by Kathy Warnes

“He who raises a hand against the game of baseball strikes a blow at a national institution. The game belongs to the people.”  Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis

Both Federal Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, First Commissioner of Baseball from 1920 to 1944, and Chicago White Sox first baseman turned boxer, Charles Arthur Shires, had colorful personalities that made their clash of wills resound like a Louisville Slugger 125 bat cracking a baseball to homerun status.

Charles Arthur Shires, Fiery Chicago White Sox First Baseman  

Kenesaw Mountain Landis (Kenesaw was a misspelling of Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia where his father had fought in the Civil War)  had pulled himself up by his bootstraps from high school drop out to lawyer and judge  with an office in downtown Chicago. When he became the First Commissioner of Baseball in 1920, he installed a sign that said “Baseball” on his office door.

The career of Charles Arthur Shires, or “Arthur the Great Shires”, as both admiring fans and derisive detractors called him, had accumulated a .387 batting average, including 11 home runs, playing 108 games for the Waco Cubs in the Texas league. The Chicago White Sox signed him in July 1928, and on August 20, 1928, Shires played his first game with the White Sox. He earned four hits in five at bats and replaced Bud Clancy as starting first baseman. Shires ended the 1928 season with a .341 average for 33 games.

Before the 1929 season started, White Sox Manager Lena Blackburne chose Arthur Shires to be the team captain to replace third baseman Willie Kamm who resigned to concentrate on his hitting. Two weeks after the White Sox played their opening day game against the Cleveland Blues on April 24, 1929, Blackburne demoted Shires from his team captain position, stating that Shires didn’t keep in shape, he kept late hours, and he consistently broke training rules.

White Sox Manager Lena Blackburne Suspends Arthur the Great

The May 17, 1929, edition of the Milwaukee Journal reported that Lena Blackburne and Arthur the Great threw some punches at each other and Blackburne acquired a black eye. As well as being demoted as captain, Shires found himself suspended from the White Sox baseball team. After a week of thinking it over, Arthur the Great apologized to Lena Blackburne and Blackburne reinstated him, but as a part time player to occasionally pinch hit.

On June 3, 1929, United Press writer George Kirksey reported in The Pittsburgh Press that Arthur the Great had said, “Everything’s all patched up now and I’ll be in there pretty soon. I’m too good a ball player to be riding on the bench. They’ll be needing me any day now.”

Blackburne reinstated his problem player, but on September 14, 1929, Arthur Shires and Lena Blackburne fought a return match after Blackburne again tried to censure him for breaking team rules. Some sportswriters and fans speculated that Arthur the Great might lose his job after this suspension, but Lena Blackburne turned out to be the jobless White Sox player at the end of the season. Shires finished up his 1929 White Sox season with a .312 batting average, three home runs and 41 runs batted in.

Arthur the Great, The Fighting First Baseman

Arthur the Great decided to take up boxing in the 1929 off season, since he had so successfully punched Lena Blackburne during the season. He entered the ring wearing a robe with “Arthur the Great” emblazoned on back. In his first match he took 21 seconds to knock out his opponent, an obscure fighter named Dan Daly.

Then sports reporters and the sports buzz rumored that Chicago Cubs outfielder Hack Wilson had signed a contract for a match with Arthur the Great in January 1930. Chicago fight promoters offered a large purse for the match until Chicago Cubs President William Veeck, Sr. and Chief Stockholder William Wrigley, Jr. huddled and refused to permit their star outfielder to fight. William Wrigley stated that if Hack Wilson went into the ring, the Cubs would trade him.

December 18, 1929, proved to be a knockout day for Arthur the Great. He lost a match with Chicago Bears football player George Trafton.  A few weeks later the National Boxing Association and the Michigan State Boxing Commission and Illinois State Boxing Commission suspended Shires after investigators charged that his manager had offered money to an upcoming opponent to throw a fight.

Soon after this came to light, Dan Daly confessed to the Illinois State Boxing Commission that he had deliberately lost his fight to Arthur the Great. Eventually the boxing commissions cleared Shires, because they could find no evidence that he had fixed the fights.

Arthur the Great became more famous after he had been cleared of the fight fixing charges. Wherever he appeared he packed the arenas, out drawing even the most famous fighters. In January 1930, Shires defeated Boston Braves player Al Spohrer by a technical knockout in four rounds at the Boston Garden. His promoter had arranged several other fights when Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis summoned Arthur the Great to his downtown Chicago office with the baseball sign on the door.

On January 18, 1930, confident boxer Arthur the Great marched in to confront the Commissioner of Baseball.  He had already earned more money boxing than playing first base the entire 1929 season and he wanted his lucrative second career to last. Five minutes later when Arthur the Great walked out of the Commissioner of Baseball’s office, he knew that he had to choose between playing baseball in the on season and boxing in the off season.

After Arthur the Great had slammed the door, Commissioner Landis scrawled a statement on a slip of paper that would mold all future cases. “Hereafter, any person connected with the organization of baseball who takes part in a professional boxing match will be considered by the baseball office as being permanently retired from baseball. “

The last line of the message condensed the Commissioner’s reasoning. “The two activities do not mix.”

Commissioner Landis earned a reputation as a dictator, preserver of baseball, eradicator of baseball graft and gambling and rabid racist and sexist who would not allow black players or women to play in major league baseball.

Reactions to Kenesaw Mountain Landis were and still are, mixed. Eighth Commissioner Fay Vincent who served from 1989 to 1992, once said, “That middle name tells you all there is to know about how tough he was.”  Founder and first president of the American League, Ban Johnson called Landis, “a wild-eyed nut.”

Arthur Shires went on to play first base for the Washington Senators and Boston Braves, finishing his baseball career with the Boston Braves in 1932. In his four year major league career, he played 290 games, scoring 71 hits in 298 at bats for a .291 career batting average. He hit 11 home runs, batted in 119 runs and earned an on base percentage of .347 and a .988 fielding percentage. In Chicago, stories of his boxing matches far outlasted his playing record with the White Sox.

References

Astor, Gerald. The Baseball  Hall of Fame Book. Prentice Hall, 1989.

Pietrusza, David. Judge and Jury: The Life and Times of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Diamond Communications, 1998.

Seymour, Harold. Baseball:  The Early Years. Oxford University Press, 1989.

Ward, Geoffrey C., and Burns, Ken. Baseball:  An Illustrated History. Knopf, 1996.

by Kathy Warnes

Gentle Quaker scientist, Increase Allen Lapham, waged a forty-year war against his greatest adversary -Great Lakes storms. He fought Great Lakes storms harder than he did the Wisconsin politicians who succeeded in ousting him as state geologist in 1875. He fought harder for a weather bureau to predict storms than he did for education for women, reforestation, and preservation of Wisconsin’s ancient Indian mounds, many of which he discovered. He spent his life practicing science as unceasingly as wind and waves on the Great Lakes create ocean-size storms.

