Walking the Berkshires

The Legend of Rebecca and Abigail Bates: "The American Army of Two"

Americans have a longstanding fondness for David and Goliath stories, particularly those in which our scrappy homegrown underdogs beard the oppressing giant.  They are an established part of our national myth and cultural heritage.  Longfellow captivates his readers with tales of "...how the farmers gave them ball for ball / From behind each fence and farmyard wall" and turned back the British after Concord.  "John Henry drove his fifteen feet, An' the steam drill only made nine, Lawd, Lawd..."  And for those of us or a certain age or older, The Miracle on Ice.  Even after suffering tremendous losses, we are quick to salvage something of our own, such as Doolittle's bombing raid on Japan, a forlorn hope that became a great propaganda victory just 4 months after Peal Harbor. 

Local history abounds with these stories, from Sybil Ludington's Ride to Barbara Fritchie waving the flag of Union at Stonewall's confederates as they marched toward Pennsylvania.  I came across a classic tale of this sort recently from the maritime history of Massachusetts during the War of 1812, the story of the two daughters of a lighthouse keeper who by pluck and invention saved their town from the British marauders.  The tale, like all good yarns, may have grown in the telling, but young Rebecca and Abigail Bates are widely remembered in New England lore, poetry and folksong as the "American Army of Two".

The story goes that Simeon Bates was the keeper of the lighthouse at Scituate on the shores of Massachusetts Bay and lived there with his family during the War of 1812.  He had a number of children, but the two principals in this tale are Rebecca, who based on her obituary would have been about 20 at the time this story takes place, and Abigail, who was about 13.  Early in September, 1814, a British warship was sighted offshore and prepared to launch barges toward the lighthouse.  Simeon Bates was away from the Lighthouse and only his wife and the two girls were on hand.  The girls, knowing the militia would not get there in time, decided to hide from view and play a fife and drum to make the enemy think the soldiers were coming.  They struck up Yankee Doodle, the British ceased to row, and the warship recalled them and left, much to the joy of the young saviors of Scituate, the Army of Two.

It is a wonderful story.  It delighted young readers of St. Nicholas Magazine, which ran the story "Rebecca the Drummer" in July 1874 written by Charles Barnard and based on an elderly Rebecca Bates' recollection of the event.  Rebecca Bates went so far as to sell affidavits of her story for 10 cents.  There were apparently contemporary doubters of the tale, as well as at least one modern one.  Nonetheless, Becky's sister Abby (who survived her) was reportedly borne to her grave by uniformed G.A.R. veterans and since then her account has been widely repeated as if factual.  If the extensive research by the Scituate Historical Society concludes the story is likely true, we are not likely to settle the matter further with some on-line sleuthing, but let us see what further details we can add from the historic record.

The blockading British apparently approached Scituate by sea on three occasions between June 11 and July 9th in 1814.  The June 11th raid two place as barges from two British ships entered Scituate harbor and burned or carried off a number of vessels.  Captain John Mason, a boy of about 9 years at the time of the raid, later recalled that the British took three fishing vessels as prizes - "Orient", "Sophronia", and his own father's "Rosebud", and burned five or six others.  A History of Scituate published in 1831 says that "ten vessels, fishing and coastal craft, were lost".  Mason also stated that the barges belonged to the British frigate "Nymph" and 74 gun "La Hogue", though the latter named vessel has not been discovered among the navy list at the time and the Scituate History referenced above claims they came from the 74-gun "Bulwark". 

It is not clear whether he was referring to this raid or a subsequent landing, but a biographical entry for  Captain Mason records that he "remembered once when a fleet of these boats were coming in, that the women began to carry off their beds and furniture, but an officer in one of the British boats cried out, "Good women don't carry your beds off, we ain't going to hurt you."    The British did not disembark when burning the ships in the harbor on June 11th.  Six days later on June 17th, according to committee reports from the 30th United States Congress; "a British ship-of-war, two brigs, and several small craft came to anchor near Scituate harbor..."  Col. John Barstow's militia were called out on July 9th when a British warship, variously identified as the "Bulwark" by some and by Congress as the "Nymph", demanded provisions from the town which were not furnished.  The militia remained on guard that summer but the British did not reappear.

