The wonderful statue of Tennessee Williams by Bill Beckwith that Dixie Butler presented to the people of Columbus brings to mind the literary heritage that is found throughout the city’s history.
With Williams holding an open book, you can only imagine whether it is one of his award-winning plays or maybe the screenplay to Cecile B DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” or “The Ghost of Black Creek.” Then again maybe he’s enjoying a recent novel, “The Secret of Magic.” They are all by people associated with Columbus, but it’s Tennessee Williams who set the bar.
Thomas Lanier Williams, better known as Tennessee Williams, is recognized as one of the three greatest playwrights, if not the greatest, America has produced. He was born in Columbus where his grandfather Walter Dakin was rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Rather than delving into his Pulitzer Prize-winning career, I will look at his Columbus associations. He was born to Cornelius C. Williams and Edwina Dakin Williams in 1911. Because his father was a traveling shoe salesman who was often away from home, Edwina lived in the church rectory with her parents. Several years ago, questions arose as to whether Williams had even been born in Columbus or whether he had been delivered by a doctor in Ocean Springs.
That question arose because Lyle Leverich in “Tom the Unknown Tennessee Williams” records that in 1941 Tennessee wrote in his journal that he had taken a “bike trip” from New Orleans to the Mississippi Coast to visit “Bill who is the son of the Doctor who brought me into this world.” Bill Richards was the son of Dr. William Richards and was an early friend of Tennessee. A member of the Richards’ family recalled an occasion prior to World War II when Tennessee Williams rode his bicycle from New Orleans to their house in Ocean Springs for a visit.
Dr. Richards grew up in Columbus, attended medical school and after graduation enlisted in the cavalry, where he served as assistant surgeon with Walter Reed at Fort Apache at the close of the Indian Wars. When he retired from the military he returned to Columbus where he practiced medicine. He attended St. Paul’s Church and was friends with the Dakin family. Dr. Richards retired from medicine about 1926 and moved to Ocean Springs. So, the doctor who “brought me (Tennessee) into this world” was in 1941 living in Ocean Springs but after moving there from Columbus about 15 years after Tennessee was born.
Another question that arose was whether Tennessee was born in the St. Paul’s rectory or in the hospital where Dr. Richards practiced. That question is answered in a May 11, 1952, Commercial Appeal newspaper account of Tennessee Williams and his grandfather visiting Columbus. According to the article “With his amazingly agile grandfather he saw the room in the rectory where he was born …”
From its founding, Columbus attracted talented people. There was Gideon Lincecum who moved here from Tuscaloosa in 1818. He was a self-taught real-life renaissance man who excelled in many fields. He wrote magazine articles on hunting, studied herbal medicine with a Choctaw Indian doctor, practiced medicine in Columbus, was a merchant in the Chickasaw Nation, was in Texas in 1835 as a volunteer at the beginning of the Texas Revolution. His name was proposed as the surgeon general of the Republic of Texas Army.
Because he had a large family in Mississippi and the situation in Texas was grave he was sent home. He also wrote papers on the evolution of ants, which were published by Charles Darwin. He died in Texas in 1873 and is buried on “founder’s row” of the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. His writings were compiled into an autobiography by Jerry Lincecum and Edward Phillips in 1994 and published by Texas A&M Press.
Joseph B. Cobb moved from Georgia to Noxubee County in 1837 and then Lowndes County in 1841. He was the author of three books and publisher of the Columbus Whig newspaper. In 1851, Cobb published a book titled “Mississippi Scenes.” It contained one of Mississippi’s earliest ghost stories, “The Legend of Black Creek.” It was the story of the haunting of Black Creek on Military Road four miles north of Columbus. Cobb died in 1858.
The Rev. Joseph Holt Ingraham was rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Aberdeen in the early 1850s and served for a time at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Columbus and at Christ Church Holly Springs. Besides being a minister, he was also a nationally popular author in the 1850s. In 1858, he wrote a historical fiction novel about Moses titled, “The Pillar of Fire or Israel in Bondage.” Ninety-six years later Cecile B. DeMille used that novel for much of the screenplay of his classic movie “The Ten Commandments.” In the movie’s credits, Ingraham is given top billing as writer.
Wisteria Place in Columbus was the last home of A.B. Meek. He spent most of his life in Alabama, where he was considered the leading literary figure in antebellum Alabama and had achieved a national reputation for his poetry. Meek wrote a poem, “Balaklava,” honoring the bravery of the charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava in 1854. The poem won high praise and was the first poem honoring the ill-fated heroism of the Light Brigade. It was said that Queen Victoria was so moved by his poem that she had copies printed to be distributed to the public. Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote his now immortal poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” after the publication of Meek’s poem in England. He moved to Columbus in 1863 after the death of his wife.
Clyde Kilby was the longtime chairman of the English department at Wheaton College in Illinois, where he became a leading scholar and lecturer on the “Inklings,” a group of English literary figures that included both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Kilby is considered one of the foremost biographers of C.S. Lewis. He was also an editor for J.R.R. Tolkien, having spent the summer of 1966 at Tolkien’s house working with him. Kilby was married in Columbus to Martha Harris in 1930 and retired here to her family home across the corner from Temple Heights. There he had Tolkien’s desk and C.S. Lewis’ old family wardrobe.
Charles Henri Ford was cashier at Columbus’ Gilmer Hotel Cafe/Coffee Shop where in 1929 he published “Blues: A Magazine of New Rhythms.” He moved to Paris, France, becoming a poet, photographer, artist, novelist and editor. He was included in Gertrude Stein’s literary circle. Ford is often credited with introducing America to surrealism in the arts and is known as America’s first surrealist poet.
While today’s column dealt with important writers from Columbus’ past, there are presently several noted authors living in or associated with the city. Most prominent are award-winning popular novelists Deborah Johnson of Columbus and Michael Farris Smith, who formerly taught at Mississippi University for Women but now resides in Oxford.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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