10 Riley Bio

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT
by Thomas Earl Williams with primary illustrations by Katherine Kuonen and the great assistance of Robert Tinsley with Riley artifacts, Copyright, 1997, Thomas Earl Williams

Riley's "minstrelsy" or showmanship may have been an offshoot of Doc McCrillus's, or at least substantially influenced by him. People would come to listen and be entertained by the patient medicine man and his young men consorts. At most these audiences were a "testing ground" for the young James Whitcomb Riley to learn his craft of entertaining and amusing audiences. There is a tendency to think this shallow and not necessarily significant. That conclusion would be dead wrong.

There is not just a "give" but rather a "give and take" in the performing arts. James Whitcomb Riley participated in the life of these audiences around the brightly painted patent medicine wagon. The crowds became a part of the entertainer who would write down his poetry from time to time. What the crowds found "right" in Riley's poetry became Riley's subject matter. Since establishing homes was the main thrust of the small town populaces Riley entertained, ideas of home abound in Riley's poetry.

Riley's trip with Doc McCrillus was a start on a journey which would take him through his life and even take his life at the end. It was a tragic quest which was buried in humor and hopeful sentiment. It was a journey to find love and to try to be loved in the life of his Hoosier people. Its meaning would boil down to a concept of home. Unfortunately, the meaning was one which proved a truce by which American homelife could become established and normalized and permit the thriving of others, but not for himself. A lonely death in a small upper apartment of an Indianapolis house would be James Whitcomb Riley's lot.

In the Biographical Edition of his poetry, Riley described his employment with Doc McCrillus, the traveling miracle medicine man with whom Riley escaped Greenfield:

"My duty was the manipulation of two blackboards swung at the sides of the wagon during our street lecture and concert. These boards were alternately embellished with colored drawings illustrative of the manifold virtues of the nostrum vended. Sometimes, I assisted the musical olio with dialect recitations and character sketches from the back steps of the wagon."

In describing his getaway from the memories of this death with a medicine man selling his cure-all, Riley said rode out of town with that glittering cavalcade," the poet said, "without saying good-bye to anyone, and though my patron was not a diplomaed doctor, as I found out, he was a man

of excellent habits and the whole company was made up of good, straight, jolly, chirping vagabonds like myself." Riley fitted easily into this roving company as a black board and colored chalk artist, illustrating the virtues of the medicine vended, supplemented with a repertoire of songs, jokes and original recitations. After a wonderful tour, the poet returned to Greenfield with pockets as empty as they were when he left.

"... I have been advertising for the Farmer's Grocery for three or four days and am feeling pretty sore, physically - but quite the contrary mentally for I have now removed a load of about $6 from my mind and so ‑

John, I have an offer from a young advertiser, who was attracted by my card in the post-office, to travel and do Medicine advertising and such, and I believe I will go. I can be at home as often as you. I guess: so we won't be broken badly. I think it will be the best thing I could do: I'll be in the open air all the time, and 1 do like advertising - especially where I have a chance of making $5 and $6 a day. I send you a photograph of my card. -How do you like? - I received a complimentary squib in both our worthy papers. The young man i am going with is a good business agent and sharp as the proverbial tack. He is not much on the letter, hut knows how to get work and handle "expenses" and all that. He is entirely stranger to me - but he is from Anderson, and refers me to dozens of the best men the town contains. We will do general advertising: he has had experience and knows all about it - I will go as partner or not at all. If we succeed it won't be a great while before I show advertisers what advertising is like the card I send you for instance - I can design them and we can have them engraved and furnish cards novel, new and unique for so much a thous - look out!

Then on July 17th 1872, he wrote his brother that he was about to start on a week's trip to neighboring towns.

When Riley and McClanahan traveled by themselves to paint, they entered a town to great theatrical display. Riley said, "On entering a town, McClanahan went first to the livery stable and with unfailing instinct picked out the best horses. It was not long before we were in the good graces of the livery-man and had as our reward the best team in the barn free of charge for the afternoon. Then the two made a dashing appearance into town to talk to the leading merchants proposing to advertise them on every barn fence and boulder on each of the roads leading into town. Riley remembered saying

"these signs will stand as long as the fence or barn or stone remains...Why, you spend that much each year on newspaper advertising and, what is more, your newspaper allows your competitor to advertise in the very next column in a more conspicuous place. He can't do that on the road, because you'll have every fence and barn, and if you don't take the contract he will, you bet.

Their business card proposed "all styles of signs and painted advertisements and original designs in fancy cards and bulletins and banner signs of all kinds and ends is in rhyme.

