George Kimball, William Allen Wallace, and Me

Wallace begins his History by claiming that the doings of a small town in New Hampshire contained within it the entire world, or at least a very recognizable segment of it. We have already met Jacob Trussell, man of business, who was so busy seeking fortune that he sacrificed his soul. A familiar character in any era.

Wallace captured another stock character as well, someone bursting with promise who seems never quite to deliver. George Kimball is the most striking. He was one of the heroes of Noyes Academy.

George Kimball, within the confines of Wallace’s account of Noyes Academy, shines like a hero. He was one of the original incorporators of the school and he worked tirelessly on its behalf. He was also one of the Noyes Trustees. In this capacity, he was listed alongside such Abolitionist luminaries as David L. Child, Samuel E. Sewall, Nathanial Peabody Rogers, and Samuel H. Cox.

A Man's Life (2020-23), Gary Hamel

Black students attending Noyes boarded with Kimball and his family. It was to his house that the drunken and enraged mob headed after tearing the school off  its foundations.

Kimball was one of the movers behind Noyes Academy. He was clearly revered by his peers. He was also continually broke. It is in the chapter of the History on Lawyers, that Wallace discusses Kimball apart from Noyes. It quickly becomes clear that Kimball, on his own, was incapable of earning a living. This despite his being surrounded by supporters and friends who worked to make up for his deficits.

Page 320

In the fall of 1826, he had become weary of journalism; it interfered with his fixed habits of indolence. His friends advised him to return to the law, and that Canaan would be a good place to locate.[…] He came here and opened an office and in a few months after received the appointment of postmaster. He was a scholar and an agreeable speaker, but his manner of life had not made him familiar with legal practice. Business flowed in upon him, but in the details of legal forms he made mistakes and was often obliged to ask leave to amend his declarations. [Elijah] Blaisdell harassed and annoyed him and he as usual had recourse to his old Concord friends for relief. Moody Kent was his mentor and N.P. Rogers of Plymouth, his fidus Achates [faithful friend]. They partially directed his cases and carried him triumphantly through many difficulties.

Kimball was clearly loved and respected. But he was not good at the nuts and bolts of making a living. If he were alive today, he would be on Ritalin and likely doing well.

I am certain that George Kimball had ADHD. There aren’t that many personality (or in this case, neurological) types that can rally that degree of support while failing in every way to succeed.

Page 320

He was a gentleman of refinement and intelligence, companionable and of amiable disposition, a good storyteller and a writer of fair ability, but he was indolent, exceedingly fond of snuff and good whiskey, too much so to meet with success in a calling that requires active industry, tact and a quick perception. Of the duties of editorial life, he was a dreamer and oftentimes when his mind should have been active in his business, he would sit for hours nibbling his pen or gazing into vacancy

ADHD is a neurological variation. It isn’t a character flaw. Roughly 4% of the population has ADHD. Many of them are not fidgity children. Although some are. But there is a whole other presentation of ADHD. It is called inattentive type ADHD and people with this are very much like George Kimball, although not all are blessed with his gifts.

In this letter, Kimball’s dear friend and protector Nathanial Peabody Rogers implores his friend to simply pay attention to details and all will be well with his business concerns

Page 321

One thing I want to say you, don’t run in debt at the store; estimate your stores of little articles, and muster money and pay down for all you buy and buy at cash prices; otherwise you will always be thinking about it or you will forget that you owe and will spend what will pay the debts. Pay your sheriff often, and make your magistrate work cheap, pay him but part entry fee. Make out all your ex’ons yourself, and let him sign them, and pay him nothing for signing blanks.

But, Wallace lets us know a page later that George Kimball was unable to follow this advice

Page 322

In the money matters, Mr. Kimball was not a prudent man.

He had all the business he could attend to, but it only tended to poverty. He had a bad habit of paying his sheriff and court fees, and charging them to his client, and then instead of collecting his costs, would borrow money, and buy everything on credit.

Kimball has haunted me, but not because of his excellent work on Noyes Academy or because of his failure in business. It is because of a single line in Wallace’s discussion of him in the section on Lawyers.

