What’s Eating Gilbert
Imlay?
Gilbert Imlay is
something of a Man of Mystery in Mary Wollstonecraft’s story. In my initial
research—back in the late 1990s and into the early 2000s—I had not pursued him
very far. He was somewhat tangential to the story of Mary Shelley—there was
just so much to learn about her—but
as the years went along, I grew more and more curious about him. Who was he?
And why on God’s green earth had he abandoned one of the great women of
history?
Tuesday, 27 September 2011. Imlaystown,
New Jersey.
I
learned of Imlaystown a dozen years ago. But I did not travel there at the
time—another of the loose ends I left dangling when I decided to slow the
Shelley research and start writing.
But
now I’ve finally found an excuse to visit this place where Gilbert Imlay was
born—was it in 1754? Scholars put a question mark beside his birthdate. We know
his family arrived in America in the 1680s and soon afterwards were living in
the area of what would be Imlaystown. By the time Gilbert was born, the Imlays
were substantial landowners and operated the grist mill—Saltar’s Mill—that
stood where now stands another one, not currently functioning.
As
I drive east this early fall day, Imlaystown is not my primary destination. I
am on my way to Princeton, where I’ve recently arranged to tour the house where
writer John O’Hara, 1905–1970, a recent interest (obsession?), lived his final
thirteen years. Now owned by an eminent Princeton philosophy professor, the
house is something I’ve longed to see since I first began reading about O’Hara
a few months ago. I’ve seen his boyhood dwellings in his hometown of
Pottsville, Pennsylvania; I’ve photographed a couple of other places where he lived
in Princeton. But the house he built, Linebrook—so named because it sits near
the junction of Province Line and Pretty Brook roads—is much more obscured by
foliage than it was when he was living and writing there. When I drove by only
about two weeks ago, I could barely see the house at all. I stopped the car on
Province Line, right behind the house, and picked my way through a thick copse.
Recent heavy rains had made a mire of the ground. I took a picture or two. Couldn’t
see much. Back on Pretty Brook, I added a shot of the long driveway leading up
to the back of the house. Again—not much to see. Frustrated—and afraid a
neighbor might alert the police about a prowler—I didn’t stay long but drove
off, annoyed at my own timorousness.
But
now, just seventeen days later, I’ve used some connections—among them: one of
my wife’s high school classmates, who’s now a special collections librarian at
Penn State (which holds the principal collection of O’Hara papers)—to arrange a
tour of the house. But I will not do so until Wednesday morning. What will I do
in the area on late Tuesday afternoon when I arrive at my motel after my long,
440-mile drive from Ohio?
Visit
Imlaystown. It’s only about twenty-seven miles away.
The
little town is really just a cluster of buildings near Doctor’s Creek. Old
houses cling closely to the narrow roads. The only place of commerce I can find
is the Happy Apple Inn, once a stagecoach stop. Its website tells me that a
fire destroyed that old building; the present one rose from the ashes in 1904. I
can have supper there—but the Apple Inn is truly Happy (open) only Wednesday
through Sunday. Today is Tuesday. Foiled
again! Right behind the Happy Apple is the old millpond, now called
Imlaystown Lake. Mere yards away is farmland.
I
walk along the streets, taking pictures—of the dam, the creek, the millpond,
some older looking houses, the terrain. But I realize that no building occupied
by the Imlays still stands. As I
walk by the defunct mill, I see an open door. On it is a marker noting that
Saltar’s Mill is on the National Register of Historic Places. I walk in. No
one’s there. A couple of broad planks serve as a walkway across the old mill
machinery, now idle but still sitting in the open basement below me. More
photographs. If the planks break, if I fall, how soon before anyone finds me? I
imagine the headline:
Local Mystery: Strange corpse of
old man found in mill. Foul play? Or foolishness?
Below: some images of Imlaystown ...
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