"We strive in each particular to give our fellow man entire Satisfaction. Riley and McClanahan

Life on the road was not easy. Riley did not conserve what money he did make. In the winter of 1872-3, Riley spent the winter in Marion. He recalls, "1 didn't have enough covers on my bed, only a counterpane. (Biographer's note: coverlet). I laid newspapers in between that and the sheet to keep out the cold. Oh, I was living in an old rat-trap and didn't see where the money for my Saturday's board was coming from. And I was homesick. One day a letter came from my small brother 'Hum,' a boy letter about "Nuisance," our dog, who had died. When I got that broken-hearted letter I simply crawled away to my room, threw myself on the bed and cried." This was the winter when "Dot Leedle Boy of Mine," was written. Riley said, "Writing verse was the only fun I had."

We know that Riley left Greenfield to join Doc McCrillus and therafter to travel with Jim McClanahan painting at just about the time the temperance movement was strengthening and young men Riley's age were being asked to sign Murphy pledges not to drink alcoholic beverages. Near this time of Riley's period of greatest inebriations after his mother's death, the Indiana Women's Christian Temperance Union was just getting organized. When Mrs. Zerelda Wallace, its first President, and stepmother of General Lew Wallace, author of BEN HUR, took her first temperance petition before the Indiana legislature, she was informed that, since her petition was from women who couldn't vote, it "amounted to no more than the tracks of so many mice.^- This aroused Mrs. Wallace to become a public speaker throughout the state on temperance and women's vote issues. Other women joined in the fight. Soon women were lining up, two abreast, in great processions after church services to enter the taverns of Hoosier towns to ask saloon keepers to close down and seek the reformation of the drinkers inside. Tavern keepers could do little about these invasions. They could not

throw out the ladies who would yell, "Unhand me, Sir!" or remind them that "No one but a coward touches a woman save in kindness." No lady could be removed from the bar door when they chose to sing temperance songs outside. It is said that huge and brutal looking barkeeps quailed to the pure womanhood while their potential patrons left or walked away without entering their usual haunts.

The resistance of the saloon keepers of the Hoosier Deutsch - those of Riley's stock - was greater than the others. Sometimes a thick accented German wife of a barkeep fetched her small children and fed them beer in full sight of the temperance women. Many times those of Hoosier Deutsch heritage were subject to derision for special sinfulness and foreign barbarism. It was more common for the Deutsch saloon owners to resist. They drove the women out of their establishments by opening doors and windows in the winter, throwing pepper on the stoves to cause them to sneeze and cry, flooding the floor with filthy water, putting out the fires in their stoves or just plain plugging the stovepipe to smoke them out. Occasionally, drinkers would throw tobacco juicy sawdust from the bar floors at the ladies. If fights did break out, few ladies feared being convicted of disorderly conduct or such charges.

A poem by Elizabeth T. Wills of the Wabash, Indiana, Women's Christian Temperance Union describes the temperance activity of the time. It should be remembered that Riley and his friends were what these ladies would call "rummies." The antagonistic but pious mood toward alcoholics in Indiana is expressed in this poem.

And mourned o'er the wreckage the rum fiend had made It was rum, rum with its withering curse,

That's what started the Temperance Crusade. Rum had robbed us of husband, had robbed us of sons And of all, which the heart holds most dear So we women went out, in this battle for home

To form resolutions, to talk, sing and pray. Just women in daytime, men kept out of sight

But they joined in our mass-meetings held every night. Then while all the church bells were ringing at once

We caused much excitement as we marched two abreast Through the crowded and awe-stricken street But with heads quite erect and courage unchecked Did we march with the snow on our feet. We marched right in to the open saloon And begged of the men to desist But some grew angry and cursed us And came at us with shaking fist; And some of them told us we'd better go home

I imagine we felt a little like men When they finally tree their 'coons; And we couldn't help but sorter wear A half-way satisfied grin

Then while at this stage in the conflict After first excitement was through, we organized the little band

And the ball has kept rolling and rolling with its purity banner unfurled, Till now our white-ribbon army Is teaching and belting the world. So pin on the white ribbon, sisters, And we will keep plugging away.

I suppose to some extent the young Riley was "put to flight" by the temperance ladies and their talk about such young men as Riley who drank too much.

Riley did not consider his alcoholism as some disease or unconscious decision. Riley wanted to indulge in alcohol and become intoxicated as a young man following the death of his mother. He did not want any temperance movement person interfering for the escape he found in drinking alcoholic beverages.

This admission is made in his autobiographical poem, "The Flying Islands of the Night" where Jucklet explains this to Crestillomeem, Riley's alcoholism. The "wife" and "love" is alcohol.

He loved his wife and her a-lone; She reaped the harvest he had sown; She ate the meat, he picked the bone.

