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 JUN . J 1919 
 
 WILL CARLETON 
 
 By BYRON A. FINNEY 
 
 REFERENCE LIBRARIAN EMERITUS. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 
 
 Revised from Michigan Historical Collections, vol. 39, and reprinted from the 
 Michigan History Magazine for October, 1917 
 
 
 
 LANSING 
 MICHIGAN HISTORICAL COMMISSION 
 
Will Carleton, Michigan's Poet^ 
 
 By a Boyhood Friend, Byron A. Finney 
 Ann Abbob 
 
 WILL CARLETON, whose writings have for many years 
 endeared him to the peoj)le of this State as Michigan's 
 representative poet, was born October 21, 1845, on the 
 sixty-acre farm where the old homestead still stands, two miles 
 east of the village of Hudson, Lenawee County, near the south- 
 ern boundary of the State, on the line of the Lake Shore and 
 Michigan Southern Railroad. 
 
 Mr. Carleton's parents, John Hancock and Celestia E. Smith 
 Carleton, were pioneer settlers in Hudson Township. His 
 ancestry was English, through New Hampshire. In their re- 
 ligious opinions both Mr. and Mrs. Carleton were ardent 
 Methodists, and Mr. Carleton was class-leader in the village 
 Methodist Episcopal church for many years, until his death 
 in 1872 at tlie age of seventy. He was a man of sterling pro- 
 bity, somewhat austere in manner, much liked and respected 
 in the community. 
 
 Young Will grew up in the strictness of the faith, but 
 became quite liberal in after years. From the time of his 
 marriage in 1882 he was more associated with the Free Will 
 Baptist denomination, in the missionary work of which Mrs. 
 Carleton was quite active. He was one of the Trustees of the 
 college of that denomination at Hillsdale from 1887 until his 
 death. 
 
 Tlie writer of the present paper has liad some special oppor- 
 tunity for this task — though for him it is not a task — for he 
 grew up with Carleton as a boyhood and school companion, 
 and the intimacy of friendship was only interrupted through 
 
 ■A paper read at the midwinter meeting of the IMichigun State Pioneer and 
 Historical Society at Port Huron, February 6, 1914. Reprinted from Vol. 39 
 of the Michigan Historical Collections. 
 
 (1) 
 
 392636 
 
2 Byron A. Fixxey 
 
 his whole lifetime by the varying circumstances of separated 
 occupations and residence. 
 
 By the marriage of Will's elder sister, Mary Ann, to my 
 uncle, Addison N. Kidder, of Hudson, we boys were thrown 
 into close relationship from the time when he was thirteen 
 years of age and I was ten. 
 
 My home was in the village and his was the old homestead, 
 two miles directly east of Hudson, and in the interchange of 
 our boyish visits I slept many a night with him in the old 
 house out of which ''Nancy" moved "into the new." The "old" 
 was a log house, which became a wing when the frame upright 
 was built. The log wing was afterward replaced by a frame 
 one, as it stands today. 
 
 This comradeship was kept up during our school life in the 
 village of Hudson to which he was in the habit of walking 
 daily to school in good weather, the round trip from the school- 
 house making about five miles a day. Until he passed the 
 grade of instruction which it gave he went to the school on the 
 east side of the village, which was nearer his home. During 
 the winter of 1862-3 he roomed during the school days of the 
 week at the home of an elder sister, Almira (Mrs, Heman 
 Goodrich), near the Union school on the west side. There 
 many an evening did I study with him and help him in his 
 Latin which I had begun before him. Another schoolmate, 
 Alonzo B. Bragdon, who has been a practicing attorney in 
 Monroe for many years and is now city attorney under the 
 new commission, took turns with me, in this same pleasure. 
 
