Typee

Of the trinity of American authors whose births made the year 1819 a notable one in our literary history⁠—Lowell, Whitman, and Melville⁠—it is interesting to observe that the two latter were both descended, on the fathers’ and mothers’ sides respectively, from families of British New England and Dutch New York extraction. Whitman and Van Velsor, Melville and Gansevoort, were the several combinations which produced these men; and it is easy to trace in the life and character of each author the qualities derived from his joint ancestry. Here, however, the resemblance ceases, for Whitman’s forebears, while worthy country people of good descent, were not prominent in public or private life. Melville, on the other hand, was of distinctly patrician birth, his paternal and maternal grandfathers having been leading characters in the Revolutionary War; their descendants still maintaining a dignified social position.

Allan Melville, great-grandfather of Herman Melville, removed from Scotland to America in 1748, and established himself as a merchant in Boston. His son, Major Thomas Melville, was a leader in the famous “Boston Tea Party” of 1773 and afterwards became an officer in the Continental Army.