Thomas Starr King, patriot and preacher

Front matter

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Part I Thomas Starr King Ohapteb

I Antecedents and Education .

II In the Ministry

III On the Lecture Platform

IV Call and Transfer to California V The New Field in San Francisco

VI Lecturing on the Pacific Coast VII A Eulogist of California Scenery

PART II ORATOR AND PATRIOT I Patriotic Activities 153

II Oratorical Campaign for the Union . 179

III Dedication of the New Church . . . 207

IV Death of the Patriot and Teacher . 213 V In Appreciation 221 i7 GREEN STREET]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGB

Portrait of Thomas Starr King . . . Frontispiece

Starr King Mountain, White Hills, New Hampshire 62

Mt. Starr King, Yosemite, Sierra Nevada . . .148

Statue of Starr King, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco 210

Church and Tomb of Thomas Starr King in San Francisco 220

My first acquaintance with Thomas Starr King was when, in the spring of 1861, a youth of seventeen, accompanied by my widowed mother and younger brother, I arrived in San Francisco, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, in search of health and opportunity. Our family physician had warned me to exchange at once the harsh climate of my native city of Boston for the sunshine and out-of-door life of California. I had little or no acquaintance with conditions on the Pacific Coast. My only reliance was on the Providence which had hitherto guided our family destinies, and my earnest purpose and modest capacity for service. Kind friends had provided me with letters of introduction to residents of San Francisco. One of these addressed to the Rev. Thomas Starr King of that city proved to be the golden key which not only opened to me the riches of his opulent and generous nature, but also the door of social, business and religious opportunity.

On landing, our little family found a temporary abiding place. The next step was to present our letters of introduction and seek some bread-winning employment.

I was fortunate enough to secure employment for a few weeks as Secretary of the San Francisco Board

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of Port Wardens, a position which had become vacant. At the close of this brief term, however, the Democratic incumbents would go out of office, the Union party having triumphed at the recent state election. The incoming governor, Hon. Leland Stanford, would have the appointment of the new board and its secretary. The duties of the latter office proved to be congenial and not exacting. The salary attached to the place would enable me to support my mother and myself and put an end to our domestic anxiety. The desire to retain the position naturally arose. But I had rendered no party service whatever, and hence, according to the political ethics of that day, had no claim on the office. Only one possibility remained. Thomas Starr King, who had come to California the year previous, had already made himself widely influential through his eloquence and patriotism. The recent success of the Union cause at the polls was in no slight degree attributable to him. The incoming governor was his personal friend and parishioner. If now Mr. King were to ask for this small post for me it would surely not be denied him. But could a newcomer like myself, known to him only through a letter of introduction, venture to ask such a favor? The necessities of the situation made me bold. Mr. King had received me kindly and expressed an interest in our family fortunes. He and his wife had called upon us. He had inquired about my studies and aims in life. I felt encouraged, therefore, to appeal to the

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man whose discourses on Sunday and expressions of personal good-will had given me an exalted idea of his intellectual and moral qualities and his goodness of heart.

Mr. King received me with cordiality, and listened sympathetically to my story and timid suggestion of his possible ability to aid me in this critical juncture of my life. He assured me of his readiness to do all in his power to further my aim, and that he felt particularly drawn to it because he himself when a youth of sixteen had secured a similar office in the Charlestown Navy Yard, which had enabled him to support his mother and sister for some years until he entered his present profession. He felt he had been of some aid to the Union cause in California by his public addresses. Governor Stanford was to be in town the very next day. He would call upon him and ask my appointment. It was very uncertain. The position might already be disposed of. I must indulge in no undue hopes. He would do his best for me. It was arranged that I should call on Mr. King in the evening of the next day and learn the result of his interview with the Governor.

