Does anybody remember Capt. Jack Crawford?

He billed himself as The Poet Scout. He was, I believe, a sidekick to Wild Bill Hicock. In the days before movies and TV he must have enthralled audiences with his tales of the Wild West. I know that he is not entirely forgotten to history as he penned a poem about the death of Wild Bill Hicock. Aces & Eights, the Dead mans' Hand and all that.

He apparently almost missed a train and was grateful for my grandfather's help in catching it. This incident apparently introduced them and today there remains a few letters which testify to a certain amount of corespondence between them.

This "friendship" between them was, I'm sure, a source of pride to my grandfather. Capt. Jack gave my grandfather an autographed picture of himself (shown here), I'm sure he had an abundant supply, with a poem about their meeting in the train station penned on the back of it.

I've titled this poem "The Flyer"

My grandfather spent many watchful nights in the Boston & Albany Railroads Tower #18. I found this poem he wrote about one of those nights and have titled it
The Towerman's Dream

Flight Dreams

Many of us had dreams that we could fly, and sometimes, in the right spot and on the right day, we almost believe that we can do it! I wrote the poem, Flight Dreams to express that feeling of wanting to do the impossible.

Deacon Foster's Pew

My grandmother's sister, Alice, wrote a poem about a rainy night in the church. I found it in an unposted envelope bearing the date April 1st 1896. Much has changed in a hundred years. But some things never do. I only knew my mother's Aunt Alice as an old woman in a nursing home many years ago. The paper this poem was written on was crumbling with age. As I read her poem, a hundred years disappeared and a most personal passionate right of passage at the end of her girlhood emerged. Alice titled her poem, Deacon Foster's Pew.

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