Abstract
Thus Edward Channing began his autobiography when he sat down to write in 1929, two years before his death. This opening passage says a great deal about the man. His original remark about the validity of old men’s reminiscences is indicative of his questioning approach to all historical sources — though the fact that he went ahead and wrote such a work anyway perhaps indicates that he was softening on this as he did on many other things. His dry sense of humor and tongue in cheek approach are also evident — as, indeed, they are even in the title of this work, “Recollections of a Hitherto Truthful Man.” And finally, his comments as to his “earliest ancestors“ can be taken as indicative of his determination to work out in as much depth as possible any historical problem.
…I am related more or less to all the “Highnesses”…1
Somewhere in print I have proclaimed that the recollections of old men have long been under the ban of the scientific researcher. Nevertheless, “Recollections” stands as the first word on the title page of the present volume. For one must find something to do in his old age, as there is a saying that Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do. To go back even further, behind any possible recollection of a man who was born in 1856, it appears that among my earliest ancestors were invaders or immigrants to England…2
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References
Edward Channing, “Recollections of a Hitherto Truthful Man,” p. 2. This is an incomplete, unpublished autobiography written by Channing in 1929–1930. It consists of forty single-spaced typewritten pages, and is in the possession of Channing’s daughter, Mrs. Willard P. Fuller (Elizabeth Channing Fuller), of Chatham, Massachusetts. Her son, Willard P. Fuller, Jr., of San Andreas, California, has recently (1967) edited and privately printed a limited number of copies of this work. The author wishes to thank these members of the Channing family for permission to use both versions of the work. All footnotes herein are to Mrs. Fuller’s copy, referred to as “Recollections,” unless otherwise noted.
Ibid., p. 1.
Ibid., p. 3.
Willard P. Fuller, Jr. has a very helpful Edward Channing “Ancestor Wheel” in a pocket inside the back cover of his edition of the “Recollections.”
Samuel Eliot Morison, “Edward Channing: A Memoir,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, LXIV (October, 1930–June, 1932), p. 251. This account, written shortly after Channing’s death, is still the best brief evaluation of Channing available. The other four children of Ellery and Ellen were Margaret Fuller, Caroline Sturgis, Walter, and Eugene. (Channing, “Recollections,” p. 7.) According to Morison, Channing was initially named Henry, possibly after Thoreau, and was only christened Edward Perkins Channing after he moved in with his grandfather Walter Channing at age four. The Edward was for his great-uncle Edward Tyrrel Channing, the Perkins for his paternal grandmother’s family. Morison says Channing liked his first name but detested his middle name because boys called him “Perky” and the Perkins family patronized him. Thus he dropped the Perkins after college days. (Morison, “Edward Channing,” pp. 252–253.) Channing’s grandson argues that the story about being named Henry was simply something Channing made up because he “delighted to stretch a point to make a good story when on the subject of family matters.” (Fuller edition of the Channing “Recollections,” p. 42.) As a matter of fact, Channing did not say that his grandfather named him Henry, but simply that he considered doing so. Channing complained that people would not accept his lack of a middle name after he dropped the Perkins, saying “I think every letter in the alphabet has been bestowed on me in lieu of a middle name.” (Ibid., p. 11.)
Morison, “Edward Channing,” p. 250.
Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865 ([New York]: E. P. Dutton and Company, Incorporated, 1936), p. 284.
John Channing Fuller, “Edward Channing: Essays on The Man, The Teacher, and The Writer” (Unpublished senior honors thesis, Williams College, 1943), p. 7. The author of this work is another of Channing’s grandsons. The present author wishes to thank him for permission to use it, and the library at Williams College for making it available.
Ellery Channing, Poems of Sixty-Five Years, edited by F. B. Sanborn (Philadelphia: James H. Bentley, 1902), p. xxxvii.
Brooks, The Flowering of New England, p. 283; Townsend Scudder, Concord: American Town (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1947), p. 176.