(Then pantomime as though pulling at bell-rope - singing in pent, explosive utterance)

1. The 1898 edition of "The Flying Islands" contains a score for this song. Riley set the song to music for this edition.

Nellie Cooley (Dwainie) tried on many occasions to set Riley free from his alcoholism, none with any success during her lifetime. Only after her death did she come to him in the delirious account chronicled in "The Flying Islands of the Night," and succeed in this effort.

Riley not only began his life of alcoholism after his mother's death, but he also most earnestly began his writing of poetry to express his feelings. Riley began his nocturnal life. Riley's poems were mostly written at night because he once said, "Then angels listen to the whisper of his pencil as I write." This habit came early and from the days he painted signs. Often too

intoxicated to return home, he slept many places. One of them was at the station of the night watchman of the Greenfield Bank. The night watchman was happy for the company because he could sleep at night knowing Riley was awake by a dim lamp with a pencil and tablet in hand.

Most of his early life, he recalled hearing a clock strike four. How did Riley consider his life?

There can be no more discordant event than the death of a caregiving mother. There is no place to go for reassurance and to avoid anxiety more satisfying than to one's mother. One does not feel unworthy when a mother gives acceptance. Parental love is the great shield of apprehensiveness.

Riley's friends shared his general love of the drunken life. Nov. 26, 1873, apparently written while Mack (James McClanahan) was drunk. The letter starts out, "Answer soon for God's sake. Don't make fun of me. This is written on the letterhead of Harvin and Booker, Frankfort. -0 dam the pin I can't write fast enough. Damd if I ever felt good in my life. Good God I'm off my feet. Would to God that I could see you NOW. You ask me why don't I write. That's damn fine talk ain't it...Oh, my God, but I do feel Hob. Hob hell. That don't express it. Can you read this?...." McClanahan is writing Riley in desperation. The woman he is living with is apparently giving him Hell. McClanahan says he has given people the impression the woman he is living with and he are married but they aren't.

From Riley's South Bend life comes the recollection of Frank Murphy. Just across from Blowneys was a saloon and Riley was said to dearly love to have a glass of beer there with innumerable friends, Bill Allen, Al Stockford, Frank Murphy. On one occasion, when Riley and Bill Allen. a drinking buddy of Riley's, were painting the outside of the old St. Joseph hotel, the scaffolding they were standing on fell and both of them were hurt, but not seriously. Later, when Riley was famous and was lecturing in South Bend, Bill Allen went to see Riley at his hotel and Riley refused to see him. In Riley's "Pipes o' Pan at Zekesbury," Riley mentioned many of his South Bend friends and in particular "the Wild Irishman," Frank Murphy, a genial, jovial Irishman, loud of speech, warm in friendship and who could improvise poetry and enjoy a glass of whisky or any other concoction accompanied with plenty of hilarity and good fellowship, which was exactly to young

Riley's temperamental liking and as a result the two were good friends til death took them. Riley called him Tommy in his sketch and says he sings at one of their convivial gatherings in the Andrews saloon:

Whenever Murphy went to Indianapolis, he would look Riley up and they would have a good time recalling the days when Riley was a sign painter in South Bend. Maj. Blowney did not mind Riley writing verses and gave him a blank book to write them in.

It is to this early period of Riley's wandering life following the death of his mother, that Riley refers in his autobiographical poem when he portrays Crestillomeem (his alcoholism) and his minstrelsy play-self (Jucklet) in happy companionship and shared delight.

Though my proud brow bear the blaze of a crown, Lo, at thy feet must its glory bow down.

That from the dust thou mayest lift me to shine Heaven'd in thy heart's rapture, 0 Prince divine! -Queen of thy love ever,

0 Prince divine!

Semblance of Jucklet (Sings)

Crestillomeem! Crestillomeem!

Our life shall flow as a musical stream' -

Windingly - placidly on it shall wend,

Marged with mazhorra-bloom banks without end -Word-birds shall call thee and dreamily scream, "Where dost thou cruise, `Meema - Crestillomeem?

Whither away, `Meema? -Crestillomeem!

I. Jucklet, Riley's pranking and jocular self, can express himself along quite well in intoxicated state.

Once Riley suspended himself by a rope from a bridge and painted a sign on the bottom of the bridge inverting the letters so the approaching traffic would see the advertising on the surface of the water. He painted many barns on his travels in the years of his early twenties.

When he returned home to Greenfield occasionally he did some odd jobs for Greenfield folk. He did cards for War Barnett and went to a Greeley meeting and "ogled some terribly damp Goddesses of Liberty, etc."

not go speak to him although they stood close to each other after the performance. "I wanted to speak to him for he had been a great inspiration to me, but some fear within restrained me."

