Congdon, Charles Essayist, Journalist, Poet. Born April 7th, 1821 in New-Bedford, Massachusetts, Charles Taber Congdon began his  journalistic career early in his life by cleaning the floors of the &lt;em&gt;New Bedford Courier &lt;/em&gt; and delivering papers. Describing this period of his life, Congdon states that “a considerable portion of my infant untidiness was of printer&#039;s ink” (Congdon 10). Reflecting on these early morning deliveries, Congdon comments that, “the task was easy enough in the cool summer mornings, and I strolled along pleasantly, thinking of the book which I had read the night before, or of the other book which I intended to read in the evening. The very first verses which I wrote-- ‘Ode to Commerce,’ ‘Elegy on the Death of Chatterton,’ ‘The Seasons: in Four Parts’ were meditated during my pedestrian labors” (12-13). Later in 1837 Congdon attended Brown University (he provides details of this experience in his 1880 memoir &lt;em&gt;Reminiscences of a Journalist &lt;/em&gt;), but left the program after three years and returned to New Bedford. There he first worked as a reporter for the &lt;em&gt;Daily Register &lt;/em&gt; and later as editor of the &lt;em&gt;Daily Bulletin &lt;/em&gt; and associate editor of the &lt;em&gt;Daily Mercury &lt;/em&gt;.

In 1857 Horace Greeley personally asked Congdon to come to New York City and work for the &lt;em&gt;New York Tribune &lt;/em&gt;. During this time, he became known as &quot;Greeley&#039;s right hand man.&quot; Other &lt;em&gt;Tribune &lt;/em&gt; reporters noted that &quot;Congdon wrote from the head while Greeley wrote from the heart&quot; (J. Lee). Congdon was an avid supporter of the abolitionist movement. He is listed by Louis Starr as one of the &lt;em&gt;Tribune &lt;/em&gt; men who &quot;lived to destroy slavery root and branch&quot; and who helped to fill the columns of the &lt;em&gt;Tribune &lt;/em&gt; &quot;with allusions like &#039;the Land of the Legree and the Home of the Slave,&#039; items on runaways and slave auctions culled by the Southern press, [and] indictments of human bondage&quot; (18). While working for Greeley, Congdon also found time to publish articles in Artemus Ward&#039;s &lt;em&gt;Vanity Fair &lt;/em&gt;, the &lt;em&gt;North American Review &lt;/em&gt;, and the &lt;em&gt;Knickerbocker Magazine &lt;/em&gt;. Under the alias &quot;Paul Potter,&quot; Congdon contributed to the &lt;em&gt;Boston Courier &lt;/em&gt;. As a poet, he is best known for &quot;The Warning of War&quot; (1862).

Congdon was acquainted with many of the Bohemians, and he spent a great deal of time with them at Pfaff&#039;s. According to Tice Miller, &quot;The low ceilings, walls of stone, stacks of barrels, buxom waitresses, and eccentric clientele&quot; of the Pfaff&#039;s basement &quot;reminded journalist Charles T. Congdon of Auerbach&#039;s Cellar in Faust&quot; (15). He was also one of the &quot;friendly contributors&quot; to the &lt;em&gt;Saturday Press &lt;/em&gt; who &quot;were glad to furnish articles for nothing, being friendly toward the establishment of an absolutely independent critical paper, a thing practically unknown in those days&quot; (Winter, Old Friends 294-295).

William Winter described Congdon as a &quot;fine, erratic genius . . . many years afterward one of my colleagues and friends&quot; (Old Friends 130). Congdon, &quot;beloved by all newspapermen,&quot; spent his final years in a hotel near Washington Square in New York City (J.Lee). He died of heart failure in 1891 and was buried in New Bedford, Massachusetts.


