Spoon River Anthology · Chapters

Chapters explained

Chapter companions for Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters.

Chapter 1
Dedication
A brief, single-line dedication of the book to the author's wife.
Chapter 2
Acknowledgments
Edgar Lee Masters thanks William Marion Reedy, editor of Reedy's Mirror, for permission to reprint the Spoon River Anthology in book form and expresses gratitude for his sympathetic interest in the work since its initial serial publication beginning May 29, 1914.
Chapter 3
Spoon River Anthology
A collection of epitaphs from the Spoon River cemetery, where the dead reveal the hidden truths, hypocrisies, and unfulfilled lives behind their public facades, exposing the corruption, love, betrayal, and search for meaning that defined their existence in a small Illinois town.
Chapter 4
The Hill
The poem reflects on the lives and deaths of various Spoon River residents, both men and women, who now lie buried on the hill. It catalogs their diverse fates—illness, accident, violence, imprisonment, childbirth, heartbreak, and old age—and ends with the lingering memory of Fiddler Jones, who lived fully and recalls past joys and even a remark by Abraham Lincoln.
Chapter 5
Hod Putt
Hod Putt, a man weary of poverty and labor, observes the corrupt success of Old Bill Piersol, who profited through dishonest means and the bankruptcy law. In desperation, Hod robs and accidentally kills a traveler, for which he is executed. He draws a parallel between his own fate and Old Bill's, noting that both found peace in the grave.
Chapter 6
Ollie McGee
Ollie McGee speaks from the grave, revealing that her husband's secret cruelty robbed her of youth and beauty, leaving her broken and humiliated. She finds vengeance in death, as her husband is haunted by the face of what she was and what he made her, driving him toward her grave.
Chapter 7
Fletcher McGee
Fletcher McGee describes his marriage as a slow, draining process in which his wife sapped his strength and life. He portrays her as clay that he unconsciously shaped with his inner turmoil, resulting in a face both hated and feared. Even after her death, she continues to haunt him relentlessly.
Chapter 8
Robert Fulton Tanner
Robert Fulton Tanner reflects on the futility of revenge against life itself, comparing his experience of being bitten by a rat while demonstrating a patent trap to the inescapable trap of existence. He describes life as an ogre that lures people with desires for money, prestige, and power, only to watch them struggle in misery.
Chapter 9
Cassius Hueffer
Cassius Hueffer reflects on the false epitaph carved on his stone, which describes him as gentle and noble, while he insists his true epitaph should acknowledge the harshness of life and his violent struggle against it. He laments that in death he must submit to a fool's inscription.
Chapter 10
Serepta Mason
Serepta Mason laments that her life's potential was stunted by unseen forces, like a bitter wind that prevented her full blossoming. She protests that the village only saw her damaged side, not her hidden flowering, and calls the living fools for not recognizing the hidden influences that shape life.
Chapter 11
Amanda Barker
Amanda Barker speaks from the grave, revealing that Henry impregnated her knowing she would die in childbirth. She declares that the village believes Henry loved her, but she insists from the dust that he killed her to satisfy his hatred.
Chapter 12
Constance Hately
Constance Hately addresses the town of Spoon River, defending herself against praise for her self-sacrifice in raising her nieces, Irene and Mary, after their mother's death. She admits that while she cared for them, she poisoned her kindness by constantly reminding them of their dependence, which explains their contempt for her.
Chapter 13
Chase Henry
Chase Henry, the town drunkard, reflects on his death and burial. Denied burial in holy ground by the priest, he was instead buried in a Protestant lot next to the banker Nicholas and his wife Priscilla, a twist of fate he views as ironic honor.
Chapter 14
Harry Carey Goodhue
Harry Carey Goodhue, speaking from the grave, addresses the 'dullards' of Spoon River who failed to see the parallel between his own vengeful political crusades and Chase Henry's prohibitionist revenge. He recounts his failed fights against the bank, the courthouse ring, and local businessmen over corruption and tax burdens. After being ruined by these defeats, he reveals that he secretly adopted prohibition as a weapon—his 'last ideal'—to force Spoon River to pay for the battles he had lost.
Chapter 15
Judge Somers
Judge Somers, a once-erudite and celebrated lawyer, laments his forgotten and unmarked grave while contrasting it with the ornate marble monument of Chase Henry, the town drunkard, which Nature has ironically adorned with a flowering weed.
Chapter 16
Kinsey Keene
Kinsey Keene delivers a defiant epitaph, addressing the town's elite—Thomas Rhodes, Coolbaugh Whedon, Rev. Peet, A. D. Blood, and the Social Purity Club—with Cambronne's legendary retort at Waterloo, commanding that his final words be carved upon his stone.
Chapter 17
Benjamin Pantier
Benjamin Pantier, a once-aspiring attorney, lies buried with his dog Nig, his only companion in a life ruined by a woman who ensnared and drained him, leaving him broken and indifferent in a dingy office.
Chapter 18
Mrs. Benjamin Pantier
Mrs. Benjamin Pantier defends her decision to drive her husband away, explaining that she was a refined woman repulsed by his coarse habits and that the forced intimacy of marriage made her life unbearable.
Chapter 19
Reuben Pantier
Reuben Pantier, speaking from beyond the grave, addresses Emily Sparks, acknowledging that her prayers and love were not wasted. He recounts his fall into a life of dissipation—wine, women, and worldly pleasures—after leaving Spoon River. Yet, in a moment of drunkenness in Paris, he is overcome by the memory of Emily's pure love and guidance, which gives him a new vision and redeems his sense of self.
Chapter 20
Emily Sparks
Emily Sparks, an aging schoolteacher and old maid, reflects on her deep affection for a former student she loved best. She recalls praying for him and writing him a letter about Christ's love, and urges him, wherever he is, to strive for spiritual purification so that his earthly nature may be transformed into pure light.
Chapter 21
Trainor, the Druggist
Trainor, the druggist, reflects on the unpredictable outcomes of chemical compounds and human relationships, using the metaphor of chemistry to describe the destructive marriage of Benjamin Pantier and his wife, whose union produced a son like a devastating fire. He reveals his own life as a miser of chemicals, killed in an experiment, having never married.
Chapter 22
Daisy Fraser
Daisy Fraser contrasts her own forced contributions to the Spoon River school fund with the unpunished financial corruption of the town's elite—Editor Whedon, the Circuit Judge, and Reverends Peet and Sibley—who profit from bribery, suppression of truth, and complicity while she is publicly shamed and fined.
Chapter 23
Benjamin Fraser
Benjamin Fraser describes a mystical and consuming experience with the spirits of others, which he both absorbed and destroyed, leaving him in a desolate, lifeless void.
Chapter 24
Minerva Jones
Minerva Jones, the village poetess, recounts her life of ridicule and isolation due to her appearance, her brutal encounter with Butch Weldy, and her slow, numb descent into death. She pleads for someone to collect her verses, expressing a deep longing for love and life.
Chapter 25
"Indignation" Jones
The speaker, Indignation Jones, laments how the townspeople of Spoon River misjudged him as a degraded man, despite his Welsh heritage, education, and reading. He describes his life as a cancer from constant bruising, having married a slattern and fathered Minerva Jones, whom the town tormented to death. He portrays himself as a carpenter trapped in a bog of life, now reduced to creeping through his days unnoticed.
Chapter 26
Doctor Meyers
Doctor Meyers reflects on his life of service to the community, his prosperity and happiness, and his tragic downfall following the death of Minerva Jones, which led to his indictment, public disgrace, his wife's death from a broken heart, and his own death from pneumonia.
Chapter 27
Mrs. Meyers
Mrs. Meyers reflects on the life of Doctor Meyers, who protested his innocence regarding Minerva Jones's downfall, claiming he only tried to help her. She concludes he was blind to his own sin and warns passersby to love God and keep his commandments.
Chapter 28
“Butch” Weldy
Butch Weldy recounts his industrial accident at a canning works, where a gasoline tank explosion left him blind and crippled. After finding religion and steadying down, he was given a dangerous job that led to his injury. The court ruled that the accident was caused by a fellow servant, so Old Rhodes' son was not liable for damages.
Chapter 29
Knowlt Hoheimer
Knowlt Hoheimer, a soldier killed at the Battle of Missionary Ridge, expresses regret from beyond the grave. He reflects that he would have preferred facing the shame of imprisonment for stealing hogs over dying for a patriotic cause whose meaning he now questions.
Chapter 30
Lydia Puckett
Lydia Puckett reveals that Knowlt Hoheimer enlisted in the war not for patriotic reasons, but to escape a warrant for hog theft after a quarrel with her over Lucius Atherton. The chapter underscores the personal, often hidden motives behind public acts.
Chapter 31
Frank Drummer
Frank Drummer reflects on his life, dying at twenty-five after being imprisoned in a cell. He recalls a clear vision and urgent purpose that drove him to memorize the Encyclopedia Britannica, though the village saw him as a fool.
Chapter 32
Hare Drummer
Hare Drummer nostalgically recalls childhood autumns spent with friends at Siever's for cider and gathering hazelnuts on Aaron Hatfield's farm. The memory of playing along the road and hills, clubbing walnut trees at sunset, evokes a poignant reflection on lost youth and the passage of time, as the speaker wonders how many of those laughing comrades remain.
Chapter 33
Conrad Siever
Conrad Siever rejects the notion of a wasted afterlife in a garden of vain dreams, instead embracing the natural cycle of life and death under the apple tree he tended. He finds meaning in becoming part of the soil, the tree, and its fruit, transforming his labor into a living epitaph.
Chapter 34
Doc Hill
Doc Hill reflects on his life as a physician who tirelessly cared for the poor, driven by a loveless marriage and a wayward son. He finds solace in the community's affection at his funeral, but is deeply moved by the hidden grief of Em Stanton.
Chapter 35
Andy the Night-Watch
Andy, the night-watchman of Spoon River, reflects on his nightly patrols with his dog Tyke and lantern, observing the quiet town under the stars. He mentions the weary footsteps of Doc Hill and a distant rooster. Now both he and Doc Hill lie in the cemetery, where no guarding is needed.
Chapter 36
Sarah Brown
Sarah Brown speaks from beyond the grave, comforting Maurice and explaining that her love for both him and her husband led to her spiritual transcendence. She rejects earthly guilt, asserting that through physical love she achieved spiritual peace, and that in heaven there is love without marriage.
Chapter 37
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The speaker, a young man sent to university by his wealthy father, returns home with little education and spends his days hunting. He dies accidentally when his gun discharges and shoots him through the heart. His father erects a marble monument in his honor, and the speaker reflects on the contrast between his own memorial and the scattering of his namesake's ashes near Rome.
Chapter 38
Flossie Cabanis
Flossie Cabanis reflects on her failed attempt to escape her small village for a career on Broadway, inspired by a traveling actor named Ralph Barrett. She returned home broken after he abandoned her in New York, but notes that life broke him as well. Now buried in the village cemetery, she laments the lack of kindred spirits and wishes the actress Duse could witness the pathos of her resting place.
Chapter 39
Julia Miller
