THE TRAVELER WITH THE RED UMBRELLA:

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1779

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami was born in the city of Bergamo in the northern Italian region of Lombardy, 16th of 17 children. His parents were Giovan Battista, the Doganiere Generale of the Repubblica Veneta, and Margherita Carozzi.

In about this year Gasparo Grimani wrote the Pope pleading for reconciliation.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1786

Jonas Hanway died, credited with having been the 1st Englishman to habitually carry an umbrella.

Francis Grose’s TREATISE OF ANCIENT ARMOUR AND WEAPONS stirred interest among the English in antique arms and armor (actual scholarship would not begin until 1824, with Samuel Rush Meyrick’s CRITICAL INQUIRY INTO ANCIENT ARMOUR).

In St. Petersburg, Fischer’s L’ART DE L’ESCRIME (THE ART OF FENCING) described a German fencing style. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1793

The baptismal records of the Italian city of Bergamo were destroyed in a fire at the Church of S. Eufemia — in consequence we are unable to learn the exact date of birth of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami “Stack of the Artist of HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1797

Venice fell under Austrian control (this would continue until 1805). Napoléon Bonaparte emancipated the Jews of Venice (in the course of his campaigns across Europe, Napoleon would replace the kingdoms he conquered with republics and Jews would be set free from the ghettos).

In order to generate this liberalism and human freedom and dignity, Napoléon needed of course to be in charge — so he ordered his soldiers to enhance the spread of malaria by flooding the plains around Mantua, Italy. BIOTERRORISM

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami left Bergamo to become a soldier of the Repubblica Cisalpina, the affiliation of which was with France rather than Italy.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Giacomo Costantino Be HDT WHAT? INDEX

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March: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami joined the Freemasons and would begin to work his way into the Napoleonic courts in Italy, at first as a mere interpreter. (In after years later, when the province of Le Marche would again fall under the purview of the papal government of Italy, he would undergo questioning for such activities.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1801

In Turin, Italy, Giacomo Costantino Beltrami became an Ispettore dei Magazzini della Commissione.

Gasparo Grimani died.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1803

December 20, Tuesday: Samuel Hopkins died in Newport. He had been aware that he was dying, and preached a sermon about his own anticipated demise. ON HIS OWN DEATH

Though he had begun as a slaveholder, he had been the 1st of the Congregational ministers of New England to renounce human enslavement. He had been one of the sponsors of the enactment of 1774 which had interdicted the importation of negro slaves into Rhode Island, and of the enactment of 1784 which had declared that all children of slaves born in Rhode Island after the following March should be born free.

The obituary oration would be delivered by the Reverend Levi Hart, D.D. OBITUARY ORATION

In a move that more than doubled the land surface of the nation, the United States of America paid France approximately $20 per square mile to extinguish its claim to approximately 1,000,000 square miles of “Louisiana.” “Rights” to a general territory of 828,000 square miles1 which went under the name “Louisiana,” that is, “Land of Louis XV, King of France” (although whatever paltry “rights of ownership” Louis XV had had to this real estate, which had always been debatable, had passed to his erstwhile heir Napoléon Bonaparte) were sold to the national government of the United States of America for the paltry sum of $0.04 per acre.

1. It sounds much more impressive to say 828,000 square miles than 914 miles square, since in the conversion from square miles to miles square –as in the conversion from a red nation to our human nation– the relationship is of a power. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Once President Thomas Jefferson had procured that land doubling the size of the United States (14 new states would eventually be formed) from the peoples who actually lived on it, such as the Dakota nation, that land would belong to them! (However, when the national government of the United States of America subsequently went about purchasing rights to such territories from weaker people, they weren’t in the habit of paying nearly as much as this per acre, even when the rights to the real estate were far more real than whatever rights had devolved from King Louis of France.)2 READ THE FULL TEXT

2. Since we’ve spoken above about “rights” to this land, we should also say something about the “rights” of the peoples who were living on this land. Joseph J. Ellis has pointed out in AMERICAN CREATION that President Jefferson set us up for the extension of slavery westward, and for the removal of native American tribes from east of the Mississippi River, on this day December 20, 1803, when he specified that in these new federal territories, rights were granted only to the “white” inhabitants (we’re not saying that Jefferson had any real option other than to play the game out in this way, we’re only saying that this one word was in fact the critical juncture, the pivot point on which the world has turned, the thingie that would set us up for a whole lot of our subsequent agony). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1805

In Parma, Italy, Giacomo Costantino Beltrami became a Sotto-Ispettore degli Equipaggi, and then the Cancelliere di Giustizia nel Dipartamento del Taro. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1806

Napoléon Bonaparte was bringing the Holy Roman empire to an end. His Berlin Decree began the “Continental System” (closing Continental ports to British vessels). He declared Joseph Bonaparte to be King of Naples (Joseph would rule until 1808, when Joachim Murat would acquire that title). He declared Louis Bonaparte to be King of Holland. Prussia declared war on France. Britain blockaded the French coast. A French army under General Joachim Murat entered Warsaw. A German heard the pounding of Nappy’s cannon in the distance and then witnessed the French conqueror’s triumphal ride through Jena. This now- famous German heard the thumps in the distance, and “flashed” on the fact that this represented — the unwitting realization of Reason! Reason had been rapping on the door and asking “Please let me in, please let me in.” While they were in town the French troops stole all this famous German’s money. This now-famous German philosopher thus had two ways to go, he could either detest such a dangerous and powerful leader — or might bring himself to adore him. He chose to adore and later this man would become the publisher of a pro-French newspaper in Stuttgart, the Bamberger Zeitung. He came to perceive the French commander who had robbed him as what he termed the Weltseele, the personification of reason. (Yes, go figure.) His name was G.W.F. Hegel and at this point he was writing away at his influential THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND. The foundation-stone of his philosophy, upon which everything else evidently was to be predicated, was “Nothing succeeds like success.” (Can you tell how impressed I am?)

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami became a Vice-Ispettore delle Armate. When he began to do bookkeeping work for the Beretta Enterprise, which had a contract to provide rations for 2 divisions of Napoleon’s troops, his position would enable him, it seems, to very rapidly accumulate a great deal of money.

Napoleon’s invasions formed the Confederation of the Rhine and destroyed the remnants of the Holy Roman Empire. Francis II, the former Emperor, renounced the title in favor of a new one: Emperor of Austria.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1809

In Macerata, Italy, Giacomo Costantino Beltrami became Giudice della Corte del Dipartamento del Musone. He became friends with Giulia Spada dei Medici, noble mother of eight children. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1814

April 6, Wednesday: When the Emperor Napoléon was informed of the decision the Tsar of Russia had made on the previous day, declining the Emperor’s offer, he agreed in principle to abdicate unconditionally. He commented, or maybe not, “Able was I ere I saw Elba.” The French Senate declared the throne vacant and invited Louis Stanislas Xavier, brother of Louis XVI, to occupy it as Louis XVIII and restore the Kingdom of France.

A unified diet of the Swiss cantons, both aristocratic and democratic, met at Zürich to create a constitution.

The exile of Napoleon to the island of Elba of course began to make a great deal of difference in the Italian political fortunes of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami (but then Napoleon would return from Elba).

On Lake Champlain, Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough wrote to Collector of Customs Peter Sailly: “I have rec’d only this morning your favr of 29th ultim, owing to the impractibility of crossing the lake.” He then gave the information that the “B. flotilla has been at Rouses point since a few Days,” and that their ship will soon be ready to “display the English Collours.” He speaks of the great danger lest the enemy seize the boats and sink them loaded with stones at the mouths of rivers and creeks, telling Mr. Sailly that he will know best as to the advisability of placing strong batteries at the mouth of the Saranac, and closing with: “It will do no good to growl; but I may observe that we are going to be in a desperate situation on the shores of this lake as long as the British can navigate it, Stop all Communication and plunder our Shores.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1815

The attorney Pietro Bachi, implicated in General Joachim Murat’s failed attempt to seize the throne of the two Sicilies, was forced to flee Palermo, Sicily. He would wind up in England and then in the United States. Since we have a notation that sometimes Bachi was known as “Ignasio Batolo,” we may suspect that some of this traveling was accomplished, for safety, under an assumed name.

