"Sharp, quirky, and occasionally nettlesome", Walking the Berkshires is my personal blog, an eclectic weaving of human narrative, natural history, and other personal passions with the Berkshire and Litchfield Hills as both its backdrop and point of departure. I am interested in how land and people, past and present manifest in the broader landscape and social fabric of our communities. The opinions I express here are mine alone. Never had ads, never will.
There are moments in life when something happens that only you can fully appreciate, when opportunity seems to have crossed your path because whatever it is, you are the one who was meant to find it. At such times, this is your moment to act, no matter how whimsical the impulse or hard it may be to justify to others. My mother once got a black Labrador puppy that way at a school auction, and it is a good thing the hound latched on to my father afterwards because Dad could not imagine what had possessed her to do it.
For me it began with one of those classic parenting moments when the kids were acting up in the back seat and I pronounced sternly that I was turning the car around and heading home unless they knocked it off. To reenforce my threat I turned right when I otherwise would have turned left and headed past the darkened storefronts of our town in Northwest Connnecticut. As I neared the intersection where I had planned to complete the circle and head back in the direction we had been travelling, my partner noticed something unusual poutside the Stateline Auction House and commented; "There's a statue of a beefeater over there." I practically made a U Turn in the intersection. I knew at once what it was. There couldn't be two of them.
Sure enough, it was a carved and painted wooden statue, in the cigar store indian style, of a Yeoman of the tower guard, complete with all the regalia from his halberd to his knee garters. It was cold and dark, so she couldn't give it a thorough inspection, but I was convinced it was the very same statue that had once stood in front of Maggiacomo's liquor store in my hometown, Millbrook NY. And so it turned out to be.
The beefeater was carved in 1976 by artist Peter Wing, who still lives in the area where I grew up. He arrived in Millbrook in 1969 after serving in Viet Nam. Around the time of the bicentennial, Millbrook had at least six of his carved creations in front of various stores. A beefeater was an appropriate choice for the liquor store, and John Kading's Corner News sported a classic cigar store indian. There was a clothing store called The Haberdasher which had a mustachioed gent all in black with a top hat, and the ice cream parlor Jamo's had a victorian beauty, complete with bustle, wearing a dress the color of black raspberry. The deli had some sort of a dwarfish figure rather like a punch and Judy puppet that was straddling a barrel, and the Millbrook Diner had a magnificent ship's figurehead.
Within a few years, some of the stores had closed and the statues went with them. The Diner's figurehead was so weathered that several years ago it was removed and a new one created (though not by Wing) as part of the renovation. I often wondered what became of the other pieces, and never expected to see one of them again, let alone have the opportunity to own it.
But now here it was in all its glory, and from the looks of it it was in remarkably fine shape. Wherever its journey had taken it since it left the liquor store, this beefeater had not been exposed to the elements. I decided that if it could be had for a price that would not ruin me, I would go to the auction and win it.
It turned out that this piece had already been up for auction but had not met its minimum and was not scheduled to be a lot in the next auction either. I asked whether I could know the minimum bid and the woman I spoke with said she thought the auctioneer might be willing to sell it to me for whatever it was.
When she called me back I had already determined the maximum amount I was willing to pay for this extravagant recapturing of a piece of my childhood. I figured that either the minimum bid was much too high, or that maybe it just didn't attract enough interest from local buyers who lacked the association with the piece that I did. Or maybe they had nowhere to put the thing. I prepared myself to be disappointed.
And much to my surprise, the number they gave was less than I feared, and very likely les that it would be worth to the right collector. Today I picked it up, and they tossed in the wooden pedestal they had displayed it with that had just the right colors and came form an old mill in Ansonia, CT. I learned that the auction house had acquired it from an estate sale in Millerton, NY, about midway between here and where it all started in Millbrook. Then I drove it home.
Now there is a cigar store beefeater in my living room, and someday soon I'll contact Peter and let him know that one of his creations has found the right home.
All of the following are transcriptions from actual soldier diaries. They appeal to me not only because of what they reveal about the authors and the circumstances in which they found themselves in the defense of Liberty during the American Revolution, but also as the author of the fictional Journal of Constant Belcher. That character could easily have penned such sentiments as these, were he not a figment of my imagination.
[Aug] 20. [1775] [New London, CT] - "Sunday morning we got ready for to go to meeting, and the officers came and said that we must not go to meeting without breeches, and it was so hot that I could not bear to wear them, and I did not go to meeting in the forenoon. I went to see a crazy man and there was a man that he knew him, and he got mad, and I think I never saw such a sight in my life. He was chained and he would spring at us and hallo at us. There was one stout man that said he never saw a man that he was afraid of before. In the afternoon I went to meeting."
[Jan] 7 [1776] "This day there two men In Cambridge got a bantering who wodd Drink the most and they Drinkd So much that one of them Died In About one houre or two after"
10 "There was two women Drumd out of Camp this fore noon That man was Buried that killed himself Drinking"
12 "There was a man found dead in a room with A.Woman this morning. It is not known what killed him."
[October] the 6 [1775] "The enemy fired between 80 to 90 Canon at our men but killed nine onely cut of one mans arm and killed too cows So much for this day."
November 1775 the 1 "Last night the fire ran over Samuel Hawes's hair and that provoket him to wrath Nothing very remarkable hapnd this day that I know of."
[April] 25th [1776] (New York) "During the Course of last Week I several times visited The Holy Ground, before described. When I visited them at first, I thought nothing could exceed them for impudence and immodesty; but I found the most I was acquainted with them the more they excelled in their Brutallity. To mention the perticulars of their Behaviour would so pollute the Paper I write upon that I must excuse myself.
The whole of my aim in visiting this Place at first was out of Curiosity, as was also that of the chief of the Gentlemen that accompanied; & and it seems strange that any Man can so divest himself of Manhood as to desire an intimate Connexion with these worse than Brutal creatures, yet it is not more strange than true that many of our Officers & Soldiers have been so imprudent as to follow them, notwithstanding the salutory advice of their Friends; till the Fatal Disorder seized them & convinced them of their Error. I am informed that not less than 40 men of one Regt which last Sunday set off for Quebeck were infected with that disorder. What fine order these Men must be in to undergo a fateigueing March through a cold uninhabited Country! Unless there is some care taken of these horrid Wretches by the Genl, he will soon have his Army greatly impaired, for they not only destroy Men by Sickness, but they sometimes inhumanly Murther them; for since Monday last two Men were found inhumanly Murthered & concealed, besides one who was castrated in a barbarous Manner. This so exasperated the Men that in the face of day they assembled and pulled down the houses where the men were thus treated, 7 with great difficulty the Guards dispersed them after they had levelled them to the Ground. This, altogether with the common Riots incident to such Places, made our Men a little more Cautious how the ventured to profaner Holy Ground with their Presense."
