Strangers to Us All Lawyers and Poetry

George W. Cutter

(1801-1865)
Kentucky & Indiana



frontispiece
(drawn and engraved by C. Jowett/daguerreotype by E.C. Hawkins)

G.W. Cutter, Buena Visita: And Other Poems
(Cincinnati: Morgan & Overend, Printers, 1848)

G. W. Cutter is described in Kentucky in American Letters as "one of Kentucky's finest poets. . . ." He was, according to this same source, "born in Massachusetts about 1809, but he early came to Covington, Kentucky, and entered upon the practice of his profession, the law. He commanded a company of Kentuckians in the Mexican War with great honor to himself and to them. He had been a constant contributor of verse to the periodicals of his time, but he did not publish his first book until after the war with Mexico." Cutter returned to Kentucky after the war, and then moved to Indiana where he served in the state legislature. He still later moved to Washington, D.C. where he continued to write poetry. Cutter died in Washington, D.C. on Christmas Eve, 1865. [John Wilson Townsend, 1 Kentucky in American Letters 1784-1912 176-179 (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press, 1913)(2 vols.)(attributing the biographical information to W.T. Coggeshall, The Poets and Poetry of the West ( Columbus: Follett, Foster, 1860) [online text] and Oscar Fay Adams, Dictionary of American Authors (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 5th ed., 1905)][See also, Benjamin S. Parker & Enos B. Heiney (eds.), Poets and Poetry of Indiana 425-426 (New York: Silver, Burdett and Co., 1900)]

Cutter's poem, "Song of Steam" appeared in The New McGuffey Fourth Reader.

The Poets and Poetry of the West
biographical sketch and critical commentary

George W. Cutter and Mrs. Drake

George W. Cutter
Wikipedia

Poetry

G. W. Cutter, Elskwatawa; or, The Moving Fires, and Other Poems (Indianapolis, 1840)

__________, Buena Vista and Other Poems (Cincinnati: Morgan & Overend, 1848)

__________, Poems, National and Patriotic (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1857)

__________, Poems and Fugitive Pieces (Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach, Keys, 1857)

Biographical Sketches

"Cutter, George Washington: ca. 1801-1865," in Donald E. Thompson, Indiana Authors and Their Books 1917-1966 151 (Crawfordsville, Indiana: Wabash College, 1974)

"George W. Cutter," in Arthur W. Shumaker, A History of Indiana Literature 81-85 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1962)