John Greenleaf Whittier: Ballad of Skipper Ireson's Ride

Benjamin "Flood" Ireson  was a 19th-century American sailor, captain of the schooner Betsy Hoooper. In 1808, during a gale, the Betsy Hooper was on its way from Grand Banks to home port when it discovered another ship, the Active. The Active was wrecked and taking on water. "Ireson tried to rescue the crew of the sinking vessel, but his own men insisted upon giving up an attempt which held considerable dangers. On return to Marblehead, the crew, finding themselves blamed for the loss of life, placed responsibility upon their captain." The people of Marblehead, the Betsy's home port, were outraged with Ireson, and he was tarred and feathered and dragged out of town in a cart.
According to Life and Letters of John T. Pickard John Greenleaf Whittier heard the tales of Skipper Ireson from a schoolmate who lived in Marblehead. Whittier crafted this version in 1828 when he started the work and it took thirty years before it was published. 
There was one line in the ballad that struck a chord with many readers: "one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass." Whittier received queries from numerous sources, one from a women in Washington, Gail Hamilton who wrote to him on April 4, 1882 inquiring on this specific line. Copy of Letter from Gail Hamilton to J G Whittier from Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier: 

The letter was quite witty, but the author is Mary Abigail Dodge who wrote under the name Gail Hamilton. Dodge, daughter of James Brown Dodge and Hannah Stanwood was from Hamilton, Massachusetts. She lived in Washington in the home of her cousin,  Harriet Stanwood Blaine, wife of Speaker of the House James G. Blaine.  Dodge was Whittier correspondence: letters sent series (1833-1882) includes this letter and housed at the Peabody Essex Museum library. 

The ballad is still cherished by readers today. While the poem’s success perpetuated the Whittier version in the public imagination, Whittier recognized that it was spun from tales of folklore and his own dexterous mind. In The History and Traditions of Marblehead (1881), author Samuel Roads defended Ireson, who had actually been innocent of the crime. Whittier sent a letter to Roads expressing that he was pleased the true facts had come out. 

Charles Buxton Going published a poetic rebuttal of Whittier's poem The True Story of Skipper Ireson 

The Ireson House at 19 Circle Street in Marblehead would remain a notable Marblehead landmark and be the subject of postcards well into the twentieth century.

Here are some accounts of the story on Skipper Iverson published: From The Rudder Volume 19 The tar-and-feather treatment was popular in all the Massachusetts settlements. In several cases it was applied to men who informed the authorities of the activities of smugglers. In such cases the act met with general approval, since smuggling was no sin in the colonies. One of the last cases of tarring and feathering in Marblehead was that of Skipper Benjamin Ireson, of the schooner Betty, made memorable by J G Whittier's ballad of "Skipper Ireson's Ride." Ireson was accused by his crew of abandoning to their fate the crew of the sinking schooner Active of Portland, which he passed off Cape Ann on the night of October 30, 1807. The Active's captain, who had been taken off by another vessel, confirmed the story of his abandonment by the Betty. Thereupon Skipper Ireson's fellow-townsmen tarred and feathered him, and putting him in a dory started to drag him to Salem. The bottom of the dory was worn through by the rocky road, and Ireson was transferred to a cart. A crowd of men and boys, with music, took him to Salem and back. Ireson kept silence until released, when he said, "Gentlemen, you will regret this." Many of them did, for time showed him to have been wronged. His crew had refused duty when he wished to stand by the Active. They were homeward bound from a long Grand Bank trip, and in their hurry were content to let the schooner look out for herself. This story became known too late to benefit Ireson. lie lived many years in Marblehead, but never was he known to smile after his terrible ride. The children recited doggerel verses commemorating his disgrace. Whittier as a youth heard a schoolmate repeat them, and they formed the basis of his ballad, published thirty years later, in which "the women of Marblehead" are represented as the chastisers of Skipper Ireson. In the revised editions of his works the poet acknowledged the incorrectness of the statements in his ballad, and the unintentional wrong done the memory of Ireson and the women of Marblehead. Ireson's house still stands. It is on Circle Street, near Oakum Bay. The name of Ireson is no countersign to the good graces of a native of Marblehead. One stops almost furtively to steal a glance at the plain wood structure in which the unhappy skipper lived and died. A dour countenance peers from a window. Persons passing look at the stranger with never a word or a smile. Marblehead surely is sensitive still over the wrongs of the past.

