Ohio Biographies Project

The Piatt Family, part 2 "Historical Collections of Ohio" by Henry Howe. Pub. 1908 pgs 112- Transcribed by: Deb. Back to Page 1 | John & Sarah Piatt | Col. Donn Piatt | Mrs. Louise Kirby Piatt |

       JOHN JAMES AND SARAH M. B. PIATT. It is difficult to think of these two poets separate and apart from each other. Yet while both are poets and possess a like delicacy of touch and deftness of expression, they are really wide apart in their several spheres of thought and feeling. John James is of the sunny woods and fields made dear and familiar by sweet human gossip. With a verse all his own he tells of the “Pioneer Chimney” with a touching pathos that comes of clear knowledge of the inner thoughts, feelings and motives of humble, honest life. The love of home, the loftier love of country called patriotism, are his, while the wife is the poet of motherhood. Her power is circled by the home made merry by the musical laugh of children, and so quaint in their infant imaginings and odd fancies that are full of infant wisdom and delicate humor. Then again the mother intervenes, and there is a page one reads through tears. Her power is only second to that of Mrs. Browning; if, indeed, in her peculiar walk, she is not the better of the two.
     John J. Piatt, now fifty years of age, began his literary life with Wm. D. Howells, the two when quite young publishing a volume of verse. They have drifted apart, though remaining warm friends, and each in his way winning the laurel crown of fame if not of fortune. Nearly all the literary people of the United States petitioned President Arthur to give John James a consulate. The prayer was granted, and since then, as United States consul at Cork, he has resided with his beautiful family at a picturesque old home covered with ivy near Queenstown. John is a Republican, as his poetry proves, and when President Cleveland was inaugurated there was a fearful rush made for this post at Cork. The President sent for John’s record at the State Department together with the recommendations that gave Mr. Piatt the position.
     “Why,” said the President, “we don’t want, a poet consul anywhere.” “No,” responded Secretary Bayard, “we do not, but we do want an honest, capable man, and if you will look at Mr. Piatt’s record you will find that he is all that. Then, again, here are Joseph McDonald, John G. Carlisle, Frank Hurd, Dan Voorhees and fifty more Democrats asking his promotion. I think at least we had better let him remain.” And remain he did and does. We give as a specimen a poem of John J. Piatt’s:
THE BRONZE STATUE OF WASHINGTON (April, 1861.) Uplifted when the April sun was down, Gold-lighted by the tremulous, fluttering beam, Touching his glimmering steed with spurs in gleam, The great Virginia Colonel into town Rode, with the scabbard emptied on his thigh, The Leader’s hat upon his head, and lo! The old still manhood on his face aglow, And the old generalship quick in his eye! “O father!” said I, speaking in my heart, “Though but thy bronzed form is ours alone, And marble lips here in thy chosen place, Rides not thy spirit in to keep thine own, Or weeps thy land, an orphan in the mart?” . . . The twilight dying lit the deathless face.

SARAH M. B. PIATT, whose delicately beautiful head we reproduce, was Miss Sarah M. Bryant, of Kentucky. She contributed poetry to the Louisville Journal, when the witty Prentice was editor, and John James assistant editor. Both were struck by the girl’s originality and beauty of expression. The admiration so won on the younger journalist that he made a pilgrimage to the interior of Kentucky to see the gifted one. Admiration melted into love, and won the inspired maiden. We give as a specimen, taken at random, one of Mrs. Piatt’s poems:

“WHEN SAW WE THEE?” BY SARAH M. B. PIATT. Then shall He answer how He lifted up, In the cathedral there, at Lille, to me The same still mouth that drank the Passion-cup, And how I turned away and did not see. How—Oh, that boy’s deep eyes and withered arm!— In a mad Paris street, one glittering night, Three times drawn backward by his beauty’s charm, I gave him—not a farthing for the sight. How in that shadowy temple at Cologne, Through all the mighty music, I did wring The agony of his last mortal moan From that blind soul I gave not anything. And how at Bruges, at a beggar’s breast, There by the windmill where the leaves whirled so,-- I saw Him nursing, passed Him with the rest, Followed by His starved mother’s stare of woe. But, my Lord Christ, Thou knowest I had not much, And had to keep that which I had for grace To look, forsooth, where some dead painter’s touch Had left Thy thorn-wound or Thy mother’s face. Therefore, O my Lord Christ, I pray of Thee, That of Thy great compassion Thou wilt save, Laid up from moth and rust, somewhere, for me, High in the heavens—the coins I never gave.

