Thoreau on cicadas

On a walk near my mother’s house in Burnt Hills, New York, I heard the unmistakable drilling, shrilling sound of a cicada — often, though inaccurately, called a locust. It was July 18, the same day in 1851 that Thoreau heard his first cicada of the year. Below are a few of Thoreau’s observations of cicadas, arranged by day of the year.

July 18, 1851
I first heard the locust sing, so dry and piercing, by the side of the pine woods in the heat of the day.

July 26, 1854
I hear borne on the wind from far, mingling with the sound of the wind, the z-ing of the locust, scarcely like a distinct sound.

August 18, 1841
I sit here in the barn this flowing afternoon weather, while the school bell is ringing in the village, and find that all the things immediate to be done are very trivial. I could postpone them to hear this locust sing.

August 26, 1860
The shrilling of the alder locust is the solder that welds these autumn days together. All bushes (arbusta) resound with their song, and you wade up to your ears in it. Methinks the burden of their song is the countless harvests of the year, — berries, grain, and other fruits.

September 2, 1856
Frank Harding has caught a dog-day locust which lit on the bottom of my boat, in which he was sitting, and z-ed there. When you hear him you have got to the end of the alphabet and may imagine the &. It has a mark somewhat like a small writing w on the top of its thorax.

Dove & Hudson Old Books

Once or twice a year, usually with my mother in the course of a family visit, I spend an hour or so in the Dove & Hudson bookstore in Albany. (Photo is courtesy of Maud Newton, who blogged about the store some time ago.) Mnemonically named for the corner where it’s located, the Dove & Hudson is probably the best of all the many used-book stores I’ve visited in a long career as a bookbuyer.

It’s not as big as Boston’s late lamented Avenue Victor Hugo, or as physically beautiful as Housing Works in Soho, but it has the best combination of excellent selection and reasonable price that I’ve seen anywhere. Rather than go through the titles one by one, it almost seems I should move entire shelves from the Dove & Hudson into my living room. A key part of the experience is the presence of the owner, Dan Wedge, in his broad-brimmed hat, reading behind the counter or puttering around the shelves, never hurried or flustered, making friendly but not intrusive conversation in his resonant voice, and dispensing purple money for future discounts with the change. How can you not like someone who’s read the Aubrey-Maturin novels more times than I have?

George W. Wisner, Abolitionist Reporter

On my way to work, at the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street, I pass by the clock of the old New York Sun paper, turned pistachio green with verdigris and bearing the slogan “It shines for all.” It was a treat to discover recently that my ancestor George W. Wisner was not only a reporter for the Sun, beginning when it was founded in 1833, but was a boisterous abolitionist.

The Wisners in America quotes from a serial article called “The Story of the Sun,” which appeared in Munsey’s Magazine beginning in May 1917:

When George W. Wisner, a young printer who was out of work, applied to the Sun for a job, Benjamin Day told him that he would give him four dollars a week if he would get up early every day and attend the police court, which held its sessions from 4 A.M. on. The people of the city were quite as human then as they are today. Unregenerate mortals got drunk and fought in the streets. Others stole shoes. The worst of all beat their wives. Wisner was to be the Balzac of the daybreak court in a year when Balzac himself was writing his “Droll Stories.” ...

The big story on the first page of the fourth issue of the Sun was a conversation between Envy and Candor in regard to the beauties of a Miss H., perhaps a fictitious person. But on the second page, at the head of the editorial column, was a real editorial article approving the course of the British government in freeing the slaves in the West Indies:

“We supposed that the eyes of men were but half open to this case. We imagined that the slave would have to toil on for years and purchase what in justice was already his own. We did not once dream that light had so far progressed as to prepare the British nation for the colossal stride in justice and humanity and benevolence which they are about to make. The abolition of West Indian slavery will form a brilliant era in the annals of the world. It will circle with a halo of imperishable glory the brows of the transcendent spirits who wield the present destinies of the British Empire.

“Would to heaven that the honor of leading the way in this Godlike enterprise had been reserved to our own country! But as the opportunity for this passed, we trust we shall at least avoid the everlasting disgrace of long refusing to imitate so bright and glorious an example.”

Thus the Sun came out for the freedom of the slave twenty-eight years before that freedom was to be accomplished, in the United States, through war. The Sun was the Sun of Day, but the hand was the hand of Wisner. That young man was an Abolitionist before the word was coined.

“Wisner was a pretty smart young fellow,” said Mr. Day nearly fifty years afterward, “but he and I never agreed. I was rather Democratic in my notions. Wisner, whenever he got a chance, was always sticking in his damned little Abolitionist articles.”…

Wisner was stretching the police-court pieces out to nearly two columns. Now and then, perhaps when Mr. Day was away fishing, the reporter would slip in an Abolition paragraph or a gloomy poem on the horrors of slavery. But he was so valuable that, while his chief did not raise his salary of four dollars a week, he offered him half the paper, the same to be paid for out of the profits....

