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The Horrors play Leeds Cockpit, 07/06/09.
The place was packed as usual in the Cockpit due to it being totally sold out, so I could only really get one spot. I could have pushed my way through the crowd, but everyone seemed to be under 18, so would have felt a bit bad for crushing some little kid. This, I suppose is the reason I only got decent shots of Faris and Joshua.
I'm happy with the way they turned out, would have liked more colour in the shots though. . And more variety.
Middle guy is a Bolt Of Change horror. Converted from the new Hobbit Goblin Town Goblins, with added Ghoul/WHFB Goblin heads and arms, and tons of green stuff.
Urbex Session : Horrors Labs (BE) , 11.2012
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Congratulations!
Your family contacted our staff and you scheduled to be our newest patient! Welcome to the Hyperion Hills Hospital! (formerly the Hyperion Tavern) We've already confirmed with your family that you qualify for an expense free stay at Hyperion Hills .
Admit yourself to our New Patients Night! Monday October 26th. It's a fun way get oriented to our facilities. It's free to you and your family!!
Here's a run down of the evening!
7pm Proper Tour
Our top staff members will escort
small groups on an orientation
tour of our grounds.
8pm Lovely Films
Gather around everyone,
it's movie time! A little
taste of life as a patient
at Hyperion Hills.
9pm New Friends
The current patients at
Hyperion Hills Hospital
can't wait to meet you!
They put together a little
welcoming show for you
and your family.
Midnight Photo Opps
A little meet and greet
after party! Perfect time to
snap some last photos
of you and your family!
We suggest you arrive around 7:30 to get the full experience of the evening. We'll have plenty of intermissions and candy!
Welcome to your new home!
Sincerely,
All of us on the staff of Hyperion Hills Hospital
and Home for the Criminally Deranged:
Denver Smith
Meghan Parks
Ed Galvez
Jefferey J. Nowicki
Val Myers
A few of our current patients whom you'll see are free to roam around our campus:
Patty Courtland
Sean Hart
Ed Salazar
Erik Tait
Charlie Watkins
Matt Hanley
Emerson Dameron
Finally, a list of current patients you'll see during the Welcome Show:
hosted by: George Earth and Beau Brookes. with JP Houston and Alex on drums!
Mark Wenzel
Marisol Medina
Count Smokula
Matt Blitz
Jim Coughlin
The Walsh Bros
Adam Shenkman
Jason Nash
Scot Nery
DJ Doug Pound
Josh Fadem
Krystal Gibbon
Bonnie Delight
This guy was supposed to be purple but I went a bit mad with the highlights so as luck would have it he is actually the only"pink" horror in the unit of pink horrors.
The Horrors / Heft-Reihe
The Spirit of War
cover: L. B. Cole
Star Publications / USA 1953
Reprint / Comic-Club NK 2010
ex libris MTP
Middle guy is a Bolt Of Change horror. Converted from the new Hobbit Goblin Town Goblins, with added Ghoul/WHFB Goblin heads and arms, and tons of green stuff.
Boys practice for the Chinese New Year celebrations in Guildhall Square, Southampton. The traditional dragon costume can be seen on the ground behind them.
Some shooting to the electoral publicity during the last elections for the municipality in Florence...
Original shot taken with a Minolta Auotpak 500 on Kodak Gold 200 asa expired 126 film cartridge. Some post processing.
www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyononda/FAMILY/TYLER.HTM#Tyler Home
COMFORT TYLER was born in the town of Ashford, Connecticut, on the 22d of February, 1764, being the fourth of seven brothers. In the year 1777, when only thirteen years of age, he manifested a strong desire to enter the army, and resolved to enlist as a soldier in defense of his country. At the age of fourteen, he entered the army with his father's consent. His term of service was of short duration, and his duties light, being mostly confined to duty in and about the fortress of West Point. In 1783, he went to Caughnawaga, on the Mohawk River, where he entered upon the business of surveyor, taught a school; and as is often the case with young men of gifted minds, he made greater advances in useful knowledge than his pupils. Among the superior men who have emigrated from New-England to the wilderness of Western New York, a large proportion of them have thought it a necessary preliminary to teach school, and to learn the art of surveying land, in order to secure a small fund and successfully to make headway in the world. While Mr. Tyler was thus engaged at Caughnawaga, General James Clinton came up the Mohawk valley with a party, for the purpose of establishing the boundary line between New-York and Pennsylvania; and by him Mr. Tyler was engaged to accompany the expedition. The party transported their bateaux and baggage from the Mohawk River to Otsego Lake, and thence down the Susquehanna, to the State line, being the same route taken by General Clinton, in 1779, in the expedition against the western Indians. Mr. Tyler continued with the party during the season, and then returned to the Mohawk. On this surveying expedition, he first made the acquaintance of Moses DeWitt, who was about his own age, and with whom he was intimately associated till the time of Mr. DeWitt's death.
The next event of importance which occurred during his residence in the Mohawk valley, grew out of his connection with the celebrated "Lessee Company." The constitution of the State forbade the purchase of lands, in fee simple, of the Indians by individuals, reserving to the State alone, the right to make such purchases. An association of men, embracing many of wealth, character and influence, was formed for the purpose of purchasing lease-hold estates of the Indians, for the term of nine hundred and ninety-nine years. On their way up the Mohawk valley, they met Mr. Tyler, and offered him a participation in the enterprise, which offer he accepted. They proceeded as far as Canandaigua, where a treaty was held with the Indians on the bank of the lake: and, so far as they could judge, their object was accomplished. As might have been foreseen, however, the State authorities interfered, and the whole affair vanished in smoke. As the history of this company is but little known, we give the following brief sketch of it. In the winter of 1787-88, was formed the memorable "Lessee Company," composed of John Livingston, Caleb Benton, Peter Ryckman, John Stephenson, Ezekiel Gilbert, Benjamin Birdsall, and others, some eighty-six persons in all* These gentlemen, entered into an agreement with the chiefs and head men of the Six Nations of the Indians, by which, for consideration afterwards mentioned, the said Six Nations leased "all the land commonly known as the lands of the Six Nations, in the State of New-York, and at the time, in the actual possession of said chiefs and sachems," for the term of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, for an annual rent of two thousand Spanish milled dollars, except some insignificant reserves, and some privileges of hunting, fishing, &c., among which are the following:
Reservation first.-"A mile square near the outlet of Cayuga Lake and Cayuga Salt Springs, with one hundred acres of land, to accommodate the same with wood.