     Col. DONN PIATT was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, June 29, 1819. He was educated partly in Urbana and at the Athenaeum (now St. Xavier College, Cincinnati), but left that school before completing his course. He studied law under his father, and was, for a time, a pupil of Tom Corwin. In 1851 he was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton county. He was made Secretary of the Legation at Paris, under Hon. John Y. Mason, of Virginia, during Pierce’s and Buchanan’s administrations. When the minister died in October, 1859, Colonel Piatt served as charge d’affaires for nearly a year.
     On his return home he engaged actively in the presidential canvass, in behalf of Abraham Lincoln. In company with General Robert C. Schenck he stumped Southern Illinois, and his services were publicly acknowledged by the President-elect.
     During the civil war he served on the staff of General Robert C. Schenck, who was in command of the Middle Department, with headquarters at Baltimore. While General Schenck was temporarily absent from his post, and Colonel Piatt, as chief of staff, in command, he issued an order, contrary to the policy of the administration at that time, to General William G. Birney, who was then in Maryland, to recruit a brigade of negro soldiers—to enlist none but slaves.
     The effect of this order was to at once emancipate every slave in Maryland, and it was thought to great embarrass Mr. Lincoln and the cabinet. Colonel Piatt had taken the step against General Schenck’s wishes, at the advice of Henry Winter Davis, Judge Bond and other distinguished Union men from Maryland; and against the wishes of Reverdy Johnson, Montgomery Blair and other earnest Union men and slaveholders. He was summoned to Washington and threatened by Mr. Lincoln, in a stormy interview, with shameful dismissal from the army. This he was spared by the intercession of Secretary Stanton, and permitted to retain his rank in the army, though, on account of this rash act, he was always thereafter denied further promotion. But it was a consolation for him to know that his one act had made Maryland a free State. Word went out and spread like wild-fire that “Mr. Linkum was a callin’ on de slaves to fight fo’ fredum,” and the hoe-handle was dropped, never again to be taken up by unrequited toil. The poor creatures poured into Baltimore with their families, on foot, on horseback, in old wagons, and even on sleds stolen from their masters. The late masters became clamorous for compensation, and Mr. Lincoln ordered a commission to assess damages. Secretary Stanton put in a proviso that those cases only should be considered wherein the claimant could take the iron-clad oath of allegiance. So, of course, no slaves were paid for.
     Having been sent to observe the situation at Winchester, Va., previous to Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania, Colonel Piatt, on his own motion, ordered General Robert H. Milroy to evacuate that indefensible town and fall back on Harper’s Ferry. The order was countermanded by General Halleck. Three days afterwards, Milroy, surrounded by the Confederate advance, was forced to cut his way out, with a loss of 2,000 prisoners. Had Colonel Piatt’s order been carried out, the command would have been saved, and two regiments of brave men (who under Schenck and Milroy were the only force that ever whipped Stonewall Jackson) not needlessly sacrificed. He was Judge-Advocate of the commission which investigated the charges against General Buell, and favored his acquittal.
     After the war he became the Washington correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial, distinguishing himself as a writer of great brilliancy.
     Col. Piatt subsequently founded and edited the Washington Capital for two years, making it so odious to government officials that at their instance during the presidential controversy of 1876 he was indicted—but, as he naively says, “though trying very hard, never got into jail.” On the contrary he sold the Capital at a very handsome figure and returned to the peace and quiet of Mac-o-chee, where he has since been engaged in literary work and farming. “In all his writings he is apt to take a peculiar and generally unpopular view of his subject,” says an eminent critic, and the observation is just.
     His entertaining volume, “Memories of the Men who Saved the Union,” whom he designates as Lincoln, Stanton, Chase, Seward and General George H. Thomas, is sharply critical, and severe on General Grant. But its strong passages and just appreciation of the great deeds of the other great men atone for this fault. Its sale has been large and is steadily increasing. The Westminister Review describes it as “The record of great geniuses, told by a genius.”
     Col. Piatt has published a delightful little book of love stories, true to life and of pathetic interest, mostly war incidents, called “The Lone Grave of the Shenandoah and Other Tales.” In 1888 he edited Belford’s Magazine as a free trade journal, and made the tariff issue strangely interesting and picturesque. He contributes regularly to the leading English reviews, and is at present engaged with General Charles M. Cist, of Cincinnati, in preparing a life of General George H. Thomas.
     In 1865 he was elected as a Republican as Representative from Logan county to the Ohio Legislature. “I made a fight for negro suffrage,” says he, “and won, by a decreased majority. Then, after spending a couple of winters at Columbus. I quit, by unanimous consent.” He had opposed local legislation, taken an active part in pushing the negro suffrage amendment through and was accused of doing more legislating for Cincinnati, his old home, than all the Hamilton county delegation together. His ability as a speaker and usefulness in the committee room were widely recognized and praised.
     Who can describe the beauty and charm of Mac-o-chee Valley? As seen from his great stone mansion it presents one of the fairest prospects that ever delighted the vision of man. There is no description truer than Tom Corwin’s: “ A man can better live and die here than in any place I have ever seen.” Above is an excellent picture of the ivy-crowned west and south fronts, and entrance into one of the best libraries in Ohio. The beautiful residence harmonizes with the grand scenery about it—like the castles along the historic Rhine, one of which it closely resembles and is modeled after.
     Near the old mill on the direct road from Col. Piatt’s to Urbana is the family burying-ground, just back of the old log Catholic church, which is now almost destroyed. Here the Piatts for four generations have worshipped and near by many are buried.
     In the hillside just below the old church, Col. Piatt has had erected a substantial stone vault. It is the tomb of the wife of his early manhood, a gifted and charming lady.
     A more appropriate epitaph, or one so touching, could hardly be written than that chiseled in marble on the reverse side of the medallion, shown in the picture. It was written by Col. Piatt and reads as follows:
To thy dear memory, darling, and my own, I build in grief this monumental stone; All that it tells of life in death is thine, All that it tells of death in life is mine; For that which made thy pure spirit blest, In anguish deep has brought my soul unrest You dying, live to find a life divine, I living,