The next day was an anxious one. So much depended on its issue for me and mine. At noon a terrific storm burst over the city. The rain fell in torrents, overflowing the lower streets, while the surging waters of the bay swept over the wharves. Alone in the office, I mechanically put the records in the safe and waited for the fury of the storm to subside

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before venturing homeward. I was indescribably sad. My usual hopefulness had entirely deserted me. Suddenly I was surprised to hear a sharp rap at the door. I opened it, and there without, to my amazement, stood Starr King, his cheeks flushed, his luminous eyes filled with joy, and his hand extended as he cried: "It's all right, my boy! It's all right! I've seen Governor Stanford. He was very cordial, and you are to retain your position for the two years of his administration. I congratulate you. I'm so glad!" But I, though rejoicing at the happy news, could see only the rain-drops that dripped from his long, lank hair and saturated garments: "O, Mr. King, why did you come so far in such a deluge to tell me this? Why, I was to call on you this evening and learn my fate!" "Never mind, my dear fellow. It's only a little rain — my umbrella was blown to bits at the corner. I knew you must be very anxious to learn the result of my interview with the Governor, so I came right down to tell you. I thought I might make you happy a few hours earlier."

Such was Starr King! It is no wonder that the men and women, both East and West, who had the privilege of his friendship were attached to him with a devotion which neither death nor the lapse of years can diminish, and treasure his memory with gratitude, as an inspiration for their higher faith in goodness and an incentive to nobler living.

The narration of this incident, which in his early manhood brought the writer close to the generous

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heart of Starr King, will make better understood the tribute to that eminent man which follows this introduction. The friendly regard thus displayed at the outset Mr. King continued to show throughout the remainder of his brief life on earth, with an everincreasing veneration on the part of the younger man for the brilliant gifts, the public services and personal character of his pastor and friend. Just before Mr. King's lamented death, as I afterwards learned, he had interceded with the new governor-elect, that I might retain my position, a request which was granted. The whole tenor of my life was changed and determined by my acquaintance with Starr King. I eagerly availed myself of my opportunities to hear him preach and lecture, listening with delight to his great orations in behalf of the Union and the Constitution in that critical hour of American, and especially of Californian history. I sought his society and counsel. His death was the first great sorrow of my life, and the impression produced upon me by his character and career so profound, that not long after I decided to give up all thoughts of a business future and devote myself to the vocation of a Liberal Christian minister. Returning to the East I graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1869 with the fixed purpose of returning to California to labor for the ideal causes which Starr King had represented in his life and ministry. But it was not until nearly twenty years later that I was enabled to carry out these plans. Returning to the Pacific States for

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twelve years of ministerial and public service, I sought everywhere and always to magnify the personality and career of Starr King as the type of religion and citizenship demanded by the young civilization of the Coast.

It was a privilege to renew acquaintance with the surviving family and friends of Mr. King, and especially to take an active part in the popular movement to honor his memory which led to the erection, in 1892, of a noble statue and monument to this Christian patriot of California in the great public park of San Francisco which overlooks the Golden Gate, and at whose unveiling I uttered the dedicatory prayer.

One other service I fain would have rendered the memory of my friend, the preparation of an adequate biography of him, for which I had begun to collect materials.

His surviving family were divided in opinion as to the advisability of a more extended life of Mr. King than the admirable but all too brief memoir by Edwin P. Whipple which had been prefixed, at their instance, to the published collection of Mr. King's orations and discourses.

In the meantime the interest in Mr. King's career and public services has not diminished but increased. Constant references are made to his personal gifts and qualities, and his religious and patriotic activities during the great Civil War as one of the moral founders of the new Commonwealth of California. Various addresses and monographs have appeared on the

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subject. In my own case a lecture on this congenial theme has been delivered all over the Eastern and Western States of the Union. The interest it has called forth, especially in these recent years of world war for freedom, righteousness and democracy, has encouraged the writer to amplify and put into permanent form this personal tribute to the hero of his younger days. The narrative is enriched by the inclusion of as yet unpublished letters of Mr. King to his friends: also by extracts from Mr. King's journal of his voyage, via the Isthmus of Panama, in i860, to San Francisco, and his letters to the Boston Evening Transcript on California scenery and life, as well as by illustrative citations from his writings.