Reservation second.-One-half of the falls, and convenient places for weirs, for the purpose of catching fish and eels, from Cross Lake to the Three Rivers.
Reservation third.-Reserving the exclusive right to one of the salt springs near Onondaga, with fifty or one hundred acres of land around the same, sufficient for fire wood, and other conveniences for boiling salt, together with an equal right in common, for eeling and fishing as far as Oneida Lake."
The Indians might reserve any other lands they chose, but the same reverted to the lessees whenever they were abandoned by the Indians. The time for the payment of the rents, was to commence on the 4th of July, 1791.
The leases were signed on the part of the Mohawks by Joseph Brant, and Hendrick Tekarihogea, by three Oneidas, eight Onondagas, twenty-three Cayugas and twenty-two Senecas, among whom were Red Jacket and Little-Beard, and also by ten principal women. Witnesses to the leases, were Samuel Kirkland, James Dean, Jos. Brant, David Smith, Benjamin Barton, M. Hollenback, Elisha Lee and Ezekiel Scott. Dated 9th of July, 1788.
One other lease, was witnessed by the same chief, Brant, as Oneida chief, James Dean, Sam'l Kirkland, Hezekiah Olcutt, Jed. Phelps, Nicholas Jourdain and Abram Van Eps, and signed by ten Senecas, five Tuscaroras, five Mohawks, seven Oneidas, and ten Onondagas, besides thirty miscellaneous.
It has been intimated that Brant, Red Jacket and others, of the principal chiefs of the Six Nations, were more than liberally paid for their concurrence in these transactions.
It was thought by many discerning persons, at the time of this transaction, that the leaders in this matter, contemplated nothing less than the dismemberment of the State of New-York, and the erection of a new one, out of the fertile country of the western part.
Many of the most prominent citizens in the State were enlisted in the scheme, and although the laws and constitution expressly forbade the purchase of any lands from the Indians, yet by leasing the same, for the term of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, amounted virtually to a sale; although in effect fraudulent, still, undoubtedly, many were innocently engaged in the transaction.
An act was passed, 18th of March, 1789, brought about by the energy of Governor Clinton and Senator Egbert Benson, defining the boundaries of the lesses, authorizing the Governor to destroy all dwellings, houses, barns or other erections, made on any of the Indian lands, by others than Indians, and if necessary, to call out the militia of the State, to speedily and forcibly eject all trespassers on Indian lands.
By these operations, the lessees failed to establish their title to the fertile country of Western New-York, and feeling themselves aggrieved by the interference of the State, petitioned the Legislature for relief; and finally on the 4th of February, 1793, was passed an act authorizing the Commissioners of the Land Office to direct a quantity of the vacant and unappropriated lands in the State, equal to ten miles square, to be set off for their use and benefit. This land was finally located on township No. 3, of the "Old Military Tract," amounting to about sixty-four thousand acres; and this was the final compromise of the State, with the famous "Lessee Company," who once pretended to own and hold all the lands in Western New-York, west of the "Old Line of Property." This Line of Property, often named in the early records of the State Department at Albany, was a line drawn from the north-east corner of the State of Pennsylvania across the State of New-York, in a direction a little east of North, crossing the Mohawk River, near where the dividing line of the counties of Herkimer and Oneida now crosses the same.
By the treaty of 1784, the Six Nations were to occupy all the lands in the State of New-York, west of that line, so distinguished because, beyond that on the west, no white people had acquired a title, except about six miles square, including the Fort at Oswego, and a strip about four miles wide along the Niagara River, which by stipulation in the treaty, the United States had reserved.
The journey of Mr. Tyler to Cayuga was not without benefit, for it enabled him to see and appreciate the beautiful and fertile country west of the Mohawk; and, it was at this time, that he formed the resolution of eventually settling in that portion of the State.
In the spring of 1788, at the age of twenty-three years, in company with Major Asa Danforth, he pushed into the wilderness, fifty miles beyond any white inhabitant, and commenced the permanent settlement of Onondaga county. This was nearly a year before the treaty was held on the bank of the Seneca Lake, between Oliver Phelps and the Indians.**
After the arrival of Col. Tyler at Onondaga, he enjoyed the distinction of having felled the first tree, and of constructing the first piece of turnpike road in the State, west of Fort Stanwix, and of assisting in the first manufacture of salt.
The first individuals who passed the limits of our county to live, were John Harris and James Bennet, who settled at Cayuga in 1789. Mr. Tyler obtained his first cow from Judge White, as well as some grain for seed. Having heard that cows might be had at the garrison at Oswego, he went there and purchased two or three more. Like most of the early settlers, Mr. Tyler was obliged to grind his corn in a mortar made in an oak stump. His mill was standing till the year 1845, near the barn of Mrs. Thaddeus M. Wood, when it was grubbed out and burned, to add to the improvements of the age. It was quite sound.
Col. Tyler was a favorite with the Indians, who named him "To-whan-ta-qua" - meaning one that is double, or one that is a laboring man and a gentleman at the same time, or can do two things at once. So intimate were the associations of the family with the Indians, that some of the children lisped their first accents in the Indian tongue.
Mr. Tyler married for his first wife Miss Deborah Wemple, who died a short time after her marriage, leaving one daughter, who afterwards became the wife of Cornelius Longstreet, father of Mr. C. T. Longstreet. He afterwards married Miss Betsey Brown.
His second wife survived him but a few weeks, leaving but one child, Mrs. Mary Olmstead, now of Cohoes Falls. These two daughters were his only children.