1874 was another year of restless wandering about Indiana with Jim McClanahan and friends. Riley's family were not supportive. They wished him settled down. They did not like his wanderings around with his carefree drinking friends. A letter Riley sent to his brother John, dated Nov. 16, 1874, states:

"...In reply to a question of yours-McClanahan is not with me now, nor has‑
n't been for months, and in lieu of myself -as per lady-book-statement, -is
traveling in the Vinegar Recipe line and making big money. He controls a
party of 13 agents who sell recipes while he is employed selling Territory.
I have been working for McCrillus, principally, since my return to
Anderson, but have surprised the folks occasionally with a sign: I am at
work now on an advertising card that will be superior! I won't enter in to a
description of it - wait till it's done and I'll show it to you - it will be my
masterpiece as I have -mixed my colors with brains." Oh, it's artistic - not
letters in gold alone, but the "female form divine" graces the center of the
design, while the letters around her twine and glimmer and gleam and shine

The picture from the poetry and the situation of the departure with the good Doc's patent medicine show is of a young man, Riley, simply on the run from the death of his mother steadily seeking the companionship of Crestillomeem but holding his own in the sign painting and medicine show business.

Perhaps his relationship with his married friend, Nellie Cooley back in Greenfield further encouraged both his departures and exacerbated alcohol use. Upon his returns to Greenfield he inevitably sought Nellie's company and this was not a situation Riley's family was very happy about either. Nellie was, after all, a married woman. It was not a good sign that she was the woman he was paying attention to. For now we simply repeat the last stanza of this poem:

Was Nellie discouraging Riley's attentions as well as encouraging them driving Riley crazy?

Life with Doc McCrillus was a pleasant and diverting life. To gain the flavor of the Doc McCrillus patent medicine enterprise, it may be helpful to consider the product Riley was selling. One of the testimonials to Doc McCrillus's patent medicine has come down to us from two Anderson, Indiana men who otherwise are unknown to history, E. Sipe and Sam Pence, self-styled as "Horse Dealers." They witness as follows:

"We speak whereof we have seen and know about Dr. S.B. McCrillus' European Balsam. We believe it to be a valuable medicine in the cure of horse disease -epizootic -as a disinfectant, and also a great relief to the horse when sick by burning it on coals in the stable and letting the horses inhale the Balsam." (Found in loose folders on Riley in the Anderson City Library).

This testimonial would be rather "backhand" since Doc McCrillus's miracle cures were intended for humans.

As you would look at the darkly ominous bottle of the good doctor's chief product, you would immediately know it was something very special. A trumpeting baby elephant was on the label on whose back was a huge leather satchel as big as the elephant containing the word's "McCrillus' European

The Balsam's label contained other information in different sized print: "The Acknowledged Excelsior System Renovator. Cures WEAK BACK. It Cures Bronchitis, Palpitation of the Heart, Laryngitis, Sore Throat, Phthisic(sic), Weak Breast, Coughs and Colds, Female Complaints, Liver Complains, Dyspepsia, Chronic Rheumatism, Etc." In much smaller print

along the sides of the label are the statements, "This Balsam, composed exclusively of vegetable matter, has attained for itself an almost cosmopolitan celebrity. In its successful treatment of all diseases of a nervous and inflammatory nature, and for a weak state of the system. It heals the lungs, strengthens the stomach, rectifies its disorders and regulates the bowels. It allays inflammation externally and internally. Dissolves the secretions of the urinary glands, and cures grave and WEAKNESS OF THE KIDNEYS."

Just dreaming up such a mess of quasi-medical gobbledegook such as this must have taken the good Doc much time. Incidentally, the good Dr. McCrillus's death certificate on file with the Madison Co. Health Department shows his cause of death as "acute pneumonitis" which we tend to call pneumonia. Did the doctor not take his own cure? Lung ailments were supposed to be overcome by his European Balsam. Or could it have been that he wished his own remedy worked a little better as he was slipping away?

In any case, the summers in which James Whitcomb Riley left home to join Doc McCrillus and paint and travel were pleasant and fun-filled interludes and adventures Riley and McClanahan were said to have performed many acts together from the show wagon. Riley always took his guitar and banjo with him, and much entertainment was verbalized with recitation of entertaining stories. When Riley was on the road with Doc, he would interject his philosophy of medicine and the virtues of his cures and then sometimes the three would sing as a trio. Eventually, James Whitcomb Riley is said to have become very popular with demands for encores for his recitations and even singing.