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami received the Medaglia d’Onore di Napoli from the Istituto da Napoleone. Here is a photograph of a gentleman’s red oiled-silk umbrella from the period 1815-1820:3

August 8, Tuesday: Napoléon Bonaparte became a prisoner under transportation, destined for the island of St. Helena that was just the right distance away from France.

Of course, the defeat at Waterloo, and the events that had followed, had brought an end to the Italian judicial career of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3. Note that if Giacomo was already sporting his signature red umbrella during this period –something which we do not know– then its color, since the color associated with the clergy was black, would have been taken on the Italian peninsula to be an assertion of an anticlerical politics — and indeed Giacomo’s politics were anticlerical (as anticlerical as, in a later generation, the politics of the red-shirted supporters of Giuseppi Garibaldi). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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3rd day 8 of 8 M 1815 / This afternoon I witnessed a solemn scene - I called in the latter part of the Afternoon to see Matthew Barker who has been a long time very low & in great distress & apparantly Dieing for several Days, about 20 Minutes after I went into the room the scene closed, his distress continuing till near the close — When he breathed his last my sensations exceeded any thing I ever felt on seeing any person depart from time, my whole frame was shaken — every day brings us all neaer to the like Awful period & every scene like this is a solemn warning to us. to have our minds prepared for the event. — for some time he has not been entirely rational - & when I saw him this morng & at the final close he was past sensing much for any thing but his distress — I staid & assisted in laying him out RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1820

The Contessa Giulia Spada dei Medici died at the age of 39. Giacomo Costantino Beltrami would edit a collection of writings in her honor, UNA VISITA AL CIMITERO DI MACERATA, by various authors.4

There were revolts in Spain and Italy against the rule of the Bourbons. In Madrid, there was a mutiny by troops who refused to go to South America to oppose revolution. Spanish liberals continued opposition against the Bourbons in Spain, and King Ferdinand VII was forced to restore the constitution of 1812. Palermo revolted briefly. Naples formed a Republic. There was revolution in Portugal. In England, there was the dissolution of Parliament, and the Cato street conspiracy. Throughout Europe, there were Royalist reactions.

Mount Vesuvius was also obviously in revolt, or had indigestion or something:

4. Beltrami, G.C. “Una Visita al Cimitero di Macerata.” COMPONEIMENTI IN PROSA ED IN VERSA DE CATENATI RECITATI NELLA STRAORDINARIA ADUNANZA DEI 18 AGOSTO AD ONORARE LA MEMORIA DELL’ILLUSTRE ACCADEMICA CONTESSA GIULIA SPAD A DEI MEDICI DAMA DELLA CROCE STELLATA (Macerata: Stamperia Cortesi, 1820). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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September 20, Wednesday: Red-haired but nearly bald Colonel Josiah “The Prairie Chicken” Snelling laid the cornerstone of a massive new fort, to be called “Fort St. Anthony,” at the confluence of the Mississippi River and the St. Peter’s River overlooking Pike Island in what eventually would become Minnesota. Construction would require six years.

Rochesterville, New York’s Methodist Episcopal Church opened and Abelard Reynolds was named 1st trustee.

Two hundred and forty-one additional deaths from yellow fever were recorded in Savannah.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 21 of 9 M / Our meeting today was small & silent to me a season of some oppression. — John remains very poorly. I hardly know what to think of his HDT WHAT? INDEX

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case. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1821

Using the name Alcandro Grineo, Giacomo Costantino Beltrami became a member of the Accademia dei Catenati di Macerata. (He would soon determine that, with the Napoleonic project in ruins and the Pope in control, he needed to flee entirely from his native land.)

On the Italian peninsula, the Waldenses religious college at Torre Pellice, erected on the site of a fort once built to suppress them, was of course shut down by the new state authorities for having been teaching the doctrines of that heretic anti-Catholic faith.

Meanwhile, Joel Roberts Poinsett, a descendant of these Huguenots, was entering the US House of Representatives. WIKIPEDIA’S LIST OF HUGUENOTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1822

After Giacomo Costantino Beltrami had in his exile quest visited a number of different cities in Europe, in this year he arrived at Liverpool, England.

November 3, Sunday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami sailed from Liverpool for the United States on a vessel that would encounter great difficulties, requiring more than 2 months for the crossing.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Gratulations-Menuet was performed for the initial time, in Vienna for the nameday of Carl Friedrich Hensler, new director of the theater in Josephstadt.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould became one of the overseers of the bequest of Friend Obadiah M. Brown: 1st day 5th [error, 3d] of 11th M 1822 / Meetings nearly Silent & not very lively, tho’ I thought the Afternoon was more favoured. — Rec’d between Meetings a letter from our Ancient frd Moses Brown inclosing a copy of part of his son Obadiahs Will, by which I was informed that I was appointed a Trustee with twelve others to receive an Annuity of twelve Hundred Dollars to be distributed according to our discretion in Such benevolent purposes as might occur, particularly by recommending the printing of Such religious Books as May tend to the promulgation of our religious principles where they are but little known. — This Trust humbled my mind & desires were raised that we might be favoured to conduct according to the Will of the Donor & Honour of the Great Cause — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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December: After an arduous voyage, either during this month or during January 1823, Giacomo Costantino Beltrami disembarked at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (he probably landed on December 20th but for some reason he would assert in his writings that he had landed on January 23d).

James Geddes recommended 5 routes for Ohio canals to the state’s legislature.

At the end of this year the Reverend Lemuel Capen took up again his ministerial calling, while at the same time (his “day job,” so to speak) supporting his large and growing family by teaching in the Hawes School of South Boston for a salary of some $500 per year.

Also at the end of this year, the Reverend Joseph Blanco White was engaged as editor at a salary of £300 per year by Rudolph Ackermann to write the chief part of a journal intended for Spanish America, Variedades, a Quarterly Journal, literary and moral, for the Hispano-Americans (he would continue in this until October 1825). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1823

January 26, Sunday: In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 26 of 1 M / At meeting in the forenoon a short testimony [-] Father Rodman. — In the Afternoon — poor times to me In the evening visited David Williams, who is sick [-]ry poor way RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

Publication at Philadelphia (I. Ashmead & Co.) of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami’s DEUX MOTS SUR LES PROMENADES DE PARIS A LIVERPOOL ETC. He began a voyage down the Ohio River, intending to follow it to its juncture with the Mississippi River and then head downriver for New Orleans, Louisiana. On the journey, however, he would become acquainted with United States Indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro, who was heading upriver on the Mississippi, and would conceive the project of exploring the headwaters of this great river. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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He and Taliaferro joined with Major Stephen H. Long and traveled upriver toward Fort St. Anthony.

May 10, Saturday: Petros Iliou Mavromichalis replaced Alexandros Nikolaou Mavrokordatos as President of the Executive of Greece.

The steamboat Virginia, Captain Crawford, arriving at Fort St. Anthony (Fort Snelling) from St. Louis with supplies, was greeted with a salute of cannon. This was the 1st steamboat able to make its way against the relatively swift flow of the upper Mississippi River into what eventually would become the Minnesota Territory under motor power. Only Mrs. Snelling, the wife of the commandant of the fort eventually named after him, was able to discourse with the passenger Giacomo Costantino Beltrami, and only in French. I know not what impression the first sight of the Phoenician vessels might make on the inhabitants of the coasts of Greece, or the Triremi of the Romans on the natives of Iberia, Gaul, or Britain; but I am sure it could not be stronger than that which I saw on the countenances of these savages at the arrival of our steam-boat. The council-hall is, as it ought to be, a great room built of HDT WHAT? INDEX

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trunks of trees. The flag of the United States waves in the centre, surrounded by English colours, and medals hung to the walls. They are presented by the Indians to their Father, the agent, as a proof that they abjure all cabal or alliance with the English. Pipes, or calumets and other little Indian presents, offered by the various tribes as pledges of their friendship, decorate the walls and give a remarkable and characteristic air to the room.