In the summer of 1793, Col. Tyler was severely bitten in the arm by a rabid dog. The wound was instantly done up in salt. He immediately arranged his affairs, bade farewell to his friends, and with the most melancholy feelings, and the prospect of a terrible and certain death before him, set out in quest of a celebrated physician, who professed to cure this horrible malady. He was successful in finding him, submitted to a severe course of treatment, which entirely eradicated the insidious poison, and in a few weeks came home restored to health and usefulness. This would appear incredible but from the fact that the dog had bitten several swine and cattle in the neighborhood, which died with all the symptoms and horrors of that most dreadful of maladies. The dog was killed.
When the Military Tract was surveyed, he was selected to render assistance, and surveyed one of the townships, and subsequently he surveyed the Cayuga reservation. In all the important improvements of the country he bore a conspicuous part, freely appropriating his time and means for the promotion of these objects. He was early selected on account of his sterling worth to fill the highest offices of trust. He was appointed a justice of the peace for the town of Manlius in 1794. He was appointed coroner for Onondaga county in 1794, with Gilbert Tracy. In 1797 he was appointed sheriff of the county of Onondaga, and after Cayuga was set off in 1799, he was appointed clerk for Onondaga, and held that office till 1802. He was the first supervisor of the town of Manlius in 1794, and held the office four years; and represented Onondaga in the Legislature in 1798 and 1799. With a physical constitution remarkably capable of undergoing fatigue, and all the vicissitudes of climate, Mr. Tyler possessed, in an eminent degree, the qualities of enterprise, sagacity, prudence and fortitude. Among the Indians, his firmness and justice soon produced respect and confidence. With the new settlers, as they gradually followed his lonely path into the woods, his intelligence, sympathy and alacrity in aiding them, produced high esteem and devoted friendship. Many of the first settlers of Onondaga, had their spirits perpetually refreshed by glowing anticipations of the future. They knew the importance of their exertions. They labored and suffered in perfect assurance that the great results would follow, which we see realized. Full of these assurances, Mr. Tyler was always active and ardent for opening roads, improving streams, establishing schools, and erecting churches. Extensively acquainted with the topography of the country, he labored assiduously on all occasions, and with much effect, in impressing upon others the views which he entertained of the real wants and true interests of the new settlements. In addition to the encouragement which he gave by his example, to the ordinary and indispensable operations of clearing lands, providing the means of subsistence, and constructing comfortable dwellings, from the first his mind was constantly laboring for the means of facilitating intercourse. With a parental solicitude, he considered the condition of the whole country into which he led the settlers, and comprehended upon the broadest scale, the means of improving it. His zeal for new roads and bridges was deemed romantic. But his knowledge and his perseverance were not to be defeated. As a member of the Legislature, and in all his intercourse with public and private meetings for the general welfare, no person sustained his part better, or effected more, than he did. These subjects were the theme of his remarks, and the object he was most anxious to promote. To him more than to any other man are we indebted for the Seneca Turnpike Road, including the bridge across the Cayuga Lake. This project, which has proved so valuable since its accomplishment, was very much opposed at its inception. The ignorant, the timid and the indolent, thought it impossible to be effected by the feeble means then in the country. It was too gigantic and expensive; even if it could be constructed, the means would be wasted, and after years of hard labor, and the most liberal appropriations for its completion, its advocates would inevitably incur the loss and mortification of finding it altogether unprofitable.
In his efforts to bring capital and influence in aid of his undertakings, Col. Tyler made the acquaintance of Aaron Burr - which finally led to his connection with the celebrated southern expedition. The history of that period shows that he entered prominently into the transaction, having spent two years at the south, in arranging plans for the consummation of the project. The minutiae of these operations have not transpired.
As this affair caused great excitement throughout the country at the time, and as Col. Tyler was a prominent actor in the scene, it may be interesting to some, to give a brief synopsis so far as he and some other citizens of Onondaga were concerned. Previous to the succession of Louisiana, to the United States, Baron P. N. Tut. Bastrop, contracted with the Spanish government, for a tract of land exceeding thirty miles square near Nachitoches. Subsequently, Col. Charles Lynch made an agreement with Baron Bastrop, for an interest in this purchase. Aaron Burr purchased of Col. Lynch about four hundred thousand acres of this land, lying between the Sabine and Nachitoches, and paid for it fifty thousand dollars.
The grant of Bastrop contained about one million two hundred thousand acres, and six-tenths of it was conveyed to Col. Lynch, and Col. Burr became interested in one half of Lynch's share, for the consideration above named.
This is the commencement of the celebrated Burr conspiracy. In the spring of 1805, Burr passed through the State of Pennsylvania to the Ohio valley, and down to New Orleans. It was at this time that he visited the beautiful Island of Herman Blennerhasset. Whatever scheme of ambition he contemplated, or what mighty project for founding a vast empire in the south-west he had planned, is unknown. There was a profound mystery in his movements, which could not be penetrated. The ostensible object of his operations was the settlement of the lands he had bargained for on the Washita River. Hundreds had been sounded on the subject of the speculation, and had assented to a participation in its profits, without knowing the destiny, or calculating on the event, of what was now in progress. In fact, the unfolding of the plan was not yet, and its result and prospects were perhaps only known to Aaron Burr, the grand projector of the hidden scheme. It has been supposed by man that his final object was the possession of New Orleans, the conquest of all Mexico and the formation of a new Republic. Many of the principal men of New-York and Ohio, were, through the wiles and machinations of this exuberant genius, drawn within the influences of his plans, and without harboring a surmise of evil, joined their fortunes with his. What communication Comfort Tyler had with the grand leader of this project is unknown. He first made the acquaintance of Aaron Burr, while they were members together of the New-York Legislature, in 1798 and 1799.
