----------------------------------------------- Biography of
Pearl Rivers Pearl Rivers is the pen name of poet Eliza Jane Poitevent Holbrook Nicholson. Eliza took the pen name from the Pearl River, which was near her childhood home. She became the owner and publisher of the Times Picayune in New Orleans from 1876 to 1896. Born in Gainesville, Mississippi, twenty miles south of Picayune on March 11, 1843 (some sources say 1849), to William J. Poitevent and Mary A. Russ Poitevent. She was reported to be a quiet child and a daydreamer who had a sickly mother, a very busy father, and two older brothers that taunted her. When Eliza was nine, Eliza's aunt, Jane Kimball, visited the family and entreated her sister Mary to let Eliza Jane come live with her and her husband, Leonard Kimball, in Hobolochitto (the early name for Picayune) where Leonard managed a plantation (now called the Hermitage) and a store. Leonard Kimball and Jane Potter Russ had been married in Gainesville around 1840. Jane was in her early teens, and Leonard was in his late thirties. They were childless in 1852 when Eliza Jane Nicholson came to live with them. When Eliza moved to Picayune, she had older brothers by three and six years, a younger brother by two years, and younger sisters by seven, five and 2 ½ years. It is not known whether or not Eliza Jane exhibited the wild nature she exhibited in later life. She may have been sent away because she was difficult to control as the family was well off with servants and slaves. Her father William James Poitevent was reported to be a spirited man, and she may have taken after him. At any rate, the change of homes was beneficial for Eliza. The trip from Gainesville to Hobolochitto was long whether by steamship or by buggy. At first, Eliza must have had mixed emotions about the move. Shortly after she arrived and settled in with the Kimballs she began revealing herself in poems. In Myself she wrote
That was and still is a curious phrase. She kissed her teacher? Looking at it from Eliza’s innocent eyes, it might have meant that she had wrapped her teacher around her little finger, who put aside the vexing books for a kiss and taught her things that interested Eliza--maybe about nature and folklore. That type of candidness was carried with her in her later life. The teacher was Moses Cook, owner of the plantation, who shared the double penned log house with the Kimballs. With access to the mail, Eliza had the opportunity to read
newspapers and magazines where she developed her love for poetry
and fashion. She never threw away anything because everything
to her had life, even pencil stubs.
Leonard, Eliza’s uncle, was depicted as a frugal but generous man, but when it came to young love, Leonard was ruthless in protecting her. Eliza was sent to the Amite Female Seminary in Liberty, Mississippi, from which she graduated in 1859. An album in the Nicholson Collection at the Williams Research Center in New Orleans has many poems and well wishes to Eliza at graduation. She was depicted in a publication of women writers in the South as the “Wildest girl in school,” apparently her own designation.
There are poems about lost love and rejection. If her poems are in any way biographical, she intimately knew a woman’s heart in love, lost love, and in rejection before she decided to marry Holbrook, co-owner of the Daily Picayune. The earliest poem in the Daily Picayune attributed to her is “A Little Bunch of Roses,” published October 17, 1866. However, a delightful poem published a day earlier called “Wouldn’t you like to know” is most likely also hers. On January 28, 1866, she wrote, I Miss Thee for the New Orleans Times, followed by five other poems-- all sad poems about her dead soldier fiance’. Eliza Jane’s first known trip to New Orleans was in the latter months of 1868, when she visited her Grandfather Russ. There were trips back and forth to New Orleans until she met Alva M. Holbrook, who asked her to become literary editor of that paper. She accepted and later married him, a man 29 years her senior. She began writing for the New Orleans Times in January 1866, but by 1867, she wrote exclusively for the Daily Picayune. Most likely since she had known love and lost love, she married Holbrook for status and security. However, instead of security, she encountered trauma and scandal that affected her deeply until she met and fell in love with George Nicholson, the business manager of the Picayune. A month after the wedding to Holbrook, Jennie Bronson, Holbrook’s divorced wife, a crazed woman with a Latin temperament, entered Eliza’s home. Brandishing a seven shooter, she shot twice at Eliza but missed. Eliza wrestled the gun away and yelled for the police. Jennie then began to beat Eliza over the head with a bay rum