Walking the Berkshires

Once More Into the Breach, Prince Hal

Prince Harry is no longer in country, as news of his deployment to Afghanistan leaked out despite a brokered blackout deal with the international press.  There were fears that the Prince, third in line to the throne after his father Prince Charles and elder brother William, would be a target for the Taliban.  Once again, Matt Drudge leaked the story. 

The British Royals have an honorable tradition of military service - Prince Andrew flew helicopters in the Falklands and the future George VI served as a 20-year-old midshipman during the Battle of Jutland.  Prince Harry, a Cornet with the Blues and Royals in the Household Cavalry, may take some small comfort in the fact that there is historical precedent for insurgents targeting heirs to the British throne while on military service.  My ancestor tried it during the Revolution.

Col. Matthias Ogden, elder brother to my direct ancestor Aaron Ogden, was back in New Jersey at the head of his regiment after the victory at Yorktown.   It was then that he proposed a daring scheme to Washington to capture Prince William Henry, 16-year old son of George III and then serving as a midshipman with Admiral Digby in New York. 

Ogden's plan required a dark rainy night and four whaleboats with muffled oars.  Leading a small force consisting of a captain, subaltern, three sergeants and 36 men, they would cross from the Jersey shore and land at a wharf not far from the Hanover Street lodgings of the Admiral and the Prince.  They would seize Prince William Henry and the Admiral and withdraw to the boats, with a rearguard to keep the enemy clear until all were embarked.   

It was the sort of audacious plan that would have appealed to Benedict Arnold, with whom Col. Ogden had marched to Quebec at the start of the war and later served with on Lake Champlain.  It also appealed to Washington, who wrote:

To Col[onel] Ogden of the 1 Jersey Regiment

Sir,

The spirit of enterprise so conspicuous in your plan for surprising in their quarters, & bringing off the Prince-William Henry & Admiral Digby, merits applause; and you have my authority to make the attempt in any manner, & at such a time as your own judgment shall direct.

I am fully perswaded, that it is unnecessary to caution you against offering insult or indignity to the persons of the Prince, or Admiral should you be so fortunate as to capture them; but it may not be amiss to press the propriety of a proper line of conduct upon the party you command.

In case of success, you will, as soon as you get them to a place of safety, treat them with all possible respect, but you are to delay no time in conveying them to Congress, & reporting your proceedings with a copy of these orders.

Given at Morristown this 28th day of March 1782.
Go: Washington

Note Take care not to touch upon the ground w[hi]ch is agreed to be Neutral – viz from Raway to Newark & four miles back.

Contingency is the bane of the bold stroke.  Washington wrote Ogden on April 2nd;

"After I wrote to you from Morris Town, I received information that the Sentries at the doors of Sir Henry Clinton's quarters were doubled at Eight O clock every night from the apprehension of an attempt to surprize him in them. If this be true it is more than probable the same precaution extends tends to other personages in the City of New York, a circumstance I thought it proper for you to be advertized of."

Nothing then came of the plan, though in later life when the US Minister to Great Britain had occasion to show Washington's letter authorizing his boyhood capture to King William IV, the sovereign remarked;

"I am obliged to General Washington for his humanity, but I'm damn'd glad I did not give him an opportunity of exercising it towards me."

One imagines that the Taliban would not have been so humane, though I doubt Mr. Drudge had the Prince's health and well-being in mind when he leaked the story.  Loose lips, old chap.

Island in Winter

It is going to dive down toward negative territory tonight in the Litchfield Hills.  I remember cold like that on a Christmas morning when it got so bad we seriously thought about bringing my sister's pony up from the empty barn and into the back wood room of our house. 32 degrees below zero is downright unfriendly weather and one tends to have uncharitable thoughts about the season.