The New-York delegation was composed of Aaron Burr, George Clinton, John Swartwouth, - Gates and others. At this session Col. Tyler procured the charter for building the Cayuga Bridge, and in order to facilitate the work, Col. Burr, and Gen. John Swartwout, subscribed for, took the whole stock, and furnished the means for prosecuting the work. Israel Smith and Joseph Annin superintended the building of the bridge. Thus commenced, the intercourse of Aaron Burr with the people of Western New York, many of whom were subsequently drawn into the great south-west expedition. In process of time, Col. Tyler and Israel Smith, both of whom acted prominent parts in the affair, with others from Onondaga and Cayuga counties, proceeded to Big Beaver (formerly For McIntosh,) in Pennsylvania, on horseback, ostensibly for the purpose of making sale of salt. This article had begun to be manufactured in considerable quantities at Montezuma and Onondaga, and the sale of it in the west became a desirable object. Upon their arrival at Beaver, Messrs. Tyler and Smith entered largely into the purchase of provisions, particularly pork and flour. Having purchased a large number of hogs, they had them packed and taken down the Ohio to Natches. This is said to be the first salted pork ever taken down the Ohio River, and was considered not only something new but wonderful at Natches. Many of the most prominent men in the country courted the society of these gentlemen, and expressed themselves as fervent advocates of the project. As the boats laden with provisions proceeded down the Ohio, they were joined by others who were engaged in the expedition. These operations on the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers, awakened the vigilance and excited the attention of the government of the United States.
On the 6th of December, 1805, Col. Tyler landed at Blenerhasset's Island with four boats and about thirty men, some of whom were armed. These had been fitted out as before stated, as the towns above on the Ohio River, and were making their way to New Orleans. Boats laden with similar freight had previously passed, and others were expected. Upon these demonstrations of hostility, the militia of Ohio were called out to suppress what was supposed to amount to an insurrection. An act of the Ohio Legislature, and President Jefferson's proclamation, against these suspicious movements, dissipated the whole affair, and the expedition, whatever it was designed to be, exploded upon the arrest of the principal mover, Aaron Burr.
Col. Burr, was arrested on the Tombigbee River, Mississippi; was carried to Richmond Virginia, tried for treason in 1807, and acquitted.
Other arrests were made, viz: Generals Adair and Dayton, Blenerhasset, Swartwout, Tyler, Smith, Bellman and Ogden. Burr and Blenerhasset were the only ones tried. It has been stated that Burr's whole force at no time exceeded one hundred and fifty men.
The indictments were founded on the allegation, that Col. Tyler, with some thirty men, stopped at Blenerhasset's Island on their way down the Ohio with a view of taking temporary possession of New Orleans on their way to New Mexico, such intent being considered treason. Process was served on Col. Tyler at Natches. He came to Washington with Col. Pike, who was afterwards Gen. Pike, and who was killed at Little York, in 1812.
It has been supposed by some that President Jefferson was to close his eyes to all these proceedings; for maps, charts, notes, &c., had been furnished, of the Washita country, otherwise called the Baron Bastrop purchase, by his knowledge. It should be borne in mind that Burr's title to that purchase was considered good, and proved to be so. It is supposed that the remonstrance of Marshall Turenne, Minister from France, in behalf of Bonaparte, influenced the mind of the President in his deliberations upon the subject. He unequivocally declared that any entry of American citizens upon the territory in question, would amount to a declaration of war, which was supposed to have accelerated the President's interference.***
This affair greatly impaired Col. Tyler's private fortune, and such was popular prejudice against the participators in this enterprise that it forever destroyed his prospects as a public man. Whatever may have been Burr's ulterior object, the public will understand better when the history of this transaction is more fully developed. That the great number of influential and respectable men connected with it, had no unworthy motive, but simply sought to take possession of the Bastrop purchase, to which they believed they had a fair and legitimate title, cannot be doubted. Whatever the expectations of these men were, they were sadly disappointed, and the result proved that they had been wofully misled. The consequence of this disappointment was, that a controversy took place between Col. Burr and Col. Tyler, which resulted in a total estrangement between them, which was never reconciled.
Besides Comfort Tyler, there were some twenty-five others, all young men, who proceeded to Beaver, in Pennsylvania, to take part in the expedition. Some of these were Major Israel Smith, of Cayuga, Samuel Forman, Augustus Hopkins, George Kibbe, John Brackett, - - - Lamb, - - - Hathaway, Daniel Howlett, Jonathan Thompson, and several others, who left Onondaga on horseback, in full expectation of realizing fortunes without the slightest knowledge of the details of the expedition.
The affair, at this time, created a great sensation among the young men, who were alive to the subject of important speculation.
In 1811, Col. Tyler removed with his family to Montezuma, where he took a deep interest in the Cayuga Manufacturing Company. This company was engaged in making salt, and to extend their business, every thing would be important which could render Montezuma accessible. With this view, and very much by his advice and personal exertions, the company built two long bridges across the Seneca and Clyde Rivers, and constructed a turnpike, more than three miles in length, over the Cayuga marshes, where the earth was so soft that with one hand a man might thrust a pole with ease into it ten or twelve feet; and yet the experiment succeeded perfectly, without exorbitant cost.
Col. Tyler resided some two or three years at Hoboken, and superintended the draining of the salt meadows in that vicinity. In fact wherever any great work was to be accomplished, he was among the first consulted. Whatever affected the interest of his country, always engaged his solicitude, and in the late war he entered again into its military service, as Assistant Commissary General to the northern army. His activity, his resources and knowledge of the country, were often called into useful requisition. He served in the capacity of Assistant Commissary General, with the rank of Colonel, to the close of the war.
After the close of the war, the canal policy engaged his most earnest attention. From the beginning, he was among the foremost of the advocates of that work, and he was early in the field, side by side with Judge Geddes and Judge Forman, in advocating the feasibility and policy of the plan. His intimate acquaintance with the country through which it would pass, and his knowledge of the means which might be applied to its accomplishment, convinced him of its practicability; and it had been the peculiar study of his life, to ascertain the advantages which must flow, from opening such a channel of communication. He was industrious in supporting the measure by animated conversations, wherever he happened to be, and by letters addressed to members of the Legislature, in the early stages of its agitation. He lived to rejoice with those who rejoiced at its completion.
