Bios and Tributes







        


                                                                 WHO IS JOE CONE?



Joe Cone is a rollicking rover who comes to your village along about dusk, sneaks along in the shadow of the trees till he gets to the town hall or the Opry House, or mebbe the Church. Whichever building it is, he generally enters by the back door and crawls up the back stairs, at the top of which there is usually a door opening into the Lecture Room. Joe opens this door about half an inch to see how many people there are inside the hall. Then he shuts it and fixes his collar; then he opens it about a foot, comes through, and moves sheepishly towards the platform. But, say! – when once his heels hit that platform he ails in something wonderful. He ain’t afraid o’ nobody then. He’s out to do or die, and not exactly prepared to die, he confines himself strictly to doing. And what he does is a-plenty.

 

He introduces to the audience, one by one, the towns-people of the back-hills burg of Gungywump, who are known familiarly as “The Waybackers”. And they are a queer lot, from Cynthy Jones to Sloky the Fiddler. He makes each row of his audience sit so far forward in their chairs, listening, that they nearly topple over into the row of seats right in front of them. Sometimes he splits their faces right across with laughter, and sometimes he makes them go fishing around in their pockets for their handkerchiefs. He talks in rhyme; he talks in prose; he talks in regular “Down East”. His sane philosophizing and kindly humor makes every last living soul in the room feel that life is lovely, and that this old world of ours is a pretty good place to stay in after all.

 

When Joe finishes, he stops, ends, quits, comes to a short halt, vanishes through the same door, slides down the back stairs, sneaks along in the shadow of the trees, and takes the night train out of town. Next year he comes back again, opens u a new bundle of conversation, and makes the people of that village glad again.

 

 

 

That is who Joe Cone is.




                                                                                                                                          Autobiography* – Early


Joseph Andrews Cone, or “Joe Cone”, was born Nov. 13, 1869, in Moodus, Midd. Co., Connecticut, a small village nestling prettily among the hills that stretch away a good five miles from the banks of the winding Connecticut River. His father, John Hall Cone, in early life followed the sea, but after being wed to Roxanna Andrews, a village maiden and sister to the one after whom the poet is named, he settled down to a quiet mercantile life in Moodus.

Joseph was the youngest of five boys, namely: Oscar (who died in childhood), Herbert, Lester and George.

The four attended the village school and received such education as remote school districts afforded.

A failure in the father’s business when Joseph was eleven years of age caused the purchase of a farm whose fertile banks sloped to the placid waters of the Salmon River, a branch of the Connecticut of which the poet has sung so affectionately in many of his productions of prose and poetry.

Upon the farm he labored summers and attended the Haddam Neck school winters, a distance of two and a half miles over rough and hilly country.

About this time occurred the death of his next to the oldest brother, Lester, who was drowned from a schooner off Montauk Pt., Long Island Sound.

The sad tidings occasioned the first outburst of poesy in the lad’s nature, for upon the same night he penciled on his slate which lay on the kitchen table, several lines, crude in all probabilities but full of love and tenderness for his lost relative.

His next poem was written in the little school-house at Haddam Neck. Having a fondness for all out-door life, and being a devoted amateur artist, it was natural that he should address his next lines to Nature, the subject he so much loved.

His instruction in art was very limited indeed, he having had but a few lessons in drawing and a few general hints on landscape painting. The lessons in drawing were from the Packer Institute, Brooklyn, and came by mail through the influence of some kind New York people with whom he became acquainted while working at a summer hotel on Haddam Neck one summer vacation.

The results, tho’ few were not without their good results however, for many sketches and paintings were produced in after years.

After trying various occupations when schooling was over he entered a job printing office and learned the printer’s trade, but upon the failure of his employer it was abandoned, and about a year later he entered the employ of the Am. Net & Twine Co. at East Haddam and learned the trade of machinist.

As is the case of most young men of his fibre he possessed his (lion’s) share of romance and sentiment, and from a small boy was hardly ever free froma love affair of some kind as many of the village maidens could testify.

They were all harmless and short lived, however, until the spring of 1888, when he became engaged to Emma Elizabeth Clevenshire, a village girl of English and German heritage.

Having a genuine hunger for music he began to study the cornet, and in a short time was prominently connected with various brass bands and other musical organizations in Conn. and Mass.

