BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin Gilbert Ferris and Mrs. B.G. Ferris HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
1802
Benjamin Gilbert Ferris was born in Spencer, New York. His father was a prominent citizen. He would receive his secondary education in Spencer and then in Canandaigua.
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin Gilbert Ferris and Mrs. B.G. Ferris HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
1809
Elizabeth Cornelia Woodstock was born.
LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin Gilbert Ferris and Mrs. B.G. Ferris HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
1828
William Carpenter’s SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY, based upon the Reverend Dr. Thaddeus Mason Harris, D.D. of Dorchester’s 1821 publication A DICTIONARY OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BIBLE: OR, A DESCRIPTION OF ALL THE QUADRUPEDS, BIRDS, FISHES, REPTILES, AND INSECTS, TREES, PLANTS, FLOWERS, GUMS, AND PRECIOUS STONES, MENTIONED IN THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. COLLECTED FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES, AND ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED.
Benjamin Gilbert Ferris graduated from Union College in Schenectady, and would soon begin the practice of law in the Ithaca, New York offices of David Woodcock.
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin Gilbert Ferris and Mrs. B.G. Ferris HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
1830
Benjamin Gilbert Ferris got married with Elizabeth Cornelia Woodstock, daughter of the lawyer in whose Ithaca, New York office he was practicing.
The Reverend Dr. Thaddeus Mason Harris, D.D.’s MEMORIALS OF THE FIRST CHURCH AT Dorchester.
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin Gilbert Ferris and Mrs. B.G. Ferris HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
1840
Benjamin Gilbert Ferris would be serving as district attorney for Tompkins County, New York from this year into 1845.
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin Gilbert Ferris and Mrs. B.G. Ferris HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
1841
Benjamin Gilbert Ferris became the president of the village of Ithaca, New York.
The Reverend Thaddeus Mason Harris, D.D.’s BIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIALS OF JAMES OGLETHORPE, FOUNDER OF THE COLONY OF GEORGIA IN NORTH AMERICA (Boston, Printed for the Author). JAMES OGLETHORPE
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin Gilbert Ferris and Mrs. B.G. Ferris HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
1845
At this point Benjamin Gilbert Ferris’s service as district attorney for Tompkins County, New York was complete.
William Thaddeus Harris, Junior Sophister in Harvard College, prepared EPITAPHS FROM THE OLD BURYING- GROUND IN CAMBRIDGE. WITH NOTES. OLD BURYING-GROUND
President Josiah Quincy, Sr. and Joseph Story ended their long service to Harvard College. Among their
accomplishments had been the discouragement of Cambridge’s black people from coming into the vicinity of the college campus on the Commencement Day weekends. Folks of that color had proven themselves to be “by no means quiet and orderly.” They had those pushcarts and tried to sell things to the college men on the HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
common, etc.
“Bearded agitators” possessed of “democratic principles” were likewise banned from the Cambridge common for the duration of the college festivities.1 Edward Everett, an abstinence man, replaced Quincy as President, and began to experiment with a non-alcoholic style for Harvard events. His efforts to move the fraternity of scholars in this direction would prove markedly unsuccessful:
[N]othing that I did caused greater offence, or shook my influence more in the Corporation.
1. And, we may presume, for similar reasons, for we all know that folks with hair on their faces tend to refuse to be quiet and orderly. HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
1852
Benjamin Gilbert Ferris became a member of the New York State Assembly, and again became president of the village of Ithaca, New York. President Millard Fillmore (who was a fellow New Yorker) appointed him as Secretary to the Territory of Utah. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
1854
Jacob Hamblin, a missionary to the Indians in southern Utah, had acquired repute among them as a person of special powers and turned this toward the smoothing of relations between them and the newly arriving hordes of white people.
The black Mormon preacher, Elijah Abel, died “in full faith in the Gospel.”
Benjamin Gilbert Ferris, a Swedenborgian, had most definitely not gotten along with the Mormons of Utah during the six months he had spent there as the US Secretary to that Territory, and soon resigned: “He could not suppress his abhorence [sic] of Mormonism nor tolerate its influences, nor accept its devotees as his neighbors, and resigned his high position, thus sacrificing great possibilities in his very promising public career.” In this year his record of his experiences appeared as UTAH AND THE MORMONS. THE HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, DOCTRINES, CUSTOMS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS. FROM PERSONAL OBSERVATION DURING A SIX MONTHS’ RESIDENCE AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 82 Beekman Street).
UTAH AND THE MORMONS On the banks of Payzhehooteze Hazel Run south of the Minnesota River, five miles upstream from the Yellow Medicine Agency, Marpiyawicasta Man of the Clouds, his brother Mazakutemane Walks Shooting Iron, and their band of Dakotas joined a “Hazelwood Republic” of “Christian Indians” sponsored by the Reverend Riggs HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
but, in the eyes of the creators of civilization, failed to create a satisfactory imitation of civilization.2
We had such a respectable community of young men, who had cut off their hair and exchanged the dress of the Dakotas for that of the white men, and whose wants now were very different from the annuity Dakotas generally, that we took measures to organize them into a separate band, which we called the Hazelwood Republic. They elected their President for two years, and other needed officers, and were without any difficulty recognized by the agent as a separate band. A number of these men were half-breeds, who were, by the organic law of Minnesota, citizens. The Constitution of the State provided that Indians also might become citizens by satisfying a court of their progress in civilization. A few years after the organization of this civilized community, I took eight or ten of the men to meet the court at Mankato; but the court deciding that a knowledge of English was necessary to comply with the laws of the State, only one of my men was passed into citizenship.