Increase Lapham – Father of the Great Lakes Weather Bureau

A few of Increase Lapham’s Great Lakes discoveries include noting and recording a lunar tide in Lake Michigan, predicting and recording the track of storms on the Great Lakes, documenting their commercial costs, and acting as a lightning rod in creating the United States Weather Service. Increase Lapham recorded Lake Michigan levels and sent in weather observations to Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institute for years. He mapped storms and provided data to Congress in the push to establish the first United States Weather Bureau and served as the first director of its Chicago office.

In Wisconsin, where Increase Lapham eventually settled and forged most of his scientific career he is noted for discovering and preserving Indian mounds, his botanical and ecological contributions, and his state maps. His historical contributions include helping to found The State Historical Society of Wisconsin and several other state and local historical societies.  Historians credit his pamphlet describing the advantages of Wisconsin with attracting many immigrants to the state. He was an engineer, railroad surveyor, canal builder- a true Renaissance man. His fame spread across the country in the wake of his scientific accomplishments.

Increase Lapham Began as Humbly as a Sand Castle

Great Lakes historical literature abounds with names like Captain Eber B. Ward, Captain Thomas Murphy, Captain James McDougall, but the name of Increase A. Lapham is not there. It should be. Like a sandcastle, Lapham came from humble beginnings. He was born on March 7, 1811 in Palmyra, New York into a Quaker family of twelve children.   He had only enough time to obtain a common school education before his father, Seneca, had to send him to work because his earnings were needed to help support the family.

Seneca Lapham was a contractor on the Erie Canal and built the arches of the first aqueduct at Rochester and the woodwork of the combined and double locks at Lockport. Increase earned his first money cutting stone for canal locks and drawing plans of those locks for travelers to study. One day he cracked open a stone that revealed a nest of fossils and soon he routinely explored the minerals found in the deep rock cuts at Lockport. At this point, Increase sharpened his powers of patient observation and pondered his first theories of mineralogy.

In 1827, when he was just 16, Increase went to Louisville, Kentucky, and in the next two years worked on the canal which was being built around the falls of the Ohio at Louisville. When he wasn’t working on the canal, he found time to study and begin his collection of plants that would eventually number about 8,000 species. He helped construct Ohio canals in Columbus and Portsmouth, and wrote his first scientific paper, “A Notice of the Lousiville and Shippingsport Canal and of the Geology of the Vicinity.”

Increase Lapham Arrived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

A friendship with Byron Kilbourn, the canal promoter, brought Increase to Milwaukee in July 1836. As an omen of scientific studies to come, he made the trip by stagecoach and steamboat. This was his second trip on the Great Lakes, his first being by boat from Buffalo, New York to Cleveland, Ohio in 1826.

In a letter to his brother Darius, Increase described his trip to Milwaukee from Detroit. He sailed from Detroit on the steamboat New York bound for Mackinac, St. Joseph and Chicago.  When the New York attempted to enter the mouth of the St. Clair River, it ran aground on the delta and had to wait a day before the men could haul it off. On June 24, 1836, they passed up the St. Clair River which Lapham said was larger than the Ohio at Cincinnati and had a stronger current in many places. After they entered Lake Huron he noted that they were out of sight of any land.

On Sunday, June 26, 1836, they passed Presque Isle and finally arrived at Mackinac. Increase noted that he went to see Mr. Henry Schoolcraft who lived a Mackinac, but before he got to Mr. Schoolcraft’s house, the New York’s bell rang for the passengers to return to the boat.

On July 27, 1836, the steamer passed along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan between the Beaver Islands and the Grand and Petit Traverse Bays.  Lapham says: “I saw a bank of sand eight miles long and two or three hundred feet high, having a mound on top, which supports a scanty growth of cedar and is supposed to resemble a bear lying coiled up; hence it is called “Sleeping Bear Mountain.” The whole Eastern Shore of the lake is one continued sandbank, and frequently entirely destitute of vegetation…. On the 29^th, we passed St. Joseph and Michigan City’ next morning we were laying at the Wharf in Chicago. . . July 1^st at night, we arrived at Milwaukee and glad enough I was to get home, for I was heartily sick of steamboat traveling.”

For the rest of Increase Lapham’s story click Increase Lapham Lives in Milwaukee and Practices Natural Science

References

Increase Lapham Papers, 1836-1990, in the manuscript collection of the Milwaukee County Historical Society

Increase A. Lapham Papers, 1825-1903, in the archive of the Wisconsin Historical Society

Hawks, Graham P. Increase A. Lapham, Wisconsin’s First Scientist. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1960

Hoy, P.R. Increase A. Lapham LL.D., Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters

Lapham, Increase A. Wisconsin: its geography and topography, history, geology, and mineralogy. Milwaukee:  I.A. Hopkins, 1846.

Lapham, I.A. The Antiquities of Wisconsin, as surveyed and described by I.A. Lapham, Civil Engineer, etc., on behalf of the American Antiquarian Society. Washington, D.C.:  The Smithsonian Institution, June 1855

Miller, Eric R. New Light on the Beginnings of the Weather Bureau from the Papers of Increase A. Lapham. Monthly Weather Review, v. 59, Issue 2., February, 1931

Moore, Willis L. Storms and Weather Forecasts. The National Geographic Magazine, v. 8. N.3., March, 1897

Quaife, Milo M., Increase Allen Lapham, First Scholar of Wisconsin. Wisconsin Magazine of History, September, 1917

Thomas, Samuel W. & Conner, Eugene H. The Journals of Increase Allen Lapham for 1827-1830. George Rogers Clark Press, 1973

by Kathy Warnes

American presidents throwing out that first baseball pitch is a political and historical as well as physical act. History reveals that colonists from England indulged their love of rounders while they relaxed between bouts of founding a new country. Their pioneer games of rounders helped build American baseball tradition and inspire American presidents and passionate baseball fans to pass the baseball tradition bat from generation to generation.

Mr. Newbery’s Little Pretty Pocket-Book Establishes Baseball Firsts

According to a 2011 article titled “Mr. Newbery’s Little Pretty Pocket-Book” in Colonial Williamsburg’s Teaching Newsletter, the British have played rounders since Tudor times. Published in 1744, A Little Pretty Pocket Book calls rounders “baseball,” and publisher John Newbery included a rhyme called “baseball, which was the first use of the word baseball in print. In 1762, A Little Pretty Pocket Book was published in Colonial America and the book earned its publisher historical accolades, including the first children’s book.

Some Nineteenth Century American Presidents Establish Baseball Tradition Firsts

Time and the American Revolution began the transformation of rounders into baseball and its American version. George Washington, later America’s first president, and his men played a form of baseball on the grassy fields of Valley Forge according to Albigence Waldo, a surgeon with George Washington’s troops at Valley Forge.