29 "...an old Whore who had been so long Dead that she was rotten was this Day found concealing in an out House at the Holy Ground."
[May 7, 1776] (Retreat to Sorrel, Canada) "I am still unwell, very much weakened with the disorder that has attended me these four days past; am obliged to go by water; went with Gen. Wooster who is a kind to me as a father. We set sail at sunset - the other boats to follow - came several leagues; ran on the reefs twice, but through mercy, no damage. Wind high and the current strong, but with great difficulty put into the east shore; went up the high banks to a house at 2 o'clock and slept two hours; The boatmen sing a very pretty air to 'Row the boat, Row' which ran into my head when half asleep, nor could I put it entirely out of mind with all our gloom and terror, with the water up to my knees as I lay in the boat. My difficulty was, one passage I could not get."
[December] the 19th [1777]-- "in the morning we marchd to
our winter Quarters -- we marchd all Day without
Victuals having nothing to Eat -- we went into the woods & Sleept in huts
as usual"
[December 20] -- "we found a Corn feild where was
Corn which we took & Eat after we Roasted it in the fire some -- we Pounded
with two stones & made Samp to thicken
our Broth -- Some we Carried to mill & Got it Ground into meal -- towards
Night we Drew Some Poor Beef & one Days flower -- this Decembr 20th
1777"
the 21st "Sunday -- we had warm Pleasant
weather & Nothing to Eat but a Little flower made with Coarse Indian meal
& a Little Flower mixd with it -- at Night the fortune of war Put into our hands a Poor Sheep which we Roasted & boild which Gave the
Company a Good Super which we Eat & turnd in"
[December 22] -- "Sleept Qietly untill morning when
we Receivd orders to march in fifteen minits -- we Paraded the Regt. &
Grounded our arms & Drew flower for one day & Baked it But no meat as
yet but a Party of Volenteers turnd out to Goe to get Some Cattle from Toreys
-- we had nothing to Eat Untill 10 o clock at Night when we had a Ram Cooked
roast & boild which 3 of our Company took & killd as they traveld on
their way -- about 10 o clock A Detachment went from here to Goe Down towards
the Enemy etc."
23d -- "we turnd out a Party of men to Build huts for
our winter Quarters -- in the afternoon had some mutton Served out to us for one
day & Drumd a whore out of Camp & set her over Schullkill River for
theaft -- this night Capt. Lee took 13
Light horse & 8 Riders of the Enemy & Brought them in."
It is a good day in my book when my professional life and my living history hobby intersect. Talya and I enjoyed a fine Saturday morning in our 18th century garb as part of my employer The Housatonic Valley Associations "Free Family Fun" event celebrating the history of the river. The rain stopped in the early morning hours and the weather was not oppressively hot, so we did not wilt in our heavy wool and linen.
We set up our tent by the riverside across from the hydropower station at Falls Village. The old iron bridge between that community and the Amesville section of Salisbury is now closed and badly needs repairs, and we were able to tell those who attended the event that the first bridge on that site was owned and managed by Charles Burrill, who at the time of the revolution was a militia Colonel. I turned out in my civilian attire representing one of Burrill's 14th CT militiamen, and Talya did her Quaker apothecary impression to the delight of one little girl in particular who had a grand time holding her woven egg basket.
I got to share a few original artifacts as well, including this 1773 Connecticut made fowler flintlock with a 60" barrel, and to read a letter written by my 5th great-aunt Hannah Ogden in 1779 containing all sorts of juicy gossip of the goings on in Elizabethtown NJ with the British just across the water at Staten Island.
There were 20-30 people who turned out for the three hour event, which featured a walk with local historian and expert on the colonial ironworks of our region Ed Kirby and a presentation on the native American cultures of our region. There was actually a spectator there who is Lakota Sioux and was in the area visiting family. He told us about attending a ceremony in Goshen, CT a few weeks ago for the naming ceremony of a rare white buffalo calf that was just born there, an event of great sacred significance to many native American people.
With my 18th century interests and Connecticut residence, a tag line like "Still Revolutionary" certainly ought to appeal to me, but I am not the target audience of Connecticut's newly minted $27 million promotional campaign. Watch the initial video and then we'll read the tea leaves together.
So, does this speak to you? Does it reach out to your heart and disposable income and say come to Connecticut? Whose vision is this?
Well, it is Governor Malloy's, certainly, and the professional consulting firm hired to promote our state. It seems to be directed toward at affluent professionals, vacationing families with children, cultural and heritage tourism, and particularly at successful African Americans. I'll return to this last demographic shortly, and consider the curious choice to emphasize a storyline connecting an African American man to his Connecticut roots and an ancestor who served during the Revolution, rather than hitching a ride on the Civil War Sesquicentennial which is totally absent from this video.
Actually, there is a great deal that is not emphasized in this two minute and seven second-long "Connecticut: Still Revolutionary " brand launch. Western Connecticut is missing, for one thing, with its world class trout streams and outstanding outdoor recreation opportunities including national treasures like the Appalachian Trail. Aside from someone falling backward off a bridge on a zip wire in slow motion - overwhelmingly the preferred camera speed for this promotion - the only way people in this ad seem to enjoy the outdoors is from their vehicles.
Classic New England fall foliage and white steepled village greens just didn't make the cut. One would not get the impression from this video that Connecticut has any farms at all, except for wineries. So much for Agra-tourism. So much for bucolic landscapes and covered bridges. There is plenty in the video about the Connecticut River Valley and the Southeastern part of the state. We have Mystic Seaport and Aquarium and the two big casinos on full view. It was nice to see the Essex Steam Train and Hartford Symphony featured, but this still leaves a great deal of the state and what it has to offer out of view.
The "Still Revolutionary" motto implies that The Land of Steady Habits is full of disruptive technology, a place where invention and independence are both highly valued. So where are the heirs to Samuel Colt, or P.T. Barnum, or David Bushnell (who was both a Revolutionary and an inventor)? Making wine, or making bets at Foxwoods, maybe, but they are not in evidence in this initial promotion. And why is that nice white couple that shows up in their car at 1:32 seconds into the video using a paper map to "follow the sky" like it says in the promotional song? Don't they have GPS?
