20 August 2015

NYC #35: James Kirke Paulding, Green-Wood Cemetery (5), Brooklyn

James Kirke Paulding (1778–1860) was a friend of Washington Irving and had links with the Knickerbocker group. A disturbing sentence in Paulding's Wikipedia entry (accessed 08/19/15) reads 'Paulding's View of Slavery in the United States (1836) was a comprehensive defense of both Black slavery and America's claim to be a bastian [sic] of liberty against the attacks of abolitionists and European critics'. Um. Apart from Laura Jean Libbey, this is the only person included in the 'Writers' section of Jeffrey I. Richman's map of Green-Wood Cemetery. But I wouldn't recommend that anyone look for the grave, unless they're as fanatical as us: this is a very small plaque with only Paulding's name indicated as above, and at the time of visiting it was hidden under a bush.

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