An American Asylum

John Braidwood loved his whiskey
more than his family business
But teaching the deaf was what he did
until debtor's prison in 1811.

When he came to the New World,
gave the english Collectors the slip
he landed at Fort McHenry before
the rockets' red glare.

He drank up a colonel's money 
and landed in New Amsterdam
and back in the can; wrote humbly
to the good man who came
with shackles and frowns and saving grace.

He started the first American school
for deaf children in Baltimore
under the eagle eye 
of the military man
who was soon drafted

leaving Braidwood to 
a slow, drunken death.

Reviews

[MrJodie]

I love historic poetry. This is a good read. A tad inaccurate, though. John, the famous grandson of Thomas Braidwood, opened his school in Cobb, Virginia in 1812 and not in Baltimore, Maryland. The school, much like it's founder, didn't last very long, unfortunately.