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ACPROIL/MNAYT 20E14 NTS

Opening Notes ...... 6 Trivia: The Axe, Slide Rule "The Odd Incidents of Their Rambling Lives..." ...... 8 David A. Norris looks at the lives of Caribbean pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny History Magazine The Attack on the USS Indianapolis ...... 14 is Now on Twitter! Doug Gladstone recounts the Japanese submarine attack on a warship that would play a key role in the outcome of WWII For the latest news and views, great promo Sod Houses ...... 21 offers and other perks, Gloria Tietgens Sladek explores the history of the sod house and the “Follow” us on Twitter! role it played in helping to build the country Find us here: @History_Mag Newgate: From Copper Mine to Prison ...... 23 and Constance R. Cherba explores the storied history of the first we’ll see you there! chartered copper mine in the US, its eventual transformation into a prison, and later, a museum.

Cover Credit: Photograph of the SS Britannic by John S. Johnston, dated 1890-1903. (Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, part of the Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection)

4 History Magazine April/May 2014 Robert Louis Stevenson — Page 31 Faith Under Fire — Page 36 Terror at Sea — Page 44

Robert Louis Stevenson: ...... 31 Amateur Emigrant Eric Niderost looks at the time spent in sunny California by the famous Scottish author Faith Under Fire ...... 36 Alan Hustak looks at the incredible journey of WWI Canadian Army Chaplain, Fred Scott Mr. Smith's Feathered Treasures ...... 39 Jan Bridgeford-Smith looks at the life of ornithologist Greene Smith, and the extravagant exhibit space he created for his collection

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April/May 2014 History Magazine 5 A I V I R T THE AXE he axe, a wedged hand-tool that splits, punctures, digs, chips, and Tchops, has been used from time immemorial. Initially, axes were large flat stones with sharpened edges. Toward the end of the Stone Age, craftsmen hafted (a haft is a handle) axe-heads by wedging or lashing them onto wood or bone, or inserting them into their sockets. This increased the force of their cutting edges. Axe workshops, where thousands of ground stones were laboriously chipped into rough axe Carpenter’s axe. shapes, have been found across Europe. (Worldwide public domain) During the early Bronze Age, craftsmen forged and cold hammered flat, hafted axes (as well as other tools and weapons) from pure copper. heavy polls (the ends of their Thousands of years later, they cast them in bronze, an alloy of copper heads), cleared the vast forests of and tin that produced more durable blades. During the following mil - Europe. Single and double-bit lennium, axe heads were made of cheap, commonly-found iron. By axes with heavier polls and Roman times, they were made of steel, an alloy of iron hardened with shorter, wider smaller blades, carbon. During the Middle Ages, axe-heads were once again iron, with felled the hardwood forests of costly steel reserved for their blades. North America. Axes with steeply Through the ages, axes have varied in size, shape, and purpose. Light, tapered heads, slightly heavier narrow-bladed battle axes, designed to slice arms and legs, for example, than felling axes, split wood. Sin - were used in combat. Spear-like halbards, axe-heads mounted on gle or double-beveled broad axes, spiked poles, served as self-defense. their heads designed in hundreds Felling axes, with short cutting edges, double bevels and narrow, of regional patterns, once squared

SLIDE RULE he slide rule is based on logarithms, which John Napier, a Scottish eliminated the need for dividers Tmathematician, invented in the early 17th century. by sliding two Gunter’s Rules next A logarithm is the number of times a number is multiplied by itself to each other. His innovation – to get another number. For example, the logarithm of 8, with respect the first slide rule – evolved into a to base 2 (2 x 2 x 2), is 3. Napier’s logarithms allowed multiplication sliding bar held between two and division by addition and subtraction, by looking up two loga - other bars with a sliding cursor. rithms on a table, adding them together, then looking up the sum in He also designed a more conven - the table to find the corresponding product. Though this process was ient circular rule. Over the next quicker than calculation with pen and paper, it was still laborious. three centuries, these simple in - In 1620, English mathematician Edmund Gunter, a contemporary of struments, manufactured in hun - Napier, streamlined division and multiplication by creating an inno - dreds of variations, were the vative wooden linear “rule” in which the positions of numbers were mathematical tools of choice. proportional to their logs. Among the ruler’s many fixed scales was an Slide rules attained practical use innovative one marked NUM, with numbers 1 through 100 in a two- as well. In 1677, Henry Coggeshall cycle logarithmic sequence. To solve 2 x 3 on the “Gunter”, for exam - created a two-fold rule, which fea - ple, one marked a span between 1 and 2 with a pair of dividers. Then tured useful scales and tables on one moved those dividers (without changing their span) to position one side and a standard 2-foot one point at the number 3; the other point would show the answer, 6. measuring rule on the other, to Navigators, mathematicians, and scientists used Gunter’s Rule well measure timber. The Coggeshall, into the 19th century. The accuracy of their answers depended on their also called a carpenter’s slide rule, skill and the length of the rule itself. The most common Gunter ran remained in use for 200 years. two-feet long. In 1683, British officer Thomas Soon afterward, William Oughtred, also an English mathematician, Everard devised a gauging slide

6 History Magazine April/May 2014 timber in shipbuilding and flat - Medium-sized, short-handled, tened the sides of logs. Adzes, general purpose axes are handy which resemble hoes, dressed and for camping and bush craft. So are planed timber. Other axes small, hafted axes, used for chopped sod for building and cut butchering, flooring, shingling, Volume 15 Number 4 lake ice for refrigeration. By the carpentry, target-throwing, April/May 2014 mid-1800s, most were steel, mass- sports, and modern warfare. Tra - PUBLISHER & EDITOR produced through the inexpensive ditional hatchets, like Native Edward Zapletal Bessember process. American tomahawks, also figure [email protected] Carbon steel crosscut saws and in historical reenactments, dis - ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER efficient power saws replaced plays, and collections. Rick Cree [email protected] many traditional tools by the Axioms that feature axes and FREELANCE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT mid-1900s. To this day, however, hatchets have also become part of Lianna LaLiberte the US Forestry Service relies on the English language. Battle-axes PRODUCTION & DESIGN adzes and axes to split firewood, boss others around, people who J-Mac Images clear trails, maintain structures, get the axe are fired, and those Marianne Reitsma and manage forest fires in wilder - with an axe to grind have strong ADVERTISING & READER SERVICES ness areas. opinions or ulterior motives. Peo - Jeannette Cox [email protected] Pickaxes, traditionally used in ple who do others’ dirty work are OFFICE MANAGER agriculture, mining, and warfare, called hatchet men. Those who Jennifer Cree feature curved, spiked metal sully reputations do hatchet jobs. [email protected] heads perpendicular to their long Others, more peacefully inclined, Published by Hm Moorshead Magazines Ltd. handles. Today, they are used for bury the hatchet. 505 Consumers Road, Suite 312 , levering, as well as breaking roots, — Melody Amsel-Arieli Toronto, ON, M2J 4V8 Canada rocks, concrete, or hard ground. (416) 491 -3699 Postal Information — Canada Publications Mail Agreement No. 40062922. rule to determine the amount of powers to any number or fraction. Return undeliverable wine, ale, and spirits in partially- Specialized rules, offering ad - Canadian addresses to: History Magazine , Circulation Dept., 505 filled casks, then calculate their vanced mathematical functions, Consumers Road, Suite 312, government excise tax. Through aided in agriculture, photography, Toronto, Ontario, M2J 4V8 Canada. the years, slide rules featured business, and finance. E-mail: [email protected] Postal Information — United States more advanced, accurate, and By the mid-1900s, millions Postmaster send address corrections to useful scales. By 1799, the Soho around the world used slide rules, History Magazine, PO Box 194, Niagara Falls, NY 14304. slide rule, for example, facilitated from portable 5-inchers to 20- E-mail: [email protected] the design and manufacture of inch home models. Simple rules ISSN 1492-4307 © 2014 Watt’s steam engine. designed buildings and bridges. Moorshead Magazines Ltd. In 1859, Amédée Mannheim, a Complex rules advanced cutting- SUBSCRIPTIONS French artillery officer, standard - edge scientific developments. History Magazine is published six times a year (Feb/Mar, Apr/May, Jun/Jul, ized four slide rule scales for mul - Electronic calculators and com - Aug/Sep, Oct/Nov, Dec/Jan). tiplication, division, squares, and puters have long surpassed slide Subscription rates: square roots. His design, the first rules in speed. Yet reliable, man - US (US funds) or Canada (CDN funds) 1 year (6 issues) $30.95, modern slide rule, lasted for the ual rules accompanied Apollo 2 years (12 issues) $53.95, next hundred years. space missions as back-up com - Canadian purchasers please add GST/HST Yet rules continued to evolve. In putational power, and even today, (GST# 139340186 RT). Quebec residents add 8.5% QST. 1881, an American bridge engi - sailors often carry them as navi - We welcome the submission of articles for neer, Edwin Thacher, fit a nearly gational back-ups. Today too, publication. Please address e-mail proposals to [email protected]. We will always 10-foot scale into a complex 2- many pilots still perform aerial contact people who submit articles, but the foot cylindrical rule. Soon after, calculations on rugged, circular review process may take several weeks. Au - William Cox devised a duplex one “prayer wheels” – descendants of thors’ notes are available on request. featuring scales on both sides. As - Oughtred’s circular rule. Hm Toll-Free Subscription Line: 1-888-326-2476 tronomers used two-foot steel — Melody Amsel-Arieli rules to measure the heavens. Printed in Canada Three-section rules enabled more Photo Courtesy of The Oughtred Society, www.history-magazine.com accurate calculation of roots and www.oughtred.org HM88

April/May 2014 History Magazine 7 S The “odd incidents of their rambling E

T lives” made the female pirates Mary

A Read and Anne Bonny seem like R

I legends or fictional characters, but

P ample historical evidence proves they were indeed real.

there is some belief that Johnson was a pen name for Daniel Defoe. Whoever Johnson was, he appar - ently had unparalleled access to information from merchant sea captains, the Royal Navy, and colonial officials. Anne Bonny and Mary Read led two of the most unusual lives of their era. Johnson explained in his narrative that “the odd incidents of their rambling lives are such, that some may be tempted to think the whole story no better than a Novel…” But, Johnson showed that there was bountiful “THE ODD evidence to prove that these two women were as real as the famous pirate Blackbeard himself. INCIDENTS OF According to Johnson, Mary Read’s mother had a baby boy by a husband who never returned from a sea voyage. As her mother THEIR RAMBLING was “young and airy”, she “had an accident” and when her second baby, Mary, was born, it was to a LIVES…” different father. Left in dire cir - DAVID A. NORRIS LOOKS AT cumstances, young Mary’s mother applied to her late husband’s LADY PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: wealthy mother for support. Her baby boy, her only link to this MARY READ AND ANNE BONNY prosperous family, had since died.

he Golden Age of Piracy”, during the 1710s and early 1720s, left behind a cast of characters that included some “ of the most legendary pirates of all time. There were To better their chances of William Lewis, whose crew killed him because they feared help from her mother-in-law, he had sold his soul to the devil; Edward Teach, known as Mary was disguised and “BlaTckbeard”; and Stede Bonnet, the “Gentleman Pirate” who pur - presented as the baby boy born chased his pirate ship and paid regular wages to his crew. Among the pirates of the era stand a pair of very untypical buccaneers, two women to her lost son. by the names of Mary Read and Anne Bonny.

In common with their male com - comes from a 1724 book called Evidently never taking a close rades in piracy, most of the life A General History of the Robberies look at the baby, the family fell for stories of these two pirate women and Murders of the Most Notorious the tale. With her mother, Mary are lost in the shadows of history. Pyrates. The author’s name was was supported for several years Most of what we know about them Captain Charles Johnson, although until her grandmother died.

8 History Magazine April/May 2014 Mary kept on wearing boy’s pirates. Turning her back forever Anne’s father intended for her clothing when she was sent to on convention, Mary joined the to marry a man with suitable work as a servant. Disliking her pirate crew. prospects, but Anne chose a sailor life, she ran away to Flanders and Anne Bonny, according to Cap - named James Bonny who “was became a soldier during the War tain Johnson, was the illegitimate not worth a Groat” [a small four- of the Spanish Succession. No one daughter of an Irish lawyer and a penny coin]. Her father disowned realized her gender until she fell servant maid. The affair became her and the new couple moved in love with a Flemish soldier known, and the lawyer’s wife to New Providence, one of the whom she had befriended. The (from whom came most of his Bahama Islands. two left the army and were mar - money) cut him off financially. We know practically nothing ried. For a few years, Mary and His legal practice collapsed and about James Bonny, perhaps other her husband ran a tavern called the lawyer left Ireland for the New than his new father-in-law the Three Horseshoes near Breda, World. Unlike many men in such strongly disliked him. The newly - in Flanders. But, this phase of her a situation, he took his daughter weds’ decision to live in a place life ended when her husband died. and her mother with him. The like New Providence may explain Then, a peace treaty ended the lawyer and his family ended up something of the anger of Anne’s war, and the officers and soldiers in South Carolina around the father over the marriage. The who patronized the Three Horse - beginning of the 18th century, grasp of England was weak in shoes went home. where he became a successful New Providence. For decades, the When her money ran out, Mary merchant and planter. inhabitants had practically ruled again donned male clothing and Although her father prospered, themselves, kicking out royal gov - joined an army regiment. Peace - young Anne grew up violently- ernors they disliked, and welcom - time offered few prospects for her, tempered and too impulsive to enjoy ing rogues and pirates. so she left the regiment and de - her easy circumstances. Johnson Privateers, who were “legal pi - cided to seek her fortune at sea. wrote that “she was so robust” that rates” licensed to attack shipping Her life took a fateful turn when when a man tried to sexually as - belonging to enemy powers, she sailed to the Caribbean on a sault her, she “beat him so that he used New Providence as a base ship that was taken by English lay ill of it a considerable Time”. during the 1701-1714 War of the Spanish Succession. Retaliatory Spanish raids in 1703 and 1706 destroyed Nassau, the main town on New Providence. Nassau and New Providence were practically abandoned by colonists, leaving no one but privateers and their hangers-on. New Providence made a fine haven for pirates. The island of - fered abundant fresh water and wood. Fish, wild cattle, and hogs were there for the taking. As English sea rovers plundered the ships of France and Spain, New Providence grew into a thriving little boom town. Amid the flocks of tents, and shacks built with driftwood and roofed with palm leaves, were taverns, inns, and brothels to cater to pirates ready to spend their loot. Business was also good for shipbuilders, carpenters, gunsmiths, and other When just a baby, Mary Read was dressed in boy’s clothing to help her mother claim support from her in-laws. She continued to disguise herself as a man, artisans who could keep pirate spending years as a soldier during the 1701-1714 War of the Spanish Succession. vessels in repair. The war in

