The Majestic Nature of the North: Thomas Kelah Wharton's Journeys in Antebellum America through the Hudson River Valley and New England ed. by Steven A. Walton and Michael J. Armstrong

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Majestic Nature of the North: Thomas Kelah Wharton's Journeys in Antebellum America through the Hudson River Valley and New England ed. by Steven A. Walton and Michael J. Armstrong Paul G. Schneider Jr. (bio) The Majestic Nature of the North: Thomas Kelah Wharton's Journeys in Antebellum America through the Hudson River Valley and New England Edited by Steven A. Walton and Michael J. Armstrong . Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019. 374 pages, illustrated, 7″ x 10″. $90.00 cloth, $34.95 paper, $69.30 e-book. This extensive selection from the personal journals of Thomas Kelah Wharton offers rich rewards to anyone delving into its engaging pages. His fascinating entries, spanning the period May 1832 through October 1834, and June 25 through December 6, 1853, provide contrasting, vivid accounts of his youthful years in New York City and the Hudson River Valley, and his middle-aged journey from New Orleans to Boston nineteen years later. Wharton (1814–62), who over the course of a varied career combined his skills as artist, teacher, and architect-construction superintendent, deserves to be better known, a task that the editors of this volume set out to achieve. A young English immigrant to the United States, Wharton lived in the states of Ohio, New York, and Louisiana over the course of his life. His surviving manuscript journals, in the collections of the New York Public Library, comprise seven volumes dating from 1830 to 1862 (four illustrated with his drawings) in addition to a sketchbook. Associate professor of history at Michigan Technological University, Steven A. Walton, along with retired senior vice president of operations for U.S. News & World Report, Michael J. Armstrong, united in their involvement with the restoration of a Wharton-designed chapel, edited these newly published portions of Wharton's journals. Also included are a selection of Wharton's sketches illustrating his skill as an artist and providing images of some of the scenes and places he mentions. Disappointingly, the small size with which these sketches are reproduced insufficiently conveys their fine detail and artistry. Preparing this publication presented challenges to its editors. First, Wharton himself apparently edited and rewrote portions of his 1830s journals, deleting "several verses" which his "maturer [sic] judgement" suggested be "omitted" (2–3). Based on Wharton's own admission, the editors are right to wonder what else Wharton might have left out from his original notes, and they warn that surviving journal entries are "not an unfiltered composition" (3). Second, in their preface, the editors enumerate many individuals who over the last fifty years directly contributed to the research and transcription efforts culminating in the present work (xiv–xv). Much of this material was assimilated in their preparation of this book; not always as seamlessly as they hoped (xiii). [End Page 398] The resulting volume includes a short, explanatory paragraph on their transcription methodology, an introduction, three chapters comprising the body of Wharton's journal entries, Wharton family genealogical tables, a "Biographical Register" of many of the people mentioned in the journals, an appendix listing Wharton's known artistic and architectural works, endnotes, and an index. Of the three main chapters, the first is an autobiographical sketch penned by Wharton in June 3, 1854 (31). The sometimes confusing and repetitive introduction greatly expands the background of Wharton's life and career. Chapter 2 covers the years 1832–1834 and offers an abundance of firsthand material about New York City and the lower Hudson River Valley in this period. Especially valuable are Wharton's recounted experiences of living in the Hudson River households of imminent physician, scholar, and botanist, Dr. David Hosack; Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, superintendent of West Point Military Academy; and Gouverneur Kemble, wealthy industrialist, patron of the arts, and a founder of the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, New York. The societal and cultural interconnections among these individuals, in addition to prominent New York City architect, Martin Thompson, under whose direction Wharton studied, is revealed in remarkable detail. Recognizing his natural artistic talents, each of these men became important mentors to Wharton, shaped his career, and became lifelong friends. This portion of Wharton's journal includes descriptions of...