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Samuel Lowrie Robertson "Robertson, Samuel Lowrie, educator and poet, was born in Jackson County, Ala., November 18, 1838, and died in Birmingham, Ala., September 2, 1909. After spending two years at the University of Virginia, he took a course in law at the Richmond Hill Law School in North Carolina, and located for the practice of his profession at Charlotte, but on account of impaired health he relinquished Blackstone and returned to his former home in Alabama, where he remained until the outbreak of hostilities. During the Civil War he served in the cavalry ranks under Wheeler and Forrest. When the struggle ended he chose educational work and was for years county school superintendent of Jefferson County; organized the Teachers' Institute; and gave his energies without reserve to the uplift of the masses. At leisure intervals he exercised what was conceded to be an unusual genius for versification. One of his best-known poems is entitled 'A School Room of Fifty Years Ago,' which vividly portrays in verse a typical picture of the ante-bellum days. Besides several booklets he published 'Dora: or, On the Border and Other Poems' (1894) and 'Gulf Songs' (1908). Some of his best efforts were inspired by his war-time experiences and were dedicated to his old comrades-in-arms." [Edwin Anderson Alderman & Joel Chandler Harris (eds.), Library of Southern Literature 373 (New Orleans: Martin & Hoyt Co., 1910)(1907)(Vol. 15, Biographical Dictionary of Authors, Lucian Lamar Knight ed.)] Poetry Samuel L. Robertson, Dora: or, On the Border, and Other Poems (Birmingham: Roberts & Son, 1894) ________________, Gulf Songs (Birmingham: Roberts & Son, Printers, 1908) ________________, To Camp Hardee: Homespun Songs (Birmingham, Alabama: [s.n., 1900-1910?] (16 pgs.) |
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