April/May 2014 History Magazine 9 S Europe ended in 1714, but busi - E T ness as usual continued in New A

R Providence. Scores of privateer I

P crews, used to their way of living, started attacking vessels of any nation, including their native England. Anne tired of her hapless hus - band, but caught the eye of a famous pirate named John Rackham. He was known for wearing clothes of calico, a cotton cloth which at the time was printed in bright and sometimes gaudy colors and patterns, so he was called “Calico Jack”. Little is known about Calico Jack before 1718, when he turned up in history as the quartermaster When another pirate threatened to kill Mary Read’s common-law husband, she of Capt. Charles Vane’s pirate ves - provoked a duel with the pirate and killed him with her sword. sel Ranger . After taking several ships while lurking off New York, Recruits came and went among Mary Read found a new lover the Ranger was confronted by a the pirates. Anne became friends soon enough. When among their large French man-o’-war. Vane with a new hand on their ship. prisoners the pirates found an ordered a hasty retreat. After their According to Johnson, this was “artist, or other person that might escape, Rackham gathered the none other than Mary Read! Anne be of any great use” (perhaps a crew for a meeting. The pirates seemed to be growing tired of her carpenter, metalworker, or other voted to depose Vane and elected pirate captain, and Mary so well artisan), the skilled worker was Rackham as their new captain. concealed her gender that Anne forcibly added to their ranks. Vane and some loyal hands were thought she was just a passably One such fellow pressed into released in a ship’s boat with some handsome man and prospective Rackham’s crew was a carpenter. provisions. lover. The result was something Mary fell so much in love with Rackham soon added Anne of a comedy of errors. Anne this carpenter that she revealed Bonny to his crew. They traveled arranged some kind of meeting her secret to him. Her love was together on his ship, with Anne and sprang the surprise of reveal - returned and the pair carried on a wearing men’s sailor clothing. ing her gender to her intended discreet affair aboard ship. After their affair had gone on for paramour, only to find that her Another pirate, who was re - some time, she became pregnant intended new lover was also a garded as a formidable swordsman, and the captain took her to woman. They reached an under - quarreled with the carpenter. Cuba. There, friends of the pirate standing and kept each other’s Fighting among the crew was cared for her until she gave birth secrets for a time. Watching the forbidden on ship, but it looked and was well enough to return growing intimacy between Anne like the carpenter would be forced to sea. and the new sailor, Rackham’s into a fatal duel as soon as they suspicion grew to red-hot jealousy landed. Rather than see her lover and rage. At last, he confronted slain, Mary provoked the other them and threatened to cut pirate into another duel. She Anne found life at sea to her Mary’s throat for dallying with saw to it that this duel took place liking. When the buccaneers his mistress. first. Years of experience fighting “found any business to be done Rackham was quieted down in Flanders had turned Mary in their Way, no Body was more when he found out that Anne’s Read into an expert in the art friend was also a woman in dis - of killing. She finished the duel forward or courageous than guise. The captain kept quiet by running her enemy through she”, wrote Johnson. about his discovery and Mary with her sword, saving her lover’s Read stayed with the crew. life.

10 History Magazine April/May 2014 Some accounts say that eventu - fishing boats, and stole the nets But, soon enough, the new ar - ally, both women went back to and tackle belonging to the fish - rivals laid down their weapons in wearing female clothing for day to ermen. They also landed in the favor of sharing rum and tobacco. day wear, switching to male attire French colony of San Domingue Interrupting the carousing pi - when the pirates attacked a ship. (now Haiti) and took some wild rates, Barnet’s armed sloop came With piracy raging out of con - cattle and a few prisoners. Four into sight. Weighing anchor, the trol, colonial governments started more small ships were snapped buccaneers fled, but the winds did taking extraordinary measures up, gaining little in treasure, but not favor them. Captain Barnet to stamp it out. Blackbeard was providing a few new recruits for saw some of the pirates rowing to killed at Ocracoke, North Car - the crew. speed their escape, but he saw olina in 1718 by a sea expedition After turning to the Jamaican others were merely drinking. formed by the Royal Navy and the coast, little loot came their way. Their rowing was in vain. governor of Virginia. Woodes Things were so bad that the Barnet’s sloop soon caught up and Rogers, governor of the Bahamas pirates thought it was worthwhile his men poured onto the pirate (and a former privateer himself), to capture and loot a canoe. vessel. Rackham and most of his likewise pushed to take New Prov - Apparently the canoe’s occupants crew proved worthless in the final idence back and drive pirates got word to the authorities, for attack on their ship. Captain from his colony for good. A the governor authorized Jonathan Johnson’s chronicle records what September 1720 report stated Barnet to go after Rackham. should have been a desperate that two privately armed Ba - Captain Barnet set out in a sloop, struggle to the death with more hamian vessels plus another from well-armed with a large crew. than two dozen notorious sea Barbados were hunting pirates. Rackham next encountered a robbers merely as “a very small Soon, another privateer vessel small craft with nine men aboard Dispute”. Very likely, most of the commanded by Capt. Jonathan who at first landed and fled pirates were too drunk to manage Barnet joined the search. ashore. But, the men hailed the much resistance. In August 1720, Rackham pirates, and at finding they were Only three hands stayed on prowled the coast of Jamaica, but fellow Englishmen, Rackham deck to fight the boarding party: found only small vessels whose asked them to come aboard and the women – Read and Bonny – crews had little worth taking. “take a bowl of punch”. These new and one unknown male pirate. Turning to the Bahamas in Sep - men stepped aboard, but warily, Mary Read shouted at the crew tember, they took seven or eight carrying muskets and cutlasses. to come up on deck and fight. None of them moved to help, and in anger, she fired her pistols down into the hold and killed one of them. An admiralty court convened to try Rackham’s crew in the old capital of Jamaica, Saint Jago de la Vega (also known as “Spanish Town”). First tried were the pirate captain and his male crewmen. All were convicted, other than a few who could prove they had been captured and held against their will by Rackham. At least two French prisoners among the pi - rates were not charged, and they provided testimony against them. The admiralty court handed down death sentences for Rackham and 18 others. Evidently the court believed the men who While raiding the coast of Jamaica, the pirate ship of Mary Read and Anne Bonny usually captured small craft such as fishing boats rather than treasure-laden ships. came aboard Calico Jack’s ship (Library of Congress) for that drinking bout were also

April/May 2014 History Magazine 11 S pirates, and they were among ning to quit and find some honest E T those sentenced to hang. way of living. A

R Before his execution, Rackham One of the other prisoners freed I

P was granted his wish to see Anne from the pirates provided some one more time. He might as well damning testimony against her. have gone without the meeting. He told the court that he fell into No longer seeing Calico Jack as a conversation with Read, at the dashing pirate whom she was in time, taking her as an ordinary pi - love with, she told him, “… if you rate. They talked about piracy, had fought like a man, you need and the captive asked if she feared not have been hanged like a dog”. being killed in battle or dying on After dying on the gallows, the gallows. Her answer was Rackham’s body was “gibbeted”, described to the court, “as to or hung in chains. This meant hanging, she thought it no great that his body was not buried, but Hardship, for, were it not for that, left hanging on display in an iron every cowardly Fellow would turn cage as a deterrent to would-be Pyrate, and so infest the Seas, that pirates. Men of Courage must starve”. Calico Jack Rackham, in a way, performed one good deed after his death. In 1722, a great hurri - Both of the women in cane hit Jamaica. Winds and waves destroyed nearly all of the Rackham’s crew were convicted fifty vessels at anchor nearby and sentenced to hang. at Port Royal, and swept away many crewmen who were ashore. Anne Bonny was introduced to piracy when she became the mistress of the The wooden gallows that held But, each woman also won a re - dashing and fancily-dressed bucca - Rackham’s bones was uprooted prieve through the legal maneuver neer “Calico Jack” Rackham. and smashed by the storm. A of “pleading her belly”, or assert - sailor caught in the flooding ing pregnancy. accounts, she married a planter grabbed onto the wreckage of Johnson records that the judge named Joseph Burleigh, and she Rackham’s gallows, and the deferred their executions “until a became the mother of a large wooden beams kept him afloat proper Jury could be appointed to family. If this trail of rather until he was rescued. enquire into the Matter”. Under sketchy evidence is true, the infa - A week after Rackham was English law at the time, women mous lady pirate settled down to a hanged, separate trials were held were never seated on regular long life of ordinary respectability on 28 November 1720 for Read juries, but could be appointed to that lasted until her death in 1782 . and Bonny. There was apparently a special “jury of matrons” in Hm some sympathy among the jurors cases where female prisoners for Mary Read. She stressed that claimed to be pregnant. DAVID A. NORRIS is a regular although she was a pirate, she had Both Read and Bonny were in - contributor to Internet never committed adultery. She deed pregnant. Although Mary Genealogy, Family Chronicle and was faithful to her soldier hus - Read escaped the hangman, she History Magazine , and has also band until his death, and later fell to a fatal fever while she was penned many special issues had been loyal to her “husband” in jail in Jamaica. including Life During the Civil aboard Rackham’s ship. It became Anne Bonny is known to have War, Tracing Your Colonial known that she had fallen in love been released from prison, but with one of the pirate captives, nothing is known for certain American Ancestors , and The but she never divulged his name about the rest of her life. A per - History of Railroads , for History in court. She testified that she sistent tale has it that her father Magazine. David’s next contribu - regarded him as her husband just obtained her release from prison, tion will be to our Tracing Your as if they’d had a church wedding. and the stubborn and adventur - WWI Ancestors special issue, to On the stand, she claimed that he ous daughter returned to her old be released in May 2014. hated piracy and they were plan - home in South Carolina. By some

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Order Online: www.history-magazine.com I I

W The USS Indianapolis . W

THE ATTACK ON THE USS INDIANAPOLIS DOUG GLADSTONE RECOUNTS THE JAPANESE SUBMARINE ATTACK ON A WARSHIP THAT WOULD PLAY A KEY ROLE IN THE OUTCOME OF THE WAR All photos courtesy of Edgar Harrell

Every survivor of war has a story to tell. And 89-year-old Edgar Harrell’s is a doozie.

native of Turkey Creek, Kentucky, Harrell is one of the hand - ful of men still alive who was aboard the United States Navy cruiser the USS Indianapolis when it was fired on by an I-58 Japanese submarine at 14 minutes past midnight, on 30 July 1945. The ship was midway between Guam and Leyte Gulf wAhen two of the six torpedoes fired hit their intended target. While the screenwriters of Jaws the basic facts remain the same. took some liberties with history After delivering the critical com - for dramatic effect – not only ponents for the world’s first does Robert Shaw's monologue atomic bomb to the island of (see next page) suggest that nearly Tinian on 26 July 1945, the 650 men were eaten by sharks, Indianapolis departed Guam for

but he incorrectly states the date the Philippine Islands to prepare The front cover of Edgar and David of the tragedy as 29 June 1945 – for the invasion of Japan. Harrell’s Out of the Depths.

14 History Magazine April/May 2014 The late Robert Shaw, at left, and a young Richard Dreyfuss prepare to shoot the USS Indianapolis scene in Jaws. (Photo courtesy of Jaws memorabilia collector Jim Beller)

JAWS MONOLOGUE “Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into screamin’ and the ocean turns red and in spite of all our side, chief. It was comin’ back, from the island the poundin’ and the hollerin’, they all come in and of Tinian to Leyte, just delivered the bomb. The rip you to pieces. Y’know by the end of that first Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into dawn, lost a hundred men! I don’t know how many the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. sharks, maybe a thousand! I don’t know how many Didn’t see the first shark for about a half an hour. men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know how you know that mornin’ chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, when you’re in the water, chief? You tell by lookin’ Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn’t know was boson’s mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, signal had been sent. Uh huh. They didn’t even list just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well, he’d been us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, sharks come cruisin’. So we formed ourselves into Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung tight groups. You know it’s kinda like ol’ squares in in low and he saw us. He’s a young pilot, a lot battle like a, you see on a calendar, like the battle of younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark comes to the come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY nearest man and that man, he’d start poundin’ and comes down and start to pick us up. You know that hollerin’ and screamin’ and sometimes the shark was the time I was most frightened? Waitin’ for my would go away. Sometimes he wouldn’t go away. turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right hundred men went in the water, three hundred and into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June he’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eye. the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.” When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin.’ Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And - actor Robert Shaw in Jaws (1975) then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch Zanuck/Brown Productions, Universal Pictures