Julia Miller recounts the morning of her suicide, describing her quarrel with her much older husband, her pregnancy, and her despair over a past betrayal that led her to marry him. She takes morphine and reads a Bible verse as death overtakes her.
Chapter 40
Johnnie Sayre
Johnnie Sayre, a boy who played truant to steal rides on trains, recounts the moment his leg was crushed by a train engine. In his anguish, he prays to live long enough to ask his father's forgiveness, and finds solace in his father's tears and words of comfort. He reflects on the epitaph his father wisely chose: 'Taken from the evil to come.'
Chapter 41
Charlie French
Charlie French reflects on a childhood memory of being shot in the hand with a toy pistol by one of the O'Brien boys during a festive celebration in Spoon River, wondering which of his chums was responsible for the act that spoiled the day.
Chapter 42
Zenas Witt
Zenas Witt recounts his adolescent struggles with anxiety, poor memory, and physical weakness, which led him to believe he was doomed to an early death after reading a doctor's advertisement that seemed to describe his symptoms exactly. His worries eventually subsided, and he now rests in a dreamless sleep on the hill by the river.
Chapter 43
Theodore the Poet
Theodore, as a boy, spent hours observing a crawfish on the shore of the Spoon River, lost in wonder about its life and purpose. Later, he turned this same patient, searching gaze upon people in great cities, watching for their hidden souls to emerge and trying to understand how they lived, for what purpose, and why they persisted in their busy, futile paths as life's summer faded.
Chapter 44
The Town Marshal
The Town Marshal, a former drinking man who killed a Swede at a sawmill, is appointed by the Prohibitionists to enforce law and order after the saloons are voted out. He is given a loaded cane and strikes Jack McGuire, who then kills him. The Prohibitionists fail to have McGuire hanged because the Marshal appears in a dream to a juryman and reveals the secret story, leading to a fourteen-year sentence.
Chapter 45
Jack McGuire
Jack McGuire recounts how he was nearly lynched for killing Marshal Logan, but was secretly taken to Peoria jail. He explains the circumstances: Logan struck him with a Prohibition-loaded cane after calling him a drunkard, and McGuire shot him in response. His lawyer, Kinsey Keene, struck a deal with Judge Somers, a friend of Thomas Rhodes, to drop the case against Rhodes for bank wrecking in exchange for a fourteen-year sentence for McGuire. McGuire served his time and learned to read and write.
Chapter 46
Dorcas Gustine
Dorcas Gustine defends her outspoken nature against the villagers who dislike her for speaking her mind. She contrasts the praised silence of the Spartan boy with her own belief in open confrontation, arguing that silence poisons the soul and that it is braver to fight openly than to suffer in silence.
Chapter 47
Nicholas Bindle
Nicholas Bindle, from beyond the grave, rebukes the townspeople for their hypocrisy. He recalls how they pressured him to give generously to the church and the poor, only to mock him when his estate proved modest. He bitterly notes that the pipe organ he donated played at the christening of Deacon Rhodes, the man who financially ruined him yet was welcomed back to worship after a legal acquittal.
Chapter 48
Jacob Goodpasture
Jacob Goodpasture reflects on the Civil War, the death of his soldier son, and his own death, but ultimately expresses a hopeful vision of future unity, brotherhood, and spiritual transfiguration.
Chapter 49
Harold Arnett
Harold Arnett, overwhelmed by failure and disgust, commits suicide by gunshot. He experiences a moment of blackness and light, followed by unspeakable regret and a futile attempt to return to the world. In death, he finds no escape from the eternal destiny of life, trapped in a state where he cannot breathe properly yet must continue to breathe.
Chapter 50
Margaret Fuller Slack
Margaret Fuller Slack reflects on her unrealized potential as a writer, blaming her domestic life and death from lockjaw for preventing her from achieving greatness like George Eliot.
Chapter 51
George Trimble
George Trimble reflects on his political shifts from free-silver and single-tax advocacy to prohibition and church activism, driven by his wife's fear for his reputation. His attempts to prove his morality alienated both radicals and conservatives, leaving him unwept in death.
Chapter 52
Dr. Siegfried Iseman
Dr. Siegfried Iseman reflects on his medical career, beginning with idealistic vows to embody Christian virtue and selfless service. He laments that the medical establishment and society punish such idealism, leaving him only with poor patients and financial strain. To survive, he creates the Elixir of Youth, which leads to his arrest and conviction as a swindler by a federal judge in Peoria.
Chapter 53
“Ace” Shaw
Ace Shaw equates all professions—gambling, real estate, law, banking—to games of chance, asserting that diligence in business elevates one to stand before kings.
Chapter 54
Lois Spears
The epitaph of Lois Spears, a blind woman who found happiness as a wife, mother, and housekeeper, celebrating her ability to care for her home and family through touch and instinct.
Chapter 55
Justice Arnett
Justice Arnett addresses fellow citizens, recounting how his old docket fell from a shelf and gashed his bald head, possibly dislodged by an explosion at the canning works that burned Butch Weldy. He insists on reasoning the case carefully, conceding his head was cut but emphasizing the terrifying vision of the docket's leaves scattering like cards, which he ultimately perceives as the days and entries of seventy years of his life.
Chapter 56
Willard Fluke
Willard Fluke recounts his wife's decline into illness, his infidelity with a woman called Cleopatra, the deaths of those involved, his subsequent religious fervor and writings about the second coming of Christ, and a moment of confession in church interrupted by the sight of his blind daughter, after which all goes black.
Chapter 57
Aner Clute
Aner Clute reflects on the question she is always asked about how she entered her life of prostitution. She offers a superficial story about a silk dress and a promise of marriage from Lucius Atherton, but then reveals the deeper truth: society's labeling and rejection after a single transgression forced her into that life.
Chapter 58
Lucius Atherton
Lucius Atherton reflects on his past as a charming womanizer whose appeal faded with age, leaving him a toothless, discarded figure living on short-orders at a restaurant, contrasting his decline with the greatness of a poet who sang of Beatrice.
Chapter 59
Homer Clapp
Homer Clapp recounts his unrequited love for Aner Clute, who refused his advances and instead pursued a relationship with Lucius Atherton. The betrayal led Homer to invest his inheritance in a canning factory, where he lost everything, ultimately feeling like a fool whom only death could equalize with other men.
Chapter 60
Deacon Taylor
Deacon Taylor reveals the hypocrisy behind his pious public image, confessing that his death from cirrhosis of the liver was falsely attributed to eating watermelon, while in truth he secretly drank whiskey daily for thirty years.
Chapter 61
Sam Hookey
Sam Hookey recounts his life: he ran away with a circus after falling in love with a lion tamer, starved the lions, entered their cage to beat them, and was killed by one of them. In the afterlife, he meets the shadow of Robespierre, who curses him and says it served him right.
Chapter 62
Cooney Potter
Cooney Potter describes how he inherited forty acres from his father and, through relentless labor and exploitation of his family, expanded his land to a thousand acres. His insatiable desire for two thousand acres drove him to a life of toil and denial, ultimately leading to his early death at sixty, which he attributes not to smoking but to poor eating habits during harvest.
Chapter 63
Fiddler Jones
Fiddler Jones reflects on a life guided by music and spontaneous joy rather than agricultural ambition. He contrasts his own perception of natural phenomena—seeing dancing and music where others see ruin—with the relentless work ethic of neighbors like Cooney Potter. Despite ending with only forty acres, a broken fiddle, and a broken laugh, he cherishes his thousand memories and feels no regret.
Chapter 64
Nellie Clark
Nellie Clark recounts a childhood trauma at age eight involving a fifteen-year-old boy named Charlie, which her father nearly killed with a pistol. The story followed her into adulthood. She married a widower who, after two years, learned of the incident and felt cheated, believing she was not a virgin. He deserted her, and she died the following winter.
Chapter 65
Louise Smith
Louise Smith Herbert reflects on her broken engagement of eight years after Annabelle returned from the Seminary. She describes how she let her love turn into hatred, comparing it to deadly ivy instead of clematis, and warns against letting the will dominate the soul's nature.
Chapter 66
Herbert Marshall
Herbert Marshall addresses Louise, explaining that her sorrow and hatred stem from her delusion that he left her for Annabelle out of wantonness. He reveals that she hated him because she loved him and he was her soul's happiness, yet he could not solve her life. He admits she was his misery, and reflects on life's sorrow: happiness requires two, but hearts are drawn to those who do not want them.
Chapter 67
George Gray
George Gray reflects on his own epitaph, a boat with a furled sail, which he realizes represents not his destination but his life of fear and hesitation. He acknowledges rejecting love, sorrow, and ambition out of fear, yet yearning for meaning. He concludes that a life without meaning is a restless torture, and that one must take risks to find purpose.
Chapter 68
Hon. Henry Bennett
On his deathbed, Henry Bennett reflects on his marriage to Jenny, realizing too late that she married him for his fortune and resented his age and intellect, ultimately leaving him for the physically powerful Willard Shafer.
Chapter 69
Griffy the Cooper
Griffy the Cooper, a maker of tubs, reflects on the limitations of human perspective. He argues that people who think they understand life are actually trapped within the narrow confines of their own prejudices and social conventions—the 'staves of your tub.' True understanding requires breaking free from these constraints to see both the world and oneself clearly.
Chapter 70
Sexsmith the Dentist
The chapter presents a cynical view of moral reform, suggesting that societal changes are driven by economic interests rather than genuine moral conviction. Using rhetorical questions, it argues that reforms like abolition and temperance succeeded only when they aligned with capitalist gains, and that figures like Daisy Fraser and establishments like poker rooms were targeted only when their removal benefited powerful businessmen like Thomas Rhodes.
Chapter 71
A. D. Blood
A. D. Blood, a moral crusader who closed saloons and stopped card playing, questions why the village that praised his work now allows the milliner's daughter Dora and Benjamin Pantier's worthless son to use his grave as a pillow for their unholy acts.
Chapter 72
Robert Southey Burke
Robert Southey Burke reflects on his disillusionment with A. D. Blood, a man he once idolized and supported politically. He describes how he poured his idealism, devotion, and hopes into Blood, only to discover that Blood was hollow and deceitful. Burke warns others against idealizing and giving their love to any mortal man.
Chapter 73
Dora Williams
Dora Williams recounts her life of serial marriages and opportunistic moves after being abandoned by Reuben Pantier. She climbs the social ladder through a series of wealthy husbands, each meeting an untimely death, until she is poisoned by her final husband, Count Navigato, and buried in Rome with an epitaph pleading for eternal rest.
Chapter 74
Mrs. Williams
Mrs. Williams, a milliner, reflects on being gossiped about and blamed for her daughter Dora's disappearance. She defends her profession, noting that she sees beauty beyond hats and ribbons, and suggests that women should wear fashionable hats themselves to prevent husbands from straying. She provocatively asks whether Spoon River would be worse off if children were raised communally and parents allowed freedom to change partners.