If the creators of this campaign really wanted to make a strong connection between our state's Revolutionary past and our innovative present, all it required was a shot of the full-scale replica of Bushnell's American Turtle submarine at the Connecticut River Museum fading into a shot of a sub from General Dynamics putting out to sea. Stick Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park in the sequence and the African American man in the video could make a direct connection to his Revolutionary forebears by viewing its Jordan Freeman plaque commemorating the heroics of one of its black patriot defenders. It just feels like another missed opportunity.
Let's examine the story arc of the African American couple in the video who come to Connecticut. Their inspiration is apparently the discovery of an image in a book of a black soldier of the Revolution, with the inference that he is an ancestor. Given the popularity of genealogy programs like Henry Louis Gates' "Finding Your Roots", this is a pretty good hook. You can clearly see the soldier's cocked hat and hunting frock (and anachronistic mustache, too), though it is not clear whether the illustration is meant to be a photograph or a black and white reproduction of a painted or engraved portrait. Given that daguerreotypes were not available before 1839, one hopes it is not the former. Again, going with a contemporary photograph of a black soldier from the Civil War would have made the connection so much easier, but then there would be nothing in the film that directly references the American Revolution and the "Still Revolutionary" tag line.
The story continues as the couple get on their motorcycle (visually relaxing as they enjoy the freedom of Connecticut's roadways). Then the man dismounts, removes his helmet, and tries to orient himself. He glimpses a quiet stream. He sees the shade of his ancestor marching away through the forest (the only glimpse of outdoor recreation in the video that is truly Revolutionary). He then goes to dinner at a casino to toast his homecoming.
If he had had his moment of ancestral connection at Putnam Memorial Park, or Fort Griswold, I would have bought it. If the choice had been to highlight the service of African Americans in the Civil War and the State's considerable contributions to the cause of Abolition - after all, we have the birthplaces both of Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown right here in western CT - I would have been more satisfied. But then, it is not about me, or my interests. It is about that guy on his motorcycle and others like him and what will motivate them to come to relax and spend money in Connecticut.
I wonder whether the consultants and focus groups used for this promotion deliberately chose not to link to the Civil War for its target African American audience. Being reminded of slavery is not the same as being reminded of freedom. There were more than 300 men of color from Connecticut who fought during the Revolutionary War, the vast majority of them for long terms of service in the Continental Line. For most of the war, they were part of integrated regiments, and this is what the video shows in its brief depiction of the ancestral soldier, marching away in single file behind two fellow white soldiers. This is not part of the popular narrative of the Revolution, but neither is slavery.
The message here is; "You are successful, a self made man, and you can be proud of the part your Connecticut ancestor played in winning our freedom." It is not a Revolutionary message, though it does put people of color back into the story of our nation's founding. It does not put them in our extraordinary natural areas, but there may be a reason for that as well. I once shared a plane ride with the poet Nikky Finney, who remarked that when she was growing up in rural South Carolina, her grandparents had an intimate knowledge of their farm that stopped short at the uncultivated woods beyond their fields. Bad things could happen to you in there. There were trees with strange fruit.
I would like to think that when the African American man in the promotion gets off his motorcycle, he is struck by the stillness of the woods and the movement of the brook and something else awakens inside him when he sees the ghost of his revolutionary ancestor. A sense of belonging as well as continuity. A connection to place as well as history. An investment in what happens here going forward. That would be a great outcome, for him and for Connecticut.
The venerable History Carnival celebrates its 100th edition this month. It all began as a fortnightly affair back in January, 2005, and carried on that way through the first 50 editions. It then shifted to a monthly schedule in April, 2007 and so it continues to this day.
This state of affairs makes it challenging to apply an appropriate commemorative modifier to History Carnival 100. I suppose one might call it something along the lines of the "Demicentimensiversary Edition", but I'm no fan of the tendency in certain academic circles to invent needless, inelegant jargon instead of communicating in clear and lucid prose. All this manages to accomplish is to problematize structural totalities under the rubric of hegemonic hermeneutics, n'est-ce pas? Damn skippy. History Carnival 100 it is.
Here at Walking the Berkshires, we serve up history the way we like our single malt: neat, with plenty of smoke and peat and a dry lingering tail. Some light agitation helps to bring out all the subtle notes and complexity: less a kick in the jaw than warm oil on the tongue...
Excuse me a moment...Mmmm....Ahhh. Caol Ila, 12 Years Old. Right, well, why not help yourself to the beverage of your choice, and we'll get on with the show!
Alternate History: The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Ignorant
I am extremely fond of counterfactual history when it is done well. So much of the actual history has to be right in order for the fabrication to hold together. There is also the possibility that 2nd order counterfactuals stemming from the first might well bring about the same historical outcome from a different direction. Sometimes, no matter where they begin, all roads must inexorably lead to Rome.
One of the first rules of counterfactual hypothesizing is to make as few changes as possible to the conditions leading up to the alternate reality. We are talking about the lack of horseshoe nails, here, not the gun that won't exist until 2419 - cool as that is - as described by the National Museum of American History Blog.
Speaking of events that may yet come to pass, the question of whether there should be a new monument to Virginia State troops at Antietam is the subject of a fascinating post at Kevin Levin's Civil War Memory. Brian Schoeneman, a candidate for elected office in the Virginia House of Delegates, gamely weighs in at several points during an extensive comment thread - every bit as interesting as the post itself - in support of his campaign pledge to make this happen.
An excellent example of alternate history done right is featured this month at Today in Alternate History, which speculates on what might have been, if only Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand had avoided assassination in 1914. Would you believe resurgent Hapsburgs, giving rise by 1930 to a "Triple Monarchy of Austria-Hungary-Slavonia, Turkey, and a docile but resource-rich Romanov Russia under the frail hemophiliac Tsar Alexander IV"?
