Author: Dinsmoor, Robert
Biography:
DINSMOOR, Robert (1757-1836: WBIS)
"The Rustic Bard"--his nom de plume--was born in Windham NH to a large farming family; his parents were William and Elizabeth (Cochran) Dinsmoor. (A variant spelling sometimes used is Dinsmore.) In 1775, he enlisted in a New Hampshire regiment; at the age of 20, he fought in the Battle of Saratoga. After returning home, he taught school for a few years to supplement his income from farming. He began to contribute poems occasionally to local newspapers, often using the Lowland Scotch dialect common in the district. In 1782 he married Mary ("Polly") Park, who died in 1798, leaving him a widower with eleven children. His second marriage (1801), to Mary Davidson Anderson, was childless. He became a deacon in the local Presbyterian church. John Greenleaf Whittier (q.v.) contributed a poem in dialect to Dinsmoor's 1828 collection and wrote appreciatively about him in Old Portraits and Modern Sketches (1850). (ANBO 8 Sept. 2018) HJ