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Convers Francis and His Wife Abba Hdt What? Index THE REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS AND HIS WIFE ABBA HDT WHAT? INDEX CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS 1795 November 9, Monday: Boston auctioned off the grounds of its former Almshouse, Workhouse, and Granary. Birth of Convers Francis, Jr. in Medford, Massachusetts, 5th child of Susannah Rand Francis with David Convers Francis, a successful baker and businessman. HISTORY’S NOT MADE OF WOULD. WHEN SOMEONE REVEALS, FOR INSTANCE, THAT A PARTICULAR INFANT WOULD INVENT THE SEWING MACHINE, S/HE DISCLOSES THAT WHAT IS BEING CRAFTED IS NOT REALITY BUT PREDESTINARIANISM. THE RULE OF REALITY IS THAT THE FUTURE HASN’T EVER HAPPENED, YET. Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS CONVERS FRANCIS 1802 February 11, Thursday: Birth of Lydia Maria Francis in Medford, Massachusetts, as the final child of the 7 of Susannah Rand Francis with David Convers Francis,1 a successful baker and businessman.2 She would grow up under the wing of her bookish older brother Convers Francis, Jr. and attend local schools and Medford’s First Parish, an orthodox Congregational church. When she would become 9, her brother would leave home to attend Harvard College. Possessed of an eager, inquiring mind, Lydia would be free to use the library of the First Parish minister, the Reverend David Osgood. The 6th generation of Southmayds in America: Daniel Starr Southmayd was born in Waterbury, Connecticut. He was a son of Ebenezer Southmayd (January 23, 1775-September 30, 1831) and Elizabeth Starr Southmayd (January 8, 1777-July 3, 1842) who had gotten married at South Farms, Connecticut, on April 16, 1797. 1. Her paternal grandfather, a weaver by trade, had been in the fighting around Concord and Lexington in 1775, and is said to have offed five of the enemy before being himself offed. Her “Grandfather’s House” about which she wrote her Thanksgiving poem was on South Street in Medford, Massachusetts and supposedly is this one near the Mystic River: 2. At no point would she ever allow herself to be referred to as “Lydia.” The name “Maria” is here to be pronounced not as in Spanish or French but as if it were “Mariah,” per “they called the wind mariah.” HDT WHAT? INDEX CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS 1815 Thaddeus William Harris received his BA degree from Harvard College and entered the Harvard Medical School. NEW “HARVARD MEN” Convers Francis, Jr. also received his bachelor’s degree. Still on file there is his “Spherical Problems. Convers Francis (21 ¾ x 29 inches).” The Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard, John Farrar, was sponsoring the building of a weather observatory at Harvard (the project would not accumulate the required funds). Harvard awarded its automatic degree of Master of Arts to William Elliott of South Carolina (who actually, now fancy this, hadn’t even graduated with his class). Professor Sylvestre François Lacroix left the École Polytechnique to take up a chair at the Sorbonne, and was appointed to the chair of mathematics at the Collège de France where since 1812 he had been teaching. “HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE” BEING A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN TIME (JUST AS THE PERSPECTIVE IN A PAINTING IS A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN SPACE), TO “LOOK AT THE COURSE OF HISTORY MORE GENERALLY” WOULD BE TO SACRIFICE PERSPECTIVE ALTOGETHER. THIS IS FANTASY-LAND, YOU’RE FOOLING YOURSELF. THERE CANNOT BE ANY SUCH THINGIE, AS SUCH A PERSPECTIVE. Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS CONVERS FRANCIS Summer: Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, in exile from England, purchased the Villa d’Este on the shores of Lake Como. The Reverend Timothy Flint embarked upon a number of missionary travels, first to Kingston and Raymond, New Hampshire, then perhaps into western Massachusetts and to Essex County in upstate New York, on behalf of the Massachusetts Society for promoting Christian Knowledge. After the death of her mother Abba and the marriage of her favorite sister Mary Francis, her father David Convers Francis decided that Lydia Maria (Lydia Maria Child) would be better off in Mary’s new home in Norridgewock, Maine. She was removed from the meandering tidal Mystic River to Norridgewock on the Kennebec River, just downstream from the Bonebasee Rips and the ancient site of the Abenaki village of the name Norridgewock, still occupied, which she would visit.3 3. At some point during Lydia Maria Child’s adolescent years in Maine, 1815-1821, she would allege much later in her LETTERS FROM NEW YORK, she had visited one of the Penobscot villages on the banks of the Kennebec River and had there met the sachem of the Penobscot, “Captain Neptune,” with small black eyes, “smoking a pipe and wearing a crushed hat and a dirty blanket.” Accompanying the sachem, she would say, was his nephew Etalexis, who was of marriageable age and