Chapter 75
William and Emily
The poem reflects on the nature of death when experienced by two people who have shared a deep, passionate love over many years. It suggests that dying together, gradually and gently after a life of intimacy, creates a profound unity of souls that is akin to love itself.
Chapter 76
The Circuit Judge
The Circuit Judge reflects on his legacy, acknowledging that his judgments were based on legal technicalities rather than justice. He laments that even Hod Putt, whom he sentenced to death, was morally innocent compared to him, and he fears the erasure of his memory by the elements as a form of cosmic retribution.
Chapter 77
Blind Jack
Blind Jack, a fiddler, recounts his death after a day at the county fair. While driving home with Butch Weldy and Jack McGuire, who were drunk, the horses ran away, the carriage overturned, and he was caught in the wheels and killed. Now in the afterlife, he describes a blind man with a brow like a cloud, before whom all fiddlers and storytellers sit and listen to him sing of the fall of Troy.
Chapter 78
John Horace Burleson
John Horace Burleson reflects on his early success as a prize-winning essayist and novelist, his marriage to a banker's daughter, and his rise to bank president, all while yearning to write an epic war novel. Despite his literary aspirations and connections with famous figures like Matthew Arnold and Emerson, he ends up buried in his boyhood home, forgotten, with no monument in Chicago to preserve his name.
Chapter 79
Nancy Knapp
Nancy Knapp recounts the tragic story of how she and her husband inherited a farm, only to be ostracized by his family and neighbors. After a series of misfortunes—cattle disease, crop failure, and a lightning strike—they mortgaged the farm. Isolated and desperate, Nancy set fire to their home, dancing in the yard as her husband wept.
Chapter 80
Barry Holden
Barry Holden recounts how, while attending the trial of Dr. Duval for the murder of Zora Clemens, he was consumed by his own desperate circumstances—a mortgaged farm, eight children, and another on the way. Returning home, the sight of his pregnant wife and the hatchet drove him to kill her.
Chapter 81
State's Attorney Fallas
State's Attorney Fallas, known for his harsh enforcement of the law and driving the jury to hang Barry Holden, experiences a profound transformation after his son is born an idiot due to a doctor's forceps. He dedicates his life to studying and caring for those with sick minds, realizing his son is the true potter shaping his deeds of charity.
Chapter 82
Wendell P. Bloyd
Wendell P. Bloyd recounts his persecution for blasphemy, first charged with disorderly conduct in the absence of a blasphemy statute, then imprisoned as insane and beaten to death by a Catholic guard. His offense was declaring that God lied to Adam, destined him to ignorance of evil, and drove him from Eden out of envy and fear that Adam would eat from the tree of life and become immortal. Bloyd interprets God's actions as consistent with later crucifying His own Son to resolve the resulting tangle.
Chapter 83
Francis Turner
Francis Turner reflects on a life limited by a heart condition from scarlet fever, which prevented him from fully experiencing boyhood and manhood. He finds peace in death, comforted by a secret shared only with Mary: a moment of profound intimacy in a garden where, while kissing her, his soul departed.
Chapter 84
Franklin Jones
Franklin Jones laments his unfinished flying machine and the imperfect memorial carved for him, reflecting on the futility of human ambition and the inevitability of death.
Chapter 85
John M. Church
John M. Church, an attorney for the railroad and an indemnity company, manipulates the legal system to defeat claims from the crippled, widows, and orphans, amassing a fortune. Despite public praise and floral tributes, his inner corruption is symbolized by rats devouring his heart and a snake nesting in his skull.
Chapter 86
Russian Sonia
Russian Sonia recounts her cosmopolitan life from Weimar to Paris to Spoon River, where she lived with Patrick Hummer for twenty years under the pretense of marriage, finding humor in the absurdity of life.
Chapter 87
Isa Nutter
Isa Nutter rejects the medical diagnoses of satyriasis and leucaemia, insisting that his decline was caused by the relentless opposition of his family to his marriage to Minnie, whom he describes as the best and purest of women.
Chapter 88
Barney Hainsfeather
Barney Hainsfeather laments a tragic mix-up after a train wreck and fire, where he was mistaken for John Allen and buried in Spoon River instead of escaping to Peoria. He bemoans the indignity of both running a clothing store in the town and being buried there.
Chapter 89
Petit, the Poet
The poem reflects on the life of Petit, a poet who spent his life writing trivial, formulaic poetry (triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus) while remaining blind to the rich tapestry of life around him—tragedy, comedy, valor, truth, and the natural world. His work is compared to seeds in a dry pod, ticking away insignificantly, while greater poets like Homer and Whitman roar in the pines.
Chapter 90
Pauline Barrett
Pauline Barrett reflects on her slow recovery after a major surgery, the emotional distance between her and her husband on their tenth wedding anniversary, and her quiet despair as she contemplates the gap between appearance and reality in their marriage.
Chapter 91
Mrs. Charles Bliss
Mrs. Charles Bliss reflects on her unhappy marriage, which she was advised by Reverend Wiley and Judge Somers to maintain for the sake of the children. The children took sides, leading to guilt and emotional suffering for all. She criticizes the hypocrisy of religious and legal authorities who counsel preserving a loveless home, comparing it to raising plants in darkness or feeding a baby diseased milk.
Chapter 92
Mrs. George Reece
Mrs. George Reece addresses the next generation, advising them to memorize poetry for its practical wisdom. She recounts how her husband, the bank cashier, was wrongly imprisoned for the bank's collapse caused by President Thomas Rhodes and his son. Despite the injustice, she raised her children alone, educating them and sending them into the world strong and clean, guided by Pope's maxim: 'Act well your part, there all the honor lies.'
Chapter 93
Rev. Lemuel Wiley
Rev. Lemuel Wiley reflects on his life's work, emphasizing his greatest achievement: preventing the Blisses' divorce and preserving their family's moral standing in the village.
Chapter 94
Thomas Ross, Jr.
Thomas Ross, Jr. recounts witnessing a cliff-swallow defend her nest from a snake, only to be killed by a shrike shortly after. He parallels this to his own life, where he overcame his baser instincts but was ultimately destroyed by his brother's ambition.
Chapter 95
Rev. Abner Peet
Rev. Abner Peet reflects on the auction of his household effects, expressing dismay that a trunk containing his lifetime of sermon manuscripts was sold to a grog-keeper who burned them as waste paper.
Chapter 96
Jefferson Howard
Jefferson Howard reflects on his life as a valiant struggle against the dominant forces of Spoon River, rooted in his father's Virginia beliefs against slavery but also against war. He describes his conflict with the town's Republican, Calvinist, merchant, and banker elite, his burdens of family and stolen pleasures, and his eventual isolation as his children's lives diverged from his own. He dies standing, facing the silence, resigned that no one will remember his fight.
Chapter 97
Judge Selah Lively
Judge Selah Lively reflects on his rise from a small-statured grocery clerk and self-taught lawyer to County Judge, taking satisfaction in making the powerful men who once mocked him now address him as 'Your Honor.'
Chapter 98
Albert Schirding
Albert Schirding reflects on the irony of his life: while Jonas Keene lamented his children's failures, Schirding finds it more painful to be a failure himself while his children succeed. He raised successful children who left him behind, then tried to gain their admiration by running for public office, only to lose. His daughter's artistic triumph in Paris underscores his own sense of unworthiness and finishes him.
Chapter 99
Jonas Keene
Jonas Keene reflects on the inexplicable suicide of Albert Schirding, a man who seemingly had everything—means, honor, and wonderful children—and contrasts it with his own despair over his children's failures, culminating in his own self-destructive act of walking in the rain and refusing medical aid.
Chapter 100
Eugenia Todd
Eugenia Todd compares persistent emotional pains—thwarted love, defeated ambition, or a life-blunder—to a nagging tooth, a side pain, or a malignant growth that haunts even sleep, suggesting that only death brings true release and healing.
Chapter 101
Yee Bow
Yee Bow recounts being forced into Sunday school in Spoon River, where they tried to convert him from Confucianism to Christianity. He reflects that the attempt was as futile as the reverse would have been. Without warning, Harry Wiley, the minister's son, fatally attacked him from behind, crushing his ribs into his lungs. Yee Bow laments that he will never be buried with his ancestors in Peking and that no children will worship at his grave.
Chapter 102
Washington McNeely
Washington McNeely reflects on his life of wealth and honor, raising his children in a grand mansion. Despite his success, his children face tragedy and disgrace, and he spends his final years alone under a cedar tree, contemplating loss and mortality.
Chapter 103
Paul McNeely
A dying man, Paul McNeely, reflects on the tender care he received from Jane during his illness. He contrasts her selfless devotion with the McNeely fortune, which could not buy such love, and expresses a longing for physical and emotional intimacy. The chapter ends with a poignant question about whether his father provided for Jane after his death.
Chapter 104
Mary McNeely
Mary McNeely reflects on love as the discovery of one's soul through another, and the profound loss of self that follows when the beloved withdraws. She describes years of solitude spent trying to reclaim her identity and transform sorrow into a higher self, finding eventual solace in the image of her sorrowful father sitting under a cedar tree, which brings her infinite peace.
Chapter 105
Daniel M'Cumber
Daniel M'Cumber addresses Mary McNeely, confessing that he intended to return for her but was seduced by Laura, his landlady's daughter. Later, he became involved with Georgine Miner, a free love advocate from Ohio, who used him for comfort and then betrayed him, leaving him feeling degraded and unworthy of Mary.
Chapter 106
Georgine Sand Miner
Georgine Sand Miner recounts her life of manipulation and revenge after being driven from home by a stepmother. She becomes the mistress of a dilettante, learns cunning, and engages in a series of relationships marked by deceit, including a long affair with Daniel, a lesbian friend's scheming, and a final act of betrayal where she exposes Daniel's letter to his wife to prove her honor, ultimately feeling stripped bare as a harlot.
Chapter 107
Thomas Rhodes
Thomas Rhodes delivers a sardonic address to the town's intellectuals and free-thinkers, contrasting their chaotic, fragmented lives with the self-contained harmony he claims for himself as a seeker and hoarder of earthly treasures.
Chapter 108
Ida Chicken
Ida Chicken, after years of self-cultivation through lectures and French study, decides to travel to Paris to polish her culture. On her way to Peoria for a passport, she encounters Thomas Rhodes on the train and is made to swear to support the Constitution—a document she feels utterly unable to defend. The irony deepens as she learns that the Federal Judge, in the adjacent room, has just ruled that the Constitution exempts Rhodes from paying taxes for the Spoon River water works.
Chapter 109
Penniwit, the Artist
Penniwit laments losing his patronage in Spoon River because he tried to capture the soul of his subjects through his camera. His best photograph was of Judge Somers, whom he caught in a characteristic pose by shouting 'overruled' to trigger the judge's distinctive expression.
