Paul Creyton)

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TROWBRIDGE, John Townsend 1827-1916 (Paul Creyton)

PERSONAL:

Born September 18, 1827, in Ogden Township, NY; died February 12, 1916, in Arlington, MA; married Cornelia Warren, May, 1860 (died March, 1864); married Sarah Adelaide Newton, June 4, 1873; children: (first marriage) two; (second marriage) two daughters and one son. Education: Lockport Academy, Lockport, NY, one year; generally self-educated.

CAREER:

Schoolteacher in Illinois, 1845, and Lockport, NY, 1846; Yankee Nation, editor, 1848; Our Young Folks, 1865-70; editor, 1870-74.

WRITINGS:

UNDER PSUEDONYM PAUL CREYTON

Kate, the Accomplice; or, The Preacher and Burglar: Story of Real Life in the Metropolis, Star Spangled Banner Office (Boston, MA), 1849.

Lucy Dawson, or, The Bandits of the Prairie: A Romance of the Far West, Being a Tale of Crime and Daring Founded on Facts, Williams (Boston, MA), 1850.

Father Brighthopes, or, An Old Clergyman's Vacation, Phillips, Sampson (Boston, MA), 1853, revised edition, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA), 1892.

Hearts and Faces, or, Home-Life Unveiled, Phillips, Sampson (Boston, MA), 1853.

The Deserted Family, or, Wanderings of an Outcast, Crown (Boston, MA), Bradley (Philadelphia, PA), 1853.

Burrcliff: Its Sunshine and Its Clouds, Phillips, Sampson (Boston, MA), 1854.

Martin Merrivale: His X Mark, Phillips, Sampson (Boston, MA)/Derby (New York, NY), 1854.

Ironthorpe: The Pioneer Preacher, Phillips, Sampson (Boston, MA)/Derby (New York, NY), 1855.

Neighbor Jackwood, Phillips, Sampson (Boston, MA), 1857, revised edition, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA), 1895.

UNDER NAME JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE

Neighbor Jackwood: A Domestic Drama in Five Acts, S. French (New York, NY), 1857.

The Old Battle-Ground, Sheldon (New York, NY), 1860.

The Drummer Boy: A Story of Burnside's Expedition, anonymous, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA), 1863, republished as Frank Manly, the Drummer Boy: A Story of the War, Gill (Boston, MA), 1876.

The Vagabonds, Gregory (New York, NY), 1863.

Cudjo's Cave, Tilton (Boston, MA), 1864.

The Ferry-Boy and the Financier, anonymous, Walker, Wise (Boston, MA), 1864.

The Little Rebel, anonymous, Tilton (Boston, MA), 1864.

The Three Scouts, Tilton (Boston, MA), 1865.

Coupon Bonds, Ticknor & Fields (Boston, MA), 1866.

Lucy Arlyn, Ticknor & Fields (Boston, MA), 1866.

The South: A Tour of its Battle-fields and Ruined Cities, A Journey through the Desolated States, and Talks with the People: Being a Description of the Present State of the Country, Stebbins (Hartford, CT), 1866, republished as A Picture of the Desolated States, And the Work of Restoration: 1865-1868, Stebbins (Hartford, CT), 1868, abridged as The Desolate South, edited by Gordon Carroll, Duell, Sloan & Pearce (New York, NY) and Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1956.

Neighbors' Wives, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA), 1867.

The Vagabonds, and Other Poems, Fields, Osgood (Boston, MA), 1869.

The Story of Columbus, Fields, Osgood (Boston, MA), 1870.

(Editor) Our Young Folks, Ticknor and Fields (Boston, MA), 1870-1873.

Lawrence's Adventures Among the Ice-Cutters, Glass-Makers, Coal-Miners, Iron-Men, and Ship-Builders, Fields, Osgood (Boston, MA), 1871.

Jack Hazard and His Fortunes, Osgood (Boston, MA), 1871, republished in How to Rise in the World, or, Every-Day Progress, Warne (London, England), 1875, republished in Who Won at Last, or, Every-Day Progress, Warne (London, England and New York, NY), c. 1884.

A Chance for Himself, Or Jack Hazard and His Treasure, Osgood (Boston, MA), 1872.

