The Washingtons of Jefferson County By John Augustine Washington, Family Historian, Interview August 3, 2001 https://justjefferson.com/09jaw.htm
The above photos were taken by Edwin Fitzpatrick for the book “Between the Shenandoah and the Potomac” by the Jefferson County Historical Society, 1990.
Claymont – courtesy the West Virginia and Regional History Center – View of Claymont Court near Charles Town. The ante-bellum mansion was built in 1840 by Bushrod Corbin Washington, after the first dwelling burnt down in 1838. Washington was George Washington’s grand-nephew. The mansion has a formal ballroom and two-story, columned porches. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/013061
Family photos of Claymont, when it was the home of R.J. Funkhouser, and the home facing Claymont, Blakeley, also once owned by Mr.Funkhouser. (courtesy the Funkhouser family) – https://justjefferson.com/funkhouser_rj/photos.html
First, the self-sacrifice of his men at the winter of Valley Forge during the Revolution affected George Washington affected him deeply and he returned his loyalty.
Second, on Oct. 20, 1750 – Frederick County, VA. – George Washington made his first land purchase ANYWHERE, and was located in Jefferson County, buying 453 acres along the lower fork of the Bullskin from Thomas Rutherford. Today this property straddles Middleway Pike near the Shirley Road Intersection. (He did not hold onto it long).
Third, In the spring of 1798, GW had hand delivered a letter to the recently widowed Sally Fairfax, with whom in his youth had an amorous relationship. He recited the many important events of his life, then wrote: “not all of them together have been able to eradicate from my mind the recollection of those happy moments – the happiest of my life – which I have enjoyed in your company.” He then wondered if she might consider returning from England to Virginia. She said no. – Ron Chernow “Washington: A Life” p. 778. letter dated May 16, 1798
A River of Story in 25 Chapters by Jim Surkamp (See links to each chapter) September, 2017 TRT: 4:05:40 Video link: https://youtu.be/KSXoj0c5My4 Made possible with the support of American Public University System
The factually true, moving and incredible odyssey of Jasper Thompson and his family starting with generations working on farms owned by the Washington family in Jefferson County, WV; growing up and enlisting in U.S. Colored Troops in 1864, finding himself in the Crater disaster in July, 1864, then to return home to Charlestown, Va (today Charles Town) – to meet his Destiny Day September 6, 1906. There is no voice over – giving the story a more personal feel. Fantastic music by Cam Millar and Shana Aisenberg. Special thanks to family historian Monique Crippen-Hopkins
CHAPTER 9: THE SOBER FACTS, BUT GEORGE JOHNSON “GETS CLEAR”
INTERMISSION
CHAPTER 10: Jasper is Born – 1844
CHAPTER 11: A Year’s Work in 1850:
CHAPTER 12: Jasper Comes of Age
CHAPTER 13: When Somber Men Weep
CHAPTER 14: The War Storm Breaks at Home
CHAPTER 15: Joining An Army
CHAPTER 16: Farming in the Field of War
CHAPTER 17: War Strikes Down A Washington
CHAPTER 18: 64 War Events in Jefferson County Oct. ’61-March ’64 Summarized
CHAPTER 19: Jasper Thompson’s New Life & the “Big Bang”
CHAPTER 20: Shepherdstown, Va. – April, 1864: Netta Lee “Meets” the 19th U.S. Colored Troops
CHAPTER 21: Trained at Camp Casey and a “Lincoln Moment”
CHAPTER 22: Manassas Camp – The Men Become One
CHAPTER 23: LEE’s MEN FIRST FACE BLACK MEN IN BLUECOATS
CHAPTER 24: The Crater Climax – Jasper’s Biggest, Bravest Fight
CHAPTER 25: Conclusion: Jasper Thompson’s Destiny Day September 6, 1906 Video link: https://youtu.be/KSXoj0c5My4#t=3h43m59s Made possible with the support of American Public University System
We meet at 9 AM NOT in the NPS Visitors Center Parking (that has a fee) but we park at the County Visitors Center located on the “town” side of Route 340 at the light in Harper’s Ferry.
Prior to the tour, you might enjoy watching some of these videos that I created with others about Harper’s Ferry. Many were made possible with the generous, community-minded support of American Public University System:
Hilltop House Hotel of Harper’s Ferry & “The Lovett Way” TRT: 35:41 (20:42 Video before Sources) https://youtu.be/ecNaKMMPLQA CORRECTION: (at 20:46) “After watching the YouTube video, my sister said that a name was noted as “Daniel A. Mercer” but was actually “A. Mercer Daniel” (full name Allen Mercer Daniel, son of Allen P. Daniel). Sharing for possible correction in the film’s notes.” Notice from descendants of Thomas Lovett.
The history of Thomas Smith Lovett and the early history of the great Hotel that he ran until 1926. Video goes up to when the Hotel was sold to Swan Investors in the early 21th century. Posted bibliography is incomplete.
The Capture of Harper’s Ferry, Va. Sept., 1862 with Dennis Frye TRT: 45:15 https://youtu.be/2iN3-G5m-h8 This is part of a documented narrative of the time in Jefferson County, West Virginia between February and December, 1862. During this tumultuous period, Federal forces under Gen. Nathaniel Banks invaded the area; then, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson drove them back through this immediate region in May, 1862. Jackson then attempted to also capture Harper’s Ferry from a Federal force in May 30, 1862 – but failed, leaving that redoubt as the only foothold left to the Federal armies in the Shenandoah Valley. But the major incursion in September into Maryland by Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia included another attempt to capture Harper’s Ferry, still protected by up to 14,000 Federal troops. This time, Jackson’s men succeeded. Jackson’s capture of the town and the surrender of the Federal force also created grim and dark prospects for the hundreds, maybe, by one account of up to 5,000, once-enslaved, protection-seeking African-Americans who were in the town. Their fates and the human drama surrounding the actual surrender process will be the focus of soon-to-come third installment of this series, which has been titled “The Fall of Freedomland.”
Chief Historian Dennis Frye for the Harper’s Ferry National Historic Park, gives his time-tested, well-informed account of how this capture unfolded, caused to a great degree by a few individual lapses in judgement.
Special appreciation to the donated synthecizer composition by Professor Kevin Williams of Shepherd University; the brilliant, contracted services of acoustic artist Shana Aisenberg http://shanasongs.com” (guitar) and the late, wonderfully gifted Freyda Epstein (violin) of “Trapezoid” fame.
NOT ABOUT HARPER’S FERRY BUT JUST A GREAT SONG
Lorena – the Civil War’s most beloved song – by Jim Surkamp with Shana Aisenberg on mandolin TRT: 6:56 https://youtu.be/0x59Vae_tyg
NOTE: According to Lloyd Hutchins in an email dated September 13, 2015, the fate of the composer is NOT “lost in the mists of time.” He wrote more background material can be found in the June 10, 1984 edition of the Zanesville (OH) Times Recorder newspaper feature story about the song. It appears on the front page of section D. He adds: The article spells the Ella’s last name as “Blocksom”. Rev. Webster served as pastor at several mid-Western Universalist churches after his Zanesville assignment where he met Ella (“Lorena”). He married a Miss Sarah Willmot Feb. 4, 1850. He died in Chicago Nov. 4, 1896.
More at Lorena https://civilwarscholars.com (970 words). Lyrics
VERSE 1 Oh, the years creep slowly by, Lorena, The snow is on the ground again. The sun’s low down the sky, Lorena, The frost gleams where the flow’rs have been. But the heart beats on as warmly now, As when the summer days were nigh. Oh, the sun can never dip so low A-down affection’s cloudless sky.
VERSE 2 A hundred months have passed, Lorena, Since last I held that hand in mine, And felt the pulse beat fast, Lorena, Though mine beat faster far than thine. A hundred months, ’twas flowery May, When up the hilly slope we climbed, To watch the dying of the day, And hear the distant church bells chime.
VERSE 3 We loved each other then, Lorena, Far more than we ever dared to tell; And what we might have been, Lorena, Had but our loving prospered well — But then, ’tis past, the years are gone, I’ll not call up their shadowy forms; I’ll say to them, “Lost years, sleep on! Sleep on! nor heed life’s pelting storms.”
VERSE 4 The story of that past, Lorena, Alas! I care not to repeat, The hopes that could not last, Lorena, They lived, but only lived to cheat. I would not cause e’en one regret To rankle in your bosom now; For “if we try we may forget,” Were words of thine long years ago.
VERSE 5 Yes, these were words of thine, Lorena, They burn within my memory yet; They touched some tender chords, Lorena, Which thrill and tremble with regret. ‘Twas not thy woman’s heart that spoke; Thy heart was always true to me: A duty, stern and pressing, broke The tie which linked my soul with thee.
VERSE 6 It matters little now, Lorena, The past is in the eternal past; Our heads will soon lie low, Lorena, Life’s tide is ebbing out so fast. There is a Future! O, thank God! Of life this is so small a part! ‘Tis dust to dust beneath the sod; But there, up there, ’tis heart to heart.
Dennis Frye: Stonewall is Stopped, Harper’s Ferry May 30, 1862 by Jim Surkamp TRT: 15:43 https://youtu.be/5-_EvbXYSj0 Dennis Fry: (in closing) This was, perhaps, one of the first instances that the United States will use the railroad in a rapid troop deployment – to move troops during an emergency from one location – Washington, in this case – to another – Harper’s Ferry – to stop an enemy advance. They succeed. If it had not been for the railroad, there was no way they could have gotten those Union soldiers out here quickly, and Jackson, indeed, probably would have forced the evacuation of Harper’s Ferry and cleared the Shenandoah Valley of all Union soldiers. Only here was Stonewall Jackson stopped.
Flickr Set (47 images with citations): http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimsurkamp/sets/72157629724835246/
“Was John Brown Insane?” – Dennis Frye September, 2021 TRT: 4:45 Video link: https://youtu.be/wqYia06HiAA
Dennis Frye – The Great Train Robbery – Harpers Ferry, May 23rd, 1861 October, 2021 TRT: 4:22 Video link: https://youtu.be/mZxxtOYv6lw
Dennis Frye – Virginia Militias Attack Harper’s Ferry Arsenal – April, 1861 October, 2021 TRT: 4:48 Video link: https://youtu.be/DYwWt50ecgw
Dennis Frye – Stonewall Jackson at Harper’s Ferry – 1861 October, 2021 TRT: 4:03 https://youtu.be/dDHnIYiPW1Q
Dennis Frye – Did John Brown Succeed? October, 2021 TRT: 4:34 Video link: https://youtu.be/D_TK2Dfyndo
Dennis Frye – Did John Brown Have A Military Plan in 1859 in Harper’s Ferry? September, 2021 TRT: 5:25 Video link: https://youtu.be/0r5JzYXOAr4
Dennis Frye – Why Did Virginia and Not The Federal Gov’t Try John Brown in 1859? September, 2021 TRT: 4:04 Video link: https://youtu.be/o1-Kn3qENeY
P. Douglas Perks – January, 1861 – Delegates to the Dramatic Virginia Secession Convention September, 2021 POST: https://civilwarscholars.com/uncategorized/p-douglas-perks-january-1861-delegates-to-the-dramatic-virginia-secession-convention/
Transcript: On Monday January 21st 1861, according to professor Millard Bushong, one of the most important meetings ever held in Jefferson County took place at the Jefferson County courthouse. The electorate of Jefferson County met to begin to discuss who would represent Jefferson County at the Virginia Secession Convention. As it turned out, there are essentially two groups: a group that supported the Constitution and remaining in the union and a group which favored secession. Each group nominated two men to stand for election and then the the county would vote to determine who would represent Jefferson County at the convention. The Constitutional Union Party nominated two men – Alfred Madison Barbour who was at the time superintendent of the United States armory at Harpers Ferry. They also nominated a local farmer from Kabletown – Logan Osburn. So Osburn and Barbour were the Constitutional Union or pro-union candidates; the secession candidates or the secession side nominated William Lucas, who resided just outside of Halltown at Rion Hall. The election was held and you can imagine that the 1800 men who had gone to the polls just 18 weeks before were back at the polls, this time far, far, far more serious matter.
Again I think sometimes we we think that these things happen without a lot of thought and that’s not the case here and overwhelmingly the pro-Union candidates were elected from Jefferson County.
Barbour got 1433 votes; Logan Osburn got 1350 votes; Hunter got 467 and William Lucas was 430. So you can see, that the mood of the county was “we’re staying in the Union. we’re opposed to secession. They also voted a resolution which instructed those candidates to vote against the session and in favor of remaining in the Union when they went to the convention on February the 13th. So Jefferson County by this vote decided overwhelmingly that it wished to remain in the Union.
Doug Perks is a Jefferson County native, a graduate of Charles Town High School, received a bachelor’s degree from West Virginia University, and a master’s degree from James Madison University. After 30 years service he retired from Jefferson County Schools. He is currently the Historian of the Jefferson County Museum, a Harpers Ferry Certified Park Guide, Vice Chair of the Charles Town Historic Landmarks Commission, serves on the museum committee of the Historic Shepherdstown Commission, is a director of the Harpers Ferry Historical Association, and Historian of the Elmwood Cemetery Association, Incorporated. Doug is a frequent lecturer on the History of Mr. Jefferson’s County, a contributing author to The Magazine of the Jefferson County Historical Society, writes the column “Mr. Jefferson’s County” in the Jefferson County Historical Society newsletter The Guardian, and contributes the weekly column “This Week in History” to the Spirit of Jefferson newspaper.
TRT: 3:27 Video link: https://youtu.be/3mdBwxNk0pQ
George Koonce – “Mr. Jefferson County, West Virginia” by Jim Surkamp October, 2021 POST: https://civilwarscholars.com/uncategorized/george-koonce-mr-jefferson-county-west-virginia-1861/
Transcript: The man who represented Jefferson County, Virginia at the Wheeling conventions to create the new state of West Virginia. Jefferson County was included with Koonce despite a greater number of electors in the county – initially opposed to secession as late as January, 1861 but then supported it following the outbreak of hostilities. That the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad threaded through the eastern Panhandle, the Federal government needed it to not be under any control of and running through a hostile, foreign country.
Transcript: “Mr. George Koonce. a man of great activity and personal courage, and Mr. Wilson, who is also a man of great nerve, were very prompt in volunteering their aid to Lieutenant Jones, and the latter put great confidence in them.” – Joseph Barry
That night of April 17th, 1861 Constable George Koonce, his family back home, led armed townsmen and some of the forty- federal men from the armory, up the steep hill from Harper’s Ferry and the arsenal with its 20,000 new weapons – to face an enemy at Smallwood’s hill, who they believed was as many as three thousand.
Earlier around noon, Koonce watched as excited words spilled out of the mouth of Alfred Barbour, who, en route, had given his resignation in Washington D.C., as the armory and arsenal’s superintendent, and came on to Harpers Ferry to announce to everyone the certain seizure of the arsenal – all this barely before the ink had dried on the Ordinance of Secession in Richmond. The vote was taken as former Governor Henry Wise waved his dueling pistol over his head to menace the delegates against rebelling.
The vote was taken and western Virginia delegates who opposed seceding rushed away for their lives to catch a train. Men were prowling their hotel with lynching rope. Secessionist John Imboden described – an informal meeting, organized by Henry Wise, for 7 PM April 16th at Exchange Hotel Richmond. They agreed to a movement to capture Harper’s Ferry, beginning the next day, the 17th.
After midnight early the morning of the 17th, Imboden led some of the group to Virginia Governor John Letcher’s house and woke him up, “arousing him from his bed” and warmly sought his support for their plan to capture the Harper’s Ferry armory, its arms and the machinery. Imboden advised him to make sure the vote would take place as scheduled for later that day and that he would agree to sign off on it with its implications.
Skipping the Secession vote for the morrow, Barbour left by train post-haste to Harper’s Ferry with Virginia government official John Seddon with his proclamation of secession. The vote was taken in secret session so the world wouldn’t know at once. Delegate John S. Burdett wrote later: The ordinance was passed on the 17th of April, and we recalcitrants lit out on first trains we could catch — some twelve or fifteen of us — Carlisle, Clemens, Dent and others.
A dispatch from Governor Letcher failed to arrest us at Fredericksburg. When we got to Washington, some went North. I came to my home on the Baltimore & Ohio, and John Seddon and Alfred Barbour sat in my front, with bottles of whiskey. When they saw me, they said: “Burdett, you seceded at Richmond, did you?” They were members and on the way to Harper’s Ferry to grab the armory and open up revolutionary devilment. Barbour was a member from Jefferson County, in which Harper’s Ferry is situated.
John Goode stopped off at Washington with Alf. Barbour, so Barbour could resign the office of Superintendent of the Armory at Harper’s Ferry. Once at Harper’s Ferry, Barbour, stepped off the train and said something and up went a tumultuous shout. I stepped off and said: “Barbour, what did you say?” He did not reply, and to avoid arrest I stepped back on the train and guessed he was there to grab the arsenal and steal all its valuable and costly machinery.
It turned out that way. Revolutionary devilment took the locks off our mouths Imboden later wrote: About noon the 17th Alfred Barbour reached Harpers Ferry from Washington after submitting his resignation: collecting mechanics in groups and informing them that the place would be captured within 24 hours by Virginia troops. He urged them to protect the property and join the Southern cause. Federal Lieutenant Roger Jones, commanding 45 men, at once took measures to destroy the place.
That evening of the 17th, coming from Charles Town were local militias under James Allen, heading towards Harpers Ferry, stopping short at Halltown where argument ensued with to-be Union man, David Hunter Strother. Then Seddon who had arrived on the train with Barbour produced written proof of their incursion’s legitimacy. “I was so stunned by these revelations that I had scarcely breath to utter the usual and appropriate ejaculation of astonishment – ‘The Devil’”.
They only had 340 men including the cavalry and some artilleries with an old iron six-pounder not Turner Ashby’s number of 3,000 men “acomin’.” Their commander Col. Allen, a local man too, ordered his men, virtually all local, to not make another step forward. He’d gotten word that townsmen, such as Koonce and arriving U.S. troops would be there to defend the town, the arsenal, the armory and their contents. While the Virginia militia officers were thus discoursing, and looking toward the town, there was a sudden flash that illuminated for miles around the romantic gorge where the rivers meet.
Then followed a dull report, reverberating from mountain to mountain until it died away in a sullen roar. The flashes and detonations were several times repeated; then a steadier flame was seen rising from two distinct points silently and rapidly increasing in volume until each rock and tree on the Loudoun and Maryland Heights were distinctly visible and the now over-clouded sky was ruddy with the sinister glare. This occurred I think between nine and ten o’clock. Some thought they heard artillery.
But the more skillful presently guessed the truth and concluded that the officer in command had set fire to the arsenals and abandoned the town. Roger Jones’ written remembrance of April 17th at the Ferry to the editors of Battles & Leaders: Finally, shortly after nine o’clock when troops from Halltown had advanced to within less than a mile from the armory – in time less than five minutes – the torch was applied, and before I could withdraw men from the village, two arsenal buildings with about a 20,000 stand of rifles were ablaze.
Then, the undisciplined hothead, Ashby – much revered later by Virginia sentimentalists but who as a soldier was stupid and reckless beyond belief – leaving bodies of the enemy mutilated; advising his men that the best protection against artillery shells was to “sit perfectly still in your saddle;” and costing Stonewall Jackson his only defeat at Kernstown by giving him grossly wrong estimates of the enemy — he simply ignored Allen and galloped with his unruly bunch towards town. Jones: But very few arms were saved for the constantly recurring explosions of powder kept the crowd aloof.
George Koonce’s men, however, saw Ashby coming with the object of saving as much weapons and machinery he could and, however, also knew that Jones and the Federals, after setting the blaze and explosions that they just heard – were skedaddling over the river and by rail into Maryland and points beyond. So, threatened ahead and abandoned behind, Koonce and all his men scattered every which a way. James Henry Burton, one of their inventors, made sure the machinery created with the revolutionary ideas of John Hall – making the parts all made to be interchangeable with one another – these interconnected machines were successfully taken south and Burton would later oversee the armories of the Confederacy.
In the next few days, Koonce’s home was seized by Ashby, just as Ashby, the self-appointed local enforcer seized the home of Union man, McQuilkin in Berkeley both under the charge of “treason.” But Koonce sided with all those who hated Virginia’s secession, as something forced on them, first, by the first act of aggression by the South Carolinians at Fort Sumter, causing Lincoln to call for 75,000 Federal volunteers – the two actions that turned the vote around in Richmond in favor of secession.
This egregious turn to secession fever forgot that the Virginia’s electors, in a very recent, calmer moment the previous November, wanted the opposite: a majority of Virginia’s voters voted for John Bell – the non-secession candidate. Those men who fled Richmond, just with their lives and enraged by the injustice from a virtual coup – began meeting in their home areas where secession was reviled and arms were taken up against it. In time, the life of George Koonce out-shine the example of Turner Ashby.
Koonce would live to a ripe old age in his home county. The hapless, relentless, chest-beating Ashby died long ago with a bullet in his heart charging at, and shouting “Follow me men!” a clutch of Pennsylvania sharpshooters, and he was armed only with a saber and a dead horse. Koonce took the train to Washington in 1861 – and stayed. While there, he likely met with Lincoln’s Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a fierce warrior against the secessionists – these childhood playmates in Steubenville Ohio.
They both agreed how there had to be – in order to protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, that ran clear to Wheeling in a fraction of the time it took before 1852 and very crucially with part of its double track dipping listlessly like loose string into and through the eastern Panhandle, Virginia. If no corrective action was taken, the B&0 would be controlled by a hostile, foreign country. Berkeley and Jefferson HAD, for the sake of the B&O and the Federal war effort, be in a state that was part of the United States.
That pro-Union Virginia jurisdiction was being worked on hours, days and nights with a group of western Virginians, many escaping from the Richmond debacle. J.W. Paxton of Ohio County submitted the following: Resolved That a the people of Northwestern Virginia have long and patiently borne the position of political inferiority forced upon them by unequal representation in the State Legislature and by unjust, oppressive and unequal – but that the so-called ordinance of secession, passed by the Convention, which met in Richmond on the 13th of February last, is the crowning act of infamy which has aroused them to a determination to resist all injustice and oppression, and to assert and forever maintain their rights and liberties in the Union and under the Constitution of the United States.
In considering matters that before us for action here, it is very difficult, but very important that we all realize the actual existence of war – civil war. We must not forget, sir, that we are now engaged in a struggle for the nation’s very existence, that our differences are not now being settled as heretofore at the ballot box, peacefully and quietly, but by the bayonet, and at the cannon’s mouth. You, sir, and I and every American citizen this day are parties to this struggle on one side of the other.
And when they took votes towards that end all through that summer of 1861 in Wheeling and Clarksburg, George Koonce (Koontz) was there in the proceedings casting his vote in the name of Jefferson County four times. On June 20, 1863 WV was declared, with Jefferson County within its domain. Koonce was back in Harper’s Ferry with his second wife — once the Union re-occupied the town in late July, 1861. But, he left again for Washington in early September as Lee’s large army crossed the Potomac starting his fateful Maryland Campaign climaxed with the bloodiest day, the battle of Antietam.
Wrote his wife Bettie Brittian Koonce in her diary: Harper’s Ferry, Sept. 5th 1862. Friday – George left. After leaving him on the street, I went up on the Hill at the Powder House to see if I could see him go over the Ravine. After some time I thought I recognized but did not know whether it was or not, watched him with streaming eyes until I could see him no more. Koonce was able to be home regularly in the late fall of 1862 and thereafter, running his store in his new state – the one that he help to make – a state that outlawed handling and harming a fellow human being as if they were just property.
Ever a challenge and a concern. Following the war, Koonce became active in politics once again, serving as a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates (1865-1867) and a member of the West Virginia Senate (1870-1871), running on the Radical ticket. He was also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Koonce died at 90 in Halltown, WV. in 1908.
TRT: 21:58 https://youtu.be/0lNcgcJP_cw
NAACP Begins by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) January, 2009 TRT: 10:36 The second Niagara Movement meeting at Harpers Ferry in 1906 launched the NAACP. Video link: https://youtu.be/_Qp087rYWzY
Harpers Ferry Flood – 1870 – 1 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) January, 2009 TRT:4:13 Video link:https://youtu.be/lgXvO8bpcwM
Harpers Ferry Flood – 1870 – 2 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) (Originally mid-1990s) January, 2009 TRT: 5:36 Video link: https://youtu.be/k-mNWKhw3p0
Osborne Anderson 1 by Jim Surkamp March, 2011 TRT: 5:29 Freed black Osborne Anderson escaped from the Harpers Ferry raid site in 1859 and wrote the only account by a surviving raider of what happened Video link: https://youtu.be/QWQV3w2GY0k
Osborne Anderson 2 by Jim Surkamp March, 2011 TRT: 6:05 Video link: https://youtu.be/Y6TUEZ_x5sM
The Escape of Osborne Anderson & the John Brown Raid by Jim Surkamp March, 2011 TRT: 6:25 Video link: https://youtu.be/X9KlfB3SXLY
The B&O – May-June, 1861 – The Molten Pyres of the Camel Engines by Jim Surkamp April, 2012 TRT: 19:02 Video link: https://youtu.be/DgLp6m1vRcc
They Moved 18 Locomotives 38 Miles . . . With No Rail! (1861-2) by Jim Surkamp June, 2012 The remarkable story of how men and horses managed to move 18, captured, 50-ton locomotives down the 38 miles stretch from Martinsburg, Va. to Strasburg, Va under order of Gen. Stonewall Jackson – in the summer and fall of 1861 and into early 1862. TRT: 26:08 Video link: https://youtu.be/zKjQgTQ5gTs
They Moved 18 Locomotives 38 Miles . . . With No Rail!! (1861-2) Pt. 2 by Jim Surkamp June, 2012 TRT: 12:54 Video link: https://youtu.be/mO5KmgP-970
Humble Harvest Part 5 by Jim Surkamp September, 2016
This series of five videos follows William McCarter an Irishman in the Irish Brigade, Farmer Charles Aglionby, Va. cavalrymen George Neese; northern nurse and writer, Mary Clemmer Ames: Harpers Ferry little-girl, Annie P. Marmion, Gen. St. Clair Mulholland, the amiable Heros von Borcke, and local young wife, Anne Willis Ambler – all during a dramatic few days in mid-October, 1862 – and all within the same few square miles in Jefferson County. Dramatic and very moving and with beautiful, powerful eye-witness writing.
Researched, written and produced by Jim Surkamp
UPDATED The Humble Harvest, Eternal Voices – Pt. 5 – Conclusion TRT: 28:00/53:34 (incl. Credits) https://youtu.be/PtkWqSSVHGs
The Humble Harvest Part 4 – Skirmish TRT: 23:35/33:48 (incl. Credits) https://youtu.be/IMp1LU8eH10
The Humble Harvest, Eternal Voices Part 3 TRT: 14:08/26:14 (incl. Credits) https://youtu.be/nBxoRuHWJxg
The Humble Harvest, Eternal Voices Part 2 TRT: 21:48/27:40 (incl. Credits) Video link: https://youtu.be/p6hwPfDmokU
The Humble Harvest, Eternal Voices Part 1. TRT: 17:25/21:14 (incl. Credits) Video link: https://youtu.be/su57_BUz8O4
TRT: 56:34 Video link: https://youtu.be/PtkWqSSVHGs
John Hall Who Changed the World from Harpers Ferry Whom You’ve Never Heard Of by Jim Surkamp April, 2022 Lifelong Learning Shepherd University April 18, 2022 TRT: 1:25:08 Video link: https://youtu.be/VC4Kg2I7kXg
Peter Stephens, Harpers Ferry’s first settler – 1 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008 TRT: 3:34 Video link:https://youtu.be/GOccCEe49v8
Peter Stephens, Harpers Ferry’s first settler – 2 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008 TRT: 4:14 Video link: https://youtu.be/fLey1lU1oHs
Peter Stephens, Harpers Ferry’s first settler – 3 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008 TRT: 4:48 Video link:https://youtu.be/bMuZbVrrvyU
We drive our cars to Charles Town driving from the direction of the Casino towards town.