From The Fitchburg Sentinel 1932

                                                                  

                                                            Albany Art and History

NEVER Trust a Marblehead Woman: Skipper Ireson’s Wild Ride.
Marblehead Museum 
Historic Houses  
Library of Congress Digital Photo
A Note on Skipper Ireson's Ride Jules Zanger The New England Quarterly Vol. 29, No. 2 (June 1956) 
First Harbor Company
A Poets Town The Chautauquan Volume 13 Margaret B Wright
Floyd Ireson By Henry Colford Gauss
John Greenleaf Whittier Papers, 1781-1922 Peabody Essex Museum Library
Mary Abigail Dodge Papers, 1834-1896 Peabody Essex Museum

Willliam H Minton and Mabel Minton OBIT Tragic Fire Nahant MA 1915

                                  

1947 Article Newburyport Shops and Economy

Smallest Auto in the World "Hoot Gibson Special" driven bt Gus Prezel

October 1925 The Decatur Herald

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Metro history: 'Midget runs 52 miles on a gallon of gas'

June 27, 1926: F. S. Townsley, chief ranger, officially handed a permit to Guz Petzel, allowing him to drive his “four-cylinder, home-made product” through Yosemite National Park -- the smallest automobile to enter it. But it was a harbinger of bigger things: “Nature lovers, old-timers” and their allies had been working to keep a road out of the Yosemite Valley. As The Times reported a few weeks later, a new road built by convicts was opened, “so broad and level that it brings the valley within seven or eight hours of easy driving from the Golden Gate.” Officials expected a ten-fold increase of visitors to the park. (The New York Times)

Motorboat Killarney Wreck Gloucester MA 1921

August 29 1921 
 

Perry Farm Newbury MA

April 8 1917

First Picture Photo of the Great Conference of Versailles

Stoddard Benham Colby and Family Lines

Stoddard Benham Colby was born February 3 1816 Derby, Vermont and passed on September 21 1867 in Haverhill, New Hampshire
                                                              Line to Anthony Colby

ANTHONY COLBY (bp.1605 - 1660) of Horbling,  Boston, Ipswich, Salisbury and Amesbury m. Susanna  Unknown (d. 1689) |

SAMUEL COLBY (abt 1638 - 1715/6) of Amesbury m.  Elizabeth Sargeant |

SAMUEL COLBY (b. 1671 - bef. 1746) of Amesbury m.  Dorothy Ambrose |

ENS. ENOCH COLBY (1702 - 1780) of Hampton Falls  and Chester m. Abigail Sanborn |

ENOCH COLBY (bp. 1728 - 1778) of Candia m. Abigail  Blaisdell |

SAMUEL COLBY (1766 - 1834) of Thornton and Derby m.  Ruth French |

CAPT. NEHEMIAH COLBY (1785 - 1862) of Derby m.  Melinda Larrabee (1790 - 1842) |

HON. STODDARD BENHAM COLBY (1816 - 1867) of  Derby and Montpelier m. Harriet Elizabeth Proctor |

LAURA MELINDA COLBY (1844 - 1921) m.  Brig. Gen. Asa Bacon Carey

Stoddard B. Colby read law at Lyndon, Vt; began practice at Derby; represented it in the Legislature of Vermont; removed to Montpelier, Vt, and there remained until 1864; was State's Attorney for Washington Co. in 1851 and 1852; became Register of the U. S. Treasury in Aug. 1864. He married, 1. Harriet Elisabeth Proctor, d. of the Hon. Jabez Proctor of Proctorsville, Vt, Feb. 11, 1840. 2. Ellen Cornelia Hunt, dau. of Caleb Hunt of Haverhill, July 

12, 1855. (From Sketches of Alumni of Dartmouth College)

From Hon. Thomas Parker Redfield in "Biography of the Bar of Orleans County, Vermont" edited by Frederick W. Baldwin S B Colby was the second son of Hon. Nehemiah Colby was fitted for college in the law office of the late Isaac F. Redfield, which stood near his father's store in Derby Center. Mr. Colby was an apt and ready scholar, and Judge Redfield then fresh from college, gave him a thorough training, especially in the Greek and Latin languages, in which his young pupil had special aptitude. He entered Dartmouth College in the fall of 1832, and graduated with high honor in 1836. He studied law in the office of the late Senator Upham in Montpelier, and was admitted to the bar of Orleans county at the December term, 1838, and at once commenced practice at Derby, where he remained until 1846, representing the town of Derby in the legislature in 1841.

In 1846 he removed to Montpelier and formed a copartnership with the late Lucius B. Peck, under the firm name of Peck & Colby, and so continued until 1863, when Mr. Colby was made register of the treasury and removed to Washington. He held that office until his death. Mr. Colby was a ripe scholar, a facile and ready speaker, and from the first his manner at the bar was elegant, and his language choice and beautiful. He had a voice of peculiar compass and melody. He at once took high rank as a brilliant and accomplished advocate. He possessed a lively and vigorous imagination, and invested ideas and incidents with such charming beauty that a court or jury became insensibly and irresistibly enlisted and absorbed in the investiture with which he clothed a case.

