[To "Voices from 19th-Century America"]
Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793-1860) was a pivotal figure in early 19th-century American publishing. His Recollections is a look at over 50 years of American culture, and at a busy, productive life. Early American religion, passenger pigeons, the solar eclipse of 1806, the meteor of 1807, the Hartford Convention, the Revolution of 1848 -- Goodrich experienced it all. Filled with anecdotes and heavily footnoted, this 1100-page work is a rich source of information on early American publishing and New England life.
I'm slowly annotating this epic work; as I learn something new, I add it here without keeping a list of changes. Each annotation is linked to the appropriate place in the text.
Goodrich ascribed incidents in his early life to Robert Merry, putative editor of Robert Merry's Museum. Among them is the first day at school, with Goodrich's neighbor, Sally St. John, taking the part of the teacher. Sarah Bishop (also pictured) becomes a pivotal character in "Robert Merry's Life and Adventures" and provided the subject for one of Goodrich's first published poems.
Lieutenant Smith's lively retellings of history have their echo in Goodrich's most famous creation: "Peter Parley," who "told stories" in order to teach geography and history.
Goodrich used this incident in Peter Parley's Tales About the Sun, Moon, and Stars (1831):
I remember a total eclipse, about twenty
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p. 61
years ago. I must tell you, that learned men who have studied the motions of the heavenly bodies, can calculate before hand, when an eclipse is to happen. Well! before the eclipse of which I am speaking took place, they had discovered that the sun was to be eclipsed on a particular day.
Some ignorant people disbelieved this altogether, but most persons knew that the eclipse would really take place, as predicted by the astronomers. So when the day came, almost everybody was full of expectation.
It was a beautiful bright day. About ten o'clock in the morning the eclipse began. On looking through a piece of smoked glass, it appeared as if a little piece was gone from the edge of the sun. This piece grew gradually larger, and by and by, it was evident that the air began to be darkened.
In a short time, only the edge of the sun could be seen, and at length, it was totally [p. 62] covered. It was now near noon, there was not a cloud in the sky, and yet the sun was not visible.
The air grew chill as if it were evening; the whole face of nature was dark as at the evening twilight; the birds ceased their songs and retired to rest. I well remember to have seen an old hen, apparently much disturbed, retire to her accustomed shelter, where she gathered her brood of twelve chickens under her wing, as if for the night.
It was a solemn time, and was calculated to make us feel our dependence upon that great Being, who directs the movements of the sun, the moon, and the earth, through the skies; but for his care, how soon might the sun be removed from its place, and an everlasting night cast its shadows over our world! (Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co., 1841. pp. 60-62)
I, p. 296: poem about Sarah Bishop
The untitled poem, signed "S.," was published in the Connecticut Mirror for August 25, 1823. Goodrich provides a tragic end for Bishop, as a meeting with the man who wronged her drives her to her death.
II, p. 76: partnership with George Sheldon
Actually, Goodrich joined Sheldon in 1815, as evidenced by an advertisement in the Connecticut Mirror for the Scott's Family Bible. (August 21, 1815: p. 3, col 5) As book publishers, their productions included this bible, The Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, by Thomas Chalmers (1816), and A Summary of the Principal Evidences for the Truth and Divine Origin of the Christian Revelation, by Beilby Porteus (1817). As book sellers, they stocked a variety of works of divinity, law, medicine, history, biography, geography, and travels, along with "1000 volumes of NOVELS and ROMANCES, suitable for circulating libraries." (Connecticut Mirror, December 16, 1816: p. 3, col 5) They also sold writing supplies and "mathematical instruments." (See advertisements in the Connecticut Mirror, December 4, 1815: p. 1, col 3; January 29, 1816: p. 3, col 4; May 20, 1816: p. 3, col 4; December 16, 1816: p. 3, col 5; May 5, 1817: p. 3, col 4; May 26, 1817: p. 1, col 3; June 16, 1817: p. 3, col 5; August 4, 1817: p. 3, col 5; September 1, 1817: p. 3, col 5; September 8, 1817: p. 3, col 5.)
Also see the bibliography of Goodrich's literary activities maintained at this site.
After Sheldon's death in 1817, Goodrich discounted the merchandise, as he was "wishing to close the concerns of the late firm of SHELDON & GOODRICH." (November 17, 1817: p. 3, col 5) He then bought Sheldon's half of the business: "SAMUEL G. GOODRICH, having purchased the whole stock of the late firm of Sheldon & Goodrich, will continue the establishment on the same extensive scale as heretofore." (Connecticut Mirror, December 22, 1817: p. 3, col 5)