Chapter 110
Jim Brown
Jim Brown reflects on a controversy over his horse Dom Pedro, which pitted the forces of moral reform—led by Rev. Peet and the Social Purity Club, backed by Mrs. Benjamin Pantier—against those who saw the complaint as an attack on simple pleasures and horse racing. Ben Pantier and Fiddler Jones intervened to protect Jim Brown's right to keep the horse within town limits.
Chapter 111
Robert Davidson
Robert Davidson reflects on his life as a spiritual predator, growing fat by consuming the souls of others through pride, cunning, and ambition. He admits to wounding strong souls, stealing friends, and undermining rivals to assert his own power. However, the undigested remains of those he devoured bred a deadly nephritis within him, leading to fear, restlessness, and a disturbed vision. He collapses with a shriek, warning that unlike the acorn, which does not devour other acorns, his predatory nature ultimately destroyed him.
Chapter 112
Elsa Wertman
Elsa Wertman, a German peasant girl, recounts her experience working for Thomas Greene, who sexually assaulted her. She became pregnant, and Mrs. Greene, who was childless, adopted the child to conceal the affair. Elsa later married Gus Wertman, but at political rallies, she silently yearns to acknowledge that the eloquent speaker, Hamilton Greene, is her son.
Chapter 113
Hamilton Greene
Hamilton Greene reflects on his lineage and achievements, attributing his success as a judge, congressman, and state leader to the virtues inherited from his parents: vivacity, fancy, and language from his mother, and will, judgment, and logic from his father.
Chapter 114
Ernest Hyde
Ernest Hyde reflects on his mind as a mirror that once passively captured the world but was later scratched by sorrow, allowing his inner self to emerge and the outside world to enter. He describes this transformation as the birth of the soul, a process of both gain and loss, culminating in the silence of wisdom when the mirror no longer reflects an image.
Chapter 115
Roger Heston
Roger Heston recounts a philosophical debate with Ernest Hyde about free will, using the metaphor of a cow tethered by a rope. During their argument, the cow pulls free and fatally gores Heston, raising ironic questions about determinism and choice.
Chapter 116
Amos Sibley
Amos Sibley confesses that he lacked the character, fortitude, and patience the village attributed to him. He endured his wife's adulteries not out of virtue but because divorcing her would cost him his ministry. He lied to himself and to Spoon River, seeking alternative income through lecturing and politics with the secret hope of eventually leaving her.
Chapter 117
Mrs. Sibley
A brief, cryptic meditation on natural and human secrets, culminating in the speaker's hidden grave.
Chapter 118
Adam Weirauch
Adam Weirauch recounts his ruin after being caught between the political forces of Governor Altgeld and the industrial power of Armour. He lost his slaughterhouse and butcher shop when Armour shipped dressed meat to Spoon River, and lost friends and money supporting Altgeld. Expecting a Canal Commissioner appointment as compensation, he was passed over in favor of his enemy Editor Whedon. In retaliation, he ran for the legislature, abandoned his principles, and sold his vote on a street-car franchise—only to be caught and destroyed. He bitterly questions who truly ruined him: Armour, Altgeld, or himself.
Chapter 119
Ezra Bartlett
Ezra Bartlett, a former army and prison chaplain and exhorter in Spoon River, reflects on his fall from grace due to his love of women and wine. He argues that these earthly passions are not sins but stimulants that drive the soul toward divine ecstasy, and that true spiritual strength comes only when all stimulants fail and the soul relies on itself.
Chapter 120
Amelia Garrick
Amelia Garrick, buried in a forgotten plot near a stunted rose bush, addresses a successful woman in New York—a millionaire's wife celebrated in society. Though the world sees the other as triumphant and Amelia as a failure, Amelia asserts a deeper victory: she has vanquished the woman's spirit and remains an unconquerable power that robs her life of complete triumph.
Chapter 121
John Hancock Otis
John Hancock Otis, a man of inherited wealth and status, defends his democratic credentials by contrasting himself with Anthony Findlay, a self-made man who rose from poverty to power but became a tyrant to labor. Otis warns Spoon River and the republic to beware of those who rise from humble beginnings and become oppressors.
Chapter 122
Anthony Findlay
Anthony Findlay, a man who rose from humble beginnings to a position of power, argues that it is better for a country and a man to be feared than loved. He prioritizes wealth over friendship and asserts that the strong and wise must rule over the dull and weak, revealing a cynical view of freedom as a desire for power.
Chapter 123
John Cabanis
John Cabanis defends his defection from the party of law and order to lead the liberal party, arguing that his actions are not born of spite or forgetfulness of democracy's flaws, but of a visionary hope that every soul may become wise and strong enough to rule in a future world republic.
Chapter 124
The Unknown
A man reflects on his youthful cruelty when he shot and caged a hawk, and now seeks to offer friendship to the hawk's soul in the afterlife, drawing a parallel between the caged bird and his own wounded, caged life.
Chapter 125
Alexander Throckmorton
A brief reflection on the gap between youthful ambition and aged wisdom, where the speaker laments that in youth they had the strength but not the vision, and in age they have the vision but lack the strength to pursue it.
Chapter 126
Jonathan Swift Somers
The chapter reflects on the paradox of spiritual and intellectual enrichment leading to a painful clarity about the world's evil, questioning whether such vision is a blessing or a curse.
Chapter 127
Widow McFarlane
The Widow McFarlane, a carpet weaver, reflects on the hidden pattern of life and warns those still joyfully weaving at the loom that they may one day face a terrible truth: the cloth they have woven is a shroud, and they are left alone in hatred of it.
Chapter 128
Carl Hamblin
Carl Hamblin recounts how he was tarred and feathered and his printing press destroyed after publishing a poem on the day the Anarchists were hanged in Chicago. The poem depicts Justice as a blindfolded, corrupted figure who strikes the weak while accepting gold from the powerful, and whose true horrifying face is revealed when the bandage is removed.
Chapter 129
Editor Whedon
The chapter presents a bitter, first-person confession from a deceased editor who admits to manipulating truth, exploiting human emotions for profit, and using his newspaper as a tool for revenge and power. He describes his life as a sneak-thief and his death as a disgrace, buried near the village sewage.
Chapter 130
Eugene Carman
Eugene Carman, a long-time employee of Thomas Rhodes, reflects on his decades of servitude in the store and the oppressive control Rhodes exerts over his life, including mandatory church attendance. One morning, while dressing, he sees his aged, worn reflection and erupts in a fit of self-loathing and rage, cursing himself as a coward and a pauper, before collapsing from a broken vein in his head.
Chapter 131
Clarence Fawcett
Clarence Fawcett recounts how the sudden death of Eugene Carman led to a promised promotion that never materialized. Suspecting that Old Rhodes blamed him for stealing blankets to pay for his daughter's medical bills, Fawcett confesses under the promise of mercy. Instead, Rhodes exposes him publicly, and the newspapers—except the Clarion—brand him a thief, leading to his ruin and death.
Chapter 132
W. Lloyd Garrison Standard
The speaker, a complex and contradictory figure, reflects on his life as a failed idealist. He describes himself as a mix of vegetarian and carnivore, free-thinker and believer, proud yet defeated. He confesses to defending the scamps who burned the Spoon River courthouse and pleading them guilty, and to slinking away when Kinsey Keene exposed his true nature. His life, he concludes, was a barren dune destroyed by the storm.
Chapter 133
Professor Newcomer
The chapter uses the anecdote of Colonel Prichard's overpowered engine as a metaphor for the human condition: nature's drive for survival and reproduction paradoxically produces a spiritual and intellectual life that has no practical purpose, leaving human potential wasted in a world that offers no meaningful outlet.
Chapter 134
Ralph Rhodes
Ralph Rhodes confesses to wrecking his father's bank through loans to dabble in wheat, but reveals his father was complicit. He describes his subsequent life of dissipation in New York, chasing women and wine until his theft finally catches up with him in old age, demanding he return to Spoon River in disgrace.
Chapter 135
Mickey M’Grew
Mickey M’Grew reflects on how external circumstances repeatedly thwarted his ambitions, leading him to a life of manual labor in Spoon River. His final act of cleaning the water-tower ends in a fatal slip, plunging him into darkness.
Chapter 136
Rosie Roberts
Rosie Roberts, dying and bitter, confesses to murdering a wealthy merchant's son in a brothel. She exposes the corruption of the police and press, who covered up the crime as a hunting accident in exchange for advertising bribes. Her confession is a final act of defiance against the crooked game of life.
Chapter 137
Oscar Hummel
Oscar Hummel recounts his final night, stumbling home drunk through the darkness, lost despite following the road. Mistaking A. D. Blood's house for a friend's, he calls out for help, only to be met by Blood, who attacks him with a stick and beats him to death.
Chapter 138
Roscoe Purkapile
Roscoe Purkapile reflects on his marriage, describing how his wife's unwavering love trapped him. After attempting to escape through a year-long absence and a fabricated story about being captured by pirates, he returns to her acceptance and concludes that their marriage is a divine, indissoluble bond only broken by death.
Chapter 139
Mrs. Purkapile
Mrs. Purkapile recounts how her husband ran away for a year, claiming he was kidnapped by pirates on Lake Michigan, but she knew he was meeting the milliner, Mrs. Williams. Despite his betrayal, she refused to divorce him out of respect for her own character and the sanctity of marriage.
Chapter 140
Josiah Tompkins
Josiah Tompkins reflects on his life in Spoon River, where he was well-known, beloved, and wealthy. He describes how all but one of his children left home, and that remaining son eventually turned against him, siding with his wife to force Josiah to move to Missouri. Josiah made a will as his son dictated, but the son profited little from it.
Chapter 141
Mrs. Kessler
Mrs. Kessler reflects on her life as a laundress, supporting her family while her husband draws a pension and idles. Through washing the town's clothes, she learns the hidden secrets of Spoon River's residents, observing decay, stains, and the passage of time. She draws a parallel between her work and death, seeing washed and ironed faces at funerals.
Chapter 142
Harmon Whitney
Harmon Whitney, once a gifted and promising man, reflects on his fall from grace into a life of alcoholism and shame in Spoon River. He describes himself as a broken figure, reduced to performing for small-minded villagers while hiding a deep wound caused by his wife's cold, pure, and relentless rejection. His soul, unable to transform suffering into noble art like Byron's, instead turns inward with self-destructive bitterness.
Chapter 143
Bert Kessler
Bert Kessler recounts a hunting incident where he shoots a quail, only to be bitten by a rattlesnake hidden beneath the bird's resting place, leading to his collapse.
Chapter 144
Lambert Hutchins
Lambert Hutchins reflects on his two monuments: the house he built on the hill and the lake-front in Chicago, which became a polluted switching yard. He used his vote in the House of Representatives to secure this legacy, seeking rest from poverty and a secure life for his daughters. Yet, despite his wealth and status, he faced constant whispers and his daughters married hastily to escape, leaving him to question the worth of it all.
