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Speculation was that this year's autumn colours may not be so good as usual due to the summer drought. However, the trees bordering the railway at Codsall seem to be putting on a decent show as a pair of West Midlands Trains Class 170s, with No. 170512 leading, approach the station while forming the late running 2J08 0900 Birmingham New Street - Shrewsbury service on 18th October 2022. Copyright Photograph John Whitehouse - all rights reserved
Begun as a land speculation project of William Duer, the Scioto Company had hoped to encourage European investors to purchase lands in its grant in the Ohio country. The project proved especially attractive to the French middle class, who were just beginning to feel the effects of the French Revolution. Hundreds invested their money hoping to find security and prosperity in their new homes. Upon their arrival in the United States, they found that the deeds they had purchased were worthless, since the Scioto Company had not paid for the land, they bought.
The disillusioned French settlers left Alexandria, Va., on June 29. 1790, on their journey to the Ohio country. The new settlers were unadapted to the hardships of frontier life since many of them were noblemen, doctors, army officers, manufacturers, tradesmen, and lawyers. They continued to live in the formal French manner to which they were accustomed. Common sense and the application of their trades, however, helped them to establish, a thriving river trade in a short time. By the end of 1790 there were between 300 and 400 Frenchmen in the settlement. Today, the city of Gallipolis is much like any other Ohio River town, except that the vestiges of the French settlers remain as the proud possessions of the citizens of Gallipolis.
*Excuse the photo rained heavyily.
When life gives you lemons, take photos of them in such a way as to cause speculation and over interpretation.
.... Artist, Michel de Broin's 'One Thousand Speculations', a 7.9 metre / 25 foot in diameter ball made up of 1,000 mirrors .... the world's largest mirror ball
Tutankhamun's painted chest features scenes of the king battling Egypts enemies, on the long sides he is shown as a warrior in his chariot attacking Libyans, Hittites and Nubians (there is some speculation over whether this is mere decoration to empower the pharaoh's image, or possibly Tutankhamun may have been actually involved in battle and suffered a fatal injury). The short sides depict the king as a sphinx-like creature trampling further enemies, and whilst the decoration is beautiful in detail, it is brutal in content!
The most celebrated part of the Cairo Museum's collection has for the best part of a century been the incomparable treasures of Tutankhamun's tomb housed in two long galleries on the upper floor. The greatest archaeological discovery of all time, the virtually intact tomb of the young pharaoh was discovered in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings, undisturbed since antiquity owing to the King's relative obscurity.
Tutankhamun was born Tutankhaten, son and successor of the 'heretic' pharaoh Akhenaten who dispensed with Egypt's centuries old religion in favour of his new god, the sun disk he called Aten. At Akhenaten's death Tutankhaten was only nine years old and early in his reign was persuaded to restore Egypt's religion and traditions, abandoning the cult of Aten and restoring the prominence of Amun, god of Thebes, thus changing his name to Tutankhamun. His early death barely a decade later and association with his reviled father led to the young pharaoh sharing his fate in being struck from the records and lists of Kings (an act of damnatio memoriae), thus his tomb itself was quickly forgotten and hidden beneath later structures whilst those of more famous rulers were stripped bare, probably within decades.
Howard Carter's discovery of the still sealed tomb in 1922 caused a sensation, nothing so complete had ever been found before. The tomb itself was small by pharaonic standards, prepared in a hurry as the king died in his late teens with two main chambers and a further two side chambers crammed with artworks, treasures and furnishings, along with the king's body sealed within four gilded-wooden shrines, three superbly rich coffins and the incomparable golden mask upon his head. Better still, the pharaoh's reign in the 18th Dynasty coincided with a particularly high period for artistic achievement, meaning that so much was of the highest quality. One can only imagine the riches that must have disappeared from the much larger tombs of the more famous rulers, compared to this tiny treasure-trove!
Tutankhamun's collection has resided in Cairo's Egyptian Museum ever since its discovery, but by the end of 2018 will have moved again to the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza (currently being prepared for partial opening later this year). The treasures will be displayed in their entirety for the first time, and many pieces have already been transferred. This visit offered us a last opportunity to view most of the major pieces in their central Cairo home for one last time.
