The Mystery Whitman Medallion

I've had this 1919 Walt Whitman medallion for so long that I can't remember where it came from or why I ended up with it. My mother and father ran an auction house in Kingston some time ago and I suspect maybe it came from there. The only other place it could have come from is my mother-in-law, though I am uncertain how she would have come upon one of these:

Regardless of where or how I got it, this medal has been sitting on my desk for years along with a pocket copy of Leaves of Grass. I find the image to be soothing for me during times of intellectual or emotional upheaval.

Needless to say, my curiosity led me to research it's origins. If it is authentic - and it very well may be a reproduction - then I suppose I shouldn't hoard it all to myself. The only one I could find using Internet search engines is on display at the Yale University Art Gallery. (Click to see it and note it's exactly the same medal.)

Along the left side of the medallion at about the nine o'clock position are the artists initials. Robert Tait McKenzie is the sculptor. It was commissioned for the Franklin Inn Club in Philadelphia in 1919 on the centennial of Whitman's birth.

My journey will actually take me to the Franklin Inn Club in Philly where I hope to learn more about the medallion's origin and authenticity. Could be that McKenzie made hundreds of them and there are dozens in circulation all around the Northeast; I just don't know.

If it proves to be valuable and rare, it certainly doesn't belong on my desk for me alone to enjoy, so I suppose I will find the appropriate place to donate it. Either back to the Franklin Inn Club, the Walt Whitman house in Camden, or maybe a local art museum.

No matter what happens, at least there is a chance for the mystery of the medallion to be solved.... wish me luck!


"I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured
and never will be measured.

I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)
My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,
No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy, I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange,
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
My left hand hooking you round the waist,
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.

Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself."

~ Walt Whitman

The Dead Poet Journey

This blog has been created to document my "dead poet journey" although that's not quite fair since I will be taking in some other amazing things -- like this:



Munro isn't dead as far as I know. Still, this is going to be the trip of a lifetime for me... I'll be crawling out from under the disguise of an under-acheiving fisherman who grew up wading the back country streams of Roane County, TN and taking a seat at the gravesides of great men whom I've long admired and spent a lifetime reading.

Along the way, I will document my stops - share with you the people I meet - photos of the places I visit - and sound my "barbaric yawp" over the rooftops of the world.

Thanks to High Places Church for this great opportunity to practice "self-care" as they call it in "The Industry." Lolz. Really not big on the vocabulary of such things, just in the many layers of humanity that we all share, each of which need their own degree of TLC.

"Trippers and askers surround me....
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.
Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait."

~ Walt Whitman