Category: 1818

December, 1818

December was a full month, some of which Gallison never got around to reporting until January. We have tales of holiday social life, several significant sermons, and a first visit to the Peace Society. Gallison had recently joined this Federalist organization, and was to give its annual address at the end of 1819.

In this later speech, he used his vision of church history to attack the extreme patriotism exhibited by Republicans during the War of 1812. Gallison’s fusion of Christianity, suspicion of classical ethics, and contempt toward the Jefferson/Madison segment of the United States polity suggests the beginning of a transition from orthodox Federalism toward Whiggery. Its core argument was foreshadowed by the sermon Channing delivered to President Monroe in July, 1817.

October, 1818

Here we have some lengthy reports of sermons, of interest to those looking at Unitarian theology.

Gallison also shares glimpses of two famous authors: Hannah Adams (1755-1831), the writer on religious topics who appeared at a dinner, and—indirectly, through Miss Adams’s opinion— Hannah More (1745-1833), the English poet, playwright, and moralist.  

In less cheerful news, Gallison reached his thirtieth birthday—still single.

September, 1818

Apart from a report of a mysterious sea-serpent, September’s entries are typical of Gallison’s later writing.  He had begun his journal in 1807 as a commonplace book.   Even after he began to add accounts of daily life, in Volume B, he continued to devote a substantial fraction of his entries to self-improvement.  Thoughts on religion came to displace readings in the classics, but served much the same purpose.

This month contains several reports of Sunday sermons– Channing’s, in particular.  If Gallison was a little too distracted to keep perfect notes on all of them, his candid disclosure of that makes its own contribution to his quest for personal growth.

August, 1818

[As a reminder, click on the colored links to reach the relevant Gallison journal excerpts or other external documents.]

August, 1818, brings a resumption of the Journals from the year before. Missing volumes I and J account for most of the gap from our last entries, but Gallison also notes that he had not had a book to write in for some time after Volume J was finished.  Increased professional and social success had still not translated to genuine financial comfort.

In this entry, we get a few brief glimpses of the ZipHorse (ZipChaise?) app that allowed a less-affluent urbanite like Gallison to make trips out of town before the arrival of the railroad and the automobile.

His intellectual life was active at this time.  In particular, the article on Bristed he mentions was a scathing 10,000-word review of the newly-published The Resources of the United States of America; or, A view of the agricultural, commercial, manufacturing, financial, political, literary, moral and religious capacity and character of the American people.  Published in Volume 7 of the North American Review, Gallison’s piece spends a lot of time correcting Bristed’s opinions of American law and government at the federal and state levels, and is worth study for that reason alone.

He had also been reading a fair amount for pleasure, especially Walter Scott.

The most important item this month for his own CV, and sense of well-being, was his receipt of an honorary master’s degree at Harvard.  The College had been putting feelers out for a few years about repairing relations with one of their outstanding and successful students, to make up for expelling him just before his graduation in 1807.  Among other things, they had discussed re-admitting him so that he might take his bachelor’s degree.  Continuing to respect the oath he made to his classmates, however, Gallison had consistently refused to accept re-entry until all others had also been forgiven.  The grant of the MA was a face-saving maneuver that made everyone happy, especially as it occurred just after he had helped organize his class’s reunion.