Chapter 145
Lillian Stewart
Lillian Stewart reflects on her upbringing as the daughter of Lambert Hutchins, who rose from a cottage to a mansion. She describes how the mansion, a symbol of her father's success, became a curse when her husband, disappointed by her lack of dowry, taunted her and accused the house of being a fraudulent lure. Eventually, she returned home to live as an old maid, keeping house for her father until her death.
Chapter 146
Hortence Robbins
Hortence Robbins reflects on her former life of high society, dining, travel, and entertaining nobility, now reduced to being buried in Spoon River, where her past glamour is forgotten.
Chapter 147
Batterton Dobyns
Batterton Dobyns, speaking from beyond the grave, reflects on his life of overwork and anxiety, believing he had provided for his widow through insurance, savings, and land. In a deathbed vision, he sees his wife enjoying a leisurely, indulgent life far away, seemingly untroubled by his passing.
Chapter 148
Jacob Godbey
Jacob Godbey, from beyond the grave, addresses the libertarians of Spoon River who championed saloon culture as the embodiment of liberty. He questions their hypocrisy, recalling how they nearly stoned him for his moral opposition while they themselves never truly experienced the wholesome joys they claimed to defend. After his death, he observes that their goddess Liberty was revealed as a prostitute, selling out the town to distant saloon interests. Godbey concludes that true personal liberty is of the mind, not the belly.
Chapter 149
Walter Simmons
Walter Simmons reflects on his early promise as a boy with inventive talents, only to settle into a mundane life as a jeweler and watchmaker in Spoon River. Despite his dreams of building a great engine, he never succeeded, ultimately admitting that he lacked the intellectual capacity to realize his ambitions.
Chapter 150
Tom Beatty
Tom Beatty, a lawyer who practiced in a poker room for thirty years, reflects on life as a rigged gambling game. He warns that life's odds are stacked against you, and if you cannot win within seventy years, you should accept your losses and leave without complaint.
Chapter 151
Roy Butler
Roy Butler recounts his wrongful conviction for rape, describing how a biased jury led by Butch Weldy quickly found him guilty. He explains the true context of the incident: a neighborhood dispute over a fence and a town rivalry, where he attempted to reconcile in a Christian spirit but was trapped by Mrs. Bandle's false accusations.
Chapter 152
Searcy Foote
Searcy Foote recounts how his dreams of college and marriage were thwarted by his wealthy, miserly Aunt Persis. After years of labor and frustration, he reads Proudhon, uses chloroform to kill his aunt while she sleeps, and the coroner rules it heart failure. He inherits her money, marries Delia Prickett, and reflects bitterly on the town's ignorance of his crime.
Chapter 153
Edmund Pollard
Edmund Pollard's epitaph is a passionate exhortation to embrace life fully and without hesitation. He laments not having seized the 'light of life' and urges the living to partake in all pleasures—physical and spiritual—without shame or restraint, for death is inevitable but one should 'die while living' in ecstasy.
Chapter 154
Thomas Trebelyan
Thomas Trebelyan reflects on the myth of Itys, Tereus, and Procne from Ovid's Metamorphoses, drawing a parallel between the ancient tragedy and the lives of the people in Spoon River. He observes that everyone kills the children of love and unknowingly consumes their flesh, and that all eventually transform into singers or swallows, singing only once or twittering in the cold.
Chapter 155
Percival Sharp
Percival Sharp reflects on the symbols and epitaphs carved on tombstones, questioning their sincerity and meaning. He contrasts these hollow memorials with the lasting impact of his own actions and 'vibrations' left in Spoon River, asserting that true legacy is found in how one lived, not in stone carvings.
Chapter 156
Hiram Scates
Hiram Scates recounts his failed bid for the nomination for president of the County-board, his subsequent betrayal of his idealistic followers by rallying them to support his rival Solomon Purple, and his personal gain as secretary while his followers are left out in the cold.
Chapter 157
Peleg Poague
Peleg Poague compares men to horses, using his stallion Billy Lee as a metaphor for a beautiful but ultimately useless and destructive creature. The horse, despite its speed and appearance, is a fraud—unable to win races, work, or be bred, and it ultimately causes Peleg's death by running away with him.
Chapter 158
Jeduthan Hawley
Jeduthan Hawley, the town's undertaker, reflects on his nightly work of preparing the dead for burial. He muses on the pairs of townspeople who have died together, noting that death always comes in twos, and contemplates his own eventual pairing with Daisy Fraser.
Chapter 159
Abel Melveny
Abel Melveny reflects on his life, having accumulated many machines he never used, which now rust and decay. He sees himself as a good machine that Life never employed, underscoring a sense of wasted potential and unfulfilled purpose.
Chapter 160
Oaks Tutt
Oaks Tutt, son of a wealthy miller and a mother who championed women's rights, travels the world seeking to reform its injustices after his father's death. He visits ancient ruins and experiences a divine vision commanding him to preach justice and truth. Upon returning to Spoon River, his fervor is met with skepticism, and Judge Somers defeats him in a debate by posing Pilate's question: 'What is truth?'
Chapter 161
Elliott Hawkins
Elliott Hawkins, a man who resembled Abraham Lincoln, reflects on his life as a respected but manipulative figure in Spoon River. He presents himself as a champion of property, order, and the Union, while secretly working as a lobbyist to protect railroad interests and prevent legislative raids. Despite whispers of corruption, he died wealthy and honored, with a stone epitaph quoting 'Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.' He contrasts his success with the silence of those who fought for reform and died forgotten.
Chapter 162
Voltaire Johnson
Voltaire Johnson confronts the town of Spoon River, accusing it of provoking his rebellious spirit through its cruelty and stupidity, only to then curse him for exposing its tyranny. He laments that he could have been as serene as Wordsworth if not for the town's oppression, and he mocks the town's cowardice for driving him to stand in a circle of truth and then complaining about the burns.
Chapter 163
English Thornton
English Thornton delivers a fiery, patriotic call to arms, urging the descendants of Revolutionary War and Black Hawk War veterans to rise up against the corrupt elites and pretenders who have inherited wealth and power through bribery and theft. He threatens that if they fail to destroy these 'vermin,' his ghost will annihilate the city and state.
Chapter 164
Enoch Dunlap
Enoch Dunlap, a former political leader in Spoon River, reflects on the twenty years he served as the people's champion, lamenting how his constituents neglected their duties and left him to bear the burden alone. He recalls their excuses—illness, drunkenness, or blind faith in his leadership—and bitterly curses them for betraying him after he fell from grace, revealing that his fatal mistake was merely stepping out to use the urinal during a critical caucus.
Chapter 165
Ida Frickey
Ida Frickey recounts her arrival in Spoon River as a penniless girl from Summum, feeling excluded by the town's closed doors. She describes a vision of giant scissors cutting the McNeely mansion in two, which foreshadows her eventual acquisition of half the mansion through a breach of promise suit against Wash McNeely's son.
Chapter 166
Seth Compton
Seth Compton, the founder of Spoon River's circulating library, laments that upon his death the library was auctioned off, erasing his legacy. He criticizes the townspeople for rejecting knowledge of evil and falsehood, arguing that true understanding of good and truth requires confronting their opposites.
Chapter 167
Felix Schmidt
Felix Schmidt recounts how a legal dispute over land ownership with wealthy landowner Christian Dallman led to his ruin. Despite believing he had a rightful claim, a survey proved Dallman's tax deed covered Schmidt's property, causing him to lose his case, his home, and ultimately become Dallman's tenant.
Chapter 168
Schroeder the Fisherman
Schroeder reflects on the competitive and predatory nature of life by observing minnows, swine, and the consolidation of farmland, questioning whether humanity possesses any divine or moral quality that truly distinguishes it from animals.
Chapter 169
Richard Bone
Richard Bone, the town's stonecutter, reflects on his role in creating false epitaphs for Spoon River's dead. Initially ignorant of the truth, he later realizes the epitaphs he chisels are often lies, yet he continues to carve them for payment, complicit in the town's self-deception.
Chapter 170
Silas Dement
Silas Dement recounts how he set fire to the old courthouse, a building where Lincoln once stood, as an act of destruction against the past. He was punished with imprisonment in Joliet, and upon his return, a new courthouse with a dome had been built in its place.
Chapter 171
Dillard Sissman
Dillard Sissman lies in a pasture, watching his kite fly against a sky where buzzards circle. The scene is peaceful yet unsettling, as the kite wobbles and the buzzards loom overhead. A sudden spurt of flame dazzles him, shaking him like a banner, suggesting a moment of violent disruption or epiphany.
Chapter 172
Jonathan Houghton
A nostalgic reflection on a midsummer scene from childhood, contrasting the peaceful rural past with the disillusionment of adulthood, as the speaker returns thirty years later to find everything changed and longs for the Hill.
Chapter 173
E. C. Culbertson
E. C. Culbertson, lying in his grave, questions whether the bronze tablet in the New Court House honors Editor Whedon and Thomas Rhodes instead of him, despite his successful labors and personal contributions to build the temple. He reflects on the injustice that those who first oppose a good work often seize credit for it, comparing it to the parable of the workers in the vineyard.
Chapter 174
Shack Dye
Shack Dye recounts the humiliations and deceptions he endured at the hands of white men in Spoon River, who played tricks on him involving fish, a circus leopard, and magnetized horseshoes. He concludes that the white men were equally ignorant of the forces that moved them, just as he was fooled by their pranks.
Chapter 175
Hildrup Tubbs
Hildrup Tubbs recounts his failed political campaigns for reform, his eventual turn to profiting from Thomas Rhodes' bankrupt bank as an assignee, and his subsequent isolation and decay as Death ignores him.
Chapter 176
Henry Tripp
Henry Tripp loses his savings when the bank fails and plans to abandon his family and life in Spoon River by fleeing on the midnight train. However, he is delayed when he witnesses a violent fight between Cully Green and Martin Vise, which ends with Cully's cowardly submission. Arrested as a witness, he misses his train and resigns himself to staying in Spoon River, ultimately viewing Cully Green as his unlikely savior.
Chapter 177
Granville Calhoun
Granville Calhoun reflects on his failed ambition to remain County Judge, his bitterness at being replaced, and how his vengeful spirit infected his sons. He describes how paralysis forced him into stillness, leaving him to watch helplessly from his window, surrounded by singing canaries, as the courthouse stands as a monument to his lost power.
Chapter 178
Henry C. Calhoun
Henry C. Calhoun reflects on his rise to the highest place in Spoon River, driven by bitterness and a desire to avenge his father's wrongs. He warns against the path of revenge, which leads to the Furies, and advises cutting the thread of revenge before it poisons future generations.
Chapter 179
Alfred Moir