It is no wonder that these three events became tangled up in people's minds.  Whether "Bulwark" or "Nymph" demanded vegetables or burned ships is a matter for those with access to the logs in the admiralty records.  As to the fourth and final British approach - the one reportedly thwarted by the musical Becky and Abby Bates - that took place in late summer, either August or early September, and is recalled by one additional eye-witness, Ensign Otis, who "upon rising early saw a English ship anchoring off the harbor and warned the inhabitants of the little village."   The version of the story printed in St. Nicholas (which has Rebecca as the drummer, unlike other accounts where she is said to have played the fife), also describes the British arriving offshore in the morning at low tide, and only launching boats at high tide around 2 p.m.  This tale conflates events from previous raids and was written to inspire young readers with the heroism of the Bates girls so must be taken with a heavy dose of salt.

C. Wellington Furlong, who as a small boy summered in Scituate, later recalled;

"Next door to the Merritts lived Becky Bates, then a very old woman, who, in boyish wonderment I often watched her pull her corn cob pipe and listen to her story. During this war the British four gun HMS Bulwark in 1814 sent boats into the harbor and burned the shipping because the selectmen of the town, descendants of the Men of Kent, obstinately refused their demand for supplies. Not long after, Becky told me, another British warship, the HMS La Hogue appeared, dropped anchor a mile or so offshore and her barges loaded with marines pulled toward the harbor with obvious intention of burning the town. Becky, then about 16 was alone in the lighthouse with her younger sister Abigail. Becky quickly seized her brother’s fife and her younger sister Abigail the drum. Sneaking out of their lighthouse home they followed behind the cedar covered sand hills of the point, beating a lively tattoo to the tune of “Yankee Doodle.” The marines, who had believed the town undefended, hearing the rhythmic strains wafted toward the ship’s boat, thought the town garrison was marching out, returned to the ship and the La Hogue sailed away."

Whether or not things transpired as later remembered and long repeated, no churlish iconoclast has definitively debunked the legend of the American Army of Two, and far be it from me to do so.  Becky and Abby Bates remain heroines in the hearts of many, and why not?

Old Soldiers

More vintage memorial Day postcards here.

Callous Youth Head Cases

The AP reports:

"Three teenagers were arrested after two of them told police they dug up a secluded grave north of Houston, removed the skull from the coffin and converted it into a marijuana bong." 

Appalling.  Though not unique.  No points for creativity, cretins.

Back in our frontier days, human trophy taking included more than scalping.  One of the brave lads of Chivington's 3rd Colorado Cavalry cut off Arapaho chief White Antelope's scrotum after the Sand Creek Massacre to use as a tobacco pouch.  We've come a long way, kids.

Don't Try This At Home

A Chester VA man was killed by a Civil War cannonball more than 140 years after the war ended.   Sam White, an avid collector of wartime relics, attempted to disarm a 9 inch, 75 pound naval cannonball in his driveway when it exploded, sending pieces of shrapnel more than a 1/4 mile from the blast and killing him instantly.

"Black powder provided the destructive force for cannonballs and artillery shells. The combination of sulfur, potassium nitrate and finely ground charcoal requires a high temperature — 572 degrees Fahrenheit — and friction to ignite.

White estimated he had worked on about 1,600 shells for collectors and museums. On the day he died, he had 18 cannonballs lined up in his driveway to restore.

White's efforts seldom raised safety concerns. His wife and son Travis sometimes stood in the driveway as he worked.

"Sam knew his stuff, no doubt about it," said Jimmy Blankenship, historian-curator at the Petersburg battleground. 'He did know Civil War ordnance.'"

I'm Sticking With My Fuzzy Dice

I thought long and hard, so to speak, before deciding to go forward with this post.  I imagine this is the sort of dilemma that Rupert Murdoch faces every day; "Is it newsworthy?  Is it in the public interest?  Does it have a shred of redeeming social value? Bollocks!" (He'd say it that way, as an Aussie).  But how many opportunities does one have to provide a civics lesson, defend the first amendment, and combine the phrases "Confederate Flag" and "Truck Nutz" in reference to each other?   Exactly.

Like many in my social set, for whom the acme of the weekly calender is listening to NPR's News Quiz Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on Saturday morning, I learned last week of the bill under debate in the Florida Senate banning artificial testicles from the trailer hitches of pick up trucks. 

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Senate lawmakers in Florida have voted to ban the fake bull testicles that dangle from the trailer hitches of many trucks and cars throughout the state.

Republican Sen. Cary Baker, a gun shop owner from Eustis, Florida, called the adornments offensive and proposed the ban. Motorists would be fined $60 for displaying the novelty items, which are known by brand names like "Truck Nutz" and resemble the south end of a bull moving north.

