Donald Grant Mitchell (1822 - 1908)

Born 12 Apr 1822 in Connecticut, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 15 Dec 1908 at age 86 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, United States

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Biography

Donald Mitchell is Notable.

Born in 1822, Donald Grant Mitchell was the child of Alfred Mitchell and Lucretia Mumford Woodbridge.

According to Britannica:
Donald Grant Mitchell, pseudonym Ik Marvel, (born April 12, 1822, Norwich, Conn., U.S.—died Dec. 15, 1908), American farmer and writer known for nostalgic, sentimental books on American life, especially Reveries of a Bachelor (1850).

Mitchell graduated from Yale in 1841 and then returned home to farm his ancestral land. In 1844 he was appointed clerk to the U.S. consul at Liverpool, but poor health forced him to resign. Once back in America in 1846, he wrote newspaper articles for the Morning Courier and New York Enquirer under the pseudonym Ik Marvel, also editing Lorgnette (1850), a satirical magazine that mocked cultivated New York society. His earliest books, Fresh Gleanings (1847) and The Battle Summer (1850), record incidents of his travels in Europe and the French revolution of 1848. With the publication of Reveries of a Bachelor he gained immediate fame, and in 1851 another volume, Dream Life, was published. His style is quiet, simple, and archaic, and he has been compared to Jerome K. Jerome, the English author of sentimental works.^[1]

He married Mary Frances Pringle of Charleston, South Carolina.

Children:
Hesse Alston Mitchell 1854–1861
Mary Pringle Mitchell 1855–
Elizabeth Woodbridge Mitchell 1856–
William P Mitchell 1858–
Susan Mitchell 1860–
Donald Mitchell 1862–
Hesse Mitchell 1864–
Harriet Mitchell 1865–
Rebecca Mitchell 1865–
James Mitchell 1872–
Walter Mitchell 1875–

Donald passed away in 1908.

See the Donald Grant Mitchell wikipedia article for a more extensive details concerning the life of Donald Grant Mitchell, with links to his works.

The Life of Donald G. Mitchell, Ik Marvel is available on the Internet Archive and has a great first chapter on his ancestry and early Norwich, CT childhood. There are many references to Salem, CT and Elmgrove, also known as "The Mumford House" in Salem, CT.

Sources

1. ↑ Britannica accessed 3/2/2022.