Few men have lived and died so well as Colonel Tyler, and his character may be contemplated with advantage by all. To him and his influence, the public have been under peculiar obligations. His character stands out in bold relief, and his merits have naturally resulted from his thirst after knowledge; his superiority to all the allurements of ease and luxury, his daring enterprise, his comprehensive sagacity, his self reliance, his energetic activity, his constancy in his undertakings, and in his deliberate purpose of doing good. In all the relations of private friendship, Colonel Tyler was uncommonly endearing. His ready sympathy, his ingenious affability, his animation, his originality of remark, his knowledge of human nature and of life, and that strong expression of benevolence, which beamed from his countenance and issued from his heart, made his society always attractive and advantageous, and his house the seat of hospitality. His extraordinary conversational powers were peculiarly attractive; no one became weary of his words, they were perfectly fascinating, and endeared him in the hearts of thousands. One who was intimate with him has said, "I never knew his equal in those qualities which constitute a man. He was nature's own nobleman, in person, in speech, in voice, in mind; in fact, he possessed every attribute of a perfect man." No man more than himself upon a first acquaintance, impressed upon the mind of another, the idea that his soul was filled with manly and generous sentiments, and none more fully confirmed that impression upon subsequent intimacy. By those who knew him best, he was most highly esteemed.
He died at his residence at Montezuma, on the 5th of August, 1827, sincerely lamented by a large circle of personal friends, and deeply mourned by numerous relatives.
FOOTNOTES:
*For full list, see Greenleaf's Laws, Vol. III, p. 389, act 1787, for the relief of Benjamin Birdsall and others.
**By the way, Oliver Phelps opened the first land office in America, at Canandaigua, in 1789, and for the first time land was conveyed by an "article." This was a new device, of American origin, wholly unknown to the English system, of granting possession without fee.
*** Relation of Israel Smith, Esq., of Albany.
From the autumn 2016 trip to Vietnam:
I’ll do my best to avoid channeling my inner Robin Williams here, though I did deplane in Saigon around 7:00 in the morning local time. So, this – and all subsequent sets – will be (almost) devoid of reference to hanging in Danang, a certain less-than-savory woman from the north (though, ironically, Hanoi Hannah just passed away in Saigon last Friday while I was still in the country), or other clichéd references to…Good Morning, Vietnam.
This particular trip (my first to VN) started around midnight Chinese time on 27 September 2016. After a very quick layover in Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia being another country that would be nice to photograph sometime, especially the beaches – I landed in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City early on the 28th. It’s a tossup what they call it, by the way. I’d say the majority still call it by its original name – Saigon – though there are some who call it Ho Chi Minh City. I’ll go with the majority of folks who live there and refer to it as Saigon.
I had two full days there, the 28th and 29th, before flying out on the morning of the 30th. Choosing a random hotel from Lonely Planet (I tend to go budget & find the best available option; usually works out pretty well), I ended up at the Cat Huy Hotel, where I went directly after clearing customs.
This is a hotel in the Pham Ngu Lao area near District 1. It’s down an alley, which was interesting in and of itself. Coming from the airport, the taxi drops you off and send you walking. Each morning (or at least the 3 mornings there), this alley transforms into a very crowded fresh food market, which was outstanding to me. Sadly, though, none of the mornings afforded time to slowly wander and photograph it.
The hotel itself (and its staff) are fantastic. It’s a small hotel with only ten rooms, and the service is top notch. It’s one of the kind of hotels where guests leave books when they finish, so there’s always something interesting to read. One of them (Vietnam: Rising Dragon by Bill Hayton) caught my attention. It’s a non-fiction account of contemporary Vietnam and, while I haven’t started to read it yet, I’m quite interested in it and they let me take it. I hadn’t finished any books so didn’t leave any behind, but was still quite grateful that they let me have it.
In addition to that, they can (and did) help arrange a few tours. These can be anything from day trips to the Mekong Delta – which I would have loved, had we stayed an extra day – to day/night tours in Saigon. (Not to tout this hotel over others; I’m sure almost any, if not every, hotel in cities like these are glad to help arrange such things. I can only say that I was happy here and, if I were to return to Saigon, I’d gladly stay here again.)
The first day I was in Saigon I spent quietly. The only exploration I did was just wandered around the hotel a little, then had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. (Yes, I know this isn’t Vietnamese food, but it’s a bit of a quirky thing; I think I’ve been to 30-40 HRCs around the world now with shot glasses from all but one that I’ve been to.) That being said, lunch was good, as were the six shots I had, fruity though they were.
The HRC is in the heart of downtown near the U.S. Consulate, in addition to being near Notre Dame Cathedral, the Old Post Office, and the Reunification Palace. However, these would all be for the 29th. Today, I was alone, and waiting for my friend Junyu to arrive from Hong Kong, since she missed her morning flight.
The evening was quiet; we just ate around the hotel and arranged tours for the following day. For $11, we had a day tour with Bao and the driver, Mr. Mao. It started around 8:30, I think? I forget, but it was late enough that I was glad to have pho for breakfast.
On a full stomach, we hopped on one of those small vans that can hold about 10 people and started around the city. The first (and most depressing, by far) stop was the War Remnants Museum. This is, in my opinion, a “must see” – especially for folks from the U.S. It’s pretty much a testimonial of the war from the Vietnamese point of view and, at times, is pretty graphic. The pictures simply show the effects of the bombing, in addition to the use of agent orange, etc. Though it’s completely one-sided in its telling, it does have photographs – and many of them – that show the destruction from the war. (I won’t offer my personal thoughts on how accurate the Vietnamese or U.S. version of history is here.)
The next stop after the hour at the museum was one of the obligatory stops that seem to come on these package tours. It was to a coffee shop/store. Free samples of coffee for all (and for those of you who know me, you know how I feel about that) and stories of Vietnamese coffee.
As an aside, I think I saw that Vietnam is now the largest exporter of coffee in the world (not sure if that’s true; it surprised me all the same). They are very, very proud of their coffee and you can’t walk two meters in the country without passing a coffee shop. Their most famous coffee is “weasel coffee.” It’s pretty much the same as Indonesian Kopi Luwak. The beans are digested by animals – weasels in this case, and only then are they most fit for human consumption. So…coffee lovers, enjoy.
