Wallace Bruce

Born in Hillsdale, New York, in 1844, Wallace Bruce built a literary career as a poet, author, and public speaker. Sources consistently describe him as a Yale graduate, and his books include The Land of Burns, The Yosemite, The Hudson, From the Hudson to the Yosemite, Old Homestead Poems, Wayside Poems, and Leaves of Gold.

Bruce became especially known for occasional and commemorative verse, including "Parson Allen's Ride," delivered at the Bennington centennial in 1875. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him U.S. consul at Edinburgh, Scotland, a post he held into the 1890s.

While in Scotland, he took an active role in promoting a Lincoln monument in Edinburgh dedicated to Scottish-American soldiers who served in the American Civil War. He died in 1914, remembered as a poet whose work often mixed travel, history, civic pride, and affection for the American landscape.