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Mentioned in Pseudonyms of Authors: Including Anonyms and Initialisms

Born in Albany, Abraham Oakey Hall lost his father to yellow fever at the age of three and entered the public school system. He excelled in journalism from an early age, and his earnings from contributions to various periodicals helped him pay for his education at the University of the City of New York. By 1844 Oakey had received a B. A. and an M. A., followed by a semester of study at Harvard Law School. His studies at Harvard were cut short, possibly due to a lack of money, and he went to work at Charles W. Sanford’s New York City law office (Carman).

Fitz-Greene Halleck was born in Guilford, Connecticut to a family descended from the earliest Pilgrim Fathers. Halleck completed New England schooling at the age of fourteen, after which he served as a clerk to kinsman Andrew Eliot for six years. Eliot sent him on business to New York in 1808, where he met his future employers Jacob Barker and John Jacob Astor. He could join the Connecticut militia and open an evening school for clerk-related matters before returning to the city in 1811 at the age of twenty-one (Wilson).

Charles Graham Halpine was born in Oldcastle, co. Meath, Ireland to Reverend Nicholas John Halpin and Anne Grehan. Although originally educated for the medical and law professions at Trinity College in Dublin, the early death of his father caused Halpine to take up journalism. Immigrating to the United States in 1851 (Boarse), he initially supported himself by working in advertising and later as the private secretary to P. T. Barnum (Monoghan). He would later become a well-known poet and journalist most recognized under the name Miles O’Reilly.

Henry William Herbert was born into a decorated family in London to parents Rev. William Herbert and Hon. Letitia Emily Dorothea. He emigrated to the United States in 1831 and he spent the following eight years working as a professor of Latin and Greek at a New York City school. His brilliance as a teacher was undeniable; “as a classical scholar he had few equals in this country . . .

George Jones was born in London in 1810 and immigrated to Boston at the age of six. He made his first appearance on stage in 1828 at Boston’s Federal Street Theatre, and became manager of the Marshall Theatre in Richmond in 1839. That same year, Jones’ first wife Melinda gave birth to Avonia, who would become a popular actress. “In 1833 he was installed Count of Sertorli of the Holy Roman Empire, of the First Commander of the Imperial Order of Golden Knight and Count Palatine, and thereafter always wore in public the insignia of his knighthood” (“Queries and Answers”).

Charles Kingsley was one of several men who were associated with the Fred Gray Association, "a loose confederation of young men who seemed anxious to explore new possibilities of male-male affection" (Folsom & Price “Walt Whitman”). E. Miller explains that “during this period Walt [Whitman] was intimate with a group he called the Fred Gray Association. Not much is known about this circle. Gray, the son of a noted New York physician, took a medical degree after the war. Nathaniel Bloom became a successful merchant. Hugo Fritsch was the son of the Austrian consul.

Born in Philadelphia, Charles Godfrey Leland Leland received his early schooling in Massachusetts and Philadelphia, where Bronson Alcott was one of his teachers. He contributed short poems to newspapers before the age of fifteen. After graduating from Princeton in 1846, Leland traveled to Europe and spent two years studying in Germany. In 1848 he participated in uprisings in Paris before returning to Philadelphia to study law.

Charles Edwards Lester was born in Griswold, Connecticut, a descendant of Jonathan Edwards. After graduating from the bar, he entered Auburn theological seminary but stopped preaching due to frequent hemorrhages of the lungs. Venturing to Great Britain in 1840 to improve his health, he was appointed U.S. consul in Italy and remained there six years before returning to New York City.

Robert Shelton Mackenzie was born June 22, 1809 in Limerick, Ireland. Mackenzie began his newspaper career editing a county journal in Hanley, Staffordsville, England. After writing for various papers and contributing several biographies to the Georgian Era, Mackenzie was appointed the English correspondent for the New York Evening Star in 1834, possibly making Mackenzie the first European correspondent to any American paper (Baugh).