After these surrealistic summer experiences, James Whitcomb Riley returned with the Doc to Anderson to idle away time. He lived either with Doc or in boarding houses in Anderson or nearby towns where he went to paint signs or houses or with mom McClanahan in Anderson. Everywhere he went, Riley spent time on street corners talking to the people of Anderson or wherever he was and writing seriously, filling the bureau drawers of his board rooms and trunks with papers until they were stuffed.

1874 was the year McGeecy, editor of the Danbury, Connecticut, NEWS, accepted Riley's poetry encouraging him greatly. This was also the year Riley worked out the elocution and performance points for "The Bear Story" and "Tradin' Joe." Riley read these in occasional school houses and churches.

These early years of young manhood also saw Riley produce much whimsical doggerel verse for advertising including this "advertisement" for his friend the good Doc McCrillus:

"Wherever blooms of health are blown, McCrillus' Remedies are known; Wherever happy lives are found You'll find his medicines around,

Send blessings down to me and you; And holds its throne from year to year In every household far and near, His purifier for the blood

Has earned a name fair and good As ever glistened on the page Of any annals of the age.

There is both prose and poetry written reflecting Riley's wandering life with Crestillomeem. It is mostly poetry of the 1870's, Riley's period of great production in which no topic of his life was "off limits."

We have the poet who would one day - after he comes to kenoticism - be known as "The Children's Poet" taking the classic "Little Red Riding

Hood," and turning it into the story as told by an alcoholic - maybe Riley's friend "Old Sport."

"Wonst they was a leetle-teeny dirt, an' she was named Red Riding Hood, toz her ma maked her a leetle red cloak 'at torned up over her head - an' it was all thist one piece of red cardnal like the dreat long stockin's 'at the

storekeeper's dot. 0! it was the nicest cloak in this town! An' - an' - an' so one day her ma she put it on her. It was Sunday. coz the cloak was too nice to wear thist all the time. An' so her ma she put it on her, an' told her not to dit no dirt on it; an' nen she dot out her little basket 'at ole K'is b'inged her, an' filled it full o' whole lots o' good fings t'eat, an' told her to take 'em to her dran'ma,

An' so little Red Riding Hood she promised to be tareful, an' tossed her heart she wouldn't spill'em

for six-five-ten-two hundred bushel dollars. An' nen she kissed her ma dood bye, an' went a skippin off through the dreat big woods to her dran'ma's - no she didn't do a skippin' nedver coz that 'ud spill the dood fings. She thist went a walkin'along like a little lady, she did - as slow

An' so she was a goin' along an' along through the dreat big woods - toz her dran'ma lived a way fur off from her ma's house, an' you had to do through the dreat big woods to dit there.

An' little Red Riding Hood had mostest fun when she'd do there - a listenin' to the purty bards, an' puffin the purty flowers at drowed around the stumps - an' catchin' butterflies an' drasshoppers, an' stickin' pins through 'em-I thist 'said' that! coz she was dood. She'd this catch 'em, an' leave their wings on 'em thist like they was, an' let 'em do adin, toz she was a "boss girl" - my pa said she was!

An' so she was a doin' along an' doin' along, an' purty soon they was a old wicked wolf jumped out; an' he wanted to eat her up, but there was a big man a choppin' wood wite

those there, an' you could hear him, an' so th' old wolf was afeared to tackle her this then - feared the man ud kill him, you know; an' so he 'tended like he was a dood friends to her, an' he says, "Dood morning, little Red Riding Hood!" this like that. An' nen little Red Riding Hood she says. "dood morning." this as kind - like her ma learnt her - coz she didn't know th' old wolf wanted t'eat her up.

Nen little Red Riding Hood says, "I'm doin' to my dran'ma's -coz my ma said I might." An' nen she told him that th' old wolf skipped out an' dot to her dran'ma's first, an' she didn't know he did.

Nen when th' old wolf dot to her dran'ma's he knocked at the door. An' nen th' old wolf he knocked adin, an' little Red Riding Hood's dran'ma she says, "Who's there?"

Nen th' old wolf 'tended like he was little Red Riding Hood, you know, an' so he says, "W'y, it's me, dran'ma; I'm little Red Riding Hood, an' I'm tome to see you!"

Nen little Red Riding Hood's dran'ma she says, "Thist walk in, nen, an' make yousef at home. toz I'm dot the

an' hopped up on th' bed an' et old Miss Ridinghood up 'fore she could take her specs off, he did! Nen th' old wolf put

on her nightcap an' tovered up in bed like she was, you know, an' purty soon her tome little Red Riding Hood, an' she knocked at the door. Nen th' old wolf says, "Who's there?" thist like he was her dran'ma, you know, an' she thought he was, an' so she says, "W'y its me, dran'ma; I'm little Red Riding Hood, an' I'm tome to see you."

