Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men of Chicago
Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men in Chicago, Photographically Illustrated by John Carbutt, 1868, Pages 451-456
If it be true that poets are born, not made, it is equally true of journalists. Education may do much for them in widening the area of their efficiency, or sharpening the point of the weapon wielded; but the true newspaper man is a production of Nature in the latter days, and the fruit of her best experiences. Whether it be his province, as a feuilletonist, to shoot folly on the wing; as a news-gatherer, to draw the thousands of daily facts into his net; as an editor, to marshal and arrange with lightning speed; as a word-painter, to depict and explain; as a reviewer, to deduce conclusions; as a “leader,” to battle against error or direct public opinion; as any or all of these, and much more, the weapon or tool placed in his hands is Titanic in its proportions, and requires the strength of the mental giant to handle it to advantage. The journalistic plume may be assumed by the ordinary man, but the weapon turns in his fingers, and, sooner or later, he follows the example of Dogberry and is written down an ass.
The real journalist, like the painter or musician, is one from his cradle. The juvenile inspiration which lisps in numbers grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength, until the period of nature’s decay. Those on whom the journalistic afflatus alights during the years of maturity, shine but transiently; their light soon goes out in darkness. The endurance of journalistic force is only found where inbred; the universality of vision, accuracy of perception, rapidity of appreciation, quickness of judgment, fluency of thought and continuity of energy required on the daily newspaper are sui generis.
George Putnam Upton is one of those men who were born tor the newspaper—cut out by the hand of Dame Nature to observe the doings of his fellow-mortals, and write of them daily for the information, instruction, edification and amusement of the masses. He commenced as a schoolboy, and has continued as a man, being now in the zenith of his power, full of mental vigor and ready originality, while many of those who started with him in the active career have ceased to write because exhausted—pumped dry—by that incessant suction which soon tells the difference between the well filled by surface water and that supplied by the living spring. After many years . of exhaustive effort, his thoughts still flow forth full, free, fresh, original, as at first, while his style has been improved and his knowledge increased since then by exercise and experience.
George P. Upton was born October 25, 1834, at Roxbury, Massachusetts, a near suburb of Boston. His parents were of New England origin, and in comfortable circumstances. At the age of twelve years he entered the Roxbury Latin School, probably the oldest school in the United States, and fitted himself for college. He entered Brown University September 6, 1850, the late Dr. Wayland being then President, and graduated with high honor September 6, 1854, being class poet. Immediately after graduating, he undertook the charge of a school at Plymouth, Massachusetts, but finding it uncongenial to his tastes, he resigned after one term, and thus quickly concluded his efforts in the only department of labor outside of journalism in which he ever engaged.
Mr. Upton very early exhibited a decided penchant for writing, and, unlike the efforts of most young writers, his productions were at once recognized as valuable, because practical. While in college he wrote numerous short essays, poems and stories, which were published in Dow’s (Boston) Waverley Magazine, the usual first resort for fledgling writers. He next wrote some serial stories for Gleason’s Pictorial, the pioneer of the illustrated papers of the United States, and for the Flag of Our Union, a weekly paper also published in Boston. These were followed by a long serial published in the Boston Pilot, a Catholic paper, which elicited warm encomiums and fully established his reputation as an able writer.
In the autumn of 1855, just after he had attained his majority, he joined the “innumerable caravan” then setting westward, and came to Chicago. Within two days of the time he arrived in the city, he struck the newspaper mine, in one or other of whose veins he has since labored so successfully. He became reporter on the Daily Native Citizen, a Know-Nothing paper, then owned by Simeon B. Buckner, a citizen of Chicago, who has since made himself notorious as a General in the rebel service. The Citizen was published by W.W. Danenhower, one of the pioneer booksellers of Chicago, whose store was then in the old Saloon buildings on the site of the present telegraph office. The paper was issued from Ernst Prussing’s real estate buildings, then standing on the spot now occupied by the Sherman House. The principal editors of the Citizen were Washington Wright, recently deceased in California, and William H. Merriam, late of the New York Herald. The paper had but a weakly existence, its leading editors were erratic, and during the absence of the publisher John Phoenix-ised it by changing its tone from Know-Nothing to Whig. From Whig it changed to Democratic, and then returned to Know-Nothingism. It struggled along for some time in mortal combat with the dread disease, impecuniosity, and at last yielded up the ghost. Mr. Upton was connected with it but a little while, and quitted it before the final crash; he was not, therefore, injured by the collapse.
The year 1855 was yet unexpired, though flickering in its socket, when he accepted the position of commercial reporter for the Chicago Evening Journal, and in that capacity attended the daily sessions of the Board of Trade, in a small room on Dearborn street, between Lake and South Water. He soon after added to these duties those of local reporter, and formed the first distinctive local column in the city, covering the same general ground in the two departments as is now occupied on a morning paper by ten men.
Mr. Upton was soon known as a valuable writer-up of local incidents, his narrations being full as to facts, and the language happily chosen. He paid particular attention to musical matters, writing the first real criticisms on musical performances which ever appeared in a Chicago paper. He has continued these criticisms to the present day, and has made his influence widely felt, in pointing out faults and abuses. While on the Journal, he also commenced the publication of the celebrated Gunnybags letters, which were continued weekly for several years, and kept up their interest to the last. He distinguished himself, too, on the Journal, by the publication of the very full reports of the celebrated Burch trial, which appeared in that paper, and aided very much by his letters in moulding the public opinion on the side of Mrs. Burch.