Certainly that is more believable than some of the self-deceptive mangling of American history perpetrated recently by some of the most prominent faces of the Tea Party movement. I felt compelled to offer these candidates for the highest office in the land a helpful multiple choice quiz on our Revolutionary history, but J. L. Bell of Boston 1775 corrects the record on Sarah Palin's mistatements about the Midnight Rider with far more class and less snark than I could muster. Quoth he;
"So did Palin share a correct and uncommonly knowledgeable interpretation of Revere’s ride? Or was she correct only in the way that a stopped clock is correct if you look at it in exactly the right way and ignore it a second later? That argument might have raged forever, but then someone came along and made it impossible to maintain that Palin enjoys a detailed, accurate understanding of the start of the Revolutionary War. That person was Sarah Palin."
"...in his Houston speech to the Republican National Convention, Ronald Reagan fell for one of the great hoaxes of American history, surpassed in taking people in only by H.L. Mencken`s enchanting fable about Millard Fillmore’s installing the first bathtub in the White House,” Schlesinger wrote. “The author of the less than immortal words Lincoln never said was an ex-clergyman from Erie, Pa., named William J.H. Boetcker.”
Airminded examines British media claims during WWII that RAF precision bombing in reprisal for the Blitz was morally and technically superior to indiscriminate Luftwaffe bombing, and finds them wanting:
"Nearly everything in these articles is, at best, wishful thinking. Bomber Command's aircrew may as well have shed their bombs as aimed them, for all the difference it made: as the Butt Report revealed the following year, only one in four aircraft dropping bombs over Germany did so within five miles of their target point. The intention was 'accurate bombing', but the effect was indiscriminate (when the bombs didn't fall on open countryside, that is, which most of them did)...as things were, it's just not possible that what the RAF was doing to Germany in late 1940 was more effective (in any sense) than what the Luftwaffe was doing to Britain."
Still, for my money, if your history is going to be bad, it might as well be entertaining.
"This is a history that gets overlooked or ignored because of recent debates in the West over garments-as-oppression for other women–you know, Afghani women in burkhas, or other Muslim women covered by the hijab or la voile. As though Western women’s clothing has never been an issue in their citizenship or their feminism!"
And then we have certain minted pneumismatic artifacts of scholarly interest blogged about at Hypervocal. Be forewarned that these may be considered NSFW in some quarters. Are they ancient Roman brothel tokens, or possibly pornographic gaming pieces? At right, a proposed design for a modern token, suitable for use by disgraced US Congressmen in exchange for sexting services, appropriately priced at "sex asses", if I remember my High School Latin.
(I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that certain internet search terms taken out of context from the preceding paragraph are going to single handedly make History Carnival 100 the most heavily visited edition of all time. Just imagine if I had included extended pasages from The Satyricon...)
Blinding Me With Science
It seems appropriate at this point to bring up the subject of censorship. Take, for example, the history of the active suppression of various lines of scientific inquiry. There have been a number of mutually sustaining blog discussions this month on this topic, including one at Christopher M Luna that opines;
"the tendency to label pre-nineteenth century thinkers as scientists created the “possibility of a false impression that science is somehow eternal, separate from the people who practiced it, just waiting to be revealed” and that such an impression could lead to “a problematic faith in progress, a misunderstanding of the scientific method (as though it is static or eternal), and, perhaps most popular these days, a mischaracterization of the interaction between people investigating the natural world and religion."
"The heliocentric hypothesis says that heliocentricity offers a possible model to explain the observed motion of the planets; it says nothing about the truth-value of this model. The heliocentric theory says that the universe is in reality heliocentric. In 1616 the Church banned the heliocentric theory but not the hypothesis. This might at first seem like splitting hairs but in reality it is a very important distinction."
In a similar vein, Jeannie at Tripbaseblog offers her picks for the 8 Most Inspiring American Speeches of All Time and presents their settings as potential history tourism destinations. I confess I would not have thought to include Swami Vivekananda in this lineup, but I wouldn't mind a visit to Chicago (when the Cubbies are in town).
Thomas Dixon's The History of Emotion's blog delves into emotional animals in history and offers up a 1705 account of a weeping horse in Augsberg. I'll see your horse and raise you a Beagle - Schultz's, not Darwin's.
Reading and Misreading
Sandusky Library/Follett House Museum posts at Sandusky History about The Prisoner's Farewell by Irl Hicks, a confederate POW, who upon release at war's end was selected to give a Valedictory Address to the Young Men's Christian Association of Johnson's Island Ohio.
Anchora discusses the relationship between the use of inverted commas in early modern texts as commonplace markers and Kindle's "popular highlights" feature. Here's mine from hers;
"Once you become aware of the significance of inverted commas in early modern books, though, you will never read them the same way again -- it opens up an entirely new (if, perhaps, still familiar to us) way of reading in which texts are mined for pithy, quotable passages."
Mark Liberman at Language Log takes his shots at the media bias toward "sensationalism, conflict and laziness" and offers up this post entitled "A Reading Comprehension Test". Are you smarter than the designers of this American History test for 12th graders, the educational expert who assessed its results, and the news outlets that covered those findings?
"My recent engagement with the wonderful world of blogs and Twitter has certainly shown me both more interest in and more misused history of science than I had previously come across. (I do not feel, in some cases, that misuse is too strong a word. What the Tea Party do to 18th-century American history, supporters of ID do to Darwin and both sides in the arguments about what Christianity has and has not done for science tend to do to the whole history of Western science.) "
Once again, the comment thread is as thought provoking as the post itself.
Frank Jacobs is Mapping Bloomsday in his Strange Maps blog at Big Think.
"This map is not much help in reconstructing that walk, but it does capture the elementary narrative structure of Ulysses. And it does so in that perennial favourite of schematic itineraries, Harry Beck’s London Underground map."
Ralph Luker kindly passed along this highly visual post by Lili Loufborrow writing at the Hairpin concerning women with books they're not reading in art. Mind you, El Greco's Penitent Magdalen has one heck of a Golgotha paperweight blocking her view. I suspect that Christiane Inman's 2009 Forbidden Fruit: A History of Women and Books in Art , described as "a history of women's literacy, and the social forces that often opposed it", may offer a helpful corollary for those with interest in pursuing this topic further.
The History of England gets a fix on the Anglo Saxon World View. I was particularly struck by the following citation attributed to Louise C., participating in a discussion at Historum Forum;
'A mappa mundi is a depiction of the world as a place of experiences, of human history, of notions and knowledge. It's more like an encyclopedia. It's certainly not - and was never intended to be - a chart to be followed by travellers"
History and the Sock Merchant explores Dejima: the 'Deep Space Nine' of Feudal Japan that was "the single place of direct trade and exchange between Japan and the outside world during the Edo period (1603 - 1868)."