After the 15 minute rest stop, we hopped back in the van and went off to Chinatown in Cholon (District 5). If I recall, I think Bao said the Chinese made up about 4% of the population, though accounted for 25% of the economy. (I don’t know if that’s a current figure or a historical one.) At any rate, the first stop was at a temple that I found rather unimpressive. The Thien Hau Pagoda didn’t seem like a pagoda at all. It just felt like a cramped temple in the middle of a neighborhood. I don’t even think I got a single picture here that impressed me too much.
From there, we went to the Binh Tay Market, also in Cholon. This is a wholesale market that supposedly has a central courtyard with gardens. It may have that, but I wasn’t aware of it at the time, and didn’t see anything that mentioned it. The clock tower is nice, but the inside basically feels like a flea market or an oversized garage sale. I enjoyed walking around the exterior of the market much more as this is where the food vendors were. Munching on some cashews, I managed to get quite a few pictures of various vendors selling various food. I enjoyed that quite a bit.
After the 1-1.5 hours total in District 5, we hopped back on the van then followed along the riverside to a restaurant for lunch. We then went across the river to District 2 – currently almost completely undeveloped and on low/swampy land. (For Shanghainese, think Pudong around 1990. District 1, on the other hand, is like Puxi.) Had we stopped, I may have gotten a few interesting panoramas of District 1 from this side of the river and the emergence of District 2. However, we were on our way to the second (and, thankfully, last) obligatory stop…a lacquer production facility. Though the pieces were nice, I bought none, and politely bided my 30 minutes here.
Next up was the Reunification Palace. This is a peculiar place. Originally, it was the site of a palace built for the French leader of Cochinchina (Indochina). It was called Norodom Palace. Norodom, coincidentally, was the ruler of Cambodia. Later, it became the palace/residence for Ngo Dinh Diem, who ruled South Vietnam. He was so unpopular that his own air force bombed the palace hoping to kill him. (He was eventually assassinated by disgruntled South Vietnamese in 1963. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.)
Before he was assassinated, Diem had the palace rebuilt (with underground bunkers). Successive South Vietnamese used it as the main government building, so on the main floor are the cabinet rooms. The upper floors have reception rooms.
This is a building that is stuck in time – in the 1960s – with the interior decorations to match. It’s not the most attractive place, but definitely worth a visit. The Vietnam War ended here (symbolically, anyway) on 30 April 1975 when Viet Cong tanks crashed through the wrought iron gates. The tanks are currently on display to the right of the main lawn.
An hour at the palace – more than enough time to casually look around – and then we were off for a short drive to our last two stops: Notre Dame Cathedral & the Old Post Office, which are right next door to each other. That was the end of the $11 day trip, right around 4:00. (I forgot to mention, the $11 included admission ticket prices.)
The bus dropped us off close enough to the hotel that we had a short walk and roughly an hour to rest before the night tour (which cost $40). The night tour was drinking/eating and well worth it. Two girls on their scooters, Ha & Nga, came to the hotel to pick us up.
First evening stop, a rooftop bar. I forget the name of the bar, but it was downtown in District 1 and up on the 26th or 28th floor. (Saigon doesn’t have too many super skyscrapers like China.) It wasn’t an amazing sunset, but beautiful all the same with random lightning. I tried a number of times to catch lightning in pictures, but had no luck. However, I think the night panoramas turned out fine. Thirty minutes and two Saigon Specials down the hatch and we were back out on the streets.
Ha took me to the intersection of Phan Dinh Pung Street and Le Van Duyet Street. There’s not much memorable about this intersection except for one thing: in 1963, the Buddhist monk Thanh Quang Duc drove here in a blue Austin, got out of his car, then immediately sat in the middle of the intersection in a lotus position and lit himself on fire, killing himself in protest of Ngo Dinh Diem’s persecution of Buddhists. Nga started to explain the story to us, but when I connected the dots about who it was (I never knew his name), I stopped her. You can find the famous picture online of his self-immolation. It’s one of the iconic pictures of the entire decade of the 1960s.
Next up for us was dinner, though I don’t know the name of what we ate. We had a quick “cooking lesson” on how to make rice paper (kind of a pancake, really) that was part of dinner with vegetables. This was in the flower market, a small street where they sell – you guessed it – flowers.
Between dinner and dessert, we stopped for banh mi (or, up north, banh my) which is street food: a small baguette slathered with mayonnaise, a pepper sauce, and vegetables, and meat…or something that resembles meat, a la Spam. Whatever was in it, it was a delicious little sandwich on French bread.
The last place to stop and eat was another little side street for dessert. We had four bowls of…I don’t know what to call it. In common was that they all had crushed ice on top and were in a cream sauce. The differences was in the jelly. One was mango, one was kiwi, one was coffee, and the other was caramel/flan.
On a full stomach, Ha & Nga drove us back to the hotel where we passed out in anticipation of a morning flight to Phu Quoc Island.
As always, thanks for dropping by and viewing these pictures. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments and I’ll answer as I have time.
Holy Family and St Michael, Kesgrave, Ipswich, Suffolk
A new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.
There are ages of faith which leave their traces in splendour and beauty, as acts of piety and memory. East Anglia is full of silent witnesses to tides which have ebbed and flowed. Receding, they leave us in their wake great works from the passing ages, little Norman churches which seem to speak a language we can no longer understand but which haunts us still, the decorated beauty of the 14th Century at odds with the horrors of its pestilence and loss, the perpendicular triumph of the 15th Century church before its near-destruction in the subsequent Reformation and Commonwealth, the protestant flowering of chapels and meeting houses in almost all rural communities, and most obvious of all for us today the triumphalism of the Victorian revival.
But even as tides recede, piety and memory survive, most often in quiet acts and intimate details. The catholic church of Holy Family and St Michael at Kesgrave is one of their great 20th Century treasure houses.
