Poe Archive

INTRODUCTION
Everhart, James Bowen, (son of William Everhart), a Representative from Pennsylvania; born in the Boot, near West Chester, West Whiteland Township, Chester County, Pa., July 26, 1821; attended Bolmar’s Academy, West Chester, Pa., and was graduated from Princeton College in 1842; studied law at Harvard University and in Philadelphia, Pa.; was admitted to the bar in 1845; went abroad and spent two years in study at the Universities of Berlin and Edinburgh; returned to West Chester, Pa., and engaged in the practice of law; during the Civil War served in Company B, Tenth Regiment, Pennsylvania Militia; member of the State senate from 1876 to 1882; elected as a Republican to the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1887); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1886; resumed the practice of law; died in West Chester, Pa., August 23, 1888; interment in Oakland Cemetery, near West Chester.

*From the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

THE LETTER
James Everhart describes a slave auction to his parents, William and Hannah Everhart.

THE BOOK
The Archive also has in its collection the book, “A Memorial of the Life and Times of James Bowen Everhart,” edited by Thomas Louis Ogier, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, New York & London, 1889.

A passage from the book reads, “William Everhart (James Everhart's father) was born in 1785...In 1812, during the second war with Great Britain, he raised a rifle company of eighty picked men, and offered their services to the government; they were not called into service. In 1814 Mr. Everhart married Miss Hannah Matlack. It was while engaged in the mercantile business in West Whiteland township, whither he had moved some years previous, that he sailed for England, in the year 1822, for the purpose of making extensive purchases. Mr. Everhart sailed from New York in the ill-fated packet ship Albion, bound for Liverpool. The vessel, when it was, on April 33d, wrecked near the Old Head of Kinsale, on the Irish coast. The captain and all the crew excepting eight were drowned, and of the twenty-five cabin passengers Mr. Everhart alone was saved...Mr. Everhart, with almost superhuman efforts, saved his life by clinging to the nearly perpendicular rock, upon which he had only sufficient space to rest one foot. In this trying position he remained until dawn, being continually drenched with the angry billows. He was rescued by the people, who lowered a rope over the headland.”

JAMES EVERHART BOOKS
The Archive also has in its collection two books authored by James Everhart. The first is an inscribed book of poetry entitled, “The Fox Chase,” Porter and Coates, 1874; the second, “Miscellanies,” West Chester: Edward F. James, 1862, is a collection of essays from Mr. Everhart's travels around the world.