James Duncan Graham

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD:

JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project James Duncan Graham HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

CAPE COD: This light-house, known to mariners as the Cape Cod or PEOPLE OF Highland Light, is one of our “primary sea-coast lights,” and is CAPE COD usually the first seen by those approaching the entrance of Massachusetts Bay from Europe. It is forty-three miles from Cape Ann Light, and forty-one from Boston Light. It stands about twenty rods from the edge of the bank, which is here formed of clay. I borrowed the plane and square, level and dividers, of a carpenter who was shingling a barn near by, and using one of those shingles made of a mast, contrived a rude sort of quadrant, with pins for sights and pivots, and got the angle of elevation of the Bank opposite the light-house, and with a couple of cod-lines the length of its slope, and so measured its height on the shingle. It rises one hundred and ten feet above its immediate base, or about one hundred and twenty-three feet above mean low water. Graham, who has carefully surveyed the extremity of the Cape, GRAHAM makes it one hundred and thirty feet. The mixed sand and clay lay at an angle of forty degrees with the horizon, where I measured it, but the clay is generally much steeper. No cow nor hen ever gets down it. Half a mile farther south the bank is fifteen or twenty-five feet higher, and that appeared to be the highest land in North Truro. Even this vast clay bank is fast wearing away. Small streams of water trickling down it at intervals of two or three rods, have left the intermediate clay in the form of steep Gothic roofs fifty feet high or more, the ridges as sharp and rugged-looking as rocks; and in one place the bank is curiously eaten out in the form of a large semicircular crater.

CAPE COD: The Harbor of Provincetown —which, as well as the greater PEOPLE OF part of the Bay, and a wide expanse of ocean, we overlooked from CAPE COD our perch— is deservedly famous. It opens to the south, is free from rocks, and is never frozen over. It is said that the only ice seen in it drifts in sometimes from Barnstable or Plymouth. Dwight remarks that “The storms which prevail on the American coast generally come from the east; and there is no other harbor on a windward shore within two hundred miles.” J.D. Graham, who GRAHAM has made a very minute and thorough survey of this harbor and the adjacent waters, states that “its capacity, depth of water, excellent anchorage, and the complete shelter it affords from all winds, combine to render it one of the most valuable ship harbors on our coast.” It is the harbor of the Cape and of the fishermen of Massachusetts generally. It was known to navigators several years at least before the settlement of Plymouth. In Captain John Smith’s map of New England, dated 1614, it bears the name of JOHN SMITH Milford Haven, and Massachusetts Bay that of Stuard’s Bay. His Highness, Prince Charles, changed the name of Cape Cod to Cape James; but even princes have not always power to change a name for the worse, and as Cotton Mather said, Cape Cod is “a name which I suppose it will never lose till shoals of codfish be seen swimming on its highest hills.”

REVEREND COTTON MATHER CHARLES I HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1799

April 4, Thursday: James Duncan Graham was born in Prince William County, Virginia.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

James Duncan Graham “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1813

June 19: The United States of America declared war upon Great Britain. On this auspicious occasion James Duncan Graham became a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

In a long career of service in the military he would make himself so useful that he would never have a shot fired at him in anger.

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 James Duncan Graham HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1817

July 17, Thursday: Negotiations for a French Constitution.

James Duncan Graham graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and was promoted to 3d Lieutenant in the Corps of Artillery.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 17 of 7 M / Our meeting was rather small — A Short testimony from father R. - a season of some instruction to me. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 12, Sunday: David Henry Thoreau was christened, by his parents John Thoreau and Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau in recognition of his paternal uncle David Orrok, son of Friend David Orrok, Sr. and Friend Sarah Tillet Orrok, who had died in August.1

October 12: “I was baptized in old M[eeting] H[ouse] by Dr. [Ezra] Ripley, when I was three months, and did not cry.”

Nobody knows where the family came up with the name “Henry,” but such untraditional naming was quite common among Huguenot transplant families of this period as they gradually assimilated to their new context and removed the “markers” by which they could be discriminated. There are some things to be said about Huguenots naming conventions from this period, that inform us of why little David Henry was not named Barzillai or Ralph or Stephen or whatever. American descendants of Huguenot refugees tended to favor names which existed in some form in French, such as Henry (Henri) and John (Jean). They also favored Old Testament names over the names of New Testament saints, whom were to them tainted with Catholicism. Hence “David” after King David of the Old Testament and the same as in French — satisfying both naming conventions at once. The ten most favored names were Abraham, Isaac, Daniel, David, Jacob, Salomon, and Samuel.2