Undoubtedly it was his cornet which first led him to his future wife, as shortly after their acquaintance, began that delicate and dangerous undertaking, “teacher and pupil”, when both are young and romantic.

In a short time the lessons grew oftener, longer, and more interesting, and Mis Clevenshire became quite proficient upon the instrument.

The fall of 1888 brought about a great change in the young man’s life, owing to the Co. by whom he was employed removing their entire business to East Cambridge, Mass. Tho’ loth to leave old friends and haunts, undoubtedly the change brought new ideas and awakened new emotions in his poetical nature, for it was then he began to poetize the old scenes he loved so well.

An interesting sketching incident is told in which the poet and a lady artist of Elizabeth, N.J. prominently figure.

The artist, bein(g) an old friend of the poet’s mother, was visiting at Salmon River, and while strolling over the Haddam Neck Hills one day discovered a picturesque bowlder from which two tall cedar trees towered. Greatly desiring a sketch of the same she set out accompanied by the young man. The lady seated herself on the grass leaning against a low, dilapidated stone wall, protected from the sun by a large umbrella, while her companion, as she supposed, went further up to hillside to rest in the shade.

Imagine her surprise, when on their return to the house, he handed her a sketch of the bowlder, stone wall, sun-umbrella and all. She was so pleased with the ludicrous drawing that she begged it away and placed it upon the wall of her studio in Elizabeth.

It was sometime in the year of 1890 before he began writing regularly, or to any great extent, and about March of the same year he sent his first poem to the Conn. Valley Advertiser, a country weekly published at his native place, Moodus.

To his great surprise and delight it was published, and from that time he contributed to many papers throughout Mass. and Conn. among which were the Boston Courier, Yankee Blade, Cambridge Press, Hartford Post, Conn. Valley Ad. and others.

Knowing that he was in much need of better knowledge of English Grammar, he secured the services of Mrs. A. S. Taylor, a well known Cambridge teacher, and took a course of study through the winter of ’90 and ’91.

On the fifth day of March, 1890, a quiet wedding took place at East Haddam, Conn., and a few days later the poet, then aged twenty years and four months, brought to Cambridge the girl of his choice and began life anew.

Shortly following his marriage he became acquainted, through correspondence, with James B. Wiggin, a well known poet of Cambridge, from whom he received much information and encouragement, and later on many pleasant visits were exchanged.

On the thirteenth of June, 1892, a little boy came to cheer the home; the happiness was short lived however, as he lived but three hours. The father took the tiny body to his native town for burial.

Although his poems were copied to some extent they failed to attract scarcely more than ordinary attention till the summer of 1892, when the July number of the Leader, a Boston journal of music and literature, brought out a lengthy poem entitled, ‘Jim Coulter’s Violin.”

The same issue of the paper contained the following editorial:

“We rarely call special attention to any article in our comumns, as the Leader aims to produce only what is good, but we owe it to our readers to make this one exception. They who fail to read Joe Cone’s poem, “Jim Coulter’s Violin,” on page 228 of the present number of the Leader, will wrong themselves, by losing one of the best of the many “homespun” poems that we have read for many years.

Will Carlton, who has contributed liberally to this order of literature, never wrote better; - and we will be greatly surprised if this one be not copied and generally appreciated. Our most earnest thanks are given this contributor for his excellent offering.”

About this time he received some kindly letters from Sam Walter Foss, the New England poet, who was then editor of The Yankee Blade, and widely known as “The Yankee Blade Man.” Mr. Foss praised many of his poems, and advised him to try the New York funny papers with his humorous matter. The result was that his first contribution to Puck was accepted. This was Jan. 25, 1893, and July 12, the same year he received his first check, with trembling fingers and joyous heart.

From that day he made an earnest launch into humorous writing, and soon found a place in Puck, Judge, Truth and many other humorous publications.

On the thirteenth of June, a little boy, Myron Andrews Cone, was born to him, but the joy was of short duration, for in a few hours the little life was taken away. On the vent of this birth the father wrote a few lines of dialect verse, which were highly complimented in a personal letter from Eugene Field, the Chicago poet.

Late in November of the same year he won a prize offered by the Conn. Valley Advertiser, for the best poem on The Dude.

