Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867)

He was born and schooled in Guilford, Connecticut, and was left partially deaf from the age of two. When he was twenty he came to New York and was employed by Jacob Barker as a banker for twenty-two years. He already had an aptitude for poetry and in 1819 published the satirical Croaker Papers with his friend Joseph Rodman Drake that became popular for their irreverent view on New York culture and society. He was soon an accepted member of the Knickerbocker Group with other writers such as Drake, Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, James Kirke Paulding, Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, Robert C. Sands, Charles Hoffman, and Nathaniel Parker Willis. By the 1820s he was hailed by some as "The American Byron" following the success of Alnwick Castle and his masterpiece, Marco Bozzaris. In 1832, he was appointed personal secretary and cultural advisor to John Jacob Astor. Moving into the Astor Mansion, he provided counsel on paintings and furniture for Astor's collection, becoming one of the original trustees of the Astor Library. In 1849, left an annuity in Astor's will (that his son upped to $1,500 a year), he retired to Guilford where he died unmarried in 1867.

In 1869, his statue was unveiled at Guilford with a commemoration given by Bayard Taylor, and in 1877 another statue was erected in New York's Central Park which was dedicated by President Rutherford B. Hayes. His popularity waned after his death and has only recently seen a resurgence since being studied for the homosexual themes in his poetry and his insights into 19th-century society. Of all the Knickerbocker Group, Halleck remains the only American writer honored on Central Park's "Literary Walk".