Back in 1990 I spent New Years week on Monhegan Island out in the Gulf of Maine, and got to see that familiar island in winter.  The little summer cottages on Dead Man's Cove were dark and empty, and the rising tide sucked the snow from the rocky shore.  We stayed in a heated apartment and pitched in with the Islanders as they prepared for Trap Day, the traditional launch of Monhegan's lobster season, now established by law but then enforced by custom.  I rode out that morning with Doug Boynton and my friend Chris Koerber who was Dougie's stern-man and the swells and the stench of the bait were beyond description and I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Monhegan still had deer back then, before they got too numerous and were removed to protect the island ecology.  The parasitic dwarf mistletoe infestation  was starting to spread in the spruce forest but had not yet had the impact that it would in the coming decade.  I skated with my Mom on the Ice Pond which I had never seen in its frozen form before.  As always in winter, the human population shrinks to a few dozen year-rounders and a handful of others like ourselves with warm homes to return to elsewhere. 

When the sun came out, the low angle light on the long grass of the cemetery was breathtaking with the whitecaps and blue water beyond.  I loved the days that were leached of color, all gray skies and steely water and white frosting on the dark shore.  To endure a winter out here takes more than most would hazard, but to sojourn for a time was to see with fresh eyes.  I will try to see with them again on this cold winter night in Connecticut when the marrow in my very bones wants to curse the cold and dark.

The Cutting Edge of Fashion: The Hairdress

It used to be that hair shirts were just for penitents.  After this, everyone's going to want one. The most talked about design at this year's London College of Fashion Awards was the hairdress.

Yes, made entirely from human hair.

Pity that the designer did not choose to accessorize with jewelry made from nail parings.  Now that would have made a statement.

CWCID: Baron von Bulldog

White-nose Syndrome Threatens Northeastern Bats

One of the scary things about the emergence of a virulent new epidemic that is new is how little we know about its causes and how little time there is to act to contain its spread.  Even with outbreaks where the causes and treatments are understood by science, it is generally true that the longer the lag between detection and response, the more costly the remedy and the less likely it will lead to complete eradication. 

This is true not only for the diseases of humans but also those pests and pathogens that affect plants and animals.  The spread of what is being called "White-Nose Syndrome" to more than a dozen bat caves in three northeastern states is a current case in point.

"White-nose syndrome was first discovered last January in caves in eastern New York. Last year, between 8000-11,000 bats died in New York-- the largest die-off of bats due to disease documented in North America."

Thousands of bats have sicked this year as the disease has been detected in an additional cave in the eastern Berkshires, and two more in the southern Green Mountains of Vermont.  Bats overwinter in large communal groups, sometimes numbers tens of thousands of individuals, but in relatively few places around the northeast.  Mortality rates have exceeded 90% in some of the affected caves.  Four species are known to be affected, including the endangered Indian Bat which had been making a comeback in the Northeast.   Little brown bats seem to be taking the hardest hit.

The implications of a massive bat die off could be substantial, given their role in insect control.  Moths and beetles in particular could have a greater impact on crop damage without the predation provided by bats.

The problem is that so little is known about what is causing the die-off.  The Boston Globe reports; "Scientists do not yet know if the fungus is a cause of the illness or an effect. Some of the sick bats behaved oddly, clustering near the entrance of New York caves, flying in winter when they should have been sleeping and crashing into snow banks."  Many but not all of the caves where the disease has been found are popular with cavers, and State and Federal wildlife agencies have called for spelunkers to avoid caves where bats hibernate ti prevent possible contamination.  The Northeast Cave Conservancy has responded by closing all its caves to visitation until May 15th.

Fungi of the genus Fusarium that are widely distributed in soil and associated with plants have been identified with the bat disease.  New York DEC wildlife pathologist Ward Stone hypothesizes that affected bats have weakened immune systems due in part to climate change.  This is by no means a certainty, as the counter argument provided in this thread posted on a caving forum illustrates.  It is possible that there is a combination of stressors at work, as many bats appear to die of dehydration after using up their fat reserves in unusual winter activity. 

In the second year of a new outbreak, hard data is difficult to find and it is prudent to err on the side of caution.   

More:  Welcome Oekologie XV readers!

Fit to be Untied and Other Presidential Precidents

My mother will doubtless find the fact that her famously fashion averse son is posting on men's formal wear most amusing.  Then again, I have always had a thing for hats - the more outlandish the better - a trait I share with my father.   I am probably one of the very few who would approve if Sioux warbonnets became de rigour corporate attire, though perhaps poultry feathers could be substituted for those of endangered eagles.  I must say Silent Cal looks absolutely striking in his adopted native finery.