At the time of the 1851 census of religious worship, Kesgrave was home to just 86 people, 79 of whom attended morning service that day, giving this parish the highest percentage attendance of any in Suffolk. However, they met half a mile up the road at the Anglican parish church of All Saints, and the current site of Holy Family was then far out in the fields. In any case, it is unlikely that any of the non-attenders was a Catholic. Today, Kesgrave is a sprawling eastern suburb of Ipswich, home to about 10,000 people. It extends along the A12 corridor all the way to Martlesham, which in turn will take you pretty much all the way to Woodbridge without seeing much more than a field or two between the houses.
Holy Family was erected in the 1930s, and serves as a chapel of ease within the parish of Ipswich St Mary. However, it is still in private ownership, the responsibility of the Rope family, who, along with the Jolly family into which they married, owned much of the land in Kesgrave that was later built on.
The growth of Kesgrave has been so rapid and so extensive in these last forty years that radical expansions were required at both this church and at All Saints, as well as to the next parish church along in the suburbs at Rushmere St Andrew. All of these projects are interesting, although externally Holy Family is less dramatic than its neighbours. It sits neatly in its trim little churchyard, red-brick and towerless, a harmonious little building if rather a curious shape, of which more in a moment. Beside it, the underpass and roundabout gives it a decidedly urban air. But this is a church of outstanding interest, as we shall see.
It was good to come back to Kesgrave. As a member of St Mary's parish I generally attended mass at the parish's other church, a couple of miles into town, but I had been here a number of times over the years, either to mass or just to wander around and sit for a while. These days, you generally approach the church from around the back, where you'll find a sprawling car park typical of a modern Catholic church. To the west of the church are Lucy House and Philip House, newly built for the work of the Rope family charities. Between the car park and the church there there is a tiny, formal graveyard, with crosses remembering members of the Rope and Jolly families.
Access to the church is usually through a west door these days, but if you are fortunate enough to enter through the original porch on the north side you will have a foretaste of what is to come, for to left and right are stunning jewel-like and detailed windows depicting St Margaret and St Theresa on one side and St Catherine and the Immaculate Conception on the other. Beside them, a plaque reveals that the church was built to the memory of Michael Rope, who was killed in the R101 airship disaster of 1930.
Blue Peter-watching boys like me, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, were enthralled by airships. They were one of those exciting inventions of a not-so-distant past which were, in a real sense, futuristic, a part of the 1930s modernist project that imagined and predicted the way we live now. And they were just so big. But they were doomed, because the hydrogen which gave them their buoyancy was explosive.
As a child, I was fascinated by the R101 airship and its disaster, especially because of that familiar photograph of its wrecked and burnt-out fuselage sprawled in the woods on a northern French hillside. It is still a haunting photograph today. The crash of the R101 put an end to airship development in the UK for more than half a century.
Of course, this is all ancient history now, but in the year 2001 I had the excellent fortune to be shown around Holy Family by Michael Rope's widow, Mrs Lucy Doreen Rope, née Jolly, who was still alive, and then in her nineties. She was responsible for the building of this church as a memorial to her husband. We paused in the porch so that I could admire the windows. "Do you like them?" Mrs Rope asked me. "Of course, my sister-in-law made them."
Her sister-in-law, of course, was Margaret Agnes Rope, who in the first half of the twentieth century was one of the finest of the Arts and Craft Movement stained glass designers. She studied at Birmingham, and then worked at the Glass House in Fulham with her cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, whose work is also here. But their work can be found in churches and cathedrals all over the world. What Mrs Rope did not tell me, and what I found out later, is that these two windows in the porch were made for her and her husband Michael as a wedding present.
Doreen Jolly and Michael Rope were married in 1929. Within a year, he was dead. Mrs Rope was just 23 years old.
The original church from the 1930s is the part that you step into. You enter to the bizarre sight of a model of the R101 airship suspended from the roof. The nave altar and tabernacle ahead are in the original sanctuary, and you are facing the liturgical east (actually south) of the original building, and what an intimate space this must have been before the church was extended. Red brick outlines the entrance to the sanctuary, and here are the three windows made by Margaret Rope for the original church. The first is the three-light sanctuary window, depicting the Blessed Virgin and child flanked by St Joseph and St Michael. Two doves sit on a nest beneath Mary's feet, while a quizzical sparrow looks on. St Michael has the face of Michael Rope. The inscription beneath reads Pray for Michael Rope who gave up his soul to God in the wreck of His Majesty's Airship R101, Beauvais, October 5th 1930.
Next, a lancet in the right-hand side of the sanctuary contains glass depicting St Dominic, with a dog running beneath his feet and the inscription Laudare, Benedicere, Praedicare, ('to praise, to bless, to preach'). The third window is in the west wall of the church (in its day, the right hand side of the nave), depicting St Thomas More and St John Fisher, although at the time the window was made they had not yet been canonised. The inscription beneath records that the window was the gift of a local couple in thankfulness for their conversion to the faith for which the Blessed Martyrs Thomas More and John Fisher gave their lives. A rose bush springs from in front of the martyrs' feet.
By the 1950s, Holy Family was no longer large enough for the community it served, and it was greatly expanded to the east to the designs of the archtect Henry Munro Cautley. Cautley was a bluff Anglican of the old school, the retired former diocesan architect of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, but he would have enjoyed designing a church for such an intimate faith community, and in fact it was his last major project before he died in 1959. The original sanctuary was retained as a blessed sacrament chapel, and the church was turned ninety degrees to face east for the first time. The north and south sides of the new church received three-light Tudor windows in the style most beloved by Cautley, as seen also at his Ipswich County Library in Northgate Street, and the former Fosters (now Lloyds) Bank in central Cambridge.
