Isaac Story

(1774-1803)
Maine & Massachusetts

"A lawyer and verse-writer of Castine, Maine."

[Oscar Fay Adams, A Dictionary of American Authors 364 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899)]

Isaac Story, the son of Rev. Isaac Story (1749-1816), a Marblehead, Massachusetts minister, and Rebecca (Bradstreet) Story, was born at Marblehead in 1774. Story was a cousin of Justice Joseph Story. He graduated from Harvard College in 1793, studied law and took up the practice of law in Castine, Maine, and later in Rutland, Massachusetts. While in Castine, Story edited the Journal and contributed poems to various periods. Story"is best remembered for a series of verses signed 'Peter Quince,' which were originally published in the Political Gazette, and later transferred to the Farmer's Museum. A collection of these was published in 1801 under the title, A Parnassian Shop Opened in the Pindaric Stile: By Peter Quince, Esq." [Source: Kunitz & Haycraft (eds.), American Authors 1600-1900: A Biographical Dictionary of American Literature]

[Biographical sources: S. Austin Allibone, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors 2272-73 (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1874)(vol.2 of 3 vols.); The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White & Co., 1906)(vol.13); Stanley J. Kunitz & Howard Haycraft (eds.), American Authors 1600-1900: A Biographical Dictionary of American Literature 719-720 (New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1938); Sidney Perley, The Poets of Essex County, Massachusetts 151-152 (Salem, Massachusetts: Sidney Perley, 1889]

Poetry

Isaac Story, Liberty, A Poem Delivered on the Fourth of July (Newburyport: William Barrett, 1795)

_________, A Parnassian Shop, Opened in the Pindaric Stile (Boston: Printed by Russell and Cutler, 1801)

_________, Yarico to Inkle: An Epistle: to which is added, Love and madness: an elegy, written in 1797 (Suffield [Conn.]: Printed by Edward Gray, 1803)(this publication is also attributed to Edward Jerningham)

_________, Original and Select Poems, Moral Relgious and Sentimental; calculated to Refine the Taste, Elevate the Mind, and Attract the Attention of the Youth of Both Sexes. By the Stranger ( Albany: Printed by Webster and Wood, 1827) [online text]

Orations

Issac Story, An Oration, on the anniversary of the independence of the United States of America. Pronounced at Worcester, July 4, 1801 (Worcester, Massachusetts: Printed at the Press of Isaiah Thomas, Jun., 1801)