Historical Reminiscing with Robert B. Hitchings
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Depression


Robert Frost (1874-1963)

We Americans read a lot about people suffering from depression. Today depression is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how one feels, the way you think and how you act towards fellow individuals. Thank goodness that we live in an age where depression is treatable with medication, unlike 140 years ago when there were no drugs or cures on the market to treat this illness.

This is a story of a young man whose depression caused so much sadness and loss of interest in living that he had reached the point where he was ready to commit suicide and ways of suicide were running through his mind. And what better way to commit suicide than in the Great Dismal Swamp. No one would know and no one would find his body. No one would care. He had quit college, feeling it was not right for him. His marriage proposal to a beautiful local girl whom he had been madly in love with for a long time had been turned down. Nothing was going right for him. He felt the whole world was darker and the strains of everyday life was heavier than ever. His hopes and dreams for a bright future seemed all over. He was only 20 years old.

On November 6, 1894, depressed and lonely, this unobtrusive young man took the train from Boston to New York. He had very little money. From there he boarded a ship to Norfolk, Virginia. His goal was to see the great Dismal Swamp. He was headed to a desolate place, a place he had read about. Once in Norfolk, he walked to the Deep Creek area, about 8 miles. The road he traveled was built alongside the Dismal Swamp Canal. There he saw lots of logs being transported to the area sawmills. Once he arrived at the great Dismal Swamp, he entered slowly into its dark, dismal area, walking further and further into the unknown and treacherous swamp. This was a perfect place to die. Darkness was all around him. But, then like a miracle, he looked up and saw in the distance a light flickering in the darkness. It was the lockkeeper's light. He began to walk out of the darkness toward this light. That small light pulled him back to his senses. His suicidal ideas soon faded. Once out of the swamp, he asked a local man where the closest town was. He was out of money, but it would be the loggers, hunters and strangers that gave him food and shelter until he got to Elizabeth City. Even a few hobos gave a helping hand with tips how to board a freight train to get back home.

Once in Baltimore, Maryland, he was able to contact his mother and she sent him money to buy a ticket for home.

This could be a modern day American story that we read and hear about so often. Stories like this touch our lives, but not many stories are submerged like this one in the past. Like so many individuals he too struggled from depression brought on by rejection and the ordinary pressures of daily life. Who was this man that was so depressed in 1894?

This man would become one of American’s best loved and modern-day poets. He would become the Poet Laureate of Vermont. He won four Pulitzer Prizes in poetry and was the winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor for Poetry in 1960.

His name was Robert Frost (1874-1963)

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Robert B. Hitchings is a seventh generation Norfolk resident, graduating with an Associate's Degree in Biology from Old Dominion University and BA in history from Virginia Wesleyan University. During his studies he was awarded a scholarship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England, and he was an exchange student at Brooks-Westminster College, Oxford, England. From 1999-2014 he worked as head of the Sargeant Memorial History Room at Norfolk Public Library, and since then has headed the Wallace History Room at Chesapeake Public Library. He is also the President of the Norfolk County Historical Society, and for six years was a columnist for The Virginian-Pilot. Robert may be reached at nchs.wallaceroom@gmail.com