Absolutely wonderfully preserved two volume folio set of manuscript poems entirely in the hand of Kansas poet, Orlando Roland Bellamy [1856-1911].
Raised in Indiana and the youngest of nine siblings, Orlando enrolled in De Pauw University in 1874 and graduated first in his class. He was a professor at the Baptist College in Pierce City and then moved to teach in Independence, Kansas. Shortly thereafter, he appears to have become ill to the point of becoming an invalid. He dedicated most of his life to poetry.
The present volumes include 352 poems neatly written on over 600 pages.
Subjects range from:
Hymns and Religious: Oh! Heavenward; Prayer; Look not Back; Out of the Depths; Faith; A Morning Hymn; The Sabbath of the Nations; The Song that Saved my Soul; Into His Gates; Behold the Light; Through Him; Earth's Battlefields; David Over Jonathan
Humorous and Americana: The Exploded Euchre-Deck; My Spellin' School; Learning Archery; Minnie's Beaux; Baseball in Girard; Chewing Gum; At the Stereopticon; Thanksgiving Day; The Last Day of School; The Shunamite; Nearer to Thee; Gathering Berries; The Old Sugar Camp; Driving Home the Cows; Pancakes
Historical: Street Scene in Coronado; Transmigration; Upsilon Rho Beta; Abraham Lincoln; William Tecumseh Sherman; Joan of Arc; The Siege of Harlem; Columbia Receiving the States; The Lovers; The Massacre of Glencoe
Sentimental and Romance: When Love is Done; The Pleasures of Home; My Beautiful Lover; The Pale Gray Rose; The Tramp's Grave
Etc. etc. etc.
Perhaps 50% of these poems were published in Songs of the Wayside by Orland Roland Bellamy. Published Buffalo. Charles Wells Moulton. 1891. The remainder are unpublished.
Gifted to Charles L. Hebrank [b.1875], of whom a poem is written about in the present volume. Hebrank was born in Independence, Montgomery County, Kansas and was a student of Bellamy's. By descent through the family.
