TAZEWELL COUNTY, VA - NEWSPAPERS - Clinch Valley News, 19 Feb 1915, Ben Bolt
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"Clinch Valley News"
Tazewell, Tazewell Co., Virginia
Friday, February 19, 1915

TYPED AS WRITTEN:

ADDITIONAL LIGHT ON 'SWEET ALICE'

Western Lawyer Says English Did Not Write "Ben Bolt," But Boston music
House Says That He Did


…Jameson, Mo., February 18, 1915
Editor Clinch Valley News:
Tazewell, Virginia

Dear sir:

…Please find enclosed letter from Judge henry C. McDougal, of Kansas
City, Mo., to me giving a full account of the life of Thomas Dunn
English from birth to death: I find further  from Henry Wynn, of
Gallatin, Mo., (a son of John Wynn, of Tazewell county, the same who
built the brick house spoken of in a former letter, )that Thomas Dunn
English was there at this father's house in the summer of 1848 or '49.

   You wish to know something of the Wynn family: My great grandfather,
Mr. William Wynn was born in 1722, and came to Tazewell county in 1772,
and built a fort just west of the brick house near the graveyard . The
remains of the chimney were there 56 years ago when I left the State.
This was just above the large spring on rising ground near the grave
yard.  (See Bickley's history of Tazewell county). My grandmother Wynn
was a sister to Thomas Peery and Dr. Henry Fielding Peery, of
Jeffersonville.

   I want to say  this to my old Tazewell county friends and relations,
if any there be: "I bid you good morning and I bid you  goodby,"

Sincerely
HAMLET WYNN
[there is a picture of Hamlet Wynn in the paper-but it is poor quality]

   The letter referred to by Mr. Wynn contains an extract from "Personal
Recollections,: written by Mr. McDougal and attorney, of Kansas City ,
Mo., concerning Dr. Thomas Dunn English. These facts stated by Mr.
McDougal have already been published in this paper. We find, however a
mistake in the following paragraph:

  "The man who made 'Ben Bolt' famous, and put it into the mouths of
every American and English singer as a song, however, was not the
author, but a brainy, clever, Bohemian minstrel named Nelson Kneass, of
Baltimore, Maryland." Mr. Kneass wrote the music only for the poem. The
following letter received from the large music house, the Oliver Ditson
Company, is authentic. The letter says, quoting from a publication ,
'Our Familiar Songs and Who Made Them.'

  "The name of Dr. Thomas Dunn English is familiar to the readers of the
past forty years; but I think it has not generally been associated with
this widely popular song, Ben Bolt.
The music  appeared with only the composers name attached, and that has
always been given incorrectly.

   Dr. English was born in Philadelphia, June 29, 1819. His vigorous
poem "The Gallows-Goers" made a great sensation in 1845, when capita
punishment was an exciting subject of popular debate. A selection from
his historical poems has recently (1880) been published in New York,
under the title of 'American Ballads,'

'Ben Bolt'  was written in 1842, Its was visiting in New York and N. P.
Willis, who, with Geo. P. Morris was editing the New Mirror, asked him
for a gratuitous contribution, and suggested that it be a sea-song. Dr.
English promised one, and on returning to his room, attempted to make
good his word. Only one line that smacked of the sea came at his
bidding; but at a white heat he composed the five stanzas of 'Ben Bolt,
as it now reads. Betraying the original intention in the last line of
the last stanza.  Within a year the poem had been reprinted in England,
and its author then thought it might be a still greater favorite is set
to music."

   The music company states in a private letter, that the "words of the
poem were adopted to a German melody Nelson Kneass."

Karen EAGLE Moman
March 10, 2003


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	This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives 
	by:  Karen EAGLE Moman
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