Nen th' old wolf says "Thist walk in an' make yousef at home, toz I dot the `raigy an' tovered up in bed, an' I tan't open the door for you."

An' so little Red Riding Hood she opened the door an' towed in: an' the old wolf told her to set down her basket an' take off her fings an' tome an' set on the bed wif her.

An' little Red Riding Hood she didn't know it was th'
old wolf, an' so she set down her basket an' tooked off her

fings, an' dot a chair an' thumbed up on the bed wif her an' she thought th' old wolf had more whiskers'n her dran'ma, an' dreat bigger eyes too, an' she was skeered, an' so she says: "Oh, dran'ma, what big eyes you dot!"

Nen th' old wolf says: "It's thist big thataway toz I smell the dood fings you bringed in the basket."

An' nen little Red Riding Hood she says: "0! dran'ma, what long, sharp teeth you dot."

thataway t'eat you up wif!" an' nen he made a jump at her, an' she hollered an' the big man that was a choppin' wood he tomed in there wif his axe, an' he split th' old wolf's brains out from ear to ear, an' killed him so quick it made his head swim, an' little Red Riding Hood wasn't hurt at all, an' the big man tooked her home, an' her ma was so dlad she div'd him all the dood fings in the basket an' told him to call adin - an - an- that's all of it."

Alcoholism rendered Riley like an "adjustable lunatic." He must have feared the consequences of public intoxication displays greatly after public intoxication arrest. The main character in his story, "An Adjustable Lunatic," explains why. He says, "I don't make a business of insanity, or I wouldn't be running at large here on the streets of the city." He continues at a later point, "...I'm glad to assure you of the fact that I'm as harmless as a baby-butterfly. Nobody knows I'm crazy, nobody ever dreams of such a thing - and why? -Because the faculty is adjustable, don't you see, and self-controlling. I never allow it to interfere with business matters, and only let it on at leisure intervals for the amusement it affords me in the pleasurable break it makes in the monotony of a matter-of-fact existence. I'm off duty to-day - in fact, I've been off duty fir a week; or, to be franker still, I lost my situation ten days ago, and I've been humoring this propensity in the meanwhile..."

The lamp gleams dim i' the odorous gloom, And the stars at the casement leak long gleams

The night-winds ooze o'er my dusk-drowned face In a dewy flood that ebbs and flows,

For my soul floats on the waves that break In crests of song on the shoreless deep Where I neither sleep nor wake.

That there are pieces describing Riley's intoxicated situation is not to say they were not transforming pieces. Such poetry challenge thought patterns. But deep down they touch on Riley's greatest fear. This was the fear that he was the psychotically wounded Edgar Allan Poe in reincarnation. This fear was grounded in the birth of James Whitcomb Riley at precisely the morning in October, 1849, when the tormented Edgar Allan Poe died in

Baltimore in delirium tremens. It was as if Riley took up the air of life that Poe expired. Did he also inherit his alcoholism?

At some point it seems, Riley, similarly demonically possessed in alcoholism as Poe took his former incarnation's "Scenes from 'Politian" and was in the process of completing them when a strange thing happened-the recollection of the recently deceased Nellie Cooley entered the strange world of Riley's demonic delirium while Riley was writing "The Flying Islands of the Night." Nellie Cooley. we remember, was the young married woman and friend whose encouragement had kept Riley from total breakdown after his mother's death until her husband moved her away to Illinois and away from Riley in 1875 when both left Greenfield after a black lynching there.

combined with mastery of verse. Riley devoted many hours to studying Poe's verse and read "The Rationale of Verse," Poe's essay on the subject, thoroughly. The memory of Nellie kept him from Poe's thematics.

Riley did not just study Poe's manner, he also wrote Poe-like poems. His "A Dream of Long Ago," was given the metre and cadence of Poe's "The Raven," with a slightly different verse structure. The sounds of Poe were easily mirrored with the liquid and musical sounds of the alphabet.

Crestillomeem was a great admirer of Poe. In a letter of March 4, 1883 written to Dr. James Newton Matthews, Riley said:

"...In the Poe sonnets, the work is splendid - masterly in parts - only the theme is joyless ‑

and that hurt the success of such an effort, however deserving in all other qualities. It is what hurt Poe, and will always drape his

memory with gloomy speculations and unsatisfying contemplations. He was a marvelous intellect perhaps as much estranged from himself as from all of his kind. Anyway, he seems, always, to me, unhappy, and his influence always cheerless. If I ever get to Heaven, I will doubtless love him better there where all 'will be unriddled.' All melancholy themes are pets of mine - positively; but I am growing to avoid them as much as possible for I am more and more satisfied of their hurtfulness every new one I indulge."