For more on the 'obscure' pharaoh who millennia later became Egypt's most celebrated, see the link below:-
Sovereign is the first super yacht to moor on the Tyne. Speculation is rife amongst the locals to whom this boat might belong to, many suggesting that it might belong to Simon Cowell, or Vince McMahon .... both might be considered worthy of such speculation, as Cowell has been spotted on Tyneside and it was recently suggested that McMahon had shown interest in purchasing Newcastle United .... I think the question should be asked why would such a yacht be moored in a spot that would be a logistical nightmare, more so with the drunken hordes that frequent the quayside every weekend ... with the Law Courts being a stones throw away could the answer be a lot simpler
Tutankhamun's painted chest features scenes of the king battling Egypts enemies, on the long sides he is shown as a warrior in his chariot attacking Libyans, Hittites and Nubians (there is some speculation over whether this is mere decoration to empower the pharaoh's image, or possibly Tutankhamun may have been actually involved in battle and suffered a fatal injury). The short sides depict the king as a sphinx-like creature trampling further enemies, and whilst the decoration is beautiful in detail, it is brutal in content!
The most celebrated part of the Cairo Museum's collection has for the best part of a century been the incomparable treasures of Tutankhamun's tomb housed in two long galleries on the upper floor. The greatest archaeological discovery of all time, the virtually intact tomb of the young pharaoh was discovered in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings, undisturbed since antiquity owing to the King's relative obscurity.
Tutankhamun was born Tutankhaten, son and successor of the 'heretic' pharaoh Akhenaten who dispensed with Egypt's centuries old religion in favour of his new god, the sun disk he called Aten. At Akhenaten's death Tutankhaten was only nine years old and early in his reign was persuaded to restore Egypt's religion and traditions, abandoning the cult of Aten and restoring the prominence of Amun, god of Thebes, thus changing his name to Tutankhamun. His early death barely a decade later and association with his reviled father led to the young pharaoh sharing his fate in being struck from the records and lists of Kings (an act of damnatio memoriae), thus his tomb itself was quickly forgotten and hidden beneath later structures whilst those of more famous rulers were stripped bare, probably within decades.
Howard Carter's discovery of the still sealed tomb in 1922 caused a sensation, nothing so complete had ever been found before. The tomb itself was small by pharaonic standards, prepared in a hurry as the king died in his late teens with two main chambers and a further two side chambers crammed with artworks, treasures and furnishings, along with the king's body sealed within four gilded-wooden shrines, three superbly rich coffins and the incomparable golden mask upon his head. Better still, the pharaoh's reign in the 18th Dynasty coincided with a particularly high period for artistic achievement, meaning that so much was of the highest quality. One can only imagine the riches that must have disappeared from the much larger tombs of the more famous rulers, compared to this tiny treasure-trove!
Tutankhamun's collection has resided in Cairo's Egyptian Museum ever since its discovery, but by the end of 2018 will have moved again to the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza (currently being prepared for partial opening later this year). The treasures will be displayed in their entirety for the first time, and many pieces have already been transferred. This visit offered us a last opportunity to view most of the major pieces in their central Cairo home for one last time.
For more on the 'obscure' pharaoh who millennia later became Egypt's most celebrated, see the link below:-
Reconstruction of the Small Herculaneum Woman, 2019, marble stucco on plaster cast, egg tempera, and gold foil 185 x 56 x 65 cm, created by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann (Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung Frankfurt, on permanent loan from Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main)
Thank you for your interest. Please do not post spam, irrelevant poetry or prose, or links to your works in the comment section. I will find my own way to your images. All my images are my own original work, under my copyright, with all rights reserved. This means the owner's permission must be sought and obtained, before using any image for ANY purpose.
Copyright infringement is theft.
The Caged Eagle: Angus McBride and the Aquila of Legio II Parthica
Imperial Roman Legionary AD 161-284 features a dramatic battle scene by the late Angus McBride.
It depicts a civil war clash between the Praetorian Guard and Second Parthica Legion. Both units were present at the battle fought by Macrinus and Elagabalus at Imma on 8 June AD 217. The praetorians fought heroically for Macrinus - until he lost his nerve and fled the field. Second Parthica sided with Elagabalus, but the position of units in the opposing lines is not known and it was pure speculation on my part to have the closely-associated regiments collided head-on.