thus was attired in “a broad band of shining brass around his hat, a circle of silver on his breast, tied with scarlet ribbons, and a long belt of curiously-wrought wampum hanging to his feet.” Miss Francis alleged that she had reached down and grabbed this young man’s wampum, and had demanded to know why the sachem himself was not so attired. “Me no want to catch ’em squaw,” she alleged the old man replied. (Miss Francis had made no mention, however, of such an incident, in her correspondence of the period, and one would have fancied that, had such an incident occurred, it would have been eagerly recounted to any number of her friends. My sense of it is that what we have here is not an account of a meeting, but a rare and privileged glimpse into this young lady’s sexual fantasy life. It wasn’t this young red man’s wampum that she took in her hand, and rather than it being this old red man who was not looking to catch ’em, it was the young woman who was hoping that this young red man was looking to catch ’em.) HDT WHAT? INDEX CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS THE TASK OF THE HISTORIAN IS TO CREATE HINDSIGHT WHILE INTERCEPTING ANY ILLUSION OF FORESIGHT. NOTHING A HUMAN CAN SEE CAN EVER BE SEEN AS IF THROUGH THE EYE OF GOD. Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS CONVERS FRANCIS 1819 June 23, Wednesday: Under the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, Washington Irving put out the 1st American installment of his THE SKETCH BOOK, including “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”4 In this text this racist author (the same racist author who announced that a Negro was “an abomination”) regurgitated our “Philip of Pokanoket” legend dating to “King Phillip’s War”, titillating us yet again with our very precious memory of a dead Indian chief. READ THE FULL TEXT At Concord, John D. Folsom of Concord got married with Betsy W. Dakin of Concord. The newly minted Reverend Convers Francis, Jr. became the pastor of the 1st Parish Congregational (Unitarian) Church in Watertown. 4. There is in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s THE SCARLET LETTER a literary reference to Irving’s headless horseman figure: THE SCARLET LETTER: Meanwhile, the press had taken up my affair, and kept me for a week or two careering through the public prints, in my decapitated state, like Irving’s Headless Horseman, ghastly and grim, and longing to be buried, as a political dead man ought. So much for my figurative self. The real human being all this time, with his head safely on his shoulders, had brought himself to the comfortable conclusion that everything was for the best; and making an investment in ink, paper, and steel pens, had opened his long-disused writing desk, and was again a literary man. HDT WHAT? INDEX CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS The Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord gave the charge and the Reverend Samuel Ripley of Waltham and Concord led the prayer. The Reverend Convers Francis would remain pastor of this Watertown flock until 1842. Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 23rd of 6th M 1819 / Our Meeting this Afternoon was a very triumphant one. Truth rose into dominion in a very remarkable manner. The meeting was as large as it ever is on first day at Yearly Meeting time, & more quiet than usual at that time. The Govoner of this state with both Houses of the Legislature attended & sat in a body. — Elizabeth first appeared in humble prayer, chiefly on behalf of those placed in Authority over us. Then in a very pertinent address to the members of the Legislature on the subject of intemperance & War. Then the current of testimony run chiefly to the female part of the Audience & lastly to an hardened, rebelious state which she felt to be present. & the latter part of her testimony in particular came with such living power & gospel Authority that it seemed to me, that had she preached before the Apostle Paul he would at least have qualified his charge, forbidding Women to “preach or to teach” &c. — The Audience was all attentive & many deeply impressed with the Power of her ministry, as was evident in many who took her by the hand at the close of the Meeting with tears in their eyes. — The Govoner observed that he never heard Such HDT WHAT? INDEX REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS CONVERS FRANCIS preaching before. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS The Supreme Council of the Province of Texas declared the independence of Texas from Mexico: As all Governments were originally established by the will of the people for the benefit of society, whenever the existing Government, in any community, fails to effect the purposes for which it was instituted, it is competent to the community at large to rescind its express or tacit allegiance to the ruling power, and to organize a new constitution and form of government, more consistent with its interests, and more consonant with its feelings.
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