3d Lieutenant of the Corps of Artillery James Duncan Graham, freshly minted, began to serve at the United States Military Academy, West Point as Adjutant.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 12 of 10 M / Soon after taking my seat I felt life to arise & circulate among us, & my spirit was comforted with the prospect. — Lydia Almy for the first time in several years appeared in testimony, I thought very sweetly — & Abigail Robinson for a great rarity appeared in a testimony of some length - The meeting was large & attended by a considerable number of other societies, as they have been in the forenoon, for some time — In the Afternoon the meeting was again pretty well attended but silent & to me rather a poor time, but not accompanied by that distressing hardness as at sometimes. —After

1. Professor William E. Cain, in the frontmatter to A HISTORICAL GUIDE TO HENRY DAVID THOREAU (NY, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000) writes that this uncle David “died in Concord in July.” We wonder from whence Professor Cain has derived this information that David had died in Concord, and from whence he has derived this information that David had died in July. He may well be correct. He was asked, by email, whether he has perchance investigated, and discovered the grave of David in what has now become the old section of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, or whether he has perchance managed to obtain a Concord documentary record of this death, but has not yet responded. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

tea took a little walk round the hill with my H set the evening with my Mother. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 14, Tuesday: 3d Lieutenant of the Corps of Artillery James Duncan Graham was promoted to 2d Lieutenant. He would find himself assigned topographical duties — although at that time such a specialty was not recognized within the US military.

2. In the late 16th Century in Rouen, France, for purposes of illustration of these naming traditions, the ten most popular names for Huguenot boys had been, in order of popularity from most popular down, Jean, Pierre, Jacques, Abraham, Isaac, Daniel, David, Jacob, Salomon, and Samuel, whereas the ten most popular names for Catholic boys had been, in the same order, Jean, Guillaume, Pierre, Nicolas, Jacques, Robert, François, Charles, Richard, and Abraham. We may note that only the name Abraham appears on both lists. The influence of tradition presents itself in the fact that there is a 70% match between the list of names from Rouen and the list of names from the US despite the passage of four full generations. Now, it might be objected that the name “David” was assigned on the basis of an uncle named David Orrok who lay dying at the time, but there is of course a reason why that uncle was named “David,” and besides, it was at least as conventional among Huguenots to perpetuate or recycle names used in previous generations of the family as it was among other ethnic groups. From the 17th through the middle of the 19th centuries, over 60% of the families in Hingham assigned the name of the Huguenot father to a son (as, John Thoreau the father and little John the first son), and over 70% assigned the name of the Huguenot mother to a daughter (in America the Huguenots if you remember tended to outmarry, so Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau was, of course, not Huguenot, so the Thoreau daughters became Helen and Sophia rather than, perhaps, little Cynthia and, then, perhaps, Naomi). Thus, and this sums up my comment, the very fact that little David Henry was named David Henry speaks to the fact that their Huguenot heritage was a matter of importance in this family. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1819

September 8, Wednesday: 2d Lieutenant, Corps of Artillery James Duncan Graham, promoted to 1st Lieutenant, would get to go along on Major Long’s western exploration of 1819-1821 — Yee-Hah!

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project James Duncan Graham HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1822

January 14, Monday: 1st Lieutenant, Corps of Artillery James Duncan Graham was assigned to topographical duties.

Louis Spohr arrived in Kassel to take up his position as Hofkapellmeister.

Edward John Trelawny arrived in Pisa.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project James Duncan Graham HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1829

January 15, Thursday: David Lee Child was found guilty before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts of the charge that had been brought against him by State Senator John Keyes of Concord, that while the senator was running for reelection and while he was the editor of the Massachusetts Journal he had falsely, scandalously, and maliciously libeled this senator by accusing him of having participated in his previous term in the illegal award of an state contract for printing services. The criminal journalist, Child, was sentenced to prison, and appealed.

Giacomo Meyerbeer met with Alexander von Humboldt in Paris. The composer wanted Humboldt to bring a message to King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia when he traveled to Berlin. His message was to apologize that Robert le diable had not yet been produced in Berlin because it had taken two years to get it produced in Paris. Meyerbeer promised it to the king as the 1st production after Paris.

The topographical duties to which 1st Lieutenant, Corps of Artillery James Duncan Graham had been assigned were coming at this point to be recognized as an occupational specialty. He was brevetted as a captain to become a staff-assistant to the topographical engineer, so that he might enter the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers and participate in government surveys in Vermont.

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

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project James Duncan Graham HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1831

During this year and the following one 1st Lieutenant, Corps of Artillery James Duncan Graham would be engaged in railroad surveys in Virginia.

In its unrelenting quest for excellence the West Point Foundry created a two-headed locomotive named the South Carolina which looked like a monster and was a monster, and which clung to its repair shed as to a mother’s breast.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

James Duncan Graham “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1834

September 14, Sunday: Charles Darwin’s company passed Tagua-tagua-more in Chile.

