Beech Grove, IN (March 29, 2018) — Sarah Tittle Bolton was
Indiana’s unofficial poet laureate from the 1850's until her death in 1893. She was also one of the first poets to gain a
following in any of the Midwestern states during the pioneer era.
Born in 1814, Sarah saw one of her poems published in the
Madison (Indiana) Banner when she was 14, an astonishing achievement for a girl
at a time when literature was considered the province of men.
From that point onward, until she reached
18, she contributed poems regularly for publication in both the Madison and
Cincinnati newspapers.
At 17, Sarah married a young newspaper editor, Nathaniel
Bolton, and returned with him to the infant state capital, Indianapolis. In 1847, Nathaniel was elected Indiana State
Librarian and found his duties included maintaining the Statehouse. In 1850,
Gov. Joseph Wright decided to hold an important public reception in the
Statehouse, which badly needed cleaning and a new carpet.
Nathaniel Bolton was compelled to buy a new
carpet for the reception, and Sarah took on the arduous task of sewing together
the carpet pieces in time for the reception. During this ordeal, she composed what became her most famous poem,
“Paddle Your Own Canoe,” and submitted it to a Cincinnati newspaper. It was reproduced in many other newspapers
and eventually was translated into eight languages, confirming its universal
message that a person must take the initiative to achieve what is worthwhile in
life:
“…Nothing
great is lightly won,
Nothing
won is lost;
Every good
deed, nobly done,
Will repay
the cost.
Leave to
Heaven, in humble trust,
All you
will do;
But, if
you succeed, you must
Paddle
your own canoe...”
Sarah Bolton was also an early proponent of women’s rights
in Indiana. In 1850, she aided Robert
Dale Owen as he attempted to incorporate the right of women to hold property in
the state Constitution of 1851. Much
later, she was a close friend of May Wright Sewall, the indomitable advocate
for women’s suffrage and equality with men.
In 1855, Nathaniel Bolton was appointed U.S. consul to
Geneva, Switzerland by President Franklin Pierce, and Sarah accompanied her
husband to Europe, where she traveled in Germany, France, Italy and
Austria. In 1858, Nathaniel died, and
Sarah returned to Indiana.
In 1871 Sarah
purchased a farmhouse southeast of Indianapolis in what is now Beech
Grove. She called the story and half
cottage “Beech Bank,” after the trees growing nearby. It provided her with quiet and communion
with nature, and she began writing poetry again. Her second best known poem was composed
after moving to Beech Bank. It was a
tribute to her home state, “Indiana”:
“…She gives the hungry stranger bread
Her
helpless poor are clothed and fed
As freely
as the Father spread
The feast
of mystic manna.
The sick
in body, wrecked in mind,
The
orphaned child, the dumb, the
Blind
A free and
safe asylum find.
In
generous Indiana…”
Although she did not gain wealth through her writings, Sarah
Taylor Bolton was recognized by some of the great literary figures of the day
as an outstanding poet. New York
newspaper editor and nature poet William Cullen Bryant thought her Civil War
poem “Left on the Battlefield” to be one of the greatest war poems ever written
and included it in a collection he published of the 50 greatest such poems.
In 1941, Gov. Henry Schricker dedicated a bronze tablet
honoring Sarah Bolton’s literary achievements in the rotunda of the Indiana
Statehouse. Her home, Beech Bank, has been preserved on South 17th Avenue in
Beech Grove.
SOURCE: IndyStar
Story: James Glass