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Title
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Beyond the Hasheesh Eater Exhibit Panel: Union, Hashish, and the Literary Life in New York
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Transcript
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Fitz Hugh’s personal and professional life were shaped by his father, the noted abolitionist preacher Henry Ludlow. Henry became the leader of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church in New York City. Henry’s vocal role brought him unwanted attention in the anti-abolitionist riots of 1834, when rioters were convinced he had conducted interracial marriages. Henry’s church and home were ransacked, leading him to move to New Haven and start a family.
Fitz Hugh was born there in 1836. He was a sickly child, but took very well to Henry’s intensive religious and secular education of both Fitz Hugh and his sister Helen (b. 1839). Their home became a way station on the Underground Railroad, and in 1841, Henry assisted the legal team in New Haven that successfully defended the African captives rebellion on board the slave ship Amistad. Henry’s role was to communicate the Africans’ understanding of Christianity. In 1842, the Ludlow family moved to Poughkeepsie, NY, the site of Fitz Hugh’s first introduction to hashish at the local pharmacy, where his poor health often landed him.
Fitz Hugh started college at Princeton in 1855, then transferred to Union. There he distinguished himself in literature, was influenced by the philosophy of Union Professor Laurens Hickok, socialized with the Kappa Alpha Society, and further explored the effects of hashish. Fitz Hugh was known for writing friendly and humorous poems to mark the birthdays of his KA brothers, and so Eliphalet Nott approached him to author a song for Commencement in 1856.
Fitz Hugh published The Hasheesh Eater in 1857, to instant success and notoriety. Moving to New York, he quickly fell in with the American Bohemians gathered around Pfaff’s Tavern in Manhattan, the most well-known of whom was Walt Whitman. Fitz Hugh was sought after for his knowledge of both literature and hashish (and probably beer.) But he soon settled down with an heiress named Rosalie Osborne, although that engagement apparently led Rosalie’s mother to conduct a background check with President Nott.