I was not entirely thrilled on learning that Angus McBride was working on the artwork for Roman Legionary 58 BC - AD 69 and Imperial Roman Legionary AD 161-284 (both published by Osprey in 2003). If McBride had produced the cover of a heroic fantasy novel by David Gemmell, I probably would have loved it. Imagine mighty Druss, the Captain of the Axe, painted by Angus McBride! But I thought his Conan-esque figures looked ridiculous in historical contexts. My favourite illustrator was, and remains, Peter Connolly, but McBride got the gig and did a splendid job. (As did Steven Dp Richardson. When photographic permissions could not be secured or licensing fees were prohibitively high, Steven stepped into the breach and quickly prepared sketches of helmets, swords and other relevant artefacts.)
Like all Osprey authors do, I conceived the illustrations and put together design briefs and pictorial reference packages for the artist to work from. The Osprey artist is not required to have any knowledge of the historical period s/he is illustrating. It is not a collaborative process. I had no contact with McBride. My editors at Osprey forwarded the design packages to him and I later received A3-sized colour proofs of the artwork from the publisher. Despite my reservations about his style, McBride followed the briefs closely. I was told McBride was an irascible character and would not make changes to his work, but when I requested minor alterations to three of the illustrations, he did so promptly and apparently without comment. However, Legionary 58 BC - AD 69 went to press with the uncorrected illustrations.
The best illustration in Legionary 58 BC - AD 69 is the last stand of Marcus Caelius and the veterans of the Eighteenth Legion in the Teutoburg Forest (AD 9). One look at the cenotaph of Caelius tells you everything (flic.kr/p/eJKwDF). The centurion was hard-faced, powerfully built and laden with the most prestigious military awards for acts of high valour. He was a bellator (warrior). You know that Caelius went down fighting. McBride captured that warrior spirit perfectly.
McBride was in playful mood when working on the illustrations for Legionary AD 161-284. Dainty songbirds flit around the feet of Herculean legionaries and a muscle-bound emperor Marcus Aurelius. This whimsy excited no comment from the Osprey fanboys, who collect the books for the artwork and have little interest in the text. The Battle of Imma illustration, however, was criticized on hobbyist forums and in reviews on Amazon. That the praetorians and legionaries fought without body armour (suggested by Dio 78.37.4), or even helmets, went unnoticed. The problem was the standard carried by the aquilifer of the Second.
Felsonius Verus, a native of Etruria and aquilifer (eagle-bearer) of the Second Parthica Legion, died during the Persian War of Gordian III. He was commemorated by his wife, Flavia Magna, at Apamea in Syria (AE 1991, 1572). The fortress of Second Parthica was at Albanum (Albano) near Rome, but Apamea acted as the legion’s base for campaigns against the Parthians in AD 216-218, and the Persians in AD 231-233 and 242-244 (when Verus died).
Verus’ tombstone was rediscovered by Belgian archaeologists in 1986/87. It depicts the deceased with a most unusual aquila (eagle standard). Instead of the typical shaft topped by a proud raptor clutching a thunderbolt or wreath in its talons, Verus’ eagle peeks out of a container with X-shaped bars. The excavators initially considered this “a very strange and abberant model of an aquila, which deserves more study” but later concluded the eagle “was clearly a live one in a cage” (Balty 1988, 101; Balty & Van Rengen, 1994, 12).
I was very taken with Balty and Van Rengen’s interpretation and decided to have Felsonius Verus’ predecessor carry a live eagle mascot in the battle of Imma reconstruction. I also sought permission from Balty and Van Rengen to reproduce images of Verus’ gravestone, but my request went unanswered. Quality CC-licensed photographs of the monument can be found on Flickr (flic.kr/p/5Bj2MY) and elsewhere (e.g. vici.org/image.php?id=35257), but sourcing images was not so simple at the dawn of the 21st century.
Pictures of the Apamea aquilifer were included in the design package but the artist, perhaps mischievously, or perhaps feeling that an actual bird would not be contained by crossbars, made a notable change. McBride’s bold aquilifer advances determinedly with a fierce eagle hunched in what looks like a parrot cage. Cue scowls, and the occasional howl of outrage, from Osprey fans.