Although the Rope family had farmed at Blaxhall near Wickham Market for generations, Margaret Rope herself was not from Suffolk at all, and nor was she at first a Catholic. She was born in Shrewsbury in 1882, the daughter of Henry Rope, a surgeon at Shrewsbury Infirmary, and a son of the Blaxhall Rope family. The largest collection of Margaret Rope's glass is in Shrewsbury Cathedral. When Margaret was 17, her father died. The family were received into the Catholic church shortly afterwards. A plaque was placed in the entrance to Shrewsbury Infirmary to remember her father. When the hospital was demolished in the 1990s, the plaque was moved to here, and now sits in the north aisle of the 1950s church. In her early days in London Margaret Rope designed and made the large east window at Blaxhall church as a memorial to her grandparents. It features her younger brother Michael, and is believed to be the only window that she ever signed.
In her early forties, Margaret Rope took holy orders and entered the Carmelite Convent at nearby Woodbridge, but continued to produce her stained glass work until the community moved to Quidenham in Norfolk, when poor health and the distances involved proved insurmountable. She died there in 1953, and so she never saw the expanded church. Her cartoons, the designs for her windows, are placed on the walls around Holy Family. Some are for windows in churches in Scotland and Wales, one for a window in the English College in Rome. Among them are the roundels for within the enclosure of Tyburn Convent in London. "They had to remove the windows there during the War", said Mrs Rope. "Of course, with me, you have to ask which war!"
Turning to the east, we see the new sanctuary with its high altar, completed in 1993 as part of a further reordering and expansion, which gave a large galilee porch, kitchen and toilets to the north side of the church. The window above the new sanctuary has three lights, and the two outer windows were made by Margaret Rope for the chapel of East Bergholt convent to the south of Ipswich. They remember the Vaughan family, into which Margaret Rope's sister had married, and in particular one member, a sister in the convent, to celebrate her 25 year jubilee.
The convent later became Old Hall, a famous commune. They depict the prophet Isaiah and King David.
The central light between them is controversial. Produced in the 1990s and depicting the risen Christ, it really isn't very good, and provides the one jarring note in the church. It is rather unfortunate that it is in such a prominent position. It is not just the quality of the design that is the problem. It lets in too much light in comparison with the two flanking lights. "The glass in my sister-in-law's windows is half an inch thick", Mrs Rope told me. "In the workshop at Fulham they had a man who came in specially to cut it for them". The glass in the modern light is simply too thin.
Despite the 1990s extension, and as so often in modern urban Catholic churches, Holy Family is already not really big enough, although it is hard to see that there could ever be another expansion. We walked along Munro Cautley's south aisle, and at that time the stations of the cross were simple wooden crosses. However, about three months after my conversation with Mrs Rope, the World Trade Centre in New York was attacked and destroyed, and among the three thousand people killed were two local Kesgrave brothers who were commemorated with a new set of stations in cast metal.
Here also is a 1956 memorial window by Margaret Rope's cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, to Mrs Rope's mother Alice Jolly, depicting the remains of the shrine at Walsingham and the Jolly family at prayer before it. Another MEA Rope window is across the church in the galilee, a Second World War memorial window, originally on the east side of the first church before Cautley's extension. It depicts three of the English Martyrs, Blessed Anne Lynne, Blessed Robert Southwell and Blessed John Robinson, as well as the shipwreck of Blessed John Nutter off of Dunwich, with All Saints church on the cliffs above.
The galilee is designed for families with young children to play a full part in mass, and is separated from the church by a glass screen. At the top of the screen is a small panel by Margaret Rope which is of particular interest because it depicts her and her family participating in the Easter vigil, presumably in Shrewsbury Cathedral. This is hard to photograph because it is on an internal window between two rooms.
A recent addition to the Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope windows here is directly opposite, newly installed on the south side of the nave. It was donated by her great-nephew. It depicts a nativity scene, the Holy Family in the stable at Bethlehem, an angel appearing to shepherds on the snowy hills beyond. It is perhaps her loveliest window in the church.
Finally, back across the church. Here, beside the brass memorial to Margaret Rope, is a window depicting the Blessed Virgin and child, members of the Rope family in the Candlemas procession beneath. The inscription reminds us to pray for the soul of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God, mistress of novices and stained glass artist, Monastery of the Magnificat of the Mother of God, Quidenham, Norfolk, entered Carmel 14th September 1923, died 6th December 1953. Sister Margaret of the Mother of God was, of course, Margaret Rope herself. She was buried in the convent at Quidenham, a Shrewsbury exile at rest in the East Anglian soil of her forebears. The design is hers, and the window was made by her cousin Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope.
Back in 2001, we were talking about the changing Church, and I asked Mrs Rope what she thought about the recently introduced practice of transferring Holy Days on to the nearest Sunday, so that the teaching of them was not lost. Mrs Rope approved, a lady clearly not stuck in the past. She had a passion for ensuring that the Faith could be shared with children. As we have seen, her church is designed so that young families can take a full part in the Mass. But she was sympathetic to the distractions of the modern age. "The world is so exciting for children these days", she said. "I think it must be difficult to bring them up with a sense of the presence of God." She smiled. "Mind you, my son is 70 now! And I do admire young girls today. They have such spirit!"
She left me to potter about in her wonderful treasure house. As I did so, I thought of medieval churches I have visited, which were similarly donated by the Mrs Ropes of their day, perhaps even for husbands who had died young. They not only sought to memorialise their loved ones, but to consecrate a space for prayer, that masses might be said for the souls of the dead. This was the Catholic way, a Christian duty. Before the Reformation, this was true in every parish in England. It remained true here at Kesgrave.
And finally, back outside to the small graveyard. Side by side are two crosses. One remembers Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, artist, 1891-1988. The other remembers Lucy Doreen Rope, founder of this church, 1907-2003.
One of Brad's official duties around the house is TO KILL THESE GOD-AWFUL CENTIPEDES. Of course, as you may recall, Brad is too busy being fed chocolate truffles and champagne in a hot tub somewhere in Denver, leaving his poor wife to freak out alone on the basement stairs when she encounters a bug so big she could probably ride him to work.
I had no choice but to leave him alone. But, really, he was within the terms of our agreement (centipedes can live as long as they remain in the basement; any centipedes found on upper floors are fair game for Brad or the cat).