April/May 2014 History Magazine 15 I

I “We didn’t know what we were (Henry Holt and Company,

W guarding when that large box was 2003); Peter Nelson’s Left for Dead W brought aboard the ship,” recalls (Delacorte Press, 2003); and Harrell, who added that a black Raymond Lech’s The Tragic Fate of metal canister also made its way the USS Indianapolis (Cooper onto the ship after the box Square Press, 2000), Jaws helped was lifted onto the Indianapolis . introduce a whole new generation “And army personnel didn’t come of people to the tragedy. The on the ship with it, instead, scien - movie fanned so much interest in tists from Los Alamos, in New the Indianapolis ’ tale that, in the Mexico, did.” mid-1990s, a then 12-year-old Harrell says his Marine captain Pensacola, Florida student named instructed him to station guards Hunter A. Scott wrote about the around the box, which he dutifully event for a history project. Along did. Twenty-one days later, the with a group of survivors who felt

atomic bombs – nicknamed “Little that the captain of the vessel, the Charles B. McVay, the captain of the Boy” and “Fat Man” – were dropped late Charles B. McVay III, was USS Indianapolis. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. unfairly court-martialed for his “President (Harry) Truman had role in the tragedy, Scott spear - solely through the providence of the fortitude and courage of his headed a campaign to have McVay God that I lived through those convictions as commander-in- posthumously exonerated by dreadful days and nights. Luck chief to use that bomb. In my Congress. President Bill Clinton had absolutely nothing to do with opinion, he used the only good signed the Congressional resolu - my survival,” he emphasizes. option he had,” notes Harrell. tion in October 2000 exonerating The father of two, including a “The President saved lives when McVay, who, sadly, had commit - son, David, who is the pastor he ordered the bombs to be ted suicide in 1968. at the Calvary Bible Church, in dropped. But the only thing today Now 28 years old, Scott is a Joelton, Tennessee, Harrell was a is that, while man was smart Navy helicopter pilot in San distributor for the Pella Window enough to develop the bomb, he’s Diego, California who graduated Company, in Rock Island, Illinois not smart enough to know how or from the University of North for 35 years before he and David when to use it safely.” Carolina at Chapel Hill in May self-published their own take on Because of its secret cargo – the 2007 with a degree in Economics. what is widely considered to be uranium for the atomic bomb the largest casualty at sea in the – the Indianapolis left Guam un - Navy’s history. (Only the 1,177 escorted and, therefore, was never “I said to the Lord, Thou art men who perished aboard the presumed missing. USS Arizona during the bombing As for that fateful night, the first my God. Give ear, O Lord, to of Pearl Harbor was greater.) torpedo reportedly blew away the the voice of my supplications. Titled Out of the Depths (Xulon Indianapolis ’ bow, while the O God the Lord, the strength of Press, 2005), the Harrells claim second struck near mid-ship on my salvation, thou has covered that nearly 20,000 copies of the the starboard side adjacent to a book have been sold since its my head in the day of battle.” fuel tank and a powder magazine. initial print run. Bethany House, The resulting explosion split the -Psalm 140: 6-7 which is a leading publisher of ship to the keel, knocking out all Christian books, is set to re- electric power. The Indianapolis release Out of the Depths this sank in 12 minutes. “I remember my days of service spring, according to David. Though numerous titles about well, and I felt proud to be able “One of the things we wanted to the Indianapolis disaster have to serve my country,” Harrell do in weaving Dad’s story was, been released over the years, recently told an interviewer over first and foremost, to tell it accu - including Richard Newcomb’s the telephone. “But one memory rately,” he says. “But also we Abandon Ship (Harper Torch, eclipses them all, and that was the wanted to present the story in a 2001); Dan Kurzman’s Fatal unfailing presence of God that way that it illustrated how a sim - Voyage (Broadway Books, 2001); sustained me during those 4½ ple man could reconcile his faith Doug Stanton’s In Harm’s Way days I was in the water. It was with Jesus Christ.”

16 History Magazine April/May 2014 “Our Lord is a redeeming, mer - He and that future bride – Ola mother, Myra, didn’t want him ciful God,” continues David. “So Mae – were married on 24 July to leave. “But I didn’t have much the title does have dual connota - 1947. Besides David, the couple of a problem convincing them,” tions in that respect. Dad was had a daughter, Cathey Marie he says. delivered out of the depths of the Tierney, who regrettably passed After completing boot camp, sea, but he was also saved from his away last January. Of the couple’s Harrell was sent to Sea School. He own sin. The book was titled eight grandchildren, two of them was assigned to the Indianapolis specifically for that reason.” – Joseph and Colin – are Marines in March of 1944. “I wanted to give the Lord credit just like their grandfather. The The only book written by one of for my salvation,” agrees Harrell, Harrells have also been blessed the survivors – there is a book who says he accepted Jesus Christ with four great-grandchildren. written by a group of survivors as his savior shortly after he Harrell says he enlisted in the and their families, appropriately passed his army physical in Marine Corps because he was called Only 317 Survived (Printing Evansville, Indiana in July 1943. concerned that the Japanese were Partners, 2002) – Harrell’s Out of One month later, before he started going to invade the beaches of the Depths often goes into vivid boot camp in San Diego, he found California. His own father, Alvin, detail about what he and his com - himself at church on 1 August had been 37 when he left home to rades in arms endured. 1943 with his future bride and join the Corps, he explains. “For many years, Dad didn’t her mother. “Joining the service was an tell the story that much,” says “Knowing what was happening honorable undertaking back David. “He was busy with the in the Pacific, and knowing I then,” continues Harrell, who was business. But then September might not come home, and know - a corporal at the time of the inci - 11th happened. That was the ing we were losing thousands of dent. “We never heard of draft trigger. Our nation was under Marines in combat, I wanted to dodgers or flag burners. We were attack, but more significantly, square things between the Lord all patriots.” our nation was in a moral and and myself,” he explains. Harrell says both his father and economic decline too.”

LEFT : Ola Mae and Edgar Harrell on their wedding day on 24 July 1947. RIGHT : Recent picture of Ola Mae and Edgar Harrell.

April/May 2014 History Magazine 17 I

I “So I went to him and said, ‘I hear blood curdling screams, and

W think it’s really important to get those kapok jackets we were wear - W your story down. Why don’t we ing went under.” take some time to write it?’” Adds “You’d float by, and see that David, “As his son, I wanted to some men were disembodied, or write his testimony down, and their bottom torsos were com - that’s kind of how it started.” pletely gone,” he continues. “I “Through the years, I never told wasn’t attacked by any, but I the story much I guess,” agrees remember seeing this one fin Harrell. “I had a certified public coming at me, and I drew my feet accountant for 15 years and even up under my gut, and the shark he never heard the story.” went under me, but I still felt that Harrell has certainly made up dorsal fin.” for lost time. By his count, he’s According to Harrell, the kapok been in more than 30 states since jackets didn’t help the situation Out of the Depths was first re - much, either. “That kapok jacket leased, giving interviews and was a horse collar,” he says. “They sharing his inspiring tale of faith Corporal Edgar Harrell, circa 1945. were good only for a period of and fear with anyone who will lis - time, maybe only 48 hours. They ten. A frequent figure on the lec - “I was covered in diesel oil from were never meant to be worn con - ture circuit, his schedule of book the blast,” he explains. “One Ma - tinuously. You would use them to appearances and author events is rine buddy of mine had broken sit in them. Well, by the third prodigious for any speaker, but bones in his body, so I suppose I day at noon, they weren’t good especially an octogenarian; by his was fortunate, in that respect. I anymore. Your arms were always own admission, he does about 25 developed salt water ulcers on my moving in them, so afterwards, I venues a year. Predictably, veter - arms and neck. They were so bad discovered that I had actually ans’ organizations and military that, after we were rescued, and I rubbed some of my skin off.” groups are particularly popular. was recuperating in the hospital, While many men were, in fact, The Indianapolis was thought to I had to have Vaseline gauze band - eaten by the sharks, just as many be in safe waters at the time of ages applied to my skin.” He also probably succumbed to hypother - its sinking – so much so that it emerged from the water with a mia and fatigue, an opinion that was sailing “wide-open” and the perforated appendix. Harrell concurs with. In an inter - sailors and Marines had been Of course, while being covered view he gave several years ago, granted permission to sleep on in diesel oil is bad, that hasn’t fu - Harrell recalled that the men in deck to escape the heat, according eled the continuing fascination the water often suffered gruesome to Harrell. Of the 1,196 men on with the story of the Indianapolis ’ deaths that weren’t necessarily board when the Indianapolis was sinking. In the telling of the story, shark related. Some died during struck, approximately 300 either the sharks are always front and the night from hypothermia when died instantly or went down with center. their core body temperature the ship. “That first morning, sharks dipped to 85 degrees, the water’s rushed by me. All kinds of fins temperature. Others began drink - were protruding out of the water,” ing ocean water, which contains The remaining men were left says Harrell. “Well, all of us men twice the salt than the human floating in shark-infested improvised, we made a circle, and body can safely ingest. “Their lips hooked our life jackets together.” turned blue, they foamed at the waters with no lifeboats and You can’t help but hear Shaw’s nose, their eyes rolled back in most with no food or water. three and one-half minute mono - their heads and they would go logue in your head as Harrell into violent fits and then fall into continues describing the horrors a coma,” he said. There was also the matter of he witnessed. Nearly two decades ago, the the diesel fuel that the men were “But then the waves came, and ship’s chief medical officer exposed to. In the wake of the these 10 to 12-foot swells might said much the same thing. In a explosion, the water was full of oil take one of us away,” he explains. 1995 article appearing on the web- and other debris, says Harrell. “And when that happened, you’d zine Eyewitness to History.com,

18 History Magazine April/May 2014 Dr. Lewis Haynes confirmed that Harrell told the Baptist Press in most of the men were deliriously July 2009. “The distress signal thirsty. didn’t get out, or if it did, it wasn’t “There was nothing I could do, received.” but give advice and try to keep the Gwinn subsequently called for men from drinking the salt water help; only later that afternoon when we drifted out of the fuel did the first rescue plane arrive, oil,” he said. “When the hot sun piloted by Lt. Adrian Marks. came out and we were in this crys - Beginning in 1960, survivors of tal clear water, you were so thirsty the tragedy and their families you couldn’t believe it wasn’t good have been reuniting every year enough to drink. I had a hard time in Indianapolis, where a USS convincing the men that they Indianapolis Memorial is located shouldn’t drink. The real young at the north end of Canal Walk. ones – you take away their hope, Harrell, who attended the most you take away their water and food Navy pilot Lieutenant Wilbur “Chuck” recent reunion of the Indianapolis Gwinn, the serviceman who acciden - – they would drink salt water and tally spotted the Indianapolis survivors survivors last August, says that then would go fast. I can remem - in the water. only 38 of his shipmates are still ber striking men who were drink - alive – and of those, only 17 at - ing water to try and stop them. spotted a shiny slick of oil as he tended the 2013 reunion. They would get diarrhea, then get tried to assess an antenna prob - “There’s never been a day since more dehydrated, then become lem on his plane. When he looked I stepped off that sinking ship very maniacal.” closer, he made out the blackened when I haven’t reflected about the They were also deliriously faces of the men from the ship. horrors I experienced and the loss hungry, according to Harrell. Even though they were overdue of 880 of my shipmates,” said “Tongues were swelling in our for training in the Philippines, Harrell. “Ours was a hellish night - mouths and our lips were bleed - nobody had reported them miss - mare.” ing,” he recalls. “I was with a ing at sea. According to the News-Gazette group of 80 men that gradually “We assumed a rescue ship was of East Central Illinois, the shrunk to about 40 and then to on its way and would be there story of what happened to the 17 by the third day. On that day, I in the morning, but it wasn’t,” Indianapolis was not widely known remember seeing a potato crate floating by. Well, in desperation, I left my group and swam out to retrieve it, that’s how hungry we were.”

“We were willing to eat these half-rotten potatoes just to stay alive,” continues Harrell. “I peeled ‘em all with my teeth.”

By the time the survivors were spotted by Navy pilot Lt. Wilbur “Chuck” Gwinn, at 11:30 AM on Thursday, 2 August 1945 – more than 83 hours after the Indianapolis sank – only 317 men were still alive to be rescued. And it wasn’t as if Gwinn was looking The telegram that Harrell’s parents, Myra and Alvin, received telling them that he for the sailors; by accident, he had been injured.

April/May 2014 History Magazine 19 I

I for a long time. The story of the

W ship’s sinking broke on 14 August W 1945 – the same day President Truman announced Japan’s sur - render. Both stories were pub - lished the next day, but the sinking was overshadowed by the surrender. Thanks to Harrell, the story of that hellish nightmare continues to be told. Hm

DOUGLAS J. GLADSTONE is a journalist by training, whose published articles have appeared in The Chicago Sun Times, The Burlington Free Press and America in World War 2 Magazine , among others. His new book, about the Italian American immigrant who served as the chief carver of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, will be published by Bordighera

Press next month. Survivors of the Indianapolis tragedy being brought back to Guam for medical assistance.

The USS Indianapolis Memorial is located at the north end of the Canal Walk in Indianapolis, Indiana.

20 History Magazine April/May 2014 Photograph by Solomon Butcher of the G

Mitchell sod house in Custer County, N Nebraska; photographed 1888, I V

published in Butcher's Pioneer History of I L Custer County, and Short Sketches of Early Days in Nebraska , 1901, p. 44; captioned "Old Mitchell Ranch on Clear Creek". (Library of Congress)

who had the intention of becom - ing an American citizen. If you paid a filing fee, farmed the land and lived on it for at least five years, the land belonged to you. And so, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world took advantage of this once-in-a- lifetime chance and claimed the land. And yet, less than 50 percent of these homesteaders succeeded, others left to go back home or move further west. SOD HOUSES The earliest settlers chose land adjacent to rivers where there were some trees, but this land was – Living in the Great quickly taken. Some of the first arrivals were fur trappers or min - American Desert ers, more men than women. But GLORIA TIETGENS SLADEK EXPLORES in Minnesota, Nebraska and other states, most came to farm the rich THE HISTORY OF THE SOD HOUSE soil as families. Many of these set - AND THE ROLE IT PLAYED IN tlers were quick to begin planning the building of unusual houses HELPING TO BUILD THE COUNTRY made out of sod grass. Yes, the tall, tough grass, growing right he Great Plains, the American Prairies, or the American under their feet! Desert, were all names to describe a landscape that pioneer But this tall prairie grass, some - settlers had never before experienced. Vast stretches of treeless times more than 7 to 8 feet tall, grasslands, with some grasses growing more than 6 feet tall, was not ordinary grass. The tough covered parts of the United States from North Dakota down roots of the grass could take up to tTo Texas and the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Alberta and four teams of oxen to plow. They Saskatchewan. Here would be the future homes for the masses made would use a plowshare that had from the thick, green sod under their feet. to be sharp to cut through the unyielding soil the first time. If Originally, this was home to many and bringing new diseases. By you were so blessed, you used Indian tribes, including the the time of the Louisiana Pur - a steel plowshare invented by Comanche, Blackfoot, Sioux and chase, approximately two-thirds blacksmith John Deere that was several others. For thousands of of the Plains Indians had died of smooth enough that the sod years, the Plains Indians roamed smallpox. didn’t cling to it. The place where freely with the bison. The fur Then in 1862, the Congress of the grass was removed was then trade brought Europeans into the the United States passed the planted with crops. area from Russia, Britain, France Homestead Act that brought hope Pioneers had to build rough and other countries. Along with and good news to multitudes. shelters or live in their wagons the Americans, they made their This Act would permit any citizen, until their crops were fruitful. way across the Plains, making 21 years or older, to claim land up Forced to use materials readily contact with the Indian tribes to 160 acres, and included anyone available to them, the settlers built

