PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD:

RICHARD BIDDLE

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

CAPE COD: That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of PEOPLE OF Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the CAPE COD generally, any more than to Patagonia. His careful biographer (Biddle) is not certain in what voyage he ran down the coast of the United States, as is reported, and no one tells us what he saw.

RICHARD BIDDLE SEBASTIAN CABOT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Cape Cod: Richard Biddle HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

1796

March 25, Friday: Richard Biddle was born in , a son of a wealthy merchant, , a trustee of the University of (the son would become the youngest member of the Class of 1811 at his father’s institution). Initially he would practice law in . A brother was American financier , nephew of Representative , and uncle of Representative . He would himself serve in the US House of Representatives.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Cape Cod: Richard Biddle HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

1811

Friend Edward Hicks began his initial preaching tour, and moved to Newtown, Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania legislature combined the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Canal and the Delaware and Schuylkill Canal companies into the Union Canal Company.

At 15 years of age, Richard Biddle was the youngest member of the Class of 1811 as it accepted its bachelor’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania:

(Possibly as he had his sheepskin handed to him he would have gone “Thanks, Dad” — since his daddy was a trustee of the institution.)

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 The People of Cape Cod: Richard Biddle HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

1827

Richard Biddle went to England. While there he would provide a critical review of Basil Hall’s TRAVELS IN NORTH AMERICA IN THE YEARS 1827 AND 1828 (Edinburgh). VOLUME ONE OF THREE VOLUME TWO OF THREE VOLUME THREE OF THREE

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Cape Cod: Richard Biddle HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

1830

Richard Biddle returned from England to America.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Cape Cod: Richard Biddle HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

1831

The Harvard Library published a list of its maps: HARVARD MAP COLLECTION

Richard Biddle’s A MEMOIR OF SEBASTIAN CABOT, WITH A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF MARITIME DISCOVERY. ILLUSTRATED BY DOCUMENTS FROM THE ROLLS, NOW FIRST PUBLISHED (London, 1831; Philadelphia, Carey & Lea, 1831), a careful study which David Henry Thoreau would check out and use as source material for remarks in CAPE COD. BIDDLE ON SEB. CABOT

CAPE COD: That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of PEOPLE OF Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the CAPE COD United States generally, any more than to Patagonia. His careful biographer (Biddle) is not certain in what voyage he ran down the coast of the United States, as is reported, and no one tells us what he saw.

RICHARD BIDDLE SEBASTIAN CABOT

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Cape Cod: Richard Biddle HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

1837

September 4, Monday: Opening of the 1st (special) session of the 25th US Congress, with 129 Democrats and 119 Whigs. Representative James Knox Polk (Democrat of Tennessee) was still Speaker of the House of Representatives. Richard Biddle had been elected to this body as a member of the Anti-Masonic movement. During this special session called by President Martin Van Buren to deal with the urgent issue of the financial panic, petitions against the practice in the United States of America of human enslavement —not being considered such an urgent issue— were fated to be “discarded without consideration.”

The following description of the general financial panic of this year is from Robert Allison’s THE ANECDOTES OF GLASGOW, published in 1892: During the commercial crisis and panic of 1837 which swept over the country, Glasgow, as a great mercantile and industrious centre, suffered severely. Prices of all kinds of manufactured goods sunk to nearly one half; many workers were thrown idle, and the wages of those still employed were reduced, which reduction again led to general and foolish strikes, at the instance of their trade unions; first, of the operative cotton- spinners in and around Glasgow, and soon after of the whole colliers and iron miners in Lanarkshire. The effect of these two strikes was to let loose, upon an already over-distressed community, above 80,000 persons, all in a state of utter destitution, and yielding implicit obedience to their trade leaders. To cope with this formidable and well-organised body there was, in and round Glasgow, a police force of only 280 men. Bands of 800 to 1000 men traversed the streets, with banners flying and drums beating; and the colliers assembled in such numbers as to render any attempt to disperse them, except by military force, out of the question. Many violent assaults were made on the nobs or new hands, who took place of the men out on strike, and at length, on the 22nd July of that year, a new hand was shot dead on one of the streets of Glasgow. The masters met and offered a reward of 500 pounds for the discovery of the persons implicated in the murder three days later two informers disclosed to the Sheriff a plot “to assassinate the new hands and master-manufacturers in Glasgow, one after another, till the demands of the combined workmen were complied with.” (As result the organising committee was arrested by the sheriff on 29 July at Black Boy Tavern, Gallowgate) On Monday following the cotton-spinners met on Glasgow Green, and by a great majority resolved to resume their work on the masters’ terms; and on Tuesday the courageous sheriff had the delight of seeing the whole of the tall chimneys in Calton and Bridgeton sending forth their wonted smoke, after a stoppage of three months. The trial of the cotton-spinners came on at Edinburgh on the 8th January, 1838; and resulted in the whole of the would- HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

be assassins receiving sentence of transportation for 7 years.

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

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Cape Cod: Richard Biddle HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

1839

Richard Biddle was re-elected to the federal House of Representatives. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

1840

Richard Biddle resigned his seat in the US House of Representatives.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Cape Cod: Richard Biddle HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

1847

July 7, Wednesday: Richard Biddle died in Pittsburgh.