At the first light in town (Washington Street intersecting Mildred Street), you turn RIGHT onto Mildred Street, go one block, turn LEFT on to Liberty Street. Drive just past the rear of the Presbyterian Church on your left to the entrance into a parking lot shared by the church and the next structure – the Charles Town Library. Turn in there, park and go up the steps and walk to your right 1.5 blocks to the Jefferson County courthouse.
NOTE: The second courthouse was built in 1836. “1842” on the image in the montage is the date of the drawing’s publication. Wrote former Circuit Judge Dave Sanders: In 1803, the first courthouse was built upon this site. While we have not discovered a detailed description of this courthouse, an 1830 plat of Charles Town shows it as a two-story structure, without columns, but with a tower. It was probably in the Federal style, and must have been rather modest, as it was paid for from contributions and not from taxes. The county grew so quickly that, in 1836, the first courthouse was pulled down to make way for a larger one. The plan had been to sell the courthouse and build in another location. However, it was discovered that, if not used for a courthouse, the property would revert to the Washington family. The new courthouse was constructed as a Doric temple in the Greek revival style. Although there have been some changes, this is the courthouse that still stands. In 1836, the ground floor was one big courtroom. This courtroom had windows in all four walls and was heated by large iron stoves. The judge and court officials sat on an elevated platform, behind a railing with turned balusters.https://www.jeffersoncountywv.org/about-jefferson-county/courthouse-history
Judge Sanders continues giving the history of the courthouse in his essay:
On October 16, 1859, John Brown led a band of 21 men against the Federal Arsenal and Armory at Harper’s Ferry. They killed five and wounded nine in the raid. Ten of the conspirators were killed, five escaped, and six were arrested by troops under Col. Robert E. Lee.
Harper’s Weekly, November 12, 1859Photograph, “The Arraignment.” John Brown, John Copeland, Edwin Coppic, Shields Green, and Aaron Stevens are shown being arraigned in the Jefferson County courthouse in Charles Town on October 25. Sketch by Porte Crayon. Harper’s Weekly, November 12, 1859The entire first floor of the courthouse was the John Brown trial room. Imagine at least one of the two columns became part of the wall separating the room from today’s office for the County Clerk. Along the back wall, the central double window (covered) is where today there is an exit doorway at the end of the hallway. The window to the right corresponds to the entrance to the deed room inside that office. An annexation has since been added as the destination of those one-time windows. Only the portion of the courtroom with the window on the back wall to our left and the window near it on the adjacent wall, facing George Street, are still unchanged.
The raiders were taken to Charles Town for trial. The charges were: murder, inciting slaves to rebel, and treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia. The trial began Wednesday October 26, and concluded Monday October 31, 1859. It took only one day to hear all the witnesses. The jury was out only half an hour before a verdict of guilty on all counts was returned.
After Brown’s trial and conviction, he was taken to the jail, located diagonally across George Street, where the present post office stands. Brown remained in jail through November while his conviction was appealed. On the 2nd of December 1859, Brown was taken from the jail. He rode in a wagon, seated atop his coffin, to a field a short distance away. The site is along present-day Samuel Street, between Hunter and Mason Streets. There, surrounded by troops and VMI cadets, he was hanged. It was 35 minutes before his pulse ceased. Brown was 59. After the execution, Brown’s body was taken to Harper’s Ferry and turned over to his wife.
VIDEO of the 150th re-enactment of the hanging of John Brown, organized by Job Crops (whose students built the gallows “to spec” and County employee, Kirk Davis, organized a cavalry contingent) drew well-known actors of the John Brown family. Comedian/activist Dick Gregory was also present, along with descendants of John Brown and John A. Copeland.TRT: 7:01 Video link: https://youtu.be/K1jnnRPuM-E
200 N. Lawrence St. – The Episcopal Reading room where John Wilkes Booth, who reached the County posing as a member of the Richmond Grays militia, read from Shakespeare during the week leading up to John Brown’s execution. on Dec. 2, 1859. Since he would need permission to read on property of the Zion Episcopal Church, it makes sense that he came to know John Yates Beall, a member of its vestry. Booth was said to have been motivated by his murder of President Lincoln for many reasons, one being the hanging ordered by a military tribunal of Beall in early 1865 for behind-the-lines guerilla acts. Opposite the Episcopal reading room, this structure received the wooden scaffold used in the hangings that now constitutes portions of its exterior as a porch.
On October 18 1863, troops and artillery under Confederate General John D. Imboden surrounded Union troops in the courthouse. The brief battle that ensued damaged the courthouse. After that, the courthouse was used as a stable. By war’s end the metal roof had been removed and made into bullets.
When West Virginia was formed in 1863, Jefferson County had remained a part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Shortly after, a highly questionable “election” abducted Jefferson County into the new state. By war’s end, the county seat was moved to Shepherdstown.
The courthouse after the war. No floors inside except the cellar floor that became a general cesspoolThe County Courthouse 1865-1872 in Shepherdstown when the Charles Town courthouse was in ruins.
In 1872, the county seat was returned to Charles Town, and the damaged courthouse was restored. The walls and columns were made higher and a broad cornice, or entablature, was added below the roofline. Above the portico, the belltower was enlarged to include a town clock. Walls were added to the first floor interior, creating offices and supporting the floor above. A grand, new courtroom with a 25 ft. ceiling was created on the second floor. It features a balcony, referred to as the “ladies listening gallery”. The new courtroom was heated by stoves, and after a few years, was lit by a large “soil kerosene” chandelier. Like the courtroom of 1836, it had windows with wooden shutters all around. Also, like the 1836 courtroom, railings and balusters defined the bench and the well of the court. A single painting hangs in the courtroom – a portrait of Andrew Hunter, a lawyer of Charles Town, who served as special prosecutor in John Brown’s Trial. This new courtroom was home to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals from 1873 until 1912. During these forty years, the Supreme Court would ride circuit. It sat one term a year in Charles Town, one term in Charleston, and one term in Wheeling.
In 1910, an annex was constructed onto the rear of the courthouse for judge’s chambers, jury and witness rooms, and a clerk’s office. In 1919, the old jail was sold to the post office and a new one was built behind the courthouse.
In 1913, the second of the three most famous trials in the courthouse resulted in the conviction of E. Graham Wilson for the sexual assault of Katie Turner, whose composure and acuity during hours of tough grilling by defense attorneys and support from a doctor and minister won wide praise from news outlets. Wilson was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. But failing health led to his highly questionable pardon by West Virginia Governor Hatfield after only three years.
In 1922, 250 miles from Charles Town in the southwestern coalfields of West Virginia, enraged miners inflamed by Mother Jones and union leaders, attempted to invade and unionize Logan County. The “Battle of Blair Mountain” resulted. Actual warfare, with machine guns and aerial bombardment followed. Two thousand Federal troops were needed to stop the fighting. A special Logan County grand jury was convened. Returned were 738 indictments charging treason and murder.
The venue was transferred to Jefferson County. Again, Charles Town was the site for a set of high profile treason trials. The national and world media descended on the town. The newly formed State Police were present in such number that it seemed like martial law. John L. Lewis, Governor Ephraim F Morgan and other notables were in attendance.
In the first trial, union leader Bill Blizzard was acquitted of treason.
Reverend Wilburn
After that, a Reverend Wilburn and his son were convicted of 2nd degree murder. The governor later commuted their sentences. Next, Walter Allen was convicted of treason against the State. He was released on bond pending appeal and remanded at large. After those trials, venue was moved to Morgan, then Greenbrier, then Fayette County. However, no other trials were ever held, and the remaining indictments were dismissed.
Today, the Jefferson County Courthouse remains a working courthouse, not a museum. It stands at the vital center of government in this busy county. Combining architectural and historical significance, it is an eloquent monument to democracy. https://www.jeffersoncountywv.org/about-jefferson-county/courthouse-history
Videos by Jim Surkamp on the Jefferson County courthouse:
The Lively Odyssey of the “John Brown” Courthouse by Jim Surkamp September 17, 2014 TRT: 15:31 https://youtu.be/_zMNnuFOivE NOTE: The video states incorrectly that the deed books were removed at the outset of the war when, in fact, Clerk Thomas A. Moore ceased entering new entries in November, 1862, suggesting that was when he removed the deed books and other records to Lexington.
The VERY historic John Brown & Miner’s Trial Courthouse – Charles Town, WV by Jim Surkamp June 8, 2018 TRT: 5:34 https://youtu.be/J582xLTfM1w
From the videos:
The Courthouse during the Civil War (from the videos)
May, 1862 – The market house to the left and across George Street from the courthouse in this drawing caught fire during shelling of the town in late May, 1862 and quick efforts by townspeople to extinguish it saved the town. – JS)
David Hunter Strother – Author: Mathew Benjamin Brady (1822–1896) NARA record: 1135962) Record creator War Department. Office of the Chief Signal Officer. (08/01/1866 – 09/18/1947) Title Col. David H. Strother Date: between circa 1860 and circa 1865. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hunter_Strother
Martinsburg-born and Union officer David Hunter Strother wrote in his diary in the spring of 1862 of the near disastrous fire in Charles Town set by Union soldiers – and put out by Union soldiers under his command along with the townspeople. (NOTE: He mentions “standing guard outside Mrs. Hunter’s home” She was his deeply Confederate mother-in-law. Also “Redmonds” is the hotel across the street from the courthouse – today the Bank of Charles Town offices):
November, 1862 – County Clerk Thomas A. Moore made his final deed transaction in the deed books in November, 1862 as Union forces were entering the County. He then transported all his records in a wagon. – J. Surkamp
Lt. Col. Benjamin Simpson
On October 18th 1863, Confederate General John Imboden surprised a Union garrison commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Simpson within Charlestown’s courthouse. Simpson wrote later: “I went out and saw approaching on horseback with a flag of truce in his hand. ‘Halt what do you want?'”
General Imboden
“General Imboden demands the unconditional surrender of the town.” Said Simpson: ‘If he wants to, tell him to come and take it.” In about five minutes the gentlemen came back: “General Imboden requests that you remove all the women and children from the houses in the vicinity of the courthouse and jail as he intends to shell the town. (Simpson) This shall be done, but it will take about an hour.”
(Imboden messenger): “You must think we are foolish.” A shell struck one corner of the courthouse and glancing from against the log palisade exploded. Every shot they fired struck the courthouse. A third shot entered it and exploding in the palisade of the upper story wounded the adjutant and one private. There were from 10 to 20 shells that struck and exploded in the courthouse and around it.
Sunday August 21st 1864, James E. Taylor, an artist with general Sheridan’s army wrote: “We passed to the courthouse to view the 6th and 8th corps after their arduous work and holding Early in check on the Smithfield Pike. “It would require an inspired pen to truly picture the intensified emotion and gloomy silence that pervaded the ranks of the musketeers as they moved by the old temple of Justice in the growing night –
The James E. Taylor Sketchbook – The Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH, p. 265
all in marked contrast to their elastic steps on a bright morning a few days earlier when with waving banner the martial music and voices that inspired the song “John Brown’s body is a harbinger of victory.”
Having about an hour to learn at the Courthouse, we go inside and I show you key documents, such as John Brown’s death notice and Jane Charlotte Washington’s will leaving Mount Vernon to her son and a few more. We take in the John Brown Trial and exhibit in the hallway. We discuss, seated in the last surviving portion of the original John Brown courtroom that has been replaced mostly by office cubicles, etc.
We go outside again and turn towards the steps to street level on George Street. We bring you the extraordinary lives of six people, one you know well:
JFK and Jackie at the racetrack and Charles Town April 27, 1960 during his decisive campaign to win the primary in West Virginia against Democratic opponent Hubert Humphrey
Charles Broadway Rouss – The Unstoppable Charles “BROADWAY” Rouss (Part 1) by Jim Surkamp Charles Broadway Rouss was born in 1836 in Maryland and his life, ending in 1902, encompassed losing two, maybe three, fortunes, and making another final fortune worth six million dollars upon his death. He had a great generosity with a habit of picking men up from the gutter and building them back to success. He wrote phonetically (shown in the video)in his syndicated column. One must have “luk” and “pluk” to prosper. When he became blind at the peak of his success, he offered a million dollars to anyone who could find a cure. He wanted business or “biznes” to serve humanity. July, 2020 TRT: 23:22 www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-nmUJ5A4wE&t=78s – Flickr files – https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimsurkamp/51024183847/in/album-72157718601716392/ – The Unstoppable Charles Broadway Rouss Part 2 (with bibliography) – by Jim Surkamp August, 2020 TRT: 18:43 https://youtu.be/DF1k-e9cdqgCharles Town Va-born Major Martin Robison Delany Copy after Abraham Bogardus, 29 Nov 1822 – 22 Mar 1908 Publisher: John Smith, active 1860 – 1870 Sitter: Martin Robison Delany, 6 May 1812 – 25 Jan 1885 Date: c. 1865 Hand-colored lithograph on paper Credit Line National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.76.101Links to a researcher’s website on Delany, along with several videos about different periods in his life by JS and more – GO TO THIS WEBSITE’S HOME PAGE Click on “Start Here” scroll down to the Delany section.
Horace Pippin 1888-1946 – his grandparents were from Charles Town during the John Brown. – Self-Portrait, 1941 public domain if used for educational purposes oil on canvas board Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum Credit: Room of Contemporary Art Fund, 1942 Accession ID RCA1942:2 https://buffaloakg.org/artworks/rca19422-self-portrait
“John Brown Going to His Hanging” pictures the controversial figure on the way to his death. A crowd has gathered to watch (presumably cheer) Brown’s execution, the black woman at lower right who, scowling, refuses to participate in the event. According to family legend, Pippin’s mother was present at the hanging. By including her – the only black figure in any of the artist’s history paintings – Pippin emphasized his personal connection to Brown’s legacy of black liberation. This work was exhibited in and purchased from the Pennsylvania Academy’s 1943 annual exhibition. https://www.pafa.org/museum/collection/item/john-brown-going-his-hanging“Horace Pippin Standing in Front of His Artwork,” 1945, photographed by Joseph Janney Steinmetz. (Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, American Professional Photographers Collection) https://angelusnews.com/voices/an-artists-experience-of-the-human-condition/ – Pippin enlisted in the army in 1917 and fought in the famous, all-black 369th Infantry regiment in France during World War I. Less than a month before the war ended, he was shot in the right shoulder. After the war, the handicapped Pippin devised a way of supporting his right hand with his left. Using a hot poker to burn in the outlines of his figures and objects onto wood (a technique called pyrography) and then filling them in, he was able to resume painting by the mid-1920s. He then began using oil paints. Local exhibitions and collectors brought him to the attention of Alain Locke, an important black philosopher and critic, the painter N.C. Wyeth,… and Dr. Albert F. Barnes, whose private museum in Merion houses one of the world’s most important collections of French impressionist and modern art. . . In his obituary in the New York Times they called him the “most important Negro painter” to have appeared in America.” https://gwarlingo.com/2013/horace-pippin/
1st Sgt 23rd U.S. Colored Troops Jasper Thompson with Mrs Jasper (Dolly) Thompson. He was born in a family of enslaved persons working at the Washington homes in this County. He enlisted, proved his mettle. But met his destiny September, 1906 just days after the conclusion of the historic 2nd Niagara Meeting at Harper’s Ferry, led by W.E.B. DuBois, that was the seed of the N.A.A.C.P. – JASPER THOMPSON’s DESTINY DAY 2:01:29 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LJpJeIwFMw#t=2h1m29s
Hannah Lee Washington Alexander – Why she wore black for much of her later life, according to John A. Washington and depositions in the courthouse located by Walter Washington.
Getting close to 10 AM, we walk in the direction of our cars, but instead, walk and turn left on to Samuel Street and turn right into the Jefferson County Museum that is full of relics from history of national and even international importance. Ms. Lori Wysong is the new director
John Brown Raid Descendants Speak at 150th Oct., 2009 at the County Museum by Jim Surkamp – The great, great, great grand-daughter of John Brown, and the great great great grand-niece of John Copeland and another descendant of John Brown talk about their ancestors who were hanged in Charles Town, Va (now WV) in 1859 following the John Brown Raid on Harpers Ferry at Charles Town during the 150th anniversary of the John Brown Raid in 1859. TRT: 9:41 Video link: https://youtu.be/sSsx1Ebz5Qw
John Brown “Hanging” 2009 by Jim Surkamp Oct., 2009 A solemn observance of John Brown at his gallows, horses, wagon, comment, trumpet solo in recognition of the 150th anniversary of his hanging December 2nd in 1859 in Charles Town. TRT: 7:01 Video link: https://youtu.be/K1jnnRPuM-E
(image is a mock-up) See at the County Museum the exhibit Harriet Lane Buchanan Johnston, called by Leslie’s Weekly “American’s First Lady.” Before Harriet served as the hostess of the White for her bachelor uncle President James Buchanan, no wife of the President had yet been officially called “The First Lady.” Harriet attended school in Charles Town as a girl, owned property in the County her entire life and four of her uncles and five of her cousins were major figures in Shepherdstown, Charles Town, and the County.
VIDEO: Harriet Lane America’s Original First Lady by Jim Surkamp February, 2020 CORRECTION at 1:06:28 The images of Harriet’s sons are reversed: sitting is James Buchanan Johnston, standing is Henry Elliot Johnston Jr. TRT: 1:09:35 Video link: https://youtu.be/r0NBsXgs6fI
VIDEO: Harriet Lane’s Star Rises Over Incredible London 1854-1855 by Jim Surkamp February, 2020 – A chapter in a sixty-six minute, factual video/story about how Harriet Lane, the niece, but declared “consort” (by Queen Victoria) to her Uncle James Buchanan, the Ambassador from the U.S. in London. During that brief period Harriet saw world events from every side: the Crimean War, a doctor’s discovery of the cause of cholera while five hundred died in two months in the city, Charles Dickens’ latest book called “High Times,” and a re-opening of the fabled Crystal Palace – the scene of the first World’s Fair in 1851. And the gifted, unique 25-year old Harriet deftly absorbed all these heady influences (except cholera!). She was prepared during her Uncle’s and (bachelor) term as President from 1857-1861 to become one of the most admired and beloved First Ladies ever at the age of twenty-seven, and was called the original “First Lady” in 1860 by Frank Leslie’s illustrated newspaper. Her many uncles and cousins considered Jefferson County, Virginia home. TRT: 25:57 Video link: https://youtu.be/SF_6xodgzHs
VIDEO: How Queen Victoria protected the U.S. from Ruin by Jim Surkamp February, 2020 This is a segment of a sixty-six minute long video about the remarkable life of Harriet Lane Johnston often called the Original First Lady. TRT: 23:23 Video link: https://youtu.be/AGYg4ecOnLE
John Peale Bishop 1926 (courtesy Robert Bishop) – Charles Town writer John Peale Bishop, later the editor of Vanity Fair magazine, also wrote “Many Thousands Gone” and the scandalous novel “Act of Darkness,” drawing from the E. Graham Wilson sexual assault trial in 1913 but with inserted inferences of real residents, enraging townspeople. A lifelong friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald whom he greatly inspired Fitzgerald as a student at Princeton into writing.
VIDEO: John Peale Bishop of Charles Town – Inspired the young F. Scott Fitzgerald to Write TRT: 5:43 Video link: https://youtu.be/wDlkxb1nkEA
VIDEO: John Peale Bishop Pt. 1 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008 TRT: 5:42 Describes the great formative influence that writer John Peale Bishop had on young fellow Princeton undergrad, F. Scott Fitzgerald back in 1913 and how They remained friends for life. John Peale Bishop was from Charles Town and became the editor of Vanity Fair. Video link: https://youtu.be/1JQ4zlAm24o
NEXT Gathering Place – The Carriage Inn up the street two blocks away called “the most Civil-Warred, Still Standing Home”
This is the actual table Generals Grant and Sheridan discussed strategy against Gen Early September 17, 1864 in the front room of the home of The Rutherfords, today a B and B called The Carriage Inn. (courtesy Rutherford descendants Ann Cross and her son Ian Cross)
VIDEO: The Amazing Story of the Carriage Inn by Jim Surkamp (1) TRT: 7:16 Video link: https://youtu.be/id0xxSjDiwk
VIDEO: The Amazing Carriage Inn of Charles Town (3) – The Feds get “Red” by Jim Surkamp August, 2014 TRT: 15:23 Video link: https://youtu.be/9edEwMKF95k
Next to Last Gathering Place – Zion Episcopal Churchyard two short blocks from The Carriage Inn, featuring the members of the Washington family
From Zion Churchyard we walk back towards George Street to the home of John Peale Bishop where his friend Scott Fitzgerald, currently in the midst of completing “This Side of Paradise” spent a month in this house (July, 1916). It is located at the S. George and East Academy Street Street intersection.
the home of John Peale Bishop’s parents when he and Scott Fitzgerald were attending Princeton, Here is where FSF stayed during that month in Charles Town.
Scott Fitzgerald spent every day of that July with a young women, home from boarding school named “Fluff” Beckwith, who in later wrote this unforgettable remembrance of the not yet famous writer. No wonder he liked her!:
Elizabeth Beckwith MacKie. My Friend Scott Fitzgerald. This is to reverse the usual pattern. I am unable to report for boast that during a long friendship with Scott Fitzgerald I ever slept with him. Hardly a month passes but some new, revealing love affair, or indiscretion among the famous, comes out of hiding and into print. And so it is with a proper sense of failure that I cannot add a single flaming episode to tingle the thoughts of that vast hoard who make up Scott’s admirers.
It would not have been easy to sleep with Scott, knowing as I did his ideals about the married state, which, when it could have happened, was the case with both of us. It would have destroyed too much. And yet I am not blind to the idea that it might also have brought added beauty to our relationship. There were times when I knew that he needed me, or the physical love and understanding of a woman, and I have let slip the chance to claim even one page for myself from the love life of one of the greats. The truth is that Scott never came right out — wham — and asked me!
It would be unfair to consider Scott Fitzgerald in any light other than a serious one. It would be a misconception of a man whose approach to life was anything but casual. He was dead serious about life, love, art, and friendship, and especially his dedication to his own talent.
We know he often played the clown. His biographers have recorded many such instances, and I saw it happen more times than it is well to remember. But I never saw Scott laugh. I don’t remember the sound of his laughter. Even when he was clowning — it was to make others laugh. He was too intent on what he was doing.
The contrast in his pattern of behavior was most noticeable, of course, when he was drinking. He was a man unfitted for the role that fate dealt him (or that he dealt himself). His public image was not the real Scott. When he was drunk he wanted to shock people, and his mind turned inevitably to sex. He would become provocative and suggestive in a way that was a complete reversal of that rather prudish and extremely sensitive, sober Scott. I believe that it was an unconscious effort on his part to equal or excel his wife, the more glittering Zelda. But he was also the victim of a tragic historic accident — the accident of Prohibition, when Americans believed that the only honorable protest against a stupid law was to break it.
I wouldn’t have met Scott if it hadn’t been for John Peale Bishop. John’s family lived six houses and some acres away from our house, on the same street in Charles Town. West Virginia. John, who was twenty-five, was older than most of our group. A childhood illness (some said tuberculosis, but I never really knew) had slowed his progress through school, and so he had only been graduated from Princeton in June 1917. Now he was marking time waiting for the commission in the army that would take him off to officers’ training camp.
We knew that John’s Princeton friend, Scott Fitzgerald, was arriving for a visit, and my most cherished memento of that visit is a yellowed sheet of paper on which he wrote out for me the sonnet, “When Vanity Kissed Vanity,” which he later included in This Side of Paradise. On it he wrote “For Fluff Beckwith, the only begetter of this sonnet.”
And so the summer, which at the start seemed as routine as all other summers, was soon, in retrospect, to take on added significance by the arrival of a boy, whose name at the time was unimportant, and which I promptly forgot. Scott’s visit lasted four weeks, and we were together every day.
Scott and John had entered Princeton together as freshmen in the autumn of 1913. Despite John’s being considerably older than most freshmen, and Scott’s having been one of the youngest (he was not quite seventeen), they soon became close friends. John, as everyone knows, was the original “Thomas Parke D’lnvilliers” in This Side of Paradise, and Scott recorded in that novel an amusing account of their first meeting and subsequent friendship.
The contrast between these two personalities makes their friendship all the more interesting and unusual. John lacked Scott’s good looks and exuberance. He was perhaps a head taller than Scott, with natural dignity and reserve. His friends were largely selected from the intellectual. My older sister Eloise, was one of his special friends, and he was often at our house. John was a brilliant scholar and prolific poet. In his book of poems Now With His Love, he describes a Lely portrait that hung in our home.
He was instinctively attracted to the handsome, impulsive younger boy, who so flatteringly admired his talent. What they shared most of all was a common passion for the life of Art. At Princeton they worked together on the editorial staff of The Nassau Literary Magazine, in which they published their undergraduate writings. That eventful summer of 1917 marked the publication of John’s first volume of verse, Green Fruit, most of which had been previously published in the Nassau Lit.
John, like Scott, died too soon. He was fifty-one years old, and as with Scott, his greatest recognition came after death. And so while his literary gift to posterity is limited in quantity, that which he left us is pure beauty. His work becomes more popular each year, and his first full-length novel, Act of Darkness, is now being published in paperback.
Scott slipped quietly into Charles Town one afternoon via the dusty old Valley branch of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, which, except for a limited number of automobiles, was our only escape to the outside world. I had just returned from boarding school in Washington. Our group consisted of boys and girls in their late teens who were home on vacation from school and college. We had all grown up together, and it was our custom to meet almost every day, sometimes in the afternoon for a swim in the nearby Shenandoah River, or for a cross-country ride.
It was July and moonlight — at a party at our house — that I first met Scott. The clematis vine was in full bloom, and the porch railing sagged deeper each year with the weight of the blossoms. The summer air was sweet. I saw him standing in the half shadow watching the dancers. Night had drained the color from his face and hair, and left him pale, but beautiful. He was twenty years old. It was the face of a poet, without sensuality.
We had been dancing to records of “Oh! Johnny” and “Sweethearts,” when John came over to me and said, ’“Fluff, I want you to meet Scott Fitzgerald.” It was an appropriate setting and his first words were a parallel of any boy and girl affair that later brought him fame. “I’ve been watching you,” he said, “trying to guess your real name. Is it Eleanor?” “No, Elizabeth,” I told him. “Then I was close,” he said. “Eleanor — Elizabeth — you see, both names mean pretty much the same kind of girl.”
It wasn’t until I had known him for several days, and watched him with other people, that I realized that other girls all got the same carefully rehearsed treatment. But this discovery, instead of disillusioning me, merely increased my interest in him. Scott was that rare individual that went out of his way to make each girl feel very special. In a way it was nothing but a “line” — except that most boys’ lines are quickly recognizable for what they are. What made Scott’s different was the mixture of art and sincerity that went into every performance. He really wanted each girl to be pleased and flattered, and to respond to him, and she usually did.
The next thing I knew we were dancing together. The best description of his dancing I can think of is “lively.” He had a sense of rhythm and was easy to follow, but he never attempted any trick steps. He liked to talk while he danced, and he enjoyed having a captive audience. But I liked only to feel the lovely close union of body and music, and I found it difficult to concentrate on what he was saying. But suddenly I was listening. I heard him say, “Townsend said he hoped I would meet you.”
