York in American History: Thomas Nelson Page

Notes: James Kences’ creates a fascinating portrait of the once popular 19th century local colorist southern writer, Thomas Nelson Page, a prominent summer resident of York Harbor in the early 1890s. Page was influential in the creation of the York Harbor Reading Room, was on the founder’s committee for the York Country Club, the building committee for the Trinity Church, and a founding member of the York Improvement Society. Ironically, he was part of the failed efforts to divide the town in the early 20th century. 

"What can I say that you do not already know of the author, the poet, the citizen, the genial friend, the man and all that it implies and for which it stands. The possessor of these attributes, our honored friend, will speak to you, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page." This was how Walter M. Smith introduced Page on the afternoon of August 5, 1902, at the ceremony held at the Village in observance of the town's 250th anniversary.

"I was sincerely pleased to be asked to speak here today," Page told the audience. "My pleasure... is based on the fact that it shows my interest in York- my virtue as a citizen of York, was understood. I did not know before that it was quite appreciated." Ironically, only seven years later, Page, who was to stress many times in his public address during the August afternoon that York's survival despite multiple challenges was an outstanding quality, was to take a leading role in an effort to divide the town.

And it is equally ironic that a man who took personal pride in bringing about a reconciliation of the North and South in the decades after the Civil War and encouraged the conditions that would "finally lead to a more perfect Union," would be the very same man who sought to split York apart into a legally defined western and eastern section that would initially bear the name of Yorktown.

Unlike Mark Twain and William Dean Howells who also sat upon the same stage with him for the ceremony, Page no longer enjoys the same popularity, and is often subjected to criticism for his nostalgic, idealized portrayal of the Ante-Bellum South and especially for his superficial treatment of African slavery. He favored a literary device in which an elderly slave "sentimental in praise of the old days, tells a tale of handsome cavaliers and lovely ladies, stressing the love between master and slave."

Page also made regular use of Negro dialect in his stories, and this has unfortunately further contributed to his diminished literary reputation, as the script as written is almost indecipherable for later generations unacquainted with this. "With a language in which 'urr' means 'our,' 'nurr' means 'neither,' one proceeds as if cracking a code," one author has noted. The total of his writings was considerable, and included short stories, poems, and essays. Twenty-six published works, beginning with “In Ole Virginia” in 1887.

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Some of the later writings were actually set in Maine. "Leander's Light," a story that was part of the anthology entitled “Under the Crust” from 1907, even suggests a fictionalized representation of York, in the story Rock Ledge, with mention of the Harbor and the Village. From the opening paragraphs: "The ‘natives,’ as they called themselves, were a self-contained race. They had been settled there since Sir Ferdinando Gorges planted the colony... They felt they owned the place, and they loved it; and they regarded the outer world with indifference, and new-comers like myself with proper scorn."

Rock Ledge would have special importance, as it was the title given to the Page cottage in York, "a massive wood-shingled structure of roughly 12,000 to 15,000 square feet... five interior brick chimneys crowned the structure, while a spacious screened porch ran from back to front along one side of the house." Page ordinarily resided here from June until September, together with a staff of servants and a gardener.

Contained within his own name were the two families, the Nelsons and Pages, and he was also kindred to the Randolphs, Pendletons, and Carters. Born at Oakland Plantation in Hanover County, Virginia in April of 1853, he was obviously still a small boy at the outbreak of the war and resided at a place where he was to witness much of what happened, "within sounds of the guns of battle in three great campaigns," he recounted.

He entered Washington College in September 1869 while Robert E. Lee in failing health was its president. Lee was a source of personal inspiration, and he would eventually write two books devoted to the general's life. At the college, with a relatively small enrollment of a few hundred students, Page very likely had some opportunities to encounter his hero during the months prior to his death two weeks following a stroke in late September 1870.

An unexceptional scholar, who would confess he neglected his studies shamefully, he left the college in June 1872 and enrolled at the University of Virginia to study law. While there, he also contributed to the university magazine. For the next two decades he practiced law, but also saw some of his work published for the first time for a national audience. A turning point in his literary career occurred with the publication in Century Magazine of "Marse Chan" in the spring of 1884. Two years later he was married to Anne Seddon Bruce, who died tragically shortly afterwards in 1886.

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In 1893, Page gave up the law, moved from Richmond to Washington D.C. and remarried. His new wife, Florence, was the widowed sister-in-law of Marshall Field of Chicago. It was during this decade he became increasingly visible as a resident of York Harbor. The Reading Room, Country Club, and Trinity Church, the stone edifice at the corner of Woodbridge Road and Route 1A, in easy walking distance from his cottage, were just three of the institutions to become associated with him.

He was one of the nine governors of the Reading Room and was among the group of original founders. It was also at this site a meeting convened on August 30, 1900, that was a formative event in the creation of the Country Club. The decision was made to acquire property suitable for a golf course. In mid-September, at another critical meeting, officers were chosen, and the York Country Club was brought into existence. Page was to be made one of the members of the board of governors. In 1904 he was promoted to the position of vice president.

Within a few years of the defeat of the town division in 1910, the routine of annual Maine vacations was interrupted.

"I cannot talk about York, and my beloved Rock Ledge, and all the happiness we are losing now," Florence Page wrote to her sister-in-law in June of 1915 from Rome, Italy, where her husband then resided as United States ambassador, appointed by fellow Virginian Woodrow Wilson. The First World War had begun the previous summer.

"I owe many a grudge to Germany," she admitted, “and this is not one to be forgiven!"

James Kences is the town historian for the town of York. 

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: York in American History: Thomas Nelson Page