     MRS. LOUISE KIRBY PIATT, wife of Col. Donn Piatt, was born in Cincinnati, November 25, 1826; died at Mac-o-chee, Ohio, October 2, 1864. She was the daughter of Timothy Kirby, a prominent and wealthy banker, and agent of the United States Bank in Cincinnati, closed by President Jackson, and a devoted Whig in days when partisan bitterness ran at fever height; but Col. Piatt was an equally zealous young Democrat, and, for this reason, principally, Mr. Kirby strongly opposed his daughter’s marriage to him. The circumstances of his courtship and marriage by Col. Piatt were indeed, highly romantic. The license was quietly procured from his relative, Mr. Jacob W. Piatt, then clerk of Hamilton county, and the marriage ceremony as quietly performed at the Catholic Cathedral by Rev. Fr. Edward Purcell, since Archbishop. Immediately after, the newly made bride left in her mother’s carriage for her home, and the husband boarded the train for Mac-o-chee.
     Six weeks after the marriage was discovered, and Mr. Kirby, a man of firm purpose, in his wrath, as he had threatened, turned the young people out to care for themselves. It was years before he softened and forgave them. The reconciliation came none too soon. The life of poverty and privation that followed the marriage proved too much for the sensitive, delicate organization of the daughter, who, when she did return to the shelter of her father’s house, returned to die.
     Her brief life was beautiful in the charm of sense and sensibility, that were ever a part of, and about her, like a rose-tinted atmosphere, heavy with the perfume of flowers. She was not only a brilliant conversationalist, but a fascinating one as well, for she won the sympathy, as well as admiration, of her listeners. There was in her manner a strange mixture of shyness with a frank way that was very winning. A fine linguist she lived in the English classics with a love that made her akin to their genius. Her contributions to literature were not great, but enough to prove the excellence she might have achieved had life been spared. She had to perfection a rare quality in woman, and that was a keen sense of humor. When not encroached upon it was exceedingly delicate and quaint.
     Soon after her marriage her husband was appointed as Secretary of Legation at Paris, and she accompanied him abroad, and in his promotion to charge d’affaires attracted much attention at the court of Louis Napoleon under the second Empire, where she soon became a favorite with the Empress Eugenie. During her residence in Paris her contributions to the Ladies’ Home Journal were greatly admired and widely read, and these were, in 1856, published under the title of “Belle Smith Abroad.” They comprise one of the most interesting volumes of foreign travel of that period. Her descriptive powers were excellent, and through all she has written runs a vein of happy wit and merriment highly enjoyable to this day. The brief story of her life is told in a monument that adorns one of the sweetest scenes at Mac-o-chee. One one side can be read:

To the memory of one Whose voice has charmed And presence graced These solitudes. On the reverse are engraved: LOUISE KIRBY PIATT. She rested on life’s dizzy verge So like a being of a better world, Men wondered not, when, as an evening cloud That grows more lovely as it steals near night, Her gentle spirit drifted down The dread abyss of death.

On the reverse side of the shaft of the monument, on which is a well-executed medallion of her fair face, is also the touching epitaph written by her husband and printed on the preceeding page.
We conclude here with the poem so widely popular—a tribute from him to her while giving the sunshine of her living presence