John Adams played what he called bat and ball and Andrew Jackson called his game of ball one old cat.  In Baseball and American Culture, Edward J. Rielly wrote that Abraham Lincoln had a baseball field called the “White Lot” built between the South Lawn of the White House and the unfinished Washington Monument which stood only 152 feet tall. People often spied him playing baseball on the White House lawn with his sons and their friends.

The Baseball Almanac noted that President Andrew Johnson carried on President Lincoln’s tradition of using the White Lot by placing chairs for his staff along the first base line of the White Lot and giving them time off to view the games. President Ulysses S. Grant hosted the first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings at the White House and President Chester A. Arthur entertained the National League’s Cleveland Forest Citys.

In 1892, Benjamin Harrison earned the distinction of being the first President to attend a major league game. He watched the Cincinnati Red Stockings beat the Washington Senators seven to four in eleven innings on June 6, 1892.

Some Twentieth Century Presidential Players and First Pitchers

Twentieth Century presidents established the baseball tradition of American presidents throwing out the first pitch. On April 14, 1910, William Howard Taft became the first pitching president. Sitting in the stands next to his close friend and military aide Archibald Butt, he threw the first pitch to Washington Senator opening day pitcher Walter Johnson. President Taft threw out the first ball again in 1911, again in the company of Archibald Butt. In 1912, Taft intended to continue his practice of pitching the first ball with his aide and friend, but he had urged his Butts to take a European vacation. He waited for Butts to return, but on April 15, 1912, Archibald Butt sank with the Titanic. President Taft felt too distraught to throw the 1912 opening day ball

President Woodrow Wilson became the first president to attend a World Series game when he went to the second game of the 1915 World Series and threw out the first pitch. Philadelphia beat Boston 2-1 that day. President Calvin Coolidge was the first President to throw out the first pitch of the first game of the World Series at Washington in 1924.

National Baseball Hall of Fame FDR and Kenesaw Mountain Landis Letters

Franklin Delano Roosevelt attended ten baseball games during his four terms in office. On January 15, 1942, in answer to a letter from Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis suggesting that perhaps baseball games should be suspended for the duration of the war, FDR wrote what came to be called the “green light letter.”

In his reply, FDR replied to Landis in part, “I honestly think it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. …Everybody will be working longer hours and harder than ever before… and that means everyone should have a chance for recreation.”

The National Baseball Hall of Fame has a copy of both letters.

Baseball Presidents Post World War II

On September 8, 1945, President Harry Truman attended his first baseball game as president, stating that he wanted his presence to symbolize a return to normalcy after four years of fighting World War II. Altogether he attended sixteen games, the most major league games of any president.

President Dwight David Eisenhower attended thirteen baseball games during his two terms in the 1950s. In 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson became the first president to attend the dedication of a new stadium when he went to an exhibition baseball game in Houston at the newly finished Astrodome.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy attended four baseball games during his short presidency and on April 9, 1962, he threw out the first pitch at the new stadium in Washington D.C. Richard Nixon attended eleven baseball games as president and he accumulated several baseball firsts during his presidency. He attended the first nighttime All-Star Game and threw out the first pitch. He also became the first President to toss an Opening Day pitch outside of Washington. When Gerald Ford assumed the Presidency after Nixon’s resignation, he attended a baseball game between the Texas Rangers and Minnesota Twins on April 9, 1976, and threw out the first two pitches.

President Jimmy Carter didn’t throw any Opening Day pitches during his time in office, but he did attend the last game of the 1979 World Series on October 17, 1979. The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Baltimore Orioles 4-1.

Ronald Reagan was the first president to broadcast a play by play game when on September 30, 1988, he broadcast an inning and a half of the game at Wrigley Field between the Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was also the first president to watch a major league game while he sat in the Baltimore Orioles dugout. His successor, President George Herbert Walker Bush went to ten baseball games as president and set a record as the first United States President to attend a game and throw a first pitch in Canada. He traveled to Toronto to watch the Toronto Blue Jays play the Texas Rangers on April 4, 1990.

President Bill Clinton attended seven baseball games during his presidency. The first game he attended in April 5, 1993 between the Baltimore Orioles and the Texas Rangers, he threw out the first pitch from the pitcher’s mound and made it to the catcher.
Twenty First Century Pitching Presidents

George W. Bush served as managing general partner of the Texas Rangers from 1989 to 1994, which made him the first president to be an owner of a major league baseball team.

In 2009, President Barack Obama threw the first pitch at the Chicago White Sox opening game and also at the summer 2009 All Star Game in St. Louis, wearing a White Sox jacket and delivering an easy left handed throw. In 2010, President Obama marked the century anniversary of President William Howard Taft’s April 14, 1910 pitch, when he threw out the first pitch at the Washington National’s Park on April 5, 2010.

The next 100 years should hold many first pitches and add another chapter to baseball history.

Play ball!

References

Kirsch, George B. Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime During the Civil War. Princeton University Press, 2003.

Millen, Patricia. From Pastime to Passion.

Rielly, Edward J.  Baseball and American Culture:  Across the Diamond. Routledge, 2003.

by Kathy Warnes

Billy Sunday helped the Chicago white stockings win a pennant and rank well in national league standings in the 1880s, before he switched to a higher power.

Billy Sunday preached his prayer pennant winning baseball story to the saints and sinners of the gritty steel and gas belt towns of Indiana and Illinois who flocked to revival tents and schoolhouses to hear his preaching in the last part of the Nineteenth and early decades of the Twentieth Centuries. His prayer pennant winning baseball story involved his Chicago White Stocking teammates Cap Anson, Tom Burns, Fred Pfeffer, and Mike “King” Kelly. Significantly, it highlighted his own role in winning the 1886 playoff game with the Detroit Wolverines.

The Chicago White Stockings Sign Billy Sunday

Born November 19, 1862, in Ames, Iowa, William Ashley Sunday, or “Billy” as his teammates and everyone else called him, endured a childhood gouged by spikes of poverty. He climbed out of it in part by playing baseball on local teams and running. His speed and agility while he played on the Marshalltown, Iowa, city team captured the attention of Adrian Anson. “Cap” Anson also happened to be the captain of the Chicago White Stockings.

In 1883, Billy Sunday joined the Chicago White Stockings and by 1885, he had earned average statistics for his team. He batted a .256 that year against an overall lifetime average of .248. In his first game with the White Stockings, he struck out four times and it took him seven more strikeouts in three more games before he finally connected with the ball. He played part time his first four seasons with the White Stockings, taking over right field for Mike “King” Kelly so Kelly could catch.

Speed turned out to be Billy Sunday’s greatest physical asset, which he demonstrated running bases and in the outfield. In 1885, the White Stockings engineered a race between Billy Sunday and Arlie Latham, who held the title of fastest runner in the American Association. Billy Sunday beat Latham in the hundred yard dash by at least ten feet.