Edgar Allan Poe. 1809-1949. Riley was born on the same Sunday morning that Poe died of delirium tremens in 13aItimore, Maryland. Riley sometimes feared he was a reincarnation of Poe probably because they shared alcoholism and Poe's "hoodoos."

"Poe was hoodooed all his life. I took up the hoodoo where he left off," Riley once said. We know Riley studied Poe because of the famous "Leonainie" incident in Riley's life. Riley wrote the poem in the style of Poe and perpetrated the hoax in concert with a friend who was the editor of the Kokomo Dispatch upon the representation that it was a newly discovered manuscript of Edgar Allan Poe published in the Kokomo DISPATCH on August 12, 1877.

How Riley described writinc.! "Leonainie": "I studied Poe's method. He seemed to have a theory, rather misty to be sure, about the use of m's and n's and mellifluous vowels and sonorous words. I remember that I was a long time in evolving the name of 'Leonainie,' but at length the verses were finished and ready for trial. A friend, the editor of the Kokomo Dispatch, undertook the launching of the hoax in his paper; he did this with great editorial gusto, while, at the same time, I attacked the authenticity of the poem in the Democrat. That diverted all possible suspicion from me. the hoax succeeded far too well, for what had started as a boyish prank, became a literary discussion nation-wide, and the necessary expose had to be made. I was appalled by the result. The press assailed me furiously, and even my own paper dismissed me because I had given the 'discovery' to a rival."

How much Riley knew about the orphaned, tragic Edgar Allan Poe is not known. Poe's death in delirium tremens was widely reported. Discovered by a printer named Walker in a Baltimore tavern called Gunner's Hall on an Election Day for members of Congress, Poe was in great distress. Taken to Baltimore's Washington Medical College in stupor, he was admitted at five in the afternoon. He remained in stupor until three o'clock the next morning when he entered a stage of busy delirium, talking constantly and deliriously addressing spectral and imaginary objects on the walls. The next day Poe revived somewhat but was basically incoherent before lapsing into violent delirium resisting the efforts of nurses to keep him in bed. His doctor, a man named Dr. John J. Moran, mentions him raving for nearly a day and calling out an unrecognizable name until three o'clock the next morning when Doctor Moran noted: "quietly moving his head he said 'Lord help my poor soul' and expired." Poe died a drunk. Dr. Moran attributed his death to delirium tremens on the basis of Poe's profuse perspiration, trembling and hallucinations. Others have since sought to find less disgraceful causes of death such as "exposure." Poe's great admirer, the French poet Charles Baudelaire, called the death "suicide" which is probably much closer to the truth.

Riley studied Poe extensively. He thought of himself as Poe at times. His forgery of Poe's name to the poem, "Leonainie," may not have even seemed like forgery. Riley's "Tale of a Spider" in which a spider takes on the life of a doomed communicant and "An Adjustable Lunatic" of a maniacal disappearing and suicidal stranger seem clearly composed under Poe's gothic influence. It is not clear if Riley wrote poetry while intoxicated as Poe did. One remembers that "The Bells" was written by an Edgar Allan Poe who did not even remember he wrote it the next morning. Riley's "The Flying Islands of the Night" was, we know, written by an alcoholic seeking to understand himself. Some of it bears the same throbbings and excesses of "intoxicatese" writing that Poe's does. One thing seems clear. If Riley had not written his "The Flying Islands of the Night" and gained through it a self-understanding and feeling of great encouragement to himself from the beyond from his dead mother and dead Nellie Cooley one could speculate he might have died as Poe did. The strange death-birth connection between Poe and Riley contributed to Riley's unease about the fate for which he was destined. The poetry and alcoholic life-style of Edgar Allan Poe were definite dynamics in Riley's self-perception. One does not fear being a reincarnation of someone without great tremor. Probably for this reason, Riley avoided admitting he was born when he was. The comparisons of alcoholism by two kindred poets was already too vivid in Riley's mind.

There was in fact great talk of Riley being Poe's reincarnation as in an article in the Chicago TRIBUNE of December 16, 1894 under the title: "Plagiarism or Reincarnation?" The many points of similarity of the writing of Riley and Poe brought forth the author of this article, George Harper, to find evidence for the Hindoo theory of transmigration of souls, or reincarnation. When Riley as Crestillomeem wrote, Poe was affixed in his mind.

In the meantime, Riley slipped further and further into alcoholism. Riley, the alcoholic, was considered a no-good in Greenfield during much of his early life, but he was not reviled.

To understand this requires a brief review of the temperance movement in Indiana of the time.

