DAVID ROSS LOCKE.
“David Ross Locke, an American satirist,” says the American Encyclopedia, yet Locke is a newspaper humorist of the modern school. True, he does not subject himself to the painful necessity of forcing humorous paragraphs into the world, neither is he given to punning. Yet throughout his writing is easily distinguished a dry, uncertain, yet entertaining humor.
David Ross Locke was born in Broome county, New York, in or near the village of Vestal, on the 20th day of September, 1833. After a common school education, lasting but a year or two, young Locke, in 1844, or when he was but eleven years of age, became apprenticed to a printer in Cortland, a few miles distant from Vestal. Learning his trade, he sought out, Bohemian-like, to seek his fortune. He drifted around the country, North and South, varying the occupation with which he earned his daily bread. At different times he acted in the capacity of compositor, reporter and general writer for various newspapers and magazines.
It was in 1852 that young Locke settled down for the first time, at Plymouth, Ohio, where he became connected with the Advertiser, a weekly village newspaper, with a few hundreds circulation. Locke afterwards removed his talents to the Herald, at Mansfield, Ohio; then he drifted into the offices of the Journal at Bucyrus, Bellefontaine Republican, and the Jeffersonian, a prosperous weekly published at Findlay. It was during his connection with the last named paper that Locke wrote for the Journal, an article signed by the “Rev. Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby.” The letter purported to have come from an ignorant and penniless bourbon Democrat, who resided in Kentucky. This character was apparently devoted entirely to free whisky, perpetual slavery, and a position as post-master. The letter was dated “Confederit Cross Roads,” and soon after its appearance created considerable comment.
Not long after the appearance of the first Nasby letter, Locke changed his location once more, and turned up in the office of the Blade, at Toledo. Here he came to stay. He has stayed there ever since; has grown up with the Blade, and now owns and controls the paper. The “Nasby” letters have made both the Blade and Locke famous all over the country. In a private letter to the writer, Nasby says: “I have kept up the letters eversince 1860, for which I ask forgiveness.” At the close of the war Locke, like others of his class, entered the lecture field for a short time, and lectured in nearly all the Northern States. His first volume of letters appeared in 1865, in Cincinnati, under the title of Divers Views, Etc. In 1867 appeared another volume of Nasby letters, published in Boston, under the title of Swingin’ Round the Cirkle.” In 1868, appeared a third volume, Ekkoes From Kentucky, and, in 1874, a Boston house published his Morals of Abou ben Adhem. This was followed by A Paper City, published by Lee & Shepard, Boston, and Hannah Jane, a poem. This last-named work has had a large sale, and is quite popular. Of this work a leading critic said: “It is certainly one of the best things the Rev. P. V. Nasby ever produced. It has the extraordinary attraction of being in popular and excellent verse. It is real life, and true nature. It touches a chord that will vibrate everywhere; a subject near the heart of many, and in the experience of all. It touches it with honesty, frankness, and self-condemnation, that stings with conviction while it thrills with admiration.” One is fully convinced of these facts after a careful perusal of Hannah Jane. The following is a fragment from the poem:
“I was but little better. True, I’d longer been at school;My tongue and pen were run, perhaps, a trifle more by rule;But that was all: the neighbors round, who knew us thro’ and thro’,Spoke but the truth in calling her the better of the two.“She blundered in her writing, and she blundered when she spoke,And ev’ry rule of syntax that old Murray made she broke;But she was fresh and beautiful, and I——well, I was young;Her form and face far, far outweighed the blunders of her tongue.”
“I was but little better. True, I’d longer been at school;My tongue and pen were run, perhaps, a trifle more by rule;But that was all: the neighbors round, who knew us thro’ and thro’,Spoke but the truth in calling her the better of the two.“She blundered in her writing, and she blundered when she spoke,And ev’ry rule of syntax that old Murray made she broke;But she was fresh and beautiful, and I——well, I was young;Her form and face far, far outweighed the blunders of her tongue.”
“I was but little better. True, I’d longer been at school;My tongue and pen were run, perhaps, a trifle more by rule;But that was all: the neighbors round, who knew us thro’ and thro’,Spoke but the truth in calling her the better of the two.
“I was but little better. True, I’d longer been at school;
My tongue and pen were run, perhaps, a trifle more by rule;
But that was all: the neighbors round, who knew us thro’ and thro’,
Spoke but the truth in calling her the better of the two.
“She blundered in her writing, and she blundered when she spoke,And ev’ry rule of syntax that old Murray made she broke;But she was fresh and beautiful, and I——well, I was young;Her form and face far, far outweighed the blunders of her tongue.”
“She blundered in her writing, and she blundered when she spoke,
And ev’ry rule of syntax that old Murray made she broke;
But she was fresh and beautiful, and I——well, I was young;
Her form and face far, far outweighed the blunders of her tongue.”
In 1881 Mr. Locke, with his eldest son, sailed for Europe, where they travelled for nearly a year. On his return he began a series of papers in the Toledo Blade, entitled “Nasby in Exile.” These letters were afterwards, in 1882, published in book form by the Locke Publishing Co., of Toledo, under the same title. The work is principally descriptive of travel in Ireland, England and on the Continent. Locke is the author of two plays, “Inflation” and “Widow Bedott.” The last named has proved very successful, financially and otherwise.
“Nasby” was married to a very estimable lady, upwards of twenty-six years ago, and is the proud father of three children. He lives in a quiet, but elegant manner in the city of Toledo, and is considerably engrossed with the business interests of the city. Under his able management the weekly Toledo Blade has become one of the leading family papers of the country, and circulates in every State and Territory of the Union. Lockewrites solely for his paper, even his most successful books being made up of material taken from the columns of the Toledo newspaper.