According to Florida's WCTV; "The prohibition of the attachment was an addition to a much larger transportation bill."  I should certainly hope so.

These are popular items in Florida, we are told, although since they just don't look right on the rear bumper of a Subaru Legacy you don't see them much in the Berkshires. Over at Tigerhawk, the Charlottesvillain is quick to pick up on the contitutional issues involved, saying; "First of all, does the gun shop owner really advocate government intrusion in such trivial matters? Has he no sense of irony? (A rhetorical question, obviously.)"  Having no first hand experience with the item in question, I turned to Google to see whether these are an improvement on the fake propellors one sometimes sees mounted on trailer hitches, or the greatest threat to the sensibilities of decent folk since Justin Timberlake.  Since most of you are viewing this at work, I will spare you the more graphic images, but this one, arranged in an attractive cloverleaf pattern and emblazoned with the Confederate battle flag, was too good to pass up.  After all, it is Confederate Heritage Month, and apparently this isn't considered desecration.

However, the main problem I have with Truck Nutz is that they are designed to hang facing the wrong way.  More like a trophy than an extension. 

Like I said, I'm sticking with my fuzzy dice.

Top Shelf Offerings

Regular commenter David Corbett has asked so nicely to see more of my one guilty pleasure that I could hardly refuse.  Here, then, are some of the toy American Civil War soldiers in my personal collection.  I add to their ranks when I can and most recently acquired 9 figures from the "Brooklyn 14th" that have just been issued by The Collectors Showcase.  Like the rest of my collection, these are matte finished metal figures in 1:32 scale (54mm), but I have just started collecting from this manufacturer.  These particular pieces are extremely well done, historically accurate right down to the double row of brass buttons on their chasseur jackets. 

I found a central location for them on a shelf with other figures compatible with a depiction of the Battle of 1st Manassas (or Bull Run, if you prefer).  I've condensed the action considerably, but there are two Zouave units represented here: Company K of the 69th N.Y.S.M.by the discontinued Troiani Historical Miniatures company, and a recreation of a Don Troiani painting by Conte Collectibles depicting the 11th NY "Fire Zouaves" breaking under a charge by the 1st Virginia Cavalry, lead by a blue clad J.E.B. Stuart.  The 2nd Rhode Island in their light blue blouses also makes an appearance in two sets by Forward March, while an ordinance wagon pulled by a mule team from the venerable William Britain company withdraws from the line. I understand that Zouaves don't sell particularly well in this hobby, which I cannot understand as I am always looking for some of these colorful units done well by one or another manufacturer.  I had Abbott and Livingston ancestors in the 5th, 9th and 146th New York Zouaves, so it's personal.

In the late 1990s there was a renaissance in realistic, as opposed to "toy soldier" styles, which prior to then had been largely the domain of ultra expensive Russian manufacturers who did museum quality matte finished pieces and a few smaller operators.  W. Britains and Conte developed extensive Civil War lines during this period and I collected them heavily.  When lead sculptor Ken Osen left Britains for Conte, I followed, and when he moved on to Troiani and then helped launch Old Northwest Trading Company I collected those as well.  Now back with Britains, the quality and detail continues to excel.  You would think it might not be so difficult to get this historical period right, but many manufactures and sculptors fail to pull it off.  Conte has gotten almost cartoonish and grotesque in recent years and had trouble getting the paint right or staying in scale.  Britains went through a long dry spell before Richard Walker took over the reins and Ken Osen came back on board.

Collectors of high end Civil War toy soldiers tend to be found in US markets East of the  Mississippi.  There are a disproportionate number of figures representing the armies of the Eastern Theater of the war than those who fought in the West.  I am still hoping that Britians will issue a couple of Army of Tennessee flag bearers with the Hardee and Polk pattern flags.  I pulled together the scene at right using Iron brigade figures by Britains, Conte and Troiani with some additions figures by these manufacturers to represent Grant with some of his westerners. I tried to hide them from view, but you can just make out the red circle badge of the 1st Division, 1st Corps of the Army of the Potomac on the kepi of one of the officers.

Some genres lend themselves to uniform ranks or duplicate poses.  For the kind of money these cost, I have no desire to pay for the same figure twice.  Conte ill-advisedly released a Union and Confederate marching set of 6 figures in three poses, and I bought a split confederate set on eBay and passed on the Yanks.  Even if the same sculpts are used, a different paint job and a different head is all it would take to diversify the offerings, as some manufacturers have found.  Recycled poses are fine except when union cap badges end up on confederate heads.  I've got a lot of these now, feel entitled to be picky about what I add to the collection.

