People of Prominence

Walt Whitman, who is now called "the good gray poet," was, in his youthful days, a prominent New York Bohemian, a frequenter of Pfaff's, a noted Bohemian resort on Broadway, whose atmosphere was redolent of lager beer and tobacco smoke. Here might be seen nearly every night, from 12 o'clock to daylight, some 30 years ago, Henry Clapp, Jr., the King of Bohemia, with George Arnold, Fitz-James O'Brien, William Winter, "Miles O'Reilly," Walt Whitman, etc. Whitman wrote his "Leaves of Grass," and not finding any publisher bold enough to print it, he set up matter himself in a Brooklyn printing office, and Fowler & Wells, out of compassion, kept the book for sale at their store on Broadway.