Townsend Martin was a classmate of John’s who had visited him in June. He was a cosmopolite of great charm and elegance, and I was dazzled from the beginning. It was an affair that started and ended within safe range of the bridge table, but he soon cast cold water on my hopes by announcing that he was descended from “a long line of bachelors.” This was a deflating experience for a girl who traditionally thought of “belledom” as the only way of life. A new boy, a new interest, was needed to help restore a drooping ego. Afterwards, in my diary for that night of July 2, I wrote: “I met John’s guest. He is good looking. He asked me for a date. We are going on a picnic tomorrow.”
I remember patting my cheeks with a piece of wet pink crepe paper that next afternoon. My parents disapproved of cheek rouge as “too fast,” and instead of black cotton swimming stockings, I wore my best black silk ones. Chaperones were still de rigeur, and our social life was organized around the rule that there was safety in numbers. We were still passionately innocent. If the picnic lasted into the tempting hours of darkness, a chaperone appeared at dusk and joined the group until we were safely back at home.
Scott showed up in his bathing suit, and I surveyed him discreetly but approvingly. He wasn’t terribly tall, but was strong and well-knit. And he was carrying a book. But what struck me most-was his hat. I had never seen a boy go swimming with a hat. He explained that he burned so badly that he had to keep his skin covered up from the sun. And it was true. If he wasn’t careful he turned a painful scarlet. He was a good swimmer, but out of the water we sat in the shade most of time because of his tender skin.
For those of us who lived near the Shenandoah River and loved it, it wound through our lives as between its own banks. Scott soon learned to share our affection for the river, and its many moods. We knew it by heart: one minute flowing blue and lazy, the next a muddy torrent churned by a sudden mountain thunderstorm. We knew the danger spots, and the holes for diving, and the islands where the snakes were thickest. The hidden inlets — just wide enough for a canoe. The gentle rapids where it was so shallow we could lie on our stomachs, and be tossed from rock to rock. And the soft night sounds, broken by song, and echoes on the water.
When the sun dropped behind the Blue Ridge Mountains, Scott and I would drift downstream in a canoe. But the canoes were small, and too crowded for a chaperone — she sat on the bank. Most of the time I listened while he talked and talked. He loved to say things to you that would shock you, just to get your reaction and explain it so accurately that you felt completely exposed. His conversation was mainly about girls. He was always trying to see how far he could go in arousing your feelings, but it was always with words.
“Fluff, have you ever had any ’purple passages’ in your life?” he asked me. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it sounded exciting. I always expected the questions to develop a more physical tone. The tingling excitement of a mood, slowly developed, yet surely building toward an exquisite moment. But this was his first exposure to southern girls, who in turn had been exposed to less timid southern boys. The southern boys I knew, despite their verbal lethargy, at least understood what it was all about, and were more aggressive and emotionally satisfying. In 1917, I’m afraid, Scott just wasn’t a very lively male animal.
No photograph I have ever seen of him has captured successfully the remarkable sensitivity of his expression. It was like quicksilver. His eyes, contrary to what others have said, were neither green nor blue, but gray-blue. His hair in the sunlight was shining gold. His mouth was his most revealing feature — stern, with their lips. The upper lip had a slight curve to it, but the lower lip was a stern, straight line. All his Midwestern puritanism was there. He had never lived in that magnetic world of the senses, whose inhabitants communicate by a wordless language of intuitive feelings.
In general, however, Scott’s visit to Charles Town was a small social triumph. He was in demand for all the parties, and seemed to enjoy our unsophisticated small-town amusements — and during that month I never saw him take a drink.
Much activity centered around horses. I had been proudly raised with the knowledge that one of my forebears, Sir Marmaduke Beckwith. had been responsible for introducing the first English race-horses into Virginia. Scott had no such feelings about horses or horseback riding — a fact that the horse under him immediately grasped. Scott was a terrible horseman, but determined to ride at all costs. Once he was given an old nag who habitually bolted for home whenever he passed a certain familiar corner. Scott took a bad spill, but got up dusty and determined, and insisted on climbing back on. We all cheered and admired his courage, but it was clear he would never make a good horseman.
One evening just before he left Charles Town, he told me, “Fluff, I’ve written a poem for you,” and he recited “When Vanity Kissed Vanity.”
I felt chilly when he came to the line “and with her lovers she was dead.” “Do you mean you think I’m going to die?” “No.” he replied, “I mean you’re dead to me because your other lovers have taken you from me.” Later, when Edmund Wilson edited the posthumous volume of pieces called The Crack-Up, he published a letter Fitzgerald had written to him. It included the same sonnet, only this time with the title “To Cecilia.” It was a great disappointment at first. Still, the girl was his cousin, and fourteen years older, and besides Scott had given it two months earlier to me.
August came too soon, and Scott returned to his home in St. Paul, Minnesota. And several weeks later, while I was on a trip to New York, friends introduced me to the young man who would soon afterwards marry me and share my life for the next forty-two years. Paul and I first met in Peacock Alley of the old Waldorf-Astoria, on 34th Street, a romantic encounter that Scott would surely have appreciated.
Looking back over the vista of fifty years to that eventful summer when I first met Scott. I know that he could never have been happy with small-town life. He was in search of wider horizons. He failed to discover the real core of small-town life — or its rewards. Small towns are people — there is little else. A place where one comes close to the pulse of human emotion. We learned early about life and living from some of the most beloved members of the colored race — exciting, intimate things, because we were not ashamed to ask. Their wisdom was earthy and uncluttered, and with the sharp intuition of their race. “That ain’t no way to ketch yessef a man, you got to pleasure him, honey, you got to pleasure a man.” “The apple fails close to the tree.” “The sweetest smell of all ain’t no smell at all.” I could go on and on. In the end we were gentler and wiser.
We were all excited when This Side of Paradise was published in the spring of 1920. John Bishop told me that Scott had said I was his model for Eleanor in the section called “Young Irony.” When I read it I remembered our first meeting and Scott’s having told me that Eleanor and Elizabeth were names that suggested to him the same kind of girl. I saw a vague resemblance to myself in his description of Eleanor’s “green eyes and nondescript hair,” and there were Amory’s and Eleanor’s horseback rides through mountain paths together, and the rural setting which was so obviously inspired by the country around Charles Town. And there was, of course, my poem. But the Eleanor he described only reminded me of how little he really knew me. His Eleanor loved to sit on a haystack in the rain reciting poetry. Forgive me, Scott: if that is the way you wanted it, then you missed the whole idea of what can happen atop a haystack.
It wasn’t until fourteen years later, in the early spring of 1932, that I saw him again. By 1932 it seemed as though Zelda had almost recovered from her 1930 collapse. Then, that winter after her father died, she had a second mental breakdown, and Scott brought her from Alabama to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for treatment. By spring she was well enough to be released from the hospital, but her physician wanted her to remain nearby for observation and therapy.
Scott was staying temporarily in a Baltimore hotel, looking for a house to rent for Zelda and himself and eleven-year-old Scottie. Scott liked the idea of settling in Baltimore, alter having spent the last ten years on and off in Europe. He no longer wanted to go back to St. Paul. On his father’s side, the Fitzgeralds had lived in eastern Maryland for generations, and his father, who had recently died, was buried in the family plot at nearby Rockville. Besides, a number of his old Princeton friends were Baltimoreans.
One of his classmates, ’Bryan Dancy, lived next door to us. Bryan and his wife Ida Lee knew that I had once known Scott. So when they heard he was in Baltimore, they invited my husband and me to have dinner with him. A lot had happened since I had last seen Scott. He was now a celebrity, and he was at the height of his popular career. The Great Gatsby had not only been a highly praised novel, but also a Broadway play and a Hollywood motion picture. Besides, Scott was one of the highest-paid magazine writers of the day; The Saturday Evening Post featured his stories regularly. We had learned vaguely of Zelda and her illness. But most of the details were veiled in mystery, and hardly anyone in Baltimore knew her.
When Paul and I arrived at the Dancys’ for dinner, Scott was standing in the living room. I paused for a moment, puzzled by what I saw. There were two Scotts: the old Scott of memory — the other, very drunk. He had run into a second-string Hollywood movie actress staying at his hotel (she was well-known then, but has since died and long been forgotten), and impetuously decided to bring her. They had tarried in the bar too long. She had said she was lonely and knew no one in Baltimore, and Scott felt sorry for her, and told he; to come along. It was a chaotic evening. Scott had obviously decided to make it so. and to confirm his reputation as an unconventional guest. The more vulnerable we appeared, the sharper the attack, with realistic allusions to feminine curves and their function. It was a rejection of the Scott I had known.
As we got up from dinner he started for the front door. He struck a dramatic pose and said: “I am going home — to satisfy a need — the need for sex.” He disappeared through the door, followed by the actress.
I was not entirely unprepared for this behavior. I had heard occasionally over the years from John Bishop. who had briefed me on many of the Fitzgeralds’ more spectacular exploits in Europe. Compared to the fireworks that flared much of the time around Scott and Zelda, John’s life was stable. In 1930 he had won Scribners’ prize for his story, “Many Thousands Gone.” He and his wife Margaret lived quietly as expatriates in a chateau in France, and were the parents of three sons.
All over America drinking was becoming more and more a social habit. But the rest of us had routine responsibilities, our daily jobs to attend to, and our lives were well-organized. Scott was much more of a free agent. There had been nothing of this routine to restrain him, and by the time he came to Baltimore, he had become incapable of controlling his drinking. It magnified the minor flaws in his personality, and erased the charm and good manners.
When Arthur Mizener came to Baltimore in search of Fitzgerald material for his biography of Scott, I hid. I could not at that time discuss my friendship with Scott without, I feared, hurting him. I preferred the privacy of non-recognition. How times have changed. But in spite of that unfortunate meeting, Scott and I eventually got back to a firmer relationship. No matter how badly he behaved, Scott was always sincerely sorry afterwards and would atone by a charming apology. His manners were still beautiful. Physically, he had changed very little during the last fourteen years. He was such a delightful, sensitive person, that my husband Paul, who was rather correct and strait-laced, recovered from his first impression and took a liking to him.
Apart from the drinking, I recognized the same old Scott, but a more retiring Scott than I had known before. He discouraged social invitations, much to the disappointment of the many Baltimore hostesses who had hoped to enliven their parties with such a well-known personage. Zelda, of course, was too ill most of the time to go out in public, but Scott used her illness as an excuse to dodge social entanglements. And deep, deep down he never forgot to love her.
I had not met Zelda before, and saw her only a few times during her stay in Baltimore. I knew that she had once been very beautiful. John Bishop had written me after her wedding that “she looked like an angel.” Now her shoulders drooped and her skin was pallid, but there was about her still a wistful, feminine charm. One afternoon she dropped by to call, and told me she had been shopping all day for a dress with a hood in back. I remember wondering at the time if this was her way of disguising her slouching posture. Another time she invited Ida Lee Dancy and me to lunch at their home, “La Paix.” She kept us waiting for an hour. And when she finally showed up, rather damp-looking, she told us that she had been in the bathtub — that part of her therapy consisted of taking a long sitz-bath to relax her nerves, with a big thermometer to make sure the water stayed the right temperature. She talked freely about her illness.
Scott often dropped by our house for a casual visit. The visits I remembered with the most pleasure were those when, as he expressed it, he was “on the wagon.” The length of these dry spells varied, but they sometimes lasted a month or more. It was during these visits that he often discussed the literary talents of the writers he had known, and he had interesting comments on many of the movie greats of that day. With his usual generosity toward other authors, he told me that Thomas Wolfe was the most gifted writer of his generation. If we were out, he would leave an amusing note — invariably addressed jointly to my husband and me. He liked to drop in unannounced. But he almost always refused invitations to formal parties — especially when there might be lots of people whom he didn’t know. He lacked the interest to make new acquaintances, and preferred old friends. At one of our cocktail parties to which he came, he was immediately surrounded by a circle of admiring, gushing women. When he finally escaped, he told me, “God, I’m sick of all those teeth grinning at me.”
So although we continued to invite him. we soon grew accustomed to his polite letters of apology. After he failed to show up, we would sometimes find a note tucked in the front screen door, like the following, dated July 1933:
Don’t expect me I’ve gone fancy I’m all set With Bryan Dancy Scotty’s Windbag Mitchell’s Berries Back at midnight Out with Fairies My last recollection of Scott is in June, 1936. His current plans were to visit Zelda, who was now convalescing in a private sanitarium in North Carolina, and then go out to Hollywood to write for the motion pictures. As things turned out, he was injured while diving in a pool at a hotel in Asheville, and as a result of his having to be hospitalized, his departure for Hollywood was delayed until the following summer of 1937. At the time of our next-to-last meeting, however, he was planning to leave not only Baltimore but the east coast for good. Scott had come to our house to tell us bis plans, and to say that he was leaving as soon as he could get rid of some furniture stored in the Monumental Warehouse in Baltimore.
Paul and I were then spending our summers in the country, and needed furniture, and so Paul bought from Scott a pair of twin beds and a painted chest of drawers. The next day I went to the warehouse. I remember how depressed I was by most of the things — they all looked as though no one had cared very much for them for a long time. I bought one more piece, a bureau, and so I went to the apartment in the Cambridge Arms, to which he and Scottie had moved temporarily, to give him a check.
It was lunch time, but Scott was still in pajamas and bathrobe. He was entertaining Louis Azrael, a well-known local newspaper columnist. He also had a severe pain in his shoulder, which he had relieved by the home remedy of strapping an electric heating pad to his back, and he was sitting on the floor plugged into the electric current. Always restless, and always the perfect host, he would get up from the floor and wander about with plug and cord clattering behind him. But there was also a wonderful dignity flowing from him that repulsed any sympathy of mine and that gave him a kind of tragic grandeur.
This was my farewell to Scott. I would never again see his handsome face, or hear him say, as he once did, when he was leaving our house and the screen door was safely between us, “Fluff. I’ve never had you, but I believe we always get the things we most want.”
His popularity was beginning to go into temporary decline. Shortly after his death I read an obituary by Margaret Marshall in The Nation, February, 1941. She wrote of Scott: “A man of talent who did not fulfill his early promise — his was a fair-weather talent which was not adequate to the stormy age into which it happened, ironically, to emerge.”
Today Scott Fitzgerald is required reading in many schools and colleges, and my grandchildren come with school assignments, wanting to learn more about him. I show them my original copy of the sonnet, “When Vanity Kissed Vanity” — once so lightly received, and now so dearly treasured — when there is no longer cause for vanity. And one of them asked, “Grandmother, did you really kiss Scott Fitzgerald?”
Heavens! No one ever thought of such things in those days. Well — hardly ever.
From Author: I am indebted to Henry Dan Piper for much help and advice in the preparation of this reminiscence.
Reprinted from the Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual, 1970, by permission of the publisher. Copyright 1970, by the National Cash Register Company.
This is the end of our tour. We return together to our cars located in the parking lot between the Library/Museum and the Charles Town Presbyterian Church.
111 Audrey Egle Drive, Shepherdstown, WV – Tour begins at 9 AM, going for about 2.5 hours. Bring quarters for your meter (25 cents/thirty minutes – Whale of a Wash at Maddex Shopping Center is a good place to get a lot of quarters.)Stationmaster W. W. Waddy and his wife Julia Blackford Waddy with their children. Cootsie and Polly are in the front row.Mr. Waddy in the 1920’s sitting in his office at the train station, (presently it is the kitchen).
Mrs. Needy’s Last Ride was Riding the Train’s Cowcatcher. No harm. The son of the undertaker took the hearse from the close-by Reformed Church, then over the tracks with Mrs Needy’s casket. The engine was loud and his windows were rolled up. Then the train hit. The frame of the hearse and the young Hoffman were thrown a hundred feet into the passenger station’s parking area. But the iron chassis lodged on the cowcatcher as the train headed towards the river. Mrs. Needy’s coffin rolled off to one side and, as George Knode told me in the 1980s when he himself was ninety-two – Mrs. Needy was found neatly laid out unblemished on the siding, still holding a rose before her on her chest. The young Hoffman’s injuries were minor.
“Why do people make such a fuss over bakin’ biscuits?” – Shepherd student Helen Hunter
Shepherd Freshman – 1914 (NOTE Part 1 dated Oct., 1914 is given after Part 2 dated January 1914 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008 TRT: 7:49 Video link: https://youtu.be/HQXIpWDYVP0
One Man Changes History July, 1861 & The Accursed Journey of the Silver Spurs
The “Entler’s Resident Ghost” – William Payton Smith: Upstairs there is a room furnished as an old hotel bedroom. It is in this bedroom that the hotel’s resident ghost, William Payton Smith is said to sometimes spend the night. Smith engaged in a duel in the summer of 1809 with a friend and was mortally wounded in the exchange of fire. He was brought to the Entler Hotel and died of his wounds in a few hours. https://historicshepherdstown.com/home-2/museum/
https://www.shepherdu.com/lib/shwebsite/gallery/photographs/rumseyhall_gallery.htmlAt this intersection, these are the two bldgs on the south side. At the southeast corner is how Matthew and Henrietta Tolliver’s ice cream shop and residence appeared around 1910. (courtesy Marie Blostone) Longtime resident Bud McCann once told me that William Rightstine, the longest surviving juror of the John Brown trial, left some land northwest of town to Matt Tolliver, once enslaved, to the Tollivers. Lawyer George M. Beltzhoover helped freedmen in acquiring capital by guaranteeing repayment by the Tollivers to their lending bank. Sadly during the Depression, persons of color went to Baltimore to find work and longtime resident Reva Copenhaver White told me in a recorded interview in the 1980s that locals would acquire their property while they were away and perhaps uninformed of taxes due.
The Great Sleigh Ride in Shepherdstown, WV – 1920s by Jim Surkamp (as told to him in the 1980s. Roaring down German Street the kids in the big toboggan made a terrifying hairpin turn left and north on to Princess Street, plunging out of control, heading towards the gate leading to the bridge across the river. (TRT: 2:47) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adgJlVKc_Ks
Currier & Ives
The Little House
Shepherd PicketShepherd PicketBig Mustache JonesDr. John Dewey inspired Florence Shaw with the project. His motto was “Learn By Doing”
This is about the best way to learn — learning by doing pushed by the philosopher John Dewey in the 1920s
in 1928 with professor Florence Shaw its mid-wife, the little house was born and continues for more than ninety years to charm thousands, reaching out to millions more as a color photo in the National Geographic Magazine. The little house is SOOOO Shepherdstown
She whipped her nineteen student teachers and twelve fifth and sixth graders into a work team – planning, measuring for a house and barn for livestock starting with a garden — with kid sized hoes.
But Shepherd college president William Henry Stout White jumped in and said not just drawings of a house but a house
And the grown-ups would give it electricity and even a working fireplace and teeny furniture – pans and pots – Hobbit pots.
The kids cleared the land for the house and barn but carpenter “DC” James, Paul James great-great grandfather, and stonemason Charles E. “Big Mustache” Jones carried out their plans.
The grandson of President white – Hank White told me that Big Mustache Jones would hold, vise-like in his giant knotty hands, a raw stone. He expertly chipped it into final form and placed it perfectly into the facade
Worries grew when a few days passed and Professor Shaw didn’t see Jones, perhaps an issue over hours and money
When Prof. Shaw found him, she said: “Mr. Jones what will it take for you to finish my little house?”
“Well, Miss Shaw,” he said: “two bottles of hooch from Frog Holler wouldn’t hurt.” Professor Shaw went down the towpath along the Potomac to Frog Holler for the moonshine and the little house was completed even with the latest thing – shingles – for its roof.
James Rumsey, Shepherdstown inventor and father of modern steam based technology, met Thomas Jefferson, when he was the U.S. ambassador. After a full day of discussing scientific and engineering problems, Jefferson wrote his friend Harvard’s president, Joseph Willard: Jefferson by John Trumbull
VIDEO: James Rumsey “The Most Original” – (2) by Jim Surkamp July, 2019 TRT: 56:26 https://youtu.be/X29S2ywMyTc Images onlyt Part 2 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimsurkamp/albums/72157718704824466
Jack Britner – member of the Britner/Show family who lived on German Street between Mill and German Street. around 1900. Served in World War I suffered mustard gas injury. courtesy Margie Blostone.
Come the Civil War – Events Swirling around the Entler:
The Full-On Ring Tournament, 1857 in Shepherdstown
After the ring tournament held in front of the Lee’s home (on today’s Route 480 and adjacent to Elmwood Cemetery on its northern border)– contestants, the Queen, her maids and many repaired to the Entler for a ball.
VIDEO: The Ring tournament in 1857 in Shepherdstown that foreshadowed real war. A Chasm Under Our Feet (Night 1) – https://youtu.be/gtUfQDqOknM (Ring tournament begins around 1:31)
Hans Christian Andeerson – famed writer of children’s verse and stories- played chess with his American friend, Ambassador Henry Bedinger from Shepherdstown.
The Bedinger family who returned early from Denmark. Caroline, mother and wife with Henry Bedinger IV (left), Mary, and Insert of Carolina of “Danske” meaning “Little Dane”) who was born in 1854 in Denmark.
photo courtesy Historic Shepherdstown Museum
Two years later, this young Mary Bedinger’s overhears first whispers of a great war approaching, over dinner with her grandparents in Flushing, New York
Mary Bedinger wrote: “It is true that I was then already 10 years old and had passed quite an eventful life for so young a person. But, one day, in the August of that year, as we sat at the dinner table in the north room at Willowbank, I heard my grandfather say that the Union was about to be destroyed. There was to be no American Union in the future. His tone was very gloomy.
My grandmother began to cry.
and my own mother’s gentle face looked flush and distressed; and through my childish heart there shot such a pang of bewildered dismay as I could never describe: No United States? No world? No life? No anything? – as soon might the sun’s light be withdrawn.
I remember how I looked around the familiar room for comfort. The dessert was on the table. Big melons that my grandfather was fond of raising in such perfection and that were certainly much appreciated by us youngsters. But that day, my slice went untasted and, in truth, I have never been able to see a watermelon cut at table without thinking of the extreme pain of that moment. But as children will, I kept my thoughts to myself.”
Andrew T. Leopold – The Avenger
Shepherdstown was rocked during the war by the murders of two civilians by Andrew Leopold of Sharpsburg, who hunted down any man he believed had deserted from the Confederate ranks. (Unlike like Charles Town that was deeply Confederate, Shepherdstown had at least households with 64 Union-voting adults mixed in with townspeople claiming to be Confederate. There were two postmasters, Elias Baker, the Union postmaster, and Mr. Rentch, the Confederate postmaster. Leopold was indeed captured and hanged in Union custody but when steps were taken to bring by canal boat his coffin for burial in the town cemetery (today’s Elmwood cemetery) an angry crowd of Unionists fought the effort as the wagon climbed up the hill on Princess Street.
Leopold’s Avenging Hand Strikes At Shepherdstown Deserters;
Captured Leopold Makes a Deal;
Andrew Leopold: From Bull Run To God Pt. 3 by Jim Surkamp October, 2014 TRT: 11:42 Video link: https://youtu.be/i4VDBfljt9g
About a young man from Sharpsburg and Shepherdstown who war changed into an avenging angel of death but who, at the foot of the gallows, found God. With Steve French, author of “The Rebel Chronicles.”
Chapterettes:
Leopold’s Trial: “We Don’t Believe You”
On the Wings of A Prayer: He Flies
His Body Brought Home Meets Uproar
Leopold’s Bones Beside Burke’s
Andrew Leopold From Bull Run To God (4) – Conclusion by Jim Surkamp October, 2014 TRT: 3:16 Video link: https://youtu.be/2twPRDHEB0U
Moving up German Street to our next Gathering Place . . .
Grandma Mary Cookus and Connie White on German Street 1948 (courtesy Connie White)Joe Cookus – courtesy Connie WhiteJoe Cookus – 1948 in front of his butcher shop next to today’s Lost Dog (courtesy Connie White)
Our Next Gathering Place: FARMER’S MARKET SITE AND KING & NEW STREETS
Farmer’s Market 1900 – two buildings on the left – Joe Welshans’ blacksmith shop and, further adjacent, A.S. Dandridge III’s farm implements shop, the scene of many games of the game of dominoes called “Muggins”. Beyond it, the two-story, still existing structure was a one-story building in 1862 called “the drill room.” It was said to have been the first building to take wounded from the Maryland Campaign, according to Mary Bedinger Mitchell’s essays “A Woman’s Recollections of Antietam” in Battles & Leaders, Vol. 2.
The Strange Story of John Wesley Culp
John Wesley Culp
Shepherdstown – John Wesley Culp by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008 TRT: 6:15 Video link: https://youtu.be/nOUnUYB8GiU
In Stone Row on New Street, east of the intersection – there unfolded an account combining John Wesley Culp when he was alive and the hauntings of the home at Stone Row of the nearly impoverished Snyder family, that they rented after the war. All previous tenants left hastily after too many “goings-on.”
Shepherdstown’s Ghosts by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) Written by H.L. Snyder, the extremely good editor of the Shepherdsdtown Register, whose ancestors lived in Stone Row on New Street near the Farmer’s Market TRT: 5:55 Video link: https://youtu.be/CB-KNdM4hcQ
Harry Smootz Commits the Most Unspeakable Murder in the Town’s Memory At the New Street/King Street Intersection in 1892.
Murder Most Foul – occurred at the corner of New and King Street in the winter with snow on the ground. A Harry Smootz, incensed with her rejection murdered with a pistol shot to the top of the head of the much beloved Susie Ferrell. As he awaited trial, Adam Stephen Dandridge confided to his daughter Serena K. Dandridge that he was the party who smuggled some opium to Smootz in jail with which he took his own life.
NEXT we turn right, going north up New Street . . .
Identifier: 013206 Title: New Street, Shepherdstown, W. Va. Description: Looking east on New Street to a home now owned by Mrs. A. S. Lucas. Formerly the home of Mrs. John S. Powell and her two daughters. Acquisition Source: Williams, H. H. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/013206
Eleanor Potts in the hammock on the front porch of the home of the Potts, Waddys and Thachers. about 1900. (note same iron fence from previous image.
Backyard of the same home with front porch andh hammock – Identifier: 013210 Description:African-American woman, Mary Moore, in the backyard of former home of Henry W. Potts, now owned by Dr. and Mrs. W. R. Thacher; on New Street, between Church and King Streets. Personal Names: Thacher, W. R., Potts, Henry W., Moore, Mary. Acquisition Source: Williams, H. H. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/013210
Identifier: 013208 Description:African-American woman, ‘Aunt Fanny’ taken in the backyard of William and Hannah Wells house, on the north side of New Street, between Duke and Church Streets. Personal Names: Aunt Fanny., Wells, Hannah., Wells, William. Acquisition Source: Williams, H. H. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/013208
. . .to the intersection of New Street and Church Street.
Northern Methodist Church, Shepherdstown, W. Va. Identifier: 013133 Date: ca. 1900 Creator: Allen, Mrs. Hugh P., Pittsburgh Description: View of the Old Northern Methodist Church, on the corner of Church and New Streets; Acquisition Source: Williams, H. H. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/013133
Circus in Shepherdstown 1881 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) January 9, 2009 TRT: 7:29 Video link: https://youtu.be/CFviJKLWx0I This circus was most likely at Morgan’s Grove. But before Trinity Episcopal Church was built at its location, that and adjacent property was the customary circus ground up to the mid 1850s.
The True Story of the Elephant, Moved To Loud Grief Upon Seeing Again at Shepherdstown’s Circus Field Where His Mother Sickened and Died Many Years Before.
Grant’s Pump opposite Trinity Episcopal with Rachel Snyder. During the the 1862 Antietam battle with soldiers and wounded filling the town, the pump was being pumped so constantly that it was running dry. Locksmith Elijah Rickard, living nearby and the maker of part of John Brown’s irons, stepped in, placed his diminutive self between the pump and the shouting crowd – and locked the pump. The initial, huge roar of protest subsided because all realized water had to be saved.
