So That's What Rebels Smelled Like

The Graffiti House in Brandy Station, Virginia, was occupied by both Union and Confederate forces during the Civil War. They left behind names, dates and drawings scribbled on the walls, discovered during a renovation in 1992. New graffiti came to light just last summer.

[Paint-removal specialist Kirsten] Travers ... uncovered a large piece of graffiti in the JEB Stuart room - where the Confederate Army General signed his name. The new image is a full-size figure of a man with a head resembling a pumpkin. On his torso is the phrase: “President J. Davis. Good on the boots.”

Neither Travers nor Edrington know what the phrase means but they suspect it is a sarcastic comment, perhaps about Davis’ efforts in providing adequate footwear to soldiers.

Besides the date and the pumpkin head, Travers found another image of a horse standing in front of a man who had been revealed previously.

Edrington said the volunteers thought the man was a standalone image but now he is seen behind the horse and above him are the words, “He smells a rebel.” [Link]

Genealogical or Geological?

Sandra Atherton says that the lines and grooves on boulders in her Georgia backyard are actually 200-year-old graffiti.

She's found the surnames of the families historians say first settled in the areas known as the Talase Colony and Fort Strong. Her ancestors, the Lavenders, along with the Strong and Easley families, all among the first families to settle in the area, have left their marks on the area, she said.

"You start scratching with a pencil on the paper," Atherton said. "And you're just hoping for that one clear one. Then, you can kind of see where the outline is. I do one line at a time until you can tell what it is."

What's created is a collection of characters and words that some of her relatives dismiss as doodles and others believe is history revealed. [Link]

Poetry So Bad It's Criminal

Workers found a tombstone in the basement of the courthouse in Bangor, Maine, for Isaac Cobb, who died Sept. 7, 1874, at age 72. A second epitaph was written on the back—presumably by inmates at the courthouse jail.

It appears to have been printed in black paint on the back of the headstone.

Titled, "Pretty Boy Floyd Redmond," the first two verses read:

"Beneath this sod so cold and deep,

Lies the once bold Floyd R,

Now, the meek and dirty creep.

He came to our town,

His motto to "do or die,"

But now he’s stocking shelves,

It makes you wonder why." [Link]

I actually know Isaac Cobb. He was born in the same town I was, and his mother was a Dunham—a distant cousin of mine. I have no known connection to "Pretty Boy Floyd."

[Thanks, Nancy!]

Records of NYC Marriages to Be Destroyed

Manhattan's Marriage Bureau is being relocated, leaving some to wonder what will happen to its graffiti wall.

For decades, Room 262 of the city’s Municipal Building has been a worldwide attraction for couples looking to get married in New York City. Never mind the grim Department of Motor Vehicles-like atmosphere — lack of bathrooms, the poor seating, the unsightly glass partitions and the signature-covered wall where couples leave inscriptions of their eternal love for posterity.

Was the wall going to be moved? Was it going to be painted over? Was it going to be auctioned off? What would happen to all those signatures, those loopy hearts, those couples that would be together 4ever? [Link]

The mayor's spokesman confirmed that, "In effect, the wall will be removed."

Through the Time Tunnel

David Gepp has been researching graffiti scrawled on the walls of the disused "Time Tunnel" of Llangollen, Wales.

David said: "When the tunnel was built, about 1864, it was lined with a type of tile that took pencil readily and local people took to writing their names or messages to loved ones.

"It soon became apparent that a great number [were] written by young men of the area heading off to the First World War, and it became a real obsession trying to discover who they were, and what fate befell them in the trenches."

The fading signatures scrawled on the tiled brick were a poignant reminder of the Great War, the first kindlings of romance and the unrefined humour of youth.

One message says "Berlin last stop", another is signed "Balls from Belgium", and a third the schoolboyish "Hoof Hearted". [Link]