Alfred Moir reflects on his life, questioning why he escaped the fates of self-contempt, alcoholism, and violence that befell others like Indignation Jones, Willard Fluke, and Jack McGuire. He attributes his modest success to a book he discovered by chance in Mason City, which profoundly affected his soul.
Chapter 180
Perry Zoll
Perry Zoll addresses the County Scientific Association, thanking them for the memorial stone and bronze tablet. He reflects on his initial rejections from the society and his eventual rise to prominence through his work on plant intelligence, noting that he no longer needs their validation but accepts the tribute for their sake.
Chapter 181
Dippold the Optician
An optician adjusts lenses for a patient, who describes a series of visions ranging from family and pastoral scenes to abstract light, culminating in the optician's decision to craft glasses based on the patient's perceptions.
Chapter 182
Magrady Graham
A poignant reflection on political defeat and the death of a loved one, as the speaker recalls a heart that gave out during the 1892 presidential election returns, and asks whether reformer John Peter Altgeld triumphed or was betrayed.
Chapter 183
Archibald Higbie
Archibald Higbie, a Spoon River native who became an artist in Rome, confesses his lifelong shame and hatred for his hometown. Despite his efforts to transcend his origins and immerse himself in European culture, his art is never fully accepted, and he feels forever burdened by the 'western soil' of Spoon River. He yearns for a rebirth free from his past.
Chapter 184
Tom Merritt
Tom Merritt recounts his suspicion of his wife's infidelity and his confrontation with her lover, which ends not in violence but in his own death.
Chapter 185
Mrs. Merritt
Mrs. Merritt reflects on her thirty-year imprisonment for a crime she claims she had no part in: her teenage lover killed her husband after she repeatedly told him to go away. She remained silent during her trial and sentencing, and now speaks from beyond the grave, having died in prison.
Chapter 186
Elmer Karr
Elmer Karr reflects on his crime of adultery and murder, his imprisonment, and the forgiveness he received from the community upon his return, culminating in his penitent confession and acceptance into the church.
Chapter 187
Elizabeth Childers
A mother addresses her child who died at birth, reflecting on the suffering the child has been spared—the pain of school, loss, sickness, shame, poverty, love's poison, and the uncertainty of progeny. She concludes that death is preferable to life's inevitable sorrows.
Chapter 188
Edith Conant
The chapter reflects on the forgotten memory of Edith Conant, a young woman who died in childbirth at age 21. The speaker, embodying collective memories, laments how time has erased her beauty, voice, and story, leaving only the impersonal markers of her grave and the unchanged natural world.
Chapter 189
Charles Webster
A vivid, melancholic description of a solitary walk through nature—from a clear morning to a stormy evening—ending with a poignant address to a lost beloved, symbolized by an empty rocking chair.
Chapter 190
Father Malloy
The speaker addresses Father Malloy, buried on holy ground apart from the hill, and reflects on his humanity, his empathy for those of wavering faith, and his role in rescuing Spoon River from cold village morality. Father Malloy is remembered as a bridge to a great past, unashamed of the flesh, who believed in the joy of life and faced it as it is.
Chapter 191
Ami Green
Ami Green reflects on his paradoxical existence: outwardly youthful with a smooth face and black hair into old age, but inwardly stunted and never matured. He describes being treated as a jest by the world, neither fully man nor boy, and concludes that the much-sought prize of eternal youth is merely arrested growth.
Chapter 192
Calvin Campbell
Calvin Campbell reflects on the deterministic nature of fate and personal character, using the metaphor of plants drawing different qualities from the same soil to question how individuals become either poisonous or beautiful in life.
Chapter 193
Henry Layton
Henry Layton reflects on his divided nature, born from a gentle father and a violent mother, with the two halves never truly fused. He describes how his ruin came not from either half alone, but from their falling apart, leaving him a lifeless soul.
Chapter 194
Harlan Sewall
Harlan Sewall reflects on a relationship where a devoted friend healed his diseased soul, but he repaid that kindness with withdrawal and silence because the friend witnessed his secret shame. He distinguishes physical healing, which inspires gratitude, from spiritual healing, which he wishes to forget along with the healer.
Chapter 195
Ippolit Konovaloff
Ippolit Konovaloff, a Russian gunsmith and political exile, recounts his escape from Odessa after a police raid on his reading group, his journey to America, and his life in Spoon River where he studies Kant and repairs guns. He uses the metaphor of gun molds to illustrate a deterministic, self-contained world that can only be reshaped by an external 'Moulder.'
Chapter 196
Henry Phipps
Henry Phipps reflects on his life as a figurehead for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique, his devotion to money and religion, and the collapse of the bank that revealed the corruption beneath. Stripped of wealth, he finds clarity in faith, only to be struck by a fatal cancer, questioning divine care.
Chapter 197
Harry Wilmans
Harry Wilmans recounts his youthful enlistment in the Philippine-American War, inspired by a patriotic speech from Henry Phipps, only to face the brutal realities of combat, disease, and moral degradation before dying in battle. He bitterly notes the irony of a flag now marking his grave in Spoon River.
Chapter 198
John Wasson
John Wasson recounts his journey from North Carolina to Spoon River, marked by hardship, loss, and labor, and contrasts his sacrifices with those of Harry Wilmans.
Chapter 199
Many Soldiers
The chapter reflects on the idealized motivations for war—glory, duty, and advancement—contrasting them with the impersonal, natural force of life that drives human action. It uses the metaphor of an iron band placed around a tree by a blacksmith, which the tree eventually outgrows and breaks, to illustrate how life's inherent growth and power supersede human intentions and constructs.
Chapter 200
Godwin James
The speaker addresses Harry Wilmans, contrasting his death in the Philippine-American War with the speaker's own spiritual and ideological struggles. Both are portrayed as having fallen in different battles, neither understanding the true nature of their defeat or victory, with a sense of confusion and disillusionment about the forces that drive human conflict.
Chapter 201
Lyman King
Lyman King warns the passer-by that Fate is not an external pitfall to be avoided through foresight and wisdom, but an internal force that confronts one in the mirror or as a familiar guest at the hearth, delivering an authentic message.
Chapter 202
Caroline Branson
Caroline Branson laments a love that moved from the spontaneous, transcendent joy of wooing in nature to a calculated, public consummation in a room with lamps. The experience leaves her feeling betrayed, her soul's rapture replaced by a hollow pact. She yearns for a rebirth, a second chance at love and existence, hoping to be drawn again into creation's stream and to be known by saints and artists.
Chapter 203
Anne Rutledge
Anne Rutledge speaks from the grave, claiming that her love and separation from Abraham Lincoln gave rise to the noble ideals that shaped the nation. She presents herself as the source of Lincoln's forgiveness and justice, and blesses the Republic to bloom from her dust.
Chapter 204
Hamlet Micure
In a feverish vision, the speaker revisits a childhood home transformed into a manor hall by the sea, where a man with a face like Euripides discusses the nature of 'divine despair' as expressed in Tennyson's 'Tears, Idle Tears.'
Chapter 205
Mabel Osborne
Mabel Osborne compares her own unfulfilled life and death to a geranium planted over her grave that is left to die of thirst, despite everyone knowing it needs water. She laments that she was voiceless in asking for love and happiness from Spoon River, and that the community watched her perish without offering help.
Chapter 206
William H. Herndon
William H. Herndon, sitting by his window in old age, reflects on his memories and visions of the past, particularly the rise of Abraham Lincoln from humble origins to a figure of epic destiny, and the tragic interplay between Lincoln and his assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
Chapter 207
Rebecca Wasson
Rebecca Wasson, now over a hundred years old and bedridden in her daughter-in-law's house, reflects on the endless drift of seasons and the passage of time. Her thoughts travel back to her girlhood in North Carolina, her husband John who went to war against the British, and the great figures of American history that passed like horsemen. She laments the long years of helpless waiting and the delayed return of her beloved John, culminating in a final vision of reunion.
Chapter 208
Rutherford McDowell
Rutherford McDowell, a photographer, reflects on the ambrotypes he made of the old pioneers and their descendants. He observes a mystical pathos in the pioneers' eyes, a serene sorrow that he cannot fathom. In contrast, the faces of the third generation show a loss of the old strength, faith, mastery of life, and courage that once characterized their forebears.
Chapter 209
Hannah Armstrong
Hannah Armstrong recounts her journey to Washington to secure the discharge of her sick son from the army. After initial difficulties gaining access to the White House, she is recognized by President Lincoln, who warmly recalls their shared past in Menard, Illinois, and personally writes the discharge order.
Chapter 210
Lucinda Matlock
Lucinda Matlock reflects on her long, full life—from youthful dances and courtship with Davis to seventy years of marriage, raising twelve children (eight of whom died before she turned sixty), and her industrious domestic life. She dismisses sorrow and discontent, asserting that life requires strength and love to be truly lived.
Chapter 211
Davis Matlock
Davis Matlock reflects on the nature of existence, comparing human life to a beehive where generations labor for the next without truly living. He challenges this view, asserting that humanity's essence transcends mere biological necessity and that one should live boldly, with the conviction of immortality, even in doubt. If such a life does not earn divine pride, then God is merely a physical force or death is the ultimate end.
Chapter 212
Herman Altman
Herman Altman reflects on his life of integrity and opposition to injustice, rejecting the idea of a monument or bust after his death for fear that his legacy would be co-opted by his enemies and used for dishonest purposes. He insists on remaining an untainted memory for those who truly knew and loved him.
Chapter 213
Jennie M'Grew
Jennie M'Grew describes a vision of death, contrasting common gothic imagery with a quiet, sunlit apparition seen by a country road—a black blot with an iris rim, perceived by second sight.
Chapter 214
Columbus Cheney
Columbus Cheney questions the purpose of planting a weeping willow for the present generation, urging consideration for the millions of children not yet born. He ponders whether they are non-existent, dormant cells, or beings whose birth erases memory of a prior existence, and challenges the listener to explore this intuition.
Chapter 215
Wallace Ferguson
Wallace Ferguson reflects on a transcendent experience in Geneva, where the beauty of Mont Blanc and Lake Geneva overwhelms him, yet he feels disconnected from his past self in Spoon River. He contemplates the nature of identity and memory, suggesting that in death, one might awaken in a new place without recollection of a former life, rendering earthly attachments meaningless.
Chapter 216
Marie Bateson
Marie Bateson reflects on the limitations of external moral codes and religious symbols, questioning how one can truly follow the direction pointed by a carved hand. She suggests that true freedom and purity are internal, not achieved through external acts of abstention or worship.
Chapter 217
Tennessee Claflin Shope