Of course, I have a wish list.  Besides the Zouaves and flag bearers already mentioned, the cavalry units in my collection are quite thin.  I'd like to see some of the Heavy Artillery regiments like the 1st ME or Litchfield's own 2nd CT that Grant converted to Infantry and fed into the furnace at Cold Harbor and Petersburg.  It is probably too much to ask for any of Gracie's Alabama Brigade, which would cover the confederate side of the family tree rather nicely.  There seem to be very few offerings of confederate NCOs who are doing something other than carrying flags.  The Civil War doesn't offer collectors the range of vehicles of all that WWII armor, but I'd like a caisson to go with the six horse team and limber that Britains put out early this decade, and maybe a sanitary commission ambulance and sutler's wagon.  Heck, I'd even go for a stampeding Congressman and his lady overtaken in their chaise after the rout at Bull Run.  Just not all at once.  I have to space out my purchases and stay on budget to keep my finances and my marriage afloat.  Here are a few more shots of what is on my top shelves that you may click to enlarge.

More: (April 1, 2008):  Welcome Artifacts Collectors.com readers!

   

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.

The Tally Sheet of Shame

Unlike many people, I know the names of every one of my 32 Gr-Great grandparents.  Nearly all of them were in this country by the time of the American Civil War, and those who served in that conflict fought for the North - though here the exception proves the rule, as there was one Gracie ancestor with a brother who became a Confederate Brigadier, though the family was from New Jersey. 

Many lines in the pedigree can be traced far deeper into the past.  A significant number have been in North America for 12 generations.  I know about only a fraction of the 2,048 individuals in that generation of my family tree, but what I do know presents a particular challenge when looking to the ancestral past to understand something so volatile and deeply rooted as matters of race.  Proud as I am of their many accomplishments, it isn't stretching the point to say there is hardly a frontier atrocity or witch hunt in 17th or 18th century New England where I cannot place at least one of my forebears.  As for race relations, there wasn't one of them in that period who existed outside of the transatlantic mercantile system that sustained our colonial economy on the lives and labor of slaves.

I take pains to confront these ancestors on their own terms, to try to understand them in the context of the times in which they lived.  Even a family archive with as rich a trove of primary source material as ours only preserves what was deemed worthy of passing down.  A Society of Colonial Wars claim in our files tells me much about the service record of an ancestor from Connecticut:a chaplain with two different regiments during the French and Indian War.  It does not mention that he owned slaves, yet there are records for that as well.  To understand that part of his past means coming to grips with slavery in the northern states, but he is not the only northern slaveholder in this family tree, and we have southern kin as well. 

Reverend Jonathan Ingersoll (abt. 1713-1778), the French and Indian War veteran, was my 6th-Great Grandfather and a congregationalist minister in Ridgefield, Connecticut.  The Ridgefield Historical Society reveals:

Several prominent Ridgefield families of the period were slave owners, including Congregational Church Minister Jonathan Ingersoll. Inhuman as it seems, slave transactions such as Ingersoll's 1777 freeing of twenty-year old "Cyphax" were considered property transfers and duly recorded in town land records.

In this, Reverend Ingersoll was not unique, for half the ministers in Connecticut owned slaves on the eve of the Revolution.  Furthermore, Cyphax was freed the year before Ingersoll died and it is quite possible that the minister was settling his affairs.   Even as a free man, Cyphax faced Connecticut's "Black Code" that made for a very precarious existence:

Discrimination against free blacks was more severe in Connecticut than in other New England colonies. Their lives were strongly proscribed even before they became numerous. In 1690, the colony forbade blacks and Indians to be on the streets after 9 p.m. It also forbid black "servants" to wander beyond the limits of the towns or places where they belonged without a ticket or pass from their masters or the authorities. A law of 1708, citing frequent fights between slaves and whites, imposed a minimum penalty of 30 lashes on any black who disturbed the peace or who attempted to strike a white person. Even speech was subject to control. By a 1730 law, any black, Indian, or mulatto slave "who uttered or published, about any white person, words which would be actionable if uttered by a free white was, upon conviction before any one assistant or justice of the peace, to be whipped with forty lashes."