"The volunteers I was working with started turning up some startling items amid the field reports and correspondence—pulp magazines from the 1930s, newspaper clippings with headlines straight out of the era of yellow journalism, and gruesome photos of dead bodies...And what a story it turns out to be! It has everything you’d expect (and wouldn’t expect!) from a Smithsonian expedition to tropical seas—exotic islands, fascinating wild fauna, stout-hearted scientists, a love triangle, and, very likely, murder.."
Looks like excellent beach reading. In other mysterious museum news, Galt Museum & Archives blog has one concerning Miss Edith Kirk, an artist "who came from an influential family in Yorkshire, travelled to remote towns in western Canada and then settled in Lethbridge. We don’t know why she left England, nor how she would find herself in the far northern reaches of British Columbia. Trying to fill in the many gaps of her life is an interesting challenge."
ThinkShop explores Joris Ivens and the Legend of Indonesia Calling, a film about the struggle for Indonesian self determination after WII that few saw at the time but which had an impact that was felt by many.
"By the mid-1960s Indonesia Calling had become a film that had a growing following in Holland, long before it had an audience. This made it unique in the history of the cinema. In its symbolic form it intervened in the historical process, shaping memory and providing a site for the articulation of diametrically opposing approaches to the national, and indeed international, past. The facticity of the film become tangential to it most significant impact. The film as fact had been replaced by the film as signifier."
HSP's Hidden Histories takes us out on an uplifting note with selections from a useful but often underutilized historical resource: the 1850-1880 US Mortality Schedules. Alas for the likes of poor William Shuler, age 54 , who died in June of 1869 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Norriton Township, "while disinterring a dead body in {a} Cemetery, having a cut on his finger, had his blood poisoned, from which he died."
This concludes History Carnival 100, brought to you this month by the Roman numeral C, and respectfully submitted by your most humble and obedient servant, a sometimes Continental in the recreated 1st New Jersey Regiment who on occasion even manages to go Walking the Berkshires. The History Carnival returns in August and you could be the host! Trust me, Sharon makes it easy and it's much more fun than your viva or junior prom ever were.
The rest of you may submit nominations here or follow along on Twitter (@historycarnival). Now if you'll excuse me, I need to see a man about a ray gun. I'm leaving the Brown Bess at home for my next reenactment. Consider this my warning to the British, à la Palin's Revere; "You are not going to take our atomic pistols!"
Next month’s History Carnival (the Centennial Edition) will be hosted by Walking the Berkshires on July 1st. The last time I was host was History Carnival LVI , and have lost neither my sense of humor nor my eclectic tastes, so if you leave it up to me to showcase worthy history posts you will be in for a wild ride. Actually, this is more or less a certainty, but bring out your best and I'll do the rest.
Despite the fact that Burgoyne's Convention Troops marched in six divisions from Massachusetts to Virginia, only one of them - the German 2nd Division - left a significant written record of impressions of the journey.. I have found nothing at all from the British 1st or German 1st divisions, and only a rough itinerary for the British 2nd Division. There is a bit more from the British 3rd and German 3rd Divisions, and together these sources help to establish general routes and the identities of communities where there were encampments.They do not generally add more colorful observations than this, making those that do all the more delightful for the researcher.
We have, for example, a few observations made in Travels Through the Interior Parts of America: in a Series of Letters by Thomas Anburey, a gentleman volunteer who supposedly subsequently secured a commission in the 24th Regiment of Foot. He and another officer mistook the road on their way to Enfield, CT and ended up in Springfield, MA, home to the main American arsenal. A "friend to Government" put them up on the night and they regained the marching columns without further incident. Anburey later noted in a letter:
"not that it could be clearly proved it was merely accidental: But these Americans will not hearken to reason and no doubt they would have found people ready enough to swear, that we went there either as spies, or to destroy their stores."
Ansburey confined his remarks to describing the nature of Connecticut townships and housebuilding. Regarding the former, he noted;
"It is no little mortification, when fatiqued, after a long day's journey, on enquiring how far it is to such a town; to be informed that you are there at present, but on enquiring for the church, or any particular tavern, you are informed it is seven or eight miles further."
He was more impressed by a mill in Sharon, Connecticut invented by Joel Harvey, which "by the turn of one wheel" could grind, bolt, thresh and winnow wheat and beat and thresh flax simultaneously.
There are several useful diaries from the German 2nd Division under Brigadier General Specht. The best of these is the Du Roi Journal, written by an officer appointed commisary for the Division. A brief journal written by Ensign Johann Heinrich Carl von Bernewitz of the Brunswick Regiment Specht provides corroboration for the line of march and encampments of this divisio. Berenewitz also dryly notes certain sexual conquests (though not his own). In Enfield he observed that there were black girls with the Jaegers. In Suffield he records; "we went to dance in Captains Bartling's quarters. Girl from our quarters with Lt. von Meyern."
The servant of Captain Wilhelm von Geismar, Brigade-Major for the German Division, kept a journal that includes this entry for November 19th, 1778 when the British 3rd Division reached the tiny settlement of New Hartford:
November 19 -- In the morning at 9 o'clock went from here. The whole day we had a very bad road and came about evening to New Harford [New Hartford], where we were quartered in a public house. But we had very bad quarters. Then the militia guard came, who transported our division into a house. The officers indeed had an apartment, a room where two beds stood. But they could make no use of them. About 10 o'clock four farmers came into the room without asking, undressed, and lay down on the two beds. Because the officers were not now in the state of mind of the farmers, they went out of the room and slept partly in their coach, or at the fire which we made near the house. 16 miles. The night was very cold. (Translated by Lion Miles).
The Du Roi Journal is the most complete of any of the accounts of the Convention troops, and in addition to helping to pinpoint possible encampment sites, it includes details of the march itself that show it was not all fun and flirtation (although there were three balls held in Suffield, Salisbury and Sharon where there was dancing until dawn).
