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Historical records matching Park Benjamin, Sr.
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About Park Benjamin, Sr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Benjamin_(poet)
Park Benjamin, Sr. (August 14, 1809 – September 12, 1864) was well known in his time as an American poet, journalist, editor and founder of several newspapers.
Biography
He was born in Demerara, British Guiana, August 14, 1809, but was early sent to New England, and graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. He practiced law in Boston, but abandoned it for editorial work there and later in New York.
On July 8, 1839, he joined with Rufus Wilmot Griswold to produce The Evening Tattler, a journal which promised "the sublimest songs of the great poets–the eloquence of the most renowned orators–the heart-entrancing legends of love and chivalry–the laughter-loving jests of all lands". In addition to fiction and poetry, it also published foreign news, local gossip, jokes, and New York police reports. In 1840 Benjamin helped to found The New World and after other brief editorial ventures became a lecturer, public reader, and periodical writer. He was sued for libel by James Fenimore Cooper, and was on personal terms with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.
By the time his first son, Park Benjamin, Jr., was born, he had settled down to quiet retirement in Long Island. Benjamin died, after a brief illness, on September 12, 1864. In the 20th century, Park Benjamin, Sr. was virtually forgotten. He is now known only through his shorter poems, of which "The Old Sexton" is often anthologized.
His son was also a writer, as well as a patent lawyer, physician.
Criticism
Edgar Allan Poe had mixed feelings about Benjamin, calling his writing "lucid, terse, and pungent" and his character "witty, often cuttingly sarcastic, but seldom humorous". Walt Whitman, for a time one of Benjamin's employees and protégés, hated his poetry outright.
- Updated from MyHeritage Family Trees via son Walter Romeyn Benjamin by SmartCopy: Jun 28 2015, 17:23:19 UTC
- Arrival: (24 May 1834 — Age: 24) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Marriage to Mary Brower Western: (8 May 1848 — Age: 38) Preston City, New London, Connecticut, USA
- Marriage to Mary Brower Western: (8 May 1848 — Age: 38) Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, USA
- Marriage: (11 May 1848 — Age: 38) New York City, New York, USA
- Residence: (1850 — Age: 41) Newport, Newport, Rhode Island, USA
- Residence: (1855 — Age: 46) New York City, Ward 15, New York, New York, USA
- Residence: (1860 — Age: 51) 18 West, NYC Dist. 2, New York County, New York, USA
- Burial: (1 Dec 1864) Green-Wood Cem, Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, USA
- Burial: (1 Dec 1864) Green-Wood Cem, Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, USA
- Residence: (1907-) USA
- Departure: Barbados
- Residence: United States
- Updated from Ancestry Genealogy by SmartCopy: Jun 28 2015, 17:29:37 UTC
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Park Benjamin, Sr.'s Timeline
| 1809 |
August 14, 1809
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Demerara, Guyana
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| 1849 |
May 11, 1849
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New York, New York, United States
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1849
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New York, New York, United States
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| 1851 |
March 3, 1851
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New York, New York, United States
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| 1852 |
December 25, 1852
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New York, New York, United States
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| 1854 |
September 24, 1854
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Guilford, CT, United States
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| 1856 |
May 21, 1856
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New York, New York, United States
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| 1857 |
October 31, 1857
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New York, New York, United States
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| 1859 |
February 19, 1859
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New York, New York, New York, United States
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