"Robert Winthrop Chanler, product of New York's wealth and aristocracy, probably the most imaginative artist America has produced, had come to spend his last days in Woodstock. Not one of the least things that drew him was the gay abandon and talent at the Maverick Festivals. He reveled at the communal spirit of its pageantry and the distinctive originality of its groups.
Its riot of beauty and humor appealed to him, and the daring of its effects and its ideas. He himself entered into it graciously, contributing time, thought, and money for weeks before. Among other things he admired its progenitor, the old Puritan, whose will he could not bend. How often he has introduced me to his friends or followers with the words, 'This is my friend, Hervey White. I have great respect for him'.He used to look from my door up toward my mountain. 'It's a great thing to be backed by a mountain. It gives character. It does not yield to circumstances,' he said. There was another man greatly impressed by the festivals, Poultny Bigelow,
who said, at the first one on arriving, 'Only a man of genius could do this.' For me it was the irony of fate that the books I had for years been making sacrifice, should never be read by those admirers. They probably did not know that they existed. Whereas, a plaything, a painted toy I had created to pay my living, should be thought of as the outcome and aim of my whole life.
   I admired Bob for his art. Have seen his marvelous screens. I admired his great intellect, his correlated learning, his freedom from convention, and his strength. If his weakness was great, too, I deplored it, though it gave him a picturesqueness and understanding. One of the things that kept me from him was a physical defect in his speech. I could never more than half understand him and it was weariness to be asking repetition. I am naturally a little slow at catching words but can make it up from emotional expression. Bob's expression was as rigid as his speech. Take Hunt Diedrich's face for instance, it was a cloud shadowed meadow - the sunshine and shade of humor were always there. Nonetheless, he gave me long talks and confidences. I rarely talked to him - it was not my way. It is a quiet receptive fellow who draws me out. I let an egoist and vain man have the floor. All the great men I have known were vain and egotists: Whitehead, Darrow, Bolton Brown and Bob Chanler. As Wendt put it, 'I am but ambitious to be a baffoon, the nigger behind Caesar in the triumphal procession, 'Remember, Caesar, that you are only mortal,' is left for me.
     Bob took me to see his old home (Rokeby) across the Hudson, and introduced me to his sisters and daughters. He showed me his old room when he was a boy, decorated by himself with landscapes and flying ravens. I asked him about his sister in law Amilie Rives whose book, 'The Quick and the Dead' had moved me so in youth. 'She was the woman who showed me the way out of all this', he said. 'She was the one who helped me to my freedom'.
     He took me to see the yacht he had rented for a summer, then began to urge me to go down in it and see his town house. I agreed if he would let me steer the boat.
     'Come  down below and change to some warm underwear. I have wool union suits for the purpose; the nights are cold.'
      While Philippine Paul was making ready we went down into the cabin and stripped to the buff. I was surprised to see his bulky figure was mostly clothes. He had the body of a cupid heroic scale. Strong contrast to my thin proportions and bony structures. I always say the body reflects the soul. It was midnight when we climbed his stairs of vines and monkeys, but a clamorous party was assembled for his return. 'What a night' he remarked the next morning. Carousing and beating drums till almost dawn, girls, women, men who were almost girls, pandemonium to a hermit like myself. The next day he drove me home or had me driven. The car was open, we sat bare heads, gray, and stalwart like old vikings. On the way I told him I was going to build a theater on the Maverick. He asked me if I needed money for the enterprise but I replied I preferred to build it all on debt. 'You will do it. It is better to work alone.' That day he talked European history like the creator, though he had not slept and had been drinking all the night. He could correlate his subjects in any period, the politics, sociology and art. He could illustrate with the customs of the populace, he could give incidents for illustration of his points, then break off with a personal explanation of his conduct. He was a man of great emotion and great mind." (from Hervey White's autobiography in Woodstock library)

Photo from Woodstock Library Collection

(to be continued)

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