Strangers to Us All Lawyers and Poetry

Isaac Hoover Julian

(1823-1910)
Indiana & Texas

"Julian, Isaac Hoover. Journalist. He was born rear [sic] Centreville, Ind., June 19, 1823, the son of Isaac and Rebecca Hoover Julian. He was self-educated, twice married, and lived for some time in Indiana. He was admitted to the Bar; but, becoming interested in the anti-slavery and temperance reforms, he took up the editorial pen. In 1873 he moved to San Marcos, Texas, editing The Free Press for seventeen years, and The People's Era for ten years. Besides contributions in both prose and verse to the periodicals, he has published: 'Sketches of the Early History of the White-Water Valley' (1857), 'Late Gathered Leaves in Verse and Prose,' and 'Outline History of the Julian and Hoover Families.'" [Edwin Anderson Alderman & Joel Chandler Harris (eds.), Library of Southern Literature 232 (New Orleans: Martin & Hoyt Co., 1910)(1907)(Vol. 15, Biographical Dictionary of Southern Authors, 1929, Lucian Lamar Knight ed.)]

"ISAAC H. JULIAN, a descendant of one of the pioneers of Indiana—who emigrated from North Carolina in the year 1807—was born in Wayne county, in that State, June nineteenth, 1823. His father died when he was an infant. Isaac enjoyed such common school advantages as were available to a boy who worked on a farm. When he was twenty-five years of age he turned his attention from agriculture to the study of law. Since that time he has written much in prose and verse, for the newspapers of Indiana, and was a regular contributor to the National Era and to The Genius of the West. In October, 1851, he published, at Richmond, an interesting pamphlet on 'The History of the Whitewater Valley.' Mr. Julian is now editor of The True Republican, Centerville, Indiana." [William Turner Coggeshall, The Poets and Poetry of the West: With Biographical and Critical Notices 453 (Columbus, Ohio: Follett, Foster and Company, 1860)] [The biographical sketch of Julian which appears in R. E. Banta, Indiana Authors and Their Books 1816-1916: Biographical Sketches of Authors Who Published During the First Century of Indiana Statehood with Lists of Their Books 175 (Crawfordsville, Indiana: Wabash College, 1949) also places Julian's birth near Centerville, Indiana.]

According to Indiana Authors and Their Books, Julian lived in Iowa from 1846 to 1850 but returned to Indiana and settled in Centerville. He was admitted to the bar in 1851. "From 1858 to 1872 he edited The True Republican, first published in Centerville and later in Richmond, Ind. He moved to San Marcos, Tex., in 1873, where he edited the Free Press for seventeen years and the People's Era until June of 1900." The volume of poetry attributed to Julian, Late-Gathered Leaves in Verse and Prose, has not been mentioned in various sources but a known copy has not been located..

Isaac Hoover Julian
Thos. W. Herringshaw (ed.), Local and National Poets of America 894
(Chicago: American Publishers' Association, 1890)

Family Tree

Poem

"To the Genius of the West"

Poetry

Isaac H. Julian, Eustace and Caroline: A Pastoral Tale. A Poem of His Boyhood Pointing the Moral of Western Emigration to the Landless Poor (San Marcos, Texas: author, 1901)

___________, Samples of the Briefer Poems of Isaac H. Julian (San Marcos, Texas: Printed for the author, 1903) [online text]

Writings

David Hoover, Memoir of David Hoover: A Pioneer of Indiana: a settler of 1806, for 14 years clerk of Wayne County, etc., embracing many interesting facts pertaining to the first settlement and early history of the Whitewater valley (Richmond, Indiana: James Elder, 1857)(revisions by Isaac H. Julian)