Forceythe Willson, "the William Blake of Western letters," was born at
Little Genesee, New York, April 10, 1837, the elder brother of the
latest Republican governor of Kentucky, Augustus E. Willson. When
Forceythe was nine years old, his family packed their household goods
upon an "ark," or Kentucky flatboat, at Pittsburgh, and drifted down
the Ohio river, landing at Maysville, Kentucky, where they resided for
a year, and in which town the future governor of Kentucky was born. In
1847 the Willsons removed to Covington, Kentucky, and there
Forceythe's education was begun. The family lived at Covington for six
years, at the end of which time Forceythe entered Harvard University,
but an attack of tuberculosis compelled him to leave without his
degree. He returned to the West, making his home at New Albany,
Indiana, a little town just across the Ohio river from Louisville. A
year later Willson joined the editorial staff of the _Louisville
Journal_, and together he and Prentice courted the muse and defended
the cause of the Union. Willson's masterpiece, _The Old Sergeant_,
was the "carrier's address" for January 1, 1863, printed anonymously
on the front page of the _Journal_. The author's name was withheld
until Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes pronounced it the best ballad the war
had produced, when Willson was heralded as its author. _The Old
Sergeant_ recites an almost literally true story, and it is
wonderfully well done. In the fall of 1863 Willson was married to the
New Albany poet, Elizabeth C. Smith, and they removed to Cambridge,
Massachusetts, where the future executive of the Commonwealth of
Kentucky was a student in Harvard University. The Willsons purchased a
home near Lowell's, and they were soon on friendly terms with all of
the famous New England writers. In 1866 _The Old Sergeant and Other
Poems_ appeared at Boston, but it did not make an appeal to the
general public. Forceythe Willson died at Alfred Centre, New York,
February 2, 1867, but his body was brought back to Indiana, and buried
on the banks of the Whitwater river. Willson believed it quite
possible for the living to hold converse with the dead, and this, with
other strange beliefs, entered largely into his poetry.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. His authoritative biographer, Mr. John James Piatt,
the Ohio poet, has written illuminatingly of this rare fellow,
with his "almond-shaped eyes," as Dr. Holmes called them, and his
Oriental look and manner, in _The Atlantic Monthly_ (March, 1875);
_Lexington Leader_ (September 13, 1908). His brother, Hon.
Augustus E. Willson, will shortly utter the final word concerning
him and his work.