I got on the subject of presidents and men's fashion in response to "Turbangate."  Tigerhawk alerted me that conservative über-blogger Michelle Malkin seems to be downplaying the significance of a photo of Barak Obama in traditional Somali dress by offering a range of "politicians going native" images including Coolidge in feathers, Laura Bush seated next to a woman in a burqa and George W. Bush with a scimitar.  Inspired, I went searching on-line for a picture I am sure exists of JFK in a headdress but came up short.  What I found instead was probably even more astonishing. 

It turns out that Kennedy did not kill the US hat industry.

This claim has been repeated so often as to have achieved conventional wisdom status.  Kennedy, the story goes, appeared hatless at his 1961 inaugural and in so doing sounded the death knell for what had previously been considered a required component of proper men's attire.  Except that he did  in fact wear his silk topper for most of the ceremony, and even revived the custom after Ike took to wearing a Homburg and rode hatless to his own inaugural in 1953. True, Kennedy didn't wear hats much, but though he may have accelerated it he did not start the bareheaded trend which was well underway in the previous decade.  White gloves went out of fashion in the 1960s, too, but nobody tries to pin that on Pat Nixon.

There are some haberdashers who fear a similar correlation between a decline in men's necktie's and Barak Obama, who often appears without one.  One very sensible hatter doubts the relationship has any more validity than JFK's impact on the hat industry, but also predicts that if Obama does make it to the Oval Office conventional wisdom will link his aversion to neck wear to its overall decline.

Now I will let you in on a little secret about ties.  A vertical stripe breaks up an expansive torso.  There are plenty of men who are not in fighting trim that may dislike neckties but are grateful for that effect when getting dressed up is required.  It is that, or wear an open vest to hide the love handles.  So I doubt that ties are completely doomed, regardless of whether Barak Obama likes to wear them or not.

Meanwhile, I'm holding out for capes to make a comeback.  I assure you, I am more than prepared for this eventuality.

Time to Vote: Family Archive Caption Contest #14

The nominees have been selected, and the ballot is in your hands.  Which of the following should win the 14th Family Archive Caption Contest here at Walking the Berkshires?  Polls close Friday p.m., March 7th. Cast your vote below.

1.  Clara's travels suffered somewhat
     By camel with a musical butt
    “But some people thinks
     the music, it sphynx
     it blows toots uncommon, so what?”

2.  I'd walk a camel for a smile." (variation on an old radio ad theme)

3.  I don't care how economical it is, Edgar. I want the Buick saloon.

4.  Tell the guide, if I can wear black in the desert sun, I don't see why it should make the camel sweat...

Opinion Polls & Market Research

"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing"

Strange Maps discovers all the world in a song.

The discussion thread is as fascinating as the map itself.  One reader observes that "the notes South of the Cape of Good Hope... sound like winds, blowing strongly where the oceans meet."

Discussing the map's creator, a musically literate reader comments;

"Mr. Plakovic does appear to have harmonized the various voices. The resulting music if played appropriately by an orchestra would no doubt be busy, but it’s unfair to suggest that it is not properly harmonic. (It opens on a strong C major chord, an F maj7 appears in the middle of Russia and China, repeated around the Great Lakes, etc.) The vertical bars, aside from roughly representing meridians, are essential in written music, and thus are quite appropriate visually and musically. Cheers to Mr. Plakovic for the extra effort that makes this something quite clever rather than a mere novelty."

Another observes; "It’s visual art. The artist writes that he is “not very knowledgeable about music theory.” The audio files on his site are not in any way realizations of the notation they’re sitting next to."

Not that that kept yet one more reader from reproducing the music as an eSnip Mp3.  Be patient with the download and hear for yourself.  The ending may seem abrupt, but remember that the score is in map notation, Mercator projection, no less.  It should ideally be played in a continuous loop, like the revolving sphere it represents.