The author ventures to hope that these features may contribute to a fuller knowledge and better appreciation of this champion of Nationality as the appointed way to World-Brotherhood, and of Patriotism as an exalted virtue of individual character and civil society, and so help to inspire a future generation, as it has aided in redeeming a past one.

Acknowledgments are due to many friends who have aided his undertaking, especially to Miss Florence Cushman, a niece, and the Misses Wiggin, of Newton, relatives of Starr King.

Charles W. Wendte.

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PART I THOMAS STARR KING

Chapter I

THOMAS STARR KING, patriot and preacher of Civil War fame, lying on his death-bed in San Francisco in the fortieth year of his age, said sadly, as he thought of his friends on the other side of the continent: ^'To-day is the fourth of March. Sad news will go over the wires to-day." A few moments later, after a touching farewell to his family and friends about his bedside, with avowals of trust in the Eternal and full assurance of immortal life, this champion of country and humanity passed calmly away, leaving not only his friends, but the state, the nation, in sorrow at the loss of one of the most eloquent advocates of the national idea and the virtues of patriotism in American history.

There is no danger that those among the living who were permitted to know Mr. King personally and were eye-witnesses of his public career will ever forget that gifted and radiant being. They treasure the memory of his unspotted life, his ardent love of country, and his eloquent appeals for the preservation of the Union and the emancipation of the slave. They do not cease to mourn the early death which came to him because of his utter devotion to the undivided nation and the public honor and welfare.

But a new generation has come into being since those crucial days of the republic, to whom the name of Starr King is only a tradition vaguely associated with eloquent utterances and patriotic service rendered the State of California during the Civil War of 1860-65. To inform these more fully concerning this leader of the national sentiment, and thus help preserve his influence in our American democracy, is the purpose of this tribute to Starr King by one who was his contemporary in California, who knew him personally, and was an admiring witness of his public activities. For, as Starr King himself told us in an early lecture on George Washington, if we cannot have sight of great men it is well that we should learn what we can of their character and career, and take their example to heart as an incentive to equal devotion.

Certainly no public man associated with the early history of California better deserves this recognition. More than any other citizen Starr King assured the loyalty and preserved the internal peace of California in the critical hour of her history, and was the eloquent voice of her patriotism, the eulogist of her magnificent scenery, the quickener of her intellectual life, the prophet of her coming greatness, and the type of her broad, humanitarian religion.

Starr King had already a national reputation when he came to California in the spring of i860 as minister-elect of the Unitarian Society in San Francisco. Looking back on his personal history it is interesting to note that his immediate ancestry on the maternal side was German, his maternal grandfather, Thomas Starr, having emigrated from the Rhine lands to the United States, with his wife and son Thomas, in the latter part of the eighteenth century. This son Thomas became a business man in New York City and married Mary Lavinus of French descent. Their second daughter, Susan Starr, married Rev. Thomas Farrington King, of English antecedents, whose eldest child was Thomas Starr King, born in New York City on December 17th, 1824. Thus three nations contributed to his endowment.

The father was a man of high character, good abilities as a preacher and fine social qualities. From him "Starr" inherited his sunny disposition, keen sense of humor and companionable nature. His intellectual gifts seem to have descended to him chiefly through his mother, a woman of character and intelligence, who early noted and sedulously fostered the studious bent of her talented son. His father, settled at first in Hudson, N. Y., accepted an invitation to become pastor of a Universalist Society in Portsmouth, N. H., and in this picturesque old seaport Starr passed six years of his boyhood. He was sent to a private school where, besides the usual branches of study, he acquired a good knowledge, for his age, of Latin and French. In 1835 the family removed to Charlestown, Mass., whither Rev. Mr. King had been called as pastor of a large Universalist church, and here Starr spent his youth and early manhood. He was educated in the excellent public schools of Charlestown, whose residents in that day were chiefly of American stock, and whose proximity to Boston and Cambridge imparted an unusual degree of culture to its society, while the traditions clustering about Bunker Hill and the early struggle for national independence made it one of the shrines and nurseries of American patriotism. There being no high school in the town, an arrangement was made by which pupils could be fitted for college under the excellent tuition of the principal of the grammar school, Mr. Joshua Bates. Starr's manifest ability, graceful and impressive declamation and talented compositions attracted the attention of his teachers and indicated his future distinction. He seemed mature beyond his years, while his sincerity, gentleness, modesty, consideration for others, and sunny nature made him a universal favorite. "A brighteyed, vivacious, lovable lad of slender form, golden hair, ruddy complexion, winning ways; uncommonly mirthful, he was as fond of books as he was of fun, — " reported one of his early teachers.

