Majestic Nature of the North

Michael J. Armstrong, Steven A. Walton

"Thomas Kelah Wharton's travel diaries provide an intimate glimpse into the society of early nineteenth-century America. As a young immigrant from England, the eldest son of a wealthy merchant who fell on hard times, Wharton (1814-1862) navigates the complex world of New York and the Hudson River Valley in the early 1830s and his diaries reveal a vibrant cultural and social scene. Encounters with the Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole; author Washington Irving; Sylvanus Thayer, superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; the Greek Revival architect Martin Thompson, and many others enliven the story. Wharton was a gifted pen-and-ink artist, and his faithful drawings provide rare and wonderful views of an America just beginning to industrialize. Wharton's journals skip two decades, and pick up in 1853 when Wharton--now an established professional living in New...