“The march through the mountains, or the so-called ‘Green Woods’ to Nortfolk (sic), which we took to day, had been described to us something very bad, and we were expecting the worst road possible. However, our expectations and every idea of a very bad road were still surpassed…Sometimes rock of 3-4 feet circumference lay in the middle of the road. It was very cold, and the water coming down the mountains was frozen, which made the ascents and descents very difficult for men, and almost impossible for horses. In short, everything was surpassed that could be called a bad road, since in addition the valleys were so swampy that it was almost impossible to walk through them. Nevertheless, the regiments would have made it, had not the wagons of the brigade of General Poor barred the way. They had been on the march since 8 o’Clock in the morning when night set in. They stayed about three miles from Nortfield (sic) in some houses in the woods to wait for the next day. I rode on as far as I could and arrived about 4 in the afternoon at Nortfolk, where I met our 1st division, which had been compelled to wait for their baggage. [The next day] The 1st division left Nortfork, and at 11 o’Clock our division took their place. The wagons with the baggage arrived late in the evening, with the exception of four which had broken down and had been left behind in the woods(Du Roi Journal: 1911: pg. 135).”
The Continental escorts of the Convention troops have left a very scant record of their experience, and from the militia none at all has come to light. Lt. Thomas Blake of the 1st New Hampshire in Poor's Brigade records the number of miles marched between townships but no details of his impressions aside from the terrible Greenwoods road. The Du Roi Journal has more to say about the Continentals who guarded the columns;
“Brigadier Poor was very polite and issued strict orders that none of his officers might go to our quarters, that we might be undisturbed…Instead of an escort of 100 men, a whole regiment turned out. Its commander was rather strict at first, but soon as he was how orderly our men behaved, he left them alone (Du Roi Journal: 1911, pg. 134).”
And what did the citizens of northcentral and northwestern Connecticut think of the Convention Troops? Local histories tend to forget that Burgoyne's men were not going the other way, from Saratoga to Boston. They speak of Hessians (though only the 3rd German division had troops from Hesse-Hanau who merited that name) but not of the British troops. In Sharon, the Singing of the German soldiers made a great impression on a young boy who would later become Governor of the state.
"It appears that a large part of this detachment were Hessians. They encamped in Sharon overnight; and when they started in the morning, the whole body sang devotional songs as they marched. The late Governor Smith, then a lad, followed them two or three miles, to hear their singing (Sedgwick, 1897: pg 75)."
Citations:
Anburey, T (1789);Travels Through the Interior Parts of America in a Series of Letters, By an Officer, Vol. I, William Lane: London.
Bernewitz, J.H.C v.; The Journal of Ensign Johann Heinrich Carl von Bernewitz of the Brunswick Regiment Specht, translated by Helen B. Doblin
Du Roi, A. W. (1911); “Journal of Du Roi The Elder, Lieutenant and Adjutant, in the Service of the Duke of Brunswick 1776-1778”, translated by Charlotte S. J. Epping, Americana Germanica #15, University of Pennsylvania.
Kidder, F (1868); “Lieutenant Thomas Blake’s Journal” in The History of the First New Hampshire Regiment in the War of the Revolution , pgs 25-56, Joel Munsell’s Sons, Albany, New York.
Sedgwick, C. F. (1877) ; General History of the Town of Sharon, Connecticut from its First Settlement, 2nd Edition, C. Walsh: Amenia, New York.
Tagebuch eines Burschen von Stabbs-Capitain Friedrich Wilhelm von Geismar vom Hessen-Hanauischen Erbprinz Regiment und Brigade-Major zu Brigadier General von Gall 15 Maerz 1776 – bis 14 Dezember 1778. Photostatische Kopie in Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Facsimilies from German Archives, Box No. 2443 Unpublished Partial English translations by Lion Miles.
A few months ago, I came across a map purporting to show the route taken by more than 4,200 captive British and German soldiers and their American escorts through my part of Connecticut back in November of 1778. They were members of the so called "Convention Troops" surrendered by General Burgoyne after Saratoga under very generous terms that Congress subsequently nullified. Instead on marching to Boston for evacuation back to Europe, they languished for a year in Cambridge and Rutland Massachusetts while their status was challenged. Ultimately Congress decided to send the Convention Army from Massachusetts to Charlotteville Virginia on what is thought to be the longest march of the Revolution. Part of that route crossed through Northcentral and Northwestern Connecticut.
Intrigued, I called up Connecticut State Archaeologist Dr. Nicholas Bellantoni and learned that no formal archeological assessment has been done in Connecticut for the encampments of the Convention Army, as was done for sites associated with Rochambeau’s march through the State in 1781. It seems reasonable to assume that Burgoyne’s Convention troops, along with their militia and Continental army escorts, would likewise leave evidence in the archaeological record at their encampment sites, provided there has not been excessive disturbance since then, and that there is sufficient documentation available in the historical record to help pinpoint the location of these encampments.
I offered to undertake a research project drawing on available historical evidence to document the route taken by the Convention Army as it passed through Connecticut from Massachusetts to New York with the goal of locating, if possible, the various places where it encamped and providing the basis for potential archeological study.
I have now written my report and believe we have solid evidence for several encampment sites in a number of communities in Northwest Connecticut. Entitled Documentary Evidence for the Route of the Convention Army through Connecticut in November 1778, it provides historical background for the Convention troops that marched from Massachusetts through Connecticut on their way to Virginia. It identifies confusion and false assumptions made in the secondary source record between the movement in 1777 of certain groups of captives taken before the Convention, and those surrendered in Burgoyne’s capitulation. It examines evidence for the number of Convention troops that passed through Connecticut in 1778, their unit composition, and order of march. It also records details about the Continental and militia troops that comprised their military escorts.
It also examines evidence for the route of march of the six divisions of the Convention Army through Connecticut, documenting wherever possible the dates and places passed and the most likely roads travelled based on historical map evidence, contemporary primary sources and local records. It confirms that Convention Troops entered the State at Enfield, crossed the Connecticut River and proceeded through portions of the modern Connecticut towns of Suffield, Granby, Simsbury, Canton, New Hartford, Barkhamsted, Winchester, Colebrook, Norfolk, North Canaan, Canaan, Salisbury and Sharon, with encampments at various places along the route. One of the more exciting discoveries in this research is evidence for identifies another potential route of march for at least some of the German troops escorted by Poor’s Continental Brigade from Norfolk to New Milford via South Canaan and Kent, Connecticut.
Finally, it provides documentary details for each known place of encampment, considering how often sites may have been used by successive divisions of the Convention Army as they passed through, and assessing the quality of the available evidence to pinpoint likely areas for future archaeological research. Some of these encampments were located within structures such as barns, while others were in open fields and hillsides. Officers often found their own accommodations in local homes and taverns. This report also describes the current condition of likely encampment sites, and estimates patterns of land use since 1778 that may affect the quality of the remaining archaeological record.
