Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/125

 JOHN B. DILLON. John Brown Dillon is a native of Brooke county, Virginia. While he was an infant his father removed to Behnont county, Ohio. Tlaere John had the opportunites of education which a country school, at winter sessions afforded, until he had learned wliat reading, writing, and arithmetic are. But he was only nine years of age when his father died. He was then compelled to earn his own livelihood, and he retui'ned to the county of his nativity, in Virginia, and apprenticed himself to a printer at Charles- ton. At seventeen years of age, with no fortune but his compositor's rule and a good knowledge of its use, he went to Cincinnati, seeking work. While an apprentice he had cultivated a natural taste for poetry, and had occasion- ally contributed verses to the newspapers for which he set type. In 1826 he contrib- uted a poem to the Cincinnati Gazette, which immediately gave him a prominent position as a poet, among the young men who then wooed the Muse in the Queen City. It was "The Burial of the Beautiful." In 1827 Mr. Dillon contributed occasionally to Flint s Western Review, and he wrote "The Orphan's Lament" for The Western Souvenir in 1829. In December, 1831, he formed a partnership with William D. Gallagher for the composition of a New Year's Lay for the carrier of the Cincinnati Mirror. The hues on "The Funeral of the Year" are from that Lay. In 1834 Ml'. Dillon went from Cincinnati to Logansport, Indiana. There, while editing a newspaper, and often "working at case," he continued studies which he had begun in Cincinnati ; was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of law. He had, however, more love for literature than for law, though he did often exercise his poetic abilities. Local history deeply interested him, and after a few prehminary studies he determined to w^rite "A History of Indiana." In 1842 he published a small volume of "Historical Notes." In 1845 he was elected State Librarian of Indiana, an office which he held with credit to himself and profit to the State for several terms. He has since been actively identified with popular education in Indiana, has been a useful officer of one or more of the benevolent institutions, and for a number of years was the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture. Meantime his historical studies were carefully pursued, and in 1859 the result of them was given to the world, by Bingham and Doughty, publishers, Indianapolis, in an octavo volume of 636 pages, which is called "A History of Indiana," but which comprehends a history of the discovery, settlement, and civil and military affairs of the North- West Territory, as well as a general view of the pi'ogress of public affairs in the State of Indiana, from 1816 to 1856. Mr. Dillon is now the Secretary of the Indiana Historical Society. To the duties of that post he gives attention with commendable zeal, which cannot fail to make the Library of the Society valuable to every student of Western History. (109)