Tennessee Claflin Shope reflects on her role as the village outcast, mocked by the self-proclaimed sensible and learned townspeople. She contrasts their petty superstitions and conventional beliefs with her own spiritual independence, claiming to have mastered the Bhagavad Gita and cured her soul before Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science movement began.
Chapter 218
Plymouth Rock Joe
The chapter uses the metaphor of a barnyard to satirize the inhabitants of Spoon River, comparing their mundane pursuits and pretensions to the behavior of chickens. It calls out various townspeople for their roles and hypocrisies, suggesting that no matter their aspirations, they are trapped in a cycle of mediocrity.
Chapter 219
Imanuel Ehrenhardt
Imanuel Ehrenhardt recounts his philosophical journey through the works of major Western thinkers, from Sir William Hamilton to Schopenhauer, borrowing books from Judge Somers. Despite his intense study and hope to uncover the ultimate secret, he finds only disappointment and a renewed appreciation for the earthly world, as reflected in the soul of William Jones and a letter from John Muir.
Chapter 220
Samuel Gardner
Samuel Gardner, a greenhouse keeper and lover of nature, reflects on the life of a great elm tree, observing how its branches spread no wider than its roots. He draws a parallel to the human soul, suggesting that a person's spiritual breadth cannot exceed the life they have lived.
Chapter 221
Dow Kritt
Dow Kritt, a laborer who dug ditches around Spoon River, contrasts his elm tree with Samuel Gardner's. While Samuel boasts of his elm, Dow's tree is dying at the top because its roots have struck rock and cannot spread further, symbolizing a life stunted by unseen obstacles.
Chapter 222
William Jones
William Jones reflects on his life as a naturalist, finding joy in discovering unknown plants and receiving letters from notable scientists like Tyndall. He emphasizes that greatness in understanding nature is not inherent but earned through deeper appreciation. He asks to be covered with river shells, content in his wonder and worship of the earth and heaven, having joined the eternal march of life.
Chapter 223
William Goode
William Goode reflects on his seemingly aimless life, comparing his wanderings to bats flying zig-zag at twilight or a lost traveler in the woods, asserting that his apparent aimlessness was actually a sincere quest for meaning and direction.
Chapter 224
J. Milton Miles
J. Milton Miles reflects on the confusion of discerning truth from falsehood when many voices compete for attention, using the metaphor of church bells blending together until none can be distinguished from the others.
Chapter 225
Faith Matheny
Faith Matheny speaks of mysterious, transcendent moments that flash through the soul—sudden illuminations shared in silence between two people. She warns that these glimpses of the divine are overwhelming and dangerous, yet urges courage for those who experience them, as they catch a faint trace of what is reserved for God.
Chapter 226
Scholfield Hurley
Scholfield Hurley boasts of human achievements in science, engineering, and the arts, yet questions the divine purpose of creation when faced with mortality and decay.
Chapter 227
Willie Metcalf
Willie Metcalf reflects on his life as a marginalized figure who lived in a livery stable, found kinship with animals, and experienced a mystical connection with the earth and the dead. He describes moments of losing his sense of separateness from nature and recalls a vision of a stone trying to turn into jelly. In the cemetery, he felt the dead gather around him in silent prayer, and he now claims to know the truth of his existence.
Chapter 228
Willie Pennington
Willie Pennington, considered the weakling and simpleton of his family, reflects on how his strong and beautiful brothers were consumed by their passions and worldly pursuits, while he, inheriting only a residue of power, quietly witnessed a vision that many experienced through him without knowing its source.
Chapter 229
The Village Atheist
The village atheist, once a talkative and contentious debater against the doctrine of immortality, recounts his deathbed conversion after reading the Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus. He now argues that immortality is not a gift but an achievement, attained only through striving, and urges those who live by the senses alone to listen.
Chapter 230
John Ballard
John Ballard recounts his lifelong defiance of God, cursing Him in strength and sickness, only to find God indifferent. In his final weakness, he attempts reconciliation but realizes the futility of his efforts, sensing he is on the verge of a deeper truth about love and connection.
Chapter 231
Julian Scott
Julian Scott reflects on his radical moral inversion, where he rejects societal norms of justice and death, envisioning a god-like perspective that cannot coexist with human society, ultimately urging his soul to transcend earthly constraints.
Chapter 232
Alfonso Churchill
Alfonso Churchill reflects on his boyhood in Spoon River, where he was mocked as 'Prof. Moon' for his passion for astronomy. Despite the ridicule, he pursued his study of the stars and later taught at Knox College. He asks that his legacy not be his astronomical teachings, but rather his message that humanity remains significant and integral to the cosmic drama, regardless of the vastness of the universe.
Chapter 233
Zilpha Marsh
Zilpha Marsh recounts a supernatural experience in an empty schoolhouse where her planchette writing summons the name of Charles Guiteau, frightening her into fleeing. She describes being haunted by spirits who speak in trivialities, suggesting that the dead communicate with the living in ways that seem nonsensical because human language cannot capture the truths of the afterlife.
Chapter 234
James Garber
James Garber reflects on the path he wore across a lot, now replaced by an opera house, as a metaphor for the relentless journey of life. He warns the passer-by that after all worldly comforts—love, friendship, work, and ambition—fail to ease the soul's deep longing and loneliness, one will understand the true meaning of his worn path.
Chapter 235
Lydia Humphrey
Lydia Humphrey reflects on her lifelong devotion to the church, walking back and forth with her Bible until old age. She remained unwed and alone, yet found family and purpose in the congregation. Though others laughed and thought her queer, and though she knew of those who soared above the church in the sunlight, she found the church sweet and saw it as a democratized vision of the poets.
Chapter 236
Le Roy Goldman
Le Roy Goldman, a revivalist, reflects on the fear of death for those who have rejected Jesus. He suggests that the presence of a loving family member who knew you intimately can intercede for you before God, providing comfort and guidance in the final moments.
Chapter 237
Gustav Richter
Gustav Richter dreams of his greenhouse as a trial garden where flowers are evaluated for transplantation to a larger, freer garden. In the dream, he becomes a disembodied vision in golden light, hearing a Presence that judges each plant—Homer, Pericles, Caesar Borgia, Dante, Napoleon, Shelley, Shakespeare—with critical remarks, before the dream is interrupted by clouds.
Chapter 238
Arlo Will
A poetic meditation on spiritual awakening and transcendence, using vivid natural imagery—an alligator emerging from mud, startled horses, an open door in darkness—to evoke the soul's journey from earthly darkness toward an inner, luminous splendor and ultimate union with the divine.
Chapter 239
Captain Orlando Killion
Captain Orlando Killion, from his grave, addresses young radicals and dreamers who mock his epitaph for claiming both military service and faith in God. He argues these are not contradictions but reflections of a profound encounter with the vast realities of life and death, as experienced by a nation in revolutionary turmoil. He questions how he, a former blasphemer swept up in the nation's flood, could remain a blasphemer while serving as a captain in the army.
Chapter 240
Jeremy Carlisle
Jeremy Carlisle reflects on the sin of spiritual blindness and the joy of mutual recognition, comparing the revelation of true selves to the development of a tintype photograph.
Chapter 241
Joseph Dixon
Joseph Dixon, a piano tuner, reflects on his life's work and questions the nature of sound and music. He wonders if there is a higher power—an 'Ear'—that tuned him and might tune him again if he proves worthy, suggesting a search for meaning beyond death.
Chapter 242
Judson Stoddard
Judson Stoddard stands on a mountain peak above the clouds and reflects on the great thoughts, prayers, and dreams of human history—Buddha, Jesus, Plato, Dante, Kant, Newton, Milton, Shakespeare, and the Mother Church—each represented as a separate peak. He marvels at these 'poems and prayers that pierce the clouds' and wonders what God does with mountains that rise almost to heaven.
Chapter 243
Russell Kincaid
Russell Kincaid reflects on his final spring, sitting in a forsaken orchard and contemplating the ruined apple tree with its delicate blossoms that will never bear fruit. He compares his own spirit, trapped in a half-dead body and numb senses, to the tree's phantom blossoms shining over lifeless boughs, and laments the earth that leaves us before heaven takes us, wishing he had been a tree to fall in the cyclone that swept him out of the soul's suspense.
Chapter 244
Aaron Hatfield
Aaron Hatfield reflects on a Communion day at Concord Church, where he spoke of the peasant youth of Galilee killed by bankers and lawyers. His voice mingled with the June wind as pioneers mourned their lost sons, daughters, and children. In the tragic silence of the wine and bread, he found reconciliation and comfort for the ploughmen and hewers of wood, brothers of the peasant of Galilee.
Chapter 245
Isaiah Beethoven
Isaiah Beethoven, facing his own mortality with a three-month prognosis, retreats to Bernadotte where he contemplates the river as a metaphor for life and death. Through his meditation, he experiences a transcendence where the river's soul merges with his own, leading to a visionary moment of triumph over time.
Chapter 246
Elijah Browning
Elijah Browning recounts a visionary ascent from childhood innocence through sensual temptation and painful struggle to a final, transcendent union with truth. The journey moves from dancing multitudes at a mountain's foot, through a cloud of change, wrangling crowds, mocking figures, a seductive but bloody kiss, and a cold mist, to a solitary climb where he touches a star and vanishes into infinite truth.
Chapter 247
Webster Ford
Webster Ford recalls a youthful moment by the river with Mickey M'Grew, where they imagined seeing the god Apollo, only to be mocked by the banker's son. Years later, after Mickey's death, Ford reflects on carrying that vision in secret, fearing ridicule. He describes a transformation into a tree with laurel leaves, symbolizing the struggle between artistic vitality and the numbness of a repressed life, and concludes that one must choose between a fiery, meaningful death or a long, sorrowful existence.
Chapter 248
The Spooniad
An epic fragment by Jonathan Swift Somers, recounting the political and social strife in Spoon River sparked by Flossie Cabanis's return and the ensuing conflict between Thomas Rhodes and John Cabanis, culminating in a violent election day featuring the duel between hog-eyed Allen and Bengal Mike.
Chapter 249
Epilogue
The Epilogue presents a metaphysical drama set in the graveyard of Spoon River, where allegorical figures debate the nature of existence, free will, and the eternal struggle between good and evil. Through a game of checkers between two voices representing cosmic forces, the chapter explores themes of illusion, reality, and the cyclical nature of life and death. Beelzebub, Loki, and Yogarindra emerge to create a man from clay and dust, mocking human aspirations and the search for meaning, while voices of spring and the sun offer contrasting visions of renewal and cosmic order.
Chapter 250
Endnotes
The Endnotes chapter provides citations and references for the preceding text, directing readers to the author of The Spooniad and to Jonathan Swift Somers.