June 4, Wednesday: There was some interracial friction at Fort Snelling in what eventually would become the Minnesota Territory, after which a peace was concluded.

June 6, Friday: The agreement of June 4th at Fort Snelling in what eventually would become the Minnesota Territory almost fell apart after another small quarrel, but then peace was again restored. Giacomo Costantino Beltrami professed himself disappointed at being denied the opportunity to witness a magnificent frontier shootout. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami hung out with United States Indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro and Stephen H. Long as they traveled — but after 3 months of this the men had begun to wear on each other’s nerves.

The New-York Evening Post described a bout between an 18-year old butcher and “a man they called the champion of Hickory Street.” The stakes were $200, an amount roughly equal to a working man’s annual income.

The Tennessee legislature nominated Andrew Jackson for the presidency, representing the Jeffersonian Republican party. This was accomplished by a Tennessee political faction representing creditor and banking interests, headed by John Overton and other old cronies of the Blount clique. Their cynical agenda was to attach their man Pleasant Miller to Jackson’s populist coattails and thereby unseat incumbent Senator John Williams, protégé of a faction headed by Governor William Carroll. They were presuming that once their man Miller became a Senator, a Jackson presidential candidacy could be readily hijacked. They simply did not take into consideration that Jackson would be able to gain support from debtors by urging the adoption of relief measures to ease the economic hardships resulting from the Panic of 1819. The Miller candidacy would falter, and Jackson’s allies, such as William B. Lewis and John H. Eaton, would present Jackson as an alternative to Senator Williams. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July 6, Sunday: The visitors to Fort St. Anthony, Lawrence Taliaferro, Stephen H. Long, and Giacomo Costantino Beltrami, and Mr. Say, Mr. Colhoun, and Mr. Keating, walked to the Falls of St. Anthony, the extremest limit of navigation on the Mississippi River. Since the water was only a couple of feet deep above the falls, some of them braced themselves against the stiff current and walked across slippery rocks to the island in the middle of the river, and then some of them retreated to the west bank while others ventured on across the remainder of the flow toward the east bank. The fools seem to have been able to get safely to the far shore only with some help from a soldier stationed at the government mills adjacent to the falls.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 6th of 7 M / Both Meetings were solid good ones to me - In the forenoon a Short lively testimony from Father Rodman — Afternoon Silent. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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August 9, Saturday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami split from United States Indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro and Stephen H. Long when the group reached Pembina, and set off guided by some Ojibwa Indians on a personal quest to find the source of the Mississippi River. After a week and a half his guides made themselves scarce but luckily he was able to obtain help from other local native Americans.

In the illustration above, Beltrami’s signature red traveling umbrella –which was quite a hit among the natives– is very much in evidence but we don’t get to inspect his frontier chapeau “made from the bark of a tree.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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August 28, Thursday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami arrived at what he conjectured to be the source of the Mississippi River, as well as the Red River of the North, in what eventually would become the Minnesota Territory, naming the place Giulia after his deceased friend back in Italy, Giulia Spada dei Medici, and naming other lakes nearby after her eight children.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 28th of 8th M / Rode with my H to Portsmouth to attend the Monthly Meeting - went out the West Road stoped at Uncle Peter Lawtons — In the first Meeting [—] Dennis & Father Rodman bore short testimonies — [—] the last Jonathon Nichols of Salem published his intentions of Marriage with Sister Elizabeth Rodman & Welcome Congdon of Providence his intentions of marriage with Mary Dennis. — The young folk behaved with circumspection, their countenances bespeaking that [their] minds were impressed with the importance of the [—] State of life they were about to enter. — we dined at Uncle Thurstons, as did also Jonathon & Elizabeth, Father & Mother Rodman, David Buffum & wife, Brother David Rodman & his wife, & Sister Ruth & Mary Rodman. After dinner Rode down to Uncle Stantons & took tea with them, where I found My Mother ins usual health & spirits. — The Life of religion has been low with me today, but have made some [— ausens] after it, with a little success. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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On approximately this day, Waldo Emerson wrote in his JOURNAL:

Tuesday Morning I engaged Mr Bartlett to bring me to Mrs Shepard’s.... After spending three days very pleasantly at Mrs Shepard’s, among orators, botanists, mineralogists, & above all, Ministers, I set off on Friday Morning with Thos Greenough & another little cousin in a chaise to visit Mount Holyoke. How high the hill may be, I know not; for, different accounts make it 8, 12, & 16 hundred feet from the river. The prospect repays the ascent and although the day was hot & hazy so as to preclude a distant prospect, yet all the broad meadows in the immediate vicinity of the mountain through which the Connecticutt [sic] winds, make a beautiful picture seldom rivalled. After adding our names in the books to the long list of strangers whom curiosity has attracted to this hill we descended in safety without encountering rattlesnake or viper that have given so bad fame to the place. We were informed that about 40 people ascend the mountain every fair day during the summer. After passing through Hadley meadows, I took leave of my companions at Northampton bridge, and crossed for the first time the far famed Yankee river.... In the afternoon I set out on my way to VENUS Greenfield intending to pass the Sabbath with George Ripley.... GEORGE RIPLEY By the light of the Evening star, I walked with my reverend uncle [the Reverend Ripley], a man who well sustains the character of an aged missionary.... After a dreamless night, & a most hospitable entertainment I parted from Greenfield & through an unusually fine country, crossed the Connecticut (shrunk to a rivulet in this place somewhere in Montagu).... From Mr Haven’s garret bed I sallied forth Tuesday morng [sic] towards Hubbardston, but my cramped limbs made little speed. After dining in Hubbardston I walked seven miles farther to Princeton designing to ascend Wachusett with my tall cousin Thomas Greenough if I should find him there, & then set out for home in the next day’s stage. But when morning came, & the stage was brought, and the mountain was a mile & a half away — I learned again an old lesson, that, the beldam Disappointment sits at Hope’s door. I jumped into the stage & rode away, Wachusett untrod.... Close cooped in a stage coach with a score of happy dusty rustics the pilgrim continued his ride to Waltham, and alighting there, spent an agreeable evening at Rev. Mr Ripley’s Home he came from thence the next morning, right glad to sit down once more in a quiet wellfed family — at Canterbury. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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August 30, Saturday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami arrived back at Fort St. Anthony. He would continue down the Mississippi River toward his original destination, New Orleans, Louisiana.

The recollection of John Adams was that the 5-person committee for the preparation of a Declaration of Independence document (John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman) had appointed Jefferson and him to produce a draft document. Jefferson wrote to James Madison on this date, however, insisting that to the contrary, this 5-person committee actually had “unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught.” Jefferson had always been willing to admit that, in promoting himself as the sole author of the Declaration, he had not meant to give anybody the idea he had been in any way original or creative: “I did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether and to offer no sentiment which had ever been expressed before,” he had communicated to Adams as early as 1819.5 The accusations that the principles contained within the Declaration had been previously voiced in Congress and set into print by writers such as John Locke “may all be true,” he wrote to Madison at this point, but “whether I had gathered my ideas from reading or reflection I do not know. I know only that I turned to neither book or pamphlet while writing it.”6 (At some point in these early 1820s, R.H. Lee’s grandson and namesake had struck a raw nerve with Jefferson concerning authorship of the Declaration of Independence by insisting that a “small part of that memorable instrument” should be attributed to Jefferson,” since the remainder of it “he stole from LOCKE'S ESSAYS.” Jefferson had attempted to explain in response that his goal had been “not to find out new principles, or new arguments never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent.... Neither aiming at originality of principles or sentiments, nor yet copied from any particular or previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind.... All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke.”)

December: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami arrived at New Orleans, Louisiana and began writing up an account of his adventures. 5. Cappon, Lester J., ed. THE ADAMS-JEFFERSON LETTERS: THE COMPLETE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THOMAS JEFFERSON AND JOHN AND ABIGAIL ADAMS. Chapel Hill NC: 1959, Volume II, pages 543-4 6. Smith, James Morton, ed. THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THOMAS JEFFERSON AND JAMES MADISON, 1776-1826. NY: 1995, Volume III, pages 1875-6 HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1824

End of January: At the plantation of St. James Parish outside New Orleans, Giacomo Costantino Beltrami completed his account of his adventures.