The influence of partner Wisner, the Abolitionist, was evident in many pages of the Sun. On June 23, 1834, it printed a piece about Martin Palmer, who was “pelted down with stones in Wall Street on suspicious of being a runaway slave,” and paid its respects to Boudinot, a Southerner in New York who was reputed to be a tracker of runaways. It was he who had set the crowd after the black:

“The man who will do this will do anything; he would dance on his mother’s grave; he would invade the sacred precincts of the tomb and rob a corpse of its winding-sheet; he has no soul. It is said that this useless fellow is about to commence a suit against us for libel. Try it, Mr. Boudinot!”

Continuing the story, The Wisners in America says, “When Wisner’s health became poor, in the summer of 1835, he expressed a desire to get away from New York. His partner, Day, paid him $5,000 for his interest in the paper — a large sum for those days. Wisner then went West and settled at Pontiac, Mich. There his health improved and he became a noted lawyer and was a member of the Michigan Legislature.

“Reference to the charts will show that George W. Wisner was a brother of Moses Wisner, the Governor of Michigan from 1858 to 1860.”

My ancestor Johanes Weesner

It’s been fascinating to me to uncover nuggets of my family’s history in the 1918 book The Wisners in America — but it may not be of much interest to anyone else whose name isn’t Wisner. My apologies to the non-Wisners out there.

The book begins with the arrival of the first Wisner:

Johanes Weesner, of Switzerland, was the progenitor of most of the Wisners now living in this country. He came to America about 1714 (the exact date has not been established nor is it of much importance), with 10,000 troops of Queen Anne’s Swiss contingent, who had fought against Louis XIV, of France, under the Prince of Orange, and later under the Duke of Marlborough....

Perhaps the most reliable information we have about Johanes Weesner is contained in “A Memorial to Henry Wisner,” published by Franklin Burdge, of New York, in September, 1872.... It will be noted that Burdge says:

“Johanes Weesner was born in Switzerland and fought against Louis XIV, of France, in the allied army under the Prince of Orange, and afterwards under the Duke of Marlborough. When their warlike toils were done, Queen Anne undertook to provide some of the foreign troops a home in the colony of New York.

“The emigrants encamped for some months on Governor’s Island. Then Johanes Weesner went to work on the farm of Christian Snedicor, of Hampstead, Long Island. Snedicor owned land on the Wawayanda Patent, in Orange county, and he sent Weesner there to bring part of it under cultivation. By paying 30 pounds Weesner became the owner of a farm on July 23, 1714. It is supposed the situation is the present town of Warwick, near Mount Eve, on the border of the Drowned Lands. The district was called Florida as early as 1733. Johanes Weesner died a little before May, 1744.”

The book goes on:

That Johanes Weesner was a thrifty and industrious man, and with the hearty co-operation of his family, accumulated considerable property for those days, thus displaying shrewd intelligence and fine judgment is indicated clearly in his will…

It reads:

“In the name of God, Amen, I, Johanes Weesner, of Florida, in Goshen, in Orange county, yeoman, this July 6, 1733, I leave to my eldest son, Hendrick, 30 pounds. I leave to my son, Adam, my dwelling house and land I now live upon, with all the buildings; and he is to pay to my son Hendrick the 30 pounds above mentioned. I leave to my youngest daughter, Mary, now living with me, 140 acres of land, which I purchased of Barent Bloome, June 7, 1732, situated in Orange county, near Goshen, as by deed.

“After payment of debts, I leave to my three daughters, Catharine, wife of Thomas Blain, Ann, wife of Philip King, and Mary, all the rest of my personal estate.

“If my dear and loving wife, Elizabeth, should survive me, she is to have the use of all my estate, and no division is to be made during her life. I make my wife Elizabeth, and my good and trusty friends, Michael Dunning and Daniel Denton, both of Goshen, executors.

“Witnesses, John Smith, Joseph Sutherland, Josiah Keeder. Proved in New York, May 19, 1744.”

Hendrick’s son Henry Wisner, the grandson of Johanes Weesner, later became a member of the First and Second Continental Congresses, and the only New Yorker to vote for the Declaration of Independence.

Back to Governors Island

I see Governors Island nearly every morning when I walk over the Brooklyn Bridge on the way to work, though it was a while before I even knew what it was.

The island intrigued me for a long time, especially when it was barred to the public: a low wooded island with a few buildings scattered on it, and a massive octagonal white structure with vertical black bars on its sides. The white octagon was so somber and impressive that I thought it must be a monument of some kind. (I only learned later that it provides ventilation for one of the tunnels under the East River.) During the winter, when I walked home over the bridge after dark, it was eerie to see only one or two electric lights on the island. The island was an oasis of quiet and darkness, only a few hundred yards from the glowing glass towers of the financial district.

Once the island was opened to the public (though only during the summer, and for limited hours), I tried to get there once or twice a year on the ferry. My favorite spots were the round fort at the island’s corner, with its walls of soft red brick and deep embrasures, the broad sloping meadow that spreads out from the second, star-shaped fort, and the long row of deserted frame houses where officers used to live. Cicadas shrilled in the hot grass, and Canada geese stalked along the footpaths.

Governors Island is one of the most peaceful spots I know in the city. I feel a sense of connection there, so it was a little strange to read in The Wisners in America that Governors Island was the first place in the New World where my ancestor Johanes Weesner lived. He and about 10,000 other Swiss soldiers arrived in New York around 1714 were “camped” on Governors Island for several months before finding new homes.