WILLIAM CHAPMAN HEWITSON

Here’s a person who was intrigued by birds and insects, who hadbeen a surveyor, who built his own house overlooking water in asmall community near a metropolis, lived alone there for manyyears, and had neck whiskers and no offspring. Nobody has everdescribed him as being like Henry Thoreau, because he wasn’t.

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

William Chapman Hewitson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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January 9, Thursday: The body of Horatio Nelson, after having been conveyed on a black-canopied funeral barge on the River Thames from Greenwich to the Admiralty in Whitehall, was interred at St Paul’s Cathedral.

It was inside a coffin fashioned of wood from the mainmast of the French flagship L’Orient destroyed at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, which had then been cased in lead inside an outer wooden coffin, with all this inside a gilt outer casket that had been specially designed by the Ackermann brothers. In this painting by Daniel

1806

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Turner we can see that there had been more than 60 barges in this funeral procession:

The first newspaper illustration which accurately depicted a news event while it was still topical was prepared by an artist who had witnessed that event, in that The Times of London published a woodcut.

William Chapman Hewitson was born in Percy Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in a house opposite the Haymarket, as the 2d son of Middleton Hewitson, Esquire, a gentleman in independent circumstances. His early education would begin at Kirkby Stephen, Westmorland and would be completed at York, where he would be articled to a land surveyor, Mr. John Tuke. At a very early point in his life he would begin to form collections of British coleoptera and lepidoptera, and devote his attention to the study of birds’ eggs.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

William Chapman Hewitson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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August 19, Wednesday: By this point the young William Chapman Hewitson had returned to Newcastle to pursue a career as a surveyor. On this date he and fellow students there held the initial meeting for a Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne (he would be a member of this society’s committee, and honorary curator of its entomological department).

Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin left Vienna for Warsaw.

John Stewart and Catherine Wright –who had been traveling around seeking employment, meanwhile sustaining themselves by doping successive travelers with laudanum, robbing them and killing them– were executed in Edinburgh. The husband and wife were allowed a last embrace, the wife was hooded, and then the husband, after which there were a few minutes for prayer. At the drop “the female struggled a good deal, but the man appeared to die easily.” An assembled multitude offered “hissing and other marks of disapprobation.” When the bodies had been suspended for the required amount of time, they were cut down and given to Dr. Alexander Munro “tertius,” Professor of Anatomy1 at Edinburgh University, for dissection.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

4th day 19th of 8 M / Enoch & Lydia being gone to Lynn to attend the Qtly Meeting there we sat the Meeting with our family alone.

NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

1829

1. When Charles Darwin had been a student in 1825, he had been so disgusted by Professor Munro’s appearance in arriving in the classroom after dissections that he had written home “I dislike him & his lectures so much that I cannot speak with decency about them. He is so dirty in person & actions” (in 1828 Darwin dropped medicine in favor of theology).

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

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Professor James Rennie’s THE ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS (The Library of Entertaining Knowledge. London: Charles Knight, Pall Mall East). This author’s INSECT ARCHITECTURE and his INSECT TRANSFORMATION had been printed in London in the previous year. Henry Thoreau would own a copy of each of these, in addition to this author’s INSECT MISCELLANIES, issued in two volumes during this year — but although he did make use of the volume on THE ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS, we do not now have evidence that he owned a personal copy

1831

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of it.

INSECT MISCELLANIES

ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS

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The initial of the two volumes, plus supplement, of William Chapman Hewitson’s2 BRITISH OÖLOGY: BEING ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS, WITH FIGURES OF EACH SPECIES, AS FAR AS PRACTICABLE, DRAWN AND COLOURED FROM NATURE: ACCOMPANIED BY DESCRIPTIONS OF THE MATERIALS AND SITUATION OF THEIR NESTS, NUMBER OF EGGS, &C (Published for the author, by Charles Empson, Newcastle upon Tyne).

Thoreau would consult these volumes in the library of the Boston Society of Natural History.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

2. Hewitson was intrigued by birds and insects, had been a surveyor, built his own house overlooking water in a small community near a metropolis, lived alone there for many years, and had neck whiskers and no offspring. He wasn’t in any way like Thoreau.

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William Chapman Hewitson undertook an egg-collecting journey to the Shetland Islands.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.

LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

1832

William Chapman Hewitson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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To discover the breeding places of some migratory species of birds, William Chapman Hewitson undertook an expedition to Norway. He was accompanied by his friends John Hancock and Benjamin Johnson, with the aim of gathering plants, birds, and insects. During their visit within the Arctic circle where the sun was visible at midnight, they were forced by the harshness of their circumstances to subsist on birds they shot. Hewitson’s diary of this expedition would be used for pieces on ornithology which would appear in Sir William Jardine’s Magazine of Zoology.