 Carleton went to Hillsdale, in 1862 ; then went out to teach, 
 returning to college in 1865. I followed, entered there in the 
 fall of the same year. We were always chums and during 
 the second year roomed together in the west wing of the 
 college building, which, above the first floor, was a dormitory 
 for men students. During this period, when he was not study- 
 ing, writing or blowing a horn (he organized and led the college 
 band, and played the E-b cornet, and played it strong, too), he 
 was practicing his poetry on me. I didn't hesitate to criticize 
 
WILL CAKLETOX 
 
 Taken in liis old home noar Iluds >n. Michi 
 1902, ihiiiiii; tlic Carloton Iloine-coniing. 
 
 ;au. ou his birtlulay, October '20, 
 
Will Carleton . 3 
 
 it either, but found out afterwards that he was working me 
 for that frank criticism. 
 
 As there has been some question as to the date when Carleton 
 first went to Hillsdale College, I will quote from a letter of 
 his to Mr. Bragdon, under date of August 18, 1910 : 
 
 ''Yes, I entered Hillsdale in '65, and graduated in '69. My 
 'preparation' was a fragmentary and tempestuous one — full 
 of fights, follies, frolics and phantasies — but with a steady 
 determination under them all, to 'get there.' I read every 
 book I could buy or borrow, believed what I wanted of them, 
 laughed at the rest, and went on 'swimming through the dew- 
 drops.' I saw a good deal of Finney, and was diverted from 
 solider pursuits by his confounded dramatic hunches, which, 
 however, did me a lot of good afterward. I fell in and asso- 
 ciated with you — which was an education in itself. . ." 
 
 The poems which Carleton had written during his college 
 course and shortly after were gathered into a small volume 
 and published by the Lakeside Publishing Company, Chicago, 
 in 1871. They attracted little attention; not so much, perhaps, 
 as one which had not been included in the volume. This was a 
 political, satirical poem, which was delivered by its author at 
 Eepublican mass-meetings during the Presidential campaign 
 of 1868. It was quite popular, and was published in pamphlet 
 form under the title, "Fax." 
 
 While in school Carleton had been contributing items and 
 "write-up" notices to the newspapers, with the fixed idea of 
 taking up journalism for a life work, and during the first 
 three years after graduation he was connected with theWestern 
 Rural. Chicago, the Hillsdale Standard, and the Detroit 
 Wcclli/ TrihiDic. It was during this time, eav\j in 1871, that 
 his poem "Betsey and I Are Out" appeared in the Toledo 
 Blade.^ 
 
 It was copied all over the country and attracted the notice of 
 the New York publishers, Harper & Brothers, who gave it a 
 prominent page, with illustration, in Harpet^s Weekly.'- They 
 
 'March 17, 1S71. 
 =May 27, 1871. 
 
4 Byron A. Finney 
 
 followed this with several other of his poems, taken from the 
 Detroit Tribune, or written for Harper's Weekly, under the 
 series title of "Farm Ballads." This was the beginning of their 
 popular volumes of his "Ballads," "Legends," and "Festivals." 
 
 From this period Carleton devoted himself to authorship and 
 the lecture platform, and became known to the country at large, 
 as w^ll as to Michigan, as the poet-spokesman of the farmer 
 and the everyday citizen. He could not resist entirely the jour- 
 nalistic call, and in 1894 established a family magazine. Every 
 Where, published monthly in Brooklyn, N. Y., and which he 
 conducted for nearly twenty years, until his death. ^ To this 
 magazine he contributed many prose articles, and a poem 
 regularly to each issue. 
 
 Of his early period of aspiration Mr. Carleton gives some 
 interesting reminiscences, in an article which he contributed 
 to Lipplncott's Magazine for April 1887 (39:670-6), entitled 
 "Experiences of a Public Lecturer," from whicli I quote: 
 
 "My lecturing efforts began at home, upon my father's farm. 
 Having succeeded in hearing two or three good speakers who 
 had visited our little neighboring village, I decided straightway 
 that forensic effort was to be part of my life-business. So the 
 sheep and cattle were obliged to hear various emotional opin- 
 ions on subjects of more or less importance, and our steeds of 
 the plough enjoyed a great many comfortable rests between 
 furrows in order to 'assist' at my oratorical displays. One of 
 them persisted in always going to sleep before the discourse 
 was finished — a custom that is not obsolete even among his 
 human superiors. 
 
