Introduction

For many years, beginning in the early twentieth century, Walt Whitman scholars speculated about the identity of the mysterious Ellen Eyre, who had sent the poet a seductive letter requesting a further pleasurable liaison in 1862. The letter indicated that the poet and Eyre had met the night before at Pfaff's, the popular bohemian cafe in New York.

Several scholars displayed a particular eagerness to find Whitman a documented girlfriend to shore up his credentials as a full-fledged woman lover. They were especially concerned given all the evidence that pointed to Whitman being a full-fledged, and active, man lover.

Then in 2009, Whitman scholar Ted Genoways revealed that two newspaper reports indicated that Eyre was a blackmailer. As Ellen Eyre, they sent suggestive come-on letters to wealthy men, many married. Eyre then blackmailed them after they responded to her request for a rendevous. The papers stressed that Eyre was a conman who went by a variety of names.

OutHistory founder Jonathan Ned Katz and researcher Tyler Albertario have now looked into available digitized newspaper reports about Eyre.

We have found evidence in the New York City Municipal Archives that, when arrested, the blackmailer's name was listed as Benjamin Calkin, although even that may have been an alias.

We also have looked at what Whitman scholars have had to say about Eyre and Whitman.

We present the evidence and our analysis of the materials, along with a timeline of the available information and a bibliography of sources.

The History of the Ellen Eyre Scandal

Ellen Eyre to Walt Whitman, Tuesday, March 25, 1862

My dear Mr. Whitman

I fear you took me last night for a female privateer. It's true that I was sailing under false colors.—But the flag I assure you covered nothing piratical—although I would joyfully have made your heart a captive.

Women have an unequal chance in this world. Men are its monarchs, and "full many a rose is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness in the desert air."

Such I was resolved should not be the fate of this fancy I had long nourished for you.—A gold mine may be found by the Divining Rod but there is no such instrument for detecting in the crowded streets of a great city the [unknown?] mine of latent affection a man may have unconsciously inspired in a woman's heart. I make these explanations in extenuation not by way of apology. My social position enjoins precaution & mystery, and perhaps the enjoyment of my friend's society is heightened which in yielding to its fascination I preserve my incognito; yet mystery lends an ineffable charm to love and when a woman is bent upon the gratification of her inclinations—She is pardonable if she still spreads the veil of decorum over her actions. Hypocrisy is said to be "the homage which sin pays to virtue," and yet I can see no vice in that generous sympathy with which we share our caprices with those who have inspired us with tenderness,—

I trust you will think well enough of me soon to renew the pleasure you afforded me last P.M., and I therefore write to remind you that there is a sensible head as well as a sympathetic heart, both of which would gladly evolve wit & warmth for your direction & comfort.—You have already my whereabouts & my hours—It shall only depend upon you to make them yours and me the happiest of women.

I am always Yours sincerely, Ellen Eyre

Source: Ellen Eyre to Walt Whitman, March 25, 1862. In The Walt Whitman Archive, ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, and Kenneth M. Price. Lincoln, Nebraska: Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. See also Walt Whitman Papers in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection: General Correspondence, 1841-1892; Eyre, Ellen, 1862 , includes Horace Traubel's copy of the letter, undated 1862, https://www.loc.gov/item/mss1863000169/.

Comment

To begin with, let's recognize that any analysis of what is going on between Eyre and Whitman is complicated by the fact that we know nothing of Eyre's/Calkin's gender identity or biological sex.

To further complicate any analysis of Eyre's/Calkin's letter, their opening statement to Whitman takes on multiple ironies in light of the later revelation that they were a "conman" blackmailer.

First, Eyre's statement that "I fear you took me last night for a female privateer" (a female prostitute) is ironic in that Eyre's goal, just like a prostitute's, was probably cash.

Second, Eyre's claim that "it's true that I was sailing under false colors" is ironic in that the person identified in the press as male and a blackmailer was certainly "sailing under false colors."

Third, Eyre's reiteration, "But the flag I assure you covered nothing piratical," is ironic in that their conning and blackmailing was precisely "piratical."

