Text: Benjamin Northrop, “A Man of Other Days,” The State (Richmond, VA), vol. XIII, no. 18, April 9, 1888, p. 7, cols. 1-2

[page 7, column 1:]

NEW YORK, April 8 — Forty years ago no man was better known in literary circles than George Rex Graham. His name was a household word. He was the projector and owner of Graham's Magazine. Although a writer of grace and force, Mr Graham never made any pretence to be, strictly speaking, a literary man, but he was a generous employer, and in many instances was also the discoverer of our best known and greatest writers. He was the first American publisher to pay respectable prices for literary wares. Bayard Taylor, whose earliest poems he published, was amazed when Graham tendered him a $25 check for two poorly-prized poetic effusions. For his ‘Spanish Student” Longfellow received $10 from Mr. Graham, and for “The Village Blacksmith” $50. Fenimore Cooper once called on him in answer to a note. Graham wanted him to write ten naval stories.

“I can’t write for you,” said Cooper, rather contemptuously, adding, “You can’t pay me enough.”

“How much do you want for each story?” asked Graham.

“One hundred dollars — in advance,” was Cooper's reply, pausing before uttering the two last words, as if he thought they would end the matter. Without a moment's hesitation, Graham wrote out and handed Cooper a check for $1,000. The stories were written and published, but Mr. Graham believes they did his magazine no special good. His fame as a large-handed publisher spread, however, and did him great service. His friends told him his liberality would ruin him. On the contrary, it won him a fortune in a few years, as he confidently expected it would.

Mr. Graham is now 75 years old. For three years he has been an inmate of an ophthalmic hospital. He had cataracts removed from both eyes. For two rears he was totally blind, but thanks to good treatment his sight has been partially restored and he has left the hospital to begin life anew. He has made and lost two fortunes, and now at the age of nearly four-score years he is about to take up his pen and try to make a new fortune. He is not at all cast down, although he hasn’t a penny to his name. The restoration of his eyesight has made him as happy as a boy chasing a butterfly. This sudden restoration to the light of day after a period of nearly five years of partial and total blindness, is like a new birth — it is being born again; the happiness of early manhood is being restored, and old age itself is unfelt. It is a renewal of youth and of hope for the future.

THE STORY OF HIS LIFE.

Mr. Graham attributes his blindness to excessive reading at right during his career as newspaper writer after the stoppage of his magazine. “If you think the public are really interested in one who might almost say that he is like him of whom Sam Johnson wrote when he said, ‘Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage’ — one who is lost to the world — I have no objection to rehearse the story of my life, which certainly has been eventful,” he said to me recently. “I am a native of Philadelphia, having been born there in 1813. Left an orphan when a boy I was obliged to earn my own living I first learned the trade of a cabinetmaker, but next turned my attention to the law and studied with Judge Armstrong. I succeeded very well, and saved a snug sum of money. Having devoted my nights to reading Burke, I acquired a taste for literature and became ambitious to own a magazine. I contributed sketches to Atkinson's Casket, a feeble concern. Subsequently, in company with Charles J. Peterson, of Philadelphia, who was one of my earliest friends and fellow-students, and who, in these later years has been one of my benefactors, I purchased from Atkinson his Casket. For a year Mr. Peterson and myself ran the Casket. Then he sold out and I purchased the Gentleman's Magazine from William E. Burton, the comedian, paying him $3,500, or $1 for each subscriber. I massed the subscribers of the two publications and, with a list of about 4,500, started Graham's Magazine. This was in 1841. Edgar Allan Poe, who had been editor of the Gentlemen's Magazine, remained with me as editor of the new venture. I resolved to strike out boldly from the first, and engaged the best known writers of the day. My list of constant contributors included James Russell Lowell, recently our Minister to England; J. T. Headley, the ill-fated but highly gifted William Henry Hurlbert, Bayard Taylor, B. T. Conrad, George H. Boker, E. P. Whipple, John G. Saxe, William Cullen Bryant, William Dedaxe, William Cullen Bryant, William DeVoe, Fenimore Cooper, Mrs Ann Stephens, Louise Chandler, Caroline Chambers, E. L. Cushing, Estelle Lewis and Julia, the very talented and exceedingly beautiful lady who subsequently became the mother of Edmund C. Stedman, and, still later, the wife of the late William Burnet Kinney, the founder of the Newark (N. J.) Daily Advertiser. The consequence was the immediate and marvellous success of the magazine. Money and subscribers rolled in on me with every mail until I was astonished myself. I engaged the services of John Sartain and published handsome engravings. I also got the very latest fashion plates from Paris and inserted them. These took amazingly. In two years’ time my subscription list nearly touched 40,000. I had the field of illustrated magazines alone to myself. I paid for everything I published.