The 4th volume of Charles-Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte’s AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY, OR, THE NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS INHABITING THE UNITED STATES NOT GIVEN BY WILSON (Philadelphia).

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1833

AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY

William Chapman Hewitson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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June 1, Friday: The final portion of William Chapman Hewitson’s BRITISH OÖLOGY: BEING ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS, WITH FIGURES OF EACH SPECIES, AS FAR AS PRACTICABLE, DRAWN AND COLOURED FROM NATURE: ACCOMPANIED BY DESCRIPTIONS OF THE MATERIALS AND SITUATION OF THEIR NESTS, NUMBER OF EGGS, &C went through the presses of Charles Empson at Newcastle.

The Boston Transcript announced, somewhat prematurely it would seem, that their intrepid master goldbeater and aeronaut Louis Lauriat was intending to cross over the Atlantic Ocean in his balloon.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

1838

William Chapman Hewitson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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Major James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was appointed commissioner for the survey and exploration of the northeast boundary of the United States, to serve along the Maine and New York frontiers (this would occupy him until 1843).

Salma Hale would serve as the secretary to the commission appointed under the Treaty of Ghent for determining the northeastern boundary line of the United States.

William Chapman Hewitson moved from Newcastle to Bristol, where he would be employed as a surveyor3 under George Stephenson on the railway between Bristol and Exeter (he would soon relocate to Haaverstock Hill in Hampstead, and finally he would come to reside at Oatlands in Surrey).

The first public schools opened in North Carolina, based on a plan that had been drafted in 1817. The new State Capitol was completed. This was a railroad train, in Wilmington:

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1840

3. This railway surveying was precarious since, due to extreme opposition by local landed proprietors, much of it needed to be done at night by torchlight. Stevenson employed men to frequent the local taverns and report when the local land guards were off duty, and much of the levelling work for the railroad right of way would be being performed surreptitiously while these guards were in their cups.

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October 6, Wednesday: The President of the Boston Society of Natural History reported that a copy of Wm. C. Hewitson’s BRITISH OÖLOGY had been donated to the society’s library.

Frederick Douglass addressed the Worcester County North Division Anti-Slavery Society at the Town Hall in Holden, Massachusetts.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MINDYOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

1841

William Chapman Hewitson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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November 3, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson lectured at the Concord Lyceum in Concord on “Nature and Powers of the Poet.”

Dr. Abbot reported to the Boston Society of Natural History on the set of volumes that had recently been added to their library, Hewitson’s OÖLOGY.

At about 3AM in the early morning in Cabul, Afghanistan, the 37th native infantry under Major Griffiths had reached the temporary safety of the cantonment. They had been able to bring their wounded and their baggage with them, but were followed almost to the gates by about 3,000 Giljyes. On this day Lieutenants Maule and Wheeler would be murdered at Kahdarrah in Koohdaman while their Kohistan regiment of Affghans offered no resistance to the murderers. On this day, also, Lieutenant Rattray, Major Pottinger’s assistant, would be murdered at Lughmanee in the course of a conference to which he had been invited. These murders were followed by general insurrection in Kohistan and Koohdaman, which accomplished the destruction of the Goorkha regiment at Charikar, and the slaughter of all the Europeans in that district except the severely wounded Major Pottinger and Lieutenant Haughton, who, with one sepoy and one or two followers, were able to sneak at night through the bazaars and streets back into the compound. Here is Lieutenant Eyre:4 “Early in the afternoon, a detachment under Major Swayne, consisting of two companies 5th native infantry, one of Her Majesty’s 44th foot regiment, and two H.A. guns under Lieutenant Waller, proceeded out of the western gate towards the city, to effect, if possible, a junction at the Lahore gate with a part of Brigadier Shelton’s force from the Bala Hissar. They drove back and defeated a party of the enemy who occupied the road near the Shah Bagh, but had to encounter a sharp fire from the Kohistan gate of the city, and from the walls of various enclosures, behind which a number of marksmen had concealed themselves, as also from the fort of Mahmood Khan, commanding the road along which they had to pass. Lieutenant Waller and several sepoys were wounded. Major Swayne, observing the whole line of road towards the Lahore gate strongly occupied by some Affghan horse and juzailchees, and fearing that he would be unable to effect the object in view with so small a force unsupported by cavalry, retired into cantonments. Shortly after this, a large body of the rebels having issued from the fort of Mahmood Khan, 900 yards southeast of cantonments, extended themselves in a line along the bank of the river, displaying a flag; an iron nine-pounder was brought to bear on them from our southeast bastion, and a round or two of shrapnell caused them to seek shelter behind some neighbouring banks, whence, after some desultory firing on both sides, they retired. Whatever hopes may have been entertained, up to this period, of a speedy termination to the insurrection, they began now to wax fainter every hour, and an order was dispatched to the officer commanding at Candahar to lose no time in sending to our assistance the 16th and 43d regiments native infantry, (which were under orders for India,) together with a