Finally, does Eyre's admission that she "was sailing under false colors" suggest that Whitman had recognized Eyre to be a cross-dressed man?

Note that Eyre's quoted words were drawn from Thomas Gray's poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard": "Full many a gem of purest ray serene, / The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: / Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, / And waste its sweetness on the desert air."  ===========================================================================================================

TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE CLICK ON IT THREE TIMES

"Strange Mode of Black Mailing,” New York Herald, June 20, 1862, 3.

"Strange Mode of Black Mailing,” New York Herald, June 20, 1862, 3.

"Strange Mode of Black Mailing,” New York Herald, June 20, 1862, 3.

"Strange Mode of Black Mailing,” New York Herald, June 20, 1862, 3.

"Serious Charge of Swindling,” New York Times, June 20, 1862, 2.

"Excitement Uptown,"  Cleveland Daily Herald, June 20, 1862.

"Late Last Night," Utica Daily Observer (Utica, NY), June 21, 1862.

"Strange Mode of Blackmailing": June 20, 1862

The most detailed newspaper report mentioning Ellen Eyre appeared in The New York Herald on June 20, 1862, under a provocative headline: "Strange Mode of Blackmailing, A Man Personates a Female Character"--Interesting Developments, Etc."

June 9, 1862
The paper reports that eleven days earlier, on Monday, June 9, an unnamed man had received a seductive letter from Mrs. Ellen Eyre requesting an evening meeting between 120 and 130 West 9th Street, on the street's south side. The man receiving the letter had found Eyre's letter suspicious and reported it to the police.

June 11, 1862
A decoy letter was then sent on Wednesday, June 11, to Eyre at Station D of the post office, Astor Place, suggesting a new meeting place and time. 

"Black Man"
That evening, between 5 and 6 o'clock, Detective William Wilson observed a "black man" at Station D, picking up mail for Eyre.

Confrontation
Detective Wilson followed the courier to a house on 9th Street and, on entering, asked its inhabitant: "Are you the doctor?" He referred to the name of a physician on the door. The inhabitant of the house answered that he was the doctor. When Detective Wilson asked who Ellen Eyre was, the detective was told that this was none of his business.

Arrest
The detective then arrested the individual and took the prisoner before John A. Kennedy, General Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police.

Five Years
Wilson then searched the 9th Street house and discovered "papers showing that this business had been carried on for nearly five years," and among the victims were "many prominent citizens, including one popular judge."

Earlier Arrest
The prisoner was then taken to police headquarters, where "Inspector Dilk recognized him as being the party dressed in female apparel who had been brought before him some three months ago" -- around March 1862. The prisoner had been "allowed to depart under promise of doing so no more, and leaving the impression it was indeed a woman."

"Locked Up"
The paper then reports of the prisoner: "He was locked up for further examination." The prisoner was incarcerated for eleven days before a hearing to set possible bail. Detective Willson, under the instructions of "Deputy Superintendent Carpenter," then removed all of the prisoner's trunks and furniture and brought them to police headquarters.

Letters
The Herald reporter adds: "On searching Coffin's room the police found a carpet bag of black mail letters addressed to gentlemen of the first respectability uptown."

Clothes
The paper also reports that the police found "about five hundred dollars worth of elegant female wearing apparel."

Washington and New Orleans
"It is said that he was been carrying on the game for some time, and has operated both in Washington and New Orleans."

Hearing: June 19, 1862
On the morning of June 19, the prisoner was brought before "Justice Kelley" and the following hearing confirmed the events already discussed. The next day the paper reports: "A complaint was yesterday entered against the party as a disorderly person, upon which he was held, and, in default of bail, committed" to jail.

Lawyer Testifies
At that hearing, "a respectable town lawyer" testified that he had received a suspicious letter from "Coffin," investigated the matter, and then reported it to the police. The "respectable town lawyer" is apparently the person who first reported the suspicious letter to the police. We have identified him as "Walter Burton."

