By John W. McCauley, Lexington
In 1926, the Kentucky General Assembly selected James Thomas “Cotton” Noe as the state’s first poet laureate. Noe felt there were better choices and that the legislature had acted in malice aforethought. Noe would quickly tell you that he was a teacher and not a professional poet. Writing poetry was a passion and diversion, and he prided himself in the philosophy of the simpler verse.
Noe was born to John Washington Noe and Margaret Ann Trowbridge on May 2, 1864, near Springfield in Washington County. He was the oldest of four siblings and had one brother and two sisters. He received a formal primary and secondary education before attending Franklin College, a private liberal arts institution in Franklin, Indiana. While at Franklin, Noe won numerous awards and graduated with an A.B. degree.
He taught high school for a couple of years before attending Cornell University to study English literature with a focus on Shakespeare. In 1890, Noe earned his master’s degree and returned to Kentucky to teach. Following a stint in Marion County, Noe was hired by the Williamsburg Institute, now the University of the Cumberlands, a Baptist-affiliated college in Williamsburg. It was during Noe’s short tenure in Williamsburg that he met Sidney Stanfill, his wife-to-be. The couple married on May 2, 1894.
The Noes left the southeastern Kentucky mountains and relocated to his hometown of Springfield, where he practiced law and served as a police judge. However, by 1898, this talented educator had returned to the classroom. Noe taught at several high schools and institutions of higher learning, including Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee. In the ensuing years, Lincoln Memorial University also would claim Kentucky author and poet laurate Jesse Stuart, who was a student, and William H. Townsend, Kentucky author and an Abraham Lincoln authority and collector, who served on the board of trustees. The three Kentucky authors became close friends.
In 1906, Noe made his way to Lexington, where he became a professor of English at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, now the University of Kentucky. By 1912, Noe had become the head of the university’s Department of Education and remained in that post for 11 years. After stepping down in 1923 as department head, he continued on the faculty until 1934. He then retired from full-time teaching and moved to Beverly Hills, California.
Noe was one of the great writers of his day and was a fine choice by the Kentucky General Assembly for our Commonwealth’s first poet laurate. His works included The Loom of Life (1912), The Blood of Rachel (1916), Lincoln and Twenty Other Poems (1922), Tip Sams of Kentucky (1926), The Legend of the Silver Band (1932), The Valleys of Parnassus (1935), A Brief Anthology of Kentucky Poetry (1936) and In Kentucky (1940).
In this author’s William H. Townsend Library, I have copies of The Blood of Rachel and The Legend of the Silver Band, both inscribed by Cotton Noe to his good friend Townsend. For a literary collector and enthusiast, these books are a real treasure.
Following is a sample of how Cotton Noe was an artist of the simpler verse.
In the Mountains
I met a little mountain boy
As I rode through the vale;
His tiny sister trailed behind,
With pawpaws in a pail.
I greeted him: “How are you?”
He tipped his cap, “I’m six.”
“Where do you live?” He smiled and said,
“Oh, back there in the sticks.”
Then, “Won’t you have a pawpaw, Sir?
We gathered them to-day.”
I did not like the fruit, but said,
“Why thank you, if I may.”
He held the pail of pawpaws up,
“My sister here is four;
Her birthday was last week,” he said,
“Sir, won’t you have some more?”
A jaybird blew his clarinet,
A brown thrush tried to trill;
The boy went whistling down the path,
As I rode up the hill.
Cotton Noe
Tip Sams Of Kentucky
(1926)
Noe held the title of Kentucky poet laureate from 1926 until his death on Nov. 9, 1953, in Beverly Hills. He is buried in the Lexington Cemetery just a short walk from his old friend, Townsend. Noe was the state’s longest-serving poet laureate.