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
2.Account of the Reverend Riggs. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
August 31, Thursday: Ariana Sanborn, eight days the bride of Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, died of consumption.
Henry Thoreau was being written to by Richard F. Fuller in Boston, to thank him for his copy of WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS and to say that he had enjoyed it, and hoped Thoreau’s fame would grow.3
Boston 31 Aug. 1854 Dear Thoreau When I went out to rusti- cate in Wayland some weeks since, I had seen a notice of the forthcoming Walden, and regrett[ed] that I could not obtain the book for my su[m-] mer retreat. I was obliged to console myself with the expectation of reading it on my return to town. On first opening my des[k] again here what should I see but that very book and my name therein inscribed in a very esteemed hand! He should leave it to his friends to purchase his book, I thought, and then--but how pleasant to obtain it in a way that gives proof of kind remembrance. So I got another copy for the town library in Wayland, and kept yours for myself. Let me congratulate you for the hit you have made in this book. I am glad the world opens a little to its appeal.
Page 2 I have read this book with great satis- faction. I had expected sincerity and truth and intimacy with nature in you: my ex- pectation is surpassed. I congratulate you on that heroic reliance and courageous trail of the leading[]of your own high in- [s]tincts which have borne such fitting fruit. I delight, too, in your affectionate nearness to the bosom of nature and your family [fe]eling for the pure objects of her fostering care. You seem to have something of that tenderness toward them
3.At some point during the autumn Thoreau pencilled on his reading draft of “Walking, or The Wild,” just below and to the right of the title, the following shattering remark:
I regard this as a sort of introduction to all that I may write hereafter.
Bradley P. Dean infers that Thoreau wrote this a few weeks after WALDEN was published. HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
which must pervade the Father's care that cherishes all. Your book is remarkable for what I will call by an old name (for I prefer old names, nothing being in substance new) namely faith--faith in the heavenly within you and the heavenly without you. I esteem a noble quality which transcends common
Page 3 laws being a law unto itself. It transcends, but (mark the distinction) it does not transgress. Your book must furnish gra- tification to those appetites which still relish nature; and I have one. It is a fruit, too, which will keep and grow more golden mellow and fragrant with the many years. Your book must do good mo- rally by reproving the growing luxury [of] the times. It has made me also sigh for my[-] self that I have yielded so much to the kingdom of man. Having said some of the things which your book is, I need not say what it is not. For hardly all men and ages, and not the single individual, make the man. May your fame grow and de- velope in your good fruit. Accept my con- gratulations and thanks Yours R. F. Fuller
Page 4 Postage: PAID Paid Postmark: BOSTON 31 AUG 3 cts Address: Henry D. Thoreau Concord Mass HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
He surveyed a Lincoln houselot between Tower Road and Lincoln Road for Marie Green. In the afternoon he did some surveying for William Peirce, after which Peirce brought him to Concord from Lincoln in his wagon.
Thoreau had obtained, from Stacy’s Circulating Library in Concord, Benjamin Gilbert Ferris’s UTAH AND THE MORMONS: THE HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, DOCTRINES, CUSTOMS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE LATTER-DAY HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
SAINTS, FROM PERSONAL OBSERVATION DURING A SIX MONTHS’ RESIDENCE AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.
UTAH AND THE MORMONS UTAH AND THE MORMONS
Aug. 31. Warmer this morning and considerably hazy again. Wormwood pollen yellows my clothes commonly. Ferris in his “Utah,” crossing the plains in ’52, says that, on Independence Rock near the Sweetwater, “at a rough guess, there must be 35,000 to 40,000” names of travellers. P.M. —To Lincoln. Surveying for William Peirce4. He says that several large chestnuts appear to be dying near him on account of the drought. Saw a meadow said to be still on fire after three weeks; fire had burned holes one and a half feet 4. The surveying notebook says, a houselot for Byron Peirce: HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
deep; was burning along slowly at a considerable depth. P. brought me home in his wagon. Was not quite at his ease and in his element; i.e., talked with some reserve, though well behaved, unless I approached the subject of horses. Then he spoke with a will and with authority, betraying somewhat of the jockey. He said that this dry weather was “trying to wagons; it loosened the ties,” — if that was the word. He did not use blinders nor a check-rein. Said a horse’s neck must ache at night which has been reined up all day. He said that the outlet of F[lint’s] Pond had not been dry before for four years, and then only two or three days; now it was a month. Notwithstanding this unprecedented drought our river, the main stream, has not been very low. It may have been kept up by the reservoirs. Walden is unaffected by the drought, and is still very high. But for the most part silent are the watercourses, when I walk in rocky swamps where a tinkling is commonly heard. At nine this evening I distinctly and strongly smell smoke, I think of burning meadows, in the air in the village. There must be more smoke in this haze than I have supposed. Is not the haze a sort of smoke, the sun parching and burning the earth? HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
1855
The Reverend Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham’s MEMOIR OF REV. THADDEUS MASON HARRIS, D.D. (Cambridge: Metcalf and Company, printers to the university).
