Born in New York City, he was orphaned when young and entered a mercantile house. While still a child, he showed a talent for writing poems. He was educated at Columbia College. In 1813 he began studying in a physician's office. In 1816 he began to practice medicine and in the same year married Sarah, daughter of Henry Eckford, a naval architect.
In 1819, together with his friend and fellow poet Fitz-Greene Halleck, he wrote a series of satirical verses for the New York Evening Post, which were published under the penname "The Croakers." Drake died of consumption a year later at the age of twenty-five.
As a writer, Drake is considered part of the "Knickerbocker group", which also included Halleck, Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, James Kirke Paulding, Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, Robert Charles Sands, Lydia M. Child, and Nathaniel Parker Willis.[1] A collection, The Culprit Fay and Other Poems, was published posthumously by his daughter in 1835. His best-known poems are the long title-poem of that collection, and the patriotic "The American Flag" which was set as a cantata for two soloists, choir and orchestra by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák in 1892-93.[2] "The Culprit Fay" served as the inspiration for a 1908 orchestral rhapsody of the same name by Henry Kimball Hadley.[3]
Fitz-Greene Halleck's poem "Green be the turf above thee" was written as a memorial to Drake. Joseph Rodman Drake Park in Hunts Point, Bronx, was named for him in 1915.[4] This park has received $180,000 of New York State funding to memorialize slave workers likely to be buried there.[5]
Late at night, over too many Rum & Snapple, I run across this. I'm reading on line all of my new novel's heroine's husband's columns from 1874 to around 1879 in Scribner's Monthly when my novel ends, looking for tidbits. This is a poem written off the top of his head (Helena's Grandfather to his buddy.) It honestly reads like something out of Shakespeare- he had that ear and grace of ease with the rhyme. He was Joseph Drake -wrote "The Culprit Fay" early 1800s poet. This probably was never published anywhere but in this column. Not that anyone gives a hoot. Read it aloud if you are into the language. If not go to bed.
