87 



affectionate in his character and finding among his more im- 

 mediate relatives no congenial souls, it was with his relatives 

 at Hunt's Point, less closely allied, that he felt and found 

 sympathy. 



Judging from a miniature painting when he was about 

 twenty-two, a handsomer mortal was not easily found. 

 Golden hair, dark blue eyes, beautifully modelled features, a 

 slender but well knit figure — he must have attracted others 

 as he did Dr. James B. de Kay and Fitz-Greene Halleck. As 

 we know, the latter's enthusiasm was profound, not merely 

 for his friend's mind and character, but for his physical 

 comeliness. 



The old grange of the Hunts at Hunts Point contained 

 young people as well as old, amongst others the late Mrs. John 

 Rush of Philadelphia, in whose honor Joseph wrote various 

 poems expressing admiration if not exactly love. But these 

 made on the young girl a deep impression. In later life she 

 delighted in recalling those early scenes of childhood at Hunt's 

 Point and tell her hearers about the poet and Fitz his friend. 



Thus, during his school days and later, when studying medi- 

 cine in the office of a New York physician, Joseph was wont 

 to take boat on the East River and, braving the baffling cur- 

 rents of Hell Gate, land at the old house which still stands, 

 looking out on the wide stretches of the bays. There he found 

 a true home among the kind aunts and uncles ; he could come 

 and go at will, row about the shining reaches, explore the 

 Harlem River, or else ramble along the sylvan banks of the 

 Bronx. To these outings we owe the pensive, charming lines 

 on the Bronx, to these visits we owe the fact that when, tardily, 

 he came to realize that his malady was fatal, he begged his 

 wife to lay him, not in the Drake tomb near the church at 

 Eastchester, but in the little private burying ground of the 

 Hunts and Leggetts, on a knoll shaded with cedars and nut- 

 trees, within sight of the grange which had given a home to 

 the orphan. Had it not been for this, the Borough of the 

 Bronx might never have had a Joseph Rodman Drake Park, 