Coupon Bonds and Other Stories, Osgood (Boston, MA), 1873.

Doing His Best, Osgood (Boston, MA), 1873, republished in How to Rise in the World, or, Every-Day Progress, Warne (London, England), 1875, republished in Who Won at Last, or, Every-Day Progress, Warne (London, England), c. 1884.

Fast Friends, Osgood (Boston, MA), 1875.

The Emigrant's Story and Other Poems, Osgood (Boston, MA), 1875.

The Young Surveyor, Sampson Low, Marston, Low & Searle (London, England), 1875, republished as The Young Surveyor, or, Jack on the Prairies, Osgood (Boston, MA), 1875.

Coupon Bonds: A Play in Four Acts, Baker (Boston, MA), 1876.

The Great Match, and Other Matches, anonymous, Roberts (Boston, MA), 1877.

The Book of Gold and Other Poems, Harper (New York, NY), 1878.

His Own Master, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1878.

Bound in Honor, or, A Harvest of Wild Oats, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1878.

Young Joe and Other Boys, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1880.

The Silver Medal, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1881.

A Home Idyl and Other Poems, Houghton, Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1881.

The Pocket-Rifle, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1882.

The Jolly Rover, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1883.

Phil and His Friends, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1884.

The Tinkham Brothers' Tide-Mill, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1884.

Farnell's Folly, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1885.

The Satin-Wood Box, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1886.

The Little Master, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1887.

His One Fault, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1887.

Peter Budstone: The Boy Who Was Hazed, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY).

The Lost Earl With Other Poems and Tales in Verse, Lothrop (Boston, MA), 1888.

A Start in Life: A Story of the Genesee Country, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1889.

Biding His Time, or, Andrew Hapnell's Fortune, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1889.

The Adventures of David Vane and David Crane, Lothrop (Boston, MA), 1889.

The Kelp-Gatherers: A Story of the Maine Coast, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1891.

The Scarlet Tanager and Other Bipeds, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1892.

The Fortunes of Toby Trafford, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA) and Dillingham (New York, NY), 1893.

Woodie Thorpe's Pilgrimage and Other Stories, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA), 1893.

The Poetical Works of John Townsend Trowbridge, Houghton, Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1893.

The Prize Cup, Century (New York, NY), 1896.

The Lottery Ticket, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA), 1896.

A Question of Damages, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA), 1897.

Two Biddicut Boys and Their Adventures with a Wonderful Trick-Dog, Century (New York, NY), 1898.

My Own Story with Recollections of Noted Persons, Houghton, Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1903.

A Pair of Madcaps, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA), 1909.

ADAPTATIONS:

Neighbor Jackwood was adapted into the play Neighbor Jackwood: A Domestic Drama in Five Acts (1857).

SIDELIGHTS:

John Townsend Trowbridge was a nineteenth-century American novelist, poet, and editor, known for his popular fiction written for an adolescent male audience. He is also remembered for two antislavery novels, Neighbor Jackwood and Cudjo's Cave. He penned more than sixty volumes between 1849 and 1909. Important collections of his papers are housed at the Boston Public Library, Harvard University, the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Virginia. David E. E. Sloane, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, wrote that Trowbridge "was regarded by contemporaries as a spokesman for the northeastern Yankee viewpoint, respected for his insights into his own region and its characters and characteristics, for his views of the South and racial issues, and for his understanding of the issues of childhood and growing up." The likes of Mark Twain, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Walt Whitman were among his acquaintances.

Trowbridge was the eighth of nine children of pioneer farmers whose ancestors had arrived in Boston from England in 1634. Troubled by poor eyesight as a youth, he generally had to self-teach, learning French at age fifteen, and also Latin and Greek. Studying in a public library, he discovered the works of various American, European and classic writers, including Lord Byron, James Fenimore Cooper, Plutarch and Shakespeare. At thirteen, he began writing verse, publishing his first poem three years later in Rochester Republican in New York State. He enrolled in the academy in Lockport, New York, north of Buffalo, and completed one year of study.

