Sidney
Clopton
Lanier
Born in Macon, Georgia, USA
Ancestors 
Son of Robert Sampson Lanier
and Mary Jane (Anderson) Lanier
Brother of
Clifford Anderson Lanier and Gertrude Lanier
Husband of
Mary Day
— married
19 Dec 1867 in Macon, Georgia
Descendants 
Died
at age 39
in Lynn, North Carolina, USA
Profile last modified
| Created 31 Jan 2014
This page has been accessed 3,640 times.
Biography
Sidney Lanier is Notable.
Sidney Clopton Lanier was born February 4, 1842, in Macon, Georgia. He is the son of Robert Lanier and Mary Anderson.[1]
He began playing the flute at an early age, and his love of that musical instrument continued throughout his life. He attended Oglethorpe University, which at the time was near Milledgeville, Georgia, and he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He graduated first in his class shortly before the outbreak of the American Civil War.[2]
He fought in the American Civil War (1861–65), primarily in the tidewater region of Virginia, where he served in the Confederate signal corps. Later, he and his brother Clifford served as pilots aboard English blockade runners. On one of these voyages, his ship was boarded. Refusing to take the advice of the British officers on board to don one of their uniforms and pretend to be one of them, he was captured. He was incarcerated in a military prison at Point Lookout in Maryland, where he contracted tuberculosis (generally known as "consumption" at the time). He suffered greatly from this disease, then incurable and usually fatal, for the rest of his life.[2]
Sidney married Mary Day December 21, 1867. After his marriage he dropped his middle name, which his father had given him for his close friend and college roommate.[1]
Sidney Lanier died September 7, 1881, in Lynn County, North Carolina.[1]
Legacy
- Lanier County, Georgia is named in his honor.
Sources
- Ingersoll: Ingersoll, Louise. Lanier, Goetz Printing Company, Washington, 1965. Free on DCMS
- Wikipedia: Sidney Lanier on Wikipedia is a very good source to read on the life of Sidney Lanier. He was a poet, musician and author. He also served in the Civil War.
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Featured Female Poet connections: Sidney is 14 degrees from Anne Bradstreet, 24 degrees from Ruth Niland, 29 degrees from Karin Boye, 25 degrees from 照 松平, 14 degrees from Anne Barnard, 34 degrees from Lola Rodríguez de Tió, 22 degrees from Christina Rossetti, 17 degrees from Emily Dickinson, 28 degrees from Nikki Giovanni, 18 degrees from Isabella Crawford, 21 degrees from Mary Gilmore and 17 degrees from Elizabeth MacDonald on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
L > Lanier > Sidney Clopton Lanier
Categories: Macon, Georgia | Point Lookout Civil War Prison, Scotland, Maryland | Tuberculosis | United States, Poets | Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland | Namesakes US Counties | United States of America, Notables | Notables
him; she was the character in the exquisite poem, "My Springs", which deals with the inspiration, the affection and the faith the poet gets from looking into his wife's eyes. She was called the perfect wife for a poet.
An excerpt from an article in the Baltimore Sun recalls a converstion between several women, friends of Mary and Sidney, remembering the wedding:
Mrs. Granville Connor, whose husband was Sidney Lanier's best man, has the wedding invitations. She shows them gladly now--three separate cards, one bearing the name-- Miss Mary Day the other the name, Sidney Lanier; the third the words, "Christ Church, Macon, Georgia, Thursday, December Nineteenth, at 4 o'clock". No year is given.
Mrs. Walter D. Lamar, president of the Sidney Lanier Memorial Association, recalls that in the midst of the wedding the preacher had Lanier repeat: "And with all my worldly goods I thee endow, " Viola Ross, a prominent and witty miss whispered, "There goes the 'Tiger Lilies". The whisper carried further than Miss Ross intended and a distinct titter passed over the congregation at the mention of this first book of Lanier's which ws nothing more than a pot boiler.
"The wedding was most exciting," Mrs. Blount confirms. "Everyone thought that Mary was going to faint at the altar. And after that wedding at the reception the dress of one of the bridesmaids caught fire and there was much ado putting it out."
And do they talk--these old ladies-- recalling the funny, human things that befell Sidney in those days of long ago. To them he is not one of the most beloved and best-known of all Southern poets; nor one of the few American poets accorded by English critics a distinct place in literature. To them he is a slender, fair-haired youth with a look of romance and poetry about him.