At the southeast corner of Church and German Street is the home of Conrad Schindler, a coppersmith from whom Actress Mary Tyler Moore descended. She purchased the structure in the mid-1990s (then the Reformed church’s parsonage) and that led to its current role as the George Tyler Moore Center for Civil War Studies.
VIDEO: Shepherdstown Shindlers Pt. 1 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008 TRT: 3:55 Video link: https://youtu.be/rQ1erL20Ulo
VIDEO: Shepherdstown Shindlers Pt. 2 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008 TRT: 5:44 Video link: https://youtu.be/q0XKZvPEGb8
The earliest known photo of an African-American resident of the County (far left) at the house on the northwest corner of Church and Germans Streets.
About 1854 at the house on the northwest corner of Church and German Streets.Future banker Benjamin F. Harrison stands to the far left. Next to him is Mamie – the earliest known photo of a person of color I have been able to locate.
courtesy The Historic Shepherdstown Museum
Daniel Bedinger
OUR LAST STOP – The Biggest Historic Event On Our Tour – the fate of “Bedford” that Daniel Bedinger had built – takes us on a short walk from West High Street to left onto the King Street portion within Shepherd University – to the Byrd Center and to its auditorium.
Auditorium at the Byrd Legislative Center, Shepherd University
Shepherdstown is a Life-style Decision! (photo courtesy of Julia and Polly Hartman).
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SUMMARY
The friendship between Harriet Lane, her Uncle (and 15h President) James Buchanan with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and the young future king 18-year old Prince of Wales played a key role in the Queen’s proclamation of neutrality in May, 1861 at the outset of the Civil War that provided some check on a strong sentiment among the commercial classes in England to recognize the Confederacy. These friendships began between 1853-1856 when Harriet and her uncle (whom she called “Nunc” in private, when he was made the ambassador from the U.S. to the Court of St. James. Then when Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation in September, 1862 the Confederacy was condemned by England, France and Russia. The Sweet Shoppe building in Shepherdstown is also known as the Lane building because Harriet’s family – at one time herself – owned it. This quite remarkable person called by Frank Leslie’s illustrated weekly as our original “First Lady” in 1860, cemented, shall we say, strong friendship not only with the Queen, but also the young Prince of Wales when she accompanied when he came to the United States in July-October, 1860 as war clouds gathered and soon burst.
In reading this post . . . the appearance of * (one) asterisk precedes references and textual sources; ** (two) asterisks precedes the narrative or script; *** (three) asterisks precedes the advent of new music or sound effects and their duration and over which images as they appear in the video. They do not apply to the post, but are included nevertheless.
VIDEO: Harriet Lane America’s Original First Lady by Jim Surkamp February, 2020- TRT: 1:09:35 – https://youtu.be/r0NBsXgs6fITHIS SEGMENT WITHIN THIS LONGER VIDEO BEGINS AT 49:00.
49:01 confluence by vandaliariver.com over images 274-281 to 50:49
274. – A photograph of the Prince of Wales and his party taken at Prospect Point in Niagara Falls, New York. Prince is the gentleman with his foot up on a rock.This image is available from Library and Archives Canada under the reproduction reference number C-003689 and under the MIKAN ID number 3406802. https://exhibits.library.brocku.ca/s/theprince/item/8#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-354%2C-1%2C2112%2C991275. – Prince Albert Edward – the future British King – visits Canada, the United States and his friends, Harriet and her uncle, President Buchanan – July 10-Oct. 20, 1860 – just before Lincoln is elected and southern states secede
Queen Victoria would always fondly refer to Harriet as “Dear Miss Lane.” On a landmark visit to Canada Victoria’s youngish son Albert Edward the Prince of Wales in the summer of 1860. James Buchanan and Harriet and others successfully prevailed upon him to come see them too and their country.
“I have learned from the public journals that the Prince of Wales is about to visit Your Majesty’s North American dominions. I need not say how happy I would be to give him a cordial welcome to Washington. Your Majesty’s most obedient servant” – James Buchanan June 4th, 1860. (
“My good friend – I have been much gratified at the feelings that have prompted you to write to me, inviting the Prince of Wales to come to Washington. It will give him great pleasure to have an opportunity of testifying to you in person that those feelings are fully reciprocated by him! I remain ever your good friend Victoria R.”
279. – Map of the United States, and territories. Contributor: Mitchell, S. Augustus Created / Published: Philadelphia, Pa., Together with Canada &c. Mitchell’s map publication office, 1861. loc.gov www.loc.gov/item/99447041/ ; Visit of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to the British North American provinces and United States in the year 1860 by Cellem, Robert archive.org archive.org/details/visitofhisroyalh00celluoft/page/n6
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Ian Radforth, Royal Spectacle: The 1860 Visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States. Series: Heritage Copyright Date: 2004 Published by: University of Toronto Press 340 pages – jstor.org www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt1287w43
Engleheart, Gardner D. (Gardner Dillman), 1823- Journal of the progress of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales through British North America; and his visit to the United States, 10th July to 15th November, 1860. – loc.gov www.loc.gov/item/06043560/
The prince was mobbed everywhere he went by giddy throngs in cities from Richmond to Pittsburgh; and when he came back to Washington D.C. with Nunc and Harriet, it included a symbolically important, much-remembered visit to George Washington’s Tomb at Mount Vernon. On October 3rd, at the White House, the Royal party were introduced to the President by Secretary Cass and then by the President to Miss Lane. The meeting of the Prince and the President was extremely cordial. At a dinner for about thirty that followed, the Prince sat on the right of Miss Lane and across from the President. The next day after touring the Capitol and the Washington Monument, that the Prince likened to a “lighthouse,” the reporter wrote: “The Prince then left, an immense crowd gathering in front of the most recent visited building and cheering him as he drove off accompanied by Miss Lane and Mrs. Secretary Thompson. The Prince and the party visited Mrs. Smith’s Institute for young ladies, remaining for two hours, and expressing themselves delighted with their visit. The Prince enjoyed several games of ten pins with Miss Lane and laughed heartily at the sport. He has been so long deprived of ladies’ society that he cannot conceal his gratification, and although too tired for receptions – is never too weary to go out with Miss Lane. At the gymnasium the Prince seemed a boy again. Miss Lane and the Prince conquered Mrs. Secretary Thompson and the Duke of Newcastle at ten pins and then with little effort Miss Lane out-rolled the Prince.
That July the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association had taken possession of Mount Vernon from John Augustine Washington for $200,000 period dollars – the first act of historic preservation in the young nation’s history. The Prince later wrote that “The house is sadly dilapidated. It commands beautiful views from the rocky and wooded eminence from which it stands.” The Royal party were deeply observant, asking many questions. Having carefully inspected the house, the Prince stood reverently uncovered in the room in which Washington died. (Later) the party with uncovered heads ranged themselves in front of the tomb, as simple yet so grand in its associations and silently contemplated the tomb of Washington – the Father of a country, second to none, as the Prince and President Buchanan stood together before the tomb of Washington, how much was suggested of interest in the past, of hope for the future. The ceremony over, the party again stood for a few moments before the tomb, then turning away in thoughtful silence, retracing their way to the “Harriet Lane” cutter vessel, which during their absence had been transformed by means of gay flags and canvas into a beautiful dining saloon. The steamer went slowly up the Potomac until dinner was over and the deck cleared for dancing, the Marine band furnishing the music. Four hours were consumed in the passage to Washington. And the Prince passed the night at the White House, according to a memo of Harriet’s “in the north room over the small dining room; the adjoining on the northwest corner of his dressing room.”
Buchanan wrote the Queen October 6, 1860: “In our domestic circle the Prince has won all hearts. His free and ingenuous intercourse with myself evinced both a kind heart and good understanding. I shall ever cherish the warmest wishes for his welfare.” The visit of the Prince to the tomb of Washington and the simple but solemn ceremonies at this consecrated spot will become an historic event and cannot fail to exert a happy influence on the kindred people of the two countries.”
Queen Victoria made a reply: “I am impelled to express how deeply I have been touched by the many demonstrations of affection which his [the Prince of Wales’s] presence has called forth. I fully reciprocate towards your nation the feelings thus made apparent and look upon them as forming an important link to cement two nations of kindred origin and character.” Harpers Weekly October 20, 1860
The day Prince Albert left, Harpers Weekly in an editorial wrote: We are inclined to think that this visit of the Prince to the United States will prove one of the most beneficial measures of Queen Victoria’s reign. If the peace can be preserved between Great Britain and the United States, it matters very little what other powers may do – We think the possibility of a war between this country and Great Britain has been diminished by the Prince’s visit.
When Victoria died on January 22, 1901 after feeling a little weak – The Prince or “Bertie” to Harriet invited her to his coronation August 9th 1902, when he became King Edward VII.
50:27 – FX cheering crowd over images 279 & 279a to 50:33
280. – and when he came back to Washington D.C. – The White House in 1860 – whitehousemuseum.org 25 June 2006 Web. 17 January 2020 – www.whitehousemuseum.org/special/renovation-1825.htm281. – it included a symbolically important, much-remembered visit to George Washington’s Tomb at Mount Vernon. – Thomas P. Rossiter, Visit of the Prince of Wales, President Buchanan, and Dignitaries to the Tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon, October 1860, 1861, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Harriet Lane Johnston, 1906.9.18 commons.wikimedia.org 5 June 2004 Web. 5 January 2020 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smithsonian-Rossiter-Visit_of_the_Prince_of_Wales-2123.jpg
and when he came back to Washington D.C. with Nunc and Harriet, it included a symbolically important, much-remembered visit to George Washington’s Tomb at Mount Vernon.
285. – The meeting of the Prince and the President was extremely cordial. – Prince of Wales The illustrated London news Supplement July 28, 1860 p. 87 archive.org 26 January 1997 Web. 5 January 2020 archive.org/details/illustratedlondov37lond/page/n90 ; President James Buchanan, engraving, ca. 1860. Prints and Photographs Division loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 17 January 2020 www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b42465/
286. – At a dinner for about thirty that followed, the Prince sat on the right of Miss Lane and across from the President. – Harriet Lane.photographed during her White House tenancy. (Wheatland) – firstladies.org 21 July 2013 Web. 15 January 2020 – http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=16 ; Queen Victoria and son Prince of Wales Albert Edward – 1863 – heirstothethrone-project.net ;
51:24 – Shana Aisenberg on “reflective” guitar over images 287-298 to 53:10
287. – The next day after touring the Capitol and the Washington Monument, that the Prince likened to a “lighthouse,” the reporter wrote: “The Prince then left, – Queen Victoria and son Prince of Wales Albert Edward – 1863 – heirstothethrone-project.net ; Washington Monument circa 1860. Library of Congress description: “Washington Monument as it stood for 25 years.”. Source Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Brady-Handy Photograph Collection https://loc.gov/pictures/resource/cwpbh.03248/
51:37 – FX cheer applause over images 288-290 to 51:48
288. – An immense crowd gathering in front of the most recent visited building and cheering him as he drove off, – Harper’s weekly Vol. 4 October 20, 1860 hathitrust.org 6 December 2009 p. 658. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015006963360&view=1up&seq=614289. Same source as image 288290. – accompanied by Miss Lane and Mrs. Secretary Thompson. The Prince and the party visited Mrs. Smith’s Institute for young ladies, remaining for two hours, and expressing themselves delighted with their visit. The Prince enjoyed several games of ten pins with Miss Lane and laughed heartily at the sport.Harriet Lane.photographed during her White House tenancy. (Wheatland) – firstladies.org 21 July 2013 Web. 15 January 2020 – http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=16
51:50 FX bowl strike over image 291 to 51:57
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accompanied by Miss Lane and Mrs. Secretary Thompson.
292. – The Prince enjoyed several games of ten pins with Miss Lane and laughed heartily at the sport. He has been so long deprived of ladies’ society that he cannot conceal his gratification, and although too tired for receptions – is never too weary to go out with Miss Lane. At the gymnasium the Prince seemed a boy again.Prince of Wales The illustrated London news Supplement July 28, 1860 p. 87 archive.org 26 January 1997 Web. 5 January 2020 archive.org/details/illustratedlondov37lond/page/n90
Journal of the progress of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales through British North America; and his visit to the United States, 10th July to 15th November, 1860. – Contributor Names: Engleheart, Gardner D. (Gardner Dillman), 1823- ; Created / Published: [London?, s.n., 1860?] – loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 17 January 2020 http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbtn.43560/?sp=106
That July the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association had taken possession of Mount Vernon from John Augustine Washington for $200,000 period dollars – the first act of historic preservation in the young nation’s history. The house is sadly dilapidated. It commands beautiful views from the rocky and wooded eminence from which it stands. The Royal party were deeply observant, asking many questions. Having carefully inspected the house, the Prince stood reverently uncovered in the room in which Washington died. (Later) the party with uncovered heads ranged themselves in front of the tomb, as simple yet so grand in its associations and silently contemplated the tomb of Washington – the Father of a country, second to none, as the Prince and President Buchanan stood together before the tomb of Washington, how much was suggested of interest in the past, of hope for the future.
53:12 Nick Blanton, Shana Aisenberg, and Ralph Gordon chugging sound over images 299-301 to 53:46
299. – 10 AM, Oct 5th to Mount Vernon.The day was lovely, and the run of twenty-five miles down the Potomac was much enjoyed by all, – USRC Harriet Lane – Date Unknown date Source U.S. Department of the Navy, www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h57000/h57514.jpg Author Clary Ray Permission (Reusing this file) PD-USGOV-MILITARY-NAVY wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 5 January 2020 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Harriet_Lane.jpg
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300a. – A map of the state of Virginia : reduced from the nine sheet map of the state in conformity to law by Böÿe, Herman; Buchholtz, L. v. (Lewis von) Created / Published[Virginia : s.n., 1859] – loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 17 January 2020 https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3880.ct001508/?r=0.707,0.25300b. – Same source for Image 300a.300c. – Same source as Image 300a.300d. – Same source as 300a.
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53:46 Cam Millar’s Beauties 1 & 2 over image 301-311 to 55:51
Journal of the progress of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales through British North America; and his visit to the United States, 10th July to 15th November, 1860. – Contributor Names: Engleheart, Gardner D. (Gardner Dillman), 1823- ; Created / Published: [London?, s.n., 1860?] loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 17 January 2020 www.loc.gov/resource/lhbtn.43560/?sp=106
55:54 – Nick Blanton, Ralph Gordon & Shana Aisenberg over images 312-314 to 56:16
55:57 – FX tavern laughter over images 313-315 to 56:24
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312. – Plans of USRC Harriet Lane – Date Unknown date Source USCG website Author US Coast Guard commons.wikimedia.org 5 June 2004 Web. 5 January 2020 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USRC_Harriet_Lane_plans.jpg313. – retracing their way to the “Harriet Lane” cutter vessel, which during their absence had been transformedby means of gay flags and canvas into a beautiful dining saloon. – USRC Harriet Lane – Date Unknown date – Source U.S. Department of the Navy, www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h57000/h57514.jpg Author Clary Ray Permission (Reusing this file) PD-USGOV-MILITARY-NAVY) wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 5 January 2020 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Harriet_Lane.jpg
The steamer went slowly up the Potomac until dinner was over and the deck cleared for dancing, the Marine band furnishing the music. Some quadrilles enlivened the return voyage. The Prince opened the dance with Miss Lane . . .The whole party were in such excellent spirits. Four hours were consumed in the passage to Washington.
56:11 FX seagulls (intermittent) over images 314, 317 & 318 to 56:40.
56:11 – FX seagulls (intermittent) over images 314, 317 & 318 to 56:40. 56:18 – Quadrille sample over images 314-318 to 56:41 Quadrille sample record wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 5 January 2020 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrille
314. – The steamer went slowly up the Potomac – A map of the state of Virginia : reduced from the nine sheet map of the state in conformity to law by Böÿe, Herman; Buchholtz, L. v. (Lewis von) Created / Published[Virginia : s.n., 1859] loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 17 January 2020 https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3880.ct001508/?r=0.706,0.251,0.089,0.044,0
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315. – until dinner was over and the deck cleared for dancing, the Marine band furnishing the music. – dancing quadrille – socialdance.stanford.edu 26 March 2007 Web. 27 January 2020 socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/19th_century.htm315a. – until dinner was over and the deck cleared for dancing, the Marine band furnishing the music. – The “President’s Own” Marine Corps band – first known photograph,1860s from official United States Marine Corps site at www.marineband.usmc.mil commons.wikimedia.org 5 June 2004 Web. 5 January 2020 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PresidentsOwn1864band.jpg316. – Some quadrilles enlivened the return voyage. – dancing quadrille – socialdance.stanford.edu 26 March 2007 Web. 27 January 2020 socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/19th_century.htm
317. – The Prince opened the dance with Miss Lane . . .The whole party were in such excellent spirits. – Dancing Prince and ladies hoping – Harper’s Weekly Oct. 13, 1860 babel.hathitrust.org 6 December 2009 Web. 5 January 2020 p. 644 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015006963360&view=1up&seq=602 –
318. – Four hours were consumed in the passage to Washington. – Same image source as 317.
56:42 horned owl over image 319 to 56:45
56:42 – FX night sounds over images 319 & 320 to 56:41
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Moon approaching third quarter on October 5-6, 1860 The Metropolitan Catholic Almanac, And Laity’s Directory, For The Year Of Our Lord 1860 archive.org 26 January 1997 Web. 5 January 2020 p. 20 archive.org/details/MetropolitanCatholicAlmanac1860/page/n27
320. – And the Prince passed the night at the White House, according to a memo of Harriet’s “in the north room over the small dining room; the adjoining on the northwest corner of his dressing room” – white house in blue with two lights on – commons.wikimedia.org 5 June 2004 Web. 5 January 2020 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1860s_White_House.jpg
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The Prince of Wales room
It started as just another bedroom on the second floor. By the time of the Lincoln administration in the mid-19th century, it had become used as a state guest room and was known as the “Prince of Wales Room,” since the Prince of Wales had stayed there in 1860 during the Buchanan administration. – whitehousemuseum.org 25 June 2006 Web. 24 January 2020 www.whitehousemuseum.org/floor2/private-dining-room.htm
57:03 virginius by vandaliariver.com over images 321-325 to 58:11
321. – Buchanan wrote the Queen October 6, 1860: “In our domestic circle the Prince has won all hearts. His free and ingenuous intercourse with myself evinced both a kind heart and good understanding. I shall ever cherish the warmest wishes for his welfare. – Queen Victoria Queen Victoria and son Prince of Wales Albert Edward 1863 heirstothethrone-project.net 24 June 2012 Web. 16 January 2020 (account since suspended) ; James Buchanan photographed between 1850 and 1868, printed later Source: Library of Congress Author: From Brady daguerreotype (Mathew Brady) (1822-1896) commons.wikimedia.org 5 June 2004 Web. 5 January 2020 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Buchanan.jpg
323. In an 1861 sketch captioned, “The son of the Queen had come over the wave, And planted a tree upon Washington’s grave,” which pictures George Washington’s spirit witnessing the planting of a chestnut tree. Library of Congress – whitehousehistory.org 2 December 1998 Web. 15 January 2020 https://www.whitehousehistory.org/president-buchanan-greets-a-guest-of-state
323a. – Same image source as 323.
Buchanan wrote the Queen October 6, 1860: “In our domestic circle the Prince has won all hearts. His free and ingenuous intercourse with myself evinced both a kind heart and good understanding. I shall ever cherish the warmest wishes for his welfare. The visit of the Prince to the tomb of Washington and the simple but solemn ceremonies at this consecrated spot will become an historic event and cannot fail to exert a happy influence on the kindred people of the two countries.”
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324. – “The visit of the Prince to the tomb of Washington and the simple but solemn ceremonies at this consecrated spot will become an historic event and cannot fail to exert a happy influence on the kindred people of the two countries.” – James Buchanan’s signature – He signed himself “always your good friend,” – James Buchanan signature – Curtis, George T. (1883). “Life of James Buchanan, fifteenth President of the United States.” New York, Harper & Brothers. archive.org 26 January 1997 Web. 25 January 2020. archive.org/details/lifeofjamesbucha01curt/page/n8 frontispiece: Buchanan with signature – archive.org/details/lifeofjamesbucha01curt/page/n7
Queen Victoria made a reply: “I am impelled to express how deeply I have been touched by the many demonstrations of affection which his [the Prince of Wales’s] presence has called forth. I fully reciprocate towards your nation the feelings thus made apparent and look upon them as forming an important link to cement two nations of kindred origin and character.” Harper’s Weekly October 20, 1860.
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325. Queen Victoria, May 15, 1860 by John Jabez Mayall Object No. 2014.263 rct.uk 10 August 2018 Web. 18 January 2020
58:55 – “murphy” vandaliariver.com over images 332-336 to 59:59
“We are inclined to think that this visit of the Prince to the United States will prove one of the most beneficial measures of Queen Victoria’s reign. If the peace can be preserved between Great Britain and the United States, it matters very little what other powers may do – We think the possibility of a war between this country and Great Britain has been diminished by the Prince’s visit.“
334. – The Prince or “Bertie” to Harriet invited her to his coronation August 9th 1902, when he became King Edward VII. – Coronation Of Edward VII (1902) Apr 13, 2014 British Pathé youtube.com 28 April 2005 Web. 27 January 2020 www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVNFeQe4Nhk
335. Coronation Of Edward VII (1902) Apr 13, 2014 British Pathé youtube.com 28 April 2005 Web. 27 January 2020 www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVNFeQe4Nhk ; Harriet Lane Johnston, ca. 1898, photograph, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Harriet Lane Johnston, 1906.9.33 americanart.si.edu 29 February 2000 Web. 27 January 2020 americanart.si.edu/artwork/harriet-lane-johnston-24797336. Coronation Of Edward VII (1902) Apr 13, 2014 British Pathé youtube.com 28 April 2005 Web. 27 January 2020 www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVNFeQe4Nhk ; Edward VII – Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. britannica.com 23 May 1998 Web. 27 January 2020 www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-VII
1:00:00 Shana Aisenberg’s Ishmael’s Grief over images 337-343 to 1:01:09
Buchanan, in those four years, he – as a pro-Union, but pro-enslavement Pennsylvanian – could muster no more than straddling the North-South divide, until the Deep South states, upon Lincoln’s election, seceded while President Buchanan had four more months in office.
Did the warm ties between the Royal family and Nunc and Harriet matter when the Civil War came?
Queen Victoria on May 13th, 1861 – just two months after Buchanan stepped down – issued the proclamation of neutrality stating that the government of Great Britain would remain formally neutral in the United States’ domestic affairs for the remainder of the war . . . She was holding back pressures to recognize the Confederacy. Lord John Palmerston the Prime Minister confided to a correspondent that the day North and South permanently divided “would be the happiest day of our lives.” Of almost two hundred English newspapers examined by Professor Thomas Keiser (PhD), only nineteen supported the Union cause.
342. Buchanan, in those four years, he – as a pro-Union, but pro-enslavement Pennsylvanian – could muster no more than straddling the North-South divide – political balance – Description: Election of 1840. The “log cabin and hard cider” campaign. A balance marked “government’s true scales” and supported by “popular opinion” has William Henry Harrison, the Whig candidates on one side and Martin Van Buren, the incumbent, on the other. Harrison defeated Van Buren, but died shortly after inauguration. He was succeeded by John Tyler. Many prominent political figures of the day are represented in this cartoon. Date: 1840. Boston Public Library ark.digitalcommonwealth.org 15 March 2018 Web. 14 January 2020. ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/9880w987w
1:00:56 FX sheep,goats over image 343 to 1:01:09
343. – . . . until the Deep South states, upon Lincoln’s election, seceded while President Buchanan had four more months in office. – Little Bo-Peep and her foolish sheep Date: 1861 – Boston Public Library ark.digitalcommonwealth.org 15 March 2018 Web. 14 January 2020 ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/9880w899g
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1:01:11 Shana Aisenberg guitar over images 344-348b to 1:01:50
344. – Did the warm ties between the Royal family and Nunc and Harriet matter when the Civil War came? – Royal coat of Arms wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 5 January 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland ; Victoria in 1861 after Charles Clifford (1819-62) Queen Victoria (1819-1901) modern copy of 1861 original Gelatin silver print copy of an earlier photograph | 21.0 x 14.0 cm (image) | RCIN 2906951 Royal Collection Trust modern copy of 1861 original rct.uk 10 August 2018 Web. 18 January 2020 https://www.rct.uk/collection/2906951/queen-victoria-1819-1901 ; Albert Edward 1861 – CAMILLE SILVY (1834-1910) King Edward VII (1841-1910), when Albert Edward, Prince of Wales 1861 Albumen print | 8.7 x 5.7 cm (image) | RCIN 2907933 rct.uk 10 August 2018 Web. 18 January 2020 https://www.rct.uk/collection/2907933/king-edward-vii-1841-1910-when-albert-edward-prince-of-wales345. – Queen Victoria when on May 13th, 1861 – just two months after Buchanan stepped down – issued the proclamation of neutrality stating that the government of Great Britain would remain formally neutral in the United States’ domestic affairs for the remainder of the war . . . She was holding back pressures to recognize the Confederacy. – The Queen’s Neutrality Proclamation – loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 17 January 2020 www.loc.gov/item/scsm000229/345a.345b.345c. 345d.345e.345f.345g.345h.345i.345j.
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346. She was holding back pressures to recognize the Confederacy. – Victoria in 1861 after Charles Clifford (1819-62) Queen Victoria (1819-1901) modern copy of 1861 original Gelatin silver print copy of an earlier photograph | 21.0 x 14.0 cm (image) | RCIN 2906951 Royal Collection Trust modern copy of 1861 original rct.uk 10 August 2018 Web. 18 January 2020 https://www.rct.uk/collection/2906951/queen-victoria-1819-1901
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347. Journal Cover The Prince of Wales in the United States: A Harbinger of English Opinion of the Civil War by Thomas Keiser – Illinois Historical Journal jstor.org 10 December 1997 Web. 17 January 2020 www.jstor.org/stable/40192322348. Lord John Palmerston the Prime Minister confided to a correspondent that the day North and South permanently divided “would be the happiest day of our lives.” Of almost two hundred English newspapers examined by Professor Thomas Keiser (PhD), only nineteen supported the Union cause. – Same source as Image 347; Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784-1865) Date: 1855 by Francis Cruikshank Source: npg.org.uk 31 December 1996 Web. 27 January 2020 https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait.php?search=ss&firstRun=true&role=sit&sText=Palmerston&page=1&LinkID=mp03436&rNo=8 & wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 5 January 2020 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscount_Palmerston349. For the next year, British businessmen could evade the Federal blockade and trade with the Confederacy by trading through the Bahamas, Mexico and Cuba. – A picture of the Battle of Cherbourg, between the Kearsarge and the Alabama,June 19th, 1864. The battle is a part of the American Civil War. Collection: Philadelphia Museum of Art commons.wikimedia.org 5 June 2004 Web. 5 January 2020. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%c3%89douard_Manet-Kearsarge-Alabama2.jpg350. Detail of painting of St. George’s Harbour, Bermuda, during US Civil War, with a Confederate blockade runner anchored in the foreground. St. George’s Historical Society Date: Circa 1864 – Author: Edward James – wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 5 January 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St._George’s_Harbour_circa_1864.jpg350a. Same image source as 350 without titling.351. In England – as in France – the economy sagged – Fishermen at Saint Ives by Anders Zorn – 1891 metmuseum.org https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/384537
England delivered sixty percent of all the Enfield rifles used by the Confederate Army. The blockade-runners were operated largely by British citizens, making use of neutral ports such as Havana, Nassau and Bermuda. – thomaslegion.net 12 March 2007 Web. 28 January 2020 www.thomaslegion.net/blockadeofthecarolinacoast.html
England’s leaders waited skeptically after the Union army held off Confederate Gen. Lee’s all out attempted incursion into Maryland in September, 1862. They initially saw Lincoln’s declared Emancipation Proclamation as a political ploy.