Breveted Captain James Duncan Graham was breveted to the rank of Major (“brevet” in military parlance means “let’s pretend for awhile”), as a staff-assistant in the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

James Duncan Graham “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1835

Breveted Major James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers issued A REPORT UPON THE MILITARY AND HYDROGRAPHICAL CHART OF THE EXTREMITY OF CAPE COD: INCLUDING THE TOWNSHIPS OF PROVINCETOWN AND TRURO, WITH THEIR SEACOAST AND SHIP HARBOR: PROJECTED FROM SURVEYS EXECUTED DURING PORTIONS OF THE YEARS 1833, 1834, AND 1835 (United States. Topographical Bureau; this included a map of Provincetown and Truro).

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

It would appear that this was traced by Thoreau himself. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1836

During this year and the following one 1st Lieutenant, Corps of Artillery James Duncan Graham would be engaged in railroad surveys in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1838

Charles T. Jackson climbed Mount Ktaadn and, in his 2D REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY OF MAINE, wrote of Mount Kineo: TIMELINE OF THE MAINE WOODS Hornstone, which will answer for flints, occurs in various parts of the State, where trap-rocks have acted upon silicious slate. The largest mass of this stone known in the world is Mount Kineo, upon Moosehead Lake, which appears to be entirely composed of it, and rises seven hundred feet above the lake level. This variety of hornstone I have seen in every part of New England in the form of Indian arrow-heads, hatchets, chisels, etc., which were probably obtained from this mountain by the aboriginal inhabitants of the country.

DR. JACKSON’S 2D RPT. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

THE MAINE WOODS: Ktaadn, whose name is an Indian word signifying highest land, was first ascended by white men in 1804. It was visited by Professor J.W. Bailey of West Point in 1836; by Dr. Charles T. Jackson, the State Geologist, in 1837; and by two young men from Boston in 1845. All these have given accounts of their expeditions. Since I was there, two or three other parties have made the excursion, and told their stories. Besides these, very few, even among backwoodsmen and hunters, have ever climbed it, and it will be a long time before the tide of fashionable travel sets that way. The mountainous region of the State of Maine stretches from near the White Mountains, northeasterly one hundred and sixty miles, to the head of the Aroostook River, and is about sixty miles wide. The wild or unsettled portion is far more extensive. So that some hours only of travel in this direction will carry the curious to the verge of a primitive forest, more interesting, perhaps, on all accounts, than they would reach by going a thousand miles westward.

CHARLES TURNER, JR. JACOB WHITMAN BAILEY DR. CHARLES T. JACKSON EDWARD EVERETT HALE WILLIAM FRANCIS CHANNING

Henry Thoreau would comment in THE MAINE WOODS that he had himself found hundreds of arrow-heads made of the same material. It is generally slate-colored, with white specks, becoming a uniform white where exposed to the light and air, and it breaks with a conchoidal fracture, producing a ragged cutting edge. I noticed some conchoidal hollows more than a foot in diameter. I picked up a small thin piece which had so sharp an edge that I used it as a dull knife, and to see what I could do, fairly cut off an aspen one inch thick with it, by bending it and making many cuts; though I cut my fingers badly with the back of it in the meanwhile. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

Breveted Major James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was assigned to reconnaissance and surveys for military defenses in Maine. Re-publication of his 1835 A REPORT UPON THE MILITARY AND HYDROGRAPHICAL CHART OF THE EXTREMITY OF CAPE COD: INCLUDING THE TOWNSHIPS OF PROVINCETOWN AND TRURO, WITH THEIR SEACOAST AND SHIP HARBOR: PROJECTED FROM SURVEYS EXECUTED DURING PORTIONS OF THE YEARS 1833, 1834, AND 1835 (United States. Topographical Bureau; this included a map of Provincetown and Truro).

REVEREND COTTON MATHER CHARLES I HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

July 7, Saturday: As the long session of the US House of Representatives ground to an ending, Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts still refused to yield the floor, still delivering his expansive speech on the large topic of Texas which had begun on June 15th and at this point was in its 23rd day. The administrative arm of the federal government would call off its plans to annex Texas.

Brevetted major James Duncan Graham belatedly receiving his full commission as Major in the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers. He would be serving, into the following year, on a Court of Inquiry at St. Louis, Missouri. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1839

Major James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was sent on a tour of inspection of harbor improvements on Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain. Then, during this year and into the following one, he would be serving as astronomer for a surveying party that, in behalf of the United States, was taxed to establish a boundary-line between the United States of America and the new Republic of Texas.

