Visit From Professor Cassius Marcellus Clay Zedaker

Prof. Cassius Marcellus Clay Zedaker

Sharpsville Area Historical Society

In the spring or early summer of 1880, the Cleveland Leader Printing Company published a slim volume of poetry titled simply: Prof. Cassius Marcellus Clay Zedaker’s BOOK OF POEMS.

The author is described in the sub-title as “The world-renowned Shakespearean Elocutionist, Poet, Sweet Singer, Composer of Music and Writer of Plays, of Youngstown and Warren, Ohio. Now residing in Cleveland.”

On Monday, August 16, shortly before lunchtime, Professor Zedaker arrived at James Garfield’s front door, and presented the General with a copy of his “poem book.” Zedaker admitted that he and the presidential candidate had never met, but that “each knowing other by fame before this,” Garfield invited him to dinner. After their meal, the professor was, in his telling, “invited to declaim and sing, from which I delivered the Wild mountains an original oration and sung two original songs—Lucy’s Lamb and the Shenango River. I found the General in good health and quite cheerful.”

That evening, Garfield recorded his feelings about the visit: “The soi-disant "Professor" Zedaker of Youngstown, Warren and Cleveland came and dined, and then gave us the most amazing exhibition of egotism I have ever seen.”