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ORSAMUS CHARLES DAKE
was perhaps the first Nebraska writer to base his work on Nebraska's history, landscape,
and people. Born in Portage, New York in 1832, he was ordained as a minister in the Episcopal
Church in 1862, arriving in Nebraska a year later, where he founded Brownell Hall in Omaha.
In 1865 he founded a church in Fremont. His first book, Nebraska Legends and other Poems
was published in 1871.
One of the key poems in the collection is "Weeping Water," based on a battle between the
Omaha and Otoe tribes, a battle so fierce that the widows and children of both tribes were
said to have wept over the dead, their tears forming the stream known as Nehawka or Weeping
Water. In Nebraskans (1972), AC Edmunds describes Dake as "of small stature but of a
compact and perfect build; possessed of strong mental and muscular developments. His whole
soul is wrapped in the love of literature, and his religious training and experience give
caste to all his Productions."
He would later be appointed as the first teacher of literature at Nebraska State University,
among a total faculty of five, each drawn from a different religious denomination. According
to a remembrance by HH Wilson, a former student, Dake taught creative writing at the
university: "It was one of his duties to listen to, and criticize our youthful literary
productions and I can now appreciate better than I could then how irksome this task must
often have been. However through it all, he was patient and, by his discriminating
criticism, was a great aid in developing style of expression. Perhaps his most lasting
influence upon the students that came in contact with him grew out of the fact that his
work as a professor inspired us with an ambition to become acquainted with the best that
had been written. He, himself, had a keen appreciation of the master pieces of literature
and he succeeded in no small degree, in communicating his enthusiasm to his students."
He died in Lincoln in 1875. [Source: Nebraska History and Record of Pioneer Days]
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