Isaac McLellan
Encyclopedia
Isaac McLellan was an author and poet, some of whose work has achieved notability by republication in anthologies.
, the home town of his life-long friends, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
and Nathaniel Parker Willis
.
In early life, his father, Isaac McLellan, moved to Boston, where for many years he was a prominent merchant, distinguished for his integrity and success in business. Willis' parents also moved to Boston, and Willis and McLellan were schooled together at Phillips Academy
, Andover, Massachusetts
. McLellan went on to Bowdoin College
, where he was in the next class to Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne
, Cheever, and other distinguished writers.
. McLellan was in almost daily intercourse with Willis, at that time editor of the Boston Monthly Magazine
, which took his contributions, as did the New England Magazine. In this period he wrote three well received volumes of poems, which were published by Allen & Ticknor, Boston. Only one poem in the collection The Trout Brook, was on a sporting theme, and was picked out for notice by the editor of Slackwood's Magazine.
shooting upon the seacoast - this being the principal pastime of many New England
sportsmen.
About the year 1840, he went abroad, and passed some two years in Europe
. While there he shot and fished in many portions of the continent, and thus added to his critical observation of American game and shooting a practical knowledge of the field-sports of Europe. On his return, be gave a description of his travels in a series of letters published in the Boston Daily Courier.
For two years after his return he engaged in agricultural pursuits and the rural life. His passionate love for field-sports, and more especially wild fowl shooting, inspired him to write in prose and verse on sporting subjects; for this work, Willis and other distinguished writers have given McLellan the credit of being in several respects the finest poet in America. Genio C. Scott, who wrote on fly fishing
, remarked that "McLellan is as a poet on field-sports what George Pope Morris
was as a song-writer both unsurpassed in their way."
Among the favorite shooting resorts he frequented were Cohasset
, Plymouth, and Marshfield, Massachusetts
, the latter being the rural home of the statesman, Daniel Webster
. Through his courtesy, McLellan passed two seasons at Marshfield, dwelling at one of the farm houses belonging to Webster. Here he had an opportunity of seeing the great sportsman almost daily, enjoying his usual labors and his rambles with rod or gun.
, and there formed the acquaintance of the sporting celebrities of the day, who congregated at the old Spirit of the Times
office, where William T. Porter
presided one of the best-known, and, at that time, the most popular of all the editorial fraternity in the city. Here he met and became friends with the sporting author Henry William Herbert
.
During several years he passed a part of each season on the coast of Virginia
and at Currituck Sound
, North Carolina
, where the water fowl were then very abundant. In later years he followed the sport of duck-shooting at the Shinnecock Inlet
and Great South Bay
, Long Island
, where he has resided for some time, in close proximity to the finest resorts of wild-fowl.
While in Virginia he contributed a valuable sketch to his friend Genio C. Scott's Fishing in American Waters, and also supplied the poetical gems in that standard work. In later life he contributed occasionally to the sporting journals of the day - the Turf, Field and Farm, Forest and Stream
, American Angler
, etc., besides the Home Journal and other periodicals of high literary merit. His ardor for field-sports was unquenched by age. His closing years were spent at Greenport, Long Island
. Here he died of exhaustion, due to old age, August 20, 1899, aged 93 years, 2 months, and 29 days. He never married.
, and William Watt's Remarks on Shooting.
Wendell Phillips
held McLellan in high estimation; and various collectors of American poetry, such as Rufus Wilmot Griswold
, Cheevers, Kettell, and others, all give his work a place in their pages.
Biography
Isaac McLellan was born on May 21, 1806, in Portland, MainePortland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
, the home town of his life-long friends, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
and Nathaniel Parker Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis , also known as N. P. Willis, was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former...
.
In early life, his father, Isaac McLellan, moved to Boston, where for many years he was a prominent merchant, distinguished for his integrity and success in business. Willis' parents also moved to Boston, and Willis and McLellan were schooled together at Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...
, Andover, Massachusetts
Andover, Massachusetts
Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was incorporated in 1646 and as of the 2010 census, the population was 33,201...
. McLellan went on to Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...
, where he was in the next class to Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
, Cheever, and other distinguished writers.