Born: 6/10/1844
Married: 12/19/1867
Died: 12/20/1931; buried Greenwich, Connecticut
Parents: Charles Day of Macon, GA
Their children were:
publisher of the old American Review of Reviews. May was instrumental in promoting the restoration of Stratford Hall, the VA family home of Robert E. Lee. Charles and May lived in Greenwich, Connecticut; his mother Mary died at his home in 1931.
6/28/1918, Eliot, Maine.
Josephine Ledyard Stevens 3/8/1897. They lived in New York, New York. Henry died 3/10/1958.
Goldsborough. Died 1912.
A kinsman: Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" WILLIAMS
Not of my line but of interest to others.
LifeNotes: The home in which his family lived, in Columbus, Mississippi, has been preesrved and is the Welcome Center in Columbus.
The address of the Tennessee Williams Birthplace: Mississippi Welcome Center of Greater Golden Triangle, 300 Main Street, Columbus, MS 39701, phone 601-328-0222.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Tennessee Williams is considered by many to be the greatest American playwright. His plays are so well known that lines from them are part of the American vernacular. He created unforgettable characters--fragile trapped individuals. To name a few of his more than seventy plays: The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Night of the Iguana, and Summer and Smoke.
Williams was a colorful character himself. He was very close to his sister Rose who was mentally unstable; she was institutionized; and he was guilt-ridden at his own inability to help her. She was very likely the model for many of his characters. He lived in New York, in New Orleans, and spent his last years in Key West, FL.
To understand better what should be said about Tennessee, read a wonderful thesis on the web that addresses Tennessee's remarkable ability to reflect the American Vision and Reality. Visit the site of John J. Fritsher Ph.D at Bookmark this site before you leave.
Born: 1911-14, Columbus, Mississippi
Unmarried:
Died: 1983
Parents: Cornelius Coffin Williams and Edwina Dakin. He was a direct descendant of Thomas Lanier and Elizabeth Hicks, son of Nicolas Lanier and Mary (Shepherd ?), see their page, son of John Lanier and Sarah Edmonds, see their page.
CHAPTER: 049: Lanier2d
Sidney Lanier Cottage , Macon, Georgia was sold In 2020 Historic Macon’s Board of Trustees voted to sell the Cottage and use the proceeds to endow the Lanier Education Fund at the Community Foundation of Central Georgia.
The Cottage was sold in February 2021 with deed restrictions
William Hayes Ward Feb 3, 2015 Abbeville Institute
Sidney Lanier was born at Macon, Ga., on the third of February, 1842. His earliest known ancestor of the name was Jerome Lanier, a Huguenot refugee, who was attached to the court of Queen Elizabeth, very likely as a musical composer; and whose son, Nicholas, was in high favor with James I. and Charles I., as director of music, painter, and political envoy; and whose grandson, Nicholas, held a similar position in the court of Charles II. A portrait of the elder Nicholas Lanier, by his friend Van Dyck, was sold, with other pictures belonging to Charles I., after his execution. The younger Nicholas was the first Marshal, or presiding officer, of the Society of Musicians, incorporated at the Restoration, “for the improvement of the science and the interest of its professors;” and it is remarkable that four others of the name of Lanier were among the few incorporators, one of them, John Lanier, very likely father of the Sir John Lanier who fought as Major-General at the Battle of the Boyne, and fell gloriously at Steinkirk along with the brave Douglas.
much more data on line to learn at the Abbeville site.
edited by Margaret (Drody) Thompson
In 2020 Historic Macon’s Board of Trustees voted to sell the Cottage and use the proceeds to endow the Lanier Education Fund at the Community Foundation of Central Georgia.
The Cottage was sold in February 2021 with deed restrictions
The house was built in 1840 as a four-room cottage. Sidney Clopton Lanier was born there on Feb. 3, 1842. He spent many years away from Macon once he was grown, but the city has a rightful claim to Lanier, a poet, musician, lawyer and soldier. Just ask any graduate of the old Lanier High School what that name means to them.
Sidney Clopton Lanier is actually buried in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore. Among the family artifacts at the Cottage are the silver alto flute he used while playing for Baltimore’s Peabody Symphony Orchestra as well as his wife, Mary Day’s, wedding dress.
There is also a Lake Lanier named for him in Georgia.