"Locked Up"
At the conclusion of this hearing, the paper reports, "the magistrate locked him up, in default of $1,000 bail [the equivalent of approximately $32,000 in 2025], in the Tombs," the notorious New York City prison.

And Then Nothing!
And that, incredibly, is the last we hear of the prisoner! 

The New York Municipal Archives contains no record of this hearing before Justice Kelly on June 19, 1862, and no record of any further hearing, trial, or sentencing.

After a while newspaper reports peter out and "Ellen Eyre" disappears from history.

Then, in the early twentieth century, Eyre's letter to Walt Whitman becomes part of a larger discussion attempting to ascertain the poet's sexual desires, erotic acts, and intimate relations. 

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The New York Times: June 20, 1862
On June 20, 1862, The New York Times reports the Ellen Eyre scandal, adding a bit more information. The paper states that the arrestee is "a young man not exceeding 20 years of age."

9th Street Office
Around May 1, 1862, The Times says, B. Coffin had rented a 9th Street office, claiming to be a doctor with good references from people like the son-in-law of William B. Astor. But he soon began to address letters to "respectable married gentlemen up-town, in which he represented himself as a woman and called himself 'Mrs. Ellen Eyre.'"

The Times adds: "It is needless to say that many married gentlemen have been induced to answer the notes, and meet the person at a place agreed upon, and afterward, in order to hush the affair, the virtuous married men have been compelled to hand over money, some of them as much as $300." The decoy letter by which Eyre came to be arrested, The Times reports, was sent by "a very well known and respectable attorney."

The Times reporter says that while searching Eyre's home, the officer found "about $600 worth of female wearing apparel, showing that he was carrying on the business upon a very extended scale." The paper further reports, "It is well known that he has swindled married men out of about $5000." The Times adds, "Most of the victims are unwilling to come forward and give their testimony against him and are even unwilling to have their names published. All who have been swindled are requested to call at Police headquarters to-day and identify the prisoner."

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Word of the Ellen Eyre Scandal Spreads

On June 20, 1862, the Daily Herald of Cleveland, Ohio, reprints a story credited to the New York World. Headlined "Excitement Up Town," the story reports that a man calling himself B. Coffin and Ellen Eyre had swindled men out of $6,000.

On June 21, 1862, the Daily Observer of Utica, New York, also reprints a version of the story from the New York World, titling its account "Late Last Night."
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"Operating Under the Guise of the Fair Sex," Sunday Dispatch (New York N.Y.), June 22, 1862, 5.

"Operating Under the Guise of the Fair Sex," Sunday Dispatch (New York N.Y.), June 22, 1862, 5.

"Under the Guise of the Fair Sex"

On June 22, 1862, New York City newspapers follow up with more details of the Ellen Eyre scandal.

The Sunday Dispatch, under the headline "Operating Under the Guise of the Fair Sex," reports that Eyre's blackmailing has gone on for five years, extending to the North and South. The paper refers to Eyre once as "she (?)."

Arrest
The paper claims that when arrested by Detective Wilson, "Mrs. E, in a twinkling disrobed and stood before the detective, a young gentleman, saying, it was no use to arrest him as there was no law to reach this case."

Alias
The paper identifies Eyre as "Dr. Bejamin Coffin" and says that he appeared before Justice Kelly at the "Jefferson Market Police Court" (a building that today operates as a public library).

Clothes
Eyre reportedly had a wardrobe "containing about $400 worth of ladies' rich silk dresses." The Sunday Dispatch continues, "He wore a wig and painted, so as to give him the successful aspect of a young lady, and in this guise had walked in and out of his office...without exciting suspicion."

Names of the Victims
The paper claims that a "memorandum book, now in the hands of the police, contains a long array of the names of gentlemen who have given him money and who have visited him." It is withholding those names, the paper claims, "out of respect to the families of many a respectable family, who would shudder to know that any of their members should have descended so low in vice." The case was "a sad commentary on the social impurity of our city."

