Turtle Causes Panic in NYC

The weird vessel that caused a security scare in New York on Friday was a homemade replica of a Revolutionary War submarine.

Police held the artist, Philip "Duke" Riley, and two other Rhode Island men, Jesse Bushnell, 35, and Michael Cushing, 23, for questioning. But there was no indication the trio meant any harm with the replica of the 1776 "Turtle submarine."

One of the Rhode Island men claimed he was descendant of David Bushnell, the inventor of the original one-man vessel that inspired the replica, police said. [Link]

Jack the Crackpot Genealogist

The late Jack Manahan has been called the "king of … Charlottesville eccentrics." Not surprisingly, he was a genealogist.

Most famous for marrying Anna "Anastasia" Anderson, Manahan allegedly tracked down the origins of Peter Francisco—a boy abandoned on a Virginia waterfront who grew up to be a Revolutionary War hero known as "the Virginia giant" for his immense size, strength and bravery.

"Many years later," [Overton] McGehee wrote, "the old war hero was honored with the post of Sergeant of Arms at the Virginia General Assembly. Still no one knew from whence he came, not even Francisco himself. That knowledge had to wait until Jack Manahan came along.

"[Jack] went to an island in the Azores where many people are unusually large. Sure enough, there was a record of Pietro Francisco, who had vanished at the age of four. Today, buttressed by Jack's research, Portuguese-American communities celebrate Peter Francisco Day, in honor of the first Portuguese-American hero." [Link]

I can't vouch for Manahan's conclusions, especially after reading that he invited Emperor Hirohito and the Pope to his imaginary wedding in 1986.

They Sent for Somebody, They Got Some Body

A mysterious "Doctor Windship" who turned up in Exeter, N. H., in 1802 has been identified as Dr. Amos Windship—a Boston-area surgeon during the Revolutionary War.

Respected by the Americans, he was also admired by the British when, in 1791, he arranged to have the remains of one Major John Pitcairn returned to England for internment in the family plot. Pitcairn had fallen during the Battle of Breed's Hill and died shortly thereafter. His grateful family believed that Windship had done them a gracious favor.

But there are a number of gaping holes in the story of this respectable war veteran. In Boston's Old North Church lies [the] crypt of Major John Pitcairn — it seems that Amos Windship had failed to send the correct body and Bostonians still believe Pitcairn resides in the basement. [Link]

A Patriot on the Wrong Side of Town

William Dawes also took a midnight ride on April 18, 1775, but his name didn't rhyme with "Listen my children and you shall hear." Now it appears that the attention given the long-neglected patriot in recent years has been paid in the wrong ZIP code.

It looks like even the few dedicated tourists who've bothered to pay their respects to Dawes have been solemnly standing on the wrong side of town.

Though plaques and published guides place Dawes's remains alongside his relatives in the King's Chapel Burying Ground downtown, veteran tour guide Al Maze recently discovered evidence suggesting that Dawes's final resting place is in fact in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain. [Link]

Her Work Is Sometimes in Tents

Textile expert Loreen Finkelstein has matched up a 2-foot-by-2 1/2-foot fabric panel found at Mount Vernon with a gaping hole in the tent George Washington used as his headquarters at Valley Forge. The missing fragment will eventually be sewed back in place.

The tent was taken down for conservation in October 2003 and brought to Finkelstein's laboratory in Williamsburg, Va. During that process, Finkelstein was also called upon to evaluate some of Washington's clothing at his Mount Vernon estate.

It was while doing that work that Finkelstein became aware of tent fragments at Mount Vernon. One remnant in particular looked like it could be the missing piece, Finkelstein said Wednesday.

She went back to Williamsburg and made a template of the hole, which she brought back to Mount Vernon in April 2005 for comparison. It matched almost perfectly, she said, noting that further confirmation came from analysis of the thread count and stitching technique. [Link]

Our Purported Prior President

Johnnie Harris of Palatka, Florida, says he's a descendant of the first U.S. President. You know, President John Hanson. He confirmed this after his grandmother died in the early 1980s.

Harris was given the task to take care of her house, liquidate her assets, gather up her belongings — and that’s when all family talk about an ancestor having been the first president started to make sense.

He learned that his grandmother had been really big into DAR — the Daughters of the American Revolution.

It was at that point that Harris realized he was a great-great-great — he’s not precisely sure of how many “greats” — grandson of the man some consider to be the true first president of the United States.

“I absolutely believe it,” Harris said. “When our government officially gives a title of president of the United States in Congress assembled, he is the president.” [Link]

Should We Learn to Love Lawn Jockeys?

The lawn jockeys I see these days are generally of fair complexion, but the statues had a darker past. Before tonight, I wasn't aware of an effort to rehabilitate these supposed symbols of servility.

Museum curator Charles L. Blockson, the great-grandson of a slave who escaped to Canada on the Underground Railroad, has been trying for two decades to rewrite the history of the lawn jockey on the basis of two stories so good they're just begging to be refuted.