The complaints were justified. Felsonius Verus was not in charge of an actual eagle; the Roman legions did not have live animal mascots like British army regiments do. The aquila was the genius (spirit) of the legion, a sacred totem made of silver and plated with gold. What is depicted on the gravestone of Felsonius Verus is a gilded statuette in a portable aedicula (shrine). The aquila left its aedes (temple) in the fortress only when the complete legion went to war (Dio 40.18.1). The mini-aedicula held by Verus acted a as protective case while the legion was on the march but still allowed the sacred aquila to be seen (Stoll 1991).
Other iconography indicates that aedicula-cases were removed for battle and the eagles brandished in their full golden glory. But would Angus McBride’s painting, which also graced the cover of the book, have been so arresting if the aquilifer had carried an uncovered aquila? Probably not.
References
J. Ch. Balty, ‘Apamea in Syria in the Second and Third Centuries A.D.’, Journal of Roman Studies 78 (1988), 91-104
J. Ch. Balty & W. Van Rengen, Apamea in Syria: The Winter Quaters of Legio II Parthica (Brussels 1993)
O. Stoll, ‘Der Adler im “Käfig”. Zu einer Aquilifer-Grabstele aus Apamea in Syrien’, Archäologische Korrespondenzblatt 21,4 (1991), 535-538. Reprinted with addenda in Stoll, Römisches Heer und Gesellschaft. Gesammelte Beiträge 1991-1999. MAVORS 13 (Stuttgart 1991), 13-46
For the Substack version of this post, see rosscowan.substack.com/p/the-caged-eagle
Im Appenzeller Hinterland sind am 13. Januar die Sylvesterchläuse unterwegs, und wünschen "Es guets Neus" in der Tradition des Julianischen Kalenders.13 January, «Old New Year's Eve», the «Chläuse» make their way around the Appenzell hinterland. The origin and meaning of this ancient custom are the subject of speculation, because few written documents exist.
The unknown years of Jesus (also called his silent years, lost years, or missing years) generally refers to the period of Jesus's life between his childhood and the beginning of his ministry, a period not described in the New Testament.
The "lost years of Jesus" concept is usually encountered in esoteric literature (where it at times also refers to his possible post-crucifixion activities) but is not commonly used in scholarly literature since it is assumed that Jesus was probably working as a carpenter in Galilee, at least some of the time with Joseph, from the age of 12 to 29.
In the late medieval period, there appeared Arthurian legends that the young Jesus had been in Britain. In the 19th and 20th centuries theories began to emerge that between the ages of 12 and 29 Jesus had visited India, or had studied with the Essenes in the Judea desert. Modern mainstream Christian scholarship has generally rejected these theories and holds that nothing is known about this time period in the life of Jesus.
The use of the "lost years" in the "swoon hypothesis", suggests that Jesus survived his crucifixion and continued his life, instead of what was stated in the New Testament that he ascended into Heaven with two angels. This, and the related view that he avoided crucifixion altogether, has given rise to several speculations about what happened to him in the supposed remaining years of his life, but these are not accepted by mainstream scholars either.
Among all of Israel’s neighbors, Egypt is the most prominent one in the Bible, especially in relation to Moses in the Old Testament, and in the New – to Jesus. Though not a lot of Egypt’s own history is described in the Bible, it carries great significance in Biblical history and in Jewish life.
Since the rebirth of modern Israel in 1948, relations between the Jewish state and neighboring Egypt have only gained momentum. Peace treaties, negotiations over the Suez Canal, and mediation with Gaza are just examples of how much has been happening on Israel’s southern border.
But politics aside, the land of Egypt is mentioned by the Jewish people on a regular basis. Why? Consider the story of Passover – it begins in Egypt! The entire Book of Exodus (meaning ‘departure’ or ‘escape’) speaks of the Hebrews fleeing Egypt and finding their way to the Promised Land through the desert.
Most notably, Mount Sinai is likely located in present-day Egypt, on Sinai Peninsula, where Moses received God’s commandments. You may be wondering: How do the Jewish people feel about Egypt today? Is it hard for Egyptian believers to read the Old Testament? Do they take the harsh words about Egypt personally? Let’s take a closer look at history.
Ancient Egypt and the Modern Arab Republic
Before visiting Egypt, I knew quite a bit about her ancient beginnings from schoolbooks, movies and photo albums. But although the ancient tombs and temples remain impressive to this day, I was curious about believers in present day Egypt. Because what does Egypt mean to us?