He also increased his fame with the fans, drawing them like batted fly balls to West Side Park in Chicago with his personality, winning ways, and athletic playing. Billy Sunday’s teammates liked him as well. Manager Cap Anson trusted him enough to make him the White Stockings business manager, which meant he handed the ticket receipts and paid the travel expenses for the team.

Billy Sunday Makes A Play for the Pennant

The 1886 season turned out to be a stellar one for the Chicago White Stockings, and they found themselves battling the Detroit Wolverines for the pennant in the September playoffs. The score numbers were close and the nerves of the players were wound as tightly as a baseball.

According to Billy Sunday, the Chicago White Stockings were against the wall in the ninth inning. The Detroit Wolverines were at bat. Charlie Bennett stepped up to the plate, with one man on second and another on third. The White Stockings pitcher had managed two strikes and three balls – a full count. Then Charlie Bennett hit the ball with a wallop and it sailed toward the club house.

The White Stockings had placed benches for spectators in the field. Billy Sunday saw the ball sailing over the benches in his section and realized it would land in the crowd. He yelled, “Get out of the way!”

Billy Sunday continued his story. He said the crowd scattered and he ran and jumped over the benches. As he ran, he prayed one of the fastest prayers he had ever prayed. He prayed, “Lord, if you ever helped a mortal man, help me get that ball.”

Pausing a moment for dramatic effect, Sunday gauged the reaction of his audience. Then, when he saw everyone sitting on the edge of their seats, he continued. He said that he jumped over the benches as though he had wings on his feet and he threw out his hand while he flew through the air. The ball struck his glove and stuck. The Chicago White Stockings won the game because of his catch, although they ultimately lost the World Series to the St. Louis Browns.

Waiting for his audience to relax, Sunday concluded, “I am sure the Lord helped me catch that ball, and it was my first great lesson in prayer.”

Billy Sunday Plays In Pennsylvania

In 1887, the Chicago White Stockings sold King Kelly and Billy Sunday became the team’s full time right fielder, but an injury restricted him to playing just 50 games. The Chicago White Stockings sold Billy Sunday to the Pittsburgh Alleghenys for the 1888 season. Sunday charmed the Pittsburgh fans as thoroughly as he had those in Chicago. One newspaper reporter noted that “the whole town is wild over Sunday.” Billy Sunday finished a full season for the first time in his career, playing center field for the Alleghenys.

The Alleghenys lost more games than they won in the 1888 and 1889 seasons, but Sunday played centerfield well and was one of the players leading the National League in stolen bases. Ty Cobb was the only player who beat Sunday’s record of 96 stolen bases in one season with his 98 stolen bases. Billy Sunday also held the National league record for running bases with a fourteen-second speed. He played his last professional baseball game for the Philadelphia Phillies on October 4, 1890.

Billy Sunday Pinch Hits For A Higher Power

Billy Sunday left baseball and became a famous and influential evangelist during the first twenty years of the Twentieth Century. He recalled his professional baseball career, like the 1886 pennant game with the Detroit Wolverines, in many of his sermons to fans on and off the baseball diamond.

References

Firstenberger, William A. In Rare Form: A Pictorial History of Baseball Evangelist Billy Sunday. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2005.

Knickerbocker, Wendy. Sunday at the Ballpark: Billy Sunday’s Professional Baseball Career 1883-1890. Scarecrow Press, 2000

Names, Larry D. Bury My Heart At Wrigley Field: The History of The Chicago Cubs: Part One: When the Cubs Were the White Stockings. Angel PR, 1996

Rosenberg, Howard W. Cap Anson 4: Bigger Than Babe Ruth: Captain Anson of Chicago. Arlington, Virginia: Tile Books, 2006.

by Kathy Warnes

Along with his other talents, George Washington was a skilled distiller and entrepreneur and according to his military aide an enthusiastic consumer of his own creation.

George Washington’s Distillery and Museum is located about three miles from Mount Vernon and he and his horse likely wore a deep rutted path between the main house and the distillery. According to museum records, his distillery and grist mill served as the focal point of economic operations at Mount Vernon. In 1799, at its production peak, the distillery and grist mill featured five stills and a boiler that produced 11,000 gallons of whiskey with an estimated value of $7,500. He helped transform distilling from small local operations into today’s national industry

The fact that George Washington, the first president of the United States, established a distillery on his property testifies to the prominent part that whiskey played and still plays in American history. It also illuminates his double sided relationship with whiskey- distilling it with one hand and enforcing a tax on whiskey during the Whiskey Rebellion with the other.

George Washington Wasn’t the First Whiskey Distiller in America

Illegal, untaxed moonshine can trace its history long before the booming Prohibition years in the United States. People living in the Appalachian mountain regions including East Tennessee, Southern Kentucky and Western North Carolina have been moonshiners since before the American Revolution.

As settlers pushed west and south across the Appalachian Mountains, they used surplus grains like corn to make whiskey. When the British tried to stop importing sugar and molasses to the Colonies, the Americans substituted whiskey for rum to use as part of the Revolutionary Army rations.

Early New England settlers established distilleries throughout the colonies, including a rum distillery in Boston that began operating in 1657. Rum became New England’s largest and most profitable industry within a generation.

Moonshine is as American as Resisting Taxes

Scots-Irish immigrants arrived in British North America complete with generations- honed knowledge of distilling techniques and the determination to practice these techniques in their new country.    The enterprising and flinty Scots-Irish helped fight the Revolutionary War to liberate themselves from what they considered oppressive British taxes and when the new government passed an excise tax on whiskey and spirits, many of them moved to remote mountain areas to produce their products by moonlight and sell them by stealth.

The home brews that Early English smugglers and distillers in the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains and even as far as Atlantic Canada produced most often illegally was called moonshine because it was often distilled by the light of the moon. It didn’t take long for mountaineers in Tennessee, Kentucky, among others, to establish a national reputation for consistently rebelling and refusing to pay taxes on their moonshine

Geographic and financial necessity also steered them toward building and maintaining stills. The ups and down of mountainous terrain made transporting corn crops to market a tedious, time consuming process. Distilling the corn into whiskey for easier carrying in jugs and barrels provided to be a better and more profitable alternative.

George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion

For two hundred years small family owned distilleries had made whiskey without regulation from the British or American governments. Then in 1791, shortly after George Washington became President of the new born United States of America, the government decided to levy an excise tax on whiskey. These independent, small business distillers immediately resented the excise tax on whiskey and they took out their resentment on the tax collectors. Rebellious farmers and distillers rioted, protested and even tarred and feathered tax collectors.

Despite his own distilling background, President George Washington believed that the federal government must be strong enough to keep state and regional interests from seizing power. To underscore this belief, he ordered approximately 13,000 militia to squash the “rebellion,” and the militia crushed the rebellion without any bloodshed. The “Whiskey Rebellion” that new American citizens fought from 1791 to 1794, left a lasting imprint on American history. Paradoxically the Whiskey Rebellion demonstrated the will and ability of the new national government to quell violent resistance to its laws while illustrating how citizens could demonstrate against government policies they disagreed with without being imprisoned or otherwise punished.