"She Walks Looks And Drives Like An Ace Now"

My Barker ancestors had better rides than I do.  Thanks to my 2nd cousin Karen who provided this image, I know the make and approximate model year of these sweet wheels.  Do you?

In related news, time is running out to submit your caption for the crone on the camel.

Invisible Men

Here is an image with much to tell about matters of race and memory in contemporary America.  I am confident that just a few years ago, its subject matter - a black American soldier menacing a fallen white enemy with a bayonet - would have been deemed too provocative and risky for a venerable manufacturer of high end toy soldiers to bring to an American market.  Yet last year, the 115-year-old W. Britains company did just that.

True confessions time, here.  I am a collector of matte finished toy soldiers in this scale and from this company, though I concentrate on the American Civil War period and not, as it is known in the international collector trade, the American War of Independence.  This is a reflection of the expense of this hobby and lack of display space rather than lack of interest in other periods.  Sometimes I think the ideal job for me would be dioramist in residence at some well endowed and indulgent museum.  I've had this interest since I was in kindergarten.

I was prompted to think about this two-figure set from Britains AWI range while engaged in this thread at  Civil War Memory.  Kevin Levin's special area of interest is Petersburg's Battle of the Crater.  He and some of his readers drew attention to the utter absence of the many black soldiers who fought there from depictions of this battle marketed by Conte Collectibles, another high end toy soldier company and one I have patronized in the past.  Conte also has an extensive plastic play set business and its Civil War range represents the Crater.  Although Conte has produced four excellent African American figures from the colored 54th Massachusetts infantry regiment, none of these are reproduced in plastic and are not included part of the 192 figures in its Crater play set, or Conte's other two plastic play sets compatible with this item.

Another true confession.  I own hundreds of these matte finished ACW toy soldiers after a decade of collecting, and yet I have yet to purchase either Conte's 54th MA figures or the few (inferior) sculpts of this unit produced a number of years ago by W. Britains when it was under different ownership.  It is not that I do not like them - Ken Osen, who now is head sculptor for W. Britians, did the Conte figures and they are excellent - but there was always another group of toy soldiers that I wanted more, and I rationalize waiting on these because there were fewer situations when I could deploy them in a diorama, as colored troops came into active service at the midpoint in the war.  Since this collection is a substantial drain on my discretionary income, I've had to make hard choices about what investments to make.

These justifications don't really cut it.  I don't have the space to set up the dioramas of my dreams and the figures are many ranks deep in an upstairs bookcase in my home.  At the very heart of the matter, this collection is an expensive adult hobby playing out a boyhood fantasy, and none of my toy Civil War soldiers (or playmates) back then were black, either.  Except for a brief period when I was a teen-aged Civil War Reenacter in a Confederate cavalry troop based in upstate New York, my orientation has always been toward the Union perspective. But I am still left with a quandary and second guessing my excuses.

I cannot speak for others who collect these kinds of figures.  I do know that the ACW period tends to do well in markets East of the Mississippi and has less of a draw elsewhere.  I can only assume that the vast majority of collectors are male and with sufficient disposable income to lay out the considerable sums required every year to feed this rather addictive habit.   The only colored regiment from the American Civil War that the general public is aware of is the 54th Massachusetts, made famous by the movie "Glory", and that is why it alone is represented in the small number of figures available that depict black soldiers.  And though I am an exception, as a rule there is far more interest both the reenacting and the toy soldier collecting communities in confederate subject matter.

The American War of Independence, on the other hand, has a stronger international market for toy soldier collectors, particularly in the British Commonwealth.  I do not know the sales generated for W. Britians by the three figures of the 1st Rhode Island Light Infantry, a unit brigaded with the New Jersey troops commanded by my ancestor Elias Dayton at Yorktown, but they clearly were seen as appropriate subject matter.   The light company of this regiment, which these figures actually depict, was part of Lafayette's command and fought in the assault of Redoubt #10 along with my ancestor Aaron Ogden.   The regiment had several segregated companies of black, mulatto and Indian soldiers, thought African American soldiers were integrated in some regiments and militia companies during the war. Others fought for their freedom in British and Hessian units.

