Who was W. H. H. Greer?  Nellree Chambliss of Filbert would like to know more about the mysterious author of “Greer’s Poems,” a mildewy 1853 volume of verse that Nell rescued from her neighbor’s refuse pile.  W. H. H. Greer wrote poems, songs and occasional prose that reflected his youthful years in Fayette county.  At the time he published his book, Greer was residing somewhere in Brownsville, but the book’s preface reveals that his native soil was a bit further north.
         “Being brought up in the wild old hills of Jacob’s Creek in Westmoreland County, Pa.,” Greer wrote in August 1853, “where the scenery continually presented to our view was of such a character as to breathe into our mind a peculiar inspiration, at a very early age, many of the ideas embraced in the following pages — perhaps some of the best — were conceived and began to live.”
         Last week’s article focused on Greer’s fascination with the subject of death.  He apparently realized that his readers might criticize him for this preoccupation, so he tried to address it in the preface of his book.
         “The shortness of life,” he explained, “the certainty of death, and the fearful realities of eternity, have ever been before our eyes, whether moving in the circles of society, or along in solitude and mediation: frequent mention of the above will be found throughout the volume.”
         Greer wrote on other subjects as well.  Some of his poems were inspired by the town of Brownsville and the beauty of its surrounding hills and the Monongahela River valley.  In the poem “Monongalia,” Greer wrote:

I love the grassy beach to promenade
Of Monongalia’s gently flowing tide,
Or sit me down, alone, beneath the shade
Of oak or elm that towers at its side;
And there behold the gorgeous steamer dart
Along its bosom, tossing madly wide
The foaming waves, as if she’d rift apart
Its depths, — the massive waters e’en divide.

         Later in the poem, Greer harkened to a time when the only inhabitants of the Monongahela River valley were the predecessors of the white man in this region.

Yes, meditate on ages long since gone,
When all these hills and valleys did resound
With the red Indian’s song and shout; not one
Is left the fearful tocsin now to sound,
Or through the darksome wilderness to scout;
Or, with a merciless and savage bound,
Leap in upon the doe and fawn; or route
And fell the buck and buffalo to the ground.

         The arrival in this area of Frenchmen and Englishmen sparked an inevitable clash between the cultures of the Old and New World.  The conflict was highlighted by the disastrous defeat of General Edward Braddock’s army, which Greer described in the concluding stanzas of “Monongalia.”

Red Battle once did stamp his bloody heel
In fury at thy side, and fiercely yell;
And hundreds at his blasting touch did reel,
And fast before his iron bullets fell
As gallant warriors as ever bore
A sword or musket when the tocsin-bell
Did peal, “To arms!”  And weltering in their gore,
They bade to battle, friend and foe, “Farewell.”

Nor did our heroes falter on the field
‘Mid storms of balls and arrows, and the rave
Of rabid Gauls and copper fiends, or yield
When wounded fell Britannia’s chieftain brave!
And when the ground was strewn with gory dead,
And groaning, tossing, dying, then to save
Our threatened realm a mighty arm did spread
The flag of Liberty o’er land and wave.

Nor did Columbia’s brave and valiant band
All perish ere that bloody fight was done,
But were conducted by a gallant hand
That struck for liberty — the fearless one,
Whose brilliant glories on that awful day
Broke through the gloom — it was bold freedom’s sun
That dawned upon young America —
It was our noble father — WASHINGTON!

         The victories over the French and Indians, and later over the English, gained America its hard-won independence.  Redstone Old Fort soon evolved into a robust community called Brownsville, blessed by its serendipitous placement at the junction of the National Road and the natural highway, the Monongahela River.  In the late 1840's and the early 1850's when Greer was writing his poetry, Brownsville was the preeminent stepping-off place for westbound travelers, providing supplies, flatboats and steamboat passage to the Ohio River and beyond.
         Yet Greer, living amidst the bustle of the booming town, sensed what many around him failed to recognize — that the town’s prosperity would be fleeting, and that the vibrant street scenes which characterized daily life in Brownsville would not last forever.  In his poem “Brownsville At Sunset,” Greer captured the natural beauty of the Monongahela River valley at Brownsville, but he also recorded his eerily accurate vision of the town’s future.
         Sitting on “an elevated piece of land on the premises of Mr. William Harrison, three miles west of Brownsville, Pa.,” Greer wrote the poem “Brownsville At Sunset.”  In it, he described what he saw as he gazed toward the1853 community of Brownsville.

Unbounded grandeur on my vision opes!
My soul involuntarily seems to leap
On airy pinions o’er the emerald slopes
And oak-crowned hills; and skim along the deep,
Green vale, where Monongahela’s waters sweep
In majesty eternal.  Oh, the skies!
How beautifully blue.  Along them creep
The fleecy cloudlets, fringed with golden dies,
Floating away to where yon mountain towers rise! . . .

Crowded against yon jasper-colored hill,
And on the river’s margin, at its base,
A mighty mass of houses gleams in still
Yet awful grandeur, canopied by space,
And pillowed in the beautiful embrace
Of sun-lit hills.  A league from it I stand
Upon a high and solitary place
That seems to lift me near the clouds.  My hand
Shrinks from the task to paint a spectacle so grand!

         Yet the grand spectacle of this river town could not forestall the reversal of fortune that was in the offing for Brownsville.  The town was prosperous when Greer penned this poem, but its sunset had already begun.  Greer flirted with clairvoyance when he wrote this stanza:

And yet, with all its grandeur, pomp and show,
Its tenants are but creatures of a day;
Ere long, the hoary monarch, TIME, will throw
His scythe athwart it, and in ruins lay
Its strongest structures — sternly sweep away
Its wealth and wisdom; for, where’er he treads,
He leaves the gloomy impress of decay:
He makes the earth his rendezvous; nor dreads
Her thrones to crumble, nor to bow her royal heads.

         It is the gloomy impress of decay that challenges Brownsville’s leaders today, as they seek to spark a renaissance in a town whose one-time wealth has been sternly swept away by Time.
         We are all “but creatures of a day,” wrote W. H. H. Greer in 1853.  Yet despite the brevity of our existence, it is the effort that each of us puts forth each day on behalf of our community, exerted with determination and optimism, that may someday help Brownsville recapture its brighter days.