Month: September 2012

Travels through History

Jamestown:  The first permanent Colony of the English People.  The Birthplace of Virginia and the United States of America,  1607

I spent the weekend visiting my cousins in Williamsburg.  One afternoon was devoted to Colonial National Historical Park: Jamestown.  A large African American park ranger named Jerome showed us around.  He told us the three most important facts about Jamestown were:  it was the first permanent settlement of the English in the New World (1607); the first representative assembly talks took place in 1619 where 22 elected burgesses met in the church; and the first Africans arrived in 1619.   Therefore concluding that this very spot was the birthplace of the great country – The United States of America.

I had a small chuckle over this one since, of course, part of this great history was that the Native population was virtually killed off pretty quickly and by 1690 there were 9,300 enslaved Africans among a white population of 53,000.  But why dwell on the negative?

These crazy Englishmen set up camp on an island with a swamp on one side and a salty river on the other.  No fresh water.  The swamp provided lovely benefits such as malaria and typhoid.  By 1609 there were about 300 men living on this island, fighting off skirmishes from the Powhatan tribes.  That winter was particularly rough and at the end of it only 60 survived.  But they didn’t give up.  Ninety unmarried women arrive in 1619 to boost morale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also learned that the 12 year old Pocahontas did not have an affair with the 27 year old John Smith (despite what Disney says).  But they did probably know each other.  The settlers eventually figured it all out and started growing tobacco.  They were soon rich farmers with a huge market and very few expenses.  John Rolfe cultivated a strain of tobacco that was pleasing to the English.  He used seed he had obtained from Trinidad since the local variety was deemed too harsh.  John Rolfe was the man who married Pocahontas.

 

 

 

Pocahontas as Rebecca, married English woman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Up until 1994, it was believed that the site had been reclaimed by the river and was lost under water.  An archeologist by the name of William Kelso did not believe it.  According to historical documents, the church was built inside the fort.  The church tower remained on the island in clear site.  In 1994, Mr. Kelso took a shovel to the site and soon found artifacts, bones, and evidence of the exact area where the walls of the fort were built.  Today you can see them reconstructed in the very holes the men dug 400 years ago.  William Kelso became an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire at a ceremony at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, in July 2012.

 

The Eclectics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rush Medical College opened in 1843 in Chicago, IL, with 22 students.  The school was named for Dr Benjamin Rush, who signed the Declaration of Independence and was known as the Father of American Psychiatry.  A doctor with “Rush” training was highly respected on the prairie of the American West during the 19th century.

At that time there were a lot of quacks running around hawking their wares and promising instant miracle cures.  Anybody could call themselves a doctor and many did, selling ointments, salves, and other concoctions made from turpentine, creosote, and even heroin.  However, the mainstream doctors at the time weren’t much better.  Their course of action was bleeding, purging, and blistering.  No wonder people turned to the quacks.

There was another arm of the medical profession.  The Native American Indian used herbal, homeopathic medicine.  Some physicians known as “Eclectics” followed this tradition and relied on herbs and other home remedies.  This movement existed from 1825 to 1939.  The leaders of the movement were interested in researching all possibilities and were never able to nail down a certain methodology.  Therefore they eventually ceased to exist but their approach was popular with the people and helped to change the medical profession.

Due to the French and other explorers, by the year 1830 there was a large catalogue of plants with information on their medicinal uses.  These Eclectics, or reformers, who rejected the lancet and mercury, had plants growing on the American prairie readily at their disposal.

Although my Great Grandfather graduated from the Rush Medical College in 1891, he is listed as an “Eclectic Physician” in the Iowa State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1882-1883.  It seems he received his more formal training later in life.  It is too bad his life was cut short because I it sounds like he was good at what he did.