Some may think of hieroglyphs of slender men and women with neatly shaved or trimmed hair. Others will immediately think of pyramids and the Sphinx. Still, some may associate Egypt with the kingdom described in the Old Testament – the enemy that oppressed the Jewish people. And a nation that endured plagues and served pharaohs.
If you follow modern-day events, you may think Egypt is a turbulent country that was at the forefront of the Arab Spring in early 2010s. One thing is abundantly clear. Egypt was and is a unique place that is in great need of our prayers.
Egypt – the Cradle of Civilization
Egypt’s remarkable historical heritage is a major part of her people’s identity even today. Which is easily noticeable at every step, with ancient symbols appearing on items of common use. Egyptians are proud of the superpower that the ancient Egypt once was.
We know from the Bible that Egypt had wealth, a strong army and powerful kings. Abraham and many of his descendants sojourned to Egypt in difficult times, for food and shelter. This only confirms that it was the most powerful and prosperous nation in the region.
Already in antiquity Egypt became known for its advancements in construction, medicine and agriculture. Their achievements are recognized to this day in mathematics or literature (including early paper production). And also in art, for example in unique ceramic and glass techniques.
On top of that, Egypt had an elaborate religious system. The pagan nature of the land was very evident. Kings were considered to be gods and superstition was common. After the Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt, the Bible instructed them not to follow the ways of Egypt (Lev. 18:3).
How Long were Israelites in Egypt?
Joseph, son of Jacob, did not end up in Egypt by choice (Genesis 37). But God raised him to hold a very influential position in this foreign land. Historically, Egypt was known for cooperating with other tribes and kingdoms, even allowing foreigners to take high positions in governance. We read that Joseph became second only to Pharaoh (Genesis 41:39-41) in all of Egypt.
In the end, the entire family of Jacob moved to Egypt, escaping famine and drought. For as long as Joseph was remembered by the rulers in the country, the Hebrews led a peaceful and good life among the Egyptians. But that changed once a new Pharaoh ascended to the throne “who did not know Joseph.” (Exodus 1:8)
Life conditions became progressively worse for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This situation deteriorated to the point that a few generations later, they became slaves to the Egyptians. But then, we read that God heard their cry (Exodus 3:7-8) and raised up Moses to lead them out of this land and into freedom.
Despite Moses being raised in the Pharaoh’s house, it was no easy task to set his people free. It took some intense negotiations, ten plagues and the death of Pharaoh’s own son for the Israelites to finally leave Egypt. The Bible says that the chosen nation spent 430 years in Egypt (Exodus 12:40-41) , but it was time for them to return home.
The Foreign Affairs of the Promised Land
Moses is considered to be the most important prophet in Judaism. And the Exodus from Egypt was undoubtedly the most significant event on the Nile that is mentioned in the Bible. But it is far from the last one. As Israelites were taking possession of their Promised Land, they were still very aware of the powerful kingdom to the south.
That could be the reason why Israel’s third king, Solomon, made the diplomatic decision to marry Pharaoh’s daughter: “And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter, and brought her into the city of David…” (1 Kings 3:1).
What may have seemed like a good political move did not turn out to be a good one spiritually. The many wives of Solomon weakened his devotion to the Lord. One of his biggest downfalls was building altars to other gods for his wives. His rulership ended with the Kingdom of Israel being split into two. But it was his son who reaped the fruit of his failures:
“Rehoboam, son of Solomon and the first king of Judah, was attacked in the fifth year of his reign by an Egyptian pharaoh. As a result of his defeat, Judah became a vassal state, subordinate to Egypt. The Israelites had forsaken the LORD and so, the LORD left them to the hands of Pharaoh. And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of King Rehoboam Shishak King of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against the Lord.” (2 Chronicles 12:2)
Jesus in Egypt
The family of Jesus was instructed to seek shelter in Egypt when His life was in danger (Matt. 2:13). We don’t know much about the time they spent by the Nile, but we can assume they were safe. God Himself instructed them to find refuge in the south. Egyptian Christians share this story with pride, even though not much else can be said about it.
But this remains true: the Jewish Messiah, our Savior and Son of God, lived for a short season in Egypt. What an exceptional fact to have as a part of your nation’s history! Nevertheless, not too many Egyptians know this, given that the majority of the country follows Islam.