Boston life
In 1826, he returned to Boston, completed a course of legal study, and was admitted to practice in the courts of that city. But literature had more charms for him than clients and briefs, and for many years he contributed, both in prose and poetry, to several magazines and papers published in the city and vicinity, and had the editorial management of two or three of them, including the Daily Patriot, the Daily Advertiser and the Weekly Pearl, formerly published by Isaac PrayIsaac Pray
Isaac Clark Pray was an American author and playwright.Powell was born in Boston, and educated at Amherst College. He was on the staff of the Journal of Commerce and the Herald in Boston. He was a successful theatrical manager, and among the persons whom he trained for the stage was Charlotte...
. McLellan was in almost daily intercourse with Willis, at that time editor of the Boston Monthly Magazine
Boston Monthly Magazine
The Boston Monthly Magazine of Boston, Massachusetts, was edited by Samuel Lorenzo Knapp in the 1820s. It was "devoted to literature, philosophy, and miscellaneous matters, worthy of being recorded, ... [and] chiefly directed to the diffusion of the productions of our own minds." It focused on...
, which took his contributions, as did the New England Magazine. In this period he wrote three well received volumes of poems, which were published by Allen & Ticknor, Boston. Only one poem in the collection The Trout Brook, was on a sporting theme, and was picked out for notice by the editor of Slackwood's Magazine.
The sporting life and Europe
Yet before literature, and throughout McLelland's life, he had a passion for the gun and the rod which led him to devote the major portion of his later life to the sports of the field and the flood. During college days, he would hunt on Saturdays with a fellow student. His leisure time in Boston was dedicated to the sport of wild-fowlAnatidae
Anatidae is the biological family of birds that includes ducks, geese and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica and on most of the world's islands and island groups...
shooting upon the seacoast - this being the principal pastime of many New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
sportsmen.
About the year 1840, he went abroad, and passed some two years in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. While there he shot and fished in many portions of the continent, and thus added to his critical observation of American game and shooting a practical knowledge of the field-sports of Europe. On his return, be gave a description of his travels in a series of letters published in the Boston Daily Courier.
For two years after his return he engaged in agricultural pursuits and the rural life. His passionate love for field-sports, and more especially wild fowl shooting, inspired him to write in prose and verse on sporting subjects; for this work, Willis and other distinguished writers have given McLellan the credit of being in several respects the finest poet in America. Genio C. Scott, who wrote on fly fishing
Fly fishing
Fly fishing is an angling method in which an artificial 'fly' is used to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. Casting a nearly weightless fly or 'lure' requires casting techniques significantly different from other forms of casting...
, remarked that "McLellan is as a poet on field-sports what George Pope Morris
George Pope Morris
George Pope Morris was an American editor, poet, and songwriter.-Life and work:With Nathaniel Parker Willis, he co-founded the daily New York Evening Mirror by merging his fledgling weekly New York Mirror with Willis's American Monthly in August 1831...
was as a song-writer both unsurpassed in their way."
Among the favorite shooting resorts he frequented were Cohasset
Cohasset, Massachusetts
Cohasset is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, though it is not contiguous with the main body of the county. The population was 7,542 at the 2010 census.- History :...
, Plymouth, and Marshfield, Massachusetts
Marshfield, Massachusetts
Marshfield is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States, on Massachusetts's South Shore. The population was 25,132 at the 2010 census.See also: Green Harbor, Marshfield , Rexhame, Marshfield Hills, and Ocean Bluff and Brant Rock....
, the latter being the rural home of the statesman, Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster was a leading American statesman and senator from Massachusetts during the period leading up to the Civil War. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests...
. Through his courtesy, McLellan passed two seasons at Marshfield, dwelling at one of the farm houses belonging to Webster. Here he had an opportunity of seeing the great sportsman almost daily, enjoying his usual labors and his rambles with rod or gun.
New York life
In about 1851 McLellan moved to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, and there formed the acquaintance of the sporting celebrities of the day, who congregated at the old Spirit of the Times
Spirit of the Times
The Spirit of the Times: A Chronicle of the Turf, Agriculture, Field Sports, Literature and the Stage was an American weekly newspaper published in New York City. The paper aimed for an upper-class readership made up largely of sportsmen. The Spirit also included humorous material, much of it based...
office, where William T. Porter
William T. Porter
William Trotter Porter was an American journalist and newspaper editor who founded an early American newspaper devoted to sports. After working at a number of small newspapers, Porter moved to New York City in the 1830s...
presided one of the best-known, and, at that time, the most popular of all the editorial fraternity in the city. Here he met and became friends with the sporting author Henry William Herbert
Henry William Herbert
Henry William Herbert , pen name Frank Forester, was an English novelist and writer on sport.-Biography:The son of the Hon. and Rev. William Herbert, Dean of Manchester , Herbert was born in London.He was educated at Eton College and at Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1830...