4. Lieut. V. Eyre (Sir Vincent Eyre, 1811-1881). THE MILITARY OPERATIONS AT CABUL: WHICH ENDED IN THE RETREAT AND DESTRUCTION OF THE BRITISH ARMY, JANUARY 1842, WITH A JOURNAL OF IMPRISONMENT IN AFFGHANISTAN. Philadelphia PA: Carey and Hart, 1843; London: J. Murray, 1843 (three editions); Lieut. V. Eyre (Sir Vincent Eyre, 1811-1881). PRISON SKETCHES: COMPRISING PORTRAITS OF THE CABUL PRISONERS AND OTHER SUBJECTS; ADAPTED FOR BINDING UP WITH THE JOURNALS OF LIEUT. V. EYRE, AND LADY SALE; LITHOGRAPHED BY LOWES DICKINSON. London: Dickinson and Son, [1843?]

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troop of horse-artillery and half a regiment of cavalry; an order was likewise sent off to recall General Sale with his brigade from Gundamuk. Captain John Conolly, political assistant to the Envoy, went into the Bala Hissar early this morning, to remain with the King, and to render every assistance in his power to Brigadier Shelton.”

Over the following few months of the winter what would follow would be the massacre of Sir Alexander Burnes and his associates, the loss of the British commissariat fort in Cabul, the defeat of the troops under Brigadier Shelton at Beymaroo, the assassination of British envoy and minister Sir William Macnaghten, and the utter destruction of a retreating group of 5,000 fighting men with upwards of 12,000 camp-followers, culminating at Gundamuk, Afghanistan with the extermination of the remnant.

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April 30, Wednesday: The Ellery Channings had agreed to pay the Browns of Concord $600.00 for 20 acres of woods and fields on the slope of Ponkawtasset Hill, a mile out of Concord on the Carlisle road, and was shopping for a laborer to construct a cottage and barn on this land for them. Waldo Emerson recorded “Ellery has just bought his land. Mr. Thoreau is building himself a solitary house by Walden Pond.”

1845

TIMELINE OF WALDEN

EMERSON’S SHANTY

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Brigham Young “got married with” Emmeline Free.

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Two uncles and his father having died leaving him as their heir, William Chapman Hewitson suddenly found himself with significant wealth (he would take up residence at Hampstead and devote himself to scientific research, and three years later would be in residence in a home specially designed for him by the architect John Dobson in Oatlands in Surrey near the Thames River leading into London).

An Elizabethan royal palace had been nearby the home Hewitson would have constructed for him at Oatlands, although due to demolitions and fires over the centuries, other smaller houses had taken the place of the regal structure that had been depicted on this 1825 meat platter:

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Summer: The leader of the conservative party in Lucerne, Joseph Leu von Ebersol, was murdered in his bedroom.

William Chapman Hewitson and Mr. John Hancock made an excursion into the Swiss Alps during which they were able to collect a series of Diurnal Lepidoptera. News of this would appear in the Zoologist.

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In London, Endell Street was constructed. Twopenny omnibuses began to circulate between Paddington and Hungerford Market.

John Andrew engraved “The Wandering Jew,” a reproduction after Henri Valentin.

William Chapman Hewitson began to publish the volumes of THE GENERA OF DIURNAL LEPIDOPTERA in conjunction with the entomologist Edward Doubleday (completed in 1852). He became a member of the Entomological Society of London.

Returning to London, Philip Henry Gosse plotted a trilogy on the natural history of Jamaica made up of:

1846

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• THE BIRDS OF JAMAICA (would appear in 1847)

• POPULAR BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY; CONTAINING A FAMILIAR AND TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES, ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BIRDS OF JAMAICA (would appear in 1849)

THE BIRDS OF JAMAICA

BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY

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• A NATURALIST’S SOJOURN IN JAMAICA (would appear in 1851).

A SOJOURN IN JAMAICA

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In London, W.H. Smith’s 1st bookstall opened, as did Simpson’s Restaurant in the Strand. Waterloo Station opened, replaced Nine Elms as the terminus for the London & South Western Railway. In Harley Street, Queen’s College (the 1st school for the higher education of women) opened its doors.

At about this point William Chapman Hewitson purchased some 11 or 12 acres of Oatlands Park near Oatland-on-Thames in Surrey just southwest of London, formerly the seat of the Duke of York, where he would reside for three decades in a house designed for him by the architect John Dobson within a grove of grand old oaks and cedars of Lebanon, on a prominence with a view of Windsor Castle.