Collectors of British military figures, particularly those depicting the Victorian era, are accustomed to  depictions of Tommy Atkins facing racially diverse adversaries.  W. Britains has a new Zulu War line in both traditional glossy and matte finish that looks to be extremely popular with collectors.  The Zulu line in particular takes great pains to accurately depict the various regiments in Cetshwayo's' impis without round-eyed caricature.  I would love to collect these figures, but I do not.  I stick with the American Civil War.  It is not worth risking a divorce by expanding my habit to other periods and the size of my collection thereby.

So we come back to the question of why the Civil War regiments on my shelves are still monochrome when there are several appropriate figures available to represent those African Americans who fought in blue?  And would spending the $90 bucks or so it would take to rectify that omission really buy me indulgence?  I am sure it is not so simple, though I am left uneasy about its implications.  What we learn from our innocent play as children creates assumptions and blind spots that even as reflective adults we may not readily recognize. When I played "Civil War" as a boy, I did so in my own image.  Perhaps it is that simple. All I know for sure is that this stuff is hard.

Where There's A Williman, There's A Way: Another Tory In The Family

I wrote last Spring about divided loyalties in a branch of our family during the American Revolution, our first Civil War.  Now I find evidence of another Tory in the family tree.  This time, it is the story of a direct ancestor about whom very little was previously known. 

In 1975 my Great Aunt Margie compiled a pedigree that lists Christopher Williman as my 5th Great-Grandfather in the Gracie branch of the Ogden Line. He was born February 14th, 1748; came to South Carolina in 1766 after first arriving in Philadelphia from Europe; and was married on April 11, 1771 in Charleston, S.C. to a woman supposed to have been named Mary Walker.  Beyond that, Christopher Williman remained a mystery.

When I started looking up ancestors a couple of weeks ago who might have owned slaves, I found a great deal of information on-line in the records maintained by Siegbert Frick and Carl W. Nichols on the Early German Settlers of South Carolina.  This well documented site opened my eyes to the emigration of significant numbers of German and Swiss settlers to South Carolina in the decades before the Revolution:

"Between the years 1730 and 1766 the Colonial government of South Carolina actively encouraged immigration of foreign Protestants to the Province.  Appreciable numbers of immigrants from Germany began to arrive in the 1740s.  The year 1752 represented the peak of the migration with an estimated 1800 German settlers who arrived on several ships in the fall of that year... It has been estimated that by the year 1765 there were 7500-8000 Germans and German-Swiss who had come to the province of South Carolina."

My ancestor and his family arrived at the very end of this period.  Frick and Nichols' "Auswanderer" site offers a trove of biographical information on two brothers, Jacob Johann Willemann (b. 1742) and Johann Christoph Willemann (1748), based on records including those of St. John's Lutheran Church in Charleston and the German Friendly Society, organized in 1766 by a vestryman of St. John's as a charitable and social organization.  Here I learned that the Willemann brothers were from Eppingen, Baden-Württemberg, a state in southwest Germany.  Their parents were Georg Willemann, a Catholic originally from Katzenbach, and Anna Maria Dieffenbacher.  Johann Christoph Willemann is clearly my ancestor Christopher Williman, although the date of birth given here is January 23, 1748.

His wife's name is another surprise.  His wife was also of German heritage, and while it was passed down in Anglicized form as "Mary Walker", she was actually named Maria Walther and her father had come to South Carolina in 1744 as an indentured servant.  St. John's records the births of seven Williman children in this family, and the fourth was my ancestor Margaret, born 2/11/1782).  Her date of birth is significant, for the fortunes of the family were greatly altered by the war and the British occupation of Charleston. 

The British were in firm control of Charleston in March of 1782 when the South Carolina General Assembly,  meeting in Jacksonboro, published a list of Tories whose estates were subject to confiscation.  The Charleston Royal Gazette, a loyalist paper, printed the full list that was provided to it by the rebel government.  The Tories named on the list were divided into six classes, ranging from British subjects holding property and having never submitted to the American Government to those considered "Obnoxious Persons."  Among those listed as Class II Tories, "Such of the former inhabitants of this Country, as presented congratulatory addresses to Sir Henry Clinton and Admiral Arbuthnot", is Christopher Williman.