Yearly Income
The report says that the blackmailer made a yearly income of $4,000 to $5,000 (the equivalent of approximately $125,000 to $190,00 in 2025). The paper also prints what it claims are two letters that "Ellen" had written to gentleman, suggesting that she had had a romantic relationship with them.

Letter to "Mr. Stott"
One letter, dated March 17, 1862, and addressed to a "Mr. Stott," expressed regret that he had failed to show up as planned. She hoped to see him before he left town. "Mr. Stott" is the only last name printed in all the newspaper reports.

Letter to "Morgan"
The second letter, dated April 30, 1862 and addressed to "My dear Morgan," indicated that she hoped to see him again and realize "those enchanting visions of which we had so dreamy a foretaste." She added that "as the time of your departure is fast approaching," she hoped to see him soon. She awaited "the promised messenger of bliss -- the note that is to announce your visit." A postscript added that she had succeeded in  procuring a place to which "any person would not have the slightest apprehension...in coming." She was "anxious to embrace" him and acquaint him with her "good fortune."
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"A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," New York Sunday Mercury, June 22, 1862, 7.

"A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," New York Sunday Mercury, June 22, 1862, 7.

"A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," New York Sunday Mercury, June 22, 1862, 7.

"A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," New York Sunday Mercury, June 22, 1862, 7.

"Wolf in Sheep's Clothing"

The New York Sunday Mercury, on June 22, 1862, headlines a story "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," claiming that Ellen Eyre's blackmailing had gone on for eight years and compromised 300 men, primarily New Yorkers.

"Billy" Kinney
Speaking of the arrestee, the paper is the first to assert his name: "The individual is the notorious 'Billy' Kinney," alias California Bill, alias Dr. Coffin, alias Miss Ellen Fay alias Mrs. Ellen Eyre." Was William Kinney or Billy Kinney the imposter's birth name? We don't know. The loosely edited paper also several times spells his last name "Kenney." The paper also refers to "the offending 'Bill' or the 'dear Nellie'." Could this "Nellie" be early documentation of an effeminate man being called "a Nelly"?

Personal Appearance
"In personal appearance," the paper says, "Kenney is calculated to deceive almost any superficial observer in regard to his sex: and when made up...there were few who could detect in him aught else beside the charming creature which is epistles to his victims...led them to suppose him to be."

Clothes and Makeup
The paper details the large collection of female clothes found in Eyre's house, including underwear, and makeup, including "rouge, lily white, and balm of a thousand flowers."

The Black Currier
According to this report, "a miniature specimen of Ethiopian extraction" had appeared at the post office to pick up Eyre's mail. This apparently characterizes the height of the "black man" who, an earlier paper had reported, picked up Eyre's mail.

The Letters
The paper claims to provide many "true samples" of the letters to and from Eyre, saying that these revealed that Eyre "had been in their arms, they had fondled with the gracefully arranged curls..., and left him [Eyre] at last with the passion-kiss upon the burning lip, believing him to be one of the dearest specimens of the dearer sex." This raises the question of whether one of Eyre's customers understood him to be a biological male dressed as a woman? Or was this person, perhaps, intersexed? How did they conceive themselves?

The Letter Writers
A carpet bag found in Eyre's house contained, the paper alleges, "about a thousand letters" from more than three hundred men, including "merchants, ministers, lawyers, and lecturers," along with "editors of independent religious journals." The paper continues by asserting that "some of the most brilliant minds of this country" have paid homage to Eyre, inspired by their "ardent longings for illicit love."

Names
"To give the names of these, would carry desolation into many a family, now reposing in the bliss of ignorance," the paper says. The letter writers are "men whom the world reguards as the most chaste and upright in the country, denizens of the Fifth avenue and the Astor [Hotel], and habitues of up-town palatial homes." They include "proprietors of extensive and fashionable hotels on Broadway, and one editor at least of a leading independent religious journal."

Extracts
Without revealing Eyre's victims' names, the Sunday Mercury reprints copies of six letters, some of which, it says, included daguerreotypes. Most of the writers, it concludes, expressed a desire for an "agreeable" assignation.

