Where the Grass Don't Grow

Back in 1806, future U.S. President Andrew Jackson shot and killed a man in a duel. Now Jim and Laura Bowen of Nashville, Tennessee—together with a descendant of the fallen man—want to see if he is buried in their front yard. According to a 1955 newspaper clipping attached to their petition (pdf), the location of the burial won't be hard to find.

In the searing heat of last summer's drouth the grass and ivy in the front yard of J. M. Southall at 216 Carden Avenue, just off West End, first began to wither and die on a spot approximately three by seven feet under an ancient hackberry tree near the street. This indicated to the owner that at this point for some reason there was an unusual thinness of the soil.

Reference to Mr. Southall's deed shows that here is located the grave of Charles Dickenson [sic], killed in the famous duel with Andrew Jackson. When this area was opened as a sub-division a number of years ago; and the flat stone marker was covered shallowly by an earth-fill, the last visible evidence of Dickinson's mortal remains was obliterated.

Founding Father of Finance Feted

Descendants will gather Thursday at the grave of Alexander Hamilton in Manhattan to commemorate his 250th birthday. The awkwardly named Friends of Alexander Hamilton & Descendants Committee succeeded in making January 11th a city-wide holiday in Paterson, New Jersey—founded by Hamilton in 1792—and members will be present at the Wall Street churchyard to toast his bullet-ridden corpse.

Although Americans say they think like Jeffersonians, they live like Hamiltonians, pundits say. It was this immigrant, from the Caribbean island of St. Kitts and Nevis, who was prescient enough to establish a strong monetary system, which funded American growth and expansion throughout the 19th century and beyond. [Link]

Unfortunately, he was not prescient enough to skip the duel with Aaron "Quick Draw" Burr.

So be sure to pull out a sawbuck and wish Alexander a happy 250th on Thursday. And then be sure to slip it an envelope and mail it to me.

Beware the Scary Fairies

A burial register for the parish of Lamplugh in Cumbria reveals some interesting causes of death between the years 1656 and 1663.

The manuscript, a later copy of the original, was found in Whitehaven during a national local history campaign. It claims four people were “frighted to death by faries” while another died after being “led into a horse pond by a will of the whisp’.

A drunken duel “fought with frying pan and pitchforks” killed another man, while a second using “a 3-footed stool and a brown jug” as weapons claimed another. [Link]

Two deaths were attributed to "Mrs Lamplugh's cordial water," and eleven poor souls "took cold sleeping at church" and died (a dig, archivist Anne Rowe supposes, at the long-windedness of the rector).