Mrs. Sarah Tittle Bolton, author of Paddle Your Own Canoe, was born at Newport, Kentucky, in 1820. When she was about three years old, her father removed to Indiana, settling first in Jennings county, but later moving on to Madison. When a young woman, she contributed poems to the Madison newspaper which attracted the editor, Nathaniel Bolton, so strongly that he married the author. They moved to Indianapolis, and Mrs. Bolton soon gained a wide reputation as a poet. Her ode sung at the laying of the corner-stone of the Masonic Temple, in 1850, won her a loving cup from the Masons of Hoosierdom. Two years later her poem in honor of the hero of Hungary, Louis Kossuth, increased her fame. In 1855 Mr. Bolton was appointed consul to Geneva, Switzerland, and his wife accompanied him to his post. They remained in Switzerland for three years, during which time Mrs. Bolton acted as correspondent for the Cincinnati Commercial. In 1858 she and her husband returned to Indianapolis, in which city he died some months later. Her Poems (New York, 1856) brought her newspaper and periodical verse together; and a complete collection, with a notice of her life, was published at Indianapolis in 1886. Mrs. Bolton was Indiana's foremost female singer for many years. She died at Indianapolis in 1893. Of her many poems Paddle Your Own Canoe is the best known, although Left on the Battlefield is admired by many of her readers.

Bibliography. The Poets and Poetry of the West, by W. T. Coggeshall (Columbus, 1860); The Hoosiers, by Meredith Nicholson (New York, 1900).

PADDLE YOUR OWN CANOE

[From The Poets and Poetry of the West, edited by W. T. Coggeshall (Columbus, Ohio, 1860)]