Background
Joseph Alfred was born on January 30, 1815 in Woodbury, Connecticut, United States, the son of Joseph and Caroline (Preston) Scovill and a descendant of John Scovell, who was born in England and died about 1700 at Haddam, Connecticut.
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book
The Old Merchants of New York City; Volume Ser. 2
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Vigor. a Novel
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
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Joseph Alfred Scoville
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also known as
Manhattan, Walter Barrett
Career
At about twenty-two, Scoville became employed as a merchant in New York; a year later he entered into a short-lived partnership with Lloyd L. Britton.
Later he drifted into journalism and politics. Unsuccessful in this ambition, he was nevertheless instrumental in finding a publisher in the North for the Life of John C. Calhoun (1843), a campaign biography presumably written by Calhoun himself; and in April 1843 he was made editor of the Spectator, a newspaper published in Washington in the interests of Calhoun. Although he failed to please Calhoun's friends, and for this reason remained editor of the paper for only a short time, he continued in the good graces of Calhoun himself, who, probably in the middle or late forties, appointed Scoville his private secretary.
Returning to New York after Calhoun's death in 1850, he became editor of the New York Picayune, in part a humorous paper, but about 1852 he resigned to start the Pick, a humorous sheet of his own, which he continued to bring out until 1855. Two years later he edited for a brief period the Evening State Gazette.
It was probably during the fifties that he came under the influence of James Gordon Bennett, editor of the New York Herald, whose sensational journalistic methods profoundly affected him.
He wrote novel Vigor (1864), republished in England as Marion (3 vols. , 1864). The general antipathy to the story, which by most was called "indecent, " although by a few of Scoville's friends "unfortunate, " was heightened at this time by the publication in the London Morning Herald and Evening Standard of Scoville's articles denouncing the Lincoln administration and the prosecution of the war by the North. For the publication of these articles Scoville was brought before Gen. John Adams Dix and warned against any further criticism of the North and its war policies.
Another novel, The Adventures of Clarence Bolton, has been ascribed to him, but no copy of the work seems to have survived. Of his literary work, The Old Merchants of New York City (1863 - 66), giving in a rambling, gossipy form the history of the city's commercial life, is perhaps the most important.
He died in New York.
Achievements
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Joseph Alfred Scoville became an editor of the New York Picayune, Evening State Gazette, started Pick, humorous sheet of his own. He was known as the author of the politically scandalous novel Vigor (1864), in the result of which he was warned against any further criticism of the North and its war policies. His other famous works: The Adventures of Clarence Bolton, The Old Merchants of New York City.
Works
book
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The Old Merchants of New York City; Volume Ser. 2
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
-
Vigor. a Novel
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
-
The Old Merchants of New York City; Volume Ser. 2
Personality
Scoville's fearless indulgence in personalities and other forms of scandal, together with his marked Southern sympathies, made him an object of extreme dislike in the North.
Connections
It was during a visit to South Carolina that Joseph Alfred met Caroline Schaub, whom he afterwards married. He is said to have acquired financial independence by his literary labors and to have left his wife and daughter well provided for.