April/May 2014 History Magazine 21 G their houses out of prairie sod homes were just crude dugouts, curtains and one might find win - N

I to shelter themselves against rain, while others had more expensive dow boxes filled with flowers in V

I blizzards, and hot summers. gabled roofs where wood and tar spring and summer. Many settlers L These sod houses spread quickly paper were used. Most houses had tossed flower seeds onto the roofs across North and South Dakota, only one room and little furniture to brighten their homes when the Kansas and Nebraska. The land due to the lack of space. Some flowers bloomed. Women didn’t was flat with few trees and, there - beds and tables were built right like the mud floors and as soon as fore, no wood with which to build into the walls. If the family had a they could, raised wooden floors anything. Still, some wood was sewing machine or large object, it were added to the houses. needed for the roofs. Windows had to be stored outside. In bad It was important to build wells and doors had to come by wagon. weather, the family shoved it as soon as possible. Until there And that was expensive! inside the already cramped room. was a well, the girls and women had to carry water for miles, unless they were lucky enough to have a horse and wagon. The water was then stored in a large barrel outside the sod house. Cast iron stoves were used for cooking and heating the interior of these homes. Of course, wood and coal were expensive, so bison and cow drop - pings were used for fuel. These “chips”, as they were called, re - leased an unpleasant odor, but the family adjusted to it in exchange for a warm house during the fierce cold and snowy winters. Saskatchewan sod house, circa 1910. (Public Domain, US Federal Government) Still, illness and loneliness could make a homesteader often wish The houses were built with sod for their old homes. bricks about 18 inches wide and These special people who strug - 24 inches long. Each brick One asset was that the homes gled so hard in the beginning, weighed about 50 pounds and ap - were cool in hot weather and surviving blizzards, tornados and proximately 3,000 bricks were quite warm in the winter. floods, continued year after year, needed to build a 16 x 20 house. One detriment was that the farming and living this way. In The fresh sod would be laid up - time, they left these sod houses side down (roots up), allowing the houses required frequent and built new homes. They con - roots to grow into the brick above maintenance and there were quered much, looking to the it, and forming a very strong wall. often problems with mice ground to make homes and a These squares of sod had long, and a variety of insects. living out of the so-called “desert”. tough, grass with black, curly Hm roots and yet they were quite flex - ible. The best time to build these GLORIA TIETGENS SLADEK is houses was in September when The soddies, as they were some - the roots from the prairie grass times called, proved to be very a free-lance writer who loves to had time to penetrate deep into creative. The walls of the homes dwell in the history of ordinary the soil. were cut as smooth as possible things. She has written for Fortunately, these homes were with a spade and then often children, women's fashion, cheap overall to build. All the whitewashed to brighten the in - and Christian magazines. She walls were constructed of sod and side. They also might cover the has a published song entitled, many roofs as well. Some of the walls and ceiling with muslin to roofs were made of a lattice type protect themselves from falling "Bells are for Ringing". framing of tree branches. Some bugs and debris. Windows had

22 History Magazine April/May 2014 S

Guardhouse and ruins as they appear today. N (Photo courtesy of author) O S I R P

NEWGATE – FROM COPPER MINE TO PRISON CONSTANCE R. CHERBA EXPLORES THE STORIED HISTORY OF THE FIRST CHARTERED COPPER MINE IN THE US, ITS EVENTUAL TRANSFORMATION INTO A PRISON, AND LATER, A MUSEUM

ld Newgate in East Granby, Connecticut, has played a part in the country’s earliest tourist at - North America’s history since 1705, when the discovery of tractions. Today, more than 20,000 copper led to the founding of the first chartered copper min - visitors explore Newgate each year. ing company in what would become the United States. Later, In many ways, Newgate’s history Newgate copper mine served as a prison and confined British parallels the history of the LOoyalists as well as burglars, horse thieves, counterfeiters, and forgers in United States. An examination of its damp, underground tunnels. Following the signing of the Declara - Newgate’s mining industry, prison tion of Independence on 4 July 1776, Newgate became the first state era, and decades of tourist activ - prison in the United States and housed post Revolutionary War convicts ity allows us to reflect on 300 until 1827, when a renewed interest in copper caused the mine to be years of history in this part of reopened. In 1857, mining ceased for good, and Newgate became one of North America.

April/May 2014 History Magazine 23 S COPPER MINE Before Newgate became a colo - the 67-foot shaft on a rope low - N 1705 - 1773

O nial prison, various punishments ered by his faithful mistress. De - S

I Reports of the discovery of copper had been meted out to criminals spite the offer of a $10 reward for R

P first surfaced on 18 December depending on their crime. Some his return, Hinson was never seen 1705 at a town meeting in were confined in the stocks or again. Several other prisoners es - Simsbury, Connecticut. (Sims - pillory. Others were subjected to caped before officials tightened bury would become incorporated the whipping post or the branding security by sealing off the longer as Granby in 1786 and subdivided iron or had their ears cropped. shaft and building a strong log into East Granby in 1858.) By A committee appointed by the house above the remaining shaft. 1707, a subscription was offered colony’s General Assembly was Despite the large number of to residents allowing them to get charged with examining the escapes, Newgate was considered in on the ground floor of the Simsbury copper mine to see if it the strongest prison in the mining venture. Sixty-four sub - might make an acceptable prison. colonies. Tories, deserters, and scribers formed the first chartered The committee visited the mine in other criminals ended up at New - copper mine in North America. May 1773 and found two vertical gate during the Revolutionary The proprietors of the mine ore shafts, one 25 feet deep and War. George Washington ex - hired “undertakers” to supervise the other 67 feet deep, joined by a pressed confidence in the prison the actual mining efforts. The sale 165-foot sloping tunnel. They in December 1775 when he sent of one-tenth of the refined ore pronounced the old copper mine four “flagrant and atrocious” was used to secure an “able” a perfect site for a prison. Tories who had been convicted by schoolmaster and to support Soon, the mine was purchased, a court martial. the “collegiate school” of Yale. and an underground lodging Although the signing of the Other shillings went to the town room was carved out of the rock Declaration of Independence of Simsbury and to the Crown near the bottom of the shorter changed the status of Newgate in England. shaft. Laborers installed an iron from a colonial prison to a state Proprietors came and went over door 6 feet from the surface prison, conditions remained hor - the years as disputes frequently to discourage escape. The new rific. Often as many as 100 pris - arose over shares and leases. prison was named Newgate and oners were confined in the dank, Unfortunately, although the min - was designated “a public goal dismal caverns. Temperatures ers dug deeper and deeper in the and workhouse” where prisoners underground hovered around 50 underground tunnels to reach would mine ore. Soon, criminals degrees, the sound of dripping richer veins, the mine was never convicted of burglary, highway water was continuous, and only profitable due to the low grade of robbery, counterfeiting, and horse weak light filtered down from the yellow-blue copper ore and stealing began arriving at the above. the high cost of transporting it to prison. Twelve insurrections were the Boston refinery and overseas John Hinson, a convicted bur - mounted between 1773 and 1782. to England and Europe. glar, became Newgate’s first Over this short period, 62 prison - In 1772, Captain James Holmes prisoner on 22 December 1773. ers escaped, and three major fires acquired a 20-year lease for the Eighteen days later, he escaped up broke out at the prison. During copper mine. But by 18 October the last conflagration, the gates 1773, Holmes had sold the re - were lifted to allow the prisoners maining 19 years of his lease to a to escape the smoke and flames. committee tasked with exploring This humanitarian act resulted in the suitability of the copper mine the incarceration of the guard re - for the confinement of criminals. sponsible for sparing the prisoners. Newgate was closed from 1782 NEWGATE PRISON until 1790, and criminals were 1773 - 1827 sent to nearby Hartford Goal. Newgate served as an institution Newgate reopened in 1790 after of punishment for criminals from the construction of a new brick 1773 - 1827, first as a colonial Reward Notice - unsuccessful adver - guardhouse over the 25-foot shaft. prison and then as a state prison tisement placed in the Connecticut An 11-foot wooden fence with a Courant by prison keeper John Viets after the signing of the Declara - following escape of John Hinson in wide entrance gate was built tion of Independence in 1776. January 1774. (In public domain) around the prison. Nail making

24 History Magazine April/May 2014 began to replace the unprofitable slept underground and endured had room for a hospital and offices. mining. unbearable odors, vermin, and A 30-foot, step treadmill was At 4:00 AM daily, criminals in leg walls running with seepage. built to be operated by prisoners irons were forced to leave their Prison food was poor. Meat was who had no mechanical skills. damp, vermin-covered straw often tossed on the floor near the Repeated stepping on the stairs of bunks. The men were prodded up prisoners’ work stations and left the treadmill turned mill stones a 40-foot ladder to the new nail to be cooked by the inmates in the which ground grain. Prisoners shop where they would spend waters of the blacksmith forges were often chained in place and endless hours fabricating hand where the nails were cooled. encouraged to keep up the pace by wrought nails. Leg shackles forced Obedient prisoners earned “half a the overseer’s whip. the men to move by small jumps gill” of rum or cider to accom - Only four women were impris - while walking. pany their meals. oned at Newgate. The first, Rachel Once at their work stations, the The production of wrought Heddy, arrived at the prison in unfortunate men were chained by iron nails was never profitable so August 1824. She served a sen - their necks to the ceiling. Each other prison industries began to tence of six months for daytime shackled prisoner was required to emerge after 1817. Soon, Newgate thievery of an item exceeding a produce 8 pounds of nails daily. inmates were making boots and dollar in value. Thirza Mansfield This task often took 8-9 hours. shoes, weaving baskets, and build - arrived in 1825 to begin a life sen - Failure to make the quota resulted ing wagons, plows, and whiskey tence for killing her husband with in 5-10 lashes on the bare back. barrels in the blacksmith and a hatchet. In 1826, Juli Ann Burr In 1802, a new 12-foot stone woodworking shops. was sentenced to two years for wall replaced the wooden fence. By 1824, all Newgate prisoners adultery. The next year, Comfort Beginning in 1805, a few fortu - were kept above ground with the Sperry began her three year nate prisoners were housed above completion of a four-story cell sentence for the same crime. ground in a stone “Upper Prison”. block. The new stone building Periodic inspections of Newgate The most dangerous convicts could house 50 prisoners and also found conditions deplorable. In

Newgate sign. (Photo courtesy of author)

Newgate wall and ruins as they appear today. (Photo courtesy of author)

April/May 2014 History Magazine 25 S 1827, the prison was closed, and candles and grisly stories to those N

O 81 inmates were transferred to the eager to tour the old mine tunnels. S

I new, modern Connecticut State Over time, the above ground R

P Prison in Wethersfield. A new era property fell into ruins. New Eng - had begun and social theories land weather, encroaching vegeta - called for reform under less harsh tion, and a 1904 fire caused roofs discipline. to fall in and walls to collapse. In the 1920s and 1930s, a dance RENEWED COPPER hall occupied the former guard - MINING 1830-1837 house, the only intact building on & 1855-1857 the grounds. Tours of the mines In 1830, the Phoenix Mining were offered to the Saturday night Company purchased Newgate revelers in exchange for a 40- or Prison for $1,200. The cell block 50-cent ticket. Two new doors was converted into housing for were cut into the guardhouse foreign miners who employed the foundation to make entrance into Shackles still visible today. most modern techniques for ex - the tunnels easier. (Photo courtesy of author) tracting copper ore. Despite the A caged bear and her cub enter - miners’ efforts, the company tained visitors in the old prison slipping, and a spiral staircase was folded in 1837. yard. Soon, an old fire engine, built to be used as an emergency In 1855, Richard Bacon and antique cars, a tiny zoo, and a exit. Ezra Clark of Hartford founded WWI vintage tank joined the In 1973, the National Park serv - the Connecticut Mining Com - bears. Later, stuffed birds and wax ice of the US Department of the pany, and ore was once again figures of famous people were Interior designated Newgate a mined from the underground displayed in the guardhouse. National Historic Landmark. In passages of Newgate. Two years In October 1968, the State of June 2000, a major renovation later, mining ceased. Connecticut purchased the New - effort air-conditioned the mine The Lenox Mining Company gate property. The sale included shafts, remodeled the visitor cen - was the last to obtain a lease for five acres of land, the mines, and ter, reinforced the guardhouse Newgate mineral rights in 1901. the ruins of several buildings underpinnings, re-pointed stone However, when the owner refused including the blacksmith and walls, and added several ramps for to sell the land outright, all copper shop, the four-story cell ADA accessibility. plans to work the mines were block, the old stone “Upper Newgate closed again in 2010 abandoned. Prison”, a building used for the for additional renovations. When cabinet, wagon, and shoemaking the old copper mine and prison TOURIST ATTRACTION shops, and the intact guardhouse. reopens, visitors will once again 1857 - PRESENT Officials promptly removed be invited to explore the guard - Newgate became a tourist attrac - everything that didn’t pertain to house, above ground ruins, and tion under private ownership in Newgate’s history. The state added the abandoned tunnels where 1857. Following the end of min - a wide staircase with 35 steps so remnants of green copper ore and ing operations, the guardhouse visitors could easily climb down shackles embedded in the basalt was converted to a private resi - into the mine. The wet, sloping walls give silent testimony to dence. Family members living on floors of the tunnels were treated the history of the underground the Newgate grounds handed out with a compound to prevent passages. Hm

Newgate’s most recent renovation includes a construction project at CONSTANCE CHERBA is a the visitor center, several safety upgrades, and the installation of a new freelance writer from Dubuque, lighting system in the mine tunnels. Iowa. She is a frequent Newgate is located in East Granby, Connecticut, about one mile north contributor to Family Chronicle of Route 20 at 115 Newgate Road. The anticipated reopening is and Internet Genealogy. This is scheduled for May 2014. her ninth contribution to To confirm the reopening date and obtain current admission fees and . hours, call the Old Newgate Prison Museum at 860-653-3563. History Magazine