February 17, Tuesday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami accepted an invitation to address the Freemasons of New Orleans, about his adventures.

Waldo Emerson to his journal:

Pliny’s uncle had a slave read while he eat [sic]. In the PLINY progress of Watt & Perkin’s philosophy the day may come when the scholar shall be provided with a Reading Steam Engine; when he shall say Presto — & it shall discourse eloquent history — & Stop Sesame & it shall hush to let him think. He shall put in a pin, & hear poetry; & two pins, & hear a song. that age will discover Laputa. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

April 12, Monday: De Witt Clinton was ousted by Van Buren’s colleagues as an Erie Canal commissioner.

Publication of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami’s LA DÉCOUVERTE DES SOURCES DU MISSISSIPPI ET DE LA RIVIÈRE SANGLANTE. DESCRIPTION DU COURS ENTIRE DU MISSISSIPPI, QUIE N’ÉTAIT CONNU, QUE PARTIELLEMENT, ET D’UNE GRANDE PA RTI E DE CELUI DE LA RIVIERE SANGLANTE, PRESQUE ENTIÈREMENT INCONNUE; AINSI QUE DU COURS ENTIRE DE L’OHIO. APERÇUS HISTORIQUES, DES ENDROITS LES PLUS INTÉRESSANS, QU’ON Y RECONTRE. OBSERVATIONS CRITICO-PHILOSOPHIQUES, SUR LES MOEURS, LA RELIGION, LES SUPERSTITIONS, LES COSTUMES, LES ARMES, LES CHASSES, LA GUERRE, LA PAI X, LE DÉNOMBREMENT, L’ORGINE, &C. &C. DE PLUSIEURS NATIONS INDIENNES. PARALLELE DE CES PEOPLES AVEC CEUX DE L’ANTIQUITÉ, DU MOYEN AGE, ET DU MODERNE. COUP D’OEIL, SUR LES COMPAGNIES NORD-OUEST, ET DE LA BAIE D’HUDSON, AINSI QUE SUR LA COLONIE SELKIRK. PREUVES EVIDENTES, QUE LE MISSISSIPPI EST LA PREMIÈRE RIVIÈRE DU MONDE. PAR G. C. BELTRAMI … (Nouvelle-Orléans: Impr. par Benjamin Levy, 1824).

LA DÉCOUVERTE ... HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

April 28, Wednesday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami left New Orleans for Tampico, Mexico. He would tour Aguascalientes, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Alvarado, San Luis Potosi, etc. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1825

Mexico, while still subject to Spain in 1821, had granted land within the Mexican state of Texas to Moses Austin. His white settlers had brought with them their blacks, to the extent that in this year 1 out of every 5 residents in this benighted locale was enslaved.

Richard Henry Horne went with Captain Thurlow Smith, R.N. as a midshipman on an expedition to Mexico, was at the siege of Vera Cruz and the taking of San Juan Ulloa, was taken prisoner, came close to being executed, escaped, and enlisted as a midshipman in the Mexican navy to take part in their ongoing struggle with Spanish forces based in Cuba. Leaving that conflict after being defrauded of prize-money, he cruised off the Floridas,7 landed at New-York, went up the Erie Canal, visited some native villages, visited Niagara Falls breaking two of his ribs, lost all his money at billiards, worked his way along the St. Lawrence River to Montréal and Québec, was shipwrecked in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, visited the cod-fisheries off Newfoundland, and finally was able to sail toward England on a lumber schooner.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

March 7, Monday: Representative Joel Roberts Poinsett became US Minister to Mexico.

The University of Virginia, its buildings and curriculum designed by Thomas Jefferson, opened to students (the buildings would be completed in the following year).

May: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami made his way back from Mexico to New Orleans, and discovered that in his absence his book had more or less been dismissed as a fantasy. Also, the Roman Catholic church –well aware of the reason why he was carrying a red umbrella rather than a black one– had issued a condemnation of him and his writings. He would soon travel on to Philadelphia.

(Also in this year, according to Colonel Robert Campbell, when some Indians paid a visit to St. Louis, the first thing they did was purchase some red umbrellas and they “walked in Indian file, bare headed with the umbrellas spread over them, making a ludicrous appearance.” It is worth the speculation, that these native’s sense of style had been affected by their encounter with Giacomo Costantino Beltrami two years earlier — because Beltrami had in fact brought with him into the wilderness that large red anticlerical umbrella.)

7. During this period Florida was regarded as two places, one on the Atlantic coast and the other on the Caribbean coast. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

November 4, Friday: In New-York, a group of artists dissatisfied with the Academy of Arts which had been founded in 1802 created their own new association. This new foundation would initially be known as the New York Drawing Association and would be led by Samuel F.B. Morse (in 1828 this group would designate itself the National Academy of Design).

New York Governor De Witt Clinton’s flotilla, towed by one of Clinton’s steamboats, reached New-York, was escorted into the harbor by the US fleet with guns roaring, and Giacomo Costantino Beltrami took part in festivities surrounding the opening of the Erie Canal, the largest canal in the world. At the height of the celebrations the notables ceremonially dumped a couple of kegs of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic. What they were celebrating, of course, was the fact that freight rates between Buffalo and New York were about to drop by more than an order of magnitude, from roughly $100.00 per ton to roughly $8.00 per ton. The ascendancy of New-York harbor over Boston Harbor was forever assured. CANALS

December: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami, thin-skinned as always, caused to be printed a defense of himself, INDIRIZZO AL POPOLO DEGLI STATI UNITI (TO THE PUBLIC OF NEW YORK, AND OF THE UNITED STATES. THE AUTHOR OF “THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI.” Tarrytown, New York: Joseph Darke). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1826

February-August: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami visited Haiti and Santo Domingo, and possibly went on to visit the Niagara Falls and parts of Canada, before heading back across the ocean to London.

August 31, Thursday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami notified the REVUE ENCYCLOPÉDIQUE that he had discovered in Mexico, and obtained for the outside world, an ancient Mexican manuscript printed upon agave 8 leaves, now known as “the Aztec codex” and as EVANGELARIUM EPISTOLARIUM AZTECUM.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 31 of 8 M / Rode with my H to Portsmouth to attend our Monthly Meeting, which was a time of refreshment our first meeting was livily in silence & the testimony all sweet & encouraging. — Mary Hicks D Buffum, Ruth Freeborn Clarke Rodman Hannah Dennis & A Sherman bore short lively testimonys, corresponding in exercise, that we might seek peace & persue it. — In the last the buisness was conducted orderly & in harmony. — Joshua Shaw & Hannah Pearce published their intentions of Marriage. — We dined & spent the remainder of the Afternoon at

8. It would turn out that the particular codice retrieved by Beltrami wasn’t ancient at all, having been produced by native students in 1529 under the sponsorship of a teacher at the Imperial College of Santa Cruz de Tlaltelolco in Mexico, Bernardino de Sahagun. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

Uncle Stantons. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October: Having visited Haiti, Santo Domingo, and possibly the Niagara Falls and parts of Canada, Giacomo Costantino Beltrami made a return trip across the Atlantic to London.

November: The REVUE ENCYCLOPÉDIQUE announced as “Réclamation. — Découverte d’un ancien manuscrit mexicain” that Giacomo Costantino Beltrami had obtained a copy of a Mexican manuscript printed upon agave leaves. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1827

December: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami finished (and would publish early in the following year) his APILGRIMAGE IN EUROPE AND AMERICA, a 2-volume English translation of DÉCOUVERTE and DEUX MOTS with an additional two chapters and some expanded material. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1828

Early in the year: Publication in London (Hunt and Clarke) of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami’s A PILGRIMAGE IN EUROPE AND AMERICA, an English translation of his DEUX MOTS SUR LES PROMENADES DE PARIS A LIVERPOOL ETC and LA DÉCOUVERTE DES SOURCES DU MISSISSIPPI ET DE LA RIVIÈRE SANGLANTE containing in addition some other materials and dedicated “to the Fair Sex.” My head was covered with the bark of a tree, formed into the shape of a hat and sewed with threads of bark; and shoes, a coat, and pantaloons, such as are used by Canadians in the Indian territories, and formed of original skins sewed together by thread made of the muscles of that animal, completed the grotesque appearance of my person. BELTRAMI IN ENGLISH I BELTRAMI IN ENGLISH II

December 9, Tuesday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami was nominated for membership in the Societas Medico- Botanica Londinensis (oops, there went his Monday afternoons). He began work on LE MEXIQUE.