Even as a child his sense of humor was displayed. A parishioner of his father in Charlestown told the writer that she recalled seeing the boy at church one

Sunday, sitting alone in the minister's pew. In the pew in front of him sat a woman with vividly red hair. Little Starr amused himself and his neighbors by repeatedly thrusting his finger at her fiery locks, and then quickly withdrawing it to blow upon it, with a comical simulation of agony on his roguish young face.

This mirthfulness was accompanied, however, by a deep sense of reverence. At table, we are told, when his father said grace, little Starr would fold his hands, close his eyes and bow his head, saying "Amen!" at the close — a habit he had not been taught but had himself adopted. He was faithful at church and Sunday School and seemed predestined for the ministerial calling, for which his gifts and inclinations, as well as the parental encouragement well fitted him. In his thirteenth year he had written a sermon, which was printed in a denominational paper.

The long illness and early death of Starr's father compelled him, however, to give up all thoughts of a college education, and the youth entered a store as clerk and bookkeeper, becoming at fifteen years of age the mainstay of his mother and the five younger children. Without murmur or complaint he accepted this disappointment of his hopes of a college education and professional career. One of his sisters, Angela Starr King (Moore) — be it said in passing — was a woman of brilliant parts, and later displayed rare gifts as a dramatic reader. Though now engaged in business pursuits Starr King remained devoted to study and self-improvement. He formed a club with other like-minded young men for serious reading and discussion. He was an omnivorous and rapid reader of books, with a peculiar aptitude for philosophical study, reading metaphysical works with the ease and relish with which most young people devour novels. One of his teachers, Professor Tweed, says of him at this period : " He would read what seemed to me an involved and obscure passage from Kant — and when I began to express a doubt whether I perfectly understood it, he would instantly state it in terms which rendered it as clear as daylight. He was not a hard student; he was incapable of hard study. The most abstruse problems furnished him only with intellectual play. He had a natural affinity for knowledge. Its acquisition was not labor, but a delight." His correspondence with his friends on philosophical topics evinced a mastery of metaphysics, a power for generalizing and imparting the underlying principles of the dififering schools of thought which would be remarkable in a mature scholar, much more so in a youth of eighteen. Attending the lecture courses on Natural Religion given by Rev. Professor James Walker of Harvard College at the Lowell Institute in Boston, he took notes in long hand of the whole series, and wrote out the twelve lectures of the third course in full. Three years later this reproduction was printed in a Boston newspaper. It was deemed an astonishing feat of mind and memory. He also attended the lectures of Professor Silliman on Chemistry, and other courses. The writings of Drs. W. E. Channing and James Martineau kindled within him sentiments of admiration and reverence, and profoundly affected his religious opinions. For Theodore Parker's school of thought and method of presentation he seems to have had less affinity. I can find no trace at this time of any noticeable influence of Emerson on his thinking. On Sundays he listened to the eloquent discourses of Rev. E. H. Chapin, who had succeeded his father in the Charlestown pulpit, and formed with that eminent divine a friendship which endured through life.

