Non-chronological Journal Entries

Deletions

To prepare his journals for future reading Gallison left many marginal notes, with additions, observations, and references to previous or subsequent entries being quite common.

One other interesting component of his editing is his deletions. Broadly speaking, he made two kinds. One, transparent and frugal with ink, served to delete an error that he didn’t want to forget completely. A blind alley in his work on Euclid and an unduly pessimistic theological note received that treatment in Volume A.

In a few other places, he resorted to obliteration. His intent for the journals was always that he should be the only reader. Nevertheless, he occasionally wrote reports that might have embarrassed someone were they to be discovered later, and those get a very different treatment.

The link above leads to a conversation with Uncle Sewall in the summer of 1812. Federalists were talking increasingly openly about secession from the union, and Sewall or someone in his inner circle seems to have said something that would have led to censure after the War of 1812’s conclusion.

Greatest Hits (pinned)

Anyone lacking the patience to read through Gallison’s journal in chronological order may enjoy these individual entries, which draw interest well beyond their place in any given year.

Volume A opens with Gallison’s telling of his ambitions for the journal. Beginning it in early 1807, his senior year, he intended, in part, to use it to compensate for deficiencies in his Harvard education. Already, we see evidence of precocious learnedness, serious intent, and considerable narrative skill.

Only a few months later, Gallison’s expulsion from Harvard created the first trauma of his adult life. Lengthy reflection on his role in the “Cabbage Rebellion”— a protest against the quality of dining hall food— crystallized both his conservative temperament and affection for Harvard. In tension with these sentiments— and almost uniquely in his class— he elected to honor his oath never to return unless all his classmates were forgiven. Harvard eventually found a face-saving way to bring him back into the fold, granting him an honorary master’s after it was clear that he would never accept the BA. But it was a long and hard trial for his conscience.

Next, we have two entries from the busy summer of 1812. The first airs out some arguments presented by Federalists who were happy to borrow Jeffersonian tactics– namely, threats of nullification and secession– to put a spoke in the wheel of the Madison administration as it prepared for war against Britain. Temperamental and cultural favor toward Britain (or, at least, opposition to Democratic-Republicans and France) led many politicians to abandon ideological positions when convenient.

The other entry records the town meeting at Faneuil Hall , called to discuss sending delegates to a convention. This was thoroughly reported in the newspapers, but Gallison provides detail only known to himself, and he catches the mood quite vividly. Fearing that an extra-legal convention might lead to dissolution of the Republic, Gallison was one of a few to vote against it, even while accepting the main Federalist point that the war was unwise. Walking a fine line between dissent and loyalty to a strong national government, he then joined a volunteer militia company. Unexpectedly, the eventual arrival of the Hartford Convention two years later caused him much less worry. By then, however, he knew that moderates would run the show and were not about to cause any real trouble.

From July 1817, we have the arrival of President James Monroe into Boston. While some labeled this visit as the beginning of an Era of Good Feelings, Gallison and his spiritual mentor William Ellery Channing were not nearly so enthusiastic. When the President attended a service at the Federal Street Church as part of his charm offensive, Channing’s sermon made clear his disdain for those who sought unnecessary military glory– implicitly including the Democratic-Republican hawks who had led the United States into war against Britain just five years before. For his own part, Gallison did his best to avoid unnecessary contact when Monroe called upon the former Mrs John Hancock for old times’ sake.

Finally, for those seeking material unconnected to political strife, we have the story of a friend’s unsuccessful battle with manic depression, strung out over several years. Anyone interested in historical attitudes toward mental illnesses might find this useful.

Faneuil Hall, 1812

Thoughts of not-exactly-two-centuries ago:

One of the benefits of showing a newcomer around town is reminding myself of what I have come to overlook. In New York, the obvious places that locals never go include the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. In Boston, Faneuil Hall is pretty high up on that list, but we were able to break at least one of my old habits by sneaking in to visit for a few minutes near closing time.

I had definitely forgotten, if I’d ever noticed, how difficult it is to comprehend the Great Hall’s size. While shorter front-to-back than Boston’s Symphony Hall, it is nearly square and thus holds a deceptively large number of people. Especially when combined with its intimate dimensions, this seating capacity would have contributed in no small degree to the boisterousness of the town meeting that rattled Gallison’s nerves in August, 1812.

That meeting was held to discuss a convention as a possible response to the Baltimore Riots, in which a Republican mob had attacked a Federalist newspaper after the declaration of war against Britain. The rioters assaulted and nearly killed, among others, “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, the Revolutionary War hero and father of young Robert Edward.

While the meeting approved selection of delegates by an overwhelming majority—Gallison’s was one of only six votes against—not much came out of it until two years later at the end of 1814, when the Hartford Convention met. By that time, Gallison was less worried about the potential outcome. His patriotism and enthusiasm for national union hadn’t changed, but he had a better sense of who the delegates might be and what would be on their agenda. In spite of a lot of wild talk in the radical Federalist press, moderates were calling the shots, and their final report was tame to the point of anti-climax.

Gallison’s report of the 1812 meeting is quite consistent with newspaper accounts. Still, it offers scraps of conversation not printed in the papers, and uses a pleasingly vivid style of writing, epitomized by a quote from Walter Scott toward the end. Taken in all at once, it leaves a searing impression of one man’s emotions as he contemplated the potential dissolution of union, led by the party that had only a short time before been most in favor of a strong national government.

Edmund Burke

Not too long ago, a colleague was commenting on how much Americans revere political quotations– sound bites, others might say– to the point of carving them in stone, not to mention placing them on the inevitable bumper stickers.