Benjamin Lundy, who had been defeated in all his plans to establish colonies for manumitted US slaves in Mexico, died.3

John Niles, in his HISTORY OF SOUTH AMERICA AND MEXICO (Hartford CT: H. Huntington), characterized the abolition of slavery by Mexico a decade earlier as having been a “hazardous experiment.” US Senator Niles argued that Spanish methods of colonization, in particular the practice of amalgamation with indigenous peoples, produced a deterioration in innate intelligence levels and in the ability to practice democracy. He predicted that if this racially degenerative trend were to continue no Mexican republic could possibly succeed. To be right you gotta be white.

3. A.M. Shotwell. BENJAMIN LUNDY. (Lansing MI: Robert Smith Printing Company, 1897), page 9. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1840

Major James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was appointed commissioner for the survey and exploration of the northeast boundary of the United States, to serve along the Maine and New York frontiers (this would occupy him until 1843).

Salma Hale would serve as the secretary to the commission appointed under the Treaty of Ghent for determining the northeastern boundary line of the United States.

William Chapman Hewitson moved from Newcastle to Bristol, where he would be employed as a surveyor4 under George Stephenson on the railway between Bristol and Exeter (he would soon relocate to Haaverstock Hill in Hampstead, and finally he would come to reside at Oatlands in Surrey).

The first public schools opened in North Carolina, based on a plan that had been drafted in 1817. The new State Capitol was completed. This was a railroad train, in Wilmington:

4. This railway surveying was precarious since, due to extreme opposition by local landed proprietors, much of it needed to be done at night by torchlight. Stevenson employed men to frequent the local taverns and report when the local land guards were off duty, and much of the levelling work for the railroad right of way would be being performed surreptitiously while these guards were in their cups. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1843

In this year and the following one, Canada’s 1st precise traverse was being run by Captain W.F.W. Owen on the frozen Saint John River. From this year into 1845, a survey of the boundary between Québec and the USA would be being made. CARTOGRAPHY

Major James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was ordered to duty as “Head of the Scientific Corps and Principal Astronomer” to, under the terms of the Treaty of Washington, represent the United States of America in the joint demarcation of the boundary between the United States and the British provinces (this would keep him well out of harm’s way during the entire War on Mexico).

Publication of a book that would be consulted by Henry Thoreau and resourced for his “A YANKEE IN CANADA” and his CAPE COD, VOYAGES DE DÉCOUVERTE AU CANADA, ENTRE LES ANNÉES 1534 ET 1542, PAR JACQUES QUARTIER, LE SIEUR DE ROBERVAL, JEAN ALPHONSE DE XANCTOIGNE, ETC. SUIVIS DE LA DESCRIPTION DE QUÉBEC ET DE SES ENVIRONS EN 1608, ET DE DIVERS EXTRAITS RELATIVEMENT AU LIEU DE L’HIVERNEMENT DE JACQUES QUARTIER EN 1535-36 (Quebec: Société littéraire et historique de Québec, imprimé chez W. Cowan et fils).5 READ THIS VOLUME

In this year Charles Whitney surveyed the City of Roxbury by order of its town authorities and created a 34 inch by 25 inch engraving on a scale of eighty rods (1,320 feet) to the inch. This engraving includes views of the city hall and of 15 of the city meeting-houses.

5. The person we now call “Jacques Cartier” (1491-1557) was being referred to at that time as “Quartier.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

CAPE COD: Even as late as 1633 we find Winthrop, the first Governor PEOPLE OF of the Massachusetts Colony, who was not the most likely to be CAPE COD misinformed, who, moreover, has the fame, at least, of having discovered Wachusett Mountain (discerned it forty miles inland), talking about the “Great Lake” and the “hideous swamps about it,” near which the Connecticut and the “Potomack” took their rise; and among the memorable events of the year 1642 he chronicles Darby Field, an Irishman’s expedition to the “White hill,” from whose top he saw eastward what he “judged to be the Gulf of Canada,” and westward what he “judged to be the great lake which Canada River comes out of,” and where he found much “Muscovy glass,” and “could rive out pieces of forty feet long and seven or eight broad.” While the very inhabitants of New England were thus fabling about the country a hundred miles inland, which was a terra incognita to them, —or rather many years before the earliest date referred to,— Champlain, the first Governor of CHAMPLAIN Canada, not to mention the inland discoveries of Cartier, CARTIER Roberval, and others, of the preceding century, and his own ROBERVAL earlier voyage, had already gone to war against the Iroquois in ALPHONSE their forest forts, and penetrated to the Great Lakes and wintered there, before a Pilgrim had heard of New England. In Champlain’s “Voyages,” printed in 1613, there is a plate representing a fight in which he aided the Canada Indians against the Iroquois, near the south end of Lake Champlain, in July, 1609, eleven years before the settlement of Plymouth. Bancroft says he joined the Algonquins in an expedition against the Iroquois, or Five Nations, in the northwest of New York. This is that “Great Lake,” which the English, hearing some rumor of from the French, long after, locate in an “Imaginary Province called Laconia, and spent several years about 1630 in the vain attempt to discover.” (Sir GORGES Ferdinand Gorges, in Maine Hist. Coll., Vol. II. p. 68.) Thomas Morton has a chapter on this “Great Lake.” In the edition of Champlain’s map dated 1632, the Falls of Niagara appear; and in a great lake northwest of Mer Douce (Lake Huron) there is an island represented, over which is written, “Isle ou il y une mine de cuivre,” - “Island where there is a mine of copper.” This will do for an offset to our Governor’s “Muscovy Glass.” Of all these adventures and discoveries we have a minute and faithful account, giving facts and dates as well as charts and soundings, all scientific and Frenchman-like, with scarcely one fable or traveller’s story. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1847

