The Roeliff Jansen Historical Society
PRESERVING THE HISTORY AND HERITAGE OF THE ROE JAN COMMUNITY
From the RJHS Collection:
Two Books by Wallace Bruce
Article by Ron Otteson
Last month the Society’s volunteers got together over two consecutive weekends to perform another inventory of the museum’s collection of historical artifacts that tell the story of our community going back over 150 years. The master list of the museum’s holdings has 1,456 items, including, for example, 39 school yearbooks, 53 items of clothing, 24 maps and 1 telephone book. Thanks to the generous donation of Gary Williams in 2024, this growing collection is securely housed in a climate-controlled storage room in Copake.
of Whippoorwill Road in Hillsdale where his family’s farm once stood. Or you may
have seen him mentioned in the What's In a Name? post that the Hillsdale Town Historians published back in 2018.
Born in Hillsdale in 1844, Wallace Bruce attended the prestigious Hudson River Institute in Claverack and then studied law at Yale. But he was always more interested in literature and his Scottish heritage and soon abandoned a legal profession for a life dedicated
o poetry and public speaking. He also earned income from travel guides sold under the pseudonym Thursty McQuill.
The little beige-colored booklet titled “The Harp of Tom Moore” in the RJHS collection is signed by the poet on the front-piece, with an inscription to George M. Beebe, a lawyer and U.S. Representative (1875-1879) from Mt. Vernon, New York.
The 48 lines of formal, rhyming verse were composed in 1888 for a three-day meeting of the Scotch-Irish Congress in Colombia, Tennessee that was purportedly attended by 10,000 people. According to the official account of the morning sessions on May 8, 1889, the poet himself didn’t attend the conference.
“...The large canopy was beautifully decorated with flags and bunting of all kinds. … It was not long before the spacious audience-room, so to speak, was filled with a crowded mass of humanity. The personnel of the audience and of the visitors in general was especially good, and free of all the rougher elements. … Mrs. Robert D. Smith recited a poem on “The Harp of Tom Moore” written for the occasion by the poet Wallace Bruce, of New York.” (Proceedings of the Scotch-Irish Congress at Columbia, Tennessee, May 8-11, 1889. Published by order of the Scotch-Irish Society of America).
As they looked up at the colorful stage that morning, the audience would have heard words that might have stirred patriotic feelings for their lives in America mixed with nostalgia for the home of their ancestors:
The sons of the Shamrock and Thistle
Still cherish the visions of yore,
And the Harp of old Tara awakens
Again to the voice of Tom Moore:
Each string, with memories sacred,
Is tuned to Liberty's key;
And the songs that float down the ages
Are always the songs of the free.
– The Harp of Tom Moore (1888)
As we sorted through the 186 books in the collection, we came across two books of poetry by Wallace Bruce. To mark National Poetry Month, we wanted to showcase this once-famous local poet.
Some of you probably first encountered his name while driving by the yellow-and-blue historic marker on the north edge
Did you know?
Another famous New York poet wrote her second volume of poetry Dark Summer (1929) while living in Hillsdale. What was her name?
(answer at bottom)
The second Wallace Bruce book in the RJHS collection is a sturdy volume with 37 (unusually thick) pages. Published in 1881 with a dedication to Washington Irving, “The Hudson” contains four cantos (titled sections of a long poem) celebrating the (post-colonial) history and local folk traditions of famous places as the poet takes his reader on an imaginary daylong trip downriver from the Catskills to the Tappan Zee.
The poem’s narrative style is representative of the Knickerbocker School, a New York-based, 19th century Romantic movement that emphasized idealized nature, emotional expression, local legend, and, often, a nostalgic or humorous tone.
Bruce’s verse expresses his appreciation for the New York natural landmarks that he imagines passing by, along with many nods to grand events of the American Revolution that took place along the river a century earlier, as in these stanzas from the canto titled “The Highlands.”
On either side these mountain glens
Lie open like a massive book,
Whose words were graved with iron pens,
And lead into the eternal rock:
Which evermore shall here retain
The annals time cannot erase,
And while these granite leaves remain
This crystal ribbon marks the place.
The spot where Kosciousko dreamed.
Fort Putnam’s gray and ruined wall,
West Point, where patriot bayonets gleamed, –
This open page reveals them all.
The book is illustrated with engravings by Alfred Fredericks, a New York City watercolor artist who was also a prolific illustrator of books and magazines. The delightful pictures capture the spirit of specific scenes from the poem, such as this image set alongside verses from the canto “The Adirondacks.”
Of forest, trail, and lake, and stream,
Rich poems bound in green and gold,
Whose leaves reflect the autumn gleam,
Ere summer months are growing old;
Of camp-fire bright with dancing flame,
Where dreams and visions floated free,
And Rosalind with Annie’s name
Interpreted the dreams to me.
Did you know? (answer)
Louise Bogan (1897-1970) was an American poet and critic who worked as a poetry reviewer for the New Yorker. In 1928, she and her husband bought an old farmhouse in Hillsdale. Her poetry was influenced by both the English metaphysical poets and writers like Rainer Maria Rilke, and she used traditional techniques to create modern, emotive lyrics that avoided sentimentality.