Page 324

The ferocity of the mob spirit amazed and for a time paralyzed the friends of that school [Noyes Academy]. The people were seized with the idea that Abolitionists were to be exterminated with or without law. At public meetings, finding themselves in a minority and treated as public enemies, they for a time refrained from attending them and waited for the reaction of the public mind, which was sure to come. Mr. Kimball found it to his interest to leave town. In 1836 he went to Alton, Ill., and in company with Hubbard Harris engaged in mercantile business; Nathaniel Currier furnished $6,000 as part of their capital. When the mob of Alton attacked Lovejoy’s office, killed Lovejoy and threw his press and type into the Mississippi, Kimball was present, but not as one of the defenders. [emphasis mine]

Elijah Parish Lovejoy was a minister and a journalist and a passionate Abolitionist. His newspaper, originally published in St. Louis (Missouri was a slave state) was moved across the Mississippi River to Alton, Illinois to escape violent attacks by pro-slavery forces. Illinois was nominally a free state. In 1837, just two years after Noyes Academy, a pro-slavery mob attacked Lovejoy’s press, killing Lovejoy. He became a martyr to the movement.

When Wallace writes, “When the mob of Alton attacked Lovejoy’s office, killed Lovejoy and threw his press and type into the Mississippi, Kimball was present but not one of the defenders.” He leaves open the implicataion that Kimball had somehow switched sides, but research outside Wallace’s volume suggests that Kimball’s failure was simply one of nerve.

Kimball and Hubbard Harris were not the only Noyes participants hiding out in Alton. George Walworth, another of the Noyes incorporators had also moved to Alton. Wallace doesn’t mention this in his book, but the Internet reveals all. This excerpt is from a website maintained by the State of Iowa. Walworth’s son, also named George, went on to become prominent in Iowa politics.

Mr. Walworth lived and farmed with his family at Canaan until about 1836, when the family moved to Alton, Illinois. The move probably occurred at that time because of strong anti-Abolitionist feelings in Canaan, directed against George Walworth’s father and others who favored racial integration of the newly-established Noyes Academy. At Alton, Mr. Walworth opened a hardware store. Mr. George Kimball and Mr. Hubbard Harris, who had also left Canaan, New Hampshire, after the Noyes Academy controversy, established a dry goods store in the same building. On November 7, 1837, Mr. Walworth was one of a group of men who attempted to stop a pro-slavery gang from destroying a printing press used for abolitionist literature. One of the defenders was shot and killed.

This capsule bio from Iowa lets us know that Kimball and Harris had linked up with Walworth in Alton, perhaps choosing Alton because of Walworth’s established presence. And the reference to November 7, 1837 is the date Elijah Lovejoy’s press was destroyed and he killed.

According to this narrative, George Walworth, original incorporator of Noyes Academy was physically present at the press when it was under attack. George Kimball, who ran a business in the same building as Walworth and likely had every opportunity to be there, was not.

George Kimball is on record as supporting Lovejoy institutionally, but Wallace notes his disappointment with Kimball’s actions in the moment. Or, perhaps Kimball did, somehow side with the attackers, but seems almost impossible to consider.

Kimball continued not to earn a living for some years. Finally, at the urging of his wife, he returned to Bermuda in 1840 (Nancy must have enjoyed that).

Birdwatcher, Eagle (2021), Gary Hamel

The reason I titled this post George Kimball, William Allen Wallace and Me is that we are all likely linked by ADHD. This is from the History chapter on Old Families. Wallace, near the end of his life, reminisced about the path he’d traveled

Page 575

…she [his mother] carried me to Haverhill to enter a printing office, an event which changed the whole face of my life. Studies which it had been decided I should pursue were laid aside and never again taken up. My reading became of a desultory character such as all printers’ boys fall into, and I became a man of general information and with no habit for study in any particular direction, my mind is superficial.

Page 574

I realize, also, that I shall never, perhaps, be able to finish what I have begun, and I realize more than ever that I have not and never had the power of continuity of thought that would have led me on to success.

These two paragraphs are not nearly as conclusive as Kimball’s life history for me to suggest that William Allen Wallace also had ADHD, but having encountered these paragraphs myself entering old age, I nearly wept. He might as well have been talking about me.

I’m sharing this with you to let you in on the joke. I have set myself the task of, if not completing Wallace’s History, at least making it more accessible. I promise you, I am no more able to complete anything than was Wallace or Kimball. So, here I come to the rescue, in a leaky rowboat with just the one oar.