Clari, an opera semiseria by Fromental Halevy to words of Giannone, was performed for the initial time, at the Theatre-Italien, Paris. It was his least successful opera so far. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1829

June: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami, always an assiduous collector of any and all memberships and claimable accreditations, became a member of the Société Géographie di Paris (oops, there went his Tuesday afternoons).

Mid-year: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami relocated to Paris. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1830

Early in the year: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami’s LE MEXIQUE was immediately suppressed in Austria and Italy by the Austrian and Papal governments. BELTRAMI IN MEXICO I BELTRAMI IN MEXICO II

March: A reviewer “D.G.” offered a negative evaluation of the book on the sources of the Mississippi River in the pages of the REVUE ENCYCLOPEDIQUE, in “Le Mexique par J.C. Beltrami, auteur de la decouverte des sources du Mississippi, etc. (Paris. 1830; Crevot, Delaunay, 2 vol. in 8vo.)”

Professor François Pierre Guillaume Guizot delivered an address calling for greater political freedom in the Chamber of Deputies. The motion passed 221 against 181. The reactionary King Charles X responded by dissolving the Chamber and calling for new elections — but this would only strengthen opposition to the throne.

May: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami responded, in the REVUE ENCYCLOPEDIQUE, to the negative review that the journal had published in March of his book on the sources of the Mississippi River.

Summer: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami toured the Pyrenees and parts of France on a “scientific survey.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1831

March: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami returned to Paris to continue his never-ending task of achieving fresh publicity through indignantly defending his name and reputation.

During the previous month, and this one, Austrian troops were suppressing the revolts that had occurred in Modena, Parma, and the Papal States. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1832

March 30, Friday: Francis Hunt and Samuel A. Thurston were chosen as deacons in Concord’s new Trinitarian Congregationalist Church.

A Benedictus by Samuel Sebastian Wesley was performed for the initial time, in London.

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami was nominated to be a member of the Ateneo di Bergamo (oops, there went his Wednesday afternoons).

July 16, Monday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami was nominated to be a member of the Société Géologique de France (oops, there went his Thursday afternoons). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1833

March 21, Thursday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami was nominated to be a member of the Société Universelle de Civilization (Oops, there went his Friday afternoons :-). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1834

June: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami’s L’ITALIE ET L’EUROPE, in French, and L’ITALIA OSSIA SCOPERTE..., in Italian. He relocated to a villa at Heidelberg, Germany where he became friends with Judge Josef Anton Mittermaier. Sometimes during this period of his life (always the tireless, if never wearisome, self-promoter) he would describe himself as “Julius Caesar Beltrami.”

June 9, Monday: In his 73d year, William Carey died in India. Before the Reverend’s death, 212,000 copies of the Christian Scriptures had been sent out from Serampore in 40 different languages, representing the tongues of 330,000,000 members of the human family. Dr. Southey would write that “These low-born, low- bred mechanics have done more to spread the knowledge of the Scriptures among the heathen than has been accomplished, or even attempted, by all the world beside.”

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami was nominated to be a member of the Société dell’Institut Historique de France (oops, there went his Saturday afternoons).

Jonathan Child was elected by Rochester, New York’s council as the city’s first mayor.

September: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami represented the Société dell’Institut Historique de France at the “Congress of Stoccard,” a gathering of naturalists and doctors, in Stuttgart, Germany. He had, it would turn out, left Paris for good. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1836

Dr. John Emerson, not any known relation to Waldo Emerson, was the US Army surgeon at Fort Snelling and owned a slave named Dred Scott, age 40. He openly drew an allowance from the federal government for the maintenance of his slave, equal to the pay and provisions for an Army soldier. While at Fort Snelling in the Minnesota Territory where slavery was nominally illegal, in 1836 or 1837, Dred Scott married Harriet Robinson, a slave of Major Lawrence Taliaferro, the Indian Agent at that fort, and the major, although entirely lacking in religious credentials, since he owned this woman, officiated at their wedding. In this travesty, Major Taliaferro then and there, an officer of the US government in a US government facility, sold Harriet to Surgeon Emerson, another officer of the US government. The Scotts were to have two daughters by their marriage, Lizzie and Eliza. Later, Harriet Robinson Scott, and then Dred as well, attempted to sue for freedom on the basis of this illegal servitude in a United States government facility in a region where slavery was illegal, arguing that at that time and in that place they had become free.9

9. But of course the United States Supreme Court finally, on March 6, 1857, saw through this family’s transparent little ploy. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

This cartoon was drawn by Kern Pederson for the 1849-1949 Minnesota Territorial Centennial and appears in Kern Pederson’s cartoon book MAKERS OF MINNESOTA: AN ILLUSTRATED STORY OF THE BUILDERS OF OUR STATE (Published by Kern Pederson, 2066 Case Avenue, St. Paul 6, MN, 1949). We can see several things wrong here besides spelling. First, Taliaferro was a major in the army of the United States of America, not a minister, nor a chaplain, and as such had no power to “preform” anything but a mockery. Second, the lawsuit in question was initiated by Harriet Robinson Scott and deserves to be denominated the famous Harriet Scott lawsuit. Finally, in attending to the ineptitude of the language here, we may wonder why one white man's black woman is entitled to be known as “his house servant” while the other white man's black man was entitled only to the sobriquet “the negro.”

...the marriage agreement was made in the Major’s presence, and was duly certified by him as a justice of the peace. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Lizzie Scott, slave Eliza Scott, slave

Portrait of Dred Scott, slave Harriet Robinson Scott, Lizzie Scott, slave Eliza Scott, slave by an unknown artist mother of two slave girls born in 1846 born in 1838 aboard (property of New York –one of whom happened in a slave state a steamboat between Historical Society) to have been born to two parents two free territories who lived in a US in “free territory”– one of whom, technically not government installation who lived in a US at least (maybe), property unlike her in a free territory government installation should not have sister and her and yet was not set free in a free territory been being mother and father by this Government and was sold by one sworn treated as — but then she was of free men by free men agent of our government anyone else’s a black girl sworn to uphold the law to another, so she could be property. as you can see. and administer justice. the slave wife of a slave. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

Captain Seth Eastman, the topographical engineer at Fort Snelling, was reassigned to do a railroad survey in Louisiana. At this point his local halfbreed daughter Mary Nancy Eastman, granddaughter of Marpiyawicasta, was about six years old.10

The entire country then was prairie, with no timber at all except in the immediate vicinity of the lakes and water-courses, so that we could drive in wagons in any direction. Going by the road to lake Calhoun, on the left of the junction of the road and lake was quite a large permanent Indian village surrounded by extensive corn fields, which from the time the corn was in milk, required the undivided attention of the Indian children to drive away the flocks of blackbirds, which were in great numbers. I remember very well knocking over twenty-five at one shot. This village and Saint Anthony and Little Falls were the three show places which brought into requisition all the horses and wagons belonging to the Fort, whenever the steamboat “Warrior” appeared with her hold filled with supplies and her cabins with delightful and delighted tourists who were making an excursion, considered more wonderful in those days than would be a trip to the Hawaiian Islands now.

Detail from government map of the Fort Snelling Military Reservation, Minnesota Territory, an agency of the US government collaborating in the Scotts’ enslavement: (next pages)

10.Another, nonscholarly source gives the date for this departure as 1833, when Mary Nancy, or Wakantankanwin Goddess, was still about three years of age. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1837

The Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini moved his base of operations from France to England.

