1734

Letter ["Accidentally hearing read a Paragraph"]. Boston Gazette 17-24 June 1734. (Lawrence W. Towner, "Ars Poetica et Sculptura: Pocahontas on the Boston Common." Journal of Southern History 28.4 [1962]: 482-85.) Likely the first proposal, says Towner, "urging the elevation of Pocahontas to the status of American folk heroine" via a poem, a painting, or a statue. The anonymous English correspondent writes: "For my own part I don't recollect any of the celebrated Heroines of Antiquity of half so just a behaviour or that any way exceed her in virtue or true greatness of Mind. How many Statues and Medals would have been made by the Romans in memory of such a Lady?" The letter is followed by an account of the Smith-Pocahontas story from Beverley.