Interview with Paul H. Buck, June 9, 1967, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Channing, “Recollections,” p. 7.
Interview with Elizabeth Channing Fuller, August 19, 1966, Chatham, Massachusetts.
Channing, “Recollections,” p. 7.
Ibid., p. 4.
Henry R. Viets, “Walter Channing,” Dictionary of American Biography, IV, p. 4.
Morison, “Edward Channing,” p. 154.
Interview with Elizabeth Channing Fuller, August 19, 1966, Chatham, Massachusetts.
Morison, “Edward Channing,” p. 154.
Quoted in Ibid., pp. 254–255. For more Mr. Dowdy stories, see Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Part of a Man’s Life (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1905), pp. 36–38.
Morison, “Edward Channing,” p. 255.
Channing, “Recollections,” p. 8.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 8–9.
Ibid., p. 10.
Ibid., p. 12.
Ibid., p. 21; and Morison, “Edward Channing,” p. 256.
Channing, “Recollections,” pp. 12–14.
This is from Channing’s brief, self-written notice in the Harvard “Class Book, 1878,” in the Harvard University Archives.
Channing, “Recollections,” p. 15.
Ibid., pp. 15 and 22.
Ibid., pp. 16–17. Channing’s description of his own financial situation applied to the country as a whole, of course, after the Panic of 1873.
Fuller, “Edward Channing,” p. 13.
Channing, “Recollections,” p. 16.
Ibid., pp. 20–21.
Ibid., p. 20. It cetainly must not have been easy grading on Adams’ part which appealed to Channing, for according to one source Channing finished fourth out of eight in one of Adams’ classes, with a grade of only 70 when the high was a 90–12/15.-Stewart Mitchell, “Henry Adams and Some of His Students,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, LXVI (October, 1936–May, 1941), p. 298.
Paul H. Buck, ed., Social Sciences at Harvard, 1860–1920: From Inculcation to the Open Mind (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 148.
Morison. “Edward Channing,” p. 260.
Channing, “Recollections,” p. 18.
Ibid. The dissertation is available in the Harvard University Archives. As for Channing’s coverage of the subject, it was quite adequate; much of what he said there later found its way into the appropriate volume of his major History.
Harvard College Catalog, 1897–1898, p. 341.
Channing, “Recollections,” p. 18.
Ibid., p. 19.
Quoted in Morison, “Edward Channing,” p. 263.
Harvard College Class of 1878: Secretary’s Report, No. VIII, Fiftieth Anniversary Report, 1928, pp. 48–49.
Morison, “Edward Channing,” p. 264.
Channing, “Recollections,” p. 26.
Harvard College Class of 1878: Secretary’s Report, No. II, 1884, p. 26.
George W. Robinson, Bibliography of Edward Channing (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932), pp. 5–7. This little volume lists most of Channing’s writing, excluding only “Numerous short articles and reviews, editorials, notes, syllabi, and the like.” (p. 5).
Channing, “Recollections,” p. 32. Channing also spoke very highly of Winsor in an article written just after Winsor’s death in the American Historical Review, III (January, 1898), pp. 197–202.
For some reason, Channing stated in the “Recollections” that he “then had no thought of teaching.” (p. 33). But why else would he have applied for the position in 1880, and why would he have jumped at the first opportunity to teach something in which he was not even particularly interested?
Morison, “Edward Channing,” p. 265.
Ibid., p. 267.
Harvard University Gazette, January 10, 1931. (In Channing’s folder of the “Quinquennial File” of Clippings on Harvard Men, in the Harvard University Archives.)
Arthur M. Schlesinger, In Retrospect: The History of a Historian (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Incorporated, 1963), p. 86.
This account is based on clippings in the Channing “Quinquennial File” folder.
Morison, “Edward Channing,” p. 284.
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© 1974 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Joyce, D.D. (1974). Edward Channing: A Biographical Sketch. In: Edward Channing and the Great Work. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2061-9_1
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