Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1855 Excerpt:...of the war of 1812, a number of Freneau's MS. poems, of which he had many, were consumed by fire, in the destruction of his house at Mount Pleasant. That he was not indifferent to his reputation, the several collections of his writings prove, and we learn from the venerable engraver on wood, Alexander Anderson, that Freneaa once applied to him to calculate the cost of an illustrated volume of the poems, which he found too great for his purse. Freneau died Dec. 18, 1832. The circumstances of his death were thus announced in the Monmouth (Xew Jersey) Inquirer:--" Mr. Freneau was in the village, and started, towards evening, to go home, about two miles. In attempting to go across he appears to have got lost and mired in a bog meadow, where his h'feless corpse was discovered yesterday morning. Captain Freneau was a staunch Whig in the time of the Revolntion, a good soldier, and a warm patriot. The productions of his pen animated his countrymen in the darkest days of '76, and the effusions of his muse cheered the desponding soldier as he fought the battles of freedom." The house which Freneau occupied at the time of his death is still standing. It is about a mile from Freehold. The house in which he lived before he came to Freehold, and the old tavern in which he and his club of friends met, are also in existence at Middletown Point.t To this account of Freneau, we are enabled to add a notice of his brother, who was settled in South Carolina, at Charleston, from the pen of Dr. Joseph Johnson, of that city. "Peter Freneau was a younger brother of Captain Philip Freneau. They were natives of New Jersey; but the first of their ancestors who came to this part of the world, was called De Fresnean, and settled in Connecticut, after effecting his escape...