History (1852-1963)

The history of the International Society of Haiku Poets in the U.S. begins with Frederick Wageonheizer. 

Born in Germany in 1852, he was a direct descendant of Zacharias Wageonheizer — also Wagenaar/ Wagenaer/ Wagener and alias Der Donnerman — who in the late 1600s had served as opperhoof, or chief executive officer, of the Dutch East India Trading Company (VOC). 

Among Zacharias’ posts were the Dutch trading fort on the island of Dijema, in the Bay of Nagasaki, Japan, and Fort Orange, the company’s first American trading post, just south of present day Albany in upstate New York. 

While in Japan, Zacharias developed a keen appreciation for Japanese culture, as is evident by the set of porcelain dishware he designed and had manufactured in Japan, pieces of which were handed down through his family through generations. 

His years as opperhoof at Fort Orange established the Wageonheizer family in and around the Schoharie Valley. 

By the time Frederick was born, the family was well established as traders and merchants in and around Berne, Middleburgh, and Rensselaerville, where Frederick’s brother, John and nephew, Nathaniel, ran a team and wagon, as well as a general store on Main Street. 

In 1869, Frederick traveled to Japan on VOC business. While there, he met Yata, haiku master Kobayashi Issa’s only surviving child. The two apparently bonded over their interest in haiku poetry, and there formed the International Society of Haiku Poets.

By the time Frederick returned to Rensselaerville —

some 11 years later — the Society had become widely recognized throughout Japan. 

In honor of this and in keeping with his love of haiku, Frederick organized an informal group of poets in the hamlet and established the first official American chapter here in 1882. 

The poets met in members’ houses until 1895 when three women, Millie Huyck, Helen Chase and Alice Chadwick, established a traveling library in Nat Tweed’s hall — what is now the Catalpa House. Members were able to meet in this location for a year, until a Reading Room was established in rooms on the top floor of a building on Main Street owned by Charles Oswald in 1896. 

Three years later, the Reading Room and newly formed Library Association moved into a building donated by William Felter, and Society members gathered there, establishing a permanent office with shelves dedicated solely to haiku poetry. To honor their official status, a local designer, Lotte (nee Becker) Wageonheizer, created a wooden sign, which was hung from a post in front of the building.

From this time forward, the Society operated and flourished with support from the many librarians who developed the library’s acquisition and lending policies, and created its many programs, including poetry readings and children’s storytelling hours. 

For example, in 1911, Helen Golden (librarian from 1904 to 1914) praised the Society’s members for their fundraising efforts to expand the library’s collection of books. In 1913, when the Society’s wooden sign had deteriorated, Golden persuaded Frederick to pay for a recreation of the sign in metal. A year later, Bertha Jenkins (librarian from 1914-1922) added to the library’s holdings a subscription to The Fortnightly Review. She commented that her decision to subscribe was based partly on an essay in the September issue of 1914 which included an essay by Ezra Pound, “Vorticism,” (pp 461-71) where he acknowledged the influence of haiku on his poetry. 

The Society continued to hold regular meetings and attract new members until 1942. In that year, the ISHP sign that had hung outside the library was removed. Community members complained that the sign and the Society itself signaled support for the Japanese. From that year until the 1950’s, members kept meeting but the Society kept a low profile in the hamlet, and any sign of the Society’s office or shelf space in the library was erased. 

While material signs of the Society’s presence in Renssealerville may have been removed, there is evidence that members were still active. 

In the summer of 1954, for example, Sarah Prout (librarian from 1939-1971) noted in a memo to her assistant Doris Boughton that three self-proclaimed poets from New York City — two men and one woman — had visited the library, looking for the Society headquarters or any of its members. 

What drew them to the library was a black and white photograph of the ISHP sign, which they had found in a book of haiku poetry in a used book store in Greenwich Village. Prout told the visitors that she remembered the sign but had no idea what had happened to it and did not mention any members’ names. 

One of the visitors left his card just in case a member turned up and showed interest in the poetry scene in the city. Prout kept the card in her desk. 

While details of any activities or meetings of the Society have yet to be discovered from the mid-1950’s to the early 2000s, there is evidence that members were still active and associated with the library. 

On June 15, 1963, a package was left on the library porch, which contained a collectable haiku poetry book series published by the Peter Pauper Press, located in Mount Vernon, New York. 

Included in the package was a note dedicating the books to the library in honor of Issa’s birth on June 15, 1832. The note was signed “ISHP.”