James Lorimer "Lorrie" Graham Jr. was the American Consul in Florence.
Early life
James Lorimer "Lorrie" Graham Jr. was born in New York City on January 21, 1835, the son of Gen. Nathan Burr Graham. He was the brother of R.M.C. Graham, President of the Metropolitan Insurance Company and nephew of James Lorimer Graham and John A. Graham. His father, Gen. Nathan Burr Graham, belonged to a prominent New York family, and his mother, Marie Antoinette McCoskry, came of good old Scotch stock. Her uncle, Robert McCoskry, was one of the founders and the first President of the Chemical Bank. Graham was educated in New York until he was about sixteen, and was then sent to Amiens, France, to complete his education. There he lived for some years with a cousin who had married a French gentleman of position and prominence, pursuing his studies. On account of his precocious literary skill he was selected to deliver a poetical address of welcome to Alphonse de Lamartine, when that statesman visited the school in 1848. Afterwards spent some time in Paris in completing his education. During his sojourn abroad he became a proficient French scholar, and retained all his life his fluency and perfect accent, so rare to any foreigner, and was often mistaken for a Frenchman.
Career
After graduation he lived for a time in Rio Janeiro, Brazil. Back to New York City he left again aboard of the steamer USS San Francisco from New York to San Francisco, first steamship which attempted to make the trip and which sank off Cape Hatteras. Walt Whitman was a fellow passenger, and composed a poem about the shipwreck. The ship belonged to the old shipping house of Rowland & Aspinwall, with whom Graham was then enrolled as a clerk. He and one of the younger Aspinwalls were the only passengers in the cabin; but the ship carried many emigrants; and when it was wrecked, the passengers were picked up by different sailing vessels, and carried off to various ports; so that many weeks elapsed after the loss of the ship was reported before Lorrie appeared once more at his father's home in New York, emaciated from illness, starvation and exposure, and having saved nothing but the clothes on his back, and one opal stud. The injuries he sustained left him lasting physical disturbances. He was a librarian and editor of the Putnam's Magazine, a monthly periodical featuring American literature and articles on science, art, and politics. Circa 1869 he was named United States Consul General in Florence. When the capital was transferred to Rome, Graham remained behind, preferring to accept the simple position of Consul rather than change his Italian home. He was a member of the Century Club and one of its first librarian, and was a member of the Geographical Society.
"My very dear and good old friend, Jas. Lorimer Graham, was to me, as a young and struggling artist, a sort of Deputy Providence. When Providence itself seemed to be carelessly looking after what seemed to my youthful mind as "minor matters," Lorrie was not only there but all there to see that I, for one, did not become the prey of black despair for want of either moral or material light or sweetness. I remember I did not so much love him on the principle of "If he be not kind to me what care I how kind he be!" But rather that he seemed to radiate kindness and graceful good fellowship all about him. He appeared to draw to him by the rare gift of personal magnetism all of the best of human sympathy. The love of those who loved him for the love, that was the light of his life. His love was his religion, and his hate was only for one thing, meanness. Narrowness he disliked; but he could tolerate it when confused with an idea of "exclusiveness." This he merely looked on as a disease. My memories and experiences of Lorrie are so many, and varied and personally intimate, that I hesitate to parade the latter, and have no pardonable time to inflict you with the former. I may simplify by saying that when the days were darkest and most hopeless, he came like the "Little god from the clouds," and so charmingly and gracefully, and patronizingly, and as the darkey hymn says, "Jest rolled dem clouds away!" You will, I am sure, knowing him, believe me, and almost fancy you saw how he did it. Lorrie was a born practical joker, and his kindest acts partook of this light side of his nature. Sometimes the joke was not so very practical; but the kind object and outcome of it never failed to be a welcome success. I owe to Lorrie Graham some of the brightest and best memories of my life. If I went into detail, I should need more space than you could spare me. Among his books given to the Club may be his "Book of Good Fellows." In that you will see a bit of a parody by me, a faint hint of what I thought of him then. And since then you will believe me the light has not been dimmed about his memory. I am intensely glad that he has left his bookish treasures to the dear old Century Club. Lovely books were his soul's delight, and my prayer is, that they may love and treasure and enjoy them for his sake, and practically forever."