 "The first lecture-course of this series came to an end quite 
 suddenly; for my shrewd, hard-headed New-England father 
 began to suspect that agriculture was being sacrificed to elo- 
 quence. So he appeared unexpectedly in the audience during 
 a matinee, and told me he had heard most of the harangue, and 
 that he feared I was spoiling a tolerably good farmer to become 
 an intolerably bad orator. Though of a kindly, generous dis- 
 
 'Dec. 18, 1912. 
 
Will Carleton 5 
 
 position, he could throw into his less gracious words a great 
 deal of sarcasm to the square inch, and the lecturer of the 
 afternoon, crushed but not convinced, wakened the off-horse 
 and thoughtfully drove his plough towards the blue woods at 
 the other end of the furrow. 
 
 "It is a pleasant memory that my father lived to see me earn- 
 ing a hundred dollars a night and admitted, with a grave 
 twinkle in his eye, that, having looked the matter over from a 
 non-agricultural stand-point, he had concluded there was more 
 in me than he had supposed. 
 
 "But in those boy-days both lecturing and literature de- 
 veloped very slowly. How was I to get audiences, either for 
 pen or voice?. . .There seemed little hope for a beginner. 
 
 "But the great secret of commencing is to commence where 
 one can. During my course in college it appeared that several 
 small towns in the country which could not afford expensive 
 lectures wanted and would pay for something to amuse them 
 for an evening; that there existed among tliese people a class 
 who were tired of burnt-cork and sleight-of-hand shows, and 
 wanted something which professed to be intellectual ; and so I 
 'did' all the neighboring hamlets that I could induce to hear 
 me. The financial advantage was not bewildering, and gen- 
 erally consisted of half the net proceeds. After the door- 
 keeper had his percentage, and the sexton his guerdon, and 
 the printer his dues, and the bill-poster his back-pay, the half 
 of what was left was almost as much as the whole of it (al- 
 though even then perhaps worth as much as the entertain- 
 ment). 
 
 "But the practice of meeting audiences of all descriptions 
 has proved invaluable ever since. Declaiiniug -upon the sea- 
 shore would have been a tender, miljl sort o|j.d^^^pline\om- 
 pared to it. Mothers brought their bjft^%ia^<fe^eyicpi^ted 
 with me for a hearing; coughs and Wieezes aii^ clearings of 
 husky throats were seldom suppressed ;^ i^d iuost ot Ji^ cheer- 
 ing, if done at all, came from the leather-clad'palm of the 
 foot, rather than from the softly sonorous surface of the hand. 
 
6 Bykon a. Finney 
 
 But these country-people had as good hearts and as healthy 
 brains as can be found in city or university, and I always went 
 away in love with mj- audience. 'You have let considerable 
 light into this district,' said one bright-eyed farmer boy; 'and 
 you've started me on the up-track.' My payment for that 
 evening's work was five dollars and a half in money, and a 
 compliment estimated at, at least, a million dollars. The 
 rough, homespun fellow who gave it may not read this, for he 
 has gone on into the Great Unknown ; but he holds an earthly 
 residence in at least one heart. 
 
 ''My resources from the platform slowly increased, and finally 
 resulted in enough to pay a fair portion of the expenses of a 
 college course. Soon after graduation, I began to receive calls 
 from various towns in the State, which were becoming ac- 
 quainted with me through my literary work. This soon ex- 
 tended to adjoining states, and so all over this country and 
 England, and gave me some very interesting experiences, and 
 many first-class exhibits of human nature." 
 