In his 1796 Farewell Address, President George Washington again emphasized his point that the federal government had to maintain enough clout to overrule regional and state interest and political parties.

Some of the Rebels Flee to Southern Indiana and Kentucky

After the Whiskey Rebellion, many of the rebellious Dutch and Scots-Irish farmer and distillers moved farther west to escape the tax collectors. Many found the right kind of water for whiskey distilling in Southern Indiana and Kentucky. Historians say that Reverend Elijah Craig distilled the first Kentucky whiskey at Georgetown in Bourbon County. He used corn for his whiskey because it was more common than rye and his whiskey became known as Bourbon County whiskey. The name Bourbon has evolved to identify whiskies that are made from a corn mash.

The new United States government discontinued the excise tax on liquor in 1817, but the mountaineers didn’t slow their production of corn mash whiskey. By 1860, the 207 distilleries in Kentucky had produced whiskey worth $1,446,216 annually. and the Union government reinstated the excise tax on whiskey in 1862 to help finance the Civil War. Back in the hills, the battles between revenue agents and moonshiners increased and stories on both sides produced legends of famous escapades. The pendulum of public opinion began to swing toward the side of the tax collections instead of the moonshiners.

By 1891, Kentucky distilleries alone had produced 142,035 gallons of whiskey or 34 percent of all of the distilled spirits in the nation. Kentucky continued to produce its signature bourbon whiskey and other states like Tennessee and Virginia continued to produce whiskey as well.

In 1920, when Prohibition became the law of the land moonshiner blockade runners easily outran lawmen with newer and faster cars. According to the Oscar Goetz Museum of Whiskey and the Bardstown Museum, these customized cars motivated their owners to establish stock car racing which in turn developed NASCAR Racing.

In 1933 when public works programs were an important part of the Depression Era economy, the state of Virginia decided to restore George Washington’s grist mill. The excavation and George Washington’s records revealed that as well as the grist mill, he also operated a whiskey distillery and the Virginia authorities of the time quickly reburied its foundation.

Possibly the Virginia authorities remembered with a twinge of conscience that National Prohibition instituted by the 18^th Amendment of the Constitution banned the sale of all alcoholic beverages. They also could have been painfully aware that the Washington Temperance Benevolent Society founded in Baltimore in 1840, a forerunner of Alcoholics Anonymous, identified with George and Martha Washington. The Washington Temperance Benevolent Society vehemently opposing alcoholic consumption and revered George Washington as did many ordinary Americans. Authorities weren’t certain how his admirers would feel about George Washington if they discovered that as well as drinking whiskey he also manufactured it.

More than eight decades later, George Washington’s reconstructed Distillery and Museum is restored and demonstrating its operations and history to visitors. George Washington’s reconstructed Distillery and Museum provides a fascinating window into his practical and entrepreneurial side as well as an indirect connection to NASCAR.

References

Ellison, Betty Boles. Illegal Odyssey:  200 Years of Kentucky Moonshine, 1^st Books Library, 2003

Kellner, Esther. Moonshine:  Its History and Folklore. Bobbs-Merrill, 1971.

Maurer, David W. Kentucky Moonshine, The University Press of Kentucky, 2^nd edition, 2003

by Kathy Warnes

Here are a few bites of dental history to divert your thoughts in the dentist’s chair or when gathering courage to make that dental appointment.

The twanging tooth has transcended time and space from Africa to Zanzibar . Evidence found in the jaws of Egyptian mummies show that Egyptians suffered from the same dental problems as modern man and hieroglyphic records speak of “physicians for the teeth.” In Mesopotamia, records have been discovered that speak of the “worm” that caused toothaches. Besides medical treatment, magic rituals and chants were used to drive the “worm” away.

Hippocrates and Galen Endorsed Dentistry

Dentistry in Greece began about 500 BC and physicians like Hippocrates and Galen recognized its importance. There were Greek dental specialists who practiced in “dental shops,” extracting loose teeth with special forceps. To cauterize an infected tooth they would run a hot wire through it.

Romans Used Burnt Eggshells for Tooth Paste

The Romans were also tooth conscious and their literature explains how wealthy families had their teeth cleaned by slaves using small sticks – the Roman version of the toothbrush. They used tooth powers made from finely ground pumice or burnt eggshells. The Romans also introduced the idea of transplanting teeth. When a Roman soldier in Julius Caesar’s Army lost a tooth in battle, he would knock out a similar tooth from a prisoner’s mouth. Then he would securely fasten the tooth in his empty socket with wires or other handy fasteners.

// In the Dark Ages Barbers and Witches Took Over Dentistry

Dentistry as a science ground to a halt in the Dark Ages. The dental advances of the Greeks and Romans were now confined to monasteries and monks became the chief practitioners of dentistry, often assisted by barbers. After a 12th century papal edict, monks were forced to give up dentistry and barbers and witches took over.

Witchcraft in dentistry was helped along by the fact that the people were superstitious about dentistry. One superstition had it that to cure a toothache or to regain a lost tooth one had to acquire a tooth from another person, preferably an executed criminal. Poor people selling their permanent teeth for pitifully low prices were another source of teeth.

Dental Peddlers Traveled the Country

The Pilgrims, Puritans and other colonizers of the New World brought their teeth and dental troubles with them, but for a long time there were no competent dentists to consult. Dental peddlers traveling in wagons through the countryside performed many extractions. They set up tents or booths in carnivals and circuses and people had their teeth pulled in front of large audiences. They also played loud music to drown out the screams of the patients.

In many parts of America, the blacksmith or the town barber would pull teeth. Barbers advertised in their windows – “Haircut 10 cents. Tooth pulled – 20 cents.” Folklore has it that dentist’s chair resembles a barber’s chair because so many barbers pulled teeth.

George Washington Didn’t Have Wooden False Teeth

Revolutionary War historical stories about teeth that have proven to be untrue include the myth that Paul Revere was a dentist. He practiced dental arts, but he had no dental training. And George Washington does not look solemn in his pictures because he had badly fitting wooden false teeth. Modern scans have shown that his false teeth were made of gold, ivory, lead, human and animal teeth.

Laughing Gas Brings Dental Anesthesia

Around 1800, Sir Humphrey Davy, a famous English physician and scientist, discovered that a gas called nitrous oxide put people in a deep, pain free sleep. Professional entertainers of the time learned that this gas also made people behave as though they were drunk. They would call people from the audience up on stage to inhale the gas and soon the subjects would run around, sing, dance and make noises like animals. They laughed a lot too, so the gas became known as laughing gas.