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To order online, go to www.internet-genealogy.com or call toll free 1-888-326-2476 EST. Robert Louis Stevenson in 1875, four S years before his California visit. (Steven - R son Archive Collection) O H T

Finally, the traveler got past the U A last wrinkled cypress and beheld the mighty Pacific Ocean, a breathtaking sight to one accus - tomed to more placid shores. The ocean was a deep blue, its cobalt hues punctuated by the white stripes of incoming rollers. There was a fierce wind blowing off the ocean, and the man was so rail thin it seemed as if a good gust might sweep him off his feet. The man decided to lie down in the sand, utterly mesmerized by the ocean’s beauty and power. After an hour or two of contem - plation, he was still enraptured, but his reverie was broken when a local fisherman came up to say hello. The fisherman later remem - bered the stranger as “the thinnest man I ever saw”. When asked his occupation, the ocean gazer sim - ply said, “I sling ink”. The “ink slinger” (writer) was Robert Louis Stevenson, one of the most celebrated authors of the nineteenth century. He would later achieve literary immortality by penning such works as Treas - THE AMATEUR ure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but in 1879, fame and EMIGRANT: fortune was in the future. At the time, he was a nearly destitute Scotsman, plagued by ill health Robert Louis Stevenson and grinding poverty. A restless soul by nature, his in California peripatetic personality was abet - ERIC NIDEROST LOOKS AT THE TIME ted by the need to find a more healthful climate. But his 6,000 SPENT IN SUNNY CALIFORNIA BY mile journey from Scotland to THE FAMOUS SCOTTISH AUTHOR California was dictated by ro - mance, not wanderlust or disease. ometime in the fall of 1879, a solitary man trudged through the Stevenson had fallen in love groves of pine and cypress trees that fringed the long, sandy with an American woman named beaches of California’s Monterey Bay. Though the Pacific was Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne. She obscured by a dense thicket of gnarled trunks and wind-lashed was eleven years older than him, tree branches, the man could distinctly hear the waves crashing and married with two children, oSnto the beach just ahead. It was a sound that was pleasing and com - though she was estranged from pelling at the same time, causing him perhaps to quicken his pace. her husband.

April/May 2014 History Magazine 31 S None of these facts made any journey he detailed in a series of “bad” traits within his or her per - R

O difference to Stevenson, who had essays later published as “The sonality. In “Treasure Island”, H

T a romantic, quixotic streak in his Amateur Emigrant”. Long John Silver is a murderous

U nature. The pair had met at an Robert Louis Stevenson was pirate, yet develops a real, almost A artist’s colony near Paris three born in Edinburgh, Scotland on father-son, relationship with years earlier, and the young writer 13 November 1850. He was an in - young Hawkins. The dual nature was soon smitten. Fanny was valid, or semi-invalid, throughout of human beings is even more something of a bohemian and an his childhood, a condition he later prominent in “The Strange Case of “independent woman” – at least recalled through poems like “The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1886). by Victorian standards – but was Land of Counterpane”. His father, Stevenson himself was an careful not to go too far beyond an engineer who designed light - example of man’s contradictory the bounds of nineteenth century houses, wanted his son to follow nature. In his University days, morality. in his footsteps. But when he the young rebel seemed to make a There was no doubt that Fanny matured, Robert had other ideas. conscious effort to be the exact was attracted to Stevenson, whose He was drawn to the arts, where opposite of his moralistic, innate charm and frequent ill - individualism and eccentricity straight-laced, Victorian father, nesses appealed to both her ro - were condoned and even exalted. even though he knew he was mantic side and her “mothering” Stevenson attended the Univer - straying from the “path of right - instincts. But she still hesitated sity of Edinburgh, but avoided eousness”. to make a final break with her lectures and studies like the After a brief, half-hearted at - husband. The ailing Scotsman plague. He went through a kind of tempt to become a lawyer, Steven - seemed to have few prospects at “rebellious youth” phase while son finally told his father that the time. Stevenson’s father and at University, smoking hashish, he was going to pursue a life of mother rejected the idea of his frequenting brothels, and wearing letters. The elder Stevenson was California trip and cut him off outrageous broad-brimmed hats not pleased, but eventually acqui - from any family funds. and velvet vests. The young scholar esced. The budding author, Stevenson forged ahead, sailing dropped these bizarre habits, but now in his twenties, wrote two for America aboard the Devonia became more and more interested books: “An Inland Voyage” (1878) without a moment’s hesitation. in becoming a writer. and “Travels with a Donkey in The ship arrived in New York on All his life, Stevenson was fasci - Cevennes” (1879). Stevenson was 17 August 1879. From there, it was nated by the complexities of honing his skills, but in 1879, he a matter of a long railroad trip human nature. No human is per - was far from being a successful across the American continent, a fect, but harbors “good” and writer.

French Hotel, now Stevenson House, as seen today. Robert Louis Stevenson stayed here for a few months in 1879. (Eric Niderost)

32 History Magazine April/May 2014 Robert Louis Stevenson arrived camping. “My news is nil,” he after the American takeover. Any - in Monterey on 30 August 1879. wrote despondently to a friend. one visiting Monterey at this time The little coastal town was popu - “I go out camping – that’s all I would get a flavor of what life was lar with artists, and Fanny know.” He set out at once, travel - like around 1840, when California Osbourne was living there with ling into the Carmel Valley, was an isolated province of her two children and 24-year-old his destination – the Santa Lucia Mexico, and proud ranchero sister, Nellie Van de Grift. Fanny Mountains. “dons” like Guadalupe Vallejo and loved Monterey because she could The lovesick author didn’t have Alvarado dominated society. keep her distance from her hus - any provisions, and to go out There were two or three main band, yet hobnob with her artist alone with such poor health was streets, paved with sea sand for friends and pursue “artistic stud - risking his life. It’s not as if he convenience, and lined with ies”. Ironically, her estranged mate wanted to commit suicide, but mostly adobe buildings. Spanish bankrolled her stay, and even rather, simply let God or fate de - was the dominant language; visited from time to time. cide his destiny. He fell seriously Stevenson admitted one could not Stevenson quickly left his lug - ill, and ended up laying in a semi- get along without a few words gage in a local saloon – he had stupor under a tree, but was of the Mexican tongue. Vaqueros no lodging yet – and walked over found in the nick of time by some – Mexican cowboys – would ride to his love’s residence, an old goat ranchers. Nursed back to everywhere, their costumes Mexican adobe on Alvarado health, he returned to Monterey. brightened by sashes, their hats Street. It was clear Fanny liked the Alarmed by his near-death, sporting roses. When the sun romantic Scot who had traveled Fanny decided to go back to San went down, guitar-strumming so far to see her, but divorce Francisco and get a “private” di - serenaders would fill the air with was not to be taken lightly in the vorce. Marriage to the Scotsman sad Spanish songs of romantic Victorian age. She hesitated, leav - would follow. Stevenson would longing and true love. ing Stevenson bewildered and stay in Monterey for a time for Stevenson took up lodgings on crestfallen. appearances sake. the second floor of an old adobe Matters were not helped by the In 1879, Monterey was a relic of rooming establishment called fact that her husband would visit a bygone age, a place that time “French House”. Originally built when he could. As if that weren’t and progress seemed to have for - by Don Rafael Gonzalez in the bad enough, there was an old gotten. Though California had 1830s, it was bought by a man lover of Fanny’s named John become part of the United States named Girardin, who added to Lloyd hovering in the wings. in 1848, Monterey still retained a the structure and made it into a Stevenson suddenly decided to go strong Hispanic flavor thirty years hotel. Mrs. Manuela Girardin was a gracious host, but the accom - modations were spartan and unfurnished. While he waited for word of Fanny’s divorce, Stevenson was quite happy to be a citizen of the somnolent little coastal town. Monterey agreed with him, and he found both the climate and the people congenial. The writer worked on The Amateur Emi - grant manuscript and an essay or two, but often found time on his hands. Life followed a prescribed and predictable pattern: get up, go to the post office to check his mail, get a newspaper at the drug - store, and have breakfast at Simoneau’s restaurant. Indeed, Simoneau’s was the Stevenson was a prolific writer. His bookcase holds some of his works. (Stevenson Archive Collection) center of what passed for social

April/May 2014 History Magazine 33 S activity in sleepy Monterey. Jules to play cards or have a drink. debate over exactly what was R

O Simoneau was a Frenchman, Stevenson himself admitted that wrong with him. “Tuberculosis” is H

T “always in his waist-coat and shirt the rugged California coastline the conventional answer, and

U sleeves, upright as a boy, with a around Monterey provided inspi - Stevenson himself thought he was A rough, trooper-like smartness…” ration for Treasure Island. The consumptive. During the course He sported a bushy white beard, rough-hewn Simoneau might well of his life, he saw a number of and bore a resemblance to the have been a model, at least in part, doctors – some of them very good American poet Walt Whitman, or for the “sea-cook” persona of – and opinion at that time was even naturalist John Muir. Long John Silver aboard the good divided. The writer displayed The restaurant was a single- ship Hispaniola . The camaraderie some tubercular symptoms, like story adobe which also had a displayed at Simoneau’s certainly occasional spitting of blood, but barber shop and bar in the front. evokes images of the Admiral if he did have pulmonary disease, The restaurant proper had little Benbow Inn. it was not a “classic” case. decoration, but each table was Though he enjoyed himself at Stevenson lived a good fifteen provided with a dish of green Monterey, he later admitted he years after he first spit blood, and peppers and lush red tomatoes. As was near starvation during his he did not seem to infect other Stevenson later recalled, the veg - prolonged stay. Simoneau let him people with tuberculosis. He was etables “were pleasing to both eye eat even when he could not pay. a very heavy smoker, which com - and palate. If you stayed there to The polyglot restaurant ‘regulars” plicated matters. In any event, meditate before a meal, you would also played a part, secretly donat - when he died in 1894 at the age hear Simoneau all about the ing two dollars a week to the local of forty-four, at Vailima in kitchen, rattling among the newspaper so Stevenson could be the Samoan Islands, the cause dishes.” hired to do an occasional article was cerebral hemorrhage, not pulmonary disease. Modern re - searchers have proposed two possibilities: bronchiectasis, or the Osler-Rendu-Weber Syndrome, lung diseases that mimic TB. Then, the glorious, long- awaited news arrived – Fanny had obtained a divorce from her husband on 12 December 1879. Stevenson moved to San Fran - cisco to be nearer to her. But she was still not ready to commit, so the writer found himself lodgings at 608 Bush Street in the city. Once again, he counted the days waiting for her to say “yes.” Stevenson recorded his San Francisco routine with meticulous

Sign outside Stevenson House documenting its history. (Elaine Chen Niderost) detail. He’d leave his Bush Street “digs” between 8:00 and 9:30 AM , Simoneau’s restaurant was a to make ends meet. But he also walk along Powell Street, cross “melting pot” of different cul - became ill with pleurisy, and didn’t Market Street, and have a coffee tures, races, and ethnicities, all leave his room at the French Hotel with roll and butter at the Pine living in a kind of rough and for three days. Wrapped up in Street Coffee House. His breakfast hearty harmony. Besides Steven - blankets, thoroughly miserable, finished, the Scotsman would re - son, a Scot, and Simoneau, a he was brought to life one morn - turn to his lodgings for three or Frenchman, regulars included an ing when Simoneau stood below four hours of writing. After that, Italian, a Mexican, an Indian, and his window and shouted a cheery there was a break for lunch at a Chinese man. From time to “Stevenson – Comment ça va?” Donnadieu’s Restaurant, where a time, a German and Swiss would Even though Stevenson was large meal, half bottle of wine, and come down from country ranches sickly most of his life, there is a coffee could be had for fifty cents.

34 History Magazine April/May 2014 Display case in the Stevenson House Museum. Personal artifacts include his hat and coat. (Stevenson Archive Collection)

Afternoons and evenings were house; apparently no “church eventually it was time to leave largely devoted to writing or wedding” for the Stevensons! California and the United States. sending missives to friends. He Immediately after the ceremony, Apart from a brief visit en route would see Fanny from time to the newlyweds stayed at the Palace to the South Seas, Stevenson never time, or simply take a stroll up Hotel for three days. The Palace returned. San Francisco’s celebrated Tele - Hotel was probably the most fa - Today, California celebrates its graph Hill. But in March 1880, mous hostelry in America. Built association with the Scottish he fell seriously ill. He hemor - in 1875 by visionary banker James scribe. In Monterey, the French rhaged, and his teeth were by now Ralston, it boasted 800 rooms, Hotel, now known as the Steven - so rotten that they were giving elegantly furnished to the highest son House State Historical him constant pain. He moved standards. Stevenson called it “the Monument, houses a small, but across the bay to Oakland, where world’s greatest caravanserai, comprehensive, collection of Fanny came to his rescue. She served by lifts (elevators) with elec - “Stevensoniana”. There are also took him to a dentist to have the tricity; where, in the great glazed numerous plaques and small decayed teeth removed and made court, a band nightly discourses monuments scattered about the arrangements for him to get false music from a grove of palms.” state – places where he lived teeth. But the real honeymoon was in and worked. Hm Stevenson was still quite ill, so the Napa Valley, just to the north Fanny nursed him back to health of San Francisco. Robert and ERIC NIDEROST teaches – or what for Stevenson was Fanny were accompanied by her history at Chabot College in something close to health. On 19 son Lloyd and the family dog, and California. He is author of May 1880, Fanny and Stevenson comfortably settled down in a numerous history articles on wide-ranging topics, and a were married in a house at 521 shack at Silverado. Stevenson frequent contributor to Post Street in San Francisco. It later recorded this adventure in History Magazine . was the Presbyterian minister’s Silverado Squatters (1883). But

April/May 2014 History Magazine 35 I In 1914, Frederick George Scott was a W 53-year old Anglican priest at Holy W Trinity Cathedral in Quebec City who felt he was being “dragged by some mysterious power” into the savage whirlpool that was the First World War. He enlisted as a chaplain in the Canadian Army, strapped a prayer book to his shoulder, and ignored all warnings to stay away from the front lines. Scott was, according to his unofficial biographer, Lt. Col Francis Ware, “probably the most undisciplined officer in the Canadian Corps”. He was also the most admired by soldiers of all religious denominations. To mark the centennial of the Great War, Alan Hustak has mined many of Scott’s unpublished letters and poems to honour one of Canada’s most courageous soldiers.