 President J. W. Mauck, of Hillsdale College, who knew Cxir- 
 leton well for so many years, expressed the following apprecia- 
 tion of him in the Collegian, the Hillsdale College semi-monthly 
 magazine, for January 9, 1913 : 
 
 "We best knew him as Will Carleton. Few ever heard his 
 second name, McKendree — from the bishop of the Methodist 
 church, given to him by the parents of whose genuine faith and 
 life he has spoken in tender filial terms in the writer's pres- 
 ence. His graduating part in June, 1869, was a poem (Rifts 
 in the Cloud), whose merit President Fairfield attested by 
 seizing a bouquet from the platform and throwing it to the 
 
 young poet after he had taken his place with his class 
 
 He was long a trustee of the college, a member of the board 
 when he died, and although he could not regularly attend its 
 meetings, he took a lively interest in its proceedings and in all 
 things that concerned the institution. He was wont to exju-ess 
 his gratitude to the college which, he said, had befriended him 
 
Will Carleton 7 
 
 at a time wlien he could not have gone far from home, and 
 made possible for him a better and more fruitful career. 
 
 "He was married March 2, 1882, to Adora Niles Goodell, a 
 charming woman who had served with the highest efficiency as 
 a Christian missionarj- in Burmah and was compelled by im- 
 paired health to return home. During her several visits to 
 the college she won the hearty esteem of all who met her. They 
 lived most happily until separated by death in a peculiarly 
 sad and sudden way. He had returned from a lecture tour 
 and they were unusually buoyant at dinner. She went to her 
 room to prepare to go with him to a lecture when, attracted 
 by a fall, he hurried to her just as she expired from apoplexy. 
 Mrs. Carleton was the founder of one of the well-known 
 missionary bands of young women, and Mr. Carleton liberally 
 supported it both before and after her death. In a measure 
 known to feAv, hospitals, homes for the needy and unfortunate 
 individuals found in him a generous benefactor in material 
 aid, bestowed in a simple way, and enriched by an almost 
 prodigal use of his time in personal calls and entertainments. 
 In such service he contributed as much in the current flow of 
 life as others who have become more widely known by one 
 or a few of the more conspicuous gifts. A larger part of his 
 somewhat liberal income went into such channels than the 
 
 public kncAv Mr. Carleton did in effect 'dip his pen in his 
 
 own heart and wrote of the hopes and the loves and the tears* 
 of humanity. He voiced Avith fidelity the homely sentiments 
 which are common to all, but which few can express, and he 
 ennobled those emotions which are more vital than the most 
 finished literary forms or highest intellectual -reaches. He 
 stirred the springs of the saner emotions, inspired men to 
 better resolves and shamed them for their foibles and pre- 
 tences." 
 
 Carrying out the idea of President ilauck, of Hillsdale Col- 
 lege, it was arranged that Mr. Carleton should be present at 
 his old home and birth place, east of Hudson, for a ''home- 
 
8 Byron A, Finney 
 
 coming" on Saturday, October 26, 1907, as near as possible to 
 the poet's birthday. 
 
 A special train from Hillsdale brought faculty and students, 
 and citizens from all along the line. The following towns were 
 represented: Coldwater, Quincy, Hillsdale, Osseo, Pittsford, 
 Clayton, Blissfield, North Adams, Reading, Jonesville, Hudson, 
 Adrian. 
 
 Mayors and representative citizens brought resolutions of 
 honor and appreciation. Farmers located away from the rail- 
 road drove in from many miles, and trains made stops at the 
 farm house during tlie day. 
 