In 1844, a dentist named Horace Wells of Hartford, Connecticut witnessed one of these exhibitions and saw a man who had inhaled the gas accidentally cut his leg. After the show, Dr. Wells talked to the man and discovered that he had felt no pain until the effects of the gas wore off. Dr. Wells saw the possibilities of using nitrous oxide in his practice, but first he tried it on himself. He inhaled the gas from a bag until he lost consciousness. Then a friend, also a dentist, extracted one of his teeth. Dr. Wells woke up feeling no pain. He used the gas so successfully in his practice that he is considered to be the father of modern day dental anesthesia.

Modern Dentists Have Sophisticated Tools

Dentistry has come a long way from “worms” causing toothaches and barbers pulling teeth. Modern dentists practice modern dental psychology which advocates keeping the patient out of pain and as alive as possible. Soft music purrs in the background, the receptionist is warm and friendly and the dentist has a soothing chair side manner. The Medieval witch brewed charms in her steaming cauldron under the light of the autumn moon to banish the evil spirits that caused tooth aches. Modern dentists use drills to repair teeth and technology drips from his or her fingertips.

Time Travel Transcends Tooth Terror

But human terror of dentistry is timeless. Patients have an easier time forgetting the present dentist chair when they are time traveling in the past. With the help of the Mesopotamians, Greeks, Romans, and Monks , modern patients can mix barbers, nitrous oxide and modern laser technology in a tangled web of floss that takes time and concentration to unravel . By that time the time traveling is finished, the fear has been faced, and the dentist is finished with his modern dental techniques.

References:

Dentistry, a historical perspective, being a historical account of the history of dentistry from ancient times, with emphasis upon the United States from the colonial to the present period, Milton B. Asbell, Dorrence & Co, 1988.

The Excruciating History of Dentistry: Toothsome Tales and Oral Oddities from Babylon to Braces, James Wynbrandt, St. Martins Griffin, 2000

by Kathy Warnes

Catharine Scott Cummings and her father, James Scott, never dreamed that President Abraham Lincoln would touch their lives and that they would be part of his legacy.

Catharine Scott, the daughter of staunch Yankees James and Sarah Scott, of Peterborough, New Hampshire, was born on December 3, 1842. On December 1,1861, she married Major John A. Cummings of the Sixth New Hampshire Regiment and by August 1862, Confederate sympathizers had buried her on the Potomac shores of Maryland.

Three Wives Journey to Newport News

In July 1862, the Sixth New Hampshire proceeded with other troops to the Peninsula of Virginia and joined General George McClellan in his retreat from the Army of General Robert E. Lee. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Scott was not related to Catharine or her family, but he too, was an officer of the Sixth New Hampshire Regiment and he fell sick with a combination of measles, fever, and black dysentery at Newport News, Virginia. Lieutenant Colonial Charles Scot’s wife, Catharine Scott Cummings the wife of Major Cummings, and the wife of Major Dort, arrived safely at Newport News. His wife’s cheerful presence and careful nursing restored Lt. Colonel Scott to good enough health to be transferred to Washington.

The Scotts, the Cummings, the Dorts and their child, 254 soldiers, and four officers and crew embarked on the steamer West Point on Tuesday, August 11, 1862, to make the voyage down the Potomac from Hampton Roads to Washington, D.C. At Fortress Monroe, the West Point took on 17 men, making a total of about 280 people aboard.

// About 8 o’clock on the night of Wednesday, August 13, 1862, the steamer Peabody collided with the West Point near Ragged Point on the Potomac River.Captain J.E.G. Doyle estimated that she would sink in less than ten minutes. The Peabody was partially disabled and could only help with the small boats. Altogether, about 73 people were killed and 203 people were rescued.

The West Point Sinks and the Wives Are Lost

During the confusion, Lt. Colonel Scott, Major Dort, and Major Cummings became separated from their wives. The steamer crew picked up Lt. Colonel Scott from the water, and he launched a desperate effort to find his wife. Soon, he knew that he had no hope of pulling her alive from the water. The West Point sank in four fathoms of water about one and one half miles from the Maryland shore. A few planks from her decks were all that floated on the surface of the Potomac.

Although the people along the shore sympathized with the Confederacy, they helped Colonel Scott search for his wife’s body. The LaBelle Mirror, a small newspaper, later described the scene: “The grey, sullen river refused to give up its dead and the young officer, half frantic with grief, was compelled to go on to Washington.”

Within a week, Lt. Colonel Scott received word from Hampton Roads that the body of his wife had been washed ashore and the Confederates who found her body had performed the necessary duties and buried her. Before he could leave to claim her body, the War Department issued orders prohibiting all communication with the Peninsula so that important Union military secrets would not be leaked to the Confederacy. Colonel Scott appealed to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton for leave to return to Virginia to claim his wife’s body, and although Secretary Stanton sympathized with Lt. Colonel Scott’s situation, he refused permission.

Soldier Scott Goes Home and Civilian James Scott Goes to Washington

According to the New York Times version of the story, Lt. Colonel Scott returned home to Peterborough, New Hampshire, and James Scott, the father of Catharine Cummings, decided to travel to Washington and get the necessary permission to bring back the bodies of his daughter and Mrs. Charles Scott. He arrived in Washington and sought permission from Secretary of War Stanton to ride down the Potomac on a federal transport so he could search for the bodies.

James Scott knew that President Lincoln was spending Sunday at Soldiers Rest, his retreat cottage a few miles outside of Washington D.C. Scott traveled there and approached the President and the President, weighted down with war worries, impatiently refused his request and told him to go to Secretary Stanton.

Dismayed and disheartened, James Scott returned to his hotel room and later a messenger knocked on the door and told him that the President of the United States was waiting below to see him. James Scott hurried downstairs and he and Lincoln talked like fathers about their wives and children. President Lincoln undoubtedly talked about his son Eddie who died in 1850, and Willie who had just died six months ago in February 1862. When the President got up to leave, he told James Scott to go to Secretary Stanton.

James Scott Brings His Daughter Home

James Scott went to Secretary Stanton again, and Stanton again refused, remarking that President Lincoln was always doing something to demoralize the service. Scott returned to the President and told him what his Secretary of War had said. “Demoralizing the service!” President Lincoln exclaimed.”We will see about it.”

He wrote a mandatory order to Secretary Stanton, requiring him to furnish a pass, transportation to the scene of the disaster, and all necessary assistance to find the bodies. James Scott finally found himself aboard a federal ship cruising the Maryland shore in the vicinity of the wreck of the West Point. He questioned the citizens of the area about where the bodies were buried and finally located them and took them back home to New Hampshire.

The La Belle Mirror concludes its story with a touch of Nineteenth Century sentimentality. “Away up in a New Hampshire church yard there is a certain grave carefully watched and tended by faithful love. But every April time the violets on that mound speak not alone of the womanly sweetness and devotion of her who sleeps below – they are tender and tearful with the memory of the murdered President — the year round.”

References

“Dreadful Disaster on the Potomac”nytimes.com

“Mr. Lincoln’s Humanity” nytimes.com

History of the Town of Peterborough, New Hampshire search.ancestry. com

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by Kathy Warnes

“I can do without the grass that sings, at a pinch, but I must absolutely have the blue bird.” Maurice Maeterlinck, “The Blue Bird”

By July 12, 1940, refugees fleeing war torn Europe were so familiar to United States customs officials in New York City that the drama of two more refugee lives and their possessions didn’t move them. The law was the law and even though the old man and his young and pretty wife seemed nice enough, they weren’t going to make any exceptions and allow them to keep the two caged blue birds that the woman clasped so tightly.

Leading to the Future

The old man, Maurice Maeterlinck, who would to turn 78 on August 29th, knew drama well since he listed playwright in the occupation blank on the immigration documents. He wrote poetry, plays, and essays and had won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. His work centered around the themes of the meaning of life and death and his plays were important parts of the Symbolist movement. Originating in Brussels, Belgium, Symbolism was an idealistic movement that artists discontented with their culture developed by creating a refined, elegant, subtle, intellectual and elitist style of expression centered around symbols like blue birds.

His wife Renee, a beautiful red haired actress, stood next to Maurice, clutching the cage with their beloved blue birds. She had not always been the woman in his life. In 1895, Maeterlinck was still a young man, but he weathered parental disapproval and continued his involvement with married opera singer Georgette Leblanc until 1918.

In 1919, he married Renee Dahon who had acted in his plays. The Maeterlincks sailed from Lisbon, Portugal to New York on the Greek liner Nea Hellas as war refugees. They had lived in Belgium and France until the Nazis occupied both countries and forced them to flee to Portugal, and then to the United States.

“You Must Wait for History to Clarify Itself”

Maeterlinck later told a New York Times reporter that “I knew that if I was captured by the Germans I would be shot at once, since I have always been counted as an enemy of Germany because of my play, “Le Bourgmestre de Stillemonde,” which dealt with the conditions in Belgium during the German Occupation of 1918.”

He told the customs officials that he was virtually penniless because the Nazis had appropriated all of his funds from his Brussels bank. He had nothing left except for the two blue birds and the small royalties on his play, “The Blue Bird.” “The Blue Bird” is the story of a girl named Mytyl and her brother Tylyl who seek happiness with the help of a good fairy Berylune. The symbol of the play is The Blue Bird of Happiness.

“The Blue Bird” premiered on September 30, 1908, at Constantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theater and later was made into several films and a TV series. French composer Albert Wolff wrote an opera based on the original play which was performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1919.

The playwright and poet of brightness and joy, the blue bird of happiness, spoke darkly about the war tragedy that had overwhelmed Europe. “What has happened is catastrophic…You must wait for history to clarify itself.”

Looking to the United States for Help During the First World War after the Germans invaded Belgium, Maeterlinck spoke out passionately in lectures in France and Italy about saving the treasures and culture of Belgium and the other countries that Germany occupied. He wrote that the United States especially held “the fate of our last treasure whose loss would compare among the most serious and irreparable ever suffered by civilized humanity in the course of centuries.” He turned to the United States for assistance and eventually United States doughboys fought alongside French and Belgian troops at Ypres in the First World War.

A quarter of a century later, Maeterlinck once again turned to the United States. This time the customs officials formed a brick wall. If the customs officials had been less entwined in the law they would have gone beyond their words of welcome to Maurice Maeterlinck and his wife. They would have included the two blue birds in their greetings. They didn’t include the two blue birds because a United States law existed that said blue birds were not allowed to be brought into the country. Since such a law stood on the books, the customs men would not let the blue birds into the country.

“I Must Absolutely Have the Blue Bird”

The playwright who had written so joyfully about blue birds sighed and tried to change the verdict of the customs inspectors. His sad words about exile and loneliness didn’t soften the hearts of the customs inspectors. They ruled that the Maeterlincks had to dispose of the blue birds before they could enter the United States. Their lives had narrowed down to two blue birds and the agony of giving them away.

Maurice handed the blue birds to the captain of the Nea Hellas and he and Renee walked past the customs agents to their new lives in Manhattan without the blue birds. The Symbolism of the Blue Bird The American lives of the Maeterlinck’s lasted for seven years. They returned to France in 1947, and settled in Nice. Maurice died in 1949, leaving an impressive body of literary work.

References:

Maurice Maeterlinck, Mystic and Dramatist: A Reminiscent Biography of the Man and His Ideas, Patrick Mahony, 1964.

“Maurice Maeterlinck and the Making of Modern Theatre,” Modern Language Review, W.L. Hodson, July 28, 2005.

by Kathy Warnes

Uriah Phillips Levy who was a Jew, joined the American Navy fought the prejudice he encountered, purchased Monticello and began to restore it.

Uriah Phillips Levy was born in Philadelphia on April 22, 1792. By the time he died on March 22, 1862, Levy had been court martialed six times and stricken from the Navy rolls, had his rank restored by the United States government and was buried with full military honors. He had also bought and began to restore, Monticello, the former home of Thomas Jefferson. He spent his entire career combating prejudice against his Jewish origins.

Uriah Phillips Levy Commands the George Washington

Uriah Levy was the son of Michael and Rachel Levy of Philadelphia. When he was eleven, he ran away to sea and served without the consent of his parents, as a cabin boy on coasting vessels. In 1806, when he was fourteen, Levy began a four year apprenticeship under John Coulter, a Philadelphia merchant and ship owner. Coulter placed Levy in the best naval school of Philadelphia for nine months during the 1808 embargo. After his apprenticeship, Levy served as first mate and by October 1811, before he was eighteen, he had made enough money to become part owner of a schooner. The schooner was the George Washington, and Levy took command of her as master.

The George Washington was lost in January 1812 through a mutiny. When Levy went ashore on the Isle of May, his mate and crew ran away with the twenty five hundred Spanish dollars and a cargo of Tenerife wine. Levy was stranded among strangers and was seized by a British press-gang. He succeeded in getting his case before Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane and was released. He worked his way back to American and eventually returned to the West Indies and pursued the pirates who had stolen his cargo. He caught the pirates and took the ringleaders to Boston, Massachusetts where they were hanged.

Uriah Phillips Levy Serves in the United States Navy

At this point in Uriah Levy’s life, the War of 1812 had begun. One its causes was the British Navy’s practice of press-ganging men into its ranks without ascertaining whether or not they were really British citizens. Uriah Levy was now 20 years old and he received an appointment as sailing master in the United States Navy on October 21, 1812.

Levy served on harbor duty until June of 1813, when as a volunteer acting lieutenant, he was assigned to the brig Argus, which carried William Crawford, the American envoy, to France. Levy and William Crawford became friends and Crawford gave him letters of introduction to many distinguished people, including Marquis de Lafayette.

After landing the passengers, the Argus went on a cruise, destroying about five million dollars worth of British shipping. Levy was placed in charge of a valuable prize, and then he was captured by a British frigate in August 1813. He and his shipmates were put in prison and Levy spent sixteen months in English prison.

Levy is Promoted to Lieutenant, but Combats Prejudice of Shipmates

When the War of 1812 ended Levy, along with other officers, asked that his services be recognized by promotion under the rule of the Navy that”masters of extraordinary merit and for extraordinary services may be promoted to lieutenants.”

Levy’s sponsors were Commodore David Porter, Commodore Stephen Decatur, Commodore James Rodgers, and Commodore Charles Stewart. The line officers strongly opposed Levy’s appointment. They claimed that his advancement would demean older shipmen whose promotion it would preclude. Levy received the promotion, but over the next ten years, he had to fight his shipmate’s prejudice against his Jewish ancestry and the fact that he had risen from the ranks. He was court martialed six times and dismissed from the service twice.

In 1816, Levy found himself on board the 74-gun Franklin with Commodore Charles Stewart, the same man who commanded the Constitution when she captured the British ships Cyane and Levant. Levy found the tolerant attitudes of Stewart and his men that had existed for the sailing masters in time of war had changed. Now he was the man who had been promoted to lieutenant in time of peace and a contender in the competition for promotion.

Lt. Levy Saves a Life and the Emperor of Brazil Offers Him a Command

In 1827, Lt. Levy served on the Cyane in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. A press gang seized one of the American seamen enjoying his liberty. The captive sailor spotted Midshipman Moores and called for help. Moores attempt to rescue him and a Brazilian admiral pushed him back. Midshipman Moores knocked the admiral down while another Brazilian officer slashed at Moores with his saber. Lt. Levy stepped in and received the saber slash. A soldier thrust a bayonet in Moores’ side. After that the midshipman told everyone that Lt. Levy had saved his life.

The Emperor of Brazil happened to be visiting the navy yard and saw Levy with his arm in a sling. The Emperor complimented Levy at how well he came to the rescue of his shipmates. The emperor said that he wanted zealous officers like Lt. Levy in his own service and offered the lieutenant command of a new sixty gun Brazilian frigate. Lt. Levy thanked the emperor but refused the offer. He said that he “loved his own service so well that he would rather serve in it as a cabin boy than as a captain in any other service in the world.”

Lt. Uriah Phillips Levy had an exciting adventure in Paris on the Fourth of July, 1833. He had been sent to France as a bearer of dispatches and attended a dinner on the fourth, with General Lafayette the guest of honor. Some of the guests hissed and groaned at one of the toasts which saluted “Andrew Jackson, President of the United States.” Lt. Levy struck one of the hissing guests in the face with his glove and challenged two others to duels. The offenders preferred to apologize.

Lt. Levy Attempts to Obtain a Naval Command

In 1844 Commander Levy was promoted to a post-captaincy, and he spent the next ten years trying to obtain a command. His public service during this time was unofficial and indirect assistance in abolishing flogging in the navy. Through the years his applications for a command were pigeonholed. When war with Mexico was declared in 1846, he appealed to be allowed to serve his country. His appeals were ignored. A few years later, a potato famine occurred in Ireland and the United States government decided to send a ship load of provisions to relieve the Irish people. Captain Levy applied to command the ship, offering to devote his pay to charity. The government also ignored this request.

In 1855 the Shubrick Board or Commission of Fifteen was formed by the United States Navy. It held secret meetings and dismissed the people it chose. Levy was one of the people it dismissed. In September, 1855, without warning the commodore received this letter from the Secretary of the Navy informing him that he had been stricken from Navy rolls.

// Lt. Levy Defends Himself Before the Court of Inquiry

He defended himself before the Court of Inquiry in 1857 and his rank was restored. He received a command and became flag officer of the Mediterranean Squadron. In 1858 he commanded the Macedonian during a cruise in the Mediterranean as flag officer of the squadron. In an ironic historical twist, his old ship, the United States, had captured the Madeonian from the British early in the War of 1812, about 600 miles west of the Canary Islands. After the battle, the Macedonian was taken into the United States Navy.

The United States later became the first ship to be taken into the Confederate Navy in April 1861 after the Confederarcy took over the Norfolk Navay Yard. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Levy was 69 years old. He offered his services to President Lincoln, but was politely refused.

Uriah Phillips Levy Purchases Monticello and Bequeaths it to the Nation

Uriah Phillips Levy had married his wife Virginia, late in life. Besides his family, his passion was Monticello, the home of former President Thomas Jefferson, which he had purchased in 1836. Levy died in New York City on March 22, 1862, and was buried with full naval honors. He bequeathed Monticello to the nation, but his will was contested and the estate passed to his heirs.

Jefferson M. Levy Restores Monticello

One of his heirs was New York Congressman Jefferson M. Levy. Jefferson M. Levy bought off the other heirs and restored Monticello which had fallen into disrepair. The efforts of Levy and his heir Jefferson Levy made it possible for the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation to acquire Monticello and 640 acres of adjacent land in 1923. The Foundation dedicated it as a national shrine on July 4, 1926, the 100th anniversary of Jefferson’s death.

The Levy’s Contribution to American History

American historians have ignored Uriah Phillips Levy or given him mixed reviews. The Dictionary of American biography notes that “despite his sensitiveness, vanity, and occasional insubordination, Levy was a courageous and humane officer and a fervid patriot.”

The career of Uriah Phillips Levy wasn’t as well known as that of Alfred Dreyfus in France, but the impact of prejudice on his life was just as enduring and his purchase and restoration of Monticello invaluable

References

Donovan Fitzpatrick, Navy Maverick: Uriah Phillips Levy, Doubleday 1st Edition, 1963.

Marc Leepson, Saving Monticello: The Levy Family’s Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built, University of Virginia Press, 2003.

by Kathy Warnes

Romans fashioned holly into bright wreaths,

Honored Saturnia with its green leaves,

Christians decorated both hearth and home

With holly to avoid the wrath of Rome.

As Christian numbers began to increase,

They removed holly from the Roman feast,

Using it to decorate instead,

The stable and the Christ Child’s manger bed.

Druids wove holly in their hair to go

In the woods with priests cutting mistletoe.

British farmers draped holly on beehives,

And the bees hummed the Christ Child lullabies.

Germans used holly from church as a charm

To keep lightning strikes from doing harm.

They believed that holly on the bedpost,

Would entice sweet dreams to satisfy most.

Germans brewed a strong holly elixir,

To sooth a sore throat and a cough to cure.

These customs – both fortunate and folly,

Explain “deck the halls with boughs of holly.”

Today, holly signifies joy and peace,

I wish you holly that will never cease!

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