Whiskey was easily availability in the corn growing regions of Indiana where Riley grew up. Whiskey was a corn product after all. Liquor traffic was always a source of revenue to Hancock County from the founding of the county. The first meeting of the county's government, through its board of commissioners, was held April 7, 1828 and the first license to sell liquor was granted by them less than a month later. As the years went along, whisky

was sold not just at saloons but also in grocery stores. Every home had supplies. Children drank whisky and it was a popular medicine used for colds or pain reduction.

In the 1860's movements to control alcoholism, then an epidemic, began. Citizens began to remonstrate against the granting of licenses to sell whiskey. Reuben Riley and Joseph B. Atkison were usually the two Greenfield lawyers who represented the remonstrators.

As Riley entered manhood, the temperance battle against alcohol use reached the level of a crusade, just as James Whitcomb Riley, was firmly established as an alcoholic.

A Ladies' Temperance Alliance was organized at Greenfield's Methodist Episcopal church in 1874. The goal was to obtain pledges of Hancock County men not to drink intoxicating liquors. Other meetings were held in area churches and soon the ladies began visiting liquor establishments causing many of them to close or else begin serving sodas. Lists were made of signatories of the Murphy pledge and circulated. Applicants for liquor licenses were hounded into withdrawing them. Prosecutions were sought of intoxicated persons or any proprietor who served liquor to an intoxicated person. As stated elsewhere, Riley himself was prosecuted for intoxication. Candidates for office were screened to ensure they were not subject to intoxication. The local bar was invited to a meeting and the demand was made that none represent alcoholic interests or the intoxicated. Lawyers were urged to sign a pledge not to but the majority of the members refused. Mass meetings were organized and among the local speakers against intoxicants was Reuben Riley, the poet's father. Richman described one of March 7, 1874 at the Greenfield Christian Church. Later in the 1870's Red Ribbon Societies were organized in which persons who had signed the "pledge" wore red ribbons. Another temperance group wore "blue ribbons." A county convention was organized of the Christian Temperance Union in 1879. Temperance picnics and the like were sponsored. A "secret" organization also spread devoted to terrorist tactics for the cause bragging of "cells'in every township. The only saloon in New Palestine was burned to the ground during this period by such a secret "cell."

It was in the mood of a county with such temperance activity that James
Whitcomb Riley was often found drunk in different places around the city.
Reuben Riley, the poet's father, and remonstration attorney, refused to
assist his son under any such circumstances. Nor would the "Captain" pay
fines or bonds when the poet was arrested and charged with public intoxi‑

cations during his youth. The Riley family was greatly ashamed of the poet. Stories are told of Riley sneaking into the home, led by the hand up to his bedroom to sleep off a drunk, by his little sister, Mary, fifteen years his junior. The two, Mary, who also suffered from alcoholism later in life, as well as the brother between them, Hum, often relied upon each other in a world hostile to them because of their propensity to liquor overuse.

As the early 70's proceeded, the temperance movement gained more and more force. Riley's father, Reuben Riley, became a leader of it further distancing himself from Riley because Riley was, after all, "wedded to Crestillomeem."

Greenfield saw a great temperance movement arise in 1874. As a part of this movement, mass meetings of citizens were called. One such meeting was sponsored by the Temperance Alliance, a ladies' organization, held in the Methodist Episcopal Church on Sunday evening, March 8, 1874. The church was filled to overflowing with hundreds of people and many of the lawyers of the town were present. At one point in the meeting, the ladies distributed the usual temperance pledges for the attendees to sign. In addition, the ladies had a special pledge they wished the attorneys to sign. This pledge contained an agreement not to defend any person charged with a violation of the liquor laws. When the majority of the lawyers refused to sign the pledge, the ladies called for them to explain themselves. The first to speak was the lawyer, Ephraim Marsh who stated "All criminals were entitled to a fair and impartial trial, and to be heard in person or by counsel, This being the case, I as a lawyer cannot consent to place myself in a position not to accept employment in any case at bar if I desire to do so." Another lawyer, Charles G. Offutt, responded to the call to sign the pledge saying,

declined to sign it and I still decline. So far as I know but two members of the bar have signed it. I hold that an attorney has the right to engage in the defense of any man, woman, or child charged with a crime without being liable to just censure from any quarter. The fundamental law of the land declares that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to be heard by himself and counsel, and that the presumption of innocence is in his favor. Sir, because a man is charged with a violation of law, be it the "Baxter bill" or any other, it doesn't necessarily follow that he is guilty, not by any means."

As Offutt continued his reasons for not signing the pledge, his words reveal the mild attitude against alcoholics such as Riley which then prevailed in Greenfield.