 The following description of the occasion is from the pen of 
 James O'Donnell Bennett as reported in the Chicago Record- 
 Eerald of Monday, October 28, 1907 : 
 
 ''It is a striking thing that a farming region for a radius of 
 fifty miles should pour out its plowmen and parsons, school 
 children and its shopkeepers to honor the man who had taught 
 them that there was poetry in every aspect of their practical 
 lives and the sedate landscape. Half a mile down the highway 
 from the Carletou farm stands the stocky, box-like little white 
 schoolhouse where the poet learned his three ''II's." They call 
 it now the "Carleton School," and a portrait of him hangs on 
 the walls along with one of the president. A flag fluttered in 
 the doorwa}'. Great sprays of asparagus and red berries were 
 the interior decorations. To this one-story, one-room structure, 
 which stands in a lonely place at the intersection of the roads, 
 tlie pilgrims repaired at 9 o'clock. In accordance with ancient 
 district school tradition the room was insufferably hot, a sheet 
 iron stove working overtime in the centre aisle. On the black- 
 board in the round, correct hand of the teacher were chalked 
 these words : 
 
 Boys flying kites haul in their white-winged birds; 
 You can't do that way when you're flying words. 
 Thoughts unexpressed may sometimes fall back dead. 
 But God Himself can't kill them when they're said." 
 
 The lines were signed "Carleton." 
 
AViLL Carleton 9 
 
 There was much speechifying at the schoolhouse, which was 
 packed with old friends, who were called upon by President 
 Mauck as if they still were school children. Mr. Williams, now 
 the dignified Chicago publisher in the Fine Arts Building, 
 was introduced as "Little Jimmy Williams who will now speak 
 his piece." 
 
 "Bless me, bless me," he responded as he clambered on a 
 chair. "Nobody has called me that since I was a boy out here," 
 and he recalled how, when he and Rose Hartwick Thorpe, 
 author of "Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night," were teaching 
 school together in 1S69, he had arranged the first programme 
 of public readings Will Carleton had ever presented. It was 
 for the benefit of a fund to buy an organ for the school. Mr. 
 Carleton, when he mounted the chair, addressed the assemblage 
 as follows : 
 
 "Fellow Pupils, and Schoolmaster and Boys and Girls — I 
 look around this room and I pick out the places where I used 
 to sit; sometimes it was over by that window, sometimes there, 
 sometimes, I grieve to say, on the floor when I had been bad 
 and was caught at it. In a general way I may say that I 
 sought the best place and then held it down as long as I could. 
 I have been trying to do that in life ever since." 
 
 He told how he had been larruped by the schoolmaster when 
 he was detected writing a combination of epigram and epitaph 
 that should embalm the failings of that long-gone pedagogue 
 and he insisted that he never would have been caught if the 
 rhyme for the last line had not stumped him and caused a 
 fatal delay. A baby began to cry lustily while he was speaking 
 and there were ominous whispers from some of the committee- 
 men. "That kid was named after me. Don't put him out. I 
 can talk louder than he can. It's all right." 
 
 Then he spoke of the old days and he thought they were 
 good days, "but those are better," he said, "we must not fondle 
 the past too much. We want to go forward. Look ahead. 
 You'll be happier for it. Keep on the pilot of the engine if 
 you can." 
 
10 Byron A. Finney 
 
 Then he recited that rich, racy old poem of his, "The School- 
 master's Guests," and after that the Pilgrims trooped down the 
 highwa}' to the homestead, where there were more speeches. 
 
 This house is the original of the one Mr. Carleton describes 
 in one of the most affecting of his poems, "Out of the Old 
 House, Nancy; Moved Up Into the New." He incorporated 
 it into the speech he made from the porch. The structure has 
 been enlarged and is now a trim, white two-story dwelling 
 with one ell. The old part is the ell and it bears its more 
 than seventy years nobly. There you can see the rooms which 
 once were one, for the poem says, "Kitchen, bedrooms, parlor, 
 we had 'em — all in one." Now there is a telephone in the 
 doorway old chief Bawbeese blessed. An iron windmill clacked 
 sarcastically in the yard while the poet of the plain people was 
 speaking. The turf around the house is green and firm where 
 once stood a virgin forest. Barns and outhouses rise in the 
 rear of the house and to-day farm wagons from all over the 
 neighborhood are bivouacked there. Mr. and Mrs. J. Emmett 
 Kies now farm this place for Mr. Carleton. 
 