Born and raised in New York City, Robert Henry Newell entered the world of journalism at age twenty-two. His submissions to various periodicals “achieved immediate recognition” and brought him a job offer from the New York Sunday Mercury. During the Civil War, Newell wrote the “Orpheus C. Kerr papers, originally initiated in the form of Washington correspondence to the Mercury . . .

Also known by the alias “Bayard," Franklin J. Ottarson was a successful New York journalist, editor, and civil servant. Born in Watertown, New York, Ottarson learned the trade of the printing business in a Whig newspaper (possibly the Whig or the Tribune Almanac) (Brockway 172). Under the editorship of Horace Greeley, Ottarson was part of the “very strong” Tribune staff of 1854 along with Bayard Taylor (Brockway 141). Ottarson is perhaps best remembered for his editorship, first at the Tribune and later at the New York Times.

Often credited with inspiring the Pfaff's Bohemians, Edgar Allan Poe was born January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. He enlisted in the army on May 26, 1827 under the name Edgar A. Perry. He received an appointment to West Point and entered the Military Academy on July 1, 1830 but was later dismissed after neglecting his duties. Poe received his first recognition as a writer in 1833 when he won a prize of $50 in the Baltimore Saturday Visitor for his story, "A MS.

Irishman John Savage showed early artistic promise, winning the silver medal of the Royal Dublin Society at art school in 1847. While at school he became involved with the “Young Ireland” movement, which ultimately led to Savage’s early forays into journalism. Savage supported insurrection in actions as well as words and had to flee to the United States as a result, arriving in New York City on November 7, 1848. Shortly after his arrival he met Horace Greeley who hired him as a proofreader for the New York Tribune.

Henry Wheeler Shaw was one of the "brightest and most popular humorous men of the day" (J. Derby 239). He was best known as a talented "humorist, a homespun philospher [sic], and a conscious literary artist. One of his chief strengths was originality; in such a graphic epigram as ’when a feller gits a goin down hil, it dus seem as tho evry thing had bin greased for the okashun,’ even the deliberate misspellings fade into the background behind the compelling image" (Kesterson). At age seventeen, Shaw began a ten year exploration of western portions of the United States.

While there is scant evidence that Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) ever visited Pfaff's bar (only one source suggests that he did [Rawson 99]), he was connected to the Pfaff's bohemians in a number of ways.

An editor, poet, journalist, and short story writer, Nathan Dane Urner had a prosperous literary career, serving as the city editor of the New York Tribune (Current Literature 479) as well as publishing poems like “Consolation,” “A Lesson in Skating,” “The Harvest Meeting,” and “The Snow Sprites” in periodicals like The Independent, Scribner’s, The Continent, and The Massachusetts Ploughman.

Born in small-town New England, Charles Browne began his career as a young contributor to the Boston Carpet Bag, a humor magazine, and later at Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer he adopted the persona of circus showman Artemus Ward. As Ward, he began writing letters from this fictional character whose travels inspired social commentaries, satires, and burlesques.

Andrew C. Wheeler's journalistic career began in 1857 when he started writing for the New York Times. He worked at the Times for six months and then left to report on the lawlessness of the western frontier. He later used the experiences of his two years in Kansas, Iowa, and Colorado as material for his novella, The Iron Trail (1876). During the Civil War, Wheeler worked as a war correspondent for several newspapers. He also submitted articles under the penname "Trinculo" to papers like the Leader.

Remembered as "a man of brilliant talent and singular charm," Edward Wilkins' career included the roles of editorial writer, musical and dramatic critic, and playwright. He was raised in Boston where he began his journalism career.

Born second in a family of nine children in Maine and schooled in Boston, Willis attended Yale and traveled extensively in Europe. His sister was Fanny Fern, a member of the Pfaffian crowd. In 1831 he left Boston to join the editorial staff of the New York Mirror as a traveling correspondent discoursing on matters of taste and fashion. Like his fellow Pfaffians, Willis expressed admiration for the work of Edgar Allan Poe and even claimed an acquaintance with him.

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