Many of these come from our Old Testament texts, of course—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We also honor the language of our New Testament prophets. In Washington, DC, you can find a monument filled with words from one who worked to fulfill the more cheerful prophecies of the Declaration, while pushing the three-fifths compromise onto the back shelf next to the famous bits of Deuteronomy. All before being murdered on Good Friday, 1865.

But the original question was: why not Edmund Burke, the famous British parliamentarian? Or other pre-Revolutionary figures, many of whom made important contributions to what eventually became American law and society?

A related question might be when Americans started ossifying sound bites from our heritage. Perhaps that habit began with Washington’s death in 1800, although that is only a semi-educated guess.

Going back to the original question, Gallison’s journals do add a little color to Burke’s posthumous fame in America. He put Burke on his self-imposed reading list, even in his very first entry, when he was just coming to grips with how little Harvard was teaching him. He revisited Burke’s speech on reconciliation with America several times, showing signs of having memorized some of the juicier passages a few years later. (Memoriter = from memory, as for a school assignment.) Interestingly, the other speech he saw fit to memorize concerned the Nabob of Arcot’s debts.

Focusing more on Burke’s speaking voice than his language or politics, President Adams’s recollection is a pleasant byway in a memorable luncheon just one month before Gallison’s death in 1820.

All of this suggests that Burke was well-known to Gallison’s educated circle. If nothing else, Burke’s oratory would have provided a useful model for debate and public speaking to a young law student, even one who didn’t share Gallison’s patriotism and conservative Whiggish temperament.

Nevertheless, the lengths of the later journal entries, in comparison to their mentions of Burke, show that even though Burke’s reputation remained solid, he wasn’t necessarily at the top of everyone’s mind.

Mathematics homework from Harvard: studying the heavens from the bottom up (c. 1807).

I ran across this document while searching in Harvard’s archives for information on John Gallison’s time there. Its only connection to my topic was his signature at the bottom, but it nevertheless opens a breathtaking view into a corner of his college years. As fun as it can be to dream about changing historical paradigms from the top down, even a master landscaper should take time to smell the roses once in a while. Craftsmanship matters, and we do have it here, on so many levels.

It shows the calculation of a lunar eclipse: a mathematical thesis that would have been part of John Gallison’s undergraduate curriculum, probably as part of his application for graduation honors. It is one of a series of similar documents, made between 1782 and 1839, that Harvard keeps in its increasingly-digitized archives.

(http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hua17004, or http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.ARCH:4880552 .)

Made from ink on a 17 x 22¾” piece of paper (43 x 58 cm), this document would have would have taken hours to prepare even after the math was completed. According to the archivists, many students were insecure enough in their penmanship that they would farm their final draft out to a professional before handing it in. The handwriting on this paper, however, is imperfect enough, and similar enough to Gallison’s other manuscripts, that he likely sweated it out himself.
The math behind the drawing makes its own statement about craft. GPS and inexpensive software packages mean that most people no longer have to make these kinds of calculations. Up into the 20th century, however, many more people than the odd software engineer needed to know how this all worked if they were to think of travelling the world—which they did in great quantities.
The Archives’ web page lists Henry Badger as having led the way in 1888. A longer list—conservators Christina Amato, Bill Hanscom, and Adam Novak (all from the Harvard University Libraries’ Weissman Preservation Center), Colin Lukens, and Jennifer Pelose—all contributed to cleaning, stabilizing, and re-housing all of these documents in 2010. And they cannot have done what they did without considerable institutional support, not to mention the engineers and scientists who make it possible for you to see all this work on your smart phone. The rosters above don’t even start to account for the small, but vital group who still know how to read what is on this page, and write their own history about it.

Enjoy!

January 1, 1814

Jan 1, 1814 presents a small digression, while we wait for the 1818 journal entries to resume. Among other things, we have a reappearance of Greenwood and his illness, and a year-end account by the author of his own finances.

Making a living as a lawyer in wartime Boston, which was already suffering from nearly a decade’s worth of trade restrictions, could not have been easy, even for a young man of his diligence, talent and training. It is not quite clear why Gallison rejected orthodox Calvinist theology, but his persistent lack of material success may have made that easier to swallow.

February, 1817

Journal Entries from February 1817, Volume H

Lots of day-to-day socializing in this month, with a few tidbits about Gallison’s legal practice and a concise report of William Ellery Channing’s view of gender roles and responsibilities.

We now look back ten years earlier to make an Important Digression on… the Expulsion. Here is the link to Gallison’s account from Volume A.

[Further notes coming soon.]

January, 1817

Entries from January 1817, Volume H

Like many Federalist gentlemen with close ties to Harvard, Gallison was a committed Unitarian. The “Mr Channing” he mentions was the Rev. Mr William Ellery Channing, the famed Unitarian minister of what is now the Arlington Street Church in Boston. He had arrived at Channing’s church, then on Federal Street, as a young man too reserved to approach the great minister for some months. By the end of his short life, however, Gallison was close enough to Channing that he earned a lengthy and affectionate obituary.

Channing Memoir_of_John_Gallison_Esq_

By 1817, Gallison devoted more and more of his journal to reporting and meditation on Channing’s sermons and other religious matter. He had always used it as something of a commonplace book for self-improvement, devoting half of each volume to personal study even after he decided it might also be useful to record events of his daily life. The main difference, as time went on, is that religion and his spiritual life replaced philosophy, history, and mathematics as subject matter.

Exhibit II

Aunt Scott, was, as noted earlier, the widow of Governor John Hancock. Already aware of the mismanagement of her affairs by her second husband and his associates, she was beginning the process of adjusting her balance sheet and daily expenses.

His comment on Mrs. Greenwood brings to a close one of the longest sub-plots of his journal– the steady decline of her manic-depressive husband. Anyone with an interest in medicine or social attitudes toward mental illness in this period may find the following excerpts useful:

Greenwood excerpts, Volumes D-H