1848

Another Fine House Designed by John Dobson

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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE; WITH OBSERVATIONS ON VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE; AND THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR. BY THE LATE REV. GILBERT WHITE … WITH ADDITIONS AND SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES BY SIR WILLIAM JARDIN … ED.,… London, H.G. Bohn.5

The initial volume of what would become a 5-volume set published at London by Van Voorst, ILLUSTRATIONS OF NEW SPECIES OF EXOTIC BUTTERFLIES, SELECTED CHIEFLY FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF W. WILSON SAUNDERS AND WILLIAM C. HEWITSON (3 more volumes would appear between 1862 and 1871, and a final volume in 1878).

1851

5. The Reverend White’s NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE is only the 4th most reprinted book in the English language.

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At about this point William Chapman Hewitson got married, but his wife would die within the year and there would be no children.

At some point during this year Martha Annie Williams Forshey, 2d wife of Caleb G. Forshey, died. She was survived by her child John Maynard Forshey.

1853

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June 21, Monday: At the Boston Society of Natural History, Henry Thoreau consulted William Chapman Hewitson’s BRITISH OÖLOGY: BEING ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS, WITH FIGURES OF EACH SPECIES, AS FAR AS PRACTICABLE, DRAWN AND COLOURED FROM NATURE: ACCOMPANIED BY DESCRIPTIONS OF THE MATERIALS AND SITUATION OF THEIR NESTS, NUMBER OF EGGS, &C (Charles Empson, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1831-1838).

June 21. Vide at Cambridge, apparently in prime, Silene inflata; also, in a rich grass-field onSacramento Street, what may be Turritis glabra (?), also in prime, the last three or four feet high. Both pressed.Talked with Mr. Bryant at the Natural History Rooms. He agrees with Kneeland in thinking that what I call themyrtle-bird’s is the white-throat sparrow’s note. Bryant killed one Down East in summer of ’56. He has livedthe last fifteen years at Cohasset, and also knows the birds of Cambridge, but talks of several birds as rare whichare common in Concord, such as the stake-driver, marsh hawk (have neither of their eggs in the collection),Savannah sparrow, the passerina much rarer, and I think purple finch, etc. Never heard the tea-lee note ofmyrtle-bird (?) in this State. Their large hawk is the red-shouldered, not hen-hawk. He thinks that the sheldrakeof the Maine lakes is the merganser, the serrator belonging rather to the seacoast. Of the two little dippers or

1858

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grebes, he thought the white-breasted one would be the commonest, which has also a slender bill, while theother has a brownish breast and a much thicker bill.The egg of the Turdus solitarius in the collection is longer, but marked very much like the tanager’s, only paler-brown. They have also the egg of the T. brunneus, the other hermit thrush, not common here.

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In London, William Chapman Hewitson became a member of the Zoological Society.

In the Sudan, Jumbo Elephant was born. His name derives from the Swahili word for chief, “jumbe.” At the London Zoo he would be able to carry a hundred children at a time. His favorite between-meal snack would be gingerbread. He would be killed by a train and become the mascot of Tufts College (what now remains of

1859

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Jumbo is in a peanut-butter jar).

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William Chapman Hewitson became a member of the Linnean Society.

1860

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William Chapman Hewitson began to publish the volumes of ILLUSTRATIONS OF DIURNAL LEPIDOPTERA (completed in 1878).

1863

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William Chapman Hewitson’s DESCRIPTIONS OF SOME NEW SPECIES OF LYCAENIDAE.

1868

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William Chapman Hewitson’s ILLUSTRATIONS OF NEW SPECIES OF EXOTIC BUTTERFLIES: SELECTED CHIEFLY FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF W. WILSON SAUNDERS AND WILLIAM C. HEWITSON (London, John Van Voorst).

1872

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May 28, Tuesday: After being for many years a hypochondriac, William Chapman Hewitson died at the age of 72 at his estate Oatlands near Oatlands Park in Surrey, near the River Thames leading into London. The body would be placed in the churchyard at nearby Walton-on-Thames and a monument of granite would subsequently be placed over the grave. When his wealth would be probated in the following month, the residue would be discovered to amount to less than £70,000 (presumably this was because he had needed to pay so much to publishers to secure completion of the multiple volumes describing his butterfly collection). His lands were designated for his closest friend, John Hancock, while the British Museum received his butterfly collection purchased from travellers throughout the world, his stuffed birds, some pictures, and some watercolors. His library of works on natural history, with a legacy of £3,000, would go to the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne. A considerable sum would go to charities, and £20,000 would be divided among 58 of his other friends.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

1878

William Chapman Hewitson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2015. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at <Kouroo@kouroo.info>.

Prepared: February 21, 2015

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.

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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology —but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary“writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place requests with <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. Arrgh.