"Romancing"
One helpful correspondent who did not understand Eyre's intention says they know a "young man given to romancing" to whom Eyre could write and "thou cannot do bettter than to invite him to a 'twilight entertainment.' He is a perfect gentleman, therefore thou needest not fear any unpleasant conseqences."

"Delights"
The paper declares, "Think of the following being written from man to man," and then presents the following missive from one: "SWEET--I dropped you a note from Albany.... My arrival in the city will probably be late on the coming Monday. May I be permitted the request, dearest, that on Tuesday next, at 6 P.M., we meet at the place where, at our last interview, we enjoyed the delights reserved only to the loving."

The "First Night"
Another writer asked to know more of my "amourous friend" and recalled: "The adventure of the first night in which I met Ellen Eyre will never be forgotten."

A Rematch?
In one letter, Eyre tries for a rematch: "The recollection of that sweet kiss I stole from you in the doorway still haunts my lips." She asked: "Does it not seem hard that a woman should thus feel impelled to cry aloud her passion?" (Was Eyre a proto-feminist?) She called, "Come because I so ardently long to embrace you and call you mine, if "only for the few brief moments when I shall be physically yours."

A Plea for Cash
In one letter, Eyre asks for money: "I approach with reluctance, if not with aversion, the subject upon which circumstances compel me to address you; but my cheerful and prompt sympathy with your inclinations, during three-quarters of a year will, I feel sure, justify my course in your eyes.... 'Man lives not by bread alone,' nor woman by love alone. She has other claims, and those that call for money. I have never imagined it was your intention to leave the tender offices of so many months unrequited, and I have little hesitation in frankly expressing my need of $50." It was, she wrote, "repugnant in the highest degree to my delicacy and dignity, to be obliged to make this appeal."

The Response
In reply, the recipient of Eyre's request wrote that he was "surprised" by it for he had never regarded their "tender relations" in "the light of a financial operation, but presumed that my visits contritibuted as much gratification as was imparted by you." He "considered the favors received at your hands as canceled thereby--as an even thing." He found her request of "too mercenary a character." He "bid adieu to one whose characer I have so grossly misapprehended."

Conclusion
The paper stresses that Kinney/Kenney is "an extraordinary character" and ends: "The entire history of his imposter's life, if printed, would be the most graphic...view of the weak side of human nature ever given to the world. Who will be his biographer?"

Our Conclusion
We conclude after reading and analyzing these bits of quoted letters that they sound authentic and may well be actual letters confiscated by the police, not letters invented by a scandal-mongering paper to sell more copies.

If these letters are inventions of the newspaper, some writer or writers worked hard to make them sound authentic. If authentic, these letters represent a small sample of all the other letters destroyed because they document intimate, sometimes sexual encounters.

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Word of the Ellen Eyre Scandal Spreads Again

On June 30, 1862, the Indiana State Sentinel (Indianapolis, IN) runs a story headlined "Levying Blackmail." It begins: "Unfaithful husbands in New York are liable to be called on for unlimited amounts of money." The rest of the story repeats no new facts.

On July 2, 1862, the Council Bluffs Bugle (Council Bluffs, IA) published "Serious Charge of Swindling," a story that reprints the New York Times report of June 20, 1862 (see above).

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Walt Whitman Tells the "Whole Story"

On July 8, 1862, Walt Whitman writes in a diary/notebook: "Frank Sweeney (July 8th ’62), 5th Ave. Brown face, large features, black moustache (is the one I told the whole story to about Ellen Eyre)--talks very little."

So Whitman is walking along 5th Avenue and meets a man he apparently never saw before, and each of them stops, their eyes meet, they say hello and get to talking. And perhaps Whitman mentions the recent newspaper reports of the Ellen Eyre scandal (the story of a man enticing other men into intimate physical excapades). Whitman figures, perhaps, that it's a great way to sound out his new companion's judgment about same-sex male sexual encounters.

So Whitman tells his newly made acqaintance the "whole story" about meeting Eyre at Pfaff's bohemian bar, and the next day receiving a seductive letter asking for a second meeting, and Eyre turning out to be a conman. And Sweeney apparently responds "very little."