At the beginning of the year 1894, he made a decided step upward in his literary career, The editor of The Boston Courier sent for him, and thereupon engaged him to write the Courier’s famous humorous column called “Pencillings,” a column to which some of the most noted humorists in the country had long been contributors. He entered with zest upon his new field, and the Courier humor, instead of declining, became more and more widely copied throughout the country.

In the meantime he continued to study, and to write short stories and poems for various papers, and in the fall of ’94, to his great joy, he was accepted as a special student at Harvard College.

 

*I’m presuming this was written by Joe Cone, although it is in the 3rd person. It exists in typed form.






                                             Such Is Fame!

 

 

When he started writing verses

         Called himself a poet he;

Writing for the village papers

         With amazing frequency.

 

When he branched a bit and added

      To his literary fame

 It was then he signed, resplendent,

     “Poet-writer” to his name.

 

 When he really got to writing,

      “Judge” and “Puck” and “Life” his list,

He was known to the profession

      Simply as a humorist.

 

When he settled on a daily,

      And his real life-work began,

All his classic titles tumbled

      Down to just “the funny man”.

  

                      March 13, ‘09


 

 

  

 



  

   AN APPRECIATION

Fine Tribute of Newton Newkirk to Joe Cone

               _________________

 

Newton Newkirk writes the following appreciation of Joe Cone for “The Boston Post”

 

          On Tuesday last I journeyed down to Old Saybrook, Conn., to see my long-time friend, Joe Cone. You know Joe, too, - ‘most all the folks in New England know him, and there are a lot of folks all over the country who know him. For years Joe has been writing bits of cheerful, happy verse for “Puck” and “Judge” and “Life” and many other magazines. He also wrote two of three books. Then for a time wrote a column for a Boston paper, which was headed “Jocosities, by Joe Cone.” Joe just couldn’t help writing, and when he wrote he couldn’t help being cheerful and optimistic – his lines always breather help and hope and courage. And that’s why people read what he wrote and clipped his lines to carry around in their pocketbooks or paste in their scrapbooks.

          You see a little bright-eyed messenger boy rang the bell, and when I went to the door he handed me a yellow envelope. The message said briefly that Joe had gone on a long journey and that the funeral services would be at 2 p.m. last Tuesday. I stood there dazed with the message in my hand. Then I read it again. “Any answer, Mister?” asked the messenger boy. “No, son – no answer,” I told him, and he went down the street whistling. A robin in an elm across the street began to sing.

          And so I journeyed down to Old Saybrook to see my old friend, Joe. As the train glided along I sat by the window reminiscing. Again, I was trudging with Joe through the quiet aisles of the woods, or lounging with him on some sun-kissed knoll overlooking a placid lake. I remember how when we used to go fishing together he pretended I didn’t do my share of rowing the boat, and how when we were in camp together, doing our own cooking, he wanted to know why I didn’t serve a nutcracker with the biscuits I baked. 

         I also remember one day after I had taken a “Scrub” at the boat landing, when he was apparently absent from the scene, he told me that he had succeeded in getting a Kodak picture of a loon. Now the loon is a wary bird and I made Joe promise he would send me a print. When I got the picture, behold! – it was of myself in the altogether with a cake of soap in one hand and a sponge in the other. It was while we were on this trip that Joe wrote the following, which has travelled all over the country:


 “Foolishest thing I ever see

  At home, or anywhere –

Rooster standin’ on one leg

  When he’s got a pair!” 



          On the old Boston Post Road in Saybrook is a little white vine-covered cottage, and here for some years Joe has worked and played and been kind and loved his neighbor as himself. Joe’s wife and daughter met me at the door. I can remember how that self-same daughter used to pester me and Joe with her childish chatter when we wanted to write, but look at the change brief time has wrought! – she has blossomed into young womanhood. There is a sparkling dew-drop on her left hand and she told me that her heart is far away in France. Then together we entered the quiet room where Joe was. The air was laden with the odor of beautiful flowers. A shaft of sunlight came through a window and rested upon his smiling face.

 

          “Do you know,” said the wife and mother bravely, “it seems to me as if Joe hadn’t gone away at all.” “You are right,” I said with an ache in my throat; ‘he has just fallen asleep, that is all – he is very near to us and he will be with you always.”