The Hartford Courant maintains an on-line collection of superb resources and articles called: Complicity. How Connecticut Chained Itself To Slavery.  There were more than 6,000 slaves in Connecticut by the time that my ancestor Jonathan Ingersoll manumitted Cyphax.  Slavery in Connecticut lasted for over 200 years.  It died a long death after the Revolution and was not fully abolished until 1848.

The Ogden branch of our family is justly proud of its prominent members who were considered among the "first families" of New Jersey at a time when that got you into the Social Register.  Signers and Senators, friends of Lafayette and companions of Arnold and Burr, they lead fascinating and active lives.  They also owned slaves, as did most of the principle families in Elizabethtown.  In the previous generation, my ancestor Robert Ogden was presiding Justice in 1741 when 2 or 3 blacks fleeing the panic in New York which followed the Great Negro Plot were apprehended in Elizabethtown.  His court formally sanctioned their execution by burning at the stake before the courthouse and local citizens were reimbursed for the cost of firewood and iron manacles they provided for the victims.

Hannah (Dayton) Ogden, widow of my collateral relation General Matthias Ogden of Revolutionary fame, and daughter of my direct ancestor General Elias Dayton, freed her mulatto slave, Michael Hardman, in 1797.  He was 26 years old. I discovered this bit of family history in Theodore Thayer's As We Were -The Story of Old Elizabethtown, published in 1964 by the New Jersey Historical Society.  Thayer also records that my ancestor Aaron Ogden, Governor of the State in 1812 and former US Senator and Presidential Elector, maintained a couple of slaves until he went bankrupt in the 1820s.  Like Connecticut, Slavery in New Jersey was practically as old as the first English settlement and persisted until 1846.

"New Jersey's slave population, unlike that of other colonies, actually increased during the Revolution, mainly through migration from other states. But the white population increased at a much faster rate, and wages for laborers became affordable to employers, while the cost of feeding and maintaining and guarding slaves remained high. By 1786, when a ban on slave importation into New Jersey took effect, the institution was dying an economic death. The 1800 census counted 12,422 New Jersey slaves, but the white population had boomed from 1786 to 1800, increasing at a rate six times that of blacks. This is not surprising, in part because in the same year New Jersey banned importing of slaves it also forbid free blacks from entering the state with intent to settle there."

My Gr-great Grandfather Dayton Ogden (1833-1914) married Esther Gracie, the sister of the aforementioned Confederate Brigadier, Archibald Gracie (1832-1864).  The Gracies were a New York mercantile family of great renown who resided in Elizabeth.  Her Grandfather, the first Archibald Gracie (1755-1829), was truly a merchant prince in the late 18th and early 19th centuries:

"As cotton was becoming a staple in the transatlantic trade, Scotsman Archibald Gracie immigrated to New York after training in Liverpool, Great Britain’s great cotton port. Gracie became an international shipping magnate, a merchant prince, building a summer home on the East River before losing much of his wealth. His son and grandson left the city to become cotton brokers in Mobile, Alabama, but their family’s summer home, today called Gracie Mansion, is the official residence of the mayor of New York."

All the same, in 1819 this same shipping magnate served on a committee of prominent New York Merchants to "devise some plan for checking the spread of African slavery." 

His son Archibald Gracie Jr. (1795 - 1865) married Elizabeth Davidson Bethune of Charleston, South Carolina, shown in a teenage portrait at left.  Her mother Margaret Willeman (b. 1782) was a second generation German immigrant.  The Willeman family came to South Carolina from Baden-Württemberg in the 1760s.  Her father, Christoph Willemann (b. 1748), appears in the 1790 Census as the head of a household with 2 free white males, 3 free white females, and 57 slaves.  Her Uncle, Jacob Willemann, allowed his slave Leander to buy his freedom for 900 pounds current money, or about 130 pounds sterling:

"I...do hereby declare that the said sum...was delivered to me by...Leander from time to time as Monies which he had by his great care, diligence and industry in his business Trade or occupation of a Butcher for several years passed got together and earned."

According to Against the Odds: Free Blacks in the Slave Societies of the Americas, a manumission deed from Jacob Willemann also shows that several years latter, he sold a slave Diana her freedom and that of her daughter for "the earnings and gains arising from her Labour and Industry [which she was] from time to time allowed to carry on and transact  during the term of her servitude."