In the meantime his daily business duties were performed with conscientious care and to the entire satisfaction of his employer. He soon, however, exchanged these duties for the more congenial occupation of a school teacher; becoming at eighteen principal of a grammar school in Medford, Mass., whither the whole family removed in 1842. Here he not only found a larger field of labor and an enlarged income, but the rare good fortune of constant personal intercourse with the Universalist pastor of Medford, Rev. Hosea Ballou, 2nd, who later became the first president of Tufts College. Dr. Ballou was a learned scholar, and one of the most profound minds in the religious life of that day- This contact could not fail to be of great importance to Starr King's intellectual and religious development. He gratefully spoke ever after of Dr. Ballou as his "theological father."

Theodore Parker, the great radical preacher of Boston, who met him in Medford at this time, records in his diary: ''Saw Schoolmaster Thomas Starr King, capital fellow, only nineteen, has taught school three years, supports his mother, reads French, Spanish, Latin, Italian and a little Greek, and begins German. He is a good listener."

In 1843 Starr received the appointment of bookkeeper in the Charlestown Navy Yard, which not only increased his income but afforded more leisure for study. He was now deep in the German language and literature and found it a mine of intellectual riches. He always valued his descent, on the maternal side, from that student nation. An aunt. Miss Sarah E. Starr, only four years his senior, was a successful teacher of the German language and literature. A woman of poetic gifts and varied accomplishments she was highly esteemed by Starr King, as his correspondence with her discloses.

Hon. Richard Frothingham, of Charlestown, a near neighbor and intimate personal friend of Starr King, in a memoir of the latter published shortly after his death, gives much information concerning this period of Mr. King's life and reproduces some of his youthful correspondence with friends and fellow-students. He was now having "glorious times" in attending a philosophical class which met every Wednesday evening, and was reading Stewart on the philosophy of the mind. He read much, and sought rare books on this subject. When Dr. Ott's book on Hegel came out, he invited certain Harvard students to read it w^ith him, and rich were the hours they had over this book. "I am at present," he wrote, '^engaged in the study of a work on the latest school of German philosophy. It is by Dr. Ott, of Paris; and is an exposition of the system of Hegel. Kant's system is pretty difficult; but this ties the brain up in knots." He would attend at times in Boston German religious services on Sunday, in order to familiarize himself with the spoken language. Far into the night he would talk of Goethe and Schiller and their fellow-poets, and the German divines of the schools of Tholuck and De Wette. He read the works of Guizot and Schlegel on the philosophy of history. For Greek schools of thought he had an equal veneration, and would discourse for hours to a sympathetic listener on the greatness of a Socrates and a Plato. 'Well do I remember," remarked his friend, Rev. A. D. Mayo, in an after-dinner speech in Faneuil Hall, "that the first day of our youthful acquaintance he read me into a fit of indigestion and a sleepless night with his Plato and Kant and Cousin ; a night whose watchful hours I improved by maturing the resolution that on my return to my country home I would begin those philosophical studies in which he is second to no man of his age in our country." Mr. King, who was present on this occasion, in the course of a speech he made, wittily retorted :

*'Let me say here, that however much interested I may have felt in philosophy generally, there is one system, verbally represented by one of the names just pronounced, which has done so much harm in the religious world that I try to get rid of it, and earnestly desire to see all pulpits and meetings utterly free from its poison — the system of cant."

Among Starr's most intimate and beloved friends was Randolph Ryer of New York, a young man of similar tastes and aims, engaged, however, in business pursuits, with whom he corresponded for nearly twenty-five years. These letters may almost be considered a diary of his inner life. They abound in quips, banter, puns, and similar displays of his exuberant spirits and sense of humor. Whilst their private reading gives one a pleasant insight into the brilliant promise and lovable qualities of the writer and his capacity for friendship, they are, in many cases, of too personal and informal a character to permit extended quotation. Placed at our disposal we allow ourselves such extracts as throw light on his character and career.

In May, 1841, he tells his friend Ryer gleefully of a visit to O. S. Fowler, the phrenologist, who after the usual examination of the cranium, advises him to study law, as more in accord with his natural disposition because of his smallness of conscientiousness and veneration and the preponderance of combativeness and destructiveness, with large causality and hope! "On my asking him how I was qualified for

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the ministry, he replied by laughing! telling me that this profession was out of the question, since I was by no means serious, and a lack of veneration would be a real defect." But, on insistence, Mr. Fowler said if he became a preacher his doctrine would be ''thorough-going Universalism." He also prophesied that he would be a very eloquent speaker whatever profession he adopted, and would some day become an author.