Scott was from another age, steeped in Victorian tradition. His father, William Edward had been a medical officer with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway who in - stilled in his son an unwavering faith in the sanctity of the British Empire and its Imperial vision. When Scott came of age in the 1870s, the Empire represented what he believed was the best of western civilization. Bound by fierce patriotism, Scott believed there was such a thing as a just FAITH war. He was firmly convinced that “better all Britons be dead than vanquished”. He studied theology and was ordained in England in UNDER FIRE 1886. When the war began, he ALAN HUSTAK LOOKS AT THE INCREDIBLE attached himself to the Royal Montreal Regiment and was JOURNEY OF WWI CANADIAN ARMY shipped overseas. CHAPLAIN, FRED SCOTT “WISE AS A SERPENT, HARMLESS AS A DOVE.” “Let us not lose the exalted love which came with comradeship, His most endearing traits were his With danger and the joy of strong souls kindled into self-deprecating demeanor, his living flame……” F.G. Scott compassion and the depth of his Catholic faith. “In the life of a soldier, there is much evil talk, n the summer of 1914, seven weeks after the War to End All Wars and much that is sordid, but un - began in Europe, Frederick George Scott, a genial if single- derlying all of this, there is the minded 53-year-old priest and sometime poet at Holy Trinity splendid manifestation of human Cathedral in Quebec City, enlisted as a chaplain in the Canadian nature, and of that image of God Expeditionary Force. He then went home to tell his wife, Amy, in which man is made: self-sacri - tIhat he had been moved to do so by what he described as “some ficing, living comradeship, and mysterious power dragging me into a whirlpool.” the unquestioning faith in the

36 History Magazine April/May 2014 eternal understanding of right didn’t know what to make of the “Sentries, cesspools and generals.” and duty,” he wrote to a friend. old priest. Generals warned him His insouciance endeared him Taking his cue from Matthew to stay away from the battlefields. to the men in the field. Lt-Col. 10:16, he saw himself as “a sheep Scott ignored the advice and Francis Ware, Scott’s unofficial in the midst of wolves…as wise as walked to the frontlines. Once of - biographer, described him as a serpent and as harmless as a fered a ride, he quipped that be - “probably the most undisciplined dove.” He was also a poet of some cause he was a canon, he would officer in the Canadian Corps”. renown who had published sev - prefer to march with the infantry. eral books of whimsical and He made his way through North - A SON KILLED patriotic verse. A man with a love ern France by night, stumbled IN ACTION of language and literature, he un - into a latrine in the dark, and nar - Scott’s faith was severely tested derstood that a sermon delivered rowly escaped being shot only when his son, Harold was killed with reason, humor, and with because the sentry on duty recog - on 21 October 1915, while leading emotion which reflected his depth nized the celluloid collar Scott a Company into battle at the of character could comfort the was wearing. “I made up my mind Somme. He had been kneeling in wounded and the dying. that three things had to be a shell hole checking his watch, When he arrived in England, avoided if I wished to survive when he was hit by a barrage of the British military command the war,” he wrote to his wife, machine gun fire. The body was hastily buried in the mud where it fell. Several men volunteered A portrait of the Rev. to retrieve the body, but Scott Canon Frederick Scott, Late Senior Chaplain, wouldn’t hear of it, for he “did not First Canadian Division, believe in living men risking their Canadian Expeditionary lives to bring out the dead”. He Force, WWI from the vowed to return “when things frontispiece of his book, From The Great War as were quieter” to claim it himself. I Saw It. by Canon He took pains to hide his grief, Frederick George Scott, because as he wrote in his mem - C.M.G., D.S.O. F. D. GOODCHILD Toronto, oirs, The Great War as I Saw It , 1922. (In public domain) “We were out to fight the Ger - mans, and on that one object, we had to concentrate all of our thoughts to the obliteration of our private emotions.” He returned to the battlefield to fetch his son’s remains two weeks later. The ground had been plowed by shells and the trench was slippery with mud and blood. It was just before dawn, and he had trouble locating the grave site. He was baffled in his search, and told the soldier who had accompanied him that he was prepared to dig through the trenches for six months if neces - sary. “I was not going to leave until I found Harry’s grave,” he declared. There are various ac - counts of what happened next, each of them invariably embel - lished. But his published version is as moving as any of them.

April/May 2014 History Magazine 37 I A MIRACULOUS

W process of time, all mortal agonies, thank God, will be finally obliter -

W DISCOVERY ated.” He placed a crucifix in Harold’s memory near the chancel “Suddenly, the runner pointed far arch in the 15th century church of St. Riguier in Rollancourt. It is away to a lonely white cross that still there. Inspired by another cross which he had seen in a roadside stood at a point where the ground shrine, which stood after all around it had been leveled, Scott wrote sloped. At once we climbed out of Requiescant : the trench and made our way to In Lonely watches, night by night, where the white cross stood out in Great visions burst upon my sight, solitude. We passed many bodies which were still unburied. When For down the stretches of the sky, we came to the cross, I read my The hosts of dead go marching by. son’s name upon it. As the corpo - Strange ghostly banners o’er them float ral who had placed the cross there Strange bugles sound an awful note, had not been quite sure that it was And all their faces and their eyes actually the place of the burial, I Are lit with starlight from the skies. got the runner to dig the ground in front of it.” He couldn’t locate j the body and kept clawing away The Anguish and the pain have passed at various places in the trench And peace hath come to them at last until Scott made “a miraculous But in the stern looks linger still discovery”. He came upon “some - The iron purpose and the will. thing white”. As his son’s left hand j sprang up through the mud, he was able to identify it by a signet Dear Christ, who reign’st above the flood ring. of human tears and human blood, “The mist was lifting now, and a weary road these men have trod, the sun was beginning to light the O house them in the home of God. ground. We heard the crack of bullets, for the Germans were Because of his persistence, Scott was eventually recognized as the sniping at us,” he wrote. Scott ig - Senior Chaplain of the 1st Canadian Division, and given a horse, nored the gunfire. He removed Dandy. When the war ended, he was awarded the Distinguished the ring from the corpse, donned Service Order and continued to serve as chaplain for the veterans of his surplice and read the burial the Canadian armed forces. In August 1943, Scott was invited to read service before fashioning a small some of his poetry to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US mound where the body lay. Then President Franklin Roosevelt when they were at the Chateau Frontenac “by quick dashes from shell hole in Quebec City to plan the strategic initiative that would result in the to shell hole,” he made it back to invasion of Europe. Four months later, on 19 January 1944, Canon safety. But while he was running Scott died. He had expected to be cremated and to have his ashes for cover, he came across some - buried beneath the floor boards of his church, Holy Trinity, in Quebec thing red on the ground. “It was City. He had even composed his epitaph: “In this spot, in a pot, lies the piece of a man’s lung with the Frank Scott.” wind-pipe attached,” he tells us. That was not to be. His casket, draped in the Union Jack which he “I suppose some poor lad had had carried with him through the battlefields of Europe, was flanked had a direct hit from a shell and by soldiers of the 8th Royal Rifles. As the band of the Royal 22e Regi - his body had been blown to ment played the Dead March from Saul, the cortege began the solemn pieces.” Several days later, one of procession through the snow to Union Station. The coffin was put the battalions exhumed Harold’s on a train to Montreal where the body lay in state at Christ Church body and had it buried in the Cathedral. From there, it was taken up to Mount Royal Cemetery by Commonwealth War Graves non-commissioned officers from the Royal Montreal Regiment, where Cemetery at Tara Hill. it was buried beside the remains of his wife. Hm Scott had little time to mourn. There was, after all, he wrote, “a ALAN HUSTAK is writing a history of the Royal Montreal Regiment, war to be won”. But he took solace which observes its centennial in November 2014. in knowing that “with the healing

38 History Magazine April/May 2014 Picture of Smith’s “Bird House” showing Y

birdhouses above the entry and below G

the peak of the roof. (Photo produced O by Jan Smith from original, courtesy of L O Donna Burdick) H T I N R

nce there was a man O who died in his bird - house. It was the place he loved best. Greene Smith, 39 years old, pOassed away 23 July 1880. Weak - ened over the years by too much alcohol and tobacco, he finally succumbed to tuberculosis, sur - rounded by his collections of birds, nests, and eggs. For the last three weeks of his life, the pio - neering citizen scientist lived in his personal museum identifying, categorizing, and cataloging the last undocumented items among his 3,000 specimens. His ornithon was a treasure house filled with feathered riches. When it came to showcasing flora and fauna from distant lands, few private collectors could rival the extravagant exhibition space created by Smith. In 1863, at the age of 21, he designed and built his three-story birder’s paradise on the grounds of his parents’ home in Peterboro, New York. The building was fantastical, “…of a rustic pattern…and cov - ered with curious looking bark”. MR. SMITH’S Five small bird houses, like miniature replicas of the larger structure, adorned the building’s front façade, adding to the overall FEATHERED impression that this was a mis - placed, storybook cottage in a Black Forest glade. The fairytale TREASURES effect was heightened by its loca - JAN BRIDGEFORD-SMITH LOOKS tion next to a stream described as “…pouring over rocks, with AT THE LIFE OF ORNITHOLOGIST inviting grassy banks redolent GREENE SMITH, AND THE with flowers”. Opening the wooden front door, its upper half EXTRAVAGANT EXHIBIT SPACE HE decorated with small panes of colored glass, a visitor stepped CREATED FOR HIS COLLECTION into an avian wonderland, a IN PETERBORO, NEW YORK naturalist’s delight.

April/May 2014 History Magazine 39 Y Building a superb bird collec - the age of nine, Greene had to serious interest in the family G tion was not simply a pastime – it contend with long letters from his businesses, or studying for a pro - O

L was Smith’s obsession. His pas - father that alternated between fession; but he was not confused O

H sion cost him dearly in cool cash loving sentiment and windy re - about his future. He aspired to T

I and paternal disdain. Youngest proaches. Gerrit was regularly live like the princely heir to a N

R child and only surviving son of dissatisfied with the reports he kingly fortune.

O Gerrit Smith – the wealthy aboli - received on Greene’s behavior and Admitted to Harvard when he tionist who garnered national attitude toward his studies. The was 17, Greene managed to re - celebrity for financing John boy liked to draw attention to main in that heady environment Brown’s suicidal raid at Harpers himself, making jokes and being for two years, all the while spend - Ferry – he began his love affair disruptive in the classroom. ing money at a rate that alarmed with the outdoors at an early age, Gerrit, anxious for his son’s ac - his father. Finally, he was dis - much to his father’s chagrin. ademic and vocational future, missed, sent home for drinking, regularly instructed Greene, in smoking, and card playing. It was “WANDERING AFAR ON prose and rhyme, to be morally not his finest hour. He also THE DESERT WILD…” straight, good hearted, and indus - revealed in a letter to his father Natures Child , Noah Frister trious. The nagging was ineffec - – written in 1861 while he was Paternal disapproval started early. tive. Greene never took any touring Europe – that Gerrit The elder Mr. Smith was not pleased with his boy’s desires to tramp for hours in the woods and streams. When Greene was just eight years old, his father wrote a contract with him that was blunt and direct. “Instead of wasting his time in fishing, Greene will have a garden, + work skillfully in it.” In that same document he said, “I am convinced that boys fishing is a bad practice, that it leads to idle - ness + vice + loss of health – that it is cruel + hardens the heart….” Dad’s judgment was harsh, though he tried to sweeten the blow by promising to pay for all the edibles Greene harvested from his consolation garden. The following year, Gerrit com - posed a note to Greene for his ninth birthday that starts out with a nod to God for his son’s contin - ued presence on earth, a joyful circumstance for parents that had buried six of eight children. How - ever, the words quickly take a bizarre turn when father reminds child that he’s been spared despite his ungrateful attitude and ten - dency to “wicked disobedience” toward the Almighty! For the sen - ior Mr. Smith, character forma - tion in the young was a pressure

sport. Greene Smith’s father, Gerrit Smith. Photo by Mathew Brady taken between 1855 Sent away to boarding school at and 1865. (Library of Congress)

40 History Magazine April/May 2014 The room to the right housed live song birds and had a stream running over a rocky bed! Left of the stairway, a room held a pond alive with ducks and other aquatic birds. Twenty years after its comple - tion, a writer for the Forest and Stream Rod and Gun Journal offered a giddy description of what a visitor would see as they first approached and entered Greene’s “cabin”:

“…down a gravel walk, we came to a large building in Gothic rustic style, the sides covered with hemlock bark. On the rustic door is the word “Ornithon” in ivy. The building is in the form of the Primary entrance to Greene Smith's Ornithon. Note the 4 small bird houses letter T, the main part being one mounted on front facade each with scalloped decoration mirroring the decorative details over the door and windows. (Photo produced by Jan Smith from original, and half stories high and 56 x 30 courtesy of Donna Burdick) feet…in the center of this room, immediately in front of the door, could add cheating at cards to his ing that allowed for the suspen - is a large double desk, surmounted son’s list of failings. This confes - sion of large sporting items such by statuettes, and containing sion must have chilled Gerrit’s as a skiff and birch bark canoe. An writing materials, with inkstands, heart, but larger matters soon interior fountain was installed and study appliances. All rich, captured his thoughts – America’s where “…speckled beauties sport - and in modern taste. On the Civil War was getting underway. ing the crystal flood…” could be timbers over the desk are carved The “War of Rebellion” would observed. There was a grand, an immense pair of elk antlers….” also become a preoccupation for mahogany staircase that led to an Greene, once he returned to the upper level, and flanked by large, The piece continues with a states, but not right away. screened rooms on either side. recitation of what could be found in every nook and cranny of the “YONDER LITTLE CABIN, space: song birds in cages sus - ONCE DE HAPPIEST pended from the ceiling, walls PLACE I KNOW.” covered with engravings and illus - Yonder Little Cabin , Noah Frister trations of sporting scenes, and Spring of 1863, Greene was still a hunting trophies that included civilian and engaged in a project “…the spikes of ibex, heartbeest, that would be the repository of blessbok, eland, gnu, springbok of his life’s work, the “Bird House”. Africa…antelope and buffalo....” Designed specifically to be a mu - Creeping vines such as clematis seum, research center, equipment and trailing arbutus also adorned store, and taxidermy shop under the walls, but it is clear that the one roof, the layout of the build - cottage’s star attractions were ing was thoughtful and inventive locked behind glass in huge, wall- for its time. To optimize natural mounted cases. Filling these lighting and add to the ambience display cases would be Greene’s of being in the “natural” world, he lifelong occupation – after he did installed skylights. his duty. Visitors entered into a great Undated photo of Greene Smith. July of 1864, in a move that room with an open, beamed ceil - (Public domain) seems uncharacteristic, Greene