Those with an interest in reading the whole thing can contact me directly. I'll share some of the primary source material and more interesting findings in subsequent posts.
On March 3nd, 1781, something happened while George Washington and his entourage were crossing the Housatonic Rvier on their way to meet the French in Newport. Washington had spent the night before at the home of Colonel Andrew Morehouse of the Dutchess County Militia in Dover, New York.. Early the next morning he crossed into Kent, Connecticut on the road that lead to Jacob Bull's Bridge, where today can be found one of only two historic covered bridges still open to autiomobile traffic in the Nutmeg State.
Back then, the bridge was uncovered. In fact, it appears to have been in considerable disrepair. Washington's aide Tench Tilghman notes in his memoranda of expenses for this journey that $215 was paid for "Getting a horse out of Bulls Falls". Some people claim this figure as evidence that Washington's own horse went through or off the bridge and into the river. $215 in Continental currency was practically without value in March, 1781, so it would be wrong to assume from this sum that it was a particularly valuable horse that needed fishing out of the river. Still, it was importnant enough to Washington to bill its retrieval to the government, so it could have been his own mount. Certainly it has passed into local folklore that way.
The Lakeville Journal ran a feature article of mine in yesterday's edition on the historic 1930 wildfire that swept across the Taconic Plateau from New York into Connecticut and Massachusetts. I first heard about this fire when I worked for The Nature Conservancy, and this fall I decided to see whether I could develop a single comprehensive narrative out of the various perspectives of the event as reported and experienced in each of the three states.
I am deeply grateful to my editor, Cynthia Hochswender, for her enthusiastic support of this project and willingness to feature it prominently in the paper. I would also like to acknowledge the following individuals and institutions who helped locate key archival documents and shared oral history material with me for this piece: Joel Carlson for his knowledge of modelling wildfire behavior; Thomas MacEntee, a geneablogging friend who helped me access the archives of the Poughkeepsie Journal online; Mason Library (Great Barrington), for access to microfilm of the Berkshire Courier; Edgar Masters for oral history material in Copake; William Morrill for oral history material in Salisbury; Curtis Rand for his perspective as Mt. Riga's forester; Laura Riva of The Salisbury Association who provided a copy of a key article from the Western Connecticut News; Scoville Library (Lakeville) for access to The Lakeville Journal's microfilm archives; and Eleanor Tillinghast and Cile Van Deusen for Mt. Washington oral history material.
As this was not an assigned story, I wrote for personal satisfaction rather than for pay, and so in addition to being readable here with free registration, a slightly edited but otherwise complete text of the story is reprinted below, along with the above map which I created to illustrate the approximate extent of the Great Taconic Wildfire but that did not make it into the print edition.
The Great Taconic Wildfire of 1930 swept across the Riga ridge Local History – Tim Abbott January, 06, 2011
“If an aviator had left western Pennsylvania on Sunday morning for Eastport, Maine,” reported The Hartford Courant on May 6, 1930, “he would have seen the smoke of forest fires out of control, from the time of his takeoff until his landing at the Canadian line.”
It was a terrible fire season. More than 100 wildfires raged that week in Massachusetts, and those in New Jersey burned at a rate of 20,000 acres a day. In Nashua, N.H., flames driven by 40 mph winds destroyed several hundred buildings in the city’s Crown Hill section.
It was unusually dry that spring with rainfall across the Northeast at 50 to 75 percent below normal. Strong winds combined with low humidity and plenty of available fuel made an especially destructive combination.
In our region, a serious fire burned from East Mountain in Wingdale, N.Y., into Kent, and another flared up north of North Canaan near Clayton, a village of New Marlborough, Mass.
“Practically the whole sky was red over Dutchess County last night” read the May 5 edition of the Poughkeepsie Journal, “and stiff winds made fighting the fires difficult and dangerous.”
The big local fire, though, and the one that people here still recall (though details have faded with the passage of time), was the wildfire that raged between May 4 and 8 across the Taconic Plateau at the border of Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts.
It is remembered as the Mount Riga fire in Connecticut, and the Taconic Park Fire in New York. It was fought on all sides of the mountain with every available resource, from American Legionnaires and drafted onlookers to Boy Scouts and students from area schools including Hotchkiss and Salisbury and from as far away as Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.
The fire burned a great swath of forest from Copake and Ancram in New York to Undermountain Road in Salisbury, while advancing on two fronts into Mount Washington, Mass., before the flames died down.
An article in the May 7 Poughkeepsie Journal from that year quoted Copake Fire Chief Howard Wilsey saying that, “Sometimes the blaze shot 40 feet in the air when it hit the pine trees and dead chestnut trees."
“The crackling and snapping of the flames struck terror in the hearts of those congregated to watch the progress of the most awful fire we’ve ever had."
“Rabbits ran from the woods singed and burned. Partridge and quail abandoned their nests in the face of the terrible thing that was happening, almost became tame. They flew down into Copake and accepted without fear the crumbs that were offered to them. They seemed to realize that they were banded together with the humans in a common fight against the fire.”
The Poughkeepsie Journal also reported that rattlesnakes were driven out of the mountain in great numbers by the fire.
Tracing the fire’s path
Piecing together the chronology of the fire, and even determining its cause and true extent, depends on analysis of newspaper accounts from all three states and benefits from oral history material collected in several affected communities.
Just as the steep and remote terrain challenged firefighting crews in 1930, the tri-state location of the fire means that there is no single, comprehensive account of what happened when the fire was active or during its aftermath.
Most accounts agree that the fire began on Sunday, May 4, in the vicinity of Boston Corner in Ancram. The May 8, 1930, edition of The Lakeville Journal adds that it started “along the Harlem rail track near Weed Mine.” Many suspected the cause was a careless match or cigarette tossed by a fisherman, although it could have been ignited by a passing train. The same northwest wind that burned all those homes in Nashua fed the flames of the Taconic Fire, which spread rapidly into Taconic State Park and up the steep flanks of the mountainside.
Fueling the flames
Wildfire behavior is affected by weather, fuel characteristics and topography. The Connecticut Western News (May 8, 1930) attributed the rapid spread of the fire to “a howling wind that came out of the north … [and] the more resinous growth on the western side of the mountain.”