“Poor Bayard Taylor! How well I remember the astonishment on his fine open face when I handed him $25 for the two first poems he ever wrote. ‘Surely,’ said he, you are not going to pay me for them? Why, this is the first money I ever earned.’ What did I pay Poe? I gave him $800 a year, which in those days was considered very liberal. He was with me as editor for about eighteen months, and for three or four years I knew him intimately.

BAYARD TAYLOR'S RELIGION.

“Literature with him was religion, and he its high priest, with a whip of scorpions scourged the money-changers from the temple. In all else he had the docility and kindness of a child. Sitting near him for over a year, constantly writing near and conversing with him, I knew all his hopes, his tears and little annoyances of life, yet he was always the polished gentleman, and the quiet, unobtrusive, thoughtful scholar; the soul of honor in all his transactions. This of course was in his better days. He was the first reviewer of his day. He was very severe and too caustic, faults which, however, helped the magazine. Poe used to write from five to seven pages every month. One of his serials first published in the magazine was the weird narrative entitled, ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue.’ which created a great sensation in France Associated with the magazine was Mr. C. J. Peterson, for grossly insulting whom I was obliged to discharge Poe. For still more reprehensible conduct I discharged Dr. Rufus W. Griswold at a later period. To Fenimore Cooper I gave $1,800 for his ‘Islets of the Gulf.” Two of my best investments were Longfellow and Bryant Their writings made subscribers for the magazine by the thousand. Mrs. Stephens's’Melinda Grey’ was also a great card. Except for the ‘Spanish Student’ I never paid Longfellow more than $50 for a poem, that being the sum I paid him for ‘The Village Blacksmith,’ which became so popular in England that the of Englishmen believed it was written by an English poet and first published in England. From 1843 to 1848 my subscription list never and ran below 35,000, and sometimes it was as high as 50,000. Men were astonished at my success. One day a friend at my came [column 2:] and said: ‘Graham, put your hand on that table.’ ‘What for?’ leaked. in ‘Why, because everything you touch turns to gold,’ was his reply. I was now on the high tide of prosperity. I was rich, in fact; had a fine house, horses, carriages and a loving and amiable wife, but no children. Fond of speculation and ambitions to make a mark in journalism, I bought the American newspaper from Childs & Fry. This about the year 1846, I think. In partnership with the late Morton McMichael and Robert M. Bird, I purchased the United States Gazette from J. K. Chandler, giving him $45,000. We incorporated the two papers named and started what is now the North American.

HOW A FORTUNE WAS LOST.

Too many irons in the fire proved disastrous for me. I was induced to go into some copper mine speculations gotten up by rogues, and lost heavily. Neglect of the magazine caused that to fall away: and in was obliged to sell magazine, newspaper shares and everything to satisfy my creditors. After awhile I got on my feet again, bought back the magazine and gave it a new lease of life. My success for a time was moderate, but the glory of Ichabod had departed. A renewal of the old success was impossible, and after keeping the magazine for three years I sold it a second time. It died in the hands R. H. See, the purchaser. The ill-success the second time was my thoughtlessness in divulging to one of the Harpers in an ordinary conversation all my plans for the future. The Harpers jumped in with enormous capital, put my plans into execution, and Graham's Magazine received its death blow. In 1853 I left Philadelphia and came to New York. With the remnant of my fortune I went into Wall street, with the usual result — success to-day, disaster to-morrow. In 1864 I went to live with a nephew, the late Col. Henry Rockafeller, and ten years later began to contribute literary reminiscences to a Newark (N. J.) paper, subsequently taking an editorial position. This I held until five years ago, when my sight began to fail me and I was forced to quit work. Since then, of course, I have been unable to earn my own living, and have been obliged to subsist on the generosity of others. As you can readily understand, this is a hard fate far a man who has seen what I have seen, been what I have been; born with a generally contented and cheerful disposition, try to feel as happy as I can.”

Through the liberality of old Philadelphia acquaintances of Mr. Graham, particularly Mr. G. W. Childs and Mr. C. J. Peterson, his simple wants have been provided for. His wife died many years ago, and so far as near relatives are concerned, he appears to be absolutely alone in the World, all of them being dead.

BENJAMIN NORTHROP.