April/May 2014 History Magazine 41 Y took a hiatus from his pleasant Smithson was prescient. What separated “ornamental” G life and went to war. He was mus - Hungerford died unexpectedly or trophy collections from collec - O

L tered in as a 2nd lieutenant in and childless. By 1836, the tions that could be useful for sci - O

H Company A of the 14th New York United States held the bequest in entific inquiry had to do with T

I heavy artillery and assigned to a formal trust. A decade later, data. Understanding this, Greene N

R duty in Petersburg, Virginia. At President James K. Polk signed the created a cataloging system

O last, he made a move that pleased legislation that launched the that recorded every item in his his father. nation’s premier institution for collection – a consistent process Though he survived the fighting scholarly exploration and expla - of numbering and identifying at Petersburg without being nation of the natural world – the each piece with the crucial nota - severely maimed or wounded, by Smithsonian Institution. Greene tion of when and where the spec - August 14th, Greene had con - was actively involved with the or - imen was taken. Whether the tracted a severe respiratory illness. ganization from its earliest years. sample is finned, furred, or feath - He soon was unable to fight. By He worked closely with the ered, only the collector that January of 1865, he was home, and Smithsonian’s first museum bought or bagged it can reliably in May 1865, he was discharged curator, Spencer Baird – another document its origins. The vital from service due to poor health. self-taught naturalist and distin - information on a tag is what re - Though he traveled often, guished ornithologist – honing searchers need to track migration Greene never drifted far from his his skills in taxidermy and prepa - patterns, habitat range, species family’s orbit, and in 1866, he ration of specimens for scientific variation, and development of even followed the family practice study. He learned the art and adaptive, anatomical features. of marrying a first cousin, skill of museum exhibition and Many visitors to Greene’s Elizabeth Fitzhugh. The couple’s collaborated with John G. Bell, birdhouse were simply awed by first home was on the outskirts of considered the finest taxidermist the quantity and scope of his Geneva, New York. Eventually, though, the couple moved to Peterboro. Greene would call it home for the rest of his life, and devote himself to preserving the largest and finest private collec - tion of birds in the country, despite promises to his father that he would one day quit and get a real job. “NOW LIKE THE WINDS, I AM NATURE’S CHILD…” Natures Child , Noah Frister Scientific ornithology was a young discipline in mid-19th century America. It gained momentum, as did all of the sciences, thanks to a Brit’s death and an act of Congress. In 1829, the renowned The rear entrance of Greene Smith's Ornithon. In addition to natural light coming scientist James Smithson died, into this section of the building through the large windows across length of back leaving his estate to his young wall, the outline of Smith's innovative roof-mounted skylight can also be seen in this nephew, Hungerford, with the photo. (Photo produced by Jan Smith from original, courtesy of Donna Burdick) stipulation that should the young man die without heirs, the estate in the land. Most importantly, enchanting exhibits, stuffed and would then pass to the govern - Greene developed a keen appreci - live, found in his wonderland. The ment of the United States for the ation for the single, most impor - sheer number of specimens was purpose of creating “an establish - tant action he could take when it enough to make the assemblage ment for the increase and diffu - came to insuring the research memorable. Equally impressive sion of knowledge among men”. worth of a specimen – tagging. was the monetary value of the

42 History Magazine April/May 2014 photo of the birdhouse, taken in 1969. It shows two smiling girls posing in the doorway of the di - lapidated structure. By then, little remained beyond the building’s exterior walls and caving roof, yet there is still a faded elegance about the edifice. Donna Burdick, a retired teacher and town histo - rian is one of the smiling young women in the photo. She grew up in Peterboro. We met for coffee and conversation as she gave me a guided tour through her photo album of the hamlet. “Even though it was sort of eerie, it felt like a magical place,” Donna said, talking about the birdhouse. “It just always in - trigued me when I was growing The ruins of the museum are located on the grounds of the Gerrit Smith Estate up.” National Historic Landmark in Peterboro, New York. (Wikimedia Commons) In fact, Donna was so captivated with the ornithon that in 1964, collection – his hummingbird se - institution was selected as a result when she was a senior in high ries alone, according to an item in of Greene being rebuffed by his school, she wrote a poem about the New York Times , posted a first choice. His obituary in the it, SILHOUETTE. The last two value of $75,000, or $1.7 million New York Times reveals the tale: stanzas read: dollars in today’s currency. But ornithologists, zoologists, “…a few months ago he [Greene] A man with talented hands and others with a background in offered [his great collection of Built the house so it would last on, the natural sciences understood birds] to the officers of the Central And he had a dearly loved pastime, it was meticulous labeling and Park Museum in New-York on the But the fruits of this labor are gone. exquisite taxidermy that gave his sole condition that it should collections lasting merit. Still, his be known as the Greene Smith And still it stands by the stream, father remained unimpressed. Collection. Not knowing its extent To nature’s elements laid prone. and excellence, the officers It has had its chance for life, “PLEASURES ATTEND declined the offer, but subse - And now it must die alone. YOUR DECLINE…” quently…finding how valuable it Lochland Far Over The Sea , was, addressed Mr. Smith a letter A century after it was built, the Noah Frister accepting the offer. Mr. Smith “Bird House” still had the power Gerrit’s vague disappointment replied…as his offer had been to inspire a youthful visitor. with his son ended on 28 Decem - declined, he was not inclined to Greene Smith would likely con - ber 1874 when he died from a renew it, and so New York lost sider that a fine testimony to his massive stroke. Within six years, what might have been one of beloved passion. Hm Greene, too, would be dead, the distinguishing sights of the buried in the family plot at the Central Park Museum.” JAN BRIDGEFORD-SMITH is a Peterboro cemetery. freelance writer living with her In the last months of his life, When it came to Greene’s husband in Newark, New York, faced with failing health, Greene legacy, New York City was not the a village on the Erie Canal. In considered where best to house only location to lose a “distin - addition to History Magazine , her his birds for maximum public guishing sight”. Some time in the work has appeared in a variety benefit. Eventually, more than 1970s, the wondrous ornithon of other national and regional 2,000 specimens were gifted by collapsed after decades of neglect. publications. his widow to Harvard, but that Not long ago, I saw a personal

April/May 2014 History Magazine 43 S R E T S A S I TERROR AT SEA: D E M I T

I ELEANOR ROOSEVELT’S R A M LUCKY ESCAPE JENNIE MCKEE RECOUNTS THE HORRIFIC 1887 COLLISION OF TWO WHITE STAR LINE VESSELS — SS BRITANNIC AND SS CELTIC

44 History Magazine April/May 2014 leanor Roosevelt narrowly escaped death on 19 May 1887, England the previous week. about 350 miles off the coast of New Jersey. Not yet three years With Captain P.J. Irving at its old, the girl who would become the longest-serving first lady helm, the vessel carried 104 cabin in US history was traveling aboard a ship bound for England passengers and 765 steerage pas - with her parents, Elliott and Anna Roosevelt, Eleanor’s nurse, sengers, and could reach a speed aEnd Anna’s sister, Elizabeth Hall. By several accounts, Eleanor’s parents of 14 knots. hoped the trip would bring relief from their marital discord, much of Just before dinnertime, with which stemmed from Elliott’s alcoholism and erratic behavior. But near zero visibility, both captains rather than deliver them from their cares, the vessel on which they trav - were startled to hear the other elled – the SS Britannic – would instead bring them to near disaster. vessel’s fog signals. Passengers aboard the Britannic lined the The 5,000-ton steamship be - railings, cheering and waving as longed to the White Star Line, the they strained to catch a glimpse British shipping company that of the large steamship passing in would become infamous for the the mist. ill-fated RMS Titanic years later. Both captains acted quickly in The Britannic had received the hopes of avoiding a collision. prestigious Blue Riband in 1876 Captain Irving turned the Celtic a as the fastest passenger liner in point and a half to starboard, and regular service across the Atlantic ordered his vessel’s engines to Ocean, reaching an average speed dead slow, while Captain Perry of almost 16 knots (30 kilometers reportedly ordered the Britannic per hour). On this particular voy - to full speed ahead. But it was age, the ship carried 293 steerage too late. passengers and 176 cabin passen - At 5:25 PM , the Celtic suddenly gers, including the wealthy, well- emerged from the fog – only an connected Roosevelts. Eleanor Roosevelt as a toddler in 1887, eighth of a mile away – as it sped the year the SS Celtic rammed the SS The day before, the vessel had Britannic in a thick fog off the coast of towards the Britannic . That the started its journey from the North New Jersey. (National Archives) Celtic would ram the other River – the southernmost section steamer with great force was now of the Hudson River – with fair of at sea,” wrote William Henry inevitable. According to the 23 weather and calm seas making Flayhart, III, in Disaster at Sea: May 1887 edition of the New York for a pleasant beginning to the Shipwrecks, Storms, and Collisions Sun , an English passenger stand - voyage. As the ship steamed east - on the Atlantic. ing near the Britannic ’s railing ward toward England, passengers remarked calmly: “She’ll give us enjoyed the Britannic ’s stately in - OUT OF THE FOG a devil of a dig, but I don’t know teriors, crafted with fine materials The following day – Thursday, 19 just where.” such as polished oak, ebony, and May 1887 – clear conditions grad - In the same Sun article, railroad walnut, and a sweeping staircase ually gave way to increasing fog magnate Collis P. Huntington, that stretched up from the princi - mixed with short periods of sun - who was travelling aboard the pal cabin deck to the elegant din - shine. Captain Hamilton Perry Britannic with his family, de - ing room. ordered the foghorns sounded scribed his shock at seeing the “In the dining room every pas - regularly, but kept up a steady Celtic appear out of the dense fog. senger had an assigned seat for pace of approximately 14.5 knots. “I was walking the deck near my the voyage, and every effort was Perilously close by, another cabin, and was just about to go up made to make passengers think immense steamship of the White to the bridge, when I saw a vessel they were in a grand hotel instead Star Line – the SS Celtic – was that looked bigger than any I ever heading westbound through a saw bearing right down on us Photograph of the SS Britannic by white blanket of fog, blowing her from the port side,” said Hunting - John S. Johnston, dated 1890-1903. whistles as she proceeded at half ton. “I made up my mind that she (Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and speed toward New York. The would surely strike us, and so Photographs Division Washington, part of the Detroit Publishing Company nearly 4,000-ton passenger liner went to my cabin and told my Photograph Collection) had departed from Liverpool, wife to get life preservers on as

April/May 2014 History Magazine 45 S fast as possible, and be all ready. R

E Just as I came out of the cabin, the T

S vessel I had seen struck us, as it A

S seemed to me, nearly amidships.” I

D The two vessels struck hard at

E right angles, with the Celtic ’s bow M

I smashing 10 feet into the stern T

I steerage compartment on the R

A Britannic ’s portside, punching a

M gaping hole below the ship’s water - line. As torrents of water began pouring into the Britannic , the Celtic rebounded, striking the other steamship violently twice more. The last collision resulted in a long scrape down the Britannic ’s side Photograph of the SS Britannic by John S. Johnston, dated 1890-1903. before the ships finally slid past (Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, part of the Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection) each other, with three of the Britannic ’s lifeboats having been destroyed and swept out to sea. THE COLLISION’S TOLL Although the Celtic ’s bow had crumpled during the collision, the ship was in no danger of sinking, and none of her passengers were injured. The scene on the other vessel, however, was much more serious, as the collision had not only smashed a huge hole in the Britannic , but had also scraped away everything on deck for almost 200 feet. According to an unnamed steerage passenger on This drawing from the May 28, 1887 supplement to Harper’s Weekly depicts the moment the Celtic first rammed the Britannic . This and other Harper’s Weekly the Britannic , quoted in the 23 images presented here were based on the sketches of George Allan Rudd, a May 1887 edition of the New York passenger on the Britannic . (Author’s collection) Times , the Celtic scooped away “boats and bulwarks from the quarter deck right up to the stern,” with “iron two inches thick being torn as if of paper.” He added that “even one of the wrought iron davits, four inches in diameter, was riven in twain as if of wood.”

Many passengers near the railings, he said, did not have enough time to get away before the collision. This Harper’s Weekly drawing illustrates the terrible damage done to the Britannic ’s deck.