Trowbridge took a job as a schoolteacher in Illinois in 1845, then returned the following year to Lockport, also to teach. In 1847, he moved to New York City and endeavored to become a writer, contributing stories primarily to Holden's Dollar Magazine. New York exposed him to theater as well as various French writers, including Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Eugéne Sue, and George Sand. An article published in New York's Knickerbocker Magazine was his first piece in a major national journal.

Trowbridge settled in Boston in 1848, where he discovered the lectures of Theodore Parker and the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe. After a year as editor of the Yankee Nation, he began an eleven-year period of editing periodicals and contributing to Atlantic Monthly, Our Young Folks, and the Youth's Companion. In 1849, he published his first book, Kate, the Accomplice; or, The Preacher and Burglar: Story of Real Life in the Metropolis, which he wrote under the pseudonym of Paul Creyton. Along with such literary standouts as Holmes, Longfellow, Stowe, James Russell Lowell and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Trowbridge contributed to the first issue of Atlantic Monthly in 1857.

His first long fictional work is Martin Merrivale: His X Mark, a satire of Bostonian life that was published serially, going into print before he wrote the conclusion. Concentrating on the lives of two Boston families and partly reflecting Trowbridge's own life, the work effectively used an episodic literary structure, which Trowbridge would employ in his serial work.

Trowbridge's first major success in fiction was Neighbor Jackwood, in which Vermont neighbors protect a fugitive slave. The novel appeared in 1857 as the antislavery movement was gathering support in New England following the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The publisher delayed its release, lest it get lost amid the publicity of Stowe's 1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin. Neighbor Jackwood, which shows the influence of Lord Byron and Scott through the characterization of the hero, caused some stir due to the romance between the slave and the New England hero. Trowbridge adapted the novel into a play entitled Neighbor Jackwood: A Domestic Drama in Five Acts, which enjoyed some success in Boston.

Trowbridge had already published ten volumes by 1860, when he married Cornelia Warren. They had two children. Nine years after she died, he married Sarah Newton. From 1865 to 1867, he published a series of stories for Our Young Folks meant to develop a sense of morality in children, entitled Half Hours with Father Brighthopes. Sloane wrote that Trowbridge's "ability to combine simple morality with an emphasis on scene and event makes them better reading that the didactic stories from the American Tract Society and other purveyors of moral tales for children."

Cudjo's Cave, a melodramatic action and adventure story of two escaped slaves, thoughtfully renders the dialects of Southern blacks and poor whites. Though some critics found it overly melodramatic with unnatural characterization, it was a popular success.

Trowbridge's travels and observations on the post-Civil War Confederate states led to The South: A Tour of its Battle-fields and Ruined Cities, A Journey through the Desolated States, and Talks with the People: Being a Description of the Present State of the Country and Neighbors' Wives. Trowbridge depicts a land of devastation and deep Southern anger about the freedom of the slaves.

Jack Hazard and His Fortunes tells stories about a Huck Finn-type boy from the Erie Canal area and his Newfoundland dog. Published in twelve installments throughout 1871, it was also a popular success. Sloane wrote, "He had the ability to engagingly realize local scenes and characters such as a profane canal boatman, alcoholic coal burners, and village families and farmers. Although these are third-person narratives, Trowbridge allows his characters to grapple with moral problems instead of lecturing on them as author."

Trowbridge's poetry collections are gathered in The Poetical Works of John Townsend Trowbridge. Of his poems, "Darius Green and His Flying Machine" and "The Vagabonds" remain memorable. Through the late 1880s, he continued contributing serial work to St. Nicholas and Youth's Companion. Sloane wrote that "the stories were often touted as more true-to-life than the didactic stories of other writers, showing boys who performed bad deeds as well as good and spoke a natural language."

Sloane, however, also noted that Trowbridge was not the best local-color writer, saying, "Bret Harte in prose and Charles Godfrey Leland in verse had surpassed him before he began, and Will Carleton and others would supersede him." His boy-adventure stories, however, continued to sell after his death and his works effectively capture the northern American morality during the Civil War era.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 202: Nineteenth-Century American Fiction Writers, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1999.

Magill, Frank, ed., Cyclopedia of World Authors, revised third edition, Salem Press (Pasadena, CA), 1997.

Perkins, George, Barbara Perkins and Phillip Leininger, eds., Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature, first edition, HarperCollins Publishers (New York, NY), 1991.