Lucius B Peck 

                                                                     
This was no studied ornamentation, but the natural outpouring from that rich treasury which was entirely his own, and inexhaustibly full. He never essayed the emotional, and never addressed the passions of men, but he charmed them with the beautiful, and disgusted them with what was degrading and hateful, thereby enlisting their affection for the one, and arousing their contempt for the other, and by that he made sure their judgment. As a brilliant advocate he had no peer among us, and the profession suffered an irreparable loss when he was transferred to the service of the government. His great powers had a natural adaptation to his chosen profession, and his honor and his fame must rest there. It is a matter of regret, and we think on his part a mistake, that he ever left the profession. Mr. Colby in every emotion and in every fibre, was intellectual and spiritual. He had an utter dislike and contempt for all that was gross, sensual and degraded. His fidelity to the sacred trusts of social and domestic life was not a mere matter of policy, but of fixed duty. This made the ties of domestic life strong.
Obituary of L B Peck partner of S B Colby

HARRIET ELIZABETH PROCTOR (1819 - 1852) Parents: Jabez Proctor and Betsey Parker born on 2 Jan 1819 in Proctorsville. She died on 28 Jul 1852 in the burning of the steamboat Henry Clay on the Hudson River. She is buried in the Proctor cemetery. She married Hon. Stoddard B. Colby on 10 Feb 1840.
Children of Stoddard B. Colby and Harriet E. Proctor:

1. Jabez Proctor Colby was born on 10 Nov 1840 in Rockingham, Vermont.  He died in May 1893 and is buried in the Proctor cemetery; his gravestone says that he is the son of Harriet and Stoddard.
   In 1880 Jabez P. Colby, age 37, and Susan E. Colby, age 34, both born in Vermont, were living in Newbury, Orange, Vermont. No children lived with them and Jabez was a mail route agent.
   
2. Laura Melinda Colby was born on 13 Feb 1844 in Derby. She died on 14 Dec 1921 in Tisbury, Dukes county, Massachusetts. She married Brig. Gen. Asa Bacon Carey.
3. Edward P. Colby was born about 1845. Lieutenant E. P. Colby of the 11th US Infantry shot himself in the head with a pistol on 31 Dec 1869 in Jefferson, Texas. He was 24 years old.
4. Lucien Redfield Colby died on 14 Sep 1854, at almost three years of age.  He is buried in the Proctor cemetery. 

Laura and Edward Colby

                                                         
Children of Stoddard B. Colby and Ellen Cornelia Hunt:

1. Ellen Rebecca Colby married Frederick Abbott Stokes on 10 May 1888. Frederick, the son of Frederick Abbott and Caroline Augusta (Allen) Stokes, was born on 4 Nov 1857 in Brooklyn. In 1910 Frederick and Ellen were living in Manhatten with their two sons and Ellen's mother. Frederick was a book publisher. He was president of the publishing house Frederick A. Stokes Co.  some descendants of Ellen Rebecca Colby-----Frederick Colby Stokes was born on 31 May 1884. He died on 22 May 1885. Horace Winston Stokes was born on 2 Mar 1886 in New York He married Mary Sanford Wheeler on 22 May 1920 in Burlington, Chittenden, Vermont.  She was born about 1886 in Vermont. Horace was a book publisher. In 1930 he lived in the Bronx. Frederick Brett Stokes was born on 6 Jan 1888. Frederick graduated from Yale in 1879.
2. Frank Moore Colby was born on 10 Feb 1865 in Washington, DC. He married Harriet Wood Fowler  about 1897. Harriet was born in Aug 1871 in New Jersey.  He received an AB from Columbia in 1888 and an AM from Columbia in 1889.  He was assistant professor of History at Amherst 1890-91. He was a famous editor.  some descendants of Frank Moore Colby----Georgiana Colby was born in Dec 1897 in New York. Stoddard Colby was born on 27 Nov 1899 in New York City, New York. Harriet F. Colby was born on 20 Oct 1907 in Orange, New Jersey. She married Walter William Beachboard on 17 Dec 1938 in New York City. Walter, the son of Walter William and Anna Louise (Lehman) Beachboard, was born on 14 Oct 1907 in Berkeley, California. Walter was a lawyer.

