Editing Joseph Rodman Drake (section)

== Biography ==
Born in [[New York City]], he was orphaned when young and entered a mercantile house. While still a child, he showed a talent for writing poems. He was educated at [[Columbia College of Columbia University|Columbia College]]. In 1813 he began studying in a physician's office. In 1816 he began to practice medicine and in the same year married Sarah, daughter of [[Henry Eckford (shipbuilder)|Henry Eckford]], a naval architect.

In 1819, together with his friend and fellow poet [[Fitz-Greene Halleck]], he wrote a series of satirical verses for the ''[[New York Post|New York Evening Post]]'', which were published under the penname "The Croakers." Drake died of [[tuberculosis|consumption]] a year later at the age of twenty-five.

As a writer, Drake is considered part of the "[[The Knickerbocker|Knickerbocker group]]", which also included Halleck, [[Washington Irving]], [[William Cullen Bryant]], [[James Kirke Paulding]], [[Gulian Crommelin Verplanck]], [[Robert Charles Sands]], [[Lydia M. Child]], and [[Nathaniel Parker Willis]].<ref>Nelson, Randy F. ''The Almanac of American Letters''. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 30. {{ISBN|0-86576-008-X}}</ref> A collection of poems by Joseph  Rodman Drake, ''The Culprit Fay and Other Poems'', was published posthumously by his daughter in 1835. His best-known poems are the long title-poem of that collection, and the patriotic "The American Flag" which was set as a [[cantata]] for two soloists, choir and orchestra by the Czech composer [[Antonín Dvořák]] in 1892-93.<ref>{{cite web|title=The American Flag|url=http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/en/american-flag|publisher=The Dvorak Society for Czech and Slovak Music|access-date=May 4, 2015}}</ref>  "The Culprit Fay" served as the inspiration for a 1908 orchestral rhapsody of the same name by [[Henry Kimball Hadley]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.559064&catNum=559064&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English|title=HADLEY: Symphony No. 4 / The Ocean / The Culprit Fay|access-date=3 April 2016|archive-date=17 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160417021520/http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.559064&catNum=559064&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English|url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[Fitz-Greene Halleck]]'s poem "Green be the turf above thee" was written as a memorial to Drake. Joseph Rodman Drake Park in [[Hunts Point, Bronx]], a two-and-a-half-acre green space that contains his burial site in a small enclosed cemetery, was named for him in 1915.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/X015/highlights|title=Joseph Rodman Drake Park|access-date=3 April 2016}}</ref> Buried here as well are members of the old local landowning families, notably the Hunts ("Hunts Point"), Leggetts, and Willets. This park has received $180,000 of New York State funding to memorialize slave workers who were thought to be buried there,<ref>Bob Kappstatter, "State $ for slave burial site." Bronx Times Reporter, May 16th, 2014, p. 6.</ref> and the remains of up to 11 enslaved Africans were rediscovered in 2013-14 by local students from P.S. 48, also known as the Joseph Rodman Drake School.<ref>{{Cite web |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/nyregion/south-bronx-students-may-have-found-site-of-slave-burial-ground.html |title= South Bronx Students May Have Found Site of Slave Burial Ground |website=The New York Times |last=Foderaro |first=Lisa W. |date=25 January 2014 |access-date=28 May 2020}}</ref>