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[102] d [Fuller’s Death in 1850] William Henry Channing William Henry Channing (1810–1884), nephew of the well-known Unitarian preacher William Ellery Channing and cousin of William Ellery Channing the Younger, is immortalized as the “evil time’s sole patriot” in Emerson’s “Ode” inscribed to him. The Harvard College and Divinity School graduate preached in Cincinnati, Ohio (1838–1841), coedited the Transcendentalist journal in the midwest, the Western Messenger (1839-1841), contributed to the Dial, and edited the reform journal the Present (1843–1844). Channing was also a frequent visitor to the Brook Farm community. In 1842, he moved to New York, where Fuller often saw him after she moved there. Although Channing and Fuller became good friends by 1838, they had not been attracted to each other when they had first met a decade earlier, for in 1833 James Freeman Clarke asked Channing, “Is it that you feel her defects to be similar to your own, and she not being on the right way would exercise a bad influence on the growth of your mind?” (Capper, Private Years, 321). But as they negotiated their personal and professional journeys together, their correspondence was a warm one. Fuller told Channing that his “influence on me, in whatever shape it comes, has always been purifying, ennobling, and of late it has been so suggestive of thoughts on the greatest themes of the time that its influence, though pensive, has been most fruitful” ([n.d.], Letters , 6:95–96). For his part, Channing wrote Fuller “I have felt all along that I was the one to be aided in our intercourse” (Frothingham, Channing, 181). Later, Fuller grouped Channing with Emerson as having “in different ways the celestial fire,” adding that though they “may have faults,” there was “no base alloy” (9 March 1849, Letters, 5:201). Channing edited, along with Emerson and James Freeman Clarke, Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli and, in fact, was the driving force behind it and had the major editorial hand in its composition. The work gave him a new appreciation of Fuller, and he said of his editorial task, “I never knew or loved this glorious friend, it seems to me, till now!” (Frothingham, Channing, 441). The section below, describing Fuller’s last hours, is based on interviews Channing had conducted with people at the scene of the shipwreck. William Henry Channing [103] On Thursday, July 15th, at noon, the Elizabeth was off the Jersey coast, somewhere between Cape May and Barnegat; and, as the weather was thick, with a fresh breeze blowing from the east of south, the officer in command, desirous to secure a good offing, stood east-north-east. His purpose was, when daylight showed the highlands of Neversink, to take a pilot, and run before the wind past Sandy Hook. So confident, indeed, was he of safety, that he promised his passengers to land them early in the morning at New York. With this hope, their trunks were packed, the preparations made to greet their friends, the last good-night was spoken, and with grateful hearts Margaret and Ossoli put Nino to rest, for the last time, as they thought, on ship-board,—for the last time, as it was to be, on earth! By nine o’clock, the breeze rose to a gale, which every hour increased in violence, till at midnight it became a hurricane. Yet, as the Elizabeth was new and strong, and as the commander, trusting to an occasional cast of the lead, assured them that they were not nearing the Jersey coast,—which alone he dreaded,—the passengers remained in their state-rooms, and caught such uneasy sleep as the howling storm and tossing ship permitted . Utterly unconscious they were, even then, amidst perils, whence only by promptest energy was it possible to escape. Though under close-reefed sails, their vessel was making way far more swiftly than any one on board had dreamed of; and for hours, with the combined force of currents and the tempest, had been driving headlong towards the sand-bars of Long Island. About four o’clock, on Friday morning, July 16th, she struck,—first draggingly , then hard and harder,—on Fire Island beach. The main and mizzen masts were at once cut away; but the heavy marble in her hold had broken through her bottom, and she bilged. Her bow held fast, her stern swung round, she careened inland, her broadside was bared to the shock of...

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