January 1, Thursday: Major James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was breveted as a lieutenant-colonel “for valuable and highly distinguished services, particularly on the boundary line between the United States and the provinces of Canada and New Brunswick.” CARTOGRAPHY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1848

Lewis Cass resigned from the Senate in order to run as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States. His running mate would be the Kentucky slavemaster William Orlando Butler (a “balanced” ticket, in those years, for the Democratic Party, was constituted of one southern slavemaster and one northern slavery- sympathizer). As a self-described “northern man with southern principles,” he would become a leading proponent of a Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty which left it up to the voters of a territory to determine whether or not human enslavement would be there permitted. He would support the annexation of Texas. This Democratic ticket would cause the desertion of many antislavery Democrats, and the election would be lost to the popular slaveholding general Zachary Taylor.

Disgusted by the Whig nomination of a slaveholding Mexican-War general for President of the United States, Squire Samuel Hoar and his oldest son Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar bolted the party and joined the new movement termed the “Free Soil” party. Rockwood coined the phrase “Conscience Whig.” This Free Soil Party, which had come to be composed of radical Whigs, Liberty Party men, and Van Buren Democrats, decided to support Martin Van Buren of New York for President. The outcome of the election would be that Van Buren would come in second to the Whig candidate, with the Democrat candidate a distant third. This was the year, according to Arnold Toynbee, in which “history failed to turn.” Obviously this megahistorian (macromegalomaniac?) wasn’t looking in the right place for, in Concord, Henry Thoreau took his initial surveying job, to help his family recover from a financial crisis caused by an industrial fire. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM Breveted Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was assigned to renew some maps of the Boundary Survey that had been destroyed by fire (this would occupy him into 1850, and then between 1852 and 1853).

Waldo Emerson wrote, in his Journal,

Henry Thoreau is like the woodgod who solicits the wandering poet & draws him into antres vast & desarts idle, & bereaves him of his memory, & leaves him naked, plaiting vines & with twigs in his hand. Very seductive are the first steps from the town to the woods, but the End is want & madness.

A New Hampshire man, John Parker Hale, got elected to the US Senate because he was an abolitionist — definitely a first in American politics.

A southern actor named John Wilkes Booth would later take a fancy to his daughter Bessie Lambert Hale, probably while studying out ways to get close enough to the family to kidnap or execute this New Hampshire

abolitionist senator and Free Soil Party presidential candidate. When Booth would be trapped in a burning tobacco barn outside Washington DC and killed after having assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater, he would be found to have been still carrying in his pocket this daughter’s picture. –But we are getting ahead of our story, for at this point, in 1848, this “Wilkes,” as he liked to be called, was still but a lad of ten years of age. In this year he is reported to have been musing as follows: Of the Seven Wonders of the World, can you imagine how famous a man might be who could pull down the Colossus of Rhodes?6

6. In real life, the Colossus statue erected in 275 BCE at the entrance to the harbor of Rhodes had been toppled by a mundane earthquake in 224 BCE. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1849

The Union Turnpike Company was established to build and maintain a road from Washington to Brookeville (today’s Georgia Avenue); Subscription library formed at Brookeville; Pannings along stream on Brooke Meadow farm triggered Sandy Spring’s largest gold strike and gave name to road.

The 1st legislation to govern the profession of land surveying in the Province of Canada was enacted. It changed the status of land surveyors from direct servants of the Crown, in the capacity of deputies of the surveyor general, to independent professionals responsible for their own actions. Hereafter surveyors in the Province of Canada would be identified as “provincial land surveyors” and would be entitled to add “PLS” after their names. In due course the other provinces would pass similar acts.