After a series of concerts in Nice and Marseilles Nicolò Paganini returned to Genoa, where he drew up his last will and testament. In the document he left his violin known as “Cannone” created by Giuseppe Antonio Guarneri del Gesù (1698-1744) of Cremona in 1743 to the city of his birth “so that it may be kept for perpetuity.” He played a charity concert in Turin to give thanks for the legitimacy that Carlo Alberto of Piedmont had granted to his son Achilles.

When Giacomo Costantino Beltrami returned to Italy to his Azienda estate at Filottrano, he discovered himself still to be in disfavor. When he asked the Pope to allow publication of his LE MEXIQUE, his request was denied.11

11. As he might very well have expected that it would be — was this “asking” a stunt? HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1839

René-Marie Cazal patented an umbrella with a catch and spring inside the stick: Whilst dilating upon different inventions which either contribute to comfort or convenience, I must not omit that of M. Cazal, who has obtained two patents, and medals for the umbrellas and parasols he has invented, with which he furnishes the Queen and Princesses, and which are entirely superseding all those of any other construction. In such as M. Cazal has brought into vogue, instead of the catches or springs which retain the umbrella when open or shut, being inserted in the stick, which always contributes towards weakening it, they are attached to the wire frame-work, and by merely touching a little button will slide up or down as required with the greatest facility, without those little annoyances which so frequently happen in the old method, of either pinching one’s fingers, or the glove catching in the spring, or the latter breaking or losing its elasticity, etc., etc. The stick by this system, it must also be observed, is stronger, therefore can if desired be thinner, and consequently lighter. Another description, called travelling umbrellas, is also invented by M. Cazal and is particularly convenient, containing a cane inside the stick, by which it may be used as one or as the other, according as the weather or caprice may require; these are extremely desirable for lame persons who require a stick, as the umbrella when closed answers the purpose, and if required to be opened the cane drawing out equally affords support. M. Cazal has an assortment of canes and whips the most varied that can be imagined; it would be difficult to fancy any pattern or form that is not to be found in his numerous collection. His establishment is No. 23, Boulevard Italien, where there is always some one in attendance who speaks English. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1844

René-Marie Cazal, who had in 1839 in Paris patented a catch for the umbrella, published a small volume ESSAI HISTORIQUE, ANECDOTIQUE SUR LE PARAPLUIE, L’OMBRELLE ET LA CANNE ET SUR LEUR FABRICATION (Typographie Lacrampe et compagnie): Umbrellas were first made of oiled silk and when folded were not used as walking sticks, but had a ring at the top and a round handle, like a hearth-brush. They were generally carried under the arm and often slung across the back; the ring served for hanging them up, and occasionally for carrying them. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1849

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami sold his villa in Germany and returned to his Azienda estate in Filottrano, Ancona, Italy. It would turn out, however, that due to the intransigence of the Roman Catholic hierarchy he would still be unable to get his books published in Italy.

He would take up a mode of life resembling that of the Franciscans and begin to refer to himself as “Fra Giacomo.” For the remainder of his life he would work in his house and garden while residing in a small cell he had constructed in his large palazzo.

Vittorio Emanuele II became King of Sardinia.

Returning to the Italian peninsula, Giuseppe Mazzini was welcomed in Tuscany and then, after the Pope had fled, ruled for a short period in Rome. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1852

October 23, Saturday: Henry Thoreau checked out a volume by or on Giacomo Costantino Beltrami from the Boston Society of Natural History (this was long before the Society came to be located in its magnificent building at the intersection of Berkeley and Boylston and Newbury streets in Boston “Open from 9 A.M. to 1 P.M. and from 2 P.M. to 5 P.M.”). In all probability what Thoreau checked out would have been one or another publication evaluating the work of this author, since he was able to read French about as well as he could read Italian and English — and since presumably he already had purchased the copy of LA DÉCOUVERTE DES SOURCES DU MISSISSIPPI ET DE LA RIVIÈRE SANGLANTE that we find, annotated in pencil, in his personal library.

These would be the proceedings, for this year, of the Boston Society of Natural History: PROCEEDINGS, FOR 1852 HDT WHAT? INDEX

GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI

1853

March 5, Saturday: Arriving in Washington DC, Jefferson Davis went immediately to meet with President Franklin Pierce.

Arthur William Foote was born at 44 Warren Street, Salem, Massachusetts, the 3d of 6 children (3 surviving infancy) born to Caleb Foote, editor of the Salem Gazette and Mary Wilder White, amateur singer and daughter of a judge.

German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg founded Steinway and Sons in Manhattan.

The Saint Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, a predecessor to The Travelers insurance company, was founded in St. Paul, Minnesota, serving local customers who were having a difficult time getting claim payments in a timely manner from insurance companies on the east coast of the United States.

Henry Thoreau mentioned in his journal that he had received a circular letter early in March or shortly before from a scientist he had met, Spencer Fullerton Baird, the secretary of Louis Agassiz’s American Association

for the Advancement of Science, advising him and, he suspected, “thousand of others,” that he had been proposed for membership in the Association. The letter asked him “to fill in the blank against certain questions, among which the most important one was what branch of science [he] was specially interested in.” Thoreau did not respond, apparently assuming the group would take no action.

March 5. F. Brown showed me to-day some lesser redpolls which he shot yesterday. They turn out to be my falsely-called chestnut-frontleted bird of the winter. “Linaria minor, Ray. Lesser Redpoll Linnet. From Pennsylvania and New Jersey to Maine, in winter; inland to Kentucky. Breeds in Maine, Nova Scotia, AUDUBON Newfoundland, Labrador, and the Fur Countries.” –Audubon’s Synopsis. They have a sharp bill, black legs and claws, and a bright-crimson crown or frontlet, in the male reaching to the base of the bill, with, in his case, a delicate rose or carmine on the breast and rump. Though this is described by Nuttall as an occasional visitor in the winter, it bas been the prevailing bird here this winter. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Yesterday I got my grape cuttings. The day before went to the Corner Spring to look at the tufts of green grass. (got some of the very common leptogium (? ?). Is it one of the Collemacæ? Was pleased with the sight of the yellow osiers of the golden willow, and the red of the cornel, now colors are so rare,. Saw the green fine- threaded conferva in a ditch, commonly called frog-spittle. Brought it home in my pocket, and it expanded again in a tumbler. It appeared quite a fresh growth, with what looked like filmy air-bubbles, as big as large shot, in its midst. The secretary of the Association...The secretary for the Association for the Advancement of Science requests me, as he probably has thousands of others, by a printed circular letter from Washington the other day, to fill the blank against certain questions, among which the most important one was what branch of science I was specially interested in, using the term science in the most comprehensive sense possible. Now, though I could state to a select few that department of human inquiry which engages me, and should be rejoiced at an opportunity to do so, I felt that it would be to make myself the laughing-stock of the scientific community to describe or attempt to describe to them that branch of science which specially interests me, inasmuch as they do not believe in a science which deals with the higher law. So I was obliged to speak to their condition and describe to them that poor part of me which alone they can understand. The fact is I am a mystic, a transcendentalist, and a natural philosopher to boot. Now I think of it, I should have told them at once that I was a transcendentalist. That would have been the shortest way of telling them that they would not understand my explanations. How absurd that, though I probably stand as near to nature as any of them, and am by constitution as good an observer as most, yet a true account of my relation to nature should excite their ridicule only! If it had been the secretary of an association of which Plato or Aristotle was the president, I should not have hesitated to describe my studies at once and particularly. ARISTOTLE HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1855

January 6, Saturday: A combined force of French and Imperial Chinese troops attacked Shanghai, held by the Small Sword Society. Though the struggle was furious, the attackers were driven back. CHINESE CIVIL WAR

Henry Thoreau wrote to Friend Daniel Ricketson in New Bedford. Friend Ricketson learned of Thoreau’s experience, lecturing on Nantucket Island: Concord Mass Jan 6th 1855