.
During several years he passed a part of each season on the coast of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
and at Currituck Sound
Currituck Sound
Currituck Sound is a protected inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northeastern part of North Carolina. Thirty miles N-S and 3–8 miles wide, this shallow, island-filled sound is separated from the ocean by Bodie Island, part of the Outer Banks...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, where the water fowl were then very abundant. In later years he followed the sport of duck-shooting at the Shinnecock Inlet
Shinnecock Inlet
Shinnecock Inlet is the easternmost of five major inlets connecting bays to the Atlantic Ocean through the narrow 100-mile-long Outer barrier that stretches from New York City to Southhampton, New York on the south shore of Long Island. It splits Westhampton Island from the peninsula extending from...
and Great South Bay
Great South Bay
Great South Bay is a lagoon situated between Long Island and Fire Island, in the State of New York. It is approximately long. It's protected from the Atlantic Ocean by Fire Island, a barrier island, as well as the eastern end of Jones Beach Island and Captree Island.Robert Moses Causeway adjoins...
, Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
, where he has resided for some time, in close proximity to the finest resorts of wild-fowl.
While in Virginia he contributed a valuable sketch to his friend Genio C. Scott's Fishing in American Waters, and also supplied the poetical gems in that standard work. In later life he contributed occasionally to the sporting journals of the day - the Turf, Field and Farm, Forest and Stream
Forest and Stream
Forest and Stream was a magazine featuring hunting, fishing, and other outdoor activities. Founded in 1873, it was the ninth oldest magazine in the United States....
, American Angler
American Angler
American Angler is a magazine dedicated to the subject of fly fishing, with an emphasis on cold water fisheries, published six times a year. It bills itself as a "how to, where to" magazine focusing on technical fly-fishing informational articles and explorations of new fishing locations...
, etc., besides the Home Journal and other periodicals of high literary merit. His ardor for field-sports was unquenched by age. His closing years were spent at Greenport, Long Island
Greenport, Suffolk County, New York
Greenport is a village in Suffolk County, New York, United States. It is located on the north fork of Long Island. The population was 2,048 at the 2000 census....
. Here he died of exhaustion, due to old age, August 20, 1899, aged 93 years, 2 months, and 29 days. He never married.
Poetry
Many of his later poems, consisting of nearly two hundred pieces, are descriptive of the larger game of Africa and Europe and comprise a valuable fund of sporting lore. They were brought together and published as Poems of the Rod and Gun; or, Sports by Flood and Field in 1886, a publication compared to kindred English works such as"The Chase, by William SomervileWilliam Somervile
William Somervile or Somerville was an English poet.-Ancestry:The name Somervile is derived from a town near Caen in Normandy subsequently named Somervile....
, and William Watt's Remarks on Shooting.
Wendell Phillips
Wendell Phillips
Wendell Phillips was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, and orator. He was an exceptional orator and agitator, advocate and lawyer, writer and debater.-Education:...
held McLellan in high estimation; and various collectors of American poetry, such as Rufus Wilmot Griswold
Rufus Wilmot Griswold
Rufus Wilmot Griswold was an American anthologist, editor, poet, and critic. Born in Vermont, Griswold left home when he was 15 years old. He worked as a journalist, editor, and critic in Philadelphia, New York City, and elsewhere. He built up a strong literary reputation, in part due to his 1842...
, Cheevers, Kettell, and others, all give his work a place in their pages.
Works
McLellan's published works include:- The Fall of the Indian (1830)
- The Year, and other Poems (1832)
- Mount Auburn, and other Poems (1843)
- The Avalanche and the destruction of the Willey Family (1846)
- Poems of the Rod and Gun; or, Sports by Flood and Field (1886)
External links
- Poems of the rod and gun; or, Sports by flood and field by Isaac McLellan from the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- The Avalanche and the destruction of the Willey Family by Isaac McLellan from the Internet Archive