It is legal to be a Christian in Egypt, as long as you are born one. Every citizen has their religious affiliation specified on their identity card. If your passport or other document states you were born into a Muslim family, you cannot change it.
This means that the right to choose what to believe is practically withdrawn from you at the moment of birth. So, are there no people in Egypt who consciously chose to accept Jesus as their Savior? There are. But often they have to keep their faith secret, to avoid persecution or even death.
My Egyptian host explained to me how significant the stories of Joseph and baby Jesus are to the believers in his country. It is what unites them all across Egypt. And then, he started asking me about Western countries, and sighed: “It must be wonderful to live in a country where everyone’s a Christian…” Inadvertently, I sighed as well.
Why is Egypt in the Bible?
I asked my host how the Egyptian Christians look at some of the prophecies and harsh words about Egypt in the Old Testament. Aside from actual events that took place in Egypt or in relation to Egypt, the Bible often uses this nation as a negative example or a lesson to learn.
After enslaving the Hebrews and because of idolatry, Egypt became synonymous with sin and bondage. Compelling the Jewish people to choose life, God cautions them about returning to Egypt and living in sin (Deut. 17:16).
Since the days of the Old Testament’s prophets, many of the prophecies about Egypt have been fulfilled. The glory of the Pharaohs is long gone, and Egypt is not as powerful as it was in antiquity. As the prophets had foretold, Egypt became a home of rebellion and internal conflicts.
But just as God said Egypt will be smitten, He also promised that she will be healed. Christians in Egypt hold on to this promise and continue to pray for their nation. In response to my question, my host smiled with understanding. Maybe I wasn’t the first one to ask these questions.
He humbly replied, “This country probably deserved great damnation in the past. But Jesus came to earth for that very reason. He showed us that there is such a thing as grace.”
Thanks to the prophet Isaiah, we know that to be true. “And when the Lord will strike Egypt, strike and heal, then they will turn to the Lord, and He will turn to God, let them plead and heal them.” (Isa. 19:22)
firmisrael.org/learn/from-moses-to-jesus-egypt-in-the-bib...
The 18 unknown years
Following the accounts of Jesus' young life, there is a gap of about 18 years in his story in the New Testament. Other than the statement that after he was 12 years old (Luke 2:42) Jesus "advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men" (Luke 2:52), the New Testament has no other details regarding the gap.[4] Christian tradition suggests that Jesus simply lived in Galilee during that period. Modern scholarship holds that there is little historical information to determine what happened during those years.
The ages of 12 and 29, the approximate ages at either end of the unknown years, have some significance in Judaism of the Second Temple period: 13 is the age of the bar mitzvah, the age of secular maturity,and 30 the age of readiness for the priesthood, although Jesus was not of the tribe of Levi.
Christians have generally taken the statement in Mark 6:3 referring to Jesus as "Is not this the carpenter...?" (Greek: οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τέκτων, romanized: ouch outos estin ho tektōn) as an indication that before the age of 30 Jesus had been working as a carpenter. The tone of the passage leading to the question "Is not this the carpenter?" suggests familiarity with Jesus in the area, reinforcing that he had been generally seen as a carpenter in the gospel account before the start of his ministry. Matthew 13:55 poses the question as "Is not this the carpenter's son?" suggesting that the profession tektōn had been a family business and Jesus was engaged in it before starting his preaching and ministry in the gospel accounts.
Background of Galilee and Judea
Cultural and historical background of Jesus
The historical record of the large number of workmen employed in the rebuilding of Sepphoris has led Batey (1984) and others to suggest that when Jesus was in his teens and twenties carpenters would have found more employment at Sepphoris rather than at the small town of Nazareth.
Aside from secular employment some attempts have been made to reconstruct the theological and rabbinical circumstances of the "unknown years", e.g., soon after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls novelist Edmund Wilson (1955) suggested Jesus may have studied with the Essenes, followed by the Unitarian Charles F. Potter (1958) and others. Other writers have taken the view that the predominance of Pharisees in Judea during that period, and Jesus' own later recorded interaction with the Pharisees, makes a Pharisee background more likely, as in the recorded case of another Galilean, Josephus studied with all three groups: Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes.
Other sources
See also: Infancy gospels and Pseudepigrapha
The New Testament apocrypha and early