And then what happens? Does Whitman invite Sweeney for a drink at Pfaff's or some other bar?

All we know is that Whitman recorded telling Sweeney "the whole story" in one of the many diaries in which he wrote up his meeting with male strangers on New York's streets. The poet's diary entries are a kind of personal  accounting in which Whitman takes the time to recall and document for himself and history brief (and sometimes long) encounters with other males.

One more question: Does Whitman's indication that he told the "whole story" to Sweeney imply that he told a short, abbreviated, or censored version of the story to another acqaintance?

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Source: Whitman, Walt. Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts. Ed. Edward F. Grier. 6 vols. New York: New York University Press, 1984, p. 488-89.

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Three More Newspaper Respond

The New York Sunday Mercury, on July 23, 1862, headlines a story "A Strange Swindling Case--A Warning to Faithless Husbands," adding no new information and referring readers to its own publishing of "professeed copies" of the letters between Eyre and her victims.

There is also "Excitement up Town," published on July 23, 1862, in the Daily Cleveland Herald (Cleveland, OH), citing The New York World.

The Daily Evening Bulletin of San Francisco published on July 23, 1862, "A Strange Swindling Case--A Warning to Faithless Husbands." Another headline, "Second Letter from New York, misleadingly suggests that there was an earlier report on the Ellen Eyre scandal. This report contains no new information.

The World
The Cleveland and San Francisco articles are dated July 23, 1862 and both cite The World. So the story in The World either appeared on that date or was published a little earlier, but we have thus far not found the article in The World.

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Whitman Scholars Respond

Henry Bryan Binns: 1904
On September 28, 1904, Whitman scholar Henry Bryan Binns writes to Edward Carpenter in England:

“[Horace] Traubel showed me a love letter from Ellen Eyre (? of New York) in 1862—and J.H. Johnston a photo of a young N Y actress who had been ‘one of Walt’s sweethearts.’ [Laurens] Maynard says that Doyle admitted he knew of a woman in Washington with whom W. had sex relations. This is all I could gather on the subject.”

Then follows the long letter in which Binns tells Carpenter of various discoveries in Whitman's papers and mentions "a love letter from Ellen Eyre" (reproduced above).

Harry Stafford
In the same letter Binns reports finding a Whitman diary entry dated November 25-28, 1876: "At White Horse [Timber Creek] Memorable talk with H.S. settles the matter [?] for life."

Binns reports other Whitman diary entries: "December 19. Evening sitting in room [? Camden] had serious inward revelation and conviction about H's course in the matter. Saw clearly what it really meant. Very profound meditation on all— more happy and satisfied at last about it—singularly so."

Another diary entry: "April 29 1877 Scene with H. in front room."

And yet another Whitman diary entry: "July 20 1877 Scene in the room at White Horse 'Goodbye.'"

Binns Speculates
Binns first speculates to Carpenter that "H.S." could be Harry Stafford, the young farmhand that Whitman scholars now agree was "H.S." and one of Whitman's beloved younger men.

Binns then goes on to suggest that the above diary entries "may refer to the closing up of some relationship which had previously existed with some woman."

Binns is blind to the possibility that Whitman refers to the end of a sexual and romantic relationship with Harry Stafford. (For Whitman's intimacy with Stafford, see Jonathan Ned Katz, Love Stories: Sex Beween Men Before Homosexuality (University of Chicago Press, 2001.)

This private letter is first publicly quoted in November 1941 by Edwad Naumburg (see below), a "collector" of Whitman books and papers, in The Princeton University Library Chronicle (see below).

Private Discussions
Binns's letter to Edward Carpenter indicates that Whitman's followers are privately discussing among themselves the evidence of Whitman's supposed girlfriend and his sexual desires and acts.

Binns: 1905
In Henry Bryan Binns's biography, A Life of Walt Whitman, published in 1905, an appendix publicly discusses Whtman's claim, in a letter to John Addington Symonds, that he had fathered six children, including one living southern grandchild. Which of course raises the question: who was the mother or mothers?