They initially saw Lincoln’s declared Emancipation Proclamation as a political ploy.
1:03:25 Singing Jacob’s Ladder over images 355-359 to 1:04:35
355. – Lincoln writing the emancipation – This sketch by Adalbert Volck from 1864 shows Lincoln writing the Emancipation Proclamation. You may sense Volck’s criticism by his depiction of Lincoln’s foot on the American Constitution, the Devil holding his inkstand, and Liberty’s face covered with a hood in the upper left. – historynet.com 5 February 1998 Web. 30 January 2020 https://www.historynet.com/abraham-lincoln-takes-the-heat/?f
First text:
By the President of the United States of America: – A Proclamation. – Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free. –
But when the Emancipation became law January 1, 1863 and foreign observers saw it wasn’t just a ploy but henceforth a war against enslavement, all the would-be allies of the Confederacy – England, France and Russia abandoned that position, condemned the Confederacy and threw their support to the end to the Union cause.
357. – Man reading a newspaper with headline, “Presidential Proclamation, Slavery,” which refers to the Jan. 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Drawing; watercolor. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-2442 – loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 5 January 2020 www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010718365/358. – Whipped back photo by Mathew Brady – Civil War CDV of Gordon (slave) at the Baton Rouge Union camp during his medical examination. Date: March 1863; Source: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Author Photographers William D. McPherson and his partner Mr. Oliver, New Orleans; CDV by Mathew Brady (1822–1896) wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 30 January 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Proclamation#/media/File:Gordon,_scourged_back,_NPG,_1863.jpg359. – Edwin Forbes Civil War Etchings The Sanctuary digital.libraries.psu.edu 26 January 2019 Web. 1 February 2020 digital.libraries.psu.edu/digital/collection/Forbes/id/24/
1:04:35 Shana Aisenberg 23rd Regiment tune over images 360-368 to 1:05:29
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SUMMARY
The friendship between Harriet Lane, her Uncle (and 15h President) James Buchanan with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and the young future king 18-year old Prince of Wales played a key role in the Queen’s proclamation of neutrality in May, 1861 at the outset of the Civil War that provided some check on a strong sentiment among the commercial classes in England to recognize the Confederacy. These friendships began between 1853-1856 when Harriet and her uncle (whom she called “Nunc” in private, when he was made the ambassador from the U.S. to the Court of St. James. Then when Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation in September, 1862 the Confederacy was condemned by England, France and Russia. The Sweet Shoppe building in Shepherdstown is also known as the Lane building because Harriet’s family – at one time herself – owned it. This quite remarkable person called by Frank Leslie’s illustrated weekly as our original “First Lady” in 1860, cemented, shall we say, strong friendship not only with the Queen, but also the young Prince of Wales whom she accompanied when he came to the United States in July-October, 1860 as war clouds gathered and soon burst.
NOTE: 1 asterisk * denotes research source; 2 asterisks **denotes text or script; 3 asterisks *** denotes music and sound effects in the corresponding video.
All through her life Harriet campaigned for causes for the good. In the eighteen years following the great American tragedy of the Civil War, Harriet – now a private citizen – loved and lost four of her dearest family inspirations.
Both sons were affected by a sudden, unknown illness that left both boys physically impaired with hearts weakened by rheumatic fever. Harriet and her husband Henry had widely sought medical advice and treatment, to no avail. One son died at home in 1881, and the other died the following year; they were fifteen (14.5) and twelve years old.
1:07:17 Beauties I by Cam Millar over images 377-381 to 1:08:20
leaving her with one wellspring of inspiration and the first she ever had known from her days at the The Georgetown Visitation Academy, the school which had the greatest impact on her andthe influence of St. Francis de Sales guidance: Be who you are and be that well. Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength. Have patience with all things, But, first of all with yourself.
She fashioned her grief into blessings to others.Upon Harriet’s death nearly twenty years later, her estate provided a sum of over $400,000 to establish the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children as a memorial to the Johnstons’ two sons.
In October 1912, the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children officially opened. It was the first children’s clinic in the United States associated with a medical school. Eventually treating over 60,000 children a year, the Harriet Lane Home became a pioneer treatment, teaching, and research clinic. It was closed in 1972.
* Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children June 2, 2018 By Nancy Sheads in Baltimore City, Hospitals Founded: 1912 Closed: 1972 Location: 5-story building on the grounds of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD mdhistoryonline.net https://mdhistoryonline.net/2018/06/02/h261/
1:08:20 murphy by vandaliariver.com over images 382-388 to 1:09:34
She is largely responsible for getting the ball rolling – donating her own collection – to successfully jump-start the first iteration of our beloved National Gallery of Art on the Mall,reminiscent of the other “People’s Palace” from 1850s London.
385. She died recognized by a grateful many. – Harriet Lane Johnston 1898 – Artist: Unidentified – Date: ca. 1898 Location: Not on view Dimensions: sheet and image: 9 1/4 x 6 in. (23.4 x 15.1 cm.) Copyright: Smithsonian American Art Museum Bequest of Harriet Lane Johnston americanart.si.edu https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/harriet-lane-johnston-24797386. – Younger Harriet Lane – Lincoln National Collection – Description: 6 3/4 x 3 3/8 inch stereocard, Harriet Lane Johnston, head and torso lincolncollection.org https://www.lincolncollection.org/search/results/item/?q=stereocard&item=54787
* The art collection of former first lady Harriet Lane Johnston, President James Buchanan’s niece, resides in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. This story as originally published Dec. 5, 2006 said she had bequeathed the collection to the National Gallery of Art, which is what the museum was called at the time. The name was changed after Pittsburgher Andrew Mellon’s gift established the current National Gallery of Art in 1937.
In 1858, Lane received a letter from a Native American leader of Wisconsin’s Chippewa tribe asking her help in removing an Indian Affairs agent who introduced liquor for sale Nancy Hendricks, p. 118
“A widely publicized incident during the Prince of Wales visits when Lane scored a victory over he Prince in an early form of bowling ten pins. Not only were women discouraged from physical activities as that game, it was shocking to compete with a male, much less to win
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40067721?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Thomas P. Rossiter, Visit of the Prince of Wales, President Buchanan, and Dignitaries to the Tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon, October 1860, 1861, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Harriet Lane Johnston, 1906.9.18 commons.wikimedia.org 5 June 2004 Web. 5 January 2020 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smithsonian-Rossiter-Visit_of_the_Prince_of_Wales-2123.jpg
THE PRINCE AT WASHINGTON
… with Miss Lane, the Prince spent a couple of hours at Miss Smith’s institute for young ladies, where he indulged in a game at tenpins. In the evening the President entortained the diplomatic corps and a large party at dinner, and Miss Lane held a reception … Published: Saturday 20 October 1860 Newspaper: Illustrated London News County: London, England archive.org 26 January 1997 Web. 5 January 2020 p. 363 https://archive.org/details/illustratedlondov37lond/page/n362 p. 365 (article) https://archive.org/details/illustratedlondov37lond/page/n367
Queen Victoria’s original intention was to dispatch her son simply to visit England’s western possessions in Canada and inaugurate the opening of the Victoria Bridge in Montreal. Yet, upon receipt of a letter from President Buchanan, the queen was pleased to extend the prince’s visit to the United States. Both Buchanan’s letter to the queen and her positive reply were printed in American newspapers, and their words illustrate the strong, personal bond felt between the two rulers. On June 4, 1860, President Buchanan wrote: “I need not say how happy I should be to give him [the Prince of Wales] a cordial welcome to Washington. You may well be assured that everywhere in this country he will be greeted by the American people in such a manner as cannot fail to prove gratifying to Your Majesty.” In a similar style, the queen replied that the prince would, with great pleasure, be received at the White House. “He will thus be able, at the same time, to mark the respect which he entertains for the Chief Magistrate of a great and friendly State and kindred nation.” The queen indicated that Prince Albert Edward would drop all royal title and travel officially incognito under the name whitehousehistory.org 2 December 1998 Web. 15 January 2020 Journal Article Reannealing of the Heart Ties: The Rhetoric of Anglo-American Kinship and the Politics of Reconciliation in the Prince of Wales’s 1860 Tour SKYE MONTGOMERY Journal of the Civil War Era Vol. 6, No. 2 (JUNE 2016), pp. 193-219
In 1866, Miss Lane was married, at Wheatland, to Mr. Henry Elliott Johnston of Baltimore, a gentleman who had held her affections for many years. The congenial pair now abide in their luxurious home in Baltimore, and in private life, as wife and mother, she is as beautiful and more beloved than when, as Miss Lane, she was the proud lady of the President’s House. – Ames p. 235. books.google.com 24 November 2005 Web. 5 January 2020
* JOURNAL ARTICLE Harriet Lane Johnston and the Formation of a National Gallery of Art
Homer T. Rosenberger Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. Vol. 69/70, The 47th separately bound book (1969/1970), pp. 399-442 Published by: Historical Society of Washington, D.C.
… with Miss Lane, the Prince spent a couple of hours at Miss Smith’s institute for young ladies, where he indulged in a game at tenpins. In the evening the President entortained the diplomatic corps and a large party at dinner, and Miss Lane held a reception … Published: Saturday 20 October 1860 Newspaper: Illustrated London News County: London, England
Journal Article Reannealing of the Heart Ties: The Rhetoric of Anglo-American Kinship and the Politics of Reconciliation in the Prince of Wales’s 1860 Tour SKYE MONTGOMERY Journal of the Civil War Era Vol. 6, No. 2 (JUNE 2016), pp. 193-219
JOURNAL ARTICLE Harriet Lane, First Lady: Hostess Extraordinary in Difficult Times
Homer T. Rosenberger Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. Vol. 66/68, The 46th separately bound book (1966/1968), pp. 102-153 Published by: Historical Society of Washington, D.C. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40067251 Page Count: 52
Her will of 1895, as modified by two codicils, one of 1899 and the other dated only a few months before her death, left $300,000 to the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia to establish a school for boys—“in loving memory of our sons.” Half the money was to be used for the school building, to be “begun” within six months after the Cathedral Foundation received the bequest and to be known as the Lane-Johnston Building. The other half was to be invested for the maintenance of the school. The will added, “It is my wish that the said school shall be conducted and the said fund applied to provide specially for the free maintenance, education and training of choirboys, primarily for those in the service of the Cathedral.” stalbansschool.org https://www.stalbansschool.org/about/history/our-founder-harriet-lane-johnston
Buchanan, James. (1910). “The Works of James Buchanan, Vol. collected and edited by John Bassett Moore Vol. XI 1800-1868. Philadelpha & London: J. P. Lippincott Co. archive.org 26 January 1997 Web. 5 January 2020 https://archive.org/details/DKC0085/page/n2
p. 3 Buchanan Queen Victoria exchange re Prince of Wales visit to the United States archive.org 26 January 1997 Web. 5 January 2020 https://archive.org/details/DKC0085/page/n23 HLJ JB Victorian 1860-1.png
* wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 5 January 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace Harriet wrote on May 4th her confidant Lily Macalester: You have heard, dear Lily, of our long & boisterous voyage. Everything is as comfortable and agreeable as possible, about my home – all things promise to me a pleasant visit.
After five days in the Old Country Harriet had some sharp opinions on the sub-standard caliber of Lord-ly honored public speakers:
Last evening we went to a Literary Club dinner – the ladies of course in the gallery. I was disappointed in the speaking – we had expected several distinguished speakers but only heard Lord Mahon, & Lord Stanley both men of talent. – Lord Mahon was the best speaker at the table – but he talked too much, and said too little. Lord Stanley talked a great deal, and said nothing. I was gratified to see the manner of conducting a public dinner here, but without doubt, our people are more prompt and eloquent – in fact, I have seen no improvements upon our country.
&
Friday 5. I was charmed at the Opera last night. Beethoven’s Fidelio was the piece. I heard the great Cravelli, and think her superb – the music is grand & effective.
Mr. Peabody’s box is opposite the Queen’s – she, Prince Albert, & two of the children were there. Mr P. is very kind – he had a large party of Americans last evening – and seems ready to entertain any who come
I only arrived here on Saturday evening (April 29th) and until presented to the Queen, will not be fairly in the “London world.”
My court-dress is now absorbing most of my attention, as I will be presented this day next week (11th). This is rather intense as I must act entirely for myself. . .I go to decide upon it today.” she wrote her confidant Lilly on May 4th.
Tomorrow and Saturday I go to dinner parties, and I suppose will be fairly launched in the gay world, after next week.
I had a glimpse of the Queen yesterday – she held a Levee (gentleman alone) at St. James! Lady Owsley took me to the Park, where we had an excellent view of all the Royal procession – The Life-guards are splendid looking men – mounted upon black horses – the Queen’s band played – of course, I was very much entertained – but I could scarcely convince myself that it was the ruler of this great kingdom- approaching – the glitter was so great it appeared like a grand show.
*
I must write you, dear Lily, though, as yet I have not much of interest to relate, concerning myself. – I only arrived here on Saturday evening (April 29th) and until presented to the Queen, will not be fairly in the “London world.” Everything is as comfortable and agreeable as possible, about my home – all things promise to me a pleasant visit. Uncle met me on the Ship at Liverpool & is looking remarkably well, & in good spirits – is as kind and good as possible & decidedly the most elegant looking man I have seen since I left home. My court-dress is now absorbing most of my attention, as I will be presented this day week (11th). This is rather intense as I must act entirely for myself. . .I go to decide upon it today.”
Last evening we went to a Literary Club dinner – the ladies of course in the gallery. I was disappointed in the speaking – we had expected several distinguish speaker but only heard Lord Mahon, & Lord Stanley both men of talent. – Lord Mahon was the best speaker at the table – but he talked too much, and said to little. Lord Stanly talked a great deal, and said nothing. I was gratified to see the manner of conducting a public dinner here, but without doubt, our people are more prompt and eloquent – in fact, I have seen no improvements upon our country, except in servants, – here they are most respectful and respectable.
Tonight I go to the Opera, with Mr Peabody and a party he has formed for me. He is a younger looking man than I had expected to see, & seems very good and kind-hearted.
Tomorrow and Saturday I go to dinner parties, and I suppose will be fairly launched in the gay world, after next week.
“My court-dress is now absorbing MOST of my ATTENTION as I will be presented this day week (11th). This is rather intense as I must act entirely for myself. . .I go to decide upon it today.”
He made very particular inquires about your good Father. Tomorrow and Saturday I go to dinner parties, and I suppose will be fairly launched in the gay world, after next week. I had a glimpse of the Queen yesterday – she held a Levee (gentleman alone) at St. James! Lady Oasily took me to the Park, where we had an excellent view of all the Royal procession – The Life-guards are splendid looking men – mounted upon black horses – the Queen’s band played – of course, I was very much entertained – but I could scarcely convince myself that it was the ruler of this great kingdom- approaching the glitter was so great it appeared like a grand show.
From the carriage, she struck me as being handsome, but she is not generally considered so. Your friend Mr Corbon is here from Paris – his stay will be short – he is to be here this morning – unfortunately I will not see him, as I am obliged to go out. You know Mr Holford is dead.
You have heard, dear Lily, of our long & boisterous voyage – a fortnight reaching London. – two weeks. I have not ceased to mourn over the pleasant evening, I with you all, I was deprived of, when first we started.
Friday 5. I was charmed at the Opera last night. Beethoven’s Fidelio was the piece. I heard the great Cravelli, and think her superb – the music is grand & effective.
Mr Peabody’s box is opposite the Queen’s – she, Prince Albert, & two of the children were there. Mr P. is very kind – he had a large party of Americans last evening – and seems ready to entertain any who come, give my warmest love to Dame Trip – tell her I read the little book every day, and think it sweet. I gaze upon my daguerre’s with much tenderness, and is the kindness which gave them. Uncle is laboriously occupied writing all the time – in fact, too much confined. I hope you have written me, dear Lily, ere this – I will have the blues, if every steamer does not bring me some affectionate effusion and could you know the value of a single line, when so far separated from every home association, I know you would write often. I sincerely hope you safely recovered from your cold. My love to Mr M. tell him the gingerbread was very acceptable. Love to grandma and Mrs [illegible name] – and do write me often, dear Lily – I hope my next letter will be more U. S. Legation, London. May 4. 1854.
[cross-written in the top margin of the fist page] interesting for you. I have no doubt Uncle would send some message – but as the dispatch lay very close – I cannot wait for any tender words interesting as I know they would be to you. If you see Mrs Plitt tell her I am well – as I have not time to write her this mail. Love to every one & believe me ever dear Lily your sincerely affectionate Hattie Capt West is a glorious fellow – I [never met?] a more agreeable escort. [letter sent to Lily Macalester] Title: Letter from Harriet Lane to Lily Macalester Date: Thursday May 4, 1854 Location: I-Friends-2001-5 archives.dickinson.edu 9 September 2012 Web. 2 February 2020 http://archives.dickinson.edu/sites/all/files/files_document/I-Friends-2001-5b.pdf archives.dickinson.edu 9 September 2012 Web. 2 February 2020 http://archives.dickinson.edu/archives-people/macalester-lily
** Because her uncle caused a stir the year before when he presented himself before the Houses of Parliament for wearing merely his black suit, Harriet prepared for her debut
** When May 11th came, Harriet stepped before the Queen and Prince Albert – likely wearing her domed and bell-shaped hoop skirt, supported by crinoline petticoats, with deep flounces or tiers, long bloomers and pantaloons trimmed with lace.
With judging eyes all around, she descended gracefully in a low slow perfect bow before Victoria then, ascending back up.
Photographic portrait of American journalist and author Mary Clemmer [Ames] Hudson (1831-1884). From American Women: Fifteen Hundred Biographies with Over 1,400 Portraits, Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore, editors. Mast, Crowell & Kirkpatrick, 1897 (revised edition from 1893), vol. 1, p. 400
Capital, As a Women Sees Them.” Hartford, CT: A.D. Worthington & Co. Grace, light and majestry seemed to make her atmosphere. Every motion was instinct with life, health and intelligence. Her superb physique gave the impression of intense. harmonious vitalty. Her eyes of deep violet, shed a constant, steady light, yet they could flash with rebuke, kind kindle with humor,or soften in tenderness. Her mouth was most peculiarly beautiful feature, capable of expressing infinite humor of absolute sweetness, while her classic head was crowned with masses of golden hair, always worn with perfect simplicity. p. 233 books.google.com 24 November 2005 Web. 5 January 2020
The Works of James Buchanan Comprising his Speeches, State Papers, and Private Correspondence. Collected and Edited By John Bassett Moore Vol. 9 (1853-1855) babel.hathitrust.org 6 December 2009 Web. 5 January 2020 https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000367615
p. 151 to HL Feb 21, 1854 Acquaints her with arrangements for their trip to England p. 158 & 159 to HLJ p. 275 to HLJ Nov. 4, 1854 p. 310 January 20, 1855 advises HJ as to her visit to England p. 393 Aug. 20 & 23 1855 to HLJ p. 395 to HLJ Aug 28, 1855 advises on personal matters To Miss Lane, October 12 424 Comments on personal matters.
To Miss Lane, October 19 426 back home Comments on personal matters.
The Works of James Buchanan Comprising his Speeches, State Papers, and Private Correspondence. Collected and Edited By John Bassett Moore Vol. 10 (1856-1860). Philadelphia & London: J. B. Lippincott Company. babel.hathitrust.org 6 December 2009 Web. 5 January 2020 https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000367615
10 June – the Crystal Palace reopens in Sydenham, south London[4] with life-size dinosaur models in the grounds.
Title The “Crystal Palace” from the Great Exhibition, installed at The “Crystal Palace” from the Great Exhibition, installed at Sydenham: sculptures of prehistoric creatures in the foreground. Coloured photo-mechanical print, later than 1854?. wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 5 January 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Palace_Dinosaurs
* The poem was written after the Light Cavalry Brigade suffered great casualties in the Battle of Balaclava. Tennyson wrote the poem based on two articles published in The Times: the first, published on 13 November 1854, contained the sentence “The British soldier will do his duty, even to certain death, and is not paralyzed by the feeling that he is the victim of some hideous blunder,” the last three words of which provided the inspiration for his phrase “Some one had blunder’d.”[3] The poem was written in a few minutes on December 2 of the same year, based on a recollection of The Times’s account;[4] Tennyson wrote other similar poems, like “Riflemen Form!”, in a very similar manner.[5] wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 5 January 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade_(poem)
*
The Victoria & Albert Museum writes of 1850s women’s dress: “In the 1850s, women’s skirts were domed and bell-shaped, supported by crinoline petticoats. They often featured deep flounces or tiers. Long bloomers and pantaloons trimmed with lace were popular. Tiered cape-jackets were fashionable, as were paisley patterned shawls. Deep bonnets were worn and hair was swept into buns or side coils from a center parting.” Victorian Magazine summarizes women’s fashion of the 1850s, writing: “The mid-nineteenth century lady was a vision of elegance and grace in a beautiful Victorian dress lavishly trimmed with frills, flounces, lace, braid, fringe, ruche and ribbons. The fashion conscious Victorian lady created this appearance with a mysterious combination of the “uncomfortable and inconvenient” with the “frivolous and decorative.” Numerous heavy petticoats, layers of underclothes, a metal hoop skirt, tight corsets worn under-pointed boned bodices of whalebone and steel were hidden by an array of ornately accented under-sleeves, collars, pelerines, fans, gloves, hats, and parasols. The finished look was of elegance and grace with an illusion of ease and comfort.” https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1850-1859/
Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805–1873) Blue pencil.svg wikidata:Q168659 Franz Xaver Winterhalter: The Empress Eugenie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting Title English: The Empress Eugenie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting Deutsch: Eugénie von Frankreich mit ihren Hofdamen Français : L’impératrice Eugénie entourée de ses dames d’honneur Object type painting Genre portrait Description Français : Portrait collectif avec l’impératrice Eugénie de Montijo, la baronne de Pierres, la princesse d’Essling, la vicomtesse de Lezay-Marnésia, la marquise de Montebello, la duchesse de Bassano, la baronne de Malaret, la marquise de Las Marismas et la marquise de Latour-Maubourg Depicted people Eugénie de Montijo Pauline van der Linden d’Hooghvorst Date 1855 Medium oil on canvas Dimensions Height: 300 cm (118.1 ″); Width: 420 cm (13.7 ft) Collection Musée du Second Empire, Compiègne) commons.wikimedia.org 5 June 2004 Web. 5 January 2020 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winterhalter_Franz_Xavier_The_Empress_Eugenie_Surrounded_by_her_Ladies_in_Waiting.jpg
Jan-June 1855 Skating On The Grounds Of The Crystal Palace: Very Large Folding Illustration Arrival Of The Emperor And Empress Of The French At Windsor Castle, The Fountains At The Crystal Palace: *
p. 125 England is in a state of mourning for the loss of so many of her brave sons in the Crimea. The approaching “season” will, in consequence, be dull and this I shall bear with Christian fortitude. The duller the better for me, but not so for Harriet. She has enjoyed herself very much, and made many friends, but I do not see any bright prospect of her marriage
p. 147 commemoration loud cheers check with newspapers
p. 152 Oct 1855 Harriet leaving, Mrs Sturgis presenting with a watermelon p. 153. every one says nice things about Harriet p. 155 Henry Bedinger – Dutchess of Somerset p. 159 death of sister
p. 168 JB leaving queen remember to HOLJ and Marquis of Lansdowne lay at her feet
** There they would start each day at the breakfast table discussing the latest news over the tall pages of their open newspapers. Increasingly Nunc saw progress – much progress in his Pygmalion niece.
Once she was enrolled at the Visitation Academy School on the outskirts of Washington, he permitted her to join him at his F Street home for one weekend of each month, gradually exposing her to the social circles of the political elite. (1847-1849)
** Source of “Hal” nickname for Harriet Lane and “Nunc” for James Buchanan
Unique among first ladies, Harriet Lane acted as hostess for the only president who never married. James Buchanan was her favorite uncle and her guardian after she was orphaned at the age of eleven. And of all the ladies of the White House, few achieved such great success in deeply troubled times as this polished young woman in her 20s.
She was born in 1830 in the rich farming country of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Her uncle supervised her sound education in private school, completed by two years at the Visitation Convent in Georgetown. By this time “Nunc” was secretary of state, and he introduced her to fashionable circles. In 1854 she joined him in London, where he was minister to the Court of St. James’s. Queen Victoria gave “dear Miss Lane” the rank of ambassador’s wife; admiring suitors gave her the fame of a beauty.
“Hal” Lane enlivened social gatherings with a mixture of spontaneity and poise. After the sadness of the Pierce administration, the capital welcomed its “Democratic Queen” in 1857. Harriet Lane filled the White House with gaiety and flowers, and guided its social life with enthusiasm and discretion, winning national popularity.
As sectional tensions increased, she sat formal dinner parties with care, giving dignitaries proper precedence while keeping political foes apart. Her task became impossible. Seven states had seceded by the time Buchanan retired from office. He thankfully returned with his niece to his spacious country home, Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The popular Miss Lane flirted happily with numerous beaux, but waited until she was almost 36 to marry. Within the next 18 years she faced one sorrow after another: the loss of her uncle, her two fine young sons, and her husband.
She decided to live in Washington, among friends made during happier years. She had acquired a sizable art collection, largely of European works, which she bequeathed to the government. Accepted after her death in 1903, it inspired an official of the Smithsonian Institution to call her the “First Lady of the National Collection of Fine Arts.”
Harriet also dedicated a generous sum to endow a home for invalid children at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. It became an outstanding pediatric facility, and its reputation is a fitting memorial to the young lady who presided at the White House with such dignity and charm. The Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics serve thousands of children today. whitehousehistory.org 2 December 1998 Web. 15 January 2020 https://www.whitehousehistory.org/bios/harriet-lane
(1).
Sarah Polk portrait This oil on canvas painting of First Lady Sarah Polk was completed by artist George Dury in 1883, 34 years after President James Polk’s term ended. Dury modeled his portrait after George P. A. Healy’s 1846 portrait of Mrs. Polk. 2 December 1998 Web. 15 January 2020 https://www.whitehousehistory.org/photos/fotoware?id=0353A0262CD940B8%20A317A2D4D507083D
Engraving of Harriet Lane as First Lady as appeared in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated weekly October, 1860. by Charles D. Fredricks Albumen silver print Image: 8.8 x 5.4 cm Mount: 10.2 x 6.1 cm 1985.1232.0001
Simple dress controversy: In Mr. Buchanan’s case, “the simple dress of an American citizen” was an affair of very easy determination. He wore at all times the kind of dress in which his figure appears in the frontispiece of the present volume; and his personal dignity was quite sufficient to make that dress appropriate anywhere. Although he was a democrat of democrats, and cared little for show of any kind, he was accustomed to pay that deference to the usages of society which a gentleman is always anxious to observe, and to which no one knew better than he how to accommodate himself. He was the last man in the world to attach undue importance to trifles, and it may well be supposed he was annoyed, when he found rather suddenly that the circular of the Secretary was about to cause a serious difficulty in regard to his position at the British court. The first intimation he had of this difficulty is described in a despatch which he wrote to Mr. Marcy on the 28th of October.
No. 13. Legation, Etc., London, October 28, 1853.
