{"id":"01KG8AM2S3DXPK4W34428KPMTG","cid":"bafkreiewd34ismcipcjhbfdh5f3tx7nko2wdvu5gy4ros3hrha4yyxqooa","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":140,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.200Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","start_line":84,"text":"INTRODUCTION TO THE EDITION OF 1892\r\n\r\nBy Arthur Stedman\r\n\r\nOf the trinity of American authors whose births made the year 1819 a\r\nnotable one in our literary history,--Lowell, Whitman, and Melville,--it\r\nis interesting to observe that the two latter were both descended, on\r\nthe fathers’ and mothers’ sides respectively, from have families of\r\nBritish New England and Dutch New York extraction. Whitman and Van\r\nVelsor, Melville and Gansevoort, were the several combinations which\r\nproduced these men; and it is easy to trace in the life and character\r\nof each author the qualities derived from his joint ancestry. Here,\r\nhowever, the resemblance ceases, for Whitman’s forebears, while worthy\r\ncountry people of good descent, were not prominent in public or private\r\nlife. Melville, on the other hand, was of distinctly patrician birth,\r\nhis paternal and maternal grandfathers having been leading characters in\r\nthe Revolutionary War; their descendants still maintaining a dignified\r\nsocial position.\r\n\r\nAllan Melville, great-grandfather of Herman Melville, removed from\r\nScotland to America in 1748, and established himself as a merchant\r\nin Boston. His son, Major Thomas Melville, was a leader in the famous\r\n‘Boston Tea Party’ of 1773 and afterwards became an officer in the\r\nContinental Army. He is reported to have been a Conservative in all\r\nmatters except his opposition to unjust taxation, and he wore the\r\nold-fashioned cocked hat and knee-breeches until his death, in 1832,\r\nthus becoming the original of Doctor Holmes’s poem, ‘The Last Leaf’.\r\nMajor Melville’s son Allan, the father of Herman, was an importing\r\nmerchant,--first in Boston, and later in New York. He was a man of much\r\nculture, and was an extensive traveller for his time. He married Maria\r\nGansevoort, daughter of General Peter Gansevoort, best known as ‘the\r\nhero of Fort Stanwix.’ This fort was situated on the present site of\r\nRome, N.Y.; and there Gansevoort, with a small body of men, held in\r\ncheck reinforcements on their way to join Burgoyne, until the disastrous\r\nending of the latter’s campaign of 1777 was insured. The Gansevoorts, it\r\nshould be said, were at that time and subsequently residents of Albany,\r\nN.Y.\r\n\r\nHerman Melville was born in New York on August 1,1819, and received\r\nhis early education in that city. There he imbibed his first love of\r\nadventure, listening, as he says in ‘Redburn,’ while his father ‘of\r\nwinter evenings, by the well-remembered sea-coal fire in old Greenwich\r\nStreet, used to tell my brother and me of the monstrous waves at sea,\r\nmountain high, of the masts bending like twigs, and all about Havre\r\nand Liverpool.’ The death of his father in reduced circumstances\r\nnecessitated the removal of his mother and the family of eight brothers\r\nand sisters to the village of Lansingburg, on the Hudson River. There\r\nHerman remained until 1835, when he attended the Albany Classical School\r\nfor some months. Dr. Charles E. West, the well-known Brooklyn educator,\r\nwas then in charge of the school, and remembers the lad’s deftness in\r\nEnglish composition, and his struggles with mathematics.\r\n\r\nThe following year was passed at Pittsfield, Mass., where he engaged in\r\nwork on his uncle’s farm, long known as the ‘Van Schaack place.’ This\r\nuncle was Thomas Melville, president of the Berkshire Agricultural\r\nSociety, and a successful gentleman farmer.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJPEC98TTS3YB9XGWRJ1C","peer_type":"frontmatter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM2RXYRN3FTNKYDZQJ78Y","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.379Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:32.671Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}