29 Hugh Henry Brackenridge (1748-1816)
Elaina Frulla
Introduction
Hugh Henry Brackenridge
Although a commonly overlooked American literary figure, Hugh Henry Brackenridge was widely known in his time as an “eccentric.” A man of letters who sought to bring knowledge and democracy to the frontiers of western Pennsylvania, a political idealist split between Federalist and Republican ideologies, an advocate for centralized government and the Constitution of the United States, and a supporter of the French Revolution, Brackenridge’s public life (and its seeming contradictions) simultaneously overshadowed and influenced his literary life.
Brackenridge was born in 1748 in Kintyre, Scotland. At the age of five, his family relocated to the “Barrens” — rural farming territory in York County, Pennsylvania. The struggles of Scottish communities on the frontier, including instances of indigenous hostility, remained with Brackenridge throughout his career, impacting his later political and literary endeavors.
Though Brackenridge’s youth was spent laboring, his evenings were devoted to study, and, intending ultimately to go into the ministry, he began college at Princeton in 1768. At Princeton, he befriended classmates Philip Freneau, James Madison, and William Bradford. The young friends began experimenting in satire as members of the Whig Student Society, engaging in debate with the student Tories in a series of poems titled Satires against Tories. Brackenridge and Freneau also collaborated on other literary endeavors. In 1770, the pair co-authored Father Bambo’s Pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the first American novels, and the poem “The Rising Glory of America,” which Brackenridge read at their commencement in 1771.
After college, Brackenridge worked as a schoolmaster in Maryland before returning to Princeton for a Master’s degree. It was at this time that Brackenridge became involved in the Revolutionary War effort as an army chaplain, which further fueled his passion for oratory. According to biographer Daniel Marder, Brackenridge “saw himself as a combination of druid…, of heroic bard, and of propagandist,” and his sermons were characterized by “clever devices of analogy” that “substituted patriotic and civic passions for religious ones” (8). In 1775, Brackenridge wrote his first dramatic narrative The Battle of Bunkers-Hill, which was published the following year.
After the Revolution, Brackenridge moved to Philadelphia, capital of the United States at the time, filled with patriotic idealism and aspirations to publish a newspaper that would, according to Marder, “serve the cause of American independence by fostering a native literature” (9). In late 1778, Brackenridge founded The United States Magazine as an educational vehicle to teach the common man how to engage and participate in democracy responsibly. Most notably, the magazine published his piece “The Cave of Vanhest” in 1779, which tells the story of a highly educated hermit who finds happiness upon