Sir:—
I deem it proper, however distasteful the subject may be, both to you and myself, to relate to you a conversation which I had on Tuesday last with Major-General Sir Edward Oust, the master of ceremonies at this court, concerning my court costume. I met him at the Traveller’s Club, and after an introduction, your circular on this subject became the topic of conversation. He expressed much opposition to my appearance at court “in the simple dress of an American citizen.” I said that such was the wish of my own Government and I intended to conform to it, unless the queen herself would intimate
(108) her desire that I should appear in costume. In that event, I should feel inclined to comply with her majesty’s wishes. He said that her majesty would not object to receive me at court in any dress I chose to put on; but whilst he had no authority to speak for her, he yet did not doubt it would be disagreeable to her if I did not conform to the established usage. He said I could not of course expect to be invited to court balls or court dinners where all appeared in costumes; that her majesty never invited the bishops to balls, not deeming it compatible with their character; but she invited them to concerts, and on these occasions, as a court dress was not required, I would also be invited. He grew warm by talking, and said that, whilst the queen herself would make no objections to my appearance at court in any dress I thought proper, yet the people of England would consider it presumption. I became somewhat indignant in my turn, and said that whilst I entertained the highest respect for her majesty, and desired to treat her with the deference which was eminently her due, yet it would not make the slightest difference to me, individually, whether I ever appeared at court.
He stated that in this country an invitation from the queen was considered a command.
I paid no attention to this remark, but observed that the rules of etiquette at the British court were more strict even than in Kussia. Senator Douglas of the United States had just returned from St. Petersburg. When invited to visit the czar in costume, he informed Count Nesselrode that he could not thus appear. The count asked him in what dress he appeared before the President of the United States. Mr. Douglas answered in the dress he then wore. The count, after consulting the emperor, said that was sufficient, and in this plain dress he visited the emperor at the palace and on parade, and had most agreeable conversations with him on both occasions.
Sir Edward then expressed his gratification at having thus met me accidentally,—said he had just come to town for that day and should leave the next morning, but would soon do himself the honor of calling upon me.
Although he disclaimed speaking by the authority of the queen, yet it appeared both to myself and Colonel Lawrence, who was present, that they must have had some conversation in the court circle on the subject. I entertain this belief the more firmly, as Sir Edward has since talked to a member of this legation in the same strain.
So then, from present appearances, it is probable I shall be placed socially in Coventry on this question of dress, because it is certain that should her majesty not invite the American minister to her balls and dinners, he will not be invited to the balls and dinners of her courtiers. This will be to me, personally, a matter of not the least importance, but it may deprive me of the opportunity of cultivating friendly and social relations with the ministers and other courtiers which I might render available for the purpose of obtaining important information and promoting the success of my mission.
I am exceedingly anxious to appear “at court in the simple dress of an American citizen;” and this not only because it accords with my own taste,
(109)
but because it is certain that if the minister to the court of St. James should appear in uniform, your circular will become a dead letter in regard to most, if not all, the other ministers and charge’s of our country in Europe.
The difficulty in the present case is greatly enhanced by the fact that the sovereign is a lady, and the devotion of her subjects towards her partakes of a mingled feeling of loyalty and gallantry. Any conduct, therefore, on my part which would look like disrespect towards her personally could not fail to give great offence to the British people. . . . James Buchanan to Harriet Lane Curtis, George T. (1883). “Life of James Buchanan: Fifteenth President of the United States, Volume 2.” New York, NY: Harper Brothers. books.google.com 24 November 2005 Web. 5 January 2020 pp. 107-109.
early in February, (1854), Parliament was to be opened by the queen in person. Mr. Buchanan did not attend the ceremony; and thereupon there was an outery in the London press. The following extract from a despatch to Mr. Marcy gives a full account of the whole matter, up to the date:
You will perceive by the London journals, the Times, the Morning Post, the News, the Morning Herald, the Spectator, the Examiner, Lloyd’s, &c, &c., copies of which I send you, that my absence from the House of Lords, at the opening of Parliament, has produced quite a sensation. Indeed, I have found difficulty in preventing this incident from becoming a subject of inquiry and remark in the House of Commons. All this is peculiarly disagreeable to me, and has arisen entirely from an indiscreet and rather offensive remark of the London Times, in the account which that journal published of the proceedings at the opening of Parliament, But for this, the whole matter would probably have passed away quietly, as I had desired.
pp. 110-111
James Buchanan to his niece Harriet as she prepares to come to England: London, December 9, 1853.
Mr Dear Harriet:—
I received your favor of the 14th ultimo in due time, and thank you for the information it contained, all of which was interesting to me.
In regard to your coming to London with Colonel Lawrence and his lady, should he be married in February next, I have this to say: Your passage at that season of the year would, unless by a happy accident, be stormy and disagreeable, though not dangerous. I have scarcely yet recovered from the effects of the voyage, and should you be as bad a sailor as myself, and have a rough passage, it might give your constitution a shock. The month of April would be a much more agreeable period to cross the Atlantic; and you would still arrive here in time for the most fashionable and longer part of the fashionable season.
The cholera epidemic in London:
It is my duty to inform you that a general conviction prevails here, on the part of Lord Palmerston, the secretary of the interior, and the distinguished physicians, as well as among the intelligent people, that the cholera will be very bad in London and other parts of England during the latter part of the next summer and throughout the autumn. They are now making extensive preparations, and adopting extensive sanitary measures to render the mortality as small as possible. The London journals contain articles on the subject almost every day. Their reason for this conviction is,—that we have just had about as many cases of cholera during the past autumn, as there were during the autumn in a former year, preceding the season when it raged so extensively and violently. Now this question will be for your own consideration. I think it my duty to state the facts, and it will be for you to decide whether you will postpone your visit until the end of the next autumn for this reason, or at least until we shall see whether the gloomy anticipations here are likely to be realized.
I still anticipate difficulty about my costume; but should this occur, it will probably continue throughout my mission. It is, therefore, no valid reason why you should postpone your visit. In that event you must be prepared to share my fate. So far as regards the consequences to myself, I do not care a button for them; but it would mortify me very much to see you treated differently from other ladies in your situation.
If this costume affair should not prove an impediment, I feel that I shall get along very smoothly here. The fashionable world, with the exception of the high officials, are all out of London, and will remain absent until the last of February or beginning of March. I have recently been a good deal in the society of those who are now here, and they all seem disposed to treat me very kindly, especially the ladies. Their hours annoy me very much. My invitations to dinner among them are all for a quarter before eight, which means about half-past that hour. There is no such thing as social visiting here of an evening. This is all done between two and six in the afternoon, if such, visits may be called social. I asked Lady Palmerston what was meant by the word “early ” placed upon her card of invitation for an evening reception, and she informed me it was about ten o’clock. The habits, and customs, and business of the world here render these hours necessary. But how ridiculous it is in our country, where no such necessity exists, to violate the laws of nature in regard to hours, merely to follow the fashions of this country.
Should you be at Mr. Ward’s, I would thank you to present my kind love to Miss Ellen. I hope you will not forget the interests of Eskridge in that quarter. You inform me that Sallie Grier and Jennie Pleasanton were about to be married. I desire to be remembered with special kindness to Mrs. Jenkins. I can never forget “The Auld Lang Syne” with her and her family. Give my love also to Kate Reynolds. Remember me to Miss Hetty, or as you would say, Miss Hettie, for whom I shall ever entertain a warm regard. I send this letter open to Eskridge, so that he may read it and send it to your direction. From your affectionate uncle, NOTE: Kate Reynolds lived in Shepherdstown).
Resolution of simple dress controversy: London, February 18th, 1854. My Dear Harriet:—
I dined on Wednesday last with the queen, at Buckingham Palace. Both she and Prince Albert were remarkably civil, and I had quite a conversation with each of them separately. But the question of costume still remains: and from this I anticipate nothing but trouble in several directions. I was invited “in frock-dress” to the dinner, and of course I had no difficulty. To-morrow will be the first levee of the queen, and my appearance there in a suit of plain clothes will, I have no doubt, produce quite a sensation, and become a subject of gossip for the whole court.
London, February 24,1854. Mr. Peabody handed me at the dinner-table the enclosed, which he made me promise to send to you. Mr. Macalester had mentioned your name to him.
The dress question, after much difficulty, has been finally and satisfactorily settled. I appeared at the levee on Wednesday last, in just such a dress as I have worn at the President’s one hundred times. A black coat, white waistcoat and cravat and black pantaloons and dress boots, with the addition of a very plain black-handled and black-hilted dress sword. This to gratify those who have yielded so much, and to distinguish me from the upper court servants. I knew that I would be received in any dress I might wear; but could not have anticipated that I should be received in so kind and distinguished a manner. Having yielded they did not do things by halves. As I approached the queen, an arch but benevolent smile lit up her countenance;— as much as to say, you are the first man who ever appeared before me at court in such a dress. I confess that I never felt more proud of being an American than when I stood in that brilliant circle, “in the simple dress of an American citizen.” I have no doubt the circular is popular with a majority of the people of England. Indeed, many of the most distinguished members of Parliament have never been at court, because they would not wear the prescribed costume.
Curtis, George T. (1883). “Life of James Buchanan: Fifteenth President of the United States, Volume 2.” New York, NY: Harper Brothers. books.google.com 24 November 2005 Web. 5 January 2020
Personal guidance from James Buchanan to his niece soon to arrtive in London
The first wish of my heart is to see you comfortably and respectably settled in life; but ardently as I desire this, you ought never to marry any person for whom you think you would not have a proper degree of affection. You inform me of your conquest, and I trust it may be of such a character as will produce good fruit.
** Nunc nickname for James Buchanan source When James Buchanan became the first bachelor President, various rumors circulated in Washington society about the unusual situation. One tale told the story of a youthful Buchanan who had vowed never to marry when a misunderstanding with his fiancée caused her suicide. Another more persistent account cited Buchanan’s longtime relationship with the also unmarried Senator William Rufus Devane King from Alabama. The two had lived together in Washington for sixteen years, and letters between them indicate that Buchanan and King had, at the very least, shared a deep friendship. In any event, Buchanan was without a wife but not at a loss for female companionship. He surrounded himself with the wives of his friends and political advisers and contented himself with the company of his ward and niece, Harriet Lane.
**”Nunc,” as Harriet referred to him, had educated his niece about the importance of politics, discussing political issues with her. When James Buchanan became President, he asked Harriet to assume the duties of presidential hostess.
The role did not intimidate the twenty-seven-year-old. When her uncle served as ambassador to Britain, Harriet experienced life at the British court and became a favorite of Queen Victoria. During James Buchanan’s 1856 campaign for the presidency, Harriet hosted events which helped promote his bid for office. Thus, when Harriet entered the White House, she took up her duties with great confidence. Although she pursued no one special project, Harriet used her position to draw attention to the fine arts. She invited artists to her events and began to lobby for a national art gallery. Interest in art spurred another passion. During her time in England, Harriet began to study, collect, and promote Native American arts at a time when the arts of Africa and Asia were generating interest in the West. Her appreciation of indigenous artistic expression led to her tolerance of minorities in general and to her interest in the welfare of Native Americans in particular. She worked with reformers to educate lawmakers about the medical and educational needs of the various tribes and tried to stop the sale of liquor on the reservations. Because of her efforts, the Chippewa Nation heralded her as the “Great Mother of the Indians.”If Harriet Lane was a “Great Mother” to some, she was a “Democratic Queen” to many others. After four years of the sad and dour Jane Pierce, Americans were ready for a vivacious social leader. Harriet Lane did not disappoint them. Her inaugural gown marked her as a fashion icon, and her penchant for carrying bouquets of roses and vacationing at exclusive spas made her a glamorous figure. Her youth and beauty captivated an American public which named flowers, perfumes, poems, and clothing for her, treating her as American royalty. But some soon wondered if their “Democratic Queen” would actually become Queen of England. In 1860, Edward Albert, the Prince of Wales, paid a visit to the United States. His trip was followed closely by the press, which noted that the couple toured Mount Vernon, danced together, and played games of tenpins. But even as Harriet entertained English royalty, she was more than a social hostess for her uncle; she was in many ways James Buchanan’s partner. He clearly appreciated Harriet’s role and accorded her all the prestige enjoyed by a presidential spouse. Despite the pair’s closeness, the relationship at times grew strained. Harriet never appreciated having to entertain suitors with “Nunc” looking on, and she resented him opening her mail. Her discontent was evident when, in 1859, she took a three-month summer vacation from the capital and the President.
Despite their differences, Harriet remained an important source of support for her uncle during the sectional crisis. Like most Americans, Harriet had been aware of the increasing tensions in the country. It appears that she privately opposed slavery and Southern secession, though she worried about the country’s economic future if the “peculiar institution” were abolished. Publicly, however, she remained silent on the issue of slavery and insisted that her guests follow her example. Her social skills began to serve a political purpose as she manipulated complex seating arrangements at dinner parties and entertainments, keeping political foes apart and dispensing equal favor to all. Unfortunately, her efforts at keeping the peace at White House social gatherings translated neither into a smooth presidency for her uncle nor into peace for the nation. Indeed, the commencement of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln’s valiant and successful struggle to save the Union, as well as the shrewishness of Mary Todd Lincoln, have eclipsed both the presidency of James Buchanan and the tenure of Harriet Lane. millercenter.org 6 March 2005 Web. 4 February 2020 https://millercenter.org/president/buchanan/essays/lane-1857-firstlady
“At White House receptions,” said Mrs. Young, “and on all state occasions, the sight of this stately beauty, standing beside her distinguished grey-haired uncle, made a unique and delightful contrast which thousands flocked to see.” Admirers copied her hair and clothing styles, and innumerable little girls were named for her. She was particularly flattered when the popular song “Listen to the Mockingbird” was dedicated to her. Harriet also began the tradition for First Ladies to promote a special cause and with Miss Lane it was improving the living conditions of American Indians on reservations. She also was intentional in inviting promising and talented artists and musicians to the White House.
Mrs. Young was effusive in her praise of the young woman. “Her eyes, of deep violet, shed a constant, steady light, yet they could flash with rebuke, kindle with humor, or soften in tenderness. Her mouth was her most peculiarly-beautiful features, capable of expressing infinite humor or absolute sweetness, while her classic head was crowned with masses of golden hair.” Another honor she received was when a warship was named for her but when she entertained a group of friends on the ship at a private party, her uncle was not so happy. The president as well as the press chided her because of her inappropriate use of government property.
Since the sectional differences that would culminate in the Civil War meant opposing political factions, these were reflected in the White House guests. It meant Harriet had to be particularly careful in her planning to assure proper diplomats precedence and also to keep political foes separated. Eventually as emotions about the current issues became more intense she often could not please everyone.
In 1860 the year before her uncle left office, Harriet welcomed the Prince of Wales (Later King Edward VII) to the White House as he toured America. Though dancing was not a part of the entertainment at that time, there was abundant music and an elegant atmosphere suitable for visiting royalty. According to Mrs. Young, the Prince “presented his portrait to Mr. Buchanan and a set of engravings to Miss Lane, as ‘a slight mark of his grateful recollection of the hospitable reception and agreeable visit at the White House.’ “ The bedroom occupied by the future king was known for many years as the Prince of Wales room, though the chamber attained another place in history when Willie Lincoln died there in 1862. civilwarballgowns.com 12 October 2007 Web. 4 February 2020 https://www.civilwarballgowns.com/blog/2014/12/16/harriet-lane
Martin Delany to Africa – To Be More than Equal 2, Enthralls West Africa – summer, 1859 youtu.be/AiSi7oDRM0k
Martin Delany to Africa – To Be More Than Equal 2 Credits 38:59 youtu.be/EqQYMkiKrgk
Martin Delany to Africa – To Be More Than Equal 3 19:52 (end of voice and some music fade out) youtu.be/UnDvxC0dEcM
Martin Delany to Africa – To Be More Than Equal 3 Credits 34:19 youtu.be/66yJR6mvWKE
This is a 3-part of a series about Martin Delany, born in 1812 in Charles Town, then Virginia going on to be the first African-American field officer in the U.S. Army, organizer in 1859 of a year long scientific expedition in West Africa, Harvard educated physician, co-editor of The North Start with Frederick Douglass, author of several books including one of the very first important novels by an African-American. It was called “Blake: The Huts of American,” the story of a traveling insurrectionist serialized in the Anglo-African magazine in 1858-1860. After Lincoln met him in February, 1865 in the White House, the President immediately sent a memo to his Secretary of War, stating: “Do not fail to have an interview with this most intelligent and extraordinary black man.”
With Sonny Luckett as Martin Delany
Made possible with the generous, community-minded support of American Public University System (apus.edu) to encourage fact-based discussion into the foundational issues from which our nation has evolved.
BEGIN MRD 3 Flickr file – 20230205820af53f52d861a6cef0e5fc51d4c8dfb37f8576eb1e58fd91a47a815c47ad23
Piano Introduction is “Lamplight” by Vandaliariver.com 0:00-0:45
(Dahomean women warrior song) “The enemy is on the tip of my machete.” Delany wrote his rich, do-gooder friends in England to not even THINK about sending money to the Dahomey. (Dahomean women warrior song continued) “we’re going to cut him into small pieces.” (Delany) “For the sake of humanity” he wrote. Dahomey was notoriously focused on war, slave hunts, mass human sacrifice and beheadings. Farming and trades were scorned in favor of conquests and plunder from twice-a-year slave hunts, their source of money. 5,000 elite, fierce women warriors formed the core. Martin Delany planned his trip for mid-August, 1859 to Abeokuta – the walled city that protected against slavers. He postponed. A mass human sacrifice was done in July in which the Dahomeans used the blood of 2,000 victims to fill a ditch with enough blood “to float a canoe” Every August this “Grand Custom” used this blood to “water the graves” of past Kings.
0:47 – Dahomean women singing – Channel 4 is a British public broadcast service. Lupita Nyong’o Meets Real Warrior Women Nov 3, 2019 youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0TGKiMiZ68 over images 1-20 to 2:19 ;
Images 1-6 – Channel 4 is a British public broadcast service. Lupita Nyong’o Meets Real Warrior Women Nov 3, 2019 youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0TGKiMiZ68Image 2Image 3Image 4Image 5Image 6Images 7-13 – Credit Chris Hellier/Getty ImagesImages 14 – Credit Chris Hellier/Getty ImagesImage 15 – Credit Chris Hellier/Getty ImagesImage 16 – Credit Chris Hellier/Getty ImagesImage 17 – Credit Chris Hellier/Getty ImagesImage 18 – Credit Chris Hellier/Getty ImagesImage 19 – Credit Chris Hellier/Getty ImagesImage 20 – Forbes, Frederick E. (1851), “Dahomey and the Dahomans.” Vol. 1 London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, library.si.edu library.si.edu/digital-library/book/dahomeydahomansb00forb Amazon facing p. 23 archive.org archive.org/details/dahomeydahomansb00forb/page/n41/mode/…Image 21 – Forbes, Frederick E. (1851), “Dahomey and the Dahomans.” Vol. 1 London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, library.si.edu facing page 81 archive.org archive.org/details/dahomeydahomansb00forb/page/81/mode/1…
Delany responding to the news of the 1859 Grand Custom:
On subsidizing the King of Dahomi: There is some talk by Christians and philanthropists in Great Britain of subsidizing the King of Dahomi. I hope for the sake of humanity, our race, and the cause of progressive civilization, this most injurious measure of compensation for wrong, never will be resorted to nor attempted.
To make such an offering just at a time when we are about to establish a policy of self-regeneration in Africa, which may, by example and precept, effectually check forever the nefarious system, and reform the character of these people, would be to offer inducements to that monster to continue, and a license to other petty chiefs to commence the traffic in human beings, to get a reward of subsidy.
2:29 – Sona Jobarteh & Band Kora from West Africa over images 22-34 to 3:52 Hochschule für Musik FRANZ LISZT Weimar Sonah Jobarteh – Acoustic Guitar/ Kora/ Vocals Maurice Brown – Acoustic Guitar Andi McLean – Electric Bass/ BVs Mouhamadou Sarr – Djembe/ Congas/ Calabash/ BVs youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig91Z0-rBfo
After the Dehomeans cooled off, Delany with his cook and guide, William Johnson, both on horseback started for Abeokuta. But then a civil war all over Yoruba drove them back to Lagos. “At least,” Delany wrote. “the climate was delightful.” Every person should rise early in Africa, as the air is then coolest, freshest, and purest; the sight and song of the numerous birds to be seen and heard, produce a healthful influence upon the mental and physical system.
Image 22 – After the Dehomeans cooled off, Delany with his cook and guide, William Johnson, both on horseback started for Abeokuta – Apple Maps – CAVALIER YOROUBA YORUBA HORSE AND RIDER – NIGERIA christies.com www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5572505 ; Image 23 – But then a civil war all over Yoruba drove them back to Lagos – Martin Delany – Martin R. Delany MOLLUS-Mass Civil War Photograph Collection Volume 74 usahec.org emu.usahec.org/alma/multimedia/174166/74_3659L.jpg ; Apple Maps ; Two native American men mounted on horses, in silhouette, gazing off into the distance, c1904. Photograph by Edward Curtis (1868-1952)Image 24 – “At least, Delany wrote: “The climate was delightful.” Same sources as Image 23
2:51 – soft waves and seagulls over images 25-30 to 3:52 Softest Beach Sounds from the Tropics – Ocean Wave Sounds for Sleeping, Yoga, Meditation, Study – Lounge V Films – Relaxing Music and Nature Sounds youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1T06UhcX0Q
Image 25 – “Every person should rise early in Africa, as the air is then coolest, freshest, and purest;” – The Africa We Don’t See on Tv · January 26, 2018 – Ivory Coast facebook.com www.facebook.com/theafricawedontseeontv/photos/pcb.150683… ; Two native American men mounted on horses, in silhouette, gazing off into the distance, c1904. Photograph by Edward Curtis (1868-1952). – Image ID: D98CRF ; Martin R. Delany MOLLUS-Mass Civil War Photograph Collection Volume 74 usahec.org emu.usahec.org/alma/multimedia/174166/74_3659L.jpg – All images in Image 25 AND – CAVALIER YOROUBA YORUBA HORSE AND RIDER – NIGERIA christies.com www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5572505Image 26 – “the sight and song of the numerous birds to be seen and heard,” – Same sources as Image 25 Image 27 – “produce a healthful influence upon the mental and physical system.” – Same sources as Image 26.
Bathing Bathing should be strictly observed by every person at least once every day. Each family should be provided with a large sponge, or one for each room if not for each person, and free application of water to the entire person, from head to foot, should be made every morning.
Early Rising—Breezes Every person should rise early in Africa, as the air is then coolest, freshest, and purest; besides the effect upon the senses, the sight and song of the numerous birds to be seen and heard, produce a healthful influence upon the mental and physical system. The land and sea-breezes blow regularly and constantly from half-past three o’clock p.m. till half-past ten o’clock a.m., when there is a cessation of about five hours till half-past three again.[Pg 322]
Never Sultry The evenings and mornings are always cool and pleasant, never sultry and oppressive with heat, as frequently in temperate climates during summer and autumn. This wise and beneficent arrangement of Divine Providence makes this country beautifully, in fact, delightfully pleasant; and I have no doubt but in a very few years, so soon as scientific black men, her own sons, who alone must be more interested in her development than any other take the matter in hand, and produce works upon the diseases, remedies, treatment, and sanitary measures of Africa, there will be no more contingency in going to Africa than any other known foreign country. I am certain, even now, that the native fever of Africa is not more trying upon the system, when properly treated, than the native fever of Canada, the Western and Southern States and Territories of the United States of America. –
Leaving Cape-Coast Castle – noon, September 20th. I took a spoonful dilution of sulphate of quinine 3x daily. The trip resumes. . . . Bees! Ever busy on every blossom! . . . air being freighted with fragrance; laden with “tons of beeswax” carried on their heads.
Delany, Martin R. (1861). “OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE NIGER VALLEY EXPLORING PARTY.” New York, T. Hamilton. “air being freighted with fragrance” from the flowers and aroma of the exuberant, rich, rank growth of vegetable matter. . . encountered many persons laden with “tons of beeswax” carried on their heads . . .bees are seen ever busy on every blossom, gathering their store, leaving laden with the rich delicacies of the blooming flowers p. 20 – hathitrust.org babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015003702209&vie…
Image 28 – Leaving Cape-Coast Castle – noon, September 20th – Cape Coast Castle, and Forts William, Victoria, and McCarthy, Gold Coast, mid-19th century. [Drawings of Western Africa, University of Virginia Library, Special Collections, MSS 14357, no 7] slaveryandremembrance.org slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0103Image 29 – I took a spoonful dilution of sulphate of quinine 3x daily – Martin R. Delany MOLLUS-Mass Civil War Photograph Collection Volume 74 usahec.org emu.usahec.org/alma/multimedia/174166/74_3659L.jpg ; Quinine sulphate bottle 1860-1910 in London collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co189273/qui… ; Medicine spoon 1701-1850 in Europe collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co130448/med… ; Picture of red blood cells infected with malaria parasites. The parasites look like rings inside the cells. SOURCE: CDC/Steven Glenn, Laboratory & Consultation Division emedicinehealth.com www.emedicinehealth.com/malaria/article_em.htmImage 30 – The trip resumes – Apple Maps ; Two native American men mounted on horses, in silhouette, gazing off into the distance, c1904. Photograph by Edward Curtis (1868-1952) ; Martin R. Delany – MOLLUS-Mass Civil War Photograph Collection Volume 74 usahec.org emu.usahec.org/alma/multimedia/174166/74_3659L.jpg and ahec.armywarcollege.edu ahec.armywarcollege.edu/
3:33 – single bee sounds over images 31-35 to 3:51 BEES BUZZING | Sound Effect [High Quality] May 30, 2016 Sound Effects youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHGt91cTSy4
3:51 – horses trot misc. over image 35 to 4:00 3:55 – over loping banjo by Shana Aisenberg over images 35-36 to 4:13 4:13 – Shana Aisenberg fast twleve-string guitar over image 37-41 to 4:46
Martin Delany William Johnson – He saw hundreds of acres in unbroken tracts of Indian white corn. Every day some of the boys of all sizes may be seen dashing along a road or over a plain at fearful speed on horseback. They are great vaulters and ankle-springers. The houses are built of unburnt clay which hardens in the sun, covered with a beautiful thatch-long, peculiar grass. Great affection exists between husband and wife, the women being mostly restricted to household work, trading, gathering in the fields, and aiding in carrying, whilst the men principally do the digging, planting, chopping, and other hard work. The children are also passionately beloved.
Image 35 – Kente linen – youramba.com youramba.com/blogs/news/50891267-history-and-glossary-of-… ; Two native American men mounted on horses, in silhouette, gazing off into the distance, c1904. Photograph by Edward Curtis (1868-1952)Image 36 – Delany saw hundreds of acres in unbroken tracts of Indian white corn, – CGIAR System Organization Maize farmers in Nigeria – Bello Abu Bakkar, maize farmer and president of the Nigerian Maize Association, amidst fellow farmers. Photo by C. de Bode/CGIAR flickr.com www.flickr.com/photos/cgiarconsortium/49083284276 ; man mounted on horses, in silhouette, gazing off into the distance, c1904. Photograph by Edward Curtis (1868-1952
4:13 – Shana Aisenberg playing fast twelve-string guitar over images 37- to 4:45
Image 40a. – and boys may frequently be seen to spring from the ground ; The Best flips – yayasylla842 Oct 22, 2019 Bolow Officiel youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLL5EkfEtsg
Image 41 – whirling twice—turning two summersets—before lighting on their feet. ; The Best flips – yayasylla842 Oct 22, 2019 Bolow Officiel youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLL5EkfEtsg ; man mounted on horses, in silhouette, gazing off into the distance, c1904. Photograph by Edward Curtis (1868-1952) ; Kente linen – youramba.com youramba.com/blogs/news/50891267-history-and-glossary-of-…
4:45 – FX chickens over images over image 42 to 4:55 4:45 – Sona Jobarteh Band over images 42-49 to 5:22
Image 42 – The houses are built of unburnt clay which hardens in the sun, covered with a beautiful thatch-long, peculiar grass ; HOW THEY’RE MADE: TRADITIONAL BUILDING SYSTEMS – SOUTH-WEST NIGERIA thedotmanka.wordpress.com thedotmanka.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/how-theyre-made-trad…
5:48 – Igbo Dance: “Ije nwayo” by Agbani-Nguru Ikorodo Group over images 53-56 to 6:26 Africana Digital Ethnography Project – youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=31Z2XhcA-ns
6:26 – Shana Aisenberg easy banjo over images 56-64 to 6:58 6:26 – common raven over images 56-60 to 6:36 6:27 – horse neigh over image 56 to 6:32 6:29 – gallop one horse over images 56-64 to 6:39
The fine Bornou, known as the Arabian horse, is a native of Africa, and raised in great numbers. Delany visits Yorubaland and its markets. All through the Yoruba country the palm tree is cultivated, trimmed and pruned, and never cut down, except when very old. Palm nuts turned into a fragrant and deliciously rich oil are used both for light and cooking.