 As he surveyed the throng around him he said : 
 
 "If I were in the habit of letting my feelings overcome me I 
 would be crying now. If anybody else here wants to cry, 
 however, I shall be glad to see them at it. Dear neighbors, I 
 don't know why you should honor me today as you do by your 
 presence here. In regard to this locality and my relations 
 with it I don't want to be egotistical, but I know that is what 
 you want me to talk about. I had a father — a mighty good 
 one, too — and if it were he whom you met to honor you would 
 understand it. Maybe he's here today. I hope he is. 
 
 "My sweet mother, I used to think, lived in two worlds at one 
 time, here and in heaven. But her religion was cheery and 
 helpful. Night after night she was with the sick — not as a 
 trained nurse, except as love and duty and devotion trained her 
 — not as a paid nurse except as God was her pa3'^master. 
 
 "Three years ago my wife, who I pray could have lived to see 
 this day, went away to a better land, and on her tomb in 
 
Will Carleton 11 
 
 Greenwood we carved the words, 'She made home her palace.' 
 So I stand here the last of my race. 
 
 ''Friends, this spot is very dear, very sacred to me. From 
 where I stand the throne of grace has been invoked not 1,000 
 times, not 5,000 nor 10,000, but as I compute it 30,000. And 
 so I say to you that great influences are hovering here, teaching 
 us still that unless our hands take hold on the world above, 
 out feet can find no firm foundation in this world we inhabit 
 here." 
 
 He closed by reciting "Out of the Old House, Nancy," for 
 them and then there was great handshaking and album signing 
 and good old-fashioned visits and the singing of "'My Country, 
 'Tis of Thee." 
 
 Thus was the poet of the farm crowned l)y the people of 
 Michigan with the maple leaves of gold and scarlet that he 
 loves. They did it because he has added something to the 
 body of poetry that all the world knows and has committed to 
 the heart of memory. 
 
 The Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society has had oppor- 
 tunity to express personal appreciation of the poet of the 
 pioneers. In response to a request from the society, Mr. Carle- 
 ton gave an address at its annual meeting in Lansing, on the 
 evening of June 8. 1910, Avhich was thus reported, in the 
 "State Kepublican" this following day: 
 
 "Will Carleton is what some people would call a natural 
 poet, in that his poetry has nothing to do with what he would 
 call the 'high falutin' aspects of life. This is the idea one 
 gets from his poetry and that is the idea that he gives when 
 seen in person. His talk before the Michigan Pioneer and 
 Historical societj' Wednesday evening brought this year's ses- 
 sion to a pleasing and fitting close. He talked of Michigan 
 folks and ways and recited several of his Michigan poems in 
 so entertaining a manner that an uncomfortably large audience 
 sat, stood and perched around the senate chamber for two 
 hours in order to catch every word he said. 
 
 " 'I am glad of the opportunity to talk before the Michigan 
 
12 Byron A. Finney 
 
 Pioneer and Historical society and am well fitted to speak 
 abont the early days/ said Mr. Carleton. 'I know all about 
 the pioneer daj^s, I know all about the hardships of those 
 times and I know all about the wilderness and its dangers. 
 :\ry father told me.' " 
 
 Mr. Carleton went on to tell about his early experiences as 
 a pupil and a teacher in a district school and in the course 
 of his talk recited such favorite selections from his own works 
 as 'Elder Lamb's Donation Party,' 'The District School,' 'The 
 Old Log House,' and 'Over the Hill to the Poor House,' to the 
 great delight of his audience. Besides these he took occasion 
 to introduce some small exposition of his philosophy of life." 
 