In the autumn of 1860, he took the local chair of the Chicago Tribune, and filled that position with marked ability. In the spring of 1862, he went South as war correspondent for the Tribune, and accompanied the Union fleet from Cairo to Memphis, writing up the accounts of the capture of Columbus, New Madrid, Island Number Ten, Fort Pillow, &c. He was compelled by sickness to return, and then resumed his position as city editor of the Tribune, which he held till about the midsummer of 1863, when he married, and took the position of news editor. He filled that position till very recently, when he threw aside the more mechanical part of his labors for the critical. He is now the musical, art and dramatic critic, and reviewer of books for the Tribune—a position for which he is as well qualified, by nature and education, as any man living. He owns a few shares of Tribune stock, and hence, though not one of the large stockholders, is a member of the Tribune Company.
Mr. Upton has especially signalized himself, while on the Tribune, by his musical criticisms, in which he has displayed a fund of knowledge, a cultivated taste, and a happiness of expression, possessed by very few. The musical articles of the Tribune have all, with very few exceptions, been written by him, and have done much to elevate the standard of the sonic art in Chicago. He is fearless in his censures, without being unjust or needlessly severe, and his judgment is as near faultless as is permitted to humanity to be. In opera, especially, he is at home, and not only grasps with a master’s hand the salient points, but does so without losing sight of the minutest details.
He is equally noted as a dramatic critic, though in this respect he does not feel so much at home. His annotations on the acting of Charles Kean were widely read, and his articles on Ristori were universally regarded as the best that have been written, East or West. They were word-pictures of the great artiste, almost equally as truthful and minute as her own vivid delineations of character, and indicated a large acquaintance with the fields of thought she has evidently explored so deeply. They showed at once the well-read classicist, the polished thinker, and the close student of human nature.
Mr. Upton’s art notices have always been noted for their fullness and fairness. They show the writer to be a master of the subject, having the eye of an artist, without the fine frenzy in which that organ is sometimes found rolling. A picture to win praise from him must be worthy of it; and then the beauties are dissected out in his sketch in such a way that the reader has the points of the picture spread out before him, and so truthfully that an examination of the subject will always justify the critic, both in his praise and censure. His criticisms are not the expression of a mere fanciful like or dislike, as is too often the case, but based on a critical survey by one whose good taste is undoubted, whose observation has been extensive, and who, while not given to verbal cruelty, is yet fearless in his strictures, and cannot be swayed to the right or to the left by persuasion, cajolery, or flattery.
The Gunnybags letters will long be remembered by their wide circle of readers as highly interesting sketches of the ridiculous phases of fashionable life, full of vivacity and sparkling with satire. They were suspended some three years since, not because they had lost their interest, but for the reason that their author was not willing that they should fade before dying.
Gunnybags was cut off in the flower of his manhood, like Mercutio. His mantle did not, however, fall to the ground; it rested on the shoulders of “Peregrine,” over whose signature the readers of the Tribune have, for months’ past, found a weekly chit-chat on all the current topics of the day, cooked up, so to speak, with all the savoir faire of a Blot in the cuisine. These letters are noted for their quiet humor, the quick appreciation for weak spots exhibited by the writer, and the unerring aim with which the follies of the day are winged, in their rapid flight across the field of our mental vision.1
Mr. Upton is a fluent writer, and almost equally at home on all subjects—the kind of man to make a successful editor. His descriptions are exact and truthful, his figures accurate, his memory active and never at a loss. His wide range of ability, his fluency of thought, his readiness of adaptation, are sufficiently shown in the above sketch; they will be better understood by a knowledge of the fiict, that while attending to his dailv round of duties in the office, he has found time to correspond regularly with several diffijrent newspapers, to supervise the issue of Higgins’ Musical Review, to edit for nearly a year the Northwestern Insurance Chronicle, to write a work on The Diseases of the Horse, now in press, and to pursue thoroughly the study of numismatics. In this latter branch of research he has made great progress, having amassed a collection of medals which is the finest in the West, and probably has no superior in the States or in private collections. He has contributed much to numismatological literature, having written a series of articles on the Coins of Scripture, published in the Northwestern Christian Advocate, an exhaustive article on Chinese Coinage, for the New York Numismatic Journal, a Romance of Coinage, published in the Continental Monthly, and numerous smaller articles on the same subject.
In person Mr. Upton is tall, of medium build, with oval features, light hair, ruddy complexion, and nervous-sanguine temperament. He is a straight-forward, thorough-going, outspoken man, polite in his demeanor, but averse to paying or receiving compliments. He is never in a hurry, but always punctual, and supplies a living contradiction to the peripatetic axiom that light-haired people are not reliable. He is emphatically a fair man, one who scorns to take an undue advantage or betray a confidence. During the many years he has been in Chicago, he has probably never had a personal trouble with any one, and this without any sacrifice of his independence. Though not Chesterfieldian, the motto of Chesterfield is the rule of his life— Suaviter in modo, et fortiter in re. He was married October, 1863, to Miss Sarah E. Bliss, of Chicago, and formerly of Worcester, Massachusetts. One child, born in November, 1865, is the present result of their union.
NOTES:
1In 1869, G. P. Upton, the musical critic of the Chicago Tribune, published a series of letters in book form, which were written over the nom de plume of “Peregrine Pickle.” These letters treated social subjects in a light and pleasant fashion. The Western News Company were the publishers, and when they were burned out, the plates of Mr. Upton’s book were lost. Mr. Upton was also author of the Gunnybags Letters, and attained reputation as a translator.
In 1872, Mr. Upton, along with James W. Sheahan, wrote The Great Conflagration. Chicago. Its Past, Present and Future. He died from pneumonia at his home in Chicago on May 19, 1919
Leave a Reply