Background

Joseph Holt was born on January 25 or 26, 1809 in Portland, Maine, United States. A grandson of one of the city's chief benefactors, for whom he was named, and the son of James Milk and Elizabeth (Thurston) Ingraham. His grandfather's shipping interests and his own love of adventure were responsible for his becoming a sailor in his youth.

Education

The Bowdoin College records do not bear out the statement sometimes made that he graduated there.

Career

Ingraham seems, however, to have become a teacher in Jefferson College at Washington, Mississippi, now a military school, which he described in The South-West, by a Yankee (1835); and thereafter the title "professor" was used frequently on his numerous publications.

His Lafitte (2 vols. , 1836), the most elaborate of the fictitious chronicles of the Pirate of the Gulf, is typical of his work in that it makes of an impossible series of events pegs on which to hang a luxurious fabric of Spanish treasure troves and Byronic ravings. His Burton; or the Sieges (2 vols. , 1838) is a sensational defamation of the early career of Aaron Burr; The Quadroone; or, St. Michael's Day (2 vols. , 1841), an even more absurd romanticization of history. The American Lounger (1839) shows the literary influence of Nathaniel Parker Willis, and in the story "The Kelpie Rock". For a period after the publication of these books Ingraham wrote so rapidly that it is no longer possible to trace all of his works.

According to the entry in Longfellow's journal for April 6, 1846, "In the afternoon Ingraham the novelist called. He says he has written eighty novels, and of these twenty during the last year; till it has grown to be merely mechanical with him. These novels are published in the newspapers. They pay him something more than three thousand dollars a year. " Typical works of Ingraham at this period were Frank Rivers; or, The Dangers of the Town (1843); Rafael; or, The Twice Condemned (1845) and others. The tales were short, running between fifty and a hundred pages as a rule, and were chiefly of the blood-and-thunder school. While writing them Ingraham seems to have lived alternately in the North and in the South.

He was ordained deacon on March 9, 1851, at Natchez, Mississippi, and priest the following year, at Jackson. From 1852 to 1854 he was a missionary at Aberdeen, Mississippi; in 1855 became rector of St. Johns, Mobile, Alabama; in 1858, was in Riverside; and in 1859 became rector of Christ Church, Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Just before his untimely death Ingraham had been negotiating in the North for the publication of a new work to be entitled "St. Paul, the Roman Citizen. " As a rector, he suffered from the popularity of his earlier, more sensational books. According to his grandson, the income from his religious novels was used largely to buy up and destroy the copyrights of some of his early romances. A somewhat different type of work, which reveals the author's affiliation with his adopted section, was The Sunny South (1860), a collection of letters originally published in the Saturday Courier in 1853-54.

Ingraham was mortally wounded by the accidental discharge of his own gun in the vestry-room of Christ Church at Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Achievements

• Joseph Holt Ingraham was known most of all as the author of a series of three epistolary novels on biblical themes; The Pillar of Fire, The Throne of David and The Prince of the House of David. The first of these was supposed to illustrate the beginning of Hebraic power, the second its culmination and the last its decadence. Nevertheless his works aided in popularizing the novel form in America and in liberalizing the attitude toward religion. Besides, he established a school for young ladies at Nashville.

Works

More photos

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  • Beatrice; Or, the Goldsmith's Daughter

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Lafitte: The Pirate of the Gulf; V.1

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Captain Kyd, Vol. II or, The Wizard of the Sea
  • The South-West By a Yankee. In Two Volumes. Volume 2
  • The South-West By a Yankee. In Two Volumes. Volume 1

Religion

In 1847 he had been confirmed in the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Personality

According to the entry in Longfellow's journal for April 6, 1846, Ingraham was "a young, dark man, with soft voice".

Connections

His marriage to Mary Brooks, daughter of a wealthy Mississippi planter, apparently determined him to make his permanent home in the South. He had a son Prentiss, and three daughters.

Father:

James Milk Ingraham

Mother:

Elizabeth (Thurston) Ingraham

Spouse:

Mary Brooks

Son:

Prentiss Ingraham

References

• Thurston Genealogies: 1635-1880 (1880)