Mr Ricketson, I am pleased to hear from the shanty whose inside and occupant I have seen. I had a very pleasant time at Brooklawn, as you know, — and thereafter at Nantucket. I was obliged to pay the usual tribute to the sea, but it was more than made up to me by the hospitality of the Nantucketers. Tell Arthur that I can now compare notes with him, for though I went neither before nor behind the mast, since we had n’t any — I went with my head hanging over the side all the way. In spite of all my experience I persisted in reading to the Nantucket people the lecture which I read at New Bedford, and I found them to be the very audience for me. I got home Friday night after being lost in the fog off Hyannis. I have not yet found a new jacknife but I had a glorious skating with channing the other day on the skates found long ago. Mr Cholmondeley sailed for England direct in the America on the 3d — after spending a night with me. He thinks even to go to the east & enlist! Last night I returned from lecturing in Worcester— I shall be glad to see you when you come to Boston, as will also my mother & sister who know something about you as an abolitionist. Come directly to our house. Please remember me to Mrs Ricketson, & also to the {One-half page missing} young folks Yrs Henry D Thoreau HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Although the thoughts Thoreau offered in his lecture on Nantucket had definitely not been accepted, and there are newspaper reviews that reveal this non-acceptance (“We are inclined to the opinion that his views found few sympathizers among the audience”), generations of Thoreau scholars have inferred from the above remark “I found them to be the very audience for me,” that his own consideration had been inaccurate, supposing that his ideas had been embraced when they had not. I do not sympathize with such an assessment. In my own mind, Thoreau’s remark was decidedly ironic — in my own mind, what he was saying here was that this particular audience had definitely been the sort of audience that stood in dire need of such a corrective. He had been administering to them the moral corrective that they needed, and as we all know very well, the moral corrective that an audience needs is the very last thing it will ever be eager to embrace. By this ironic remark Thoreau was acknowledging that what he had had to offer had been anything but pleasing, anything but acceptable, anything but a “crowd-pleaser.” Thoreau did not, like Emerson, pander. “Nobody ever bought a product that made them feel worse.” — George W. Bush HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Giacomo Costantino Beltrami died at the age of 76, presumably in the small “Franciscan” cell he had constructed for himself in his large palazzo on his Azienda estate in Filottrano, Ancona, Italy.

The knick-nacks he had brought back from his travels in Minnesota and Mexico are now on display in the glass cases of the Beltrami Museum in Filottrano, for what that is worth. A bronze bust has been sculpted by Vittorio Morelli:

Jan. 6th. P.M. — To Great Meadows. [Transcript] Saw one of those silver-gray cocoons which are so securely attached by the silk being wound round the leaf- stalk and the twig. This was more than a year old and empty and, having been attached to a red maple shoot, a foot or more above the meadow, it had girdled it just as a wire might, it was so unyielding— [^& the wood had overgrown it on each side.] What is that small insect with large, slender wings, which I see on the snow or fluttering in the air these days? HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Also some little black beetles on the ice of the meadow, ten rods from shore. In many places near the shore the water has overflowed the ice to a great extent and frozen again with water between of a yellowish tinge, in which you see motes moving about as you walk. The skating is for the most part spoiled by a thin, crispy ice on top of the old ice, which is frozen in great crystals and crackles under your feet. This is apparently the puddles produced by the late thaw and rain, which froze thinly while the rest of the water was soaked up. A fine snow is falling and drifting before the wind over the ice and lodging in shallow drifts at regular intervals. I see where a woodpecker has drilled a hole about two inches over in a decayed white maple; quite recently, for the chippings are strewn over the ice beneath and were the first sign that betrayed it. The tree was hollow. Is it for a nest next season? [Probably for a winter lodging.] There was an old hole higher up. I see that the locust pods are still closed, or but partially open, but they open wider after being lying in my chamber. THE ACTUAL JOURNAL THE ACTUAL JOURNAL HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1861

May 29, Wednesday: In Minneapolis, Minnesota, 17-year-old Horace Mann, Jr. recorded “He asked us to come over

the next day. So on Wednesday we went over, and he took us to ride down to the falls of Minne-ha-ha.” That morning Henry Thoreau and Mann viewed Minnehaha “Falls of Curling Water” and then walked downstream a mile or so to the Minnesota River, just as people do today.12 Thoreau had copied Edward D. Neill’s account from Collection of the Minnesota Historical Society, Volume I, page 262:

All water falls, in the Dakota tongue, are called Ha-ha, never Minnehaha [“as Longfellow has it,” Thoreau remarked here in brackets]. The “h” has a strong gutteral sound. The word is applied because of the curling of the waters. The verb I-ha-ha primarily means to curl; secondarily to laugh because of the curling motion of the mouth in laughter. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Thoreau and Mann visited the “great unbroken prairie that belonged to Ft Snelling”13 to watch the 1st regiment of Minnesota volunteers in blue uniforms parading and preparing to march off to our Civil War. There had been enough .58-caliber Springfield rifles in the Minnesota militia arsenal, capable of firing the deadly expanding “Minié” bullet, to arm only three of the companies with this advanced weapon, and so the others had had to put up with being issued older .69-caliber rifled muskets.

Since the fort had been built to accommodate only 6 companies of soldiers, 4 men to each narrow double-deck cot, 12 men to each tiny room, and since there were 8 companies in the First Minnesota Volunteers, what Thoreau and Mann saw was presumably a tent city set up in the flat area north of and outside the walls. US CIVIL WAR

12. The same layer of rocks that forms Minnehaha Falls also forms the falls of the Mississippi at St. Anthony, and at a point in geological history this small falls and this large falls were one and the same. The distance between the creek falls (Minnehaha Falls) and the juncture with the river is only about a mile, whereas the distance between the river falls (St. Anthony Falls) and that point is a number of miles, because a large falls eats away at the rock and moves upstream much more rapidly. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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The men quickly became the focus of admiring public attention, and the life at Fort Snelling took on something approaching a holiday atmosphere. Visitors swarmed into the fort nearly every day, among them “the soldiers’ relatives, friends and neighbors, who were often charged with distributing articles of comfort and convenience prepared by the ladies of different localities throughout the state,” according to Lochren. In the evenings there were often dress parades, which invariably drew appreciative civilian audiences. One day the women of Minneapolis and St. Anthony treated the regiment to a banquet on Nicollet Island, after which, according to Pressnell, Gorman put the regiment through maneuvers “principally for the purpose of ‘showing us off’ to the ladies.” A seek later the men assembled in front of the capitol to hear flowery speeches and receive the regimental flag from the governor’s wife. After the ceremony the regiment moved on to yet another banquet before enjoying a leisurely steamboat ride back to Fort Snelling. A few days later a half dozen coaches carrying young women from St. Anthony visited the fort. “The life of the First at Snelling,” Private Searles would remember, “was all the people could make it in point of comfort and encouragement.” The business of preparing for war under these circumstances was not altogether unpleasant, but neither was it trouble-free. The first food provided by local contractors was so bad that it provoked what came to be known as the “bad beef riots.” After the men took out their ire on the cooks by pillorying them with plates and the malodorous meat, Colonel Gorman threatened drastic measures.

These new troops had just gotten in trouble for firing a cannon within the walls of the fort, because the concussion had broken window panes and new glass had to be brought in by riverboat at a cost of approximately $0.25 per 4X6 pane. The US government had “sold” Fort Snelling to the local fixer Franklin Steele (who had, however, neglected to pay for it), and the travelers saw a newly reactivated fort for the area within the walls had been in use as an enclosure for sheep — and as an enclosure for farmers, during Minnesota’s second State Fair. Thoreau jotted in his notebook that “F. Steele in 1837” was “the first white man that ‘flashed his axe in the unbroken wilderness’ & commenced improvements in Minnesota.” This was, of course, a preposterous fatuous brag which Thoreau could only have been recording as a preposterous fatuous brag.

13. We local residents still see a piece of less than an acre of this never-turned sod, perhaps the only undisturbed soil in all Minnesota at this late date, along the north side of the road as we make our way to the Greater Minneapolis/St. Paul airport. This about half an acre of undisturbed prairie has been protected by easily climbed waist-high industrial fencing; it is actually protected from highway workers and from tourists only by their indifference and its uninterestingness. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Some 600 men there, volunteers. About 300 had left that morning.… Regimental drill.… Prairies burned annually. Government handsome building.… Mission was (Ind[ian]) not far SW of here.… Fort of limestone (tawny or buffish) 10 feet high, at the angle of the 2 rivers.… Houses on prairie half a mile apart. Little fencing & that sawed boards.… Ind[ian] graves in a o[ak] opening on a ridge.… Keep out fires & the oak- openings will grow up.… Annals of the Minn. Hist. Soc. for 1853, no. 4 (St. Paul): “Previous to the year 1695, the canoe laden with trinkets, tobacco & knives had entered the Minnesota, or ‘sky-tinted’ river & in 1700 trading houses were erected on the banks of the Mankato or Blue Earth.”

