Cornelia Laws St. John

Cornelia Laws St. John (? – February 24, 1902) was an American poet and biographer. She was the author of "Over the Shoulder to Clovernook, Being a Backward Glance at Alice and Phoebe Cary in Their Early Home". Her best known poem was "Six Little Feet on the Fender".

Biography[]

Cornelia Ellicott Williams was born in College Hill, Ohio, near Cincinnati.^[1] Her father was M. C. Williams of College Hill.^[2] She had at least one sibling, a brother, Wilber W. Williams, who became the pay inspector of the U.S. Navy.^[3]

She was educated at the Ohio Female College, at College Hill, where she received high marks for the elegance of her composition, in prose and verse, and for skill in music.^[2]

St. John was married first, in 1857, at Syracuse, New York, to Joseph P. Laws, a merchant of Richmond, Indiana, where they resided after marriage.^[2] It was during her residence in that city that many of her most popular poems were written.^[1]

Her poems appeared in the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, the St. Louis Democrat, and Journal, and some of them were extensively copied by the press. She first published, "The Empty Chair", in 1856; the next year, "Six Little Feet on the Fender" and "Behind the Post". Of "The Empty Chair", as it first appeared in the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, George Washington Cutter thus wrote to that paper:—^[2]

"If my poor judgment is worth any thing in matters of this kind, I unhesitatingly pronounce it "beautiful exceedingly". I know of few poems in our language, that, for freshness and originality of thought, justness of metaphor, picturesque arrangement, pleasing melody, and depth of pathos, surpass or even approach this 'gem of purest ray serene,' these beautiful buds of promise." These commendations apply with still more force to some of her later compositions."

Some years after the decease of Mr. Laws, she married secondly, Mr. St. John, and then made her home in Chicago. Later, she mourned the death of her second daughter,^[1] Mae Bramhall, the author of Japanese Jingles and The Wee Ones of Japan.^[4]

St. John is best known by her verses entitled, "Six Little Feet on the Fender".^[1][5] She was also the author of "Over the Shoulder to Clovernook, Being a Backward Glance at Alice and PHoebe Cary in Their Early Home" (1892). ^[6]

St. John died in New York City, 24 February 1902.^[3]

"Six Little Feet on the Fender"[]

Selected works[]

Poems[]

• "The Empty Chair", 1856
• "Six Little Feet on the Fender", 1857
• "Behind the Post", 1857

Biography[]

• "Over the Shoulder to Clovernook, Being a Backward Glance at Alice and PHoebe Cary in Their Early Home.", 1892

References[]

Citations[]

Attribution[]

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Coggeshall, William Turner (1860). The Poets and Poetry of the West: With Biographical and Critical Notices (Public domain ed.). Columbus, Ohio: Follett, Foster.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Fox, Henry Clay (1912). Memoirs of Wayne County and the City of Richmond, Indiana: From the Earliest Historical Times Down to the Present, Including a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families in Wayne County. Vol. 1 (Public domain ed.). Western Historical Association.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Heiney, Enos Boyd (1900). Poets and Poetry of Indiana: A Representative Collection of the Poetry of Indiana During the First Hundred Years of Its History as Territory and State, 1800 to 1900 (Public domain ed.). Silver, Burdett. ISBN 978-0-7222-0809-0.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: The Homemaker (1892). "Over the Shoulder to Clovernook. being a Backward Glance at Alice and PHoebe Cary in Their Early Home. By Cornelia Laws-St. John.". The Homemaker: An Illustrated Monthly Mag. Vol. 9–10 (Public domain ed.).