During this year and the following one Breveted Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers labored on a re-survey of the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, that had originally been established by Mason and Dixon. CARTOGRAPHY

1 The 9 inch by 6 /4 inch “New and Accurate Plan of the Town of Boston in New England” first prepared in 1784 was re-engraved in this year for an edition of the narrative of the Boston Massacre. In this year, also, Charles Whitney revised his survey of the City of Roxbury and modified his 34 inch by 25 inch engraving plan of that municipality. In this year, also, Frothingham’s SIEGE OF BOSTON reprinted an 18 inch by 12 inch drawing which had been made of the 1775 military entrenchments of Boston by a Lieutenant Page of the English Corps of Engineers, first printed in London in 1777.

MAPS OF BOSTON HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1850

Breveted Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was engaged by Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware to resolve some disputes regarding the intersection of their common boundary line. He would thoroughly re-survey the Mason/Dixon Line and issue a voluminous report. CARTOGRAPHY

1 George W. Boynton engraved an 11 inch by 9 /2 inch plan of the city of Boston for the BOSTON ALMANAC. Also, in this year, a 36 inch by 28 inch map of Dorchester was printed by Tappan & Bradford, Lithographers on the basis of surveys made by Elbridge Whiting for S. Dwight Eaton (this lithograph contains views of 9 Dorchester meeting houses and of the Mattapan Bank building).

MAPS OF BOSTON HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1851

Breveted Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was making himself useful as Principal Astronomer and “Head of the Scientific Corps,” on the part of the United States, for the joint demarcation of the Boundary between the United States and Mexico, under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in the final resolution of boundary issues resulting from the War with Mexico.

Thomas Mayne Reid, Jr.’s THE SCALP HUNTERS; OR, ROMANTIC ADVENTURES IN NORTHERN MEXICO.

The author, implementing a folk maxim “when they’re big enough they’re old enough,” began to groom his London publisher’s teenybopper daughter Elizabeth Hyde: Captain Mayne Reid had now met his fate; not in the dark-eyed Mexican señorita, but a fair little English girl, a child scarce thirteen years of age. Her name was Elizabeth Hyde, the only daughter of George William Hyde, a lineal descendant of the first Earl of Clarendon. In his novel of “The Child Wife,” he describes his first meeting this young girl: “In less than ten minutes after, he was in love with a child! There are those who will deem this an improbability. Nevertheless it was true; for we are recording an actual experience.” Later on he says to his friend Roseveldt: “That child has impressed me with a feeling I never had before. Her strange look has done it. I feel as if she had sounded the bottom of my soul! It may be fate, destiny, but as I live, Roseveldt, I have a presentiment she will yet be my wife!” The courtship was in itself a romance. Elizabeth Hyde was living in London with Mrs Hyde, the widow of her Uncle Clarendon, who brought her up after her mother’s death. At Mrs Hyde’s house Captain Reid was one evening a guest. Afterwards he told his wife, “I fell in love with you that evening at first sight.” The next morning her aunt said, “Captain Mayne Reid has quite fallen in love with you.” Elizabeth answered, “You can tell him I have not fallen in love with him.” A short time afterwards to the question of some one who had not seen the “lion,” “What is Captain Reid like?” she replied, “Oh, he is a middle-aged gentleman.” This was repeated to Captain Reid, and he afterwards allowed that his vanity was much wounded at the time. A few weeks passed and the “middle-aged gentleman” was quite forgotten. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

Other matters occupied Elizabeth Hyde’s thoughts. One day she was alone in the drawing-room making a doll’s outfit. Captain Reid entered the room, but she did not recognise him. He looked surprised, and said, “Do you not remember me?” As he had a very foreign appearance, she exclaimed, “Oh, yes, you are Monsieur—” Then he mentioned his name. He asked how old she was, and, on hearing, said, “You are getting old enough to have a lover, and you must have me.” The “middle-aged gentleman” did not, however, come up to her standard. Her uncle was her ideal. After this Captain Reid made long and frequent visits to the aunt’s house, but saw the niece very little. With her, indeed, he found so little favour that she intentionally avoided his society. Mrs Hyde began to believe herself the attraction, as Mayne Reid spent hours in her society. All is fair in love and war. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1854

April 20, Thursday: In the morning Henry Thoreau went to Nawshawtuct, in the afternoon he went to Island and Hill, and at 4 PM he went to Moore’s Swamp.

Breveted Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was placed in general supervision of the Harbor Improvements on Lake Michigan.

Alfred Russel Wallace disembarked in Singapore for his collecting expedition in the Malay Archipelago. (He wouldn’t be back until February 20, 1862 — eight years and about 14,000 miles of travel.)