Frederick Moore Colby

                                                            

  

Frederick Colby Stokes

                                                      
                                              

Asa Bacon Carey was born on 12 July 1835 in Canterbury, Windham, Connecticut. He died on 5 Apr 1912 in Orlando, Orange, Florida

Children of Asa Bacon Carey and Laura Melinda Colby:

1. Edward Colby Carey was born on 20 Apr 1871 in Santa Fe. He died on 16 or 19 Feb 1948 in Southern Pines, Moore, North Carolina. He married first Ruth Palmer. He married second Anne Kneeland Smith. He married third Caroline Tarver.
2. Edith Colby Carey was born on 4 Nov 1878 in Washington, DC. She married Gen. Meriwether Lewis Walker on 28 Sep 1904 in Vineyard Haven, Dukes county, Massachusetts. Meriwether was the son of Thomas L. and Catherine M. (Dabney) Walker. He was born on 30 Sep 1869. He died on 29 Jul 1947 in Vineyard Haven.
   Meriwether graduated from the USMA on 12 Jun 1893, in the same class as his brother-in-law. He ranked 3rd out of 51. Gen. Walker was Governor of the Panama Canal Zone from 1924 to 1928. He was then commander of the 18th Army Brigade in Boston and retired to Martha's Vineyard in 1932.
   some descendants of Edith Carey    Thomas Luckey

Ruth Palmer

                                                                     

Laura Caret daughter of Col. Edward Colby Carey and Ruth Palmer and her husband Major General Edwin Luther Sibert

CAPT. NEHEMIAH COLBY Signature

                                
                                                        

     

   

Stoddard B Colby Friday, October 4, 1867 Paper: Caledonian (St. Johnsbury, VT) Page: 3 

 

THOMAS WALKER LUCKEY
written by David Finkle From the Archives and Colby Family Genealogy

Born: January 6, 1940
Died: August 19, 2012
Thomas Walker Luckey, for whom life often seemed child's play due to his designing complex structures known as Luckey Climbers for youngsters, died Sunday, August 19, 2012 at Yale-New Haven Hospital of pneumonia complications. He was 72.
His demise came shortly after he was an effervescent presence at the class's 50th Reunion, undeterred by his attending in the wheelchair he'd occupied as a result of a tumble from a second-floor window to an interior courtyard in 2005 and about which he was quoted as saying - typically, many will attest - "falling on my head was the best thing that ever happened to me."
A Branford, Connecticut resident for many years, his obituary in the Branford Patch included this paragraph: "Tom Luckey was a visionary, a creative genius, a legendary optimist, an exuberant showboat, and an infamous fun-maker. He was an avid collector of friends, regardless of age; all that mattered was whether you were willing to take a leap with him toward his ultimate goal: superlative joy."
In recognition of the sculptural staircases, toy and carousel designs but mostly in a nod to the colorful one-of-a-kind climbers that were alluring to children and adults, curators Aidan O'Connor and Juliet Kinchin of the Museum of Architecture and Design wrote in a tribute, "The designs are exuberant, even miraculous, incorporating stable platforms suggestive of magic carpets, leaves, or other organic shapes that seem to float in space while encouraging unfettered ascension."
Lou Casagrande, president and former chief executive officer of the Boston Children's Museum, which owns one of the climbers and considers it the establishment centerpiece, said of Luckey, "There is probably no person in my museum career who inspired me more, both as an artist and as a courageous and outrageous champion of children as path seekers and creators of their own joy. He's the best. Scratch him, and he's still five years old, with that innate sense of fun."
Robert A. M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture, said on hearing of the death that Tom was "possessed of talent, and it will carry on, no matter what."
Tom was born to Robert Burneston Luckey, Lt. Gen. USMC, and Cary Dabney Walker in Quantico, Virginia on January 6, 1940. His paternal grandparents were George P. Luckey and Alice Owens and his maternal grandparents were General Merriwether Lewis Walker and Edith Colby Carey.
When young, he was already working with his hands. Starting with small carvings, he advanced to bigger undertakings that included when he was sixteen a small Martha's Vineyard cottage.
He prepared at Camp Lejeune High School in North Carolina and Westminster. At Yale he was a member of Calhoun, Delta Kappa Epsilon and Desmos.. He was also on the freshman swimming team, the Calhoun football team and in P. L. C. (lance corporal). He earned his BA and then his M. Arch. at the Yale School of Architecture.
Tom is survived by his wife, Ettie Minor Luckey, and their children, daughter Kit and son Walker, as well as two older children, daughter Owen and son Spencer, from his first marriage to Elizabeth T. Mason.
Always cogitating about design, Tom thought up and built what was referred to as "The Luckey Table." It's a dining table that expands from six places to ten and has been described by antiques expert Robert Porter, a former Yale College dean, as "the first development in the expandable dining room table since Duncan Phyfe."
On his Lucky LLC website, Tom proclaims, "What I'm probably doing [is] going for the big high — the plateau where the pieces will sing together and the energy explode. My idea of perfect is to be listening to the absolute truth calling back from the thing I'm making and to have enough sense, enough humility, enough humanity, to hear it."