Melville's local ties

Published in The Post-Star (D1)
11/18/06

Albany Academy boasts several famous alumni, but one of the most famous was a dropout.

Herman Melville, author of "Moby Dick," attended the boys academy from 1830 to 1832, until his family’s financial woes forced him out of school and into the working world at 12 years old.

So Melville would probably be astonished to learn his alma mater is throwing him a major party this weekend.

"He was not here very long, but we’re taking the right to claim at least part of him," said Caroline Mason, head of schools for the girls and boys Albany academies.

Mason conceived the idea for what grew into a three-day celebration called "Why Melville Matters Now," involving everything from lectures to art exhibits and dances inspired by "Moby Dick." The University at Albany’s Center for Humanities, Arts and Technosciences co-sponsored the event, and several local cultural institutions worked together to add interdisciplinary elements.

Intellectual stars like Andrew Delbanco, Stanley Crouch and R.L. Lane agreed to speak, and dozens of scholars from as far away as Europe planned to attend the symposium, delivering papers on esoteric topics like "Archipelagic Thinking in Melville and Deleuze;" "What’s With the White Jacket?: The Plight of the Individual on the World Frigate;" and "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out: 1850s Herman Melville as Big Daddy Countercultural Beat Generation."

The Albany Institute of History and Art installed an exhibit of Frank Stella’s paintings inspired by "Moby Dick," and the academy installed a piece by artists Richard Garrison and William Bergman featuring a three-story-high whale and pen.

About 150 people signed up to read aloud a section of "Moby Dick" during a 24-hour reading marathon that ends at about noon today, with novelist William Kennedy of Albany and television personality Andrew Rooney of Lake George serving as famous bookends to open and close the reading.

Starbucks, the national coffee chain, offered to donate coffee for the reading when Burns suggested that the chain might have taken its name from a character in "Moby Dick."

In other words, this party became a project almost as large as Melville’s legendary white whale.

"We’ve never done an event on this scale before," said Carol Burns, communications director for the academies. "Everybody is excited about it."

So, why does Melville matter now?

As Mason pointed out, his work still shows up frequently in popular culture, inspiring songs, movies, plays and other creative endeavors.

"Besides the fact that he’s a great American novelist, I think he posed a lot of questions in the early days — about theology, existence, social issues — that are still being asked today," she reflected. "He was ahead of his time."
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Melville’s life

The future author of "Moby Dick" entered the world as Herman Melvill on Aug. 1, 1819, in New York City.

His mother, Maria, was the granddaughter of Gen. Peter Gansevoort, the Revolutionary War hero for whom the Northumberland hamlet of Gansevoort is named.

Maria married Allan Melvill, an ambitious young merchant from a Scottish family in Boston, and had eight children — Herman was the third. They lived in Manhattan until Allan’s business failures forced the family back north to stay with relatives.

Young Herman and several of his siblings enrolled at the Albany Academy prep school about 1830, but the family was bankrupt by the time Allan died of pneumonia in 1832, and 12-year-old Herman was pulled from school to work as a clerk in the New York State Bank (founded by his grandfather Herman).

Perhaps to separate them from the shame of bankruptcy, the family added an "e" to its last name around that time.

Herman got hooked on maritime adventure as a teenager, working as a cabin boy on a voyage from New York to England and back. After a few years as a schoolteacher, he set sail for the South Seas in 1841 and stayed abroad for three years, living among various island cultures. He wrote several books about his travels, including "Typee," "Omoo," and "Redburn," which were fairly successful.

He married Elizabeth Shaw in 1847 and they lived in Pittsfield, Mass., for many years, where he wrote "Moby Dick" and "Pierre." The novels were unpopular during his lifetime (less than 3,000 copies of "Moby Dick" sold) and he turned to writing poetry, with similarly discouraging results.

He supported himself in later years by working as a customs inspector in New York City, where he died on Sept. 28, 1891—- with so little fame that an obituary in The New York Times listed his name as Henry Melville.

Several decades later, critics and biographers began a revival of public interest in his work, and he is now considered one of the greatest American authors.

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(Companion piece)

NORTHUMBERLAND -- The gloomy bulk of the old Gansevoort Mansion would fit right into the landscape of "Moby Dick," the massive masterpiece by 19th-century American author Herman Melville.

The four-story wooden structure is as simple and sturdy as an old whaling ship, with peeling paint that evokes the grayish blues and whites of a northern sea.

The house was built about two centuries ago by either Gen.l Peter Gansevoort or his son Herman, who fathered another Herman, the author’s uncle. The author’s mother, Maria Gansevoort Melville, inherited the property in 1862.

The youngest Herman visited the rural estate many times throughout his life, and may have written portions of his works here. An original manuscript of his first novel "Typee" was discovered on the property in 1983 (the New York State Library bought it for about $400,000 at auction).

The property was sold out of the family in the late 19th century, and it was the headquarters of the local Masonic Lodge for the second half of the 20th century.

The current owner, Lynn Ruhman, bought it from the Masons in 1995 with the idea of turning it into a bed-and-breakfast.

"It just never happened, it’s too much work," Ruhman said, adding that she plans to sell the property soon. "But if I had done it, I would have named one of the rooms after Melville."

She lives in the bottom half of the house with her daughter and boyfriend, and runs a small hair salon called "Emotional Rescue" on the ground floor.

A tour through the upper floors reveals traces of its earlier history — the thick-planked wood floors and heavy-paned windows probably looked the same in Melville’s day — but it’s definitely a fixer-upper.

Coincidentally, Ruhman’s previous residence was the first home built by General Peter Gansevoort, on land confiscated from Royalists after the Revolutionary War.

"I’ve had two 200-year-old houses, and that’s enough," she said, laughing.

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