Binns had been informed in Camden, New Jersey, where Whitman had resided, that there were "two Southern (?) ladies." Binns then says: "There is a love-letter extant, signed with a pseudonym, dated from New York in 1862, evidently written by a cultivated woman.” That's the Ellen Eyre letter.

The biographer next discusses a supposed southern grandchild; Whitman once told his friend Horace Traubel that the grandchild had visited him.

That leads Binns to discuss the poet's "tearing out of several leaves after the entry of his starting for New Orleans" where Whitman followers (called Whitmanites and sometimes Whitmaniacs) talked about possible Whitman romances with a woman. 

Whitman's Sexual Desires and Acts
So the Ellen Eyre scandal becomes one episode in scholarly discusssions of the larger issue of Whitman's supposed procreations, his sexual desires, and his sexual activities.

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Binns, Henry Bryan. A Life of Walt Whitman. New York, NY: Haskell House Publishers, 1905, p. 305. (“There is a love-letter extant, signed with a pseudonym, dated from New York in 1862, evidently written by a cultivated woman.”)

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Naumberg 1941
In November 1941, a "collector" of Whitman books and papers, Edwad Naumburg, in The Princeton University Library Chronicle, first publicly prints H.B. Binns's letter to Edward Carpenter of September 28, 1904 (quoted above).

Naumberg sums up Binns by saying that he deals with Whitman's supposed romance with a woman in New Orleans "with too much imagination."

Naumburg diretly takes on the subject of Whitman's "homosexuality":

"No biography of Whitman has yet given us satisfactory answers as to that problem which one early monograph euphemistically called 'the questionable side of Whitman.' It takes no professional psychologist to point out passages in his poems which can be construed as definitely homosexual. The 'Calamus' section of the Leaves and the letters to Peter Doyle will furnish controversial battlegrounds for years to come, and I leave that to the experts. But the Whitman collector can do much which may help to clarify the picture. To search for new source material is his hobby—and lucky is the one who finds something to fill in some puzzling hiatus in Whitman's life."

Naumburg stresses: "We have no exact knowledge of any romantic entangle ments with women in Whitman's life: only hints and innuendos such as those which refer to possible affairs in New Orleans and Washington." Naumburg does not mention the Ellen Eyre letter.

"That Whitman rejected the matrimonial advances of Mrs. Gilchrist is known," says Naumberg

That Whitman "childishly evaded the direct question as to why he never married is told in Sloane Kennedy's Reminiscences of Walt Whitman."

Naumberg adds: "I have seen a scrap of manuscript in Whitman's hand which seemed to be a close paraphrase of a passage from a letter of Charles Dickens. To me it is a pathetic and regretful allusion to Whitman's bachelorhood: 'Why is it that a sense comes always crushing on me, as of one happiness I have missed in life, and one friend and companion I have never made?'"

Naumberg relates: "Peter Doyle is quoted by Dr. Bucke as having said, 'I never knew a case of Walt's being bothered up by a woman. In fact, he had nothing special to do with any woman except Mrs. O'Connor and Mrs. Burroughs. His disposition was different. Women in that sense never came into his head.'"

Naumberg discusses Whitman's claim in a letter responding to the probing question of John Addington Symonds that he had six childten and a grandchild.

Naumberg concludes: "Whitman's assertions, along the years, are full of inconsistencies."

Naumberg asks, "Repeatedly confronted with the direct question of the true meaning of the 'Calamus' poems, did he become frightened in the caution of his senility, and hit on this story [of six children] as a device to throw persistent questioners like Symonds and Träubel off the track?'"

"Or did the kindly and faithful Träubel," Naumberg asks, "over-solicitous in his inquisitiveness, irritate Walt a bit now and then, so that the aged poet took sardonic pleasure in torturing his Boswell with mysterious references to children and even grand-children?"

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Source: Edward Naumburg, “A Collector Looks at Walt Whitman.” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 3, no. 1 (1941): 1–18.

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