In October, 1842, Starr asks the same friend : "How are politics in your quarter? Daniel Webster's speech made a stir in your village, I presume, as elsewhere. I had the happiness to listen to it as it rolled in burning tones from the 'God-like' lips. It was indeed powerful. That day I shall never forget. My bump of sublimity or idealism was pretty well fed. Webster in the morning and Edwin Forrest as Othello in the evening. Heavens! what a performance. I have seen that piece three times and could never tire of it. I think it is truly Forrest's masterpiece."

Starr was devoted to the drama, and went six times to hear Macready. Concerning Dr. Channing, whose recent death had created universal sorrow in liberal circles, he writes:

"Channing! All the eulogies that have been pronounced upon him throughout the land cannot do justice to him. The sermon of Dr. Bellows (many thanks for it) is a beautiful performance. I shall show it to Doctor Chapin. I dined with the last-

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named on Sunday. He preached on last Sabbath afternoon. At the close Channing was mentioned in a touching and beautiful manner.

"Theodore Parker is lecturing here on 'The Times.' He is the immortal Parker. I send you a sermon of his on Channing. I went on Tuesday to a lecture on elocution by James E. Murdoch. Very fine."

He wrote long letters to the same friend on philosophical topics, explaining and summarizing the different schools of thought, ancient and modern, and advising him to read especially Cousin, Constant and Jouffroy. To do this profitably he should acquire a reading knowledge of French. "It will not take much time. In a few weeks you could read quite fluently."

In 1842 the youth of eighteen writes:

"I have been somewhat troubled of late by the perusal of a French work on the Eclecticism of Cousin and Joufifroy by Pierre Leroux. I had bid farewell to the last of the immortal dialogues of Plato, so poetic, so inspiring, so lofty, and then to change for a work of the nature of Leroux's was almost insupportable. The 'Refutation of Eclecticism' is a masterly performance, written in a burning yet logical style, occasionally beautified by a pounce upon Cousin personally, which is done, I assure you, in no very measured terms. In short the style is a capital exponent of one of Orestes Brownson's patent philosophers, all feeling and passion. In Leroux you can find the parentage of nearly all Brownson's new opinions. He acknowledges him, I think, as his spiritual Godfather. Well, I have finished the work, and am now employed in bringing the opposing gentlemen, Cousin and Leroux, to a reconciliation. Prejudice may account for much, but of all the writers whose thoughts I ever had the pleasure to become familiar with, whether for the style in which they are dressed or the clearness with which they convey the truth, none delights as Victor Cousin."

In September, 1844, he writes:

"The current of my earthly existence flows gently and calmly. The inner man also is serene; resting trustfully in the arms of a glorious faith and a noble philosophy. Have you ever reflected on the intimate connection between revelation and philosophy, faith and reason? By many they are put in contrast, set in opposition. Yet they mutually explain and reciprocally aid each other. Faith in man implies the doctrine of the dignity of human nature. The doctrines of revelation must conform to the exhibitions which God has given us of his power, wisdom, glory, and goodness, through nature and the soul. Reason, instead of being subordinated to faith, is the very essence of faith, else faith is a blind idolatry. The true faith is the self-renunciation of reason where reason finds that it can know no farther. You, Randolph, take your faith directly from Christianity, and apply it directly to the condition of society. You desire the social manifestation of Christianity as the means of raising the individual. I also find that philosophy, as it is drawn from the crystallized instruction of nature, and from the mysterious depths of spiritual life, is confirmed and sanctified by Christianity. I look rather to the elevation of the individual as one great means of improving society. Both tendencies are necessary. Neither should exclude the other. Eclecticism is the motto on the banner of the nineteenth century."