Gerald Ensley: Part of our lore: Emerson’s disparaging remarks about Tallahassee

(This column was first published in the Tallahassee Democrat on May 24, 2009)

"I hate quotation. Tell me what you know." Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Tomorrow is Ralph Waldo Emerson's birthday! He never visited Tallahassee! No matter what you might have read.

Born May 25, 1803, Emerson was a poet, lecturer, transcendentalist, abolitionist and one of the nation's most enduring quote-makers - despite his professed disdain for such things as expressed above.

Perhaps his most famous observation was: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

But Emerson coined dozens of famous quotes: "The only way to have a friend is to be one." "Hitch your wagon to a star." "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself." "Character is higher than intellect." "Art is a jealous mistress."

Such wisdom is why it's always stung that one of the most negative things ever said about Tallahassee was penned by Emerson. According to legend, he visited Tallahassee in 1827 and pronounced it a "grotesque place," full of "desperadoes." His remarks are mentioned in almost every history of Tallahassee.

Thing is, it appears he never visited Tallahassee - though he may well have been quoting one of our early colorful characters, Prince Achille Murat, the nephew of Napoleon who had a plantation in nearby Jefferson County and is buried in Tallahassee's St. John's cemetery.

Although the unlikelihood of Emerson's visit to Tallahassee was brought to light 53 years ago, it keeps getting repeated. Probably because the idea that such a famous American visited Tallahassee makes it worth repeating, even if he said unflattering things.

The real story was pieced together by Alan J. Downes and published in the 1956 Florida Historical Quarterly. Downes, a native of Bradenton who earned two degrees from Florida State, is a now-retired college history professor in St. Cloud, Minn.

In his 1956 article, Downes explained the legend of the visit grew from Emerson's journal of his trip to St. Augustine in 1827. A "tubercular youth," Emerson came to Florida from his native New England for the healing powers of the southern climate. He stayed 10 weeks then returned north.

In the journal, Emerson spends a passage describing Florida's then-three-year-old capital, Tallahassee. He, indeed, calls it a "grotesque place," which had been "rapidly settled by public officials, land speculators and desperadoes." He indicated it was a brutish town with "much club law and little other." He also writes about Gov. William DuVal and Murat's plantation - even going so far as to describe a marble bust there.

Early Emerson biographers seized upon the passage to assert Emerson visited Murat at his plantation and took a trip to Tallahassee. The story - and Emerson's disparaging remarks about Tallahassee - were repeated by later writers and became a part of Tallahassee lore.

But Downes decided it was all a myth.

For one thing, he points out the improbability of the sickly Emerson traveling 200 miles from St. Augustine to Tallahassee and back, a three-day journey each way by horse-drawn wagon.

He notes Emerson used quote marks to describe DuVal as the "button on which all things are hung" in Tallahassee - when nothing else is in quote marks. He questions why Emerson refers to Murat's new wife as "a Mrs. Gray" - a "peculiar" description, Downes decided, for a woman who had supposedly been his host for several days.

But more pivotally, Downes found a letter written by Emerson in 1827 but not published until 1939. In it, Emerson writes of meeting Murat for the first time on board a ship bound for Charleston when Emerson returned north. If they didn't meet until they were on a ship leaving Florida, how could Emerson have visited Murat in Jefferson County or seen Tallahassee?

Downes concludes Emerson (who died in 1882 without visiting Florida again) never actually visited Murat's plantation or Tallahassee. Likely, he was repeating descriptions of Tallahassee and Murat's plantation made by Murat during their several days at sea.

Downes forgives early Emerson biographers for creating the myth: They didn't have access to the 1939 letter and were "making an honest effort" to explain Emerson's journal entry.

Downes, 78, reached by phone this week, said he's not surprised the myth of an Emerson visit to Tallahassee lingers.

"The horizon on intellectual change is a very long horizon," he said with a chuckle. "You better not write (an opposing view) hoping to get people to come around right away. Because they won't."

But after 53 years, we can now.

Gerald Ensley was a reporter and columnist for the Tallahassee Democrat from 1980 until his retirement in 2015. He died in 2018 following a stroke. The Tallahassee Democrat is publishing columns capturing Tallahassee’s history from Ensley’s vast archives each Sunday through 2024 in the Opinion section as part of the TLH 200: Gerald Ensley Memorial Bicentennial Project.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Gerald Ensley: Part of our lore: Emerson’s disparaging remarks about Tallahassee