It was a tantalizing piece of information.  The Class II description makes it seem as if he had already been evicted or was in exile.  I wanted to know what circumstances had lead him to make such an address to the British and how it worked out that he and his family remained in South Carolina after the war.  I had already learned that in the 1790 census he was listed as the head of a household with 5 free whites and 57 black slaves.

Through the magic of an Internet key word search , I discovered a 2007 PhD dissertation by a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan entitled; Reconciling the Revolution: Resolving Conflict and Rebuilding Community in the Wake of Civil War in South Carolina 1775-1860.  In its pages I found reference to a petition made by Christopher Williman before the newly constituted South Carolina House of Representatives for relief from the Estate Confiscation Act of 26 February, 1782. Intrigued, I looked for a copy of these state records, and much to my delight was able to pick up a new, hardbound copy of the Journals of the SC House of Representatives for the years 1783-1784.  I got it from Powell's Books for $6.00, plus $3.99 shipping (probably not a big seller).  A week later, my newest primary source addition to the family archive arrived, and this is what I found:

"22 January 1783 - "The Petition of Christopher Williman Setting forth That he has been an Inhabitant of this Country for 16 years and demeaned himself a good Citizen.  That while he was Collecting Cattle in the year 1780, he was taken prisoner by the British and Confined, that having Suffered much in heath by reason of the Confinement, and threatened with prosecutions for Cattle he had Impressed for the Garrison, he at length became a British Subject.  That he has ever beheld the misfortunes of his Country with unbounded Sympathy and his Constant attention was for the relief of his fellow Citizens in distress.  That he has a numerous young family And is warmly attached to this country.  That he never borne Arms against nor intentionally offended this State, and prays for relief from the pains and penalties of an Act entitled 'an Act for disposing of Certain Estates &ca."

The British laid siege to Charleston (for the second time in the war) from February 11 to May 12, 1780.  It would seem from his testimony that Williman was captured with cattle he was foraging for the besieged garrison. The British took over 5,466 combatant's prisoner when the city fell, and many of these later died of disease.  Christopher Williman's confinement would not have been under much better conditions, and as a private citizen one can imagine the pressure he reportedly felt to come to an accommodation with the occupying forces, win his release and provide for his family.  In consequence, his estates were condemned just weeks after the birth of his daughter, my ancestor, in February 1782.

In the introduction to my new hardbound copy of the South Carolina House records 1783-1784, I learned that Williman was among more than 250 accused British loyalists who petitioned for relief from the Confiscation acts in 1783.  During that year, a couple of bills were passed that lessoned the severity of the 1782 Confiscation and Amercement Acts.  The South Carolina Senate and House together moved toward reconciliation with many of those whose Tory actions were considered minor over then next year. 

For Christopher Williman and a large group of petitioners, resolution of their cases came on March 14, 1784.  He was named among those who were to be "relieved from the pains and penalties of an Act entitled 'An Act for disposing of Certain Estates and Banishing Certain Persons therein Mentioned,' But to be Amerced each of them Twelve Per cent, on their estates Real and Personal."  I do not know the value of Christopher Williman's confiscated estates, but a fine on both real and personal property would have included his slaves. 

Apparently he was able to reenter life as a citizen of Charleston, as he was elected President of the German Friendly Society of St. John's Church that same year.  His daughter Margaret married merchant Angus Bethune in 1801, and in 1815 lived in a three story house at 75 Broad Street in Charleston.  His grand-daughter was Elizabeth Davidson Bethune (1807-1864), who married Archibald Gracie, Jr. of New York (1795-1865).  One of their children became  a confederate brigadier from Alabama by way of New Jersey, and another married my Gr-great grandfather Dayton Ogden (1833-1914).  Somewhere along the way through the generations we lost the thread of the Willemann/Williman story.  Now we know.

More (2/22/2008):  But here is something I didn't know.  The unique mustard-based barbecue sauce of central South Carolina can trace its lineage to the 18th-century wave of German immigration during which my Williman and Walther ancestors arrived in Charleston.