Author: Shea, John Augustus
Biography:
SHEA, John Augustus (1802-45: ancestry.com)
He was born in Cork in Ireland. The names of his parents have not been discovered, but his father was a tailor, at first reasonably prosperous; when his situation deteriorated, he emigrated to America in 1819 with the rest of the family. John Augustus remained behind. He had had a classical education and was intended for the priesthood, but he chose instead to work as a clerk in a brewery and to cultivate literature. He contributed to some local papers and corresponded with Walter Scott (q.v.), among others. He dedicated his first book to Thomas Moore (q.v.). He was in London for its publication in 1826 but in 1827 followed his father to the United States. He worked first at West Point, then began a career in journalism in Philadelphia, followed by Washington DC and finally (from 1839) New York. He continued to produce poetry--Parnassian Wild Flowers (1836), Clontarf, a Narrative Poem (1843)--and left unfinished a tragedy, a biography of Byron, and a long poem, "Time's Mission." O'Donoghue calls him "one of the most brilliant authors of the day." Shea is said to have been married twice, but no public records have been found. The first marriage must have taken place in Ireland about 1825. There were at least two children: a daughter, Agnes (b 1834), and a son, George (b 1826), who became a writer and a judge, and edited a posthumous selection of Poems with a memoir. Shea's second wife, Mary (birth name unknown) predeceased her husband, dying of consumption at the age of forty on 13 Sept. 1844. Shea himself was taken ill on a speaking engagement and died at home of "congestion of the brain" on 15 Aug. 1845. His funeral was reported to have been "one of the largest" ever seen in New York City, where he was buried in the new Catholic cemetery, now the Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum on Riverside Drive. There was a detailed obituary in the New York Weekly Tribune, where Shea had been employed as an editor. (ancestry.com 13 Sept. 2020, 14 Apr. 2026; O'Donoghue; Appleton; "Memoir," Poems [1846]; New York Commercial Advertiser 13 Sept. 1844; New York Weekly Tribune 23 Aug. 1845) HJ
Other Names:
- J. A. Shea