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Spoon River Anthology

The Hill

Hod Putt

Ollie McGee

Fletcher McGee

Robert Fulton Tanner

Cassius Hueffer

Serepta Mason

Amanda Barker

Constance Hately

Chase Henry

Harry Carey Goodhue

Judge Somers

Kinsey Keene

Benjamin Pantier

Mrs. Benjamin Pantier

Reuben Pantier

Emily Sparks

Trainor, the Druggist

Daisy Fraser

Benjamin Fraser

Minerva Jones

"Indignation" Jones

Doctor Meyers

Mrs. Meyers

“Butch” Weldy

Knowlt Hoheimer

Lydia Puckett

Frank Drummer

Hare Drummer

Conrad Siever

Doc Hill

Andy the Night-Watch

Sarah Brown

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Flossie Cabanis

Julia Miller

Johnnie Sayre

Charlie French

Zenas Witt

Theodore the Poet

The Town Marshal

Jack McGuire

Dorcas Gustine

Nicholas Bindle

Jacob Goodpasture

Harold Arnett

Margaret Fuller Slack

George Trimble

Dr. Siegfried Iseman

“Ace” Shaw

Lois Spears

Justice Arnett

Willard Fluke

Aner Clute

Lucius Atherton

Homer Clapp

Deacon Taylor

Sam Hookey

Cooney Potter

Fiddler Jones

Nellie Clark

Louise Smith

Herbert Marshall

George Gray

Hon. Henry Bennett

Griffy the Cooper

Sexsmith the Dentist

A. D. Blood

Robert Southey Burke

Dora Williams

Mrs. Williams

William and Emily

The Circuit Judge

Blind Jack

John Horace Burleson

Nancy Knapp

Barry Holden