 

          The Home Guard company, of which Joe was the bugler, led the way to the church and then to the cemetery, followed by a large assembly of friends, relatives and neighbors eager to pay this last loving tribute to one who so well deserved it.

 

          Au revoir, Joe, old friend – au revoir and good luck on the long journey. If there is a tear in my eye it is a tear of gratitude for your good humor and your comradeship. You lived to the end your creed of cheerfulness and the world is better and brighter because you tarried in it. So, bon voyage, Joe – good luck and God bless you.



 

 

                                               

                                              The Funny Man

 

 

            Behold him sitting at his desk

                 Constructing funny jokes

            To send out in the sober world

                  To tickle sober folks.

            He has a twinkle in his eye,

                 Gloom beneath his ban;

            He is the champion of mirth

                 The daily funny man.

 

            No troubles cloud his placid brow,

                 He laughs all care away;

            The things that badger other souls

                 To him are merely play.

            To take his pen and puncture gloom

                 Becomes his daily plan;

            For tragedy he has no room,

                 The daily funny man.

 

            His smile would melt all sorrow down,

                 His heart would warm the earth;

            And so a halo of good cheer

                 Hangs round the man of mirth.

            But this is not a picture true,

                 Do justice no one can;

            It is the idea people have

                 About the funny man!

 

 

                            April 12, 1913

 

 

 

 

 



                                         “There’s a heretic blast been blown i’ the west

                                          That what is not sense must be nonsense.”

 

  

 

Joseph Arrogant Cone


A biographical sketch by George Eminent Briggs

 

 

      Josie take this little song,

          It may be right or wrong,

      It’ only you can say if it be true

          We like to take your hand,

      Shake it out to beat the band

          And Josie, here’s my best respects to you.

      There’s sure to come a day

          When you’ll draw in all your pay

      And be treated as a Christian ought to do,

          But until that day comes round,

      Heaven keep you safe and sound,    

          And Josie, here’s my very best respect to you.

 

      Joe Cone, poet and humorist, Old Saybrook’s favorite son comes of distinguished ancestry. Horace and Livy both mention the Marquis de Cone and both state that he flourished at Nimes, France in the seventeenth century. What he flourished whether a sword, a cigarette, or a spoonful of macaroni does not appear. The family coat-of-arms was as follows: five Wolf River apples in a cross, and three melon rinds and a “busted” lawn mower in a crescent.

     The first of this distinguished family to come to America was Daniel Webster Montcalm Kipling Morgan Bulkeley Cone, who came from Havre to Killingworth about the year 1700. Mr. Cone soon established himself in the business of manufacturing automobiles and sundries. In this field, he was very successful and acquired competence. He reared a large family which consisted of sons and daughters

     Patrick Henry Clay Wanamaker Cone, son of the above, was born in Killingworth in 1800. He continued the automobile business of his father but in a less aggressive way. He made fewer autos. And more sundries.

     Abraham Lincoln Sharkey Hearst Cone, son of Patrick Henry Clay Wanamaker, was born at Old Saybrook in 1835. Bred to the law, he achieved success and distinction in the field of letter. He, too, reared a large family, his seventh son being Joseph arrogant the subject proper of this sketch.

      Joseph Arrogant Cone was born at Cottage Place in 1860. He grew up a happy country boy amid environment ideal for a future poet. As a boy, he loved to hear the zephyr sway the young spring leaves and whisper to the hollow reeds its dreamy music. He also loved to her the sad wave telling its story to the “pebbles on the beach”. Even the gentle murmurs of the beet, the turnip, and the cabbage, as they approached maturity in glade and dell were Heavenly music in his ear.

     Mr. Cone’s first poem, “The murmuring wave and it sad kerplunk” was laboriously written out in 1906. This was followed in October of the same year by the tender little lyric “Give me three chunks of corn mother”. The next year appeared his pastoral “There’s a chicken on the ground as the wheel turns round”. These poems were not accepted by the various periodicals to which they were offered, but served as a John the Baptist of what was to come.

     In 1907, Mr. Cone made a move which proved to be the turning point in his literary career. He became a member of the “Cracker and Cheese” Club. Here he came in contact with some of the brightest and most successful literary men of his day and their influence on his work soon became apparent. His first poem to be written after he became identified with this club shows the elevation of thought which he attained through his new associations.