Per General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Last night, at ten o’clock, there was a stampede, as it is called in camp. The report of musketry at the advanced picket induced me to order the long roll to be beaten, and the whole command was at once formed in line of battle. I proceeded in person, with two companies, to the advanced picket, and found no ground for the alarm, although the sentinels insisted that a party of guerillas had approached within gun shot of their posts. I have ordered that, upon the repetition of any such alarm, the two companies nearest the picket shall proceed at once to the advanced post. The long roll will not be beaten until a report shall be sent in from the commanding officer of the detachment, who is to take with him a small detachment of cavalry as couriers. This will secure the quiet of the camp at night, and at the same time afford protection against surprise. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

1855

September 17, Monday: David Henry Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, Richard Biddle’s A MEMOIR OF SEBASTIAN CABOT, WITH A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF MARITIME DISCOVERY. ILLUSTRATED BY DOCUMENTS FROM THE ROLLS, NOW FIRST PUBLISHED (London, 1831; Philadelphia, Carey & Lea, 1831).

BIDDLE ON SEB. CABOT

He would copy from this into his first Canada Notebook and into his Indian Notebook #9, and references to this reading are to be found in CAPE COD:

CAPE COD: That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of PEOPLE OF Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the CAPE COD United States generally, any more than to Patagonia. His careful biographer (Biddle) is not certain in what voyage he ran down the coast of the United States, as is reported, and no one tells us what he saw.

RICHARD BIDDLE SEBASTIAN CABOT

CAPE COD: The French trail is distinct. They went measuring and PEOPLE OF sounding, and when they got home had something to show for their CAPE COD voyages and explorations. There was no danger of their charts being lost, as Cabot’s have been.

SEBASTIAN CABOT HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

CAPE COD: So far as inland discovery was concerned, the PEOPLE OF adventurous spirit of the English was that of sailors who land CAPE COD but for a day, and their enterprise the enterprise of traders. Cabot spoke like an Englishman, as he was, if he said, as one reports, in reference to the discovery of the American Continent, when he found it running toward the north, that it was a great disappointment to him, being in his way to India; but we would rather add to than detract from the fame of so great a discoverer. Samuel Penhallow, in his History (Boston, 1726), p. 51, speaking of “Port Royal and Nova Scotia,” says of the last, that its “first seizure was by Sir Sebastian Cobbet for the crown of Great Britain, in the reign of King Henry VII.; but lay dormant till the year 1621,” when Sir William Alexander got a patent of it, and possessed it some years; and afterward Sir David Kirk was proprietor of it, but erelong, “to the surprise of all thinking men, it was given up unto the French.”

SEBASTIAN CABOT

CAPE COD: Probably Cape Cod was visited by Europeans long before PEOPLE OF the seventeenth century. It may be that Cabot himself beheld it. CAPE COD

SEBASTIAN CABOT

Thoreau would make an entry in his Canadian Notebook, as follows:

Prefixed to Ortelius’ THEATRUM is a list of geographers whose charts he is acquainted with. Looking it over hastily for those relative to America — I noticed Ptolemy Gemma Frisius UNIVERSI ORBIS TABULAM Medebach ORBIS TERRARUM Diego Gutierus, AMERICA.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

The reference to “Gemma Frisius” is to an untitled woodblock world map CHARTA COSMOGRAPHICA, CUM VENTORUM PROPRIA NATURA ET OPERAVIONE by Gemma Frisius dating to 1540 which has since been lost, but which we can still inspect as reprinted in a reduced form in Peter Apianus’s COSMOGRAPHIA in its 1544 and 1553 editions:

The reference to “UNIVERSI ORBIS TABULAM” is to a wall map of the world by Frederik de Wit, NOVA ORBIS TABVLA, IN LUVEM EDITA, A.F. DE WIT which appeared in about 1660: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

The reference to “Medebach ORBIS TERRARUM” is to THEATRUM ORBIS TERRARUM, SIVE ATLAS NOVUS; IN QUO TABULÆ ET DESCRIPTIONES OMNIUM REGIONUM..., a volume dating to 1645 which was found in Medebach, Germany: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

The reference to “Diego Gutierus, AMERICA” is to Diego Gutiérrez’s and Hieronymus Cock’s 1562 AMERICAE SIVE QUARTAE ORBIS PARTIS NOVA ET EXACTISSIMA DESCRIPTIO: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

Thoreau also checked out Volume I of the New Series of the TRANSACTIONS OF THE HISTORICAL & LITERARY COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, HELD AT PHILADELPHIA, FOR PROMOTING USEFUL KNOWLEDGE (Philadelphia: Printed and Published by Abraham Small, No. 112, Chestnut Street, 1819) and copied comments by Mr. Peter Stephen DuPonceau on the general character and forms of the languages of the native American tribes into his Indian Notebook #9. AMER. PHIL. SOC. 1819

He carefully copied the North American eastern seaboard portion of Sebastian Münster’s “Americae sive novi orbis, nova descriptio” from ORTELII THEATRUM ORBIS TERRARUM, published in Antwerp in about 1570. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

This is the portion that Thoreau carefully traced, and copied down the assigned placenames for:

You can view his actual tracing at:

http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_surveys/161.htm

The reference to “Ptolemy” may have been either to Claudius Ptolemy’s untitled copperplate engraving world map engraved at Rome for the 1478 edition of his circa-150CE GEOGRAPHY, which still exists,

or to an untitled world map prepared from that in 1482/1486 and preserved now in Ulm, Germany (following screen). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

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: December 24, 2014

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Cape Cod: Richard Biddle HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD 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:RICHARD BIDDLE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD

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.