Nicholson, (Mrs.) E. J. [Eliza Jane Poitevant]

Submitted by Mike Miller

Mrs. E. J. Nicholson-" Pearl Rivers." A visitor to the editorial rooms of the "New Orleans Picayune," one of the oldest and most influential of the great newspapers of the South, will probably come in upon a slender, soft-voiced little woman, who will instantly turn from her task to give a pleasant greeting and make the newcomer sure of a welcome. It often happens that such a visitor chats with the little lady in the big chair, is enchanted by her gentle conversation and frolicsome wit, and finally goes away pleased, but all unconscious that she who entertained him is the present owner and director of the paper, Eliza J. Nicholson. Mrs. Nicholson, who is a young woman, being yet in the thirties, occupies an unusual position in the world of journalism. She is perhaps the only woman in the world who is at the head of a great daily political newspaper, shaping its course, suggesting its enterprises, and actually holding in her slender hands the reins of its government. The "Picayune" was the bequest to Mrs. Nicholson of her late husband, Col. A. M. Holbrook. It has now been under her management for more than ten years. By the exercise of pluck, patience and that fine, unconscious courage to which genius should always be mated, she has lifted the paper from a slough of debt and disaster to its present standing among the good and able newspapers of the country. Mrs. Nicholson was Eliza J. Poitevent, born of a fine old Huguenot family, whose descendants settled in Mississippi. Her childhood and girl-life were spent in a rambling old country house near the brown waters of Pearl river.

She was the only child on the place; a lonesome child with the heart of a poet, and she took to the beautiful Southern woods and made them her sanctuary. Being a born poet, it was not long before, she found her voice and began to sing, in a shrill, sweet, falcon voice the fairy stories of the woods. These songs reached out into the world, and the gray heads or other posts were bent to listen. She became a constant contributor to the "New York Home Journal" and other papers of equally high standing, and the name of "Pearl Rivers "--the other name of the editor and proprietor of the "Picayune" -- is one that is held dear and cherished by those who have read her exquisite verse. She is the poet- laureate of the bird and flower world of the South. Her poems and fantasies about the birds and flowers and other small folk of the pine- scented Mississippi woodlands are the very airy ephemera and cobwebs of poetic thought, so dainty they might have been etched with a thorn on the petal of a dog-rose bloom. "Pearl Rivers'" first published article was accepted by Mr. John W. Overall, now editor of the "New York Mercury," and from whom she received the confirmation of her own hope that she was born to be a writer. While still living in the country the free, luxurious life of the daughter of a wealthy Southern gentleman, Miss Poitevent, or "Pearl Rivers," as every one now calls her, received an invitation from the editor of the "Picayune" to come to New Orleans as the literary editor of his paper. A newspaper woman was then unheard of in the South, audit is pleasant to know that the foremost woman editor of the South was also the pioneer woman journalist of the South.

Miss Poitevent went on the staff of the "Picayune" with a salary of $25 a week. The work suited her, and she found herself possessed of that rare faculty in women--the journalistic faculty. After a time "Pearl Rivers" married Col. A. M. Holbrook, the owner of the "Picayune." When he died she found herself with nothing in the world but a big, unwieldy newspaper, almost swamped in a sea of debt. The idea of turning her back on this new duty did not occur to the new owner. She gathered about her a brilliant staff of writers, went faithfully and patiently to her "desk's dead wood," worked early and late, was both economical and enterprising, and after years of struggle won her battle, and made her paper a foremost power in the South, yielding her a handsome, steady income. To those in her employ she is always kind and courteous, and her staff honor and esteem her and work for her with enthusiasm.

In l878 "Pearl Rivers" married Mr. George Nicholson, then business manager of the paper, and now part proprietor. In their hospitable home the gentle poet's proudest poems--her two boys, Leonard and Yorke- -brighten and gladden the peaceful days. "Pearl Rivers" has published but one volume of poems, "Lyrics by Pearl Rivers," brought out by J. B. Lippincott Brothers. In this book is some of her most charming work, which caused Paul H. Hayne to write her from his home in Georgia: "Your own sweet poems (genuine lyrics indeed) I have perused with real pleasure, and regret to understand that you have almost given up writing." One of "Pearl Rivers' " most scholarly critics, Dr. W. H. Holcombe, writes as follows in a review of her lyrics: "The most striking characteristic of this poet is her subtle and ethereal personification of natural forums and forces, investing them with human thoughts and passions, and thus spiritualizing, as it were, the whole world around us. This is the highest office of poetry, and distinguishes the genuine seer from the word-painter and musician. 'Pearl River' has done well. She stands, by this volume, ahead of any other Southern poet, and no female writer in America, from Mrs. Sigournoy to the Carey sisters, has evinced more poetic genius than shines throughout this little volume.

Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 277-278. Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.