bottle causing deep wounds. Eliza called for the Irish laundry woman, who with the cook, freed Eliza and took her next door, then across the street, where she was attended to by a doctor. Meanwhile, Jennie found an ax and began to destroy the furniture. A legal mess that lasted almost two years resulted from the assault. During reconstruction most government administrations were controlled by carpet beggars, and corruption and incompetence were rampant. Amazingly, in October of 1873, Jennie Bronson was found not guilty of assault. Through some manipulation, Jennie moved into Eliza’s house using a court document filed by another judge and stayed there for a long time before she could be evicted. Eliza was living in the St. Charles hotel and wrote William asking him to help her retrieve her home. She mentioned that all her correspondence (and poetry) was in the house. William contacted her after the assault by Jennie Bronson and wanted to renew the relationship, but Eliza would not since she and William were both married to others. However, in one of her letters to William, she confided that Holbrook did not love her, "never did, and never will." Eliza had felt rejected by her family when she left Gainesville, when she fell in love with Willie, when she began publishing poetry, when she accepted the literary editorship of the Daily Picayune and when she married a divorced man, but the incident with Jennie Bronson was a public scandal with accusations of an affair before marriage and was a devastating attack on her life. During Eliza’s recuperation from Bronson's attack, with friends rallying by her side, she published her only book of poetry, Lyrics, containing 43 of her poems, under the pen name Pearl Rivers. She struggled to lift her spirits as she wrote an article and poem in the Daily Picayune in September of 1874 about the trials of gallant women and the tribulations of the Poesy. The poem had been published earlier in the Times but was reprinted to reflect another trauma in her life. Before their marriage in 1872, A. M. Holbrook had sold the paper. When the paper lapsed into financial trouble under its new owner, Holbrook was made president by the company that bought it. Holbrook later bought the paper back. During that period Eliza and Holbrook traveled to Chicago, New York, and Canada. Eliza’s account of the trip was published in the Daily Picayune on two occasions. The narrative shows a free spirited girl on her first real vacation. She writes of magnificent architecture, museums, and famous people. She was being exposed to a culture different from the South, and she loved all of it but the bustiers which were in fashion at the time. Before Holbrook could turn around the indebted newspaper, he died in bankruptcy, leaving Eliza with the choice of retaining ownership of the indebted newspaper or accepting the $1000 dollars the state offered to bankrupt widows. At the urging of the business manager and editor, she kept the paper-- much to the chagrin of her family. It was not proper for a genteel Southern woman to enter business, especially with cigar smoking men in a newsroom . She defied her family once again. Having made the decision three months after Holbrook’s death keep the paper, the editor, Jose Quintero, a flamboyant Spaniard and expert duelist, challenged anyone who wished ill of the new female editor to do it at the risk of death in a duel with him. About this time the business manager George Nicholson invested his own savings in the paper and acquired 1/4 ownership. George was married with children at the time, but there was an apparent relationship between Eliza and Nicholson as noted in a group of romantic and coquettish letters written by Eliza Jane to "Uncle" Nick. These letters, not usually ones that would appear in a family collection, were given to Eliza’s granddaughter by a Poitevent relative. The letters provide an invaluable insight to Eliza’s nature and personality. When she was a widow (in a note written by Eliza to her sons) was a letter written by her to their father, showing she was not at all ashamed of the letter. The letters are in the Nicholson Collection at the Williams Research Center. They show a young girl in love, struggling with how to express it to a married man. In 1877, a year after George Nicholson's first wife died,, Eliza Jane and George Nicholson married. This time Eliza married for love and faced a very insecure financial future. During those times, scandalous activities were not promulgated in print, but rumors abounded in New Orleans. Eliza apparently got along well with George’s first family. Annie, the oldest daughter actually raised the two Nicholson boys after their parents died. George Nicholson, a brilliant business man, and his ingenious female editor wife