The Berkshire Courier (May 8, 1930) reported that the fire “spread rapidly through the undergrowth, took a firm hold in the standing timber, and within a short time had extended far beyond control.”
There were many dead trees available as fuel as well, killed in the previous decades by the chestnut blight fungus.
The wind blew the flames against the steep sides of the mountains, and carried firebrands great distances to ignite new fires ahead of the advancing blaze.
Edward M. Brazee was among the Salisbury residents who first encountered the fire as it came up over Mount Brace into Connecticut on the evening of May 4. In an unpublished account recorded in 1996 for the Salisbury Association oral history project, Brazee recalled, “The fire was going right through the tops of the trees. That laurel was high too. Laurel burns like the devil when it gets hot. And you can’t move through it. That’s the bad thing…. Those hemlocks, that’s another thing that burned like gasoline … Probably a lot of them it didn’t kill. But a lot weren’t too big and so [for them] the fire was a crown fire, up there at the height of the trees.”
Salisbury Fire Warden Donald J. Warner told The Lakeville Journal that in 1914 another fire had raged on Mount Riga, but “the present blaze traveled farther and was more destructive in 48 hours than the entire two weeks of the 1914 fire.”
Once it reached the Riga Plateau, the 1930 fire lost speed but still made steady progress to Bingham Pond and then toward Lion’s Head, Bear Mountain and the eastern escarpment.
All the while, volunteers trailed behind with Indian pumps, shovels and brooms, and lit backfires to protect the camps on Mount Riga and keep the wildfire from reaching the more thickly settled areas below.
“All Monday,” The Lakeville Journal observed, “the smoke covered the countryside like a fog and thousands of autos lined the entire length of Undermountain Road.”
The fire threatened homes and infrastructure in both Mount Washington and Salisbury, while Copake, N.Y., was virtually under martial law as hundreds of men were dispatched against the fire that was backing against the wind up the slopes of Mount Alander.
State police walked the hose line pumping from Preachy Hollow Brook, to discourage any of the conscripted firefighters who were being paid by the day who might have been tempted to extend their employment through sabotage.
Losses of life, homes
Rumors spread that two Boy Scouts from Thomaston, Conn., had been lost in the fire. While this proved unfounded, there were a number of close calls, as some men had their clothes and shoes burned or got caught in backfires.
Reports that cottages on Plaintain Pond and Mount Riga were burned were unsubstantiated, but along Undermountain Road some outbuildings were lost while firefighters protected primary structures.
The fire extended down Riga Brook toward Salisbury village and was checked by the bridge above Factory Street. Up at High Valley Farm in Copake, with the flames right above on Alander Ridge, a team of draft horses plowed furrows as a firebreak around the main homestead and other buildings.
By May 7, the fire was still raging on Lion’s Head and had moved into Massachusetts from both New York and Connecticut.
“At Sage’s Ravine,” wrote The Lakeville Journal, “the blaze was intense and pine trees blazed like torches. Much of the mountainside was inaccessible, and nothing could be done, only to watch the fire burn itself out.”
More than 500 men arrived from Torrington and Winsted to fight the fire in Connecticut, and more came from the Berkshires and as far away as Poughkeepsie and Hudson in New York.
The wind dropped, and the fire was finally put out on Alander Mountain the following day.
The aftermath
Contemporary estimates of the extent of the 1930 Taconic fire vary considerably, ranging from 6 to more than 30 square miles.
Analysis of historic records and first-person accounts argue toward a more conservative estimate of 8 to 10 square miles, with the largest portion in Connecticut.
Mount Riga’s holdings burned north and east of Riga Lake, sparing Bald Peak but burning over every other promontory from Lion’s Head to Sage’s Ravine, as well as much of the Scoville ore mine vicinity down toward Undermountain Road.
It never reached Mount Everett Reservation in Mount Washington, though it burned much of what is now Mount Washington State Forest in the southwest part of the town. It did advance to within a mile of the church and school in that community.
There was a concerted effort after the fire at the local and state level to keep sightseers away from the burned areas and prevent the spread of new wildfires.
The woods were closed to trout fishing across all three states and the roads to the Taconic Plateau were barred by state police to all but property holders.
‘Considerable grandeur’
The Lakeville Journal reported: “A number of people visited Bald Peak at the height of the fire and the scene, while appalling, was also one of considerable grandeur.”
As of this writing, however, no contemporary photograph of the wildfire or its suppression efforts has surfaced — although the 1934 aerial survey of the state conducted by the state of Connecticut does appear to show evidence of the fire.
Fire Warden Warner would write in gratitude to his fellow citizens of Salisbury: “During the trying days last week when the forest fire was raging, there was always one comforting thought and that was the realization of how splendidly our people stood together in the crisis. Men and women, boys and girls, all did voluntarily and ungrudgingly all and more than was asked of them, in many cases they did more than they should have done.”
Mount Alander fire losses
Not everyone was as sanguine as they counted their losses. The part of the fire that burned over Mount Alander from New York charred more than 2,000 acres in Mount Washington, owned by William Miles, that had once been used for charcoal for the Copake Falls iron furnace.
The state of New York leased the summit of Mount Alander for a fire tower, located in Massachusetts and manned by Mervin Whitbeck of Mount Washington, who also worked for Miles.
The fire warden’s shack survives today but the tower was ordered taken down by Miles, who canceled the lease shortly after the fire.
It was relocated first to Washburn Mountain across High Valley in Copake, and then to Beebe Hill, farther north in Columbia County, where it remains today.
Impact on forests
Edward Brazee recalled that one could still see the scars of the fire on the big trees in the 1970s.
Curtis Rand, a licensed forester and now Salisbury’s first selectman, notes that there are 80-year-old poplar stands growing on the mountain today in some sections where the fire passed through.
There are fewer pitch pines today on the acidic ridgetops of some of the peaks that were in the path of the fire than on the ones nearby that were spared.
Connecticut does not experience wildfires of the scope and severity of the 1930 Taconic Fire anymore. When the woods were younger and careless smoking put more land at risk of fire, it was not unusual to lose more than 50,000 acres annually to wildfires.
These days, the state averages 1,800 acres burned. When Mount Everett Reservation caught fire in 2004, it burned for six weeks and consumed just 18 acres. However, it also burned underground through thick layers of duff and leaf litter, and it took the mutual aid of more than 20 communities from three states to respond to that fire, echoing the response that was required to combat the 1930 fire.