46 History Magazine April/May 2014 “When the mischief was done, to put on life preservers, and for though there were no screams and several bodies, some of them ter - women and children to be loaded no milling about. Everyone was ribly mutilated, lay among the into lifeboats. Although many perfectly quiet.” wreckage,” he said. “Several pas - passengers behaved in an orderly sengers were seen with bleeding fashion, a group of approximately A SOLEMN RETURN heads, and others were limping 20 firemen ignored the captain’s After hours had passed and about. Women and children were orders for “women and children dozens of passengers had been screeching, and one woman was first,” and began clambering into transferred from the Britannic to crying out to be released from the lifeboats and rowing toward the the less damaged Celtic , it became weight of iron framework which Celtic . By some accounts, Captain apparent that both liners would held her down. I assisted to get Perry drew his pistol and threat - remain afloat, with the Britannic her out. She was badly bruised, ened to shoot any other crew only taking on water in one com - but no bones were broken.” members who attempted to board partment. Carpenters aboard the Britannic passenger Isaac E. lifeboats. Britannic created a pad of materi - Lucas told the New York Times Eleanor Roosevelt and her party als to stem the flow of water into that “the noise of the collision, the were some of the many Britannic the damaged ship. The captains snapping of iron bars and bolts, passengers forced to board a agreed to keep their vessels to - and the crushing of woodwork lifeboat for fear the steamship gether during the night. was appalling, and then above the would sink. “I remember only that Around midnight, the two in - sounds of wreck and out of the there was wild confusion,” wrote jured steamers began slowly limp - fearful mist rose hoarse com - Eleanor in her autobiography, ing their way toward New York. mands and curses far worse than This Is My Story . “My father stood The passengers may have been all the piercing shrieks of the in a boat below me, and I was relieved to be moving again, but dying and moans of the injured. dangling over the side to be many likely found it difficult to It was an awful thing to see and dropped into his arms. I was sleep that night aboard the bat - hear.” terrified and shrieking, and clung tered Britannic . Before dawn, the Reports vary considerably re - to those who were to drop me.” Britannic ’s officers held a solemn garding the number of dead and When the man finally succeeded ceremony for those who had injured. A roll call revealed that in dropping Eleanor into the perished. The bodies of the dead four steerage passengers aboard lifeboat, the horror of the mo - were lifted over the rail and the Britannic had been killed, ment was seared into her mind dropped into the waiting ocean, and thirteen from steerage had forever. “Her abiding memory along with the dismembered leg been injured, according to the was her profound fear of being of an unknown child that had Illustrated London News on 11 dropped from the deck into her been found among the wreckage. June 1887. Most of the injuries – father’s arms,” stated Eleanor such as lacerations and broken Roosevelt biographer Blanche bones caused by flying bolts, Wiesen Cook in Eleanor Roosevelt: splintering wood, and falling Volume One, 1884 – 1933 . “The pieces of iron – occurred on deck. crewman finally freed her fingers, Among those who fared the and Eleanor always remembered worst were the son and daughter that fall, the feel of plummeting of a steerage passenger identified from the deck high above into as Mrs. Robinson. When the Celtic the pitching lifeboat below, sur - first rammed their vessel, wit - rounded by ‘cries of terror’ and nesses stated that the little girl was shouts for help.” decapitated, and the boy was Oddly, Eleanor’s mother, who gravely injured. In addition, the often treated her plain-looking, clothing was purportedly torn serious little daughter with cold from a man’s body, and the man contempt, played down the was cut in two. ghastly scene in a letter she wrote to a relative soon after the acci - TO THE LIFEBOATS! dent, noting that “the strain for a Passengers, including those injured during the collision, transfer to the Fearing the Britannic would sink, few minutes when we all thought William Fletcher steam tug in this Captain Perry ordered passengers we were sinking was fearful, Harper’s Weekly drawing.

April/May 2014 History Magazine 47 S The next day – Friday, 20 May R

E 1887 – two steamships bound for T

S New York, the Marengo and the A

S British Queen , escorted the Celtic I

D and the Britannic in their slow

E procession westward, while the M

I RMS Etruria overtook the proces - T

I sion and brought advance news of R

A the accident to the shore. J. Bruce

M Ismay of the White Star Line, who would later be vilified for board - ing a lifeboat as the Titanic sank, reportedly sent the steam tugboat William Fletcher to carry the passengers and luggage from the Britannic and Celtic to the White Star docks, with all passengers LEFT : The Celtic ’s bow was greatly damaged after hitting the Britannic , as shown in finally reaching land on Sunday, this depiction in Harper’s Weekly . RIGHT : Eleanor Roosevelt with her father, Elliott, in April 1889, almost two years after surviving the disaster aboard the SS Britannic . 22 May 1887. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum) Though both ships were mended and returned to service, quite fortunate, as the Celtic nar - little girl refused to go near a boat the badly listing Britannic re - rowly missed smashing into the again,” wrote Eleanor in This Is quired much more extensive Britannic ’s engine room. If the ac - My Story . Her parents left her for repair due to the large hole in cident had occurred seconds ear - that summer with her father’s its side, which one passenger lier, noted Flayhart, the Britannic aunt, Mrs. James King Gracie, and speculated would have admitted “would have gone to the bottom continued on to Europe without enough water to sink the vessel, like a stone.” her. After the chilling incident had the Britannic not been built When Eleanor’s parents and aboard the Britannic , Eleanor in compartments. Although the aunt were ready to leave again for was left with “a fear of heights accident was indeed a serious one, Europe a few days after the acci - and water that was connected to a the timing of the collision was dent, “a terrified and determined lifelong sense of abandonment,” according to Cook. Despite the tragedies of her youth, including the deaths of both parents by 1894, Eleanor Roosevelt went on to marry her distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1905 – with her father’s brother, President Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., giving the bride away. Eleanor Roosevelt would become one of the most well-known figures of

This Harper’s Weekly drawing shows the battered Britannic , in the foreground, as the twentieth century, serving she and the Celtic make the slow journey back to New York, escorted by the in roles such as first lady, United Marengo and the British Queen . The Etruria is visible in the distance. Nations delegate, and advocate for social justice. Hm FURTHER READING Cook, Blanche Wiesen. (1992). Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One, 1884 – 1933 . New York: Viking Penguin. JENNIE MCKEE is a freelance writer who lives outside Chicago Flayhart III, William Henry. (2003) Disaster at Sea: Shipwrecks, Storms, and Collisions on the Atlantic. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. with her husband. This is her second contribution to Roosevelt, Eleanor. (1937). This Is My Story. New York: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc. History Magazine.

48 History Magazine April/May 2014

S E T Y B Y R O T S I H

Scene at the deathbed of President Abraham Lincoln. From Harper’s Weekly, dated 6 May 1865. (In public domain) FINDMYPAST.COM’S DIGGING UP THE ROOTS LIBERTY AND UNION FOR THE AGES

“Death, it has been said, canonizes a great character.” Newspaper accounts from In the case of Abraham Lincoln, it took only four days for The New towns and cities across America, York Times to report that his death on April 14, 1865 accessible through findmypast.com , “has preeminently had that effect”. capture our forebears’ varied re - sponses to the beloved president’s t was not a premature conclusion. The public outpouring of grief death. Revisited in light of the in the aftermath of that fateful assassination was unprecedented. 149th anniversary of Abraham As the news of the fatal shooting spread through telegrams and Lincoln’s assassination this April, newspaper headlines, black mourning drapes were drawn, flags newspapers provide a lingering flew at half-mast, and millions attended the solemn funeral pro - testament to Lincoln’s immense cIession in Washington, DC alone. The North seemed to mourn as one. popularity. Around America, newspapers Millions of words and thousands “no wonder that one cannot think not only meticulously reported of column inches were dedicated or talk of anything but the tragic Lincoln’s last few hours, assassi - to the assassination in newspapers death of Abraham Lincoln… nation and funeral, but also across America. One newspaper Every paper that we take up is editorialized extensively on his on findmypast.com, the Janesville draped in mourning,” unimpeachable character. Weekly Gazette , declared on April (itself, apparently, included). A funeral oration delivered in 20 that it was: Ohio, reprinted in papers across

50 History Magazine April/May 2014 the United States, called him “the Popular expectations of his Indianapolis, a lady who report - greatest of living men”, the “per - clemency are indicated in The edly declared herself pleased by sonification of Mercy”. The day Tribune ’s conviction that, if Lincoln Lincoln’s death was threatened by after Lincoln died, The New York had lived a few days longer, a group of women bearing a Times explained the heartfelt noose. The Courier recounts that mourning he inspired: “we believe he would have issued she was let off only after swearing a proclamation of amnesty which allegiance to the raised Union “That a man so gentle, so kind, so would have dissolved all that flag. free from every particle of malice remains of the rebellion, leaving Confederate supporters, and or unkindness, every act of whose its leaders no choice between sympathetic newspapers, were life has been so marked by flight and surrender.” widely condemned for having benevolence and goodwill, should previously called for Lincoln’s become the victim of a cold- Instead, Lincoln’s assassination assassination. For pro-Union blooded assassination, shocked the invoked a shared outrage that was journalists, this dastardly act public heart beyond expression.” believed to have further strength - raised deeper questions of guilt. ened the Union’s cause. On April The Madison Courier questioned “Why has Mr. Lincoln died?” 26, 1875, the Madison Courier on that if Booth would be hung, as asked an orator whose speech was findmypast.com reported that: many hoped: published in the Janesville Gazette , May 4, 1865, on findmypast.com. “the assassination of Mr. Lincoln “Why not [Confederate leader] “He has died for two words – has made the spirit of revenge in Davis? Is the life of a President Liberty and Union.” Lincoln’s role the hearts of the people that will more precious and sacred than the in abolishing slavery meant that not speedily be subdued, and calls life of the nation of which he is the word ‘Liberty’ would “baptize upon the authors of the rebellion a only the servant and minister?” his name forevermore.” punishment just and severe.” Although this towering figure of As outrage fomented, Lincoln’s American history seemed to rise Certainly, newspaper accounts successor, President Andrew above the politics of his day, contain reports of antagonism Johnson, decried treason in late posthumous assessments of toward those who did not April 1865. He declared that Lincoln’s achievements – however share the widespread grief over “traitors must be punished and glowing – were influenced by the Lincoln’s death. impoverished”, perhaps a reflec - political realities of the 1860s. In a recap of how Americans tion of the Civil War tensions Indeed, part of the shock caused across the country reacted to the reignited by the assassination. by the assassination appears to assassination, the April 17, 1865 Yet, as countless writers ex - have been its sheer unexpected - edition of the Burlington Daily pressed, ultimately, the assassina - ness, coming shortly after Lincoln Hawk Eye on findmypast.com re - tion strengthened the most had been re-elected to a second ported that, in Baltimore, a mob groundbreaking legacy of Lincoln’s term in office while the Civil vandalized ‘obnoxious pictures’ esteemed presidency. As the War drew to a close. The tactical that displayed disloyalty (presum - Burlington Daily Hawk Eye wrote value of such a blow during these ably images of Booth, a famous on April 22, 1865, the murder early stages of recovery seemed Marylander). “reveals with startling horribleness dubious. In San Francisco, several people the nature of slavery and the neces - Several commentators sug - overheard uttering approval of sity of its utter extinction.” gested that Lincoln’s policy of the assassination were arrested Not only was Abraham Lincoln leniency towards the rebellious and, as the Madison Courier omi - canonized, but, as the Hawk Eye South meant that his assassina - nously reported on April 26, 1875, put it, “the cause has been sancti - tion by John Wilkes Booth’s con - “they will be dealt with by the fied by his death” – sanctified for spiracy was a strategic blunder. authorities.” Meanwhile, in the ages . Hm

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April/May 2014 History Magazine 53 S K THE AVIATORS THE SCIENCE OF O

O EDDIE RICKENBACKER, JIMMY DOOLITTLE,

B MEASUREMENT CHARLES LINDBERGH, AND THE EPIC AGE OF FLIGHT The folks at Athena, by Winston Groom an RLJ Entertain - A fascinating story of three extraordinary heroes who defined ment brand, have aviation during the great age of flight. These cleverly inter - recently released a woven tales of their heart-stopping adventures take us from the number of excellent feats of World War I through the heroism of World War II and beyond, including historical documen - daring military raids and survival-at-sea, and will appeal to fans of Unbroken, taries on DVD to The Greatest Generation, and Flyboys. With the world in peril in World War II, the North American each man set aside great success and comfort to return to the skies for this most market. One, in particular, The Science daring mission yet. Doolittle, a brilliant aviation innovator, would lead the daring of Measurement, is a fascinating look at Tokyo Raid to retaliate for the attack on Pearl Harbor; Lindbergh, hero of the first the history of measurement. Presented solo flight across the Atlantic, would fly combat missions in the South Pacific; and by author, TV presenter and Oxford Rickenbacker, World War I flying ace, would bravely hold his crew together while mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, the facing near-starvation and circling sharks after his plane went down in a remote three-episodes, which originally aired part of the Pacific. Groom’s rich narrative tells their intertwined stories – from on BBC in the UK in June 2013, explain broken homes to Medals of Honor (all three would receive it); barnstorming to how humans have succeeded in reduc - the greatest raid of World War II; front-page triumph to anguished tragedy; and ing the chaos and complexity of the near-death to ultimate survival – as all took to the sky, time and again, to become world to just seven fundamental units exemplars of the spirit of the “greatest generation.” of measurement — the building blocks Published by National Geographic Society; 457 pages of modern science. Sautoy takes us on a ISBN: 9781426211560; Priced: $30.00 (US) $35.00 (CAN) journey around the world and back in time, showing how measurements have TOWER shaped the course of history, science, AN EPIC HISTORY OF THE TOWER OF LONDON and civilization and the resulting im - pact on our daily lives. There is a bonus by Nigel Jones 12-page viewers’ guide included. Total Nigel Jones presents the dramatic history of one of the world’s running time is 177 minutes. The most notorious buildings in his celebrated book, Tower: An Science of Measurement is priced at Epic History of the Tower of London. No building in Britain $34.99 USD and available from has been more intimately involved in her history than this AcornOnline.com. Other recently re - mighty, brooding stronghold in the very heart of London, a leased documentaries worth exploring place which has stood at the epicenter of dramatic, bloody and frequently cruel from Athena include: Secrets of An - events for almost a thousand years. cient Egypt; Joanna Lumley's Greek In a gripping account drawn from primary sources and lavishly illustrated with Odyssey; and Talks About Nothing eight pages of stunning photographs, he captures the Tower in its many changing featuring Ken Burns, Oliver Sacks, moods and its many diverse functions. Here for the first time, is a thematic Rick Moody and Brian Cox. Visit portrayal of the Tower of London not just as an ancient structure, but as a living AcornOnline.com for pricing and symbol of the nation of Great Britain. details on these documentaries and Published by St. Martin’s Press; 464 pages, plus one 8-page b&w photograph other programming that is available for insert and map endpapers; ISBN: 9781250038401; Priced $19.99 purchase, including popular British mysteries, police dramas, situation comedies and more. And be sure to check out Acorn Online.com's new streaming TV serv - ice, Acorn TV. Available in the US and Canada, you can now watch some of your favorite British programming 24/7 and commercial-free on a variety of devices. Sign up and get your first month of programming free; the cost afterward is $4.99/month. As they say in Britain, “Have a go... you'll be gobsmacked!”

54 History Magazine April/May 2014

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