[I]n 1983, while retracing his ancestor's journey on the underground railroad, Blockson made a startling discovery: A lawn jockey had shepherded slaves to freedom.

In a 1984 National Geographic cover story on the underground railroad, Blockson told how the wife of U.S. District Judge Benjamin Piatt had tied a flag to a lawn jockey as a signal to fleeing slaves that it was safe to stop there.

Blockson also came across the Revolutionary War legend of Jocko. The story goes that a 9-year-old New Jersey farm boy named Jocko sneaked out of his house to find his father, a freed slave who had enlisted with George Washington's army.

The boy wound up in an encampment on Christmas Eve, before Washington's crossing of the Delaware. Waiting for his father's return, the boy volunteered to care for the general's horse during a blizzard. The next morning, Washington discovered that the boy had frozen to death, his hands still clinging to the horse's reins. [Link]

Washington was so moved by Jocko's sacrifice that he commissioned a tacky lawn ornament handsome statue of the faithful, frozen groomsman for his estate at Mount Vernon.

Of course, all the web references to the Underground Railroad story trace back to Blockson and no further. And a spokesman for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati has said that "there is no truth to the idea that lawn jockeys were used as part of the Underground Railroad." And the folks at Mount Vernon call the Jocko story "apocryphal." But I will withhold judgment until I've read Blockson's 1984 NG article, "Escape From Slavery: The Underground Railroad." Only then will I decide that I don't believe him.

[Photo source: Lawn Jockey Love (license)]

Breeds Bred to Battle Bunkers

Every History Channel fan knows that the Battle of Bunker Hill was actually fought on Breed's Hill. According to AP writer Allen G. Breed, the misnomer still bugs his family.

Cousins have fired off letters to the editor when some hapless columnist makes the mistake of calling it the Battle of Bunker Hill. My youngest brother briefly attended Bunker Hill Community College, and whenever a piece of mail from the school arrived at our home, Dad would scribble "and Breed's" into the name.

In 1975, at the bicentennial battle re-enactment in Charlestown, I watched with a 10-year-old's mixture of pride and mortification as my father nudged his way up to the Bunker-laden reviewing stand, reached up and tugged on the sleeve of one of the town fathers. "The Breeds are here, too," he announced and, sure enough, the mayor told us to come on up. [Link]

John Paul's Bones?

This month's Smithsonian Magazine asks whether the corpse disinterred in Paris in 1905, then shipped to America and reinterred in the basement of the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Maryland, was indeed that of Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones. The article's author, Adam Goodheart, thinks DNA testing should be done to settle the matter.

Which is not to say that the folks a century ago were less than thorough.

The corpse was that of a middle-aged man, dressed in a simple linen cap, ruffled shirt and shroud, with his waist-length dark hair gathered up at the neck. In photographs at the Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C., even the stubble on his chin is visible. One eye appears half open, as if in an eternal wink.

Under cover of darkness, the cadaver was transported to Paris’s École de Médicine, where the city’s most eminent anthropologists could examine it. They took measurements, performed dissections and, as [Ambassador Horace] Porter, his aides and family hovered anxiously, compared the body with known portraits and descriptions of Jones. (Sixty years later, the ambassador's great-nephew recalled, with a shudder, being urged to hold the corpse’s "soft and pliable" hand.) [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Paul Revere Drank Here

The Freedom Trail in Boston hits all the historic hotspots, but attendance on the walking tours tends to drop off in the winter months. Business is booming, though, since organizers introduced the Historic Pub Crawl.

Visitors are led by a guide in 18th-century costume, who informs them of the importance of taverns in fomenting the American Revolution. At each stop, they get 3-ounce beers and hot food to keep their historical curiosity piqued.

Dominic Rebelo, 28, went on the crawl with his in-laws on a cold, rainy night last month.

"I'm actually a history buff, and who doesn't like libations?" asked Rebelo, a paralegal in Boston. "I figured the combination of the two was a win-win." [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Descendants Make a Mockery of War Hero's Funeral

From The (Columbia, S. C.) State of Aug. 22, 2005:

Mock funeral honors de Kalb

Revolutionary War re-enactors, German soldier’s descendants attend

From Staff Reports

BATTLE OF CAMDEN

In August 1780, Baron Johann de Kalb was laid to rest among others felled in the Battle of Camden.

As part of the celebration of the 225th anniversary of the battle, the German who led colonial troops against the British was buried again in a mock funeral Sunday by Revolutionary War re-enactors. Observing were his descendants from Leipzig, Germany, and Rock Hill.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Sons Older But Smaller Than Daughters

From The (Longview, Tex.) News-Journal:

Group looking for those with revolutionary roots

By JIMMY ISAAC

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Unlike many organizations, Sons of the American Revolution are united by a unique thread – heritage.

"You must be able to trace your ancestry back to someone who served or aided in the Revolutionary War," Texas Society President James Heath of the group's membership criteria.

[snip]

Heath, who also has roots in South Carolina, said the Sons are equivalent to the Daughters of the American Revolution. "We're actually older than the DAR, but they're a lot bigger."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Sibling rivalry is an ugly thing.