 

                          Twinkle, twinkle little star

                          Riding in a touring car

                          How I wonder who you are… etc. etc.

 

      This poem made a decided “hit” appeared in the Cottage Place “Clarion”. Mr. Cone soon became a regular contributor to this journal as well as to the Lyme “Courier-Journal”, the Black Hall “Herald” and the Oyster River “Recorder”.

     Mr. Cone’s first book of poems, “Forty Liars and other Lies” appeared in 1910, and was well received by press and public. It should be said, perhaps, that the personnel of the “Cracker and Cheese” Club has been constantly changing; and other and abler men have come into membership. As a direct result of this, Mr. Cone’s next book “Baled Shavings” a collection of poems, sonnets, and sonatas; exhibits an elegance of diction and depth of feeling not to be found in the previous volume. “Baled Shavings” appeals alike to young and old, rich and poor, Republicans and sinners.

     In 1914, Mr. Cone published two volumes “Pipe Dreams”, and “Celebrities I have met”. In the latter, he attempts to do justice to his fellow members of the “Cracker and Cheese” Club. These books show the impress of some of the younger and more brilliant members of the Club and consequently became a decided success from the first. Even Mr. Cone’s critics had nothing to say to the thrill of delight with which these volumes were received, and he was immediately lifted to a dizzy height of popularity equaled by nothing since the days of Scott and Bryon.

     Robert Burns said of Highland Mary or some other of his feminine creations “True she had one little fault. Had a woman ever less?” Does this not apply equally to a man? Much as we could wish to avoid the subject, we are forced to admit that Mr. Cone is the victim of an unfortunate habit which has sometimes retarded his best development as a man and as a poet. He insists on inhaling and blowing from his mouth and nostrils, dense clouds of smoke from the dried leaves of a vile weed the natural food of no creature except the loathsome worm.

     Realizing that the conventional thing to do is to ladle in at this point something about the author’s “perspective”, the deponents depose and say that Joe takes an optimistic view of life and looks out upon it with a cheerful smile, He seems to believe that, even in this world, one sooner or later gets all the good things that are coming to him; and is rewarded according to the brilliancy of his brilliant and the profundity of his profound.

     Mr. Cone lives at Cottage Place a few rods from his birth place. At his board, are with and zest, wine and wassail. He is a delightful host and regularly entertains the “Cracker and Cheese” Club on Friday evening of each week. “What a delicious thing is an oyster.”

 

 

      A poet to fame not unknown

        Tried to manicure his lawn to “tone”

      But along came a car

        With a rumble and jar

      And smashed the lawn mower-de-Cone.






*          *          *          *          *          *

 

                  Anonymous Biography

 

Joe Cone (Joseph Andrews Cone), poet and humorist, was born in East Haddam, Conn., on November 13, 1869, the youngest son of John Hall Cone and Roxanna Andrews Cone. He was a direct descendant of Daniel Cone, one of the first settlers of Haddam, Connecticut. In 1662 with twenty seven others, Daniel Cone received from the Connecticut Colony, land grants on both sides of the Connecticut River.

When he was a small boy Joe’s family moved to the old Andrews place on Salmon River where he spent an outdoor life fishing on the River which he came to love. The “Gungywump” mentioned so often in his poems and stories of later years referred to this favourite spot of his childhood. His interests ran along many lines especially music and machinery. A cousin who was a well-known cornetist encouraged his musical aspirations and at the age of sixteen he was leading a country brass band. He later played in other bands and orchestras and once led a church choir.

Up to this time his writings were bits of verse published in the town newspaper. At an early age he had learned the printing trade and was also well on the way to becoming a proficient machinist. Before he was twenty the fish-netting factory where he was employed sent him to Cambridge, Massachusetts. In East Haddam on March 5, 1890 he married Emma E. Clevenshire of that town in a double wedding ceremony. Their three children were born in Cambridge. They were greatly saddened when the first two died in infancy.

By the time he was twenty eight he had studied mechanical drawing and had become foreman or a room in which special machinery was being built. He later became a teacher of mechanical drawing and designed new netting machines. During this period he was writing and contributing to humor magazines of those times such as Life, Puck and Judge. He had published a book of verse, “Heart and Home Ballads,” and conducted a column for the Boston Courier and contributed to other papers. Many of his things were written amid the clang of machinery. During this time he managed to take English courses at Harvard.