Image 56 – The fine Bornou, known as the Arabian horse, is a native of Africa, and raised in great numbers. – Kente linen – youramba.com youramba.com/blogs/news/50891267-history-and-glossary-of-… ; Man mounted on horse, in silhouette, gazing off into the distance, c1904. Photograph by Edward Curtis (1868-1952); Bodyguard of the Sheikh of Bornu, early 1820s Africa’s Forgotten Cavalry Kingdoms by CuChullaine O’Reilly FRGS lrgaf.org www.lrgaf.org/historical/African Knights.htmImage 57 – Delany visits Yorubaland and its markets – Map of the Yoruba cultural area of West Africa, showing some settlements. 4 January 2016 Own work Bappah Licensing I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: w:en:Creative Commons attribution share alike en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorubaland#/media/File:Yorubaland_C… ; Lewis Arnold (Brigadier General), Albert Barney (Colonel), Martin Delany (Major) 74_3659L.jpg – MOLLUS-Mass Civil War Photograph Collection Volume 74 usahec.org emu.usahec.org/alma/multimedia/174166/74_3659L.jpgImage 58 – Sources same as Image 57 – Delany visits Yorubaland and its marketsImage 59 – Sources same as Image 57Image 60 – Sources same as Image 57
All through the Yoruba country the palm tree is cultivated, trimmed and pruned, and never cut down, except when very old. Palm nuts turned into a fragrant and deliciously rich oil are used both for light and cooking.
Image 61 – All through the Yoruba country the palm tree is cultivated, trimmed and pruned, and never cut down, except when very old. – Palm oil tree and nuts – 1897 Source List of Koehler Images AuthorFranz Eugen Köhler, Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaeis_guineensis
Image 62 – Palm nuts turned into a fragrant and deliciously rich oil are used both for light and cooking.
The history of the Yorubas: from the earliest times to the beginning of the British Protectorate by The Revd Samuel Johnson, d. 1901; Johnson, O. (Obadiah). first published in 1921 https://archive.org/details/historyofyorubas00john
6:59 – Powerful Oya songs (mother of changes) over images 65- to 8:46 Ministry of Miracles Healing School SB – youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U_lS_hfKqE 8:08 – market sounds over images to 9:09
Image 65 – Market Day by Godwin Atta Geoman – Powerful Oya (mother of changes) is a fierce and powerful female warrior orisha in Santeria. She is the owner of the marketplace, and keeps the gates of the cemetery. greatbigcanvas.com www.greatbigcanvas.com/view/market-day,2049978/
Powerful Oya songs (mother of changes) – Ministry of Miracles Healing School SB Oyá is a fierce and powerful female warrior orisha in Santeria. She is the owner of the marketplace, and keeps the gates of the cemetery. She is the force of change in nature and in life. She wields lightning and rides the winds into battle, often fighting with her machetes side-by-side with her favorite lover, Changó. Oyá raises the armies of the dead as her soldiers and is said to use the tornado as her weapon. Oyá’s aché is fierce, tumultuous, changing and protective. youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U_lS_hfKqE www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtrouhSprzA
Oya: Owner of the Marketplace The woman of the marketplace is also known for her abilities in the supplanting of power. Just as the tornado can pick up a house and deposit it miles away Oya can take power away from one and give it to another. enlightenmentandtransformation.com www.enlightenmentandtransformation.com/2015/06/23/oya-2/
Oya in the Company of Saints – Judith Gleason Journal of the American Academy of Religion Vol. 68, No. 2 (Jun., 2000), pp. 265-291 (27 pages) Published By: Oxford University Press www.jstor.org/stable/1465923
Image 66 – Oya protects the market and its exchange of life force – Oya: Owner of the Marketplace looking out for swindlers and con artists originalbotanica.com www.originalbotanica.com/blog/orishas-oya-santeria/Image 67 – Oya is identified with Catholic St. Teresa of Avila – Teresa of Ávila by Peter Paul Rubens – circa 1615 Kunsthistorisches Museum wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_of_%C3%81vila#/media/File:Pe…Image 68 – Oya/Teresa same sources as above
Image 69 – Same as Image 65 – Market Day Ilorin, Yorubaland
Image 70 – Same as Image 65
The markets, large and small, are self-organized and well-run by a manager. Ilorin has five markets each at one of the city’s gates, and had as many as eight hundred sheep at one time.When approaching the city of Ibadan, I saw at a brook, where they had been let out of their cages or coops to drink and wash themselves and saw as many as three thousand pigeons and squabs going to the Ibadan market.
Image 71 – The markets, large and small, are self-organized and well-run by a manager. Ilorin has five markets each at one of the city’s gates, and had as many as eight hundred sheep at one time. ; Man mounted on horse, in silhouette, gazing off into the distance, c1904. Photograph by Edward Curtis (1868-1952) ; Market Day by Godwin Atta Geoman greatbigcanvas.com www.greatbigcanvas.com/view/market-day,2049978/
7:42 – sheep FX over images 72-73 to 7:57 7:57 – squab FX over image 75 to 8:04 – pigeon sound effect no copyright birds sounds Nagaty Studio – Sound Effects youtube.com
Image 72 – and had as many as eight hundred sheep at one time. ; Man mounted on horse, in silhouette, gazing off into the distance, c1904. Photograph by Edward Curtis (1868-1952) ; Sheep-Washing, Windsor, Etched by Joseph Mallord William Turner collections.britishart.yale.edu collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:30636
Image 73 – When approaching the city of Ibadan, – Man mounted on horse, in silhouette, gazing off into the distance, c1904. Photograph by Edward Curtis (1868-1952) ; Ibaden circa 1851 drawing by Anna Hinderer Crowder, Michael. (1977). “West Africa: An Introduction to Its History.” Lagos, Nigeria: Longman Group, Ltd.Turner p. 88
Image 74 – I saw at a brook, where they had been let out of their cages or coops to drink and wash themselves , ; Man mounted on horse, in silhouette, gazing off into the distance, c1904. Photograph by Edward Curtis (1868-1952) ; Sheep-Washing, Windsor, Etched by Joseph Mallord William Turner collections.britishart.yale.edu collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:30636Image 75 – and saw as many as three thousand pigeons and squabs going to the Ibadan market. ; squab live :31 sec modbee.com www.modbee.com/news/business/agriculture/article131340944…
English: pigeon chicks of 20+ days. Bangladesh. Source Own work Author Mamun2a Licensing I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses: w:en:Creative Commons attribution share alike This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squab
8:08 – Kalangu talking drum over images 76-84 to 9:09 African Drumming – Rhythms of West Africa – Tamafola – africandrumming youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hrtbZVO6Ng
8:08 – FOLLOW ME TO OYINGBO MARKET, LAGOS NIGERIA 2 | Flo Chinyere – market sounds (fx in market video at 13:10-13:32 youtube.com) over images 76-84 to 9:09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38W5koL9Z2g
Delany and Johnson milled among the gleeful noisy thousands at Ilorin’s markets. In the afternoon, when the traffic had not fully set in, they would often go out and preach to the people under the trees. At the market, women from early morn ’till nine o’clock at night, sold their merchandise. As Martin browsed the market he heard in his heart a lyrical magic in the words being spoken around him. It was music. But these lyric, tumbling vowels had a heritage he did not know. It was a music but with an ancient heritage he did not yet know. What is the common heritage of the Yoruba spoken word . . . and . . . the “words of the Talking Drum”
Image 76 – Delany and Johnson milled among the gleeful noisy thousands at Ilorin’s markets – FOLLOW ME TO OYINGBO MARKET, LAGOS NIGERIA 2 | Flo Chinyere – market sounds (fx in market video at 13:10-13:32 youtube.com) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38W5koL9Z2g
Image 88 – My name is Ayan Bisi Adeleke. – Ayan Bisi Adeleke – Master talking drummer – drum talks edElud – Bisi playing the talking drum. Plays dundun – part 1. Plays gongon and bembe in part two. Edited on Linux with Cinelerra. youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4oQJZ2TEVIImage 89 – I am from the University from Nigeria. – Same source as Image 88Image 90 – We have these talking drums as our genetics. – Same source as Image 88Image 91 – Same source as Image 88.Image 92 – Ogotemmêli, Dogon griot – 1947 says: – GRIAULE E OGOTEMMELI enrica tedeschi – youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=geqks7nv4KE NOTE: Ogotemmêli died 1962, was blind.Image 93 – “It is the Nommo who made it.” – Il Mistero dei Dogon Tony Graffio – youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0c1x1pU7e4Image 94 – Side view of Ogotemmêli – Il Mistero dei Dogon Tony Graffio – youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0c1x1pU7e4Image 95 – Read by this narrator as the account of how the Talking Drum was created given to Marcel Griaule by Ogotemmêli & preserved in a poetic language, a Yoruba tradition. – Kente linen – youramba.com youramba.com/blogs/news/50891267-history-and-glossary-of-…Image 96 – Ogotemmêli sitting back against a wall Il Mistero dei Dogon Tony Graffio youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0c1x1pU7e4Image 97 – “He threaded it with his fingers, as children do today with string games.” – Same source as Image 96.Image 98 – “Spreading his hands, he passed the thread ten times in each of his four fingers,” – Same source as Image 96Image 99 – “the thumb not being used. He thus obtained in each hand forty loops” – Same source as Image 96
Image 100 – “which made eighty strings, the exact numbeer of teeth of one of his jaws” Same source as Image 96.Image 101 – “His webbed hands were the skins at the two extremities” Same source as Image 96.Image 102 – “Symbolically, to hit the drum is to hit the hands of the Nommo.” Same source as Image 96.Image 103 – “Symbolically, to hit the drum is to hit the hands of the Nommo.” Same source as Image 96.Image 104 – Ayan Bisi Adeleke playing drum youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4oQJZ2TEVI ; GRIAULE E OGOTEMMELI enrica tedeschi youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=geqks7nv4KE
10:39 – PSALM 23 IN YORUBA LANGUAGE over images 105-116 to: 11:29 Jul 14, 2017 QUEEN ADUNNI ADE – youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8T-R8pH6iE
Delany wrote of the women of the marketplace: “They are very polite.” (sound of spoken Yoruba language)
Image 105 – Delany wrote of the women of the marketplace: ; FOLLOW ME TO OYINGBO MARKET, LAGOS NIGERIA 2 | Flo Chinyere 13:10-13:32 youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=38W5koL9Z2g&list=RDCMUC-9lzGH… ; Market Day by Godwin Atta Geoman greatbigcanvas.com www.greatbigcanvas.com/view/market-day,2049978/Image 106 – They are very polite. ; FOLLOW ME TO OYINGBO MARKET, LAGOS NIGERIA 2 | Flo Chinyere 13:10-13:32 youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=38W5koL9Z2g&list=RDCMUC-9lzGH… ; Market Day by Godwin Atta Geoman greatbigcanvas.com www.greatbigcanvas.com/view/market-day,2049978/Image 107 – (Spoken Word) – FOLLOW ME TO OYINGBO MARKET, LAGOS NIGERIA 2 | Flo Chinyere 13:10-13:32 youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=38W5koL9Z2g&list=RDCMUC-9lzGH…Image 108 – “Their language abounding in vowels” ; Same source as Image 105 Image 109 – “consequently euphonious and agreeable.”; Same source as Image 105Image 110 – “AFFABLE” ; Same source as Image 105Image 111 – “SOCIABLE” ; Same source as Image 105Image 112 – “TRACTABLE” ; Same source as Image 105 Image 113 – “AMEN” ; Same source as Image 105
“. .their language abounding in vowels, and consequently euphonious and agreeable—they are affable, sociable, and tractable, seeking information with readiness, and evincing willingness to be taught with high conceptions of the Supreme Being.” The Yoruba language abounds in vowels and is euphonious as Delany wrote because it is based on a tri-tonal scale and is mostly defined by the tri-tonic scale, as do the talking drums.The hour glass drum’s pitch can be regulatedto mimic the tone and prosody of human speechto great complexity.
It is little wonder that when an invader conquers a people in West Africa, the first thing they do is take away the talking drums and imprison their masters because detailed messages could be sent from one village to the next, faster than could be carried by a person riding a horse.
12:09 – Dahomey women warriors chant with machete sound over images 122-126 to 12:26 Lupita Nyong’o Meets Real Warrior Women – youtube.com
12:23 – drummer today African Drumming – Rhythms of West Africa – Tamafola – over image 124 to 12:31 culturesofwestafrica.com & youtube.com
12:37 – galloping of one horse over images 126-127 to 13:05 12:43 – talking drum of Bisi Adeleke at three different volume and reverb levels over image 127 to 13:05 Ayan Bisi Adeleke playing drum – youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4oQJZ2TEVI
Image 122 – It is little wonder that when an invader conquers a people in West Africa,– Dahomey women warriors – youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0TGKiMiZ68 Channel 4 is a British public broadcast service. Lupita Nyong’o Meets Real Warrior Women Nov 3, 2019Image 123 – the first thing they do is take away the talking drums ; Dahomey women warriors – youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0TGKiMiZ68 Channel 4 is a British public broadcast service. Lupita Nyong’o Meets Real Warrior Women Nov 3, 2019 ; https://www.african-percussion.net/dundun-tambour-parlant-299Image 124 – Dahomey warrior women “href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0TGKiMiZ68” rel=”noreferrer nofollow”>www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0TGKiMiZ68 Channel 4 is a British public broadcast service. Lupita Nyong’o Meets Real Warrior Women Nov 3, 2019 ; africandrumming – Petit Madou is a world renowned Tama player ( Tamafola) from Bamako Mali, known best for his playing with Habib Koite. The Tama is a member of the talking drum family. In this clip Madou show us some Maraka licks www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hrtbZVO6Ng www.culturesofwestafrica.com/talking-drum/Image 125 – and imprison their masters because detailed messages could be sent ; still of modern-day drummer – African Drumming – Rhythms of West Africa – Tama – africandrumming www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hrtbZVO6Ng www.culturesofwestafrica.com/talking-drum/Image 126 – from one village to the next faster than could be carried by a person riding a horse. – A Ride for Liberty by Eastman Johnson circa 1862 Brooklyn Museum wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Ride_for_Liberty_%E2%80%93_The_Fu…
13:12 – market sounds over image 129 to 148 – 13:38 Sounds of Lagos: you can hear the hustle youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9WJ2CzYE68 FOLLOW ME TO OYINGBO MARKET, LAGOS NIGERIA 2 | Flo Chinyere 13:10-13:32 – youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?
13:55 – Oya chorus over image 126 to 147 14:07
14:07 – crickets over image 147 to 148 14:47
William Johnson, Delany’s guide, translator also waded thru the crowds translating Martin’s questions as Martin admired the mangrove, papayas, pineapples, keeping his parasol high to protect him from the brutal august sun and sipping lemonade made of water, lemon and a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda. but he ate lightly. By dusk, it grew cooler, a new moon and the women of the market lit their palm oil lamps with the brilliance of stars on an inky black later to retire one by one leaving tomb-like darkness.
William and Martin placed their mats right on the ground in a wooded spot – they had only seen one leopard, three tarantulas and two snakes on the whole trip – Martin changed into clean clothes. They covered themslves with calico covers to rise before daybreak toresume thw final leg of their expedition to Abeokuta, where crowds would later gather and rejoice.
Martin rose, ate an orange, bathed from head to foot, walked out and breathed deeply the moist, cool morning air, had some coffee with cream and sweetener and off they went.
Delany and Johnson left again on October 30th for Abeokuta with its 100,000 people, and was met with great joy on November 5th. Princess Tinuba had already said she had more hope of a regeneration of Africa through Dr. Delany than ever before. She had promised to place the entire management of her extensive business – with her immediate household of about sixty persons, and constantly employing about three hundred and sixty persons bringing her palm-oil and ivory – in Dr. Delany’s hands, as much advantage was taken of her by foreigners.
THESE BEGINNING-T0-END, SEQUENCED IMAGES ARE FROM THE LINKED TO VIDEO WITH THIS SCRIPT. THE SCRIPT’S TEXT IS COMPLETE AND IS BROKEN DOWN TO MATCH TO THE IMAGE SHOWN WITH IT DURING THE VIDEO. – JS
This is the second part a 3-part of a series about Martin Delany, born in 1812 in Charles Town, then Virginia going on to be the first African-American field officer in the U.S. Army, organizer in 1859 of a year long scientific expedition in West Africa, Harvard educated physician, co-editor of The North Start with Frederick Douglass, author of several books including one of the very first important novels by an African-American. It was called “Blake: The Huts of American,” the story of a traveling insurrectionist serialized in the Anglo-African magazine in 1858-1860. After Lincoln met him in February, 1865 in the White House, the President immediately sent a memo to his Secretary of War, stating: “Do not fail to have an interview with this most intelligent and extraordinary black man.”
With Sonny Luckett as Martin Delany and Dr. Momodou Darboe narrating
Made possible with the generous, community-minded support of American Public University System (apus.edu) to encourage fact-based discussion into the foundational issues from which our nation has evolved.
“Persons from all parts of the country came to Monrovia to see this great man.” – Martin R. Delany and Robert Campbell: Black Americans in Search of an African Colony Richard Blackett – The Journal of Negro History p. 15 – jstor.org
Ridiculed and ignored in America for speaking, embraced by the thousands here for speaking – how strange.
:00 – Lamplight by Vandaliariver.com over intro images to :39 :00 – FX birds, seagulls, ocean waves over images 1-7 to :44 :00 – Waterdogs 4 by Cam Millar (cammillar.com) over images 1-7 to :44
Images 1-5 – fair use images from Master and Commander The Far side of the World directed by Peter Weir – youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k-0BzXV8w4Image 6. Map of the West Coast of Africa from Sierra Leone to Cape Palmas, including the colony of Liberia Contributor Names: Ashmun, J. (Jehudi), Young, J. H. (James Hamilton), Finley, A. (Anthony). Created / Published: Philad[elphi]a [Pa.] : A. Finley, 1830. loc.gov https://www.loc.gov/item/96680499/Image 7. fair use images from Master and Commander The Far side of the World directed by Peter Weir – youtube.com
:45 – syncopation, cheering crowds and singing over images 8-20 to 3:24
Image 8. fair use images from Master and Commander The Far side of the World directed by Peter Weir – youtube.comImage 9: “The arrival of Martin Robison Delany in Liberia is an era in the history of African emigration, an event doubtless that will long be remembered by hundreds of thousands of Africa’s exiled children.” The Journal of Negro History Vol. 62, No. 1 (Jan., 1977), pp. 1-25 (25 pages) Published By: The University of Chicago Press p. 15Image 10Image 11Image 12 Image 13Image 14: Ridiculed and ignored in America for speaking, embraced by the thousands here for speaking – how strange. – Douglass fighting a mob in Indiana – Douglass, Frederick. (1881). “Life and times of Frederick Douglass,” Hartford, CT: Park publishing. p. 285 – hathitrust.org https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015018652357&view=1up&seq=291&q1=IndianaImage 15: Image in color of gala event in French influenced West Africa Crowder, Michael. (1977). “West Africa: An Introduction to Its History.” London: Longman Group, Ltd. p. 110Image 16
“The regeneration of the African race can only be effected by its own efforts, the efforts of its own self and whatever aid may come from other sources; and it must, in this venture succeed, as God leads the movement and His hand guides the way.” – Delany, Martin R. (1879). “The Origin of Races and Color,” Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press. p. 94 books.google.com
Be thou like the noble Ancient — Scorn the threat that bids thee fear; Speak! — no matter what betide thee; Let them strike, but make them hear! Be thou like the first Apostles — Be thou like heroic Paul; If a free thought seek expression, Speak it boldly! speak it all ! Face thine enemies — accusers; Scorn the prison, rack, or rod! And, if thou hast Truth to utter. Speak! and leave the rest to God. – Truth and Freedom by William Gallagher – 1861
Image 17: “Face thine accusers, scorn the rack and rod and, if thou hast truth to utter, . . Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. (1930 – 1969). digitalcollections.nypl.org https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-a10b-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
Image 18: ahec.armywarcollege.edu
Image 19: ahec.armywarcollege.edu
Image 20. River crossing Africa – Crowder, Michael. (1977). “West Africa: An Introduction to Its History.” London: Longman Group, Ltd. p. 110
2:12 – Sona Jobarteh & Band Kora from West Africa over images 21-43 to 4:48
Images 21 & 22 Hochschule für Musik FRANZ LISZT Weimar – Sonah Jobarteh – Acoustic Guitar/ Kora/ Vocals/ Maurice Brown – Acoustic Guitar = Andi McLean – Electric Bass/ BVs – Mouhamadou Sarr – Djembe/ Congas/ Calabash/ BVs – www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig91Z0-rBfo
Delany wrote: Saturday, July 10th, 1859 – I landed on the beach at Grand Cape Mount, Robertsport, amid the joyous acclamations of the numerous natives who stood along the beautiful shore, – Delany, Martin R. (1861). “OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE NIGER VALLEY EXPLORING PARTY.” New York, T. Hamilton; https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001610366 – https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015003702209&view=1up&seq=26&q1=Robertsport Just north is the homeland of Shango, Delany’s grandfather, the Mandinko chief. Grandma Grace Peace told the Delany children how Shango was captured and shipped to America. A whipper tried to whip Shango in order to as Delany said: “leave him completely broken, as humble as a dog, as spiritless as a kitten.” Delany wrote that he personally observed on his trip in 1839 to Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas an example of exceeding cruelty and should be read or not read accordingly. THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT FACT OF HISTORY BY A CREDITABLE SOURCE WHO IS BLACK. Not for children or teens . Delany, Martin R. (1859-1861 serialized). “Blake; or, The huts of America, a novel.” With an introd. by Floyd J. Miller. Boston: Beacon Press. books.google.com p. 175https://books.google.com/books?id=0ZV2AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT226&lpg=PT226&dq=as+s” rel=”noreferrer nofollow
Shango was killed in a fierce fight with the other man. Grandma Graci Peace passed on this story to Martin. But Mandinko tribes always have a griot or story-rememberer to pass on their history.
Observing the countryside, Delany wrote that he wondered why the coffee bean farmers didn’t plant their trees further, say twenty feet, apart. The History of Coffee, Part 1: Africa and Arabia by Judy Fleisher June 04, 2017 scribblerscoffee.comhttps://scribblerscoffee.com/blogs/news/the-history-of-coffee-part-1-africa
Observing the countryside, Delany wrote that he wondered why the coffee bean farmers didn’t plant their trees further, say twenty feet, apart. Delany, Martin R. (1861). “OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE NIGER VALLEY EXPLORING PARTY.” New York, T. Hamilton, Niger Valley p. 22https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015003702209&view=1up&seq=32&q1=coffee Wednesday July 13, 1859 Arriving at Monrovia Learning the 23rd Psalm https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm 23&version=KJV (spoken on video in background) The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever) At Monrovia’s missionary schools, the classes are being rigidly prosecuted (Forever and ever Amen (in Yoruba)) The missionaries seem to be doing a good work, there being many earnest and faithful laborers among them of both sexes, black and white, and many native teachers They are shrewd, intelligent, and industrious, with high conceptions of the Supreme Being. Delany quotes unnamed missionary in Monrovia
Image 46 – Map of the West Coast of Africa from Sierra Leone to Cape Palmas, including the colony of Liberia by Ashmun, J. (Jehudi), Young, J. H. (James Hamilton), Finley, A. (Anthony) – Philad[elphi]a [Pa.] : A. Finley, 1830. https://www.loc.gov/item/96680499/
2:53 – Sona Jobarteh & Band Kora from West Africa over images 21-43 to 4:48, resumes 47-69 5:06-7:05
Images 55-58 are identical to images 52-54 in the video but with different perspectives
Image 59 – At Monrovia’s missionary schools, the classes are being rigidly prosecuted. The missionaries seem to be doing a good work, – Martin Robison Delany https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/
“As soon as you can convince them that there is a mediator in Jesus Christ to whom you may talk, but cannot see, you make Christians of them. Many flee violence at home in favor of the peace-loving individuality of being a Christian.”
Image 68 – “Many flee violence at home in favor of the peace-loving individuality of being a Christian.” Golah hut – Project Canterbury Handbooks on the Missions of the Episcopal Church. Liberia New York: The National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 1928. http://anglicanhistory.org/africa/lb/missions1928/
6:25 – FX mumbling hear hear over images 70-73 to 6:40 6:25 – FX applause over images 70-73 to 6:40
Images 70-73 & 76 – Montage Group of men and one woman from loc.gov collection Liberia starting extreme upper left hand corner moving clockwise 1. Edward Morris, 2. James Skivring Smith 3. John Hanson, 4. unidentified woman, 5. Urias A. McGill, 6. James B. Yates, 7. Edward J. Roye, 8. C. H. Hicks, (to viewer’s left of Roye, same row), 9. James M. Priest, 10. Alfred Francis Russell, 11. Philip Coker https://www.loc.gov/collections/daguerreotypes/?q=American+Colonization+SocietyImage 71Image 72Image 73Image 74Image 75Image 76Image 77Image 78Image 79Image 80Image 81Image 82Image 83Image 84Image 85Image 86Image 87
The fundamental principle of every nation is self-reliance, with the ability to create their own ways and means: without this, there is no capacity for self-government . In this short review of public affairs, it is done neither to disparage nor underrate the gentlemen of Liberia with whom, from the acquaintance I have made with them in the great stride for black nationality, I can make common cause, and hesitate not to regard them, in unison with ourselves, a noble band of brothers. – Delany, Martin R. (1861). “OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE NIGER VALLEY EXPLORING PARTY.” New York, T. Hamilton p. 24 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015003702209&view=1up&seq=34&q1=self-government
Image 88 – PAN AFRICAN FLAG Pan-African Culture Club (facebook)
King Cotton shapes history on three continents – A history of the British cotton industry by Claire Hopleyhttps://britishheritage.com/history/history-british-cotton-industry
7:36 – Family Bonds by Cam Millar over image 89-95 to 8:49
89q. TITLE: the brainchild of the white slaversof the American Colonization Society, such as Bushrod Washington, but instead in Egba under the laws of Egba chieftains, joining the cotton farmers, becoming then the world capital of the Free Kingdom of Cotton. Jamaican-born, Robert Campbell, a partner with Delany in this enterprise, wrote: “There is certainly no more industrious people anywhere and I challenge all the world besides to produce a people more so, or capable of as much endurance. Those who believe, among other foolish things, that the Negro is accustomed lazily to spend his time basking in the sunshine, like black-snakes or alligators, should go and see the people they malign.”A pilgrimage to my motherland. An account of a journey among the Egbas and Yorubas of Central Africa, in 1859-60. by Robert Campbell https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdclccn.05014430/?sp=9
” . . . the natives cultivating it for the manufacture of cloths for their own consumption. Its exportation is, therefore, capable of indefinite extension.”