 That Carleton had a message for his readers, and that he- 
 wrote for their sympathy and friendship, is clearly seen in his 
 preface to the "City Legends" (1889), as follows: 
 
 "It will be noticed that these Legends are divided into seven 
 different Chains. Whether the links of dialogue and interlude 
 with which they are connected be gold, silver, or base metal, 
 the author will not say — he really does not pretend to know. 
 Whether the pendants of poems that hang from them be dia- 
 monds, pearls, rubies, or worthless paste, how can he guaran- 
 tee? Literary jewelry (if poetry may be so called) depends 
 largely for its value upon the eyes that gaze upon it and the 
 hearts that wear it. 
 
 The real preface to this book is formed by those which have 
 preceded it from the same author ; a like purpose actuates them 
 all. But he takes another opportunity to thank his large 
 family of readers for their continued faithfulness and loyalty, 
 and to assure them that he is still laboring to deserve their 
 respect and affection." 
 ^ Harper's Weeldy, in which the early "Farm Ballads" ap- 
 peared in 1871, and to which Carleton occasionally contributed 
 poems and articles in prose throughout his life, has this to 
 say of liim in its nuiuber for December 2S. 1012, the next issue 
 after his death : 
 
 "With the passing of Will Carleton, America loses the most 
 
Will Carlbton 13 
 
 popular of lier poets and the one whose writings have been 
 more widely read and appreciated than those of any poet since 
 the days of Whittier and Longfellow. There is hardly an 
 English-speaking home in America — it might almost be said 
 in the English-speaking world — where 'Over the Hill to the 
 Poorhouse' and 'Betsey and I Are Out' are unknown. Will 
 Carleton's Avorks still command heavy sales, and selections 
 from his poems have long ago been incorporated into popular 
 anthologies. As a lecturer Carleton was well known tlirough- 
 out this country, and if lie occupied a comparatively small 
 space in the columns of the periodical press it was because 
 he had been known so long that he had been accepted as an 
 institution. He was little discussed because he had passed 
 
 into histor}' 
 
 •'Will Carleton had a happy knack of attr-acting the reader 
 by the simplicity of his themes and their pathetic or humorous 
 appeal. His poem, 'The Sandalmaker of Babylon,' whicli ap- 
 peared in Harper's Weekly as long ago as 1889, was reprinted 
 in this publication, by request, in the issue of October 28, 1911." 
 To settle any question as to lack of cordiality in the relations 
 between Messrs. Harper and Bros, and Mr. Carleton during 
 late years on account of his publications being issued by the 
 Everywhere Publishing Co., let me quote tlie following letter 
 received from Harper and Bros, under the date of February 2, 
 1914: 
 "Dear Sir : 
 
 ''Your letter of the 31st ultimo is at hand. 
 "In reply, we hasten to assure you that, as we wrote you, our 
 relations with Mr. Will Carleton were uninterrupted until his 
 death. There was nothing but cordial feeling on both sides. 
 He was frank and straightforward in his dealings, honorable 
 in his business transactions and highly appreciative of similar 
 treatment on the part of others. He had, we thought, a high 
 sense of business honor. We hold him in respect, and we be- 
 lieve that he entertained the same feeling toward us. 
 
 ''Very truly yours, 
 
 "Harper & Brothers." 
 
14 Byron A. Finney 
 
 Like all great master spirits who have risen above their 
 surroundings to stand as types of their people and to voice 
 their moods and feelings, their actuals and their ideals, Carle- 
 ton was not alone the embodiment of his own genius, but the 
 product of his age and environment. The farmer-pioneers 
 needed a voice to sing the exaltation of their homely life — and 
 he responded. From their own body came the singer, with 
 their heart-throbs bursting into song. 
 
 Michigan should not, and shall not, forget her poet. In 
 Monroe County we have named a village after him, and there 
 are "Carleton" reading clubs. Though the farmer pioneers 
 shall pass away, their children and their children's children 
 will cherish the memory of him who sang their struggles and 
 their aspirations. It will be the good fortune of the school 
 children of Michigan, of whom Carleton was one, to hold dear 
 the memory, and to honor the example, of the poet who proved 
 the value of an education and devoted it to the service of his 
 fellow people. 
 
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