April 25, Tuesday: Breveted Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was placed in general supervision of the Channel Improvement over St. Clair Flats.

In the afternoon, Henry Thoreau went to Indian Cedar Hill.

April 25: A.M. — I think I hear near George Heywood’s the tull-lull (?). [Yes] Heard and saw my warbler (?) b’ of the 23d and 24th on Mr. Emerson’s pines. It is the smallest bird I have seen this year. Sits still amid the pines not far below the top and sings very sweetly, loud and clear, and seems further off than it is, beginning first with very fine wiry notes and then increasing in volume and melody till it ends with tweeter tweeter tweeter ter twe. Some of it a martin-like warble. Has sometimes a harsh scolding note. It is all light, perhaps ashy-white, beneath; has a little narrow forked tail; ashy (?) under wings, which are considerably shorter than tail; and light above and below eye; perhaps a whitish bar on wings; olivaccous (?) above. I think it may be the golden-crested wren, [Golden-crowned Kinglet Regulus satrapa] though I hardly saw the upper parts, or possibly the small blue-gray flycatcher. I do not find the male blossoms of the red cedar open yet.

P.M. — To Indian Cedar Hill. Quite warm and the frogs are snoring on the meadow. I swelter under my greatcoat. The Populus grandidentata is fairly begun; say very first the 23d. Many shad-flies in the air and alighting on my clothes. The summer approaches by almost insensibly increasing lieferungs of heat, each awakening some new bird or quadruped or reptile. At first we were compelled to take off our mittens, then to unbutton our greatcoat, and now, perhaps, to take it off occasionally (I have not left it at home yet), and wear thin boots. For some time we have done with little fire, nowadays let it go out in the afternoon. (To-day, 26th, I sit without any.) Each creature awaits with confidence its proper degree of heat. I think I saw a pigeon [American Passenger Pigeon Ectopistes migratorius (Pigeon, Wild)] yesterday. G. Minott says that he saw some a week ago. ruby Saw a golden^ -crested wren [“golden” crossed out in pencil in favor of “ruby”] [Ruby-crowned Kinglet Regulus calendula] in the woods near Goose Pond. (This must be my warblers a and b of April 18th, b’ of April 23d and 24th.) It sounded far off and like an imitation of a robin, [And of a golden robin, [Northern Oriole Icterus galbula (Fiery Hangbird or Hangbird or Gold Robin or Golden Robin)] which later I often mistook for him.] –a long strain and often repeated. I was quite near it before I was aware of it, sounding like a faint imitation of a robin. Some chickadees [Chicadee, Black-capped Parus atricapillus Titmouse, Titmice] and yellow redpoll [Palm Warbler Dendroica palmarum (Yellow Redpoll or Sylvia petechia)] were first apparent, then my wren on the pitch pines and young oaks. He appeared curious to observe me. A very interesting and active little fellow, darting about amid the tree-tops, and his song quite remarkable and rich and loud for his size. Begins with a very fine note, before its pipes are filled, not audible at a little distance, then woriter weter, etc., etc., winding up with teter teter, all clear and round. [His song is comical and reminds me of the thrasher. Thrasher, Brown Toxostroma rufum (Mavis, red)] This was at 4 P.M., when most birds do not sing. I saw it yesterday, pluming itself and stretching its little wings. Our smallest bird, methinks, except the hummingbird. [Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilochus colubris] The snuff- colored, white-spotted wren I saw some time ago was considerably larger. Just before this saw on the low bushes, — shrub oaks, etc., — by path, a large sparrow with ferruginous-brown and white-barred wings, — the white-throated sparrow, [White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis] — uttered a faint ringing chirp. The first partridge [Ruffed Grouse Bonasa umbellus (Partridge)] drums in one or two places, as if the earth’s pulse now beat audibly with the increased flow of life. It slightly flutters all Nature and makes her heart palpitate, Also, as I stand listening for the wren, and sweltering in my greatcoat, I HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

hear the woods filled with the hula of insects, as if my hearing were affected; and thus the summer’s quire begins. The silent spaces have begun to be filled with notes of birds and insects and the peep and croak and snore of frogs, even as living green blades are everywhere pushing up amid the sere ones. I heard that same snoring which I hear on the river meadows, on all inland meadow this afternoon, where I think no bullfrogs are. Are they not then the palustris, or else the shad frog? There are now many new insects in the air. Black ducks still on Flint’s. The fertile fruit-stems of the sensitive fern by the side of the Flint’s Pond path, more than a foot high, are a rich ornament to the ground, — brown, four or five inches long, and turned to one side, contrasting with the lighter rachis (?) Saw my thrush of the 18th by the pond. It appears dark-olive, ferruginous on rump and tail, with a dark streak slanting from each check and flesh-colored legs. The red cedar has fairly begun today; maybe the first yesterday. Put the red yesterday and the white to-day. As I approach the red cedars now, I perceive a delicious strawberry-like fragrance in the air, like that from the arbor-vita. The creeping juniper apparently open, but not yet open. Though I see some amber on the sweet-fern, I am in doubt whether to say today or to-morrow. The wild red cherry (if that is one near Everett’s), privet, and buckthorn are beginning to leaf out. The abele will probably blossom to-morrow. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1856

December 11, Thursday: Breveted Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was posted to the Great Lakes.