For the dedication of the bust of Nathan Hale at the little schoolhouse in East Haddam he was asked to come and read his poem “Nathan Hale.”

Joe Cone moved to Saybrook about 1908 having purchased an old Cape Cod house on the Boston Post Road, which he called “The House by the Side of the Road,” in honor of his friend Sam Walter Foss. “The Waybackers” was written and published after coming to Saybrook. For several years he was humorist editor at the Boston Herald, running a daily column consisting of poems and comments and “Uncle Ezra Sez.” This latter was a favorite of the Keith Circuit Theatre and the saying of the day appeared on the screen each night. He became a member of the Boston Author’s Club and a member of the American Press Humorist Association. Among his friends were the elderly Julia Ward Howe and Hezekiah Butterworth; also Joe Lincoln of Cape Cod fame, Will Rogers, Edgar A. Guest, Don Marquis, Homer Croy, F. P. Adams, Irvin Cobb, James Melvin Lee and Newton Newkirk, the latter for many years with the Boston Post and editor of the “National Sportsman.”

In Saybrook Joe Cone organized The Musical and Dramatic Club with the purpose of raising money for a town hall. The objective was eventually reached by giving plays, operettas, dances, etc., not only in Saybrook, but in neighboring towns. A building site was purchased in the Center and the town completed the necessary funds for the present Town Hall.

Besides contributing to newspapers such as New York Sun, and magazines like Pictorial Review, Youth Companion, Suburban Life, Christian Endeavor World and Connecticut Magazine, as well as the current humorous magazines he ran a small job printing business in his office and library (“The Den”) in back of the house.

During this time he was in partnership for a number of years with John S. Brooks in National Net and Twine Company which they organized in East Haddam.

Painting was his favorite pastime and his landscapes showed more-than-usual ability in that field. He was particularly fond of painting the marshes and woods and sky around Saybrook.

During the first World War as he was beyond military age he sought employment at the Ship and Engine Company (now called Electric Boat Company) of Groton, to be of some particular service to his country. He was pleased to have work on submarine engines which required special skill. He joined the Jibboom Club in New London at that time and contributed many Home Guard Ballads to the New London Day, which were widely read. He was chief bugler in the Saybrook Home Guard and was President of the Men’s Club at the time of his death.

In the midst of all this activity he was taken suddenly ill and died three days after an operation on Good Friday, March 29th 1919, at forty eight years of age.



 

            _____________

 

                    The Draftsman * Volume III. * January – December 1904.

                                      CURRENT TOPICS.

                              Mr. “Joe Cone” a Draftsman and Poet.


 

  Joseph A. Cone, or “Joe Cone,” as he is best known, the subject of this sketch, was born in Moodus, Conn. November 13, 1869. Moodus is a lively country town in which are located 14 cotton twine mills of national repute.

Here is where Mr. Cone made his start in mechanical life. Until 18 years of age he by turn went to the little village school, worked on his father’s farm and in the mills. His first real trade was that of printer, then at the age of 20 he entered the construction department of the American Net and Twine Co., (a branch of which was located in East Haddam, Conn., near Moodus,) as apprentice. With this firm he has remained ever since, going to Boston when the plant was removed in 1890.

Immediately on his removing to Boston he entered the Cambridge, Y. M. C. A. night schools, winning three diplomas in three years, after which he became a member of the American School of Correspondence. Being persistent in his studies, and aiming only for the highest he has risen to the position of chief draftsman and designer of the American Net and Twine Co., a corporation employing between 600 and 1,000 persons. In addition to this he is head instructor in Mechanical Drawing and Machine Design at the Cambridge Institute.

Born with a love for literature Mr. Cone has gratified his tastes in that direction to the extent of contributing to the leading journals and magazines of the country, many of his contributions appearing in the columns of The Draftsman. He has also published a volume of successful verse, “Heart and Home Ballads,” is literary editor of “The Suburban,” a well-known Boston weekly, and is a member of The Harvard Union.

As an inventor, designer and draftsman, Mr. Cone is well known in the netting manufacturing business. He resides in Cambridge, Mass.

                   ___________________________

 

The Illustration in this article is credited to the “Four Track News.”

 

             




 

 

 

 

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