John Townsend Trowbridge

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John Townsend Trowbridge (Sept. 18, 1827-1916) was a popular American author born in Ogden, New York to Windsor Stone Trowbridge and Rebecca Willey. His papers are located at the Houghton Library at Harvard University.

Trowbridge received an unremarkable education, and after teaching and working on a farm for one year in Illinois, settled in New York City where he wrote for journals and magazines. He moved to Boston about 1848, and in 1850, during the absence of Benjamin Perley Poore in Washington, D. C., edited Poore's paper, the Sentinel, but his editorial on the fugitive-slave law nearly destroyed the paper's popularity. He married Cornelia Warren (May 1, 1834 - Mar. 23, 1864) in 1860, and was resident for many years in Arlington, Massachusetts. He also spent much time in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he built Spouting Rock Cottage, near to Spouting Rock and Blowing Cave, both of which he named.

His novels include Neighbor Jackwood (1857), an antislavery novel; The Old Battle-Ground (1859); Cudjo's Cave (1864); The Three Scouts (1865); Lucy Arlyn (1866); Neighbors' Wives (1867); Coupon Bonds, and Other Stories (1873); and Farnell's Folly.

Trowbridge wrote numerous works under the pseudonym of Paul Creyton, including The Midshipman's Revenge (1849), Kate the Accomplice, or, The Preacher and the Burglar (1849), The Deserted Family, or, Wanderings of an Outcast (1853), Father Brighthopes, or, An Old Clergyman's Vacation (1853), Burr Cliff: its Sunshine and its Clouds (1853); Martin Merrivale: His X Mark (1854), Iron Thorpe (1855), Neighbor Jackwood (1857).

Among his very many juvenile tales are The Drummer Boy; The Prize Cup; The Lottery Ticket; The Tide-Mill Stories; The Toby Trafford Series; The Little Master; and the Jack Hazard series. His published volumes of verse include: The Vagabonds [his best known poem], and Other Poems; The Emigrant's Story, and Other Poems; A Home Idyl, and Other Poems; The Lost Earl; and The Book of Gold, and Other Poems. At Sea and Midsummer are considered two of his finest poems.

In Darius Green and his Flying Machine, Trowbridge penned the following prophetic verse: "Darius was clearly of the opinion / That the air is also man's dominion / And that with paddle or fin or pinion, / We soon or late shall navigate / The azure as now we sail the sea."

Since his death he has been well known as a friend of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman.