Keep still Ishmæl

Lansingburgh Postmaster.

    ☞ Is any one foolish enough to believe that a change will be effected in the postmastership of this place?  If so who will be the lucky man?  In a few weeks we shall publish an article from authentic data, showing what salary the office now yields to the post master, as well as the yearly average for the last ten years, which will enable the several candidates to determine how much funds they can afford to invest prosecuting their claims.  We have no doubt it will be found a more valuable office than most people suppose.  Ten years is long enough for any one man to hold the office.—Keep still, Ishmæl.

Lansingburgh Democrat. December 28, 1848: 2 col 3.

The Melvilles had already left Lansingburgh, Rensselaer County, New York at that time, but the phrase—italicized in the original—still sticks in my mind.  Perhaps there's something punchy about a phrase of four syllables containing a culturally significant name of two. Go down, Moses. Help me Jesus!

"Keep still": was someone itching to have the job? Or itching to leave if he couldn't have it?

Why the a-e ligature "æ" that otherwise doesn't appear to have been used for the name in the Democrat?

If a real person was being referenced, and it was not an expression of some kind, then it might have meant Ishmael G. Smith (1806-1884), who'd been a Lansingburgh constable and by 1864 was in Minooka, Grundy, Illinois and 1870 in Aux Sable, Grundy, Illinois. (Minooka was the designated post office for Aux Sable, so it may be that he was already in Aux Sable in 1864).  In 1876 (if not also by some time prior) he was appointed a US Postmaster in Princeville, Cloud, Kansas.

There'd been an Ishmael Gardner in Lansingburgh on the 1820 and 1830 censuses.  Possibly that had been Ishmael N. Gardner (1778-1835) originally of Hancock, Berkshire, Massachusetts and later of White Creek, Washington, New York - the county north of Rensselaer.

In Lansingburgh there was also a young Ishmael G. Porter (1836-1880). One supposes both Smith and Porter could have been named for the Lansingburgh Gardner or the earlier one (an uncle?) of north-neighboring Schaghticoke, Ishmael Gardner (1749-1807).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Type AI: or, a Peep at Patter, Lies

Image
Search engine capability seems to be a big part of what the creators of ChatGPT currently envision it doing, regardless of how it was originally conceived.  After login, one of the three columns of text on the screen above the user’s prompt window has:                                     Examples “Explain quantum computing in simple terms” “Got any creative ideas for a 10 year old’s birthday” “How do I make an HTTP request in Javascript" To my mind that main opening screen page bears more resemblance to Google’s main search page than to a chat window, something that might influence users' expectations and interactions. Regardless, it should be able to have substantive conversations; there’s enough human BSers that we don’t need artificial ones. Under the third column of text, Limitations, it has: May occasionally generate incorrect information May occasionally produce harmful instructions or biased content Limited knowledge of world and events after 2021 That first disclaimer
Read more

Moby-Dick in romance novels of Harlequin and its imprints

I cannot quite fathom why this would be, but for some reason Moby-Dick (and on occasion other works by Melville) gets referenced quite a lot in the romance novels of Harlequin and its imprints Silhouette, Red Dress Ink, etc. In the neighborhood of 250 over the past several decades - not including however many such novels may not have been digitized and thus are not searchable online. Evidently mentioning it is a romance novel trope. Who knew? Nearly 100% of the time not a sexual reference either - it’s something characters mentioning reading or having read; or there’s an animal or truck named Moby Dick; or it’s a codename for a spy; or a prop book that opens a secret door; or an analogy is made, etc. Some Harlequin authors have referenced Moby-Dick in more than one of their novels. T here’s a good many years where they have multiple authors’ romance novels mentioning it, so it hardly seems possible that the publisher's editors would not have ever noticed it. While still going thro
Read more

Moby-Dick surfacing in fiction 1857-1887

Image
During Melville's lifetime there were several short stories or novels by other writers referencing his Moby-Dick , though nothing like the explosion of such instances after the turn of the century. There's no indication he knew of any of these, yet someone must have brought at least Jules Verne to his attention, surely? Spencer, Edward. "'Who Struck Billy Patterson?'"  Graham's Illustrated Magazine 51(5) . November 1857. 418. Not less interesting is it, nor less important, at least, to him who would become a ‘Professor of Human Nature”—and such should every writer of fiction, who aims at truth and artistic completeness, strive to become—to observe the enormity of psychological distortion that characterizes every one who has given himself up to the pursuit of a ‘fixed idea,” or who is become the victim of some mental diœsthesia . How much the novelist may profit by close study of the soul’s workings, and moral deflections under the influence of any such f
Read more