Mankato The Native American name for “Blue Earth,” Mankato offers historic attractions for day-trippers. Begin with the Blue Earth County Heritage Center and stop next at the Victorian- style Hubbard House, a 19th century mansion, carriage house and gardens, all carefully restored. Other historic sites in and around Mankato include an impressive seven-foot Kasota stone sculpture dedicated to the 38 Dakota chiefs who lost their lives as a result of the 1862 U.S.-Dakota Conflict. Nearby Minneopa State Park is the perfect place for a picnic, hike, camping and cross-country skiing; and a drive across the park’s prairie yields a close-up view of the 1864 Seppmann Mill. Among other special Mankato events to watch for include the Mdewakanton Pow Wow in September. For more information, call 800-426-6025. — The City Pages “Annual Manual,” 1992-1993 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Plan of the main fort on the river bluff

[May] 29th A.m. to Minnehaha [Falls]. Rose-br[easted] grosbeak eating slip[pery] elm seeds. Get horned lark (Otocoris alpestris), totanus flavipes [Lesser Yellowlegs Tringa flavipes] (the young) smaller telltale, rose-breasted grosbeak, chestnut-sided warbler at Minnehaha Laughing Water. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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In his letter to his mother, Horace Mann, Jr.’s version was “From there we went to Fort Snelling at the junction of the Mississippi and St. Peters or Minnesota Rivers. The Minnesota voluntary militia are quartered there, and we saw a little of the regimental drill at four o’clock; they are all green at it.14 We then steered towards home and I shot some more birds and gophers on the way. On Thursday Mr. Thoreau and I went out behind St. Anthony and I got some more birds.”

14. Seven years later, one in ten of these “all green” soldiers –like this teenage tenderfoot Mann chasing around town with a rifle– would be in their graves. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Here is the gopher in question, a 13-stripe ground squirrel that is now the “U of M Golden Gopher” of local basketball and hockey legend: HDT WHAT? INDEX

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(Was Thoreau reminded of the visit to the fort in 1823 by Giacomo Costantino Beltrami? Was Thoreau reminded of the 1836 wedding at the fort of Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott?15) Governor Alexander H. Ramsey of Minnesota, fresh from cheating the Dakotas in treaty negotiations by paying to white traders everything they wanted –whatever they alleged that the Indians owed them without any evidence and without any confrontation– before paying the Dakotas a cent, wanted his state to have a nice military adventure:

[Bromley, Edward A. MINNEAPOLIS PORTRAIT OF THE PAST:A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE EARLY DAYS IN MINNEAPOLIS; A COLLECTION OF VIEWS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE CITY’S GROWTH FROM THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT DOWN TO 1880, WITH ACCOMPANYING DESCRIPTIVE MATTER AND PORTRAITS OF PIONEER CITIZENS, FORMING A COMPLETE HISTORICAL PICTURE. Minneapolis MN: Frank L. Thresher Publisher, 1890]

15. When I visited the fort, I had a pleasant chat with the ticket taker right up to the point at which I mentioned I was interested, among other things, in “the Scotts having been here.” My subjective impression is that the chat turned distinctly icy and perfunctory at this point — but all I can say for sure is what this ticket taker explained, that the Minnesota Historical Society is engaged in recreating an “earlier and less controversial” era of the fort’s history. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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First Regiment Minnesota Volunteers. ———————————————— INNEAPOLIS and St. Anthony were peopled with sturdy and patriotic men and women. The electric shock of the news of the attack upon Fort Sumter produced M a profound impression. Business was for the time being at a stand-still. The call for men to go to the defense of the Union received a ready response, and in the numerous regiments sent from Minnesota the towns at the Falls were largely represented. The famous First Regiment stands out in boldest relief in the annals of those stirring times. In its ranks were Minnesota’s bravest sons, who rushed to the rescue of the endangered stars and stripes. Minnesota was almost a terra incognita in those days, and the news of the sending of this regiment to the war surprised and thrilled the nation. The regiment’s record, too, was a glorious one, beginning with a noble struggle in the battle of Bull Run. It was April 29, 1861, that the Lincoln Guards, the first company enlisted in St. An- thony and Minneapolis, marched to Fort Snelling and became Company D of the First Regiment Minnesota Volunteers. June 18, after a stand of colors had been presented to the regiment, a picture was taken of the field and staff officers, standing in front of the com- mandant’s headquarters. The officer with the colors behind him was Lieut. Col. Stephen A. Miller; the color-bearer was Harry Stansbury. Next to him, at the front, was Col. Willis A. Gorman; then comes Major Dike; next to him Adjt. Wm. B. Leach; next to him Capt. Mark M. Downie. At the rear of Leach, between the posts, is Capt. Wm. Colville. Geo. A. Brackett, wearing a gray hat and white vest, is among the civilians between Downie and M. L. Sproat, who stood next to Hon. Morton S. Wilkinson. Major Sanders, of the reg- ular army, was the gentleman wearing the tall felt hat. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1864

The Travelers insurance company was formed in Hartford, Connecticut. This would be the 1st company to issue an automobile policy. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1870

Colonel Robert Campbell of St. Louis dictated his memoirs while en route to treat with Red Cloud at Fort Laramie. One of the matters which he considered worth recording was that when some Indians had visited St. Louis in 1825, the first thing they did was purchase some red umbrellas and they “walked in Indian file, bare headed with the umbrellas spread over them, making a ludicrous appearance.” It is worth the speculation, that these native’s sense of style had been affected by their encounter with Giacomo Costantino Beltrami in 1823 — because Beltrami had in fact brought with him into the wilderness a large umbrella, and it was red.

An umbrella logo appeared in an advertisement for The Travelers insurance company of Hartford, Connecticut (the successor to the business empire of the Saint Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company founded in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1853).

So, what color was Thoreau’s umbrella? HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1874

Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau presented her brother Henry Thoreau’s personal copy, between blue-gray paper boards and bearing a printed spine label, of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami’s LA DÉCOUVERTE DES SOURCES DU MISSISSIPPI ET DE LA RIVIÈRE SANGLANTE … (Nouvelle-Orléans: Impr. par Benjamin Levy, 1824) to the Concord Free Public Library. We note in this volume, now filed as Accession No. 10423, some markings and annotations in pencil.

LA DÉCOUVERTE ... She presented, also, her brother’s personal copy of the 2d edition of the English translation of Professor Philip Karl Buttmann’s GREEK GRAMMAR FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS, FROM THE GERMAN OF PHILIP BUTTMANN (Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, and Company, 1826), and this is now filed as Accession # 10443. On the front free endpaper is inscribed “D.H. Thoreau / Cambridge / Mass 1833.” BUTTMANN’S GREEK GR. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1902

Eugenia Masi Costanzi’s GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI E LE SUE ESPLORAZIONI IN AMERICA (Firenze: Barbera). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1931

Adriano Lami’s GIACOMO COSTANTINO BELTRAMI E LA SCOPERTO DELLA SORGENTI DEL MISSISSIPPI (Torino: Paravia). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1955

The 1st Italian translation of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami’s LA DÉCOUVERTE DES SOURCES DU MISSISSIPPI ET DE LA RIVIÈRE SANGLANTE was prepared by Luciano Gallina and published by Edizioni Documenti Lombardi– Industrie Grafiche Cattaneo. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1958

At some point in the late 1950s, the umbrella logo that had been used in black-and-white newspaper ads in 1879 was revived for The Travelers insurance company and attained its signature red color. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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2007

The Travelers insurance company formally retrieved the rights for use of its signature red umbrella logo from Citigroup.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2019. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: April 20, 2019 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.