Image 107 – ADINKRA – the natives cultivating it for the manufactureImage 108 – ADIRE – of cloths for their own consumptionImage 109 – BATIKImage 110 – EWE – Its exportation is, therefore, capableImage 111 – KHASA of indefinite extension.Image 112 – KENTEImage 113 – KORHOGOImage 114 – KUBAImage 115 – MANJAKAImage 116 – BROCADEImage 117 – AFRICAN TIE-DYEDImage 118 – AFRICAN PRINTSImage 119 – Kente fabric/cotton – youramba.com – cotton kohantextilejournal.com
10:55 – Rule Britannia by U. S. Army Strings over images 120-121 – 11:10 wikipedia.org
He (Delany) read in the August 13th issue of the West African Herald: “King Dahomey is about to make the great Custom in honor of the late King Ghezo. Determined to surpass all formal monarchs, a great pit has been dug which is to contain human blood enough to float a canoe. Two thousand persons will be sacrificed on this occasion. The king has sent his army to make some excursions at the expense of some weaker tribes. The younger people will be sold into slavery. The older persons will be killed. Whole villages are taken. For Dahomey’s 5,000 celibate, enslaved, machine-like Amazonian warriors, Abeokuta was an object of their frenzied hatred, because Abeokuta defeated them in a war and even captured a general and made off with the sacred umbrella of the late King Gezo (Ghezo). King Ghezo died, some believed, because he defied a prophecy that if he invaded Abbeokuta – a “safe city against slavers” – he would pay the price. He tried. He was defeated. He died in 1858.
Image 122 – he read in the August 13th issue of the West African Herald: The West African Herald masthead the first African-owned newspaper in West Africa, in 1858. It was circulated at first to only about 300 subscribers – 2/3 of them Africans – and endured for sixteen years, stimulating a proliferation of African-owned newspapers later in the 19th century. pbagalleries.com
11:16 – Alice Bort, Laura First, Ardyth Gilbertson over images 123-124 to 11:24 11:24 – KODO over images 123-135 to 12:27 – KODO World Tour 51:30-51:56 – youtube.com 12:47 – Shana Aisenberg (shanasongs.com) banjo over images 136-137 to 13:15
Image 123 – tapestry depicting several kings of Dahomey and their regnal years Ivana Madzarevic – Own work wikipedia.orgImage 124 – King Dahomey is about to make the great Custom in honor of the late King Ghezo. – 124a – tapestry depicting several kings of Dahomey and their regnal years IvanaMadzarevic – Own work wikipedia.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Dahomey ; 124b Français: Le roi Ghézo et le prince royal Bâhadou. English: King Ghezo and the Royal Prince Badohou. Date 1 January 1863 Source Le Tour du monde, volume 7 [1] Author Valentin Foulquier (1822–1896) commons.wikimedia.org https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Le_Tour_du_monde-07-p085.jpgImage 125 – Determined to surpass all formal monarchs – victims for sacrifice – From The history of Dahomy, an inland Kingdom of Africa 1793 – New York Public Library Author Archibad Dalzel wikipedia.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey#/media/File:Victims_for_sacrifice-1793.jp
Image 132 – and made off with the sacred umbrella of the late King Gezo (Ghezo). – Ghezo, King of Dahomey Date 1851 Source From Dahomey and the Dahomans – New York Public Library [1] Author Forbes, Frederick E. wikipedia.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghezo
12:44 – banjo by Shana Aisenberg images 137-138 to 13:14
“Farewell, farewell my loving friends, farewell. . . The jasmine smells of Africa are tonight less fragrant than my scented memory of soft honey-suckled summer’s night breezes in Virginia long ago, and awaking to the mockingbird.”
THESE BEGINNING-T0-END, SEQUENCED IMAGES ARE FROM THE LINKED TO VIDEO WITH THIS SCRIPT. THE SCRIPT’S TEXT IS COMPLETE AND IS BROKEN DOWN TO MATCH TO THE IMAGE SHOWN WITH IT DURING THE VIDEO. – JS
:00 – FX ocean waves and seagulls over images 1 & 3 to :39
I leave you here and journey on. And if I never more return – Farewell.
:33 – Ardyth Gilbertson, Alice Bort, Laura First over image 5 to :39 :39 – FX hissing over image 6 to :45 :39 – Fair Harvard (FAIR HARVARD) over images 6-7 to 1:07 youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-SjMwBG1mk
7. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. – 1853 Daguerrotype of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr by Josiah Haws – images courtesy of Harvard University Library Date between circa 1850 and circa 1856 Source P1973.54 Harvard University Library Weissman Preservation Center wikipedia.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Sr.#/media/File:Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Sr_daguerreotype.jpeg
1:07 – Ardyth Gilbertson, Alice Bort, Laura First over images 8-12 to 1:58 1:07 – seagulls over images 8-11 to 1:33.
His expulsion just because of skin color convinced him that the power of reason and merit alone did not in fact determine the country’s esteemed leaders.
** MRD: “I sailed from New York May 24th, 1859 in the fine barque Mendi, Captain McIntyre, vessel and cargo owned by Johnson, Turpin, and Dunbar, three enterprising colored gentlemen of Monrovia, Liberia, all formerly of New York City.“
TITLE: “. .to the land of the bloodhound and chain, . “ ship at sea foam fair use images from Master and Commander The Far side of the World directed by Peter Weir – youtube.com www.youtube.com/results?search_query=master+and+commander…
TITLE: “. . my path is away over the fetter-less main!” ship at sea foam fair use images from Master and Commander The Far side of the World directed by Peter Weir – youtube.com www.youtube.com/results?search_query=master+and+commander…
TITLE: Martin had forty-six days in the mid-Atlantic to penetrate his personal, distant horizons ship with sunset fair use images from Master and Commander The Far side of the World directed by Peter Weir – youtube.com www.youtube.com/results?search_query=master+and+commander…
Born 1812 Charles Town Va…to Chambersburg, Pa 1812-1822 to Pittsburgh 1831 becomes a leader, leecher and doctor … Winter, 1839 – He goes South with Free Papers and doctoring … 1848-1849 – Newspaper Editor, Organizer, Doctor
19b. Mid-Atlantic Region in the United States Google Earth Pro
19c. TITLE: Born 1812 Charles Town Va Google Earth Pro
19d.TITLE: to Chambersburg, Pa 1812-1822 Google Earth Pro
19e. TITLE: to Pittsburgh 1831 becomes a leader, leecher and doctor Google Earth Pro
. . . beginning that one day on a street in Charles Town, Virginia when his mother Pati accepted from a big-hearted traveling peddler, “The New York Primer for Spelling and Reading.” Martin listened intently as his four older brothers and sisters lay out the secret to young Martin. to how to arrange a word and the sound you make with each word, and caring not a fig that it all was illegal for those with dark skin.
TITLE: beginning that one day on a street in Charles Town, Virginia 20a-20c. Dressing for Carnival by Winslow Homer – The Metropolitan Museum of Art artsandculture.google.com artsandculture.google.com/asset/dressing-for-the-carnival…
TITLE: accepted from a big-hearted traveling peddler The Story Teller of the Camp by Eastman Johnson – 1861-1866 Reynolda House Museum of American Art commons.wikimedia.org commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Storyteller_of_the_Camp_(Maple_Sugar_Camp)_by_Eastman_Johnson.jpg
24.TITLE: Martin listened intently as his four older brothers and sisters lay out the secret to young Martin. Sunday Morning in Virginia by Winslow Homer – 1877 Cincinnati Art Museum Credit line: John J. Emery Fund commons.wikimedia.org commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winslow_Homer_-_Sunday_Mo…
25.TITLE: to how to arrange a word three children. one older woman – Sunday Morning in Virginia by Winslow Homer – 1877 Cincinnati Art Museum Credit line: John J. Emery Fund commons.wikimedia.org
26. The New-England primer enlarged. For the more easy attaining the true reading of English. To which is added, the Assembly of divines catechism Alphabet – G-M digitalcollections.nypl.org digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/37c97d70-73ab-0130-d7ec…
27. TITLE: and caring not a fig that it was all illegal Sunday Morning in Virginia by Winslow Homer – 1877 Cincinnati Art Museum Credit line: John J. Emery Fund commons.wikimedia.org
28.TITLE: for those with dark skin Cover of Virginia law 1819 The Revised Code of the Laws of Virginia: Being a Collection of All Such Acts of the General Assembly, of a Public and Permanent Nature as are Now in Force; with a General Indes. To which are Prefixed, the Constitution of the United States; the Declaration of Rights; and the Constitution of Virginia. Published Pursuant to an Act of the General Assembly, Entitled “An Act Providing for the Re-publication of the Laws of this Commonwealth,” Passed March 12, 1819…NOTE 1849 Title 54, Chapter 198; “Assembling of negroes. Trading by free negroes,” Section 31; in the Code of Virginia https://bpscurriculumandinstruction.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/1/3/10131776/ps_grade_5_unit_4_slave_codes.pdf
3:50 – FX giggling over images 30-31 to 3:55
** They didn’t care. It was fun. It was POWER.
29.TITLE: They didn’t care. It was FUN! Sunday Morning in Virginia by Winslow Homer – 1877 Cincinnati Art Museum John J. Emery Fund commons.wikimedia.org
30.TITLE: It was POWER Sunday Morning in Virginia by Winslow Homer – 1877 Cincinnati Art Museum John J. Emery Fund commons.wikimedia.org
3:55 – FX wagon sounds over image 32 to 4:01 4:02 – Waterdogs 3 by Cam Millar (cammillar.com) over images 33-43 to 4:48
**
Pati packed all they could into a wagon saying it was a trip to kin in Martinsburg, but which continued on north across the the ferry at Williamsport, Maryland, and continuing further north into Pennsylvania – a Free State – and Chambersburg – the Promised Land of Knowledgethat replaced, instead, the hell of NO!-ledge.From that day forth, Martin read, grew, acted. The longer his legs, the vaster he could stride the face of the globe. The longer his arms, the furthest star he could hold in his hand. Sometimes SCORCHED, Sometimes illumined . . . Until a day in 1875 he reached for a star within another Universe of stars. Firey anger blasted backAnd Martin fell back forevermore into our every day – with just a sun and a moon. His hope wanted something perfect. that humanity – the part that he met – SCORNED.
31. TITLE: Patty (Pati) packed all they could into a wagon saying it was a trip to kin in Martinsburg Patty (Pati) Delany Dressing for Carnival by Winslow Homer – The Metropolitan Museum of Art artsandculture.google.com artsandculture.google.com/asset/dressing-for-the-carnival…
32. TITLE: but which continued on north across the the ferry at Williamsport, Maryland, The school of the holy road Charles Town, Old Virginia, From Pike 3/4 of a Mile South of Town 1884/08/01 Description:'(71)D.119; August 1, 1884, Friday 5-20 pm. clear sun; Bonfire Biscoe, Thomas Biscoe – West Virginia & Regional Collection wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2010 Web. 10 July 2015. wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/028385 Collection url wvhistoryonview.org/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_field=all_…
34.TITLE: and continuing further north into Pennsylvania – a Free State – and Chambersburg The school of the holy road Charles Town, Old Virginia, From Pike 3/4 of a Mile South of Town 1884/08/01 Description:'(71)D.119; August 1, 1884, Friday 5-20 pm. clear sun; Bonfire Biscoe, Thomas Biscoe – West Virginia & Regional Collection wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2010 Web. 10 July 2015. wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/028385 Collection url wvhistoryonview.org/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_field=all_…
35.TITLE: – the Promised Land of Knowledge The school of the holy road Charles Town, Old Virginia, From Pike 3/4 of a Mile South of Town 1884/08/01 Description:'(71)D.119; August 1, 1884, Friday 5-20 pm. clear sun; Bonfire Biscoe, Thomas Biscoe – West Virginia & Regional Collection wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2010 Web. 10 July 2015. wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/028385 Collection url wvhistoryonview.org/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_field=all_…
36.TITLE: that replaced, instead, the hell of NO!-ledge. The school of the holy road Charles Town, Old Virginia, From Pike 3/4 of a Mile South of Town 1884/08/01 Description:'(71)D.119; August 1, 1884, Friday 5-20 pm. clear sun; Bonfire Biscoe, Thomas Biscoe – West Virginia & Regional Collection wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2010 Web. 10 July 2015. wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/028385 Collection url wvhistoryonview.org/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_field=all_…
37.TITLE: From that day forth, Martin read 37a. The school of the holy road Charles Town, Old Virginia, From Pike 3/4 of a Mile South of Town 1884/08/01 Description:'(71)D.119; August 1, 1884, Friday 5-20 pm. clear sun; Bonfire Biscoe, Thomas Biscoe – West Virginia & Regional Collection wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2010 Web. 10 July 2015. wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/028385 Collection url wvhistoryonview.org/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_field=all_…
39.TITLE: acted 39a. The school of the holy road Charles Town, Old Virginia, From Pike 3/4 of a Mile South of Town 1884/08/01 Description:(71)D.119; August 1, 1884, Friday 5-20 pm. clear sun; Bonfire Biscoe, Thomas Biscoe – West Virginia & Regional Collection wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2010 Web. 10 July 2015. wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/028385 Collection url wvhistoryonview.org/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_field=all_… 39b. The Lord is my Shepherd by Eastman Johnson – 1863 The Smithsonian American Art Museum artsandculture.google.com artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-lord-is-my-shepherd/f…
40.TITLE: The longer his legs, the vaster he could stride the face of the globe. 40a. Martin Delany, c. 1847. Called the father of Black Nationalism, this rare image captures Delany, already an abolitionist, writer, publisher, and journalist at this point in his life. Courtesy of Floyd Thomas. heinzhistorycenter.org www.heinzhistorycenter.org/blog/collection-spotlight/rare… 40b. Blue Marble NASA rotate_320 NASAEarth Observatory youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=laiVuCmEjlg
41.TITLE: the furthest star he could hold in his hand.
42.TITLE: Sometimes SCORCHED Neighboring Star’s Bad Behavior: Large and Frequent Flares by Pat Brennan, NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program April 23, 2021 exoplanets.nasa.gov exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1680/neighboring-stars-bad-behav…
4:48 – Mallets, Voice and Organ by Steve Reich over images 44-46 to 5:12
5:12 – Waterdogs 4 by Cam Millar (cammillar.com) over images 46-51 to 5:39
43-46.TITLE: Sometimes illumined Animation/Fractals 43-46a. Simpsons contributor at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Franklin.vp using CommonsHelper. Used Zom-B’s library with my own code and a golden gradient (similar to the default gradient used in Ultra Fractal). Each scene is 6x supersampled to remove sharp edges. Took… a while to render Links to Java source code: Zom-B version project directory containing DoubleDouble class, adjustments made by Simpsons Contributor to keep max iteration and anti-aliasing factor at more conservative values for faster rendering. New golden gradient added. Includes animated gif encoder. Zom-B version Mandelbrot zoom with center at (-0.743643887037158704752191506114774, 0.131825904205311970493132056385139) and magnification 1 .. 3.18 × 1031 created using my own Java program, using: Double-double precision (self-written library), Adaptive maxiter depending on the inverse square root of the magnification Adaptive per-pixel antialiasing strength depending on the maximum iteration of nearby pixels (15x AA max), (during antialiasing phase, maxiter is quadrupled), Iteration smoothing, New warm gradient which also gives clearer details, applied to the base-2 log of the smoothed iteration number, Modified periodicity checking algorithm from Fractint, for significant speedup, Main cardioid and period-2 bulb checking for another speedup, Multi-threaded calculation 136 hours calculation time on two PC’s (6 cores combined) wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal#/media/File:Mandelbrot_sequ… 43-46b. Ananda Blatt – random animation with minimalist music by composer Steve Reich from 1973. (amateur powerpoint animation). youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXtQYgIiDXE
47.TITLE: Until a day in 1875, he reached for a star within another Universe of stars. Firey anger blasted back
48. TITLE: And Martin fell back into our every day.
TITLE: with just a sun and a moon 49a. The school of the holy road Charles Town, Old Virginia, From Pike 3/4 of a Mile South of Town 1884/08/01 Description:'(71)D.119; August 1, 1884, Friday 5-20 pm. clear sun; Bonfire Biscoe, Thomas Biscoe – West Virginia & Regional Collection wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2010 Web. 10 July 2015. wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/028385 Collection url wvhistoryonview.org/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_field=all_… 49b. The Lord is my Shepherd by Eastman Johnson – 1863 The Smithsonian American Art Museum artsandculture.google.com artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-lord-is-my-shepherd/f…
51.TITLE: that humanity – the part that he met – SCORNED Martin R. Delany 1870s-1880s South Carolina during Reconstruction / by Francis Butler Simkins hathitrust.org babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015012056464&vie…
Made possible with the generous support of American Public University System, providing an affordable, quality, online education. The video and post do not reflect any modern-day policies or positions of American Public University System, and their content is intended to encourage discussion and better understanding of the past. More:
VIDEO: What Jeb Stuart Sang to Flora With Terry Tucker. Click Here. TRT: 11:13. Flickr Set: Click Here. 30 photos.
What JEB Sang To Flora by Jim Surkamp with Terry Tucker
JEB Stuart, the famed Confederate Civil War cavalryman, sang well and often even in the saddle, well, especially in the saddle. William Blackford, his closest confidant, wrote: “The gayer he was the more likely it was we were to move soon”
Terry Tucker sings verse 1: When the swallows homeward fly, When the roses scatter’d lie, When from neither hill nor dale, Chants the silv’ry nightingale, In these words my bleeding heart, Would to thee its grief impart. When I thus thy image lose, Can I, oh! can I e’er know repose? Can I, oh! can I e’er know repose?
And he sang for his beloved wife, Flora. Before the war he sang; she sang and played the piano or guitar.
Flora Cooke was born on January 3rd, 1836, at Jefferson Barracks, outside St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a native
Virginian, her mother from Philadelphia. Flora not only played the piano and the guitar, she rode horseback and could shoot. She planned to visit her parents at Fort Riley in the Kansas Territory, where her father was commander. During the troop
review at Fort Riley, however, her equestrian skills seduced young Lieutenant J.E.B.Stuart, fresh from West Point. They soon married in 1855. Their first child, Flora, was born in September, 1857. When the Civil War broke out and Stuart joined the
Confederate army, Flora’s father, Philip St. George Cooke, remained with the Union, ultimately becoming a General. So they renamed their second child, a son born in 1860, to be “James E. B. Stuart Jr.”
December 12, 1861: Stuart asks Flora for the words to “When Swallows Homeward Fly.”
“Send me the words of “When the Swallows (Homeward Fly)” & “The Dew is on the Blossom.” . . . those songs which so much remind me of you.”
He would write to Flora the following year:
Indeed I often ask myself in surprise why it is that any one girl can absorb my soul’s affection as you do. But I find a ready answer. In the fresh remembrance of that smile, that trusting look, that little finger’s potential crook, that put Polk to flight and conquered me. Ah my sweet one, I wish every conquest was so sweet to the vanquished. And how about the
Vanquisher, you little, matter-of-fact importune queen that gloried in the conquest of Bvt 2nd Lieut of horse, and now in a lapse of a few years lord it over a Major General of Cavalry. How do you bear the transition? – from the Bower October 26, 1862.
Stuart always the ringleader at festivities, set up a still-famous ball at the home of the Dandridges called the Bower, set for Wednesday October 7th 1862 aided by Sweeney and his musical stars. And Stuart gave himself the starring role, singing “When Swallows Homeward Fly”
Terry Tucker sings verse 2:
When the white swan southward roves, To seek at noon the orange groves, When the red tints of the west, Prove the sun is gone to rest, In these words my bleeding heart, Would to thee its grief impart. When I thus thy image lose,
Can I, oh! can I e’er know repose? Can I, oh! can I e’er know repose?
But the gaiety was near the precipice on the eve of a dangerous mission to take over 1,000 cavalry men unmolested around the full army of Federal General George McClellan still resting over the river in Maryland and Pennsylvania. William Blackford wrote of Stuart’s deep foreboding at the outset of the mission. He clearly sensed the nearness of tragedy. Their beloved five-year-old daughter, Flora, was deathly ill, and she would die of typhoid fever in 28 days. Stuart wrote Flora for a daguerreotype of their daughter a week before her passing. Love burns brighter at the feet of oblivion.
Terry Tucker – 2: Can I, oh! can I e’er know repose? Can I, oh! can I e’er know repose?
May 11, 1864 – Repose Comes
Stuart was to have said during the war: “All I ask of fate is that I may be killed leading a cavalry charge” – a wish somewhat granted on May 11, 1864 at Yellow Tavern with a bullet fired by a retreating private in a Michigan unit.
Flora and her two surviving children raced by private train and reached Ashland, Virginia finding there that the tracks had been torn up by the Union troops. A group of sympathetic Confederate cavalrymen gave them their ambulance which the group
drove through a rainstorm. Near death, Stuart was by that time praying with Rev. Peterkin, who he then asked to sing with him the song, “Rock of Ages.”
Flora arrived at the home of Stuart’s doctor and brother-in-law, Charles Brewer, at 11:30 PM but too late, about four hours after Stuart had died. As was the custom, Flora Stuart wore black thereafter in public. What remained to keep was a lock of JEB’s hair that she kept until dying when she was in her mid-eighties in 1923. The sacred lock became their son’s.
Terry Tucker sings verse 3: My poor heart, why do you cry, Once also you in peace will lie! All things on this earth must die; Will then we meet, you and I? My heart asks with boding pain Will faith join us once again? After today’s bitter parting pain.
References:
When the swallows homeward fly (Franz Wilhelm Abt) traditionalmusic.co.uk 1 February 2001 Web. 5 September 2014.
When Swallows Homeward Fly 1852, Franz Abt (1819–1885) [Stratton Military Band Journal] Gen. J.E.B. Stuart was an excellent singer and was known to serenade the ladies in town with this beautiful song accompanied with his personal musicians, the Sweeney brothers. Franz Abt was a German songwriter and conductor whose style was so natural that people assumed he used authentic folk songs for his works. He composed over 600 works. otbrass.com 18 August 2000 Web. 5 September 2014.
Peggy Vogtsberger. “This Fine Music.” (NOTE: This program first appeared in an article in Volume 10, No. 4 of The Cannoneer. Sources: Burke Davis, “The Swinging Sweeneys,” The Iron Worker, Autumn, 1969, contributed by Wes Rine. Bob Trout confirmed the dates and information). The linked music is believed to be, but not with certainty, the music played by Sweeney’s orchestra.-JS. civilwarscholars.com 9 JUne 2011 Web. 5 September 2014.
“Send me the words of when the swallows & The Dew is on the blossom. Passing away & Napolitain those songs which so much remind of you.” – J.E.B. Stuart to Flora Cooke Stuart, December, 1861 from: Caroline Moseley. “’Those Songs Which So Much Remind Me of You’: The Musical Taste of General J.E.B. Stuart.” American Music, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Winter, 1991), pp. 384-404. jstor.org 6 September 2011 Web. 5 September 2014.
Blackford, William W. (1945). “War Years with Jeb Stuart.” New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Print.
Blackford, William W. (1945). “War Years with Jeb Stuart.” Google Books. 19 July 2008. Web. September 5, 2014. pp. 89-90. – “The gayer he was the more likely it was we were to move soon.” More:
“Letters of General J.E.B. Stuart to his Wife, 1862,” ed. Bingham Duncan, Emory University Publications, Series I, 1943: 28.
Letters of General J.E.B. Stuart to his Wife, 1862,” ed. Bingham Duncan. 6whitehorses.com 19 October 2012 Web. September 5, 2014.
“I regard it as a foregone conclusion,” said Stuart, “that we shall ultimately whip the Yankees. We are bound to believe that, anyhow; but the war is going to be a long and terrible one, first. We’ve only just begun it, and very few of us will see (Page 123) the end. All I ask of fate is that I may be killed leading a cavalry charge.” The remark was not a boastful or seemingly insincere one. It was made quietly, cheerfully, almost eagerly, and it impressed me at the time with the feeling that the man’s idea of happiness was what the French call glory, and that in his eyes there was no glory like that of dying in one of the tremendous onsets which he knew so well how to make. His wish was granted, as we know. He received his death-wound at the head of his troopers. – Eggleston, George Cary. (1875). “A Rebel’s Recollections.” New York, NY: Hurd & Houghton. Print.
Eggleston, George Cary. (1875). “A Rebel’s Recollections” Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina Library. 22 Aug. 2008 Web. 28 Dec. 2010. – p. 123. More:
Von Borcke, Heros. (1867). “Memoirs of the Confederate war for independence.” Philadelphia. PA: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Print.
Von Borcke, Heros. (1867). “Memoirs of the Confederate war for independence.” Internet Archives archive.org 9 August 2002 Web. 20 April 2014.
Heros Von Borcke remembers Flora singing a ballad to Stuart in camp, Von Borcke Vol. 1. p. 48. More:
Image Credits:
Title: [General Jeb Stuart] / Gurney & Son, photo, N.Y. Creator(s): J. Gurney & Son, photographer Date Created/Published: N.Y. : J. Gurney & Son, Photographic Artists, 707 Broadway ; [between 1861 and 1864]. loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. September 5, 2014.
When the swallows homeward fly dc.lib.unc.edu 11 August 2013 Web. September 5, 2014.
General JEB Stuart: A Large Lock of His Sandy Brown Hair The hair was removed from his head on the night of his death by his wife Flora and saved for their son JEB Stuart, Jr. Flora had rushed to be beside her husband, but arrived only to see him in death at the house of Dr. Charles Brewer. Word of her husband being wounded in battle reached her at Beaver Dam Station via messenger due to the telegraph wires being cut by Union General Sheridan’s troops. Flora and their two children raced by private train and reached Ashland, finding that the tracks had been torn up by the Union troops. A group of sympathetic and loyal wounded Confederate cavalrymen gave them their ambulance which the group drove through a growing rainstorm. Throughout the journey Flora would receive erroneous word that her husband was doing well, only slightly wounded, giving her hope she would reach him in time. Finding the bridge at the Chickahominy River destroyed, blocking them from easy access to Richmond, they forded the river a mile downstream delaying their arrival at the Brewer home until 11:30 P.M. Her husband had died almost four hours earlier, receiving Confederate President Jefferson Davis as one of his last guests. The lock is accompanied by her original hand written note, “Hair of your dear father cut off. May 1864.” A priceless memory of the greatest cavalry officer in American history. thecivilwarparlor.tumblr.com 14 September 2012 Web. September 5, 2014.
Flora Cooke Stuart 11/11/2007 findagrave.com 5 December 1998 Web. September 5, 2014.
Capt James Ewell Brown Stuart, II Added by: SheWalksTheseHills findagrave.com 5 December 1998 Web. September 5, 2014.
Rock of Ages Louise Homer (contralto); Alma Gluck (soprano vocal) start at 1:07 1:51 very end (not used). loc.gov 5 December 1998 Web. September 5, 2014.
Philip_St._George_Cooke wikipedia.org 2 December 2003 Web. September 5, 2014.
Little Flora Birth: Sep. 15, 1857 Kansas, USA Death: Nov. 3, 1862 Added by: stars&bars 11/11/2007 findagrave.com 5 December 1998 Web. September 5, 2014.
Flora Stuart (daughter) tombstone Added by: stars&bars 11/11/2007 findagrave.com 5 December 1998 Web. September 5, 2014.
Jefferson_Barracks_Military_Post wikipedia.org 2 December 2003 Web. September 5, 2014.
The Corps of Cadets circa 1850 (not used) wikipedia.org 2 December 2003 Web. September 5, 2014.
Vivandieres: Part 3 Fortune after Hippolyte Lalaisse, Paris, c.1855. Hand-coloured lithograph. vam.ac.uk 20 November 1996 Web. September 5, 2014.
Strother, David H., “Personal Recollections of the Civil War.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. New York, NY: Harper and Bros. Volume 36, Issue: 213, February, 1868. Print. – More:
Strother, David H. (February, 1868). “Personal Recollections of the Civil War.” Harpers Magazine. Cornell Digital Library – The Making of America. 19 July 2011. Web. 29 January 2014.