References & Biographical Resources\n";
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/59018&quot;&gt;&quot;Appletons&amp;#039; Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume I, Aaron-Crandall.&quot; In &lt;em&gt;Appletons&amp;#039; Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume I, Aaron-Crandall&lt;/em&gt;, edited by Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske. New York: D. Appleton &amp;amp; Co., 1888.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;p class=&quot;list-group-item-text&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-field-mention-note&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;During his time at the &lt;cite&gt;Tribune&lt;/cite&gt;, he is noted for having contributed to numerous other journals and periodicals.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/56015&quot;&gt;&quot;Brigham Young’s Two Hours with Horace Greeley.&quot; &lt;em&gt;New-York Saturday Press&lt;/em&gt;, August 27, 1859, 2.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/56162&quot;&gt;Congdon, Charles T. &lt;em&gt;Reminiscences of a Journalist&lt;/em&gt;. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1880.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/60173&quot;&gt;Lause, Mark A. &lt;em&gt;The Antebellum Crisis and America&amp;#039;s First Bohemians&lt;/em&gt;. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/59334&quot;&gt;Lee, James Melvin. &lt;em&gt;Dictionary of American Biography&lt;/em&gt;. Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936. Reproduced in &amp;lt;cite&amp;gt;Biography Resource Center&amp;lt;/cite&amp;gt;. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2006. http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC, 1928.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/60174&quot;&gt;Levin, Joanna. &lt;em&gt;Bohemia in America, 1858-1920&lt;/em&gt;. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/55745&quot;&gt;Levin, Joanna Dale. &quot;American Bohemias, 1858-1912: A Literary and Cultural Geography.&quot; Ph.D Dissertation; Stanford University, 2001.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;p class=&quot;list-group-item-text&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-field-mention-note&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;Levin includes his remarks about the Romanticism of the cellar and how it reminds him of Auerbach&#039;s Cellar in Faust with its &quot;low ceilings, stone walls and stacks of barrels&quot; (20).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-field-mention-pages&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;[pages: 20]&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-edit-node&quot;&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/59047&quot;&gt;&quot;Literary Notes.&quot; &lt;em&gt;New York Saturday Press&lt;/em&gt;, May 17, 1859, 2.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/55929&quot;&gt;Miller, Tice L. &lt;em&gt;Bohemians and Critics: American Theatre Criticism in the Nineteenth Century&lt;/em&gt;. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1981.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;p class=&quot;list-group-item-text&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-field-mention-note&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;Miller mentions Congdon&#039;s comparison of Pfaff&#039;s to &quot;Auerbach&#039;s Cellar in &lt;cite&gt;Faust&lt;/cite&gt;&quot; (15).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-field-mention-pages&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;[pages: 15, 19, 24]&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-edit-node&quot;&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/55757&quot;&gt;Starr, Louis Morris. &lt;em&gt;Bohemian Brigade; Civil War Newsmen in Action&lt;/em&gt;. New York: Knopf, 1954.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;p class=&quot;list-group-item-text&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-field-mention-note&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mentions Congdon&#039;s abolitionist writings (18).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt; &quot;The witty Congdon&quot; did his part &quot;penning editorials in his book-lined study in Quincy, Massachusetts&quot; (18).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Of the mystique surrounding Greeley and the &lt;cite&gt;Tribune&lt;/cite&gt; among devoted followers of the paper around 1861, Congdon remarked upon the popular impression that Greeley edited every word that was printed in the paper, &quot;including shipping news&quot; (18).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Starr quotes Congdon as refering to Charles A. Dana as &quot;the Prince Regent&quot; at the &lt;cite&gt;Tribune&lt;/cite&gt; (19).Starr suggests that Congdon and other members of the &lt;cite&gt;Tribune&lt;/cite&gt; staff sensed Greeley&#039;s jealousy at Dana&#039;s control of the paper and closeness with key figures in the war, like General McClellan (96).Starr also remarks that the improvement the in editorial quality of the &lt;cite&gt;Tribune&lt;/cite&gt; under Gay made Congdon, &quot;the brilliant, bibulous editorial contributor&quot; &quot;ready to forget Dana.&quot;He wrote: &quot;You must know that the Tribune in my opinion never was a better paper.It is due to you to say this&quot; (133-134).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-field-mention-pages&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;[pages: 18,19,96,133-134]&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-edit-node&quot;&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/55290&quot;&gt;Winter, William. &lt;em&gt;Old Friends; Being Literary Recollections of Other Days&lt;/em&gt;. New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1909.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;p class=&quot;list-group-item-text&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-field-mention-note&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;During Winter&#039;s early days in New York, Congdon, &quot;afterward so highly distinguished as an editorial writer for &#039;The New-York Tribune,&#039; was adorning the columns of &#039;The Atlantis&#039;&quot; (54).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Congdon was a classmate of Oliver Wendell Holmes at Harvard, and Winter refers to his remarks about Holmes in his discussion of the writer (130).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Congdon is listed as a contributor to the &lt;cite&gt;Saturday Press&lt;/cite&gt; (294-295).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-field-mention-pages&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;[pages: 54,130,294-295]&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-edit-node&quot;&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;a href=&quot;/node/55748&quot;&gt;Wolle, Francis. &lt;em&gt;Fitz-James O&amp;#039;Brien: A Literary Bohemian of the Eighteen-Fifties&lt;/em&gt;. Boulder, Col.; University of Colorado, 1944.&lt;/a&gt;
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&lt;p class=&quot;list-group-item-text&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-field-mention-note&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wolle cites a description of his experience at Pfaff&#039;s from &lt;cite&gt; Reminiscences of a Journalist&lt;/cite&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-field-mention-pages&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;[pages: 100, 101]&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;views-field views-field-edit-node&quot;&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;field-content&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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