Text: Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Ollive Mabbott, “Prosper M. Wetmore” The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. IV: The Literati of New York City (2026), pp. 109-110 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 109:]

PROSPER M. WETMORE.(1)

General Wetmore occupied some years ago quite a conspicuous position among the littérateurs of New York city. His name was seen very frequently in “The Mirror” and in other similar journals, in connection with brief poems and occasional prose compositions. His only publication in volume form, I believe, is “The Battle of Lexington and other Poems,”(2) a collection of considerable merit, and one which met a very cordial reception from the press.

Much of this cordiality, however, is attributable to the personal popularity of the man, to his facility in making acquaintances and his tact in converting them into unwavering friends.

General Wetmore has an exhaustless fund of vitality. His energy, activity and indefatigability are proverbial, not less than his peculiar sociability. These qualities give him unusual influence among his fellow-citizens, and have constituted him (as precisely the same traits have constituted his friend General Morris) one of a standing committee for the regulation of a certain class of city affairs — such, for instance, as the getting up a complimentary benefit, or a public demonstration of respect for some deceased worthy, or a ball and dinner to Mr. Irving or Mr. Dickens.

Mr. Wetmore is not only a general, but Naval Officer of the Port of New York, Member of the Board of Trade, one of the Council of the Art Union,(3) one of the Corresponding Committee of the Historical Society, and of more other committees than I can just now remember.(4) His manners are recherchés, courteous — a little in the old school way. He is sensitive, punctilious; speaks well, roundly, fluently, plausibly, and is skilled in pouring oil upon the waters of stormy debate.

He is, perhaps, fifty years of age, but has a youthful look; is about five feet eight in height, slender, neat, with an air of military compactness; looks especially well on horseback.

[[Notes]]

[page 110:]

1. Prosper Montgomery Wetmore was born February 15, 1798 (or, according to Duyckinck, 1799) and died March 16, 1876. [[Wetmore's tombstone in Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, in Hamilton Heights, New York, gives his birth year as 1798 — JAS]]

2. Lexington with other Fugitive Poems, was published in New York, 1830.

3. Wetmore rose to be President of the Art Union, and was possibly the originator in 1856 of a plan to build a monument for Poe. See Cosmopolitan Art Journal, July 1856 and March 1857.

4. Wetmore was Paymaster General of New York Militia. In 1834 he was chairman of the committee on colleges and academies of the state legislature.