Dec 11th (18)56 Minott tells me that his & his sisters woodlot together contains about 10 acres & has, with a very slight exception at one time — supplied all their fuel for 30 years & he thinks could constantly continue to do so— They keep one fire all the time & 2 some of the time—& burn about 8 cords in a year. He knows his wood-lot & what grows in it as well as an ordinary farmer does his cornfield — for he has cut his own wood till within 2 or 3 years — knows the history of every stump on it & the age of every sapling — knows how many beech trees & black birches there are there — as another knows his pear or cherry-trees. He complains that the choppers make a very long carf now a-days — doing most of the cutting on one side — to avoid changing hands so much — It is more economical, as well as more poetical — to have a woodlot & cut & get out your own wood from year to year — than to buy it at your door. Minott may say to his trees “Submit unto my axe— I cut your father on this very spot—” How many sweet passages there must have been in his life there chopping all alone in the short winter days—! How many rabbits, partridges, foxes — he saw—! A rill runs through the lot where he quenched his thirst — & several times he has laid it bare. At last rheumatism has made him a prisoner & he is compelled to let a stranger — a vandal it may be go into his lot with an axe. It is fit that he should be buried there. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1859

Breveted Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers discovered, in the Great Lakes, the existence of a lunar tide.7

7. This is hard to find because usually it amounts to about a centimeter and never gets to be more than four centimeters — whereas when there is a really strong and persistent wind, something known as “wind set-up” can raise water levels at one or the other end of Lake Erie by as much as eight feet, very much masking and complicating the small influence of the position of the moon. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1861

August 6, Tuesday: Finally, Breveted Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was made a full Lieutenant-Colonel of the Topographical Engineers.

August 30, Friday: Barclay Coppoc, who had escaped from Harpers Ferry to become a 1st Lieutenant in Colonel Montgomery’s regiment of the 3d Kansas Infantry, died when a train out of Leavenworth plunged from a 40- foot trestle over the Platte River, the supports of which had been burned by Confederate guerrillas.

General John Charles Frémont prematurely freed the slaves of Missouri, mistaking the political objectives of the civil war and quite exceeding his authority and, incidentally, setting himself up as very feasible alternative wartime presidential material for the next national election. This, one might suspect, would transform a sitting president who intended to run for re-election into something of a political enemy, or, wouldn’t it? It would nowadays, and maybe things were pretty much the same back then. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham was appointed as Superintendent of the United States Lake Survey and Lighthouse Engineer of the 10th and 11th Districts (covering the Great Lakes except for Lake Champ1ain). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1863

March 3, Tuesday: Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham was posted to the Corps of Engineers. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

The Minnesota legislature voted the sum of $50,000.00 to the Indian Office to remove the Dakotas to someplace away from Minnesota, unspecified, by steamboat immediately after the opening of navigation. The Indian Office used the money allocated by the state, initially, to charter the riverboats Davenport and Northern. The task of keeping the prisoners alive while in transit was contracted to Charles K. Winnly of Chicago under the nonspecific rubric “subsistence,” as the lowest subsistence bidder. And not everyone could enjoy steamboat travel on the Mississippi, even under the best of conditions:

I trust never to see the Mississippi again except in dreams and nightmares. – Charles Dickens, AMERICAN NOTES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

June 1, Monday: Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham was promoted to Colonel in the Corps of Engineers.

An ordinance issued by Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck greatly reduced freedom of the press. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1864

August 1, Monday: There was fighting at Folck’s Mill / Cumberland.

Colonel of the Engineer Corps James Duncan Graham was made Superintending Engineer of Sea-walls in Boston Harbor, and in charge of the preservation and repairs of harbor works on the Atlantic coast, from Maine to the capes of the Chesapeake. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

1865

December 28, Thursday: At the point of his death at Boston at the age of 66, James Duncan Graham was superintending engineer for the sea-walls in Boston Harbor, and of the repairs of harbor works on the Atlantic coast from Maine to the capes of the Chesapeake.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project James Duncan Graham HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

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 2014. 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: November 1, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

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

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM

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. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JAMES DUNCAN GRAHAM