Channel LI's poet-farmer in finding gratitude and peace this Thanksgiving

Bloodgood H. Cutter, the self-styled “Long Island Poet Farmer” made famous by a chance encounter with writer Mark Twain, loved Thanksgiving so much he once put his feelings into verse.

Cutter wrote an 1859 ode about Thanksgiving from his home in Little Neck. It was inspired by a sermon by a local preacher calling for gratitude and peace. With America’s Civil War looming, Cutter’s poem sounded almost like a prayer:

“How we should thank the Lord for our great country!

And the blessings bestow’d in making us free!

Also, for preserving us from bloody wars!”

Thanksgivings on Long Island, at a time when Queens County contained all of Nassau County, were very different back then, certainly quieter and more reflective. No expressway with noisy cars stuck in traffic beeping their horns madly. No jumbo TVs inside homes blaring about the latest football scores or giant balloons floating in Manhattan.

For Cutter, 19th-century Thanksgivings were more about attending religious services and thanking the Almighty for the bounty found on Long Island farms, rather than today’s secular ritual with people stuffing themselves at the dinner table in unbridled consumption. This stanza suggests he’d be horrified by today’s indulgence:

“Instead of thanking and praising God, on Thanksgiving days,

But spent it in business or feasting in many ways,

Or in drunkenness, or debauchery!

That would not be the right or proper way.”

Overall, Cutter’s poem seemed to preach that if you give thanks for what you have in life, then good fortune will follow you. Call it good karma, or divine intervention, or just sheer luck by today’s standards. But in Cutter’s life, that Thanksgiving invocation seemed to come true.

After the Civil War, Cutter lived with his wife on a profitable 102-acre farm he inherited from his stepfather. Locally, he was known for his quirky manners, collection of curios and Revolutionary War relics, and the constant reciting of his poetry that sometimes annoyed people at the old courthouse in Mineola where he liked to hang out.

Quite fortuitously, Cutter became famous after he met author Mark Twain on a June 1867 pleasure trip to the Holy Lands. Twain was amused by this odd duck Long Islander. He later mentioned Cutter in his popular book “Innocents Abroad” based on that trip.

“He dresses in homespun, and is a simple-minded, honest, old-fashioned farmer, with a strange proclivity for writing rhymes,” observed Twain.

Cutter died a rich man at age 96 in 1906, giving thanks all the way with his poetry. In the spirit of Long Island's "Poet Lariat," as Twain called him, may the thoughts of gratitude and peace infuse your holiday.