Elizabeth, New Jersey was also a popular summer retreat for southerners in the age before air conditioning  and a number of them, including General Winfield Scott of Virginia, made their residence there. General Archibald Gracie (1832-1864) married Josephine Mayo, whose Virginia grandfather John Mayo married Abigail deHart of Elizabethtown.  Another southerner who arrived in New Jersey and married more directly into the family was Frederick Beasely D.D. (1777-1845) of Chowan County, North Carolina.  He was my 4th-Great Grandfather and wed the daughter of Constitution Signer Jonathan Dayton.  Beasely's mother, Elizabeth (Blount) Beasely, is listed in the 1790 census as the female head of a household that possessed 20 slaves.

I am not satisfied with simply outing my slave-owning ancestors.  It is too convenient to simply discredit and dismiss them as a way of distancing myself from the values and attitudes that allowed them to participate in and to profit by a racist system that countenanced slavery.  It is too simple to project the expectations of the present on the past.  Social change is neither quick nor self-evident...

...I remember a ride I got once from an Afrikaner farmer in Namibia.  I confess I expected him to be what I had come to think of as a typical Boer, and he certainly fit the profile in his rolled knee socks and his black farm workers riding in the dust in the back of his open truck.  I climbed inside and we began the customary exchange of pleasantries, but when he learned that I was living with and teaching black people his response completely put my prejudice to shame.  He told me that it was very hard for an Afrikaner to go against his parents and his church, but that was what was required in a post-apartheid country with majority rule. 

"Some day" he told me, "I will come home to my wife and I won't say I've invited my coloured friend and my black friend over for dinner.  I'll just say it is Johannes and Erasmus.  I don't want to always think about the colour.  I am not there yet, but I want to be."  I looked at him, there on the cusp of a strange new world, and told him I thought he was well ahead of the rest of us.

"Emancipate Yourself from Mental Slavery"

My seven-year-old daughter is learning about slavery.  It is Black History Month, and her second grade curriculum focuses on the Underground Railroad.  Emily is a very bright, empathetic child, and I am watching her process this information in her imaginative play at home.  She talks about helping slaves escape and creates plays with her dolls that feature slaves being led to freedom.  Her impulses are sweet and her sense of fairness is strong.  She aligns herself with those that helped slaves win their freedom.  And I wonder what else she has internalized.

Does she now think, as would never have occurred to her before, that when she sees a black person someone in their family must once have been a slave?  Is she starting to see blacks as needing white assistance to win their freedom and unable to win it for themselves?  Can she imagine herself as the oppressed slave, or does she default to the benign but paternal role of agent of the slave's redemption?  The obvious part for her in this particular version of history is that of the good Northern white person.  What will she make of the far more complex history of race relations in America that does not spare the Yankee any more than it absolves the defenders of Dixie?

I do not fault the school for its simplified, even sanitized 2nd grade curriculum. Seven-year-olds are not ready to look at burned, lynched corpses and smiling white vigilantes.  But my obligation as a parent, as an historian, and as one who knows deep in his private soul that I am not free of the taint of prejudice, prompts me to listen to my daughter and offer additional information, sensitively and straightforwardly, and respect her intelligence as well as her tender years to work through what we share.

There is a Namibian proverb that goes; "You cannot smell yourself; let another smell you."  We become accustomed to our stench.  How do we respond when we are told that we stink? Is soap and water sufficient to cleanse the body, or is it now a reeking corpse? Or is it more the offended person's issue, a pendulum swung too hard the other way? We are on perilous ground, bad enough for adult angst, let alone a growing child. 

Over the next few days, Walking the Berkshires will take a hard look at the narrative of race in our family tree and our minds today.  I am not yet sure where all this may lead, but I do know that it is not enough to deconstruct the myths that we tell each other about our pasts and prejudices, but to build up a new paradigm - more honest, less damning  - if we have any hope of doing better. I do not believe in original sin, though some patterns run very deep and are very hard to overcome. It does not begin or end with the sins of our fathers, nor with personal responsibility though that has its part as well.  It begins by looking hard at ourselves and in some very awkward places, but it cannot end there.  Most of us crave redemption, and tend to project that desire on those we have wronged, but like the song goes; "None but ourselves can free our minds."

Civil War Memory Best in Class

Kevin Levin of Civil War Memory has been honored with a 2007 Cliopatra Award as the Best Individual Blog of the History blogosphere.  The judges nailed it with this one.  Kevin is not only a thoughtful blogger and an incisive historian, he is by all accounts a wonderful teacher and I have often envied the students in his classes.  Kevin blogs about a period of history that has been a particular interest of mine since the 4th grade, yet I often find fresh perspectives and unique analysis at his blog and make it a daily read.   Bravo!