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Wheelbarrow and Gridiron: The Colorful
Life of Ben Perley Poore
Hugh Y. Bernard, 33
Down the old Newburyport Turnpike southward he trudged, the ruggedly-built,
heavy, scraggly-bearded, man of massive head and friendly but determined
manner. He had left his ancestral home near Newburyport, Massachusetts,
over two days before, on foot, to fulfil what he considered an obligation
of honor. His hands, worn well-nigh raw by now, firmly held the
handles of the heavy wheelbarrow. It carried a sturdy barrel of
New England King sweet eating apples with a few quinces included.
The whole burden, not counting the barrow, weighed some 185 pounds.
A sturdy leather strap passing over his shoulders and fastened to
the barrow handles helped him support the heavy load as he walked.
Ben Perley Poore was paying off a political bet in a novel way on
that fall day in 1856. He had promised to push his load of apples
to Boston if Millard Fillmore lost the Republican Primary to General
John C. Frémont. It was thirty-six miles from Newburyport
to the winner's home at the Tremont House, Boston's newest and finest
hotel. Frémont won the primary by a five-to-one margin, and
Poore vowed to pay up as he had promised.
A Man of His Word
Despite his victorious opponent's gracious offer to release him
from the ignominious payoff promise, Major Poore vowed to keep his
word. He was then a Massachusetts militia officer and rising newspaper
correspondent in Washington for a Boston paper. In so doing he greatly
advanced his own career and fame, and inaugurated three innovations
in American public life: the bizarre payoff of a political bet,
the "media event," and the "photo opportunity."
Major Poore lost twelve pounds on the two-plus days of walking.
He was rewarded as he reached the Charlestown Bridge that carried
the Turnpike into Boston. Here a large and steadily augmenting crowd
greeted him, as assorted friends and Fillmore supporters passed
the word among themselves. They lined the streets of the city as
the wheelbarrow, bedecked with an American flag and still pushed
by its sturdy one-man team, passed toward the city center. It also
bore a sign: "Maj. Poore--May the next administration prove
as faithful to their pledges as he was to his."
Two daguerreotypists (hence the "photo op"), a militia
unit, the Independent Fusiliers, and the Boston Cornet Band, made
the gathering a veritable mini-parade. Crowds, swelled by the music
and cheering, lined the route via State, Court, and Washington Streets.
At last, under the portico of the Tremont House, a beaming Colonel
Robert Burbank, the bet winner, welcomed his tired but buoyant opponent.
The wheelbarrow was tipped and the barrel unloaded to cheers from
the assemblage. Burbank appropriately told his loser/friend, "You
have had the fortune to introduce in political tactics a new method
of wheeling," the wheelbarrow being for Poore, in Burbank's
words, "already a chariot of fame."
True indeed were those words. By carrying out his promise, Ben
Perley Poore had accomplished more in the public regard than if
he had accepted the proffered release. The colonel entered the parlors
of the Tremont House arm in arm with the major. In short order the
major's travel dryness was quenched.
Benjamin Perley Poore, as an author, affected the form "Ben:
Perley Poore," and for his newspaper dispatches and columns
merely "Perley." He was one of the most versatile, energetic,
diligent, convivial, and warmhearted, figures to grace the stage
of nineteenth-century America. A keen observer and interpreter of
his times, he was at one time all of the following: editor, reporter,
columnist, war correspondent, printer, compiler and cataloger of
public papers, preserver of archives, spellbinding public speaker,
officer both in peacetime militia units and in a mobilized Civil
War regiment, antiquarian and autograph collector, biographer of
notable historical and political figures, horticulturist--and ardent
and active Freemason, who attained some of the order's highest honors.
He also served briefly as a diplomatic attache and traveled widely
for his time. All told, Brother Poore should be rescued from the
undeserved semi-oblivion into which he seems to have fallen since
his death in 1887.
Early Years
Ben Perley Poore was born on November 2, 1820, on the ancestral
family estate, "Indian Hill Farm" west of Newburyport,
Massachusetts. He was the son of Benjamin and Mary Perley (Dodge)
Poore. The family was of considerable means and had roots in that
part of the state dating from the 1650's. Young Poore's mother had
been born in 1799 in Georgetown, a small incorporated community
in the newly defined District of Columbia. His maternal grandfather
had known and had business dealings with Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant
who was the French-American military officer chosen by President
George Washington to lay out and plan the new capital city on the
Potomac. There was something prophetic in this, since so much of
Poore's career would center in the Nation's Capital.
The boy's parents enjoyed travel and took their son on trips to
Europe. When he was seven they took him to Washington, D.C. for
the first time. Thus Poore's recollections of the Capital City began
with the time that John Quincy Adams was President. About this time
the lad enrolled in Dummer Academy in South Byfield, Massachusetts
to prepare for a West Point appointment. After a time Ben found
himself chafing under strict military-style discipline and feeling
that a full-time military career was not for him. Apparently with
his father's reluctant assent, he withdrew and apprenticed himself
to a printer in Worcester, Massachusetts. Printer's ink would be
in his blood for the rest of his life.
*
* *
This excerpt is from Heredom, the
transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society
Volume III, Year 1994
©1994-2002, Scottish Rite Research Society
All Rights Reserved
Scottish Rite Research Society
1733 16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20009-3103
202-232-3579 voice, 202-383-1847 fax
srrs@srmason-sj.org, www.srmason-sj.org
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