managed to make the paper financially profitable. At first, a managing editor was hired, so Eliza’s input came about gradually. However, in 1880, after the paper was awarded the state publishing contract, the editor was released, and Eliza took on the responsibility. She began the Society Bee, a local gossip column and published the first weekly issue of a serial novel, A Dead Life. The Daily Picayune became one of the leading newspapers in the South during the Reconstruction. Eliza added woman and children and animal issues to the newspaper at a time when Southern women were shedding the bondage of being of a lower genteel class. Her innovations were unprecedented in the South. She fought against the corrupt regimes in local and state government. She supported building jetties to clear the Mississippi River and opposed the continued dredging proposed by the Corps of Engineers. She supported Democratic takeover of the corrupt Republican regimes. She supported public selling of bonds to build the railroad that now passes through Picayune. She was undoubtedly responsible for naming the stops of Picayune and Nicholson. She also hired many women writers, including Catherine Cole and Dorothy Dix, the infamous Dear Abby of her time. Even when Holbrook took back the paper as president, the newspaper
was changing, but now its innovations were numerous, It offered
more poetry, literary and romantic stories,when Eliza was literary
editor after her marriage. While her innovations boosted circulation,
it was George’s ability to sell ads, Eliza’s genius,
and the new state contract which helped turn the paper around.
Physically Eliza Jane was short-- barely over four feet tall with tiny hands and feet, a somewhat large nose and ears, blue-green or green-gray hazel eyes, and beautiful auburn red hair (blonde from the sun in her earlier years). she looked younger looking her age. She was of fair complexion and probably had freckles. She was an attractive child/woman, but it was not her appearance, but her presence that marked her. She not only impressed men but women and children also. She was sensitive and had a stern will but was not domineering. She was honest to a fault and a free spirit who could live comfortably in her imagination, but she also enjoyed others. She was amiable but not outgoing. She was basically shy and hated to appear before groups of people, sending someone else when duties called her to appear. She loved life and found joy in her children. There appear to be times when she went underground. Perhaps she was away on trips or perhaps she was sick or in a state of depression. She taught her children nature lore. She knew things that others couldn’t comprehend even with experience, so she may have been psychic. As a child, she strikingly resembles an Indago or Chrystal child, two of the Psychic personalities defined by that group. “Did you know she could levitate?” her granddaughter, Elizabeth once said in an interview… “and bend spoons!”
Eliza Jane died February 15th, 1896, two weeks after George’s death. Both died of influenza during an epidemic in New Orleans. They are buried in Metairie Cemetery. They left two sons, Leonard Kimball Nicholson, age fifteen and York Poitevent Nicholson, age twelve. Aunt Annie, the oldest of George’s daughters, took over care of the boys while the editor, Rapier took over their financial interest. Leonard became the editor of the Times Picayune. York worked for the paper but was sickly and worked only when he felt up to it. Both boys graduated from VMI and were best friends. Eleanor, a deceased granddaughter, had said York never talked about his mother, but he did tell her stories of English folklore that George had told him. Elizabeth, the granddaughter that I interviewed, said he did talk about both his mother and father but not too frequently. She remembers sitting with her father on the front porch sharing their personal lives. Jerry, Leonard Nicholson’s adopted son said his father never talked about his mother or father. Leonard may never got over his parent’s death and compensated for it by being a mentor for his brother. After Leonard’s first wife Mary died in childbirth, he married his Poitevent cousin. His grave was moved from Gainesville to Picayune when the Test Site was constructed. In 1932, the Iris Society of Louisiana dedicated a Rainbow Memorial to Eliza, a lagoon in City Park. Don Wicks, Pearl River Historical Society Meeting, 5/21/2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ole Miss site has photo only of Pearl Rivers. A Boston site toasts Pearl Rivers and includes brief biography. Louisiana Leaders: Notable Women in History site has biography. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The |
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