Charles P. Caldwell's Farewell Poem

On page 11 of the 1924 Obituary Notebook at the Sandusky Library is the final farewell of Charles P. Caldwell to his family and friends. Mr. Caldwell was a veteran journalist who worked for the Sandusky Register for several years. He was born in Bristol, Ohio in 1852, and attended Hiram College when James A. Garfield was on the faculty. After working on newspapers in Warren and Cleveland, he came to Sandusky in 1872, to work under I.F. Mack at the Sandusky Register. 

In his early years at the Register, Mr. Caldwell was reporter, local news editor, telegraph editor and proofreader, all at the same time. While at the Register he met many well-known people, including James Blaine, William McKinley, Senators Foracker and Sherman, President R.B. Hayes, Governor Charles Foster, Jay Cooke, and Andrew Carnegie. Two of his earliest stories at the Sandusky Register were the notorious lynching of William Taylor in 1878 and the 1882 American Eagle disaster. In 1892, Mr. Caldwell was appointed Deputy Collector of Customs. He continued to work in the Customs office until 1919, when he was transferred to Dayton. He retired in 1922, and moved back to Sandusky, where he resided until his death on February 10, 1924. 

 After Mr. Caldwell died, a poem was found in his pocket, which he had written on July 4, 1922. He asked that the poem by printed in the Sandusky Register after his death. The poem read:

FAREWELL

By Chas. P. Caldwell

It is a solemn thought as death draws near

That I must part from those I hold most dear.

‘Tis certain when I came upon this earth

I had no choice whatever as to birth,

And, likewise, to my last expiring breath,

I’ll helpless be to stay the hand of Death,

For He who gave us life alone controls

The destinies of our immortal souls.

Death is the common end of all mankind,

And to that fate ‘tis best to be resigned.

So live that when the end of life draws nigh

You’ll not be stricken with the fear to die.

The light grows dim! Shades of eternal night

Foretell my soul is soon to take its flight;

And ere these final parting lines are read

The writer will be numbered with the dead.

Life will have vanished like a passing dream,

And left Death’s awful hush to reign supreme-

When all that’s mortal to my grave descends,

‘Twill be a mute farewell to kin and friends.

The rains and snows will beat upon my tomb;

The brightest sun cannot dispel its gloom.

When in the darkness of unending night,

I lie at rest, obscured from human sight,

I hope that you may sometimes be inclined

To hold a friendly thought of me in mind.