Benjamin Gilbert Ferris became supervisor of the township of Ithaca, New York. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
1856
THE MORMONS AT HOME; WITH SOME INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL FROM MISSOURI TO CALIFORNIA, 1852-3. IN A SERIES OF LETTERS. BY MRS. B.G. FERRIS (WIFE OF THE LATE U.S. SECRETARY FOR UTAH.) (New York: Dix & Edwards, 321 Broadway. London: Sampson Low, Son & Co.)
THE MORMONS AT HOME HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
1883
James Hall named Cryptozoon, on the basis of cabbagelike rocks up to meter across — for such gullibility he would come under heavy criticism, although he was right. PALEONTOLOGY
Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyramus de Candolle was elected to the US’s National Academy of Sciences. He published his ORIGINE DES PLANTES CULTIVÉES. THE SCIENCE OF 1883 BOTANIZING
Benjamin Gilbert Ferris’s A NEW THEORY OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES (New York: Fowler & Wells) attempted to render the mechanism of evolution subordinate to a Whiggish teleology of the gradual evolution of improvement along a path of minimum pain and disruption (this, it would seem, was a work not of biological research, but rather one of inventive armchair theologizing; had Thoreau lived, it would have been interesting to discover what he might have had to say about it). NEW THEORY OF ORIGIN
Excerpts follow: It is difficult to see how the belief in the existence of a personal Deity could have obtained a lodgment in the mind except upon the basis of its truth. The belief may now be regarded as universal, save with those men of science who have reasoned themselves into disbelief. Man, the last creation, having physically the highest and most complete organization, according to this theory, could only be formed through the medium of the highest animal structure next below him –the ape– and his ape birth furnishes the strongest proof of the truth of the theory. The difference between the mind of man and that of the most intelligent animal is so great, that the idea of his propagation by the sexual connection of apes is utterly absurd. Nothing short of direct divine Influx into the ape ovum could have produced the wonderful result. The world –the Christian world, at least– has witnessed, historically, the exhibition of that which is called the “miraculous conception” in the production of a Human so infinitely above common humanity as to be capable of complete one-ness with Divinity. Even in that grandest display of divine benevolence, involving the salvation of mankind, God has seen fit not to depart from His established laws of creation. And thus has been completed the mighty cycle of being, which begins and ends in Himself. Darwin. with that candor for which he is most remarkable, says: HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
“There can be no doubt that the difference between the mind of the lowest man and that of the highest animal is immense. An anthropomorphous ape, if he could take a dispassionate view of his own case, would admit, that though he could form an artful plan to plunder a garden — though he could use stones for fighting or for breaking open nuts, yet that the thought of fashioning a stone into a tool was quite beyond his scope. Still less, as he would admit, could he follow out a train of metaphysical reasoning, or solve a mathematical problem, or reflect on God, or admire a grand natural scene.” Nevertheless he insists, that the difference is one of degree only and not of kind and refers to “the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, &c., of which man boasts,” as being, “found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well developed condition, in the lower animals” (The Descent of Man, Volume I, page 100). But it seems to me, that in my theory of creation, there is a more rational and satisfactory explanation of these phenomena. There is a manifest preparation in the animal kingdom for the production of man in reference to his mind as well as body. Suppose him born of the ape as to body-if the ape mother had no higher psychological qualities than an oyster, there would have been no basis for human mentality, and he might just as well have been created from a lump of earth. But he has a dual existence-he is both animal and man; and in this double character, he dominates the entire animal kingdom. The lower part of his mind is, primarily, inherited from the ape, and forms a basis for the higher or human part; and the necessity of this explains why the incipient “emotions and faculties,” referred to are found in certain of the higher animals. In one sense the theory here presented may be said to be one of special creation; but proceeding upon a plan of creative evolution, it is just as free from any feature of the miraculous as the germination and growth of a plant was in ordinary generation. At first creation proceeded by short transitions, as is evident from a study of the lower organisms; but as it advanced the forms became more complicated, the gaps wider and wider, until the appearance of man, and whatever may be claimed as to structural resemblances, the mental differences between him and the ape are immense. HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
1891
February 21, Saturday: Benjamin Gilbert Ferris died at the age of 89. HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
1903
Elizabeth Cornelia Woodstock Ferris died.
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin Gilbert Ferris and Mrs. B.G. Ferris HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Prepared: October 19, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS
ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX
MRS. B.G. FERRIS BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS
Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS HDT WHAT? INDEX
BENJAMIN GILBERT FERRIS MRS. B.G. FERRIS