Hiram Rich

HIRAM RICH (1831 - ?) lived nearly all his life in Gloucester, working for many years as cashier of the Cape Ann National Bank. Recognized in his lifetime as a prominent Gloucester poet, he read one of his poems as part of the city’s 250 th anniversary celebration in 1891. For twenty years, his poems appeared in leading magazines like Atlantic Monthly, Scribner’s and Lippincott’s. One poem in Atlantic Monthly was titled “Morgan Stanwood” even though it was about the Revolutionary War heroism of Dogtown resident Peter Lurvey. Like legendary figures from other eastern Massachusetts cities and towns, the hero of the poem leaves his work at a moment’s notice to join the Minutemen in Lexington and dies in battle. “In the Sea” from Leaves on the Tide (1913) displays Rich’s religious and philosophical thoughts while remembering past shipwrecks at Norman’s Woe.