“Dr J. C. Beard died on Monday morning, September 5, 1892, after a long illness, at the home of his father in Washington Township.  He was aged 37 years, 2 months and three days.  Dr Beard was born July 2, 1855.  He was brought up in Ringgold County.  He read medicine in the office of Dr S Bailey of this place, and in March 1891 graduated in the Rush Medical College at Chicago.  In 1888 he married Miss Howell, daughter of W.I.F. Howell.  He practiced for a time at Lyons, Kansas, but since last May, at Tingley, Iowa.  He fell prey to tuberculosis.  It had been making insidious progress for years though serious symptoms have been developed more recently.   Dr Beard gave promise of taking high rank in his profession, being a good student and possessing in a marked degree the aptitudes essential to success.  He was a self-possessed and well poised character, and made himself available to all.  His most intimate friends knew him to be clear headed, posessing good habits and principles.  He leaves a wife and four children, three daughters and one son.  The wife, father and friends have much sympathy in their loss.  The community feels that a life of great promise has been cut short.  The funeral took place Tuesday, September 6 from his father’s home, and the services were conducted by Rev. BD Himebaugh and the remains were buried in the north cemetery.”

I had to look up “insidious” since it didn’t seem to fit.

In-sid-i-ous

Adjective:

  1. Proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects.
  2. Treacherous; crafty.

But now that I think about it both definitions could fit in this context.

As an aside, the photo is not of my Great Grandfather.  I could not find a photo of him.  This photo is of his parents, my great, great, grandparents. My great great grandfather, Alexander, died at age 77, seven years later. His claim to fame was being an elected official and moving to 5 different cities across Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa.  His wife is Miss Harriet Jones whose “people” came to New Hampshire from England in the early 1600’s.

You might also like: Expat Pioneers

The Dream

There are sometimes when you sink slowly into a soft chair and sigh and stare. Stare away into space, drifting slowly in the unknown, into the wall in front of you.  But you don’t see the wall.  Your eyes are blind while your mind imagines things far away.  Pictures, images, flowing on and on solidifying as they go forming stories…

It’s a pretty nice day.  You start laughing.  People all around you, people you like.  Playing cards or trying to. Smoking cigarettes.  More people.  You want to move.  Dark clouds slowly appear and surround you emptying themselves noisily, flashing out at you in a split second.  The lightening touches a telephone pole, people start to panic, but it isn’t real.  The pictures of the mind not letting you see.  Seemingly worthless pieces of cloth weigh you down as you manipulate your body outside the door.  Wandering picture by picture up the pavement into the lush green, colorful mountains where you see for miles and the trees make patterns in the distance.  Rolling in the grass and laughing.  Water seeping through onto every part of your body.  You don’t even notice.  You fall into a ditch and can’t stop laughing.  Roses.  Wet, rainbow roses watching you.  They are magnetic, you kill them and take them home watching them all the way, skipping, running, trudging.  The sun is coming out.

The room is a mess.  trunks on beds, toilet paper everywhere, shoes on the ceiling.  People walking around inside not seeming to notice.  running up the road there is nothing you can do.  You run around making noise and lose yourself.  You sit on the steps watching the rain and the trees in the distance.  Beings cleaning up the room, painting themselves, putting on their best clothes.  Prom night and you think you should throw a dress on.  Which dress? Orange brown butterfly dress.

Floating through the dining room wishing you were someplace else. The bathroom lights are bright, somebody hands you something, you take it.  The water tastes good.  You wonder what it is but don’t really care.  Everybody is dancing and dancing and things start getting wild and so do you.  You are the last to get home, stumbling in. They are talking about the lizards.  They’ve been watching them all night playing in the rafters.  Friendly little things.   It reminds you of the airport in Milan after a long trip that wasn’t quite over.

Things slowly come into focus, the wall is there in front of you and everything is like it was before or seems to be as far as you can remember but you don’t really think about it.  You just pull yourself up and move along.

El Grito de Dolores

Some people think Cinco de Mayo is Mexican Independence day.  The date Cinco de Mayo represents happened 40 years after independence from Spain.

September 16, 1810, was the day the revolution began.  Mexico did not gain independence from Spain until September 27, 1821.  However, the day they celebrate is September 16, El Grito de Dolores.  Literally translated this means the Shout of Pain.  This is wrong.  Dolores was the name of the town where Miguel Hidalgo was about to be arrested for planning a revolt.  Instead of waiting for them to come take him away, he rang the church bells and rallied the townspeople into taking up arms then and there.  This was the spark that spread across Mexico to eventually end in independence.

Viva Mexico!

An Englishwoman in India

An Englishwoman in India

The Memoirs of Harriet Tytler

1828-1858

Edited by Anthony Sattin

Harriet wrote her memoirs when she was in her late 70’s.  She was a Victorian woman and represented her class and period well.

Her grandfather and uncle were prisoner’s of war in France under Napoleon.  Her grandmother and mother lived nearby for 15 years so the family could be together.   After the battle of Waterloo, they were released and returned to England.  That is where her mother met her father while he was on furlough from India.

Harriet was born in 1828 to a British military family in India.  At 11 years old, as was common practice at the time, she was shipped off to England with two younger siblings to continue her education.  When they landing in England their clothes were so outdated everybody laughed at them.  Her brother was immediately sent on to boarding school where two older brothers were waiting for him.  She and her sister lived with a family they had never met before for about a year, until her aunt came to collect them.  Her aunt was strict and cruel and Harriet hated every minute of her time there.

At seventeen she started her journey back to India to be reunited with her parents who she had not seen for 6 years.  She traveled by steamer and by land until she reached Aden just off the Red Sea.  The group traveling with her were friendly and she had a happy time.  At Aden she received a letter from her brother-in-law in India and feared her sister was sick.  It was worse, her father was dead.  When she finally reached Calcutta, there was nobody to meet her.  She saw her mother two weeks later only to discover that she was on her way back to England with the younger children.  Harriet was to stay with another aunt and uncle who was serving the in Punjab Campaign.

At 19, she met and married Robert Tytler, a Captain in the British Army who was also a widower with two children.

This woman did not have an easy life.

On May 11, 1857, she was living in Delhi, eight months pregnant with two small children at home.  That was the day of the Great Sepoy Mutiny.  The “Sepoy” was the Indian soldier serving in the British Army.

Harriet writes:

“It is wonderful to think how unanimous they were, Hindus and Mohammedans, in the one object of exterminating the hateful Christian in India.  On this occasion the Mohammedans and Hindus were one, their bitter antagonism to each other, which had always been our safeguard so far, was for the time overcome.  The gullible Hindus, two to one in each regiment, firmly believed Prithee Rai’s raj would return and then they would be masters of India.  The wily Mohammedans, who were using these poor deluded men as a cat’s paw, encouraged the belief, knowing all along that they would soon find their mistake, for the Mohammedan meant to reign by the edge of his sword, which would also be used to proselytize the poor idol worshippers.”

However Philip Mason notes in the Introduction: “Harriet, of course, like everyone else, has heard of the cartridges (smeared with pork and beef fat) but does not seem to have known that the original offensive cartridges were withdrawn (therefore confirming that the rumor was true).  Like every other young wife in India at the time, she thinks that the Mutiny was a deep-laid plot, instigated by the sons of the king and spread by wicked Muslims who played on the fears of the simple gullible Hindus.”

Harriet ran for her life that day.  She, pregnant, with her two children, 2 and 4 years old, eventually loaded themselves onto an already overloaded carriage and rode hard out of town.  Her husband riding back and forth checking on other people.  The carriage broke to pieces.  They found another one, it also broke down.  They ended up walking to the next outpost where luckily there was no uprising.

Eventually the British took back Delhi.  Harriet bore 10 children, 8 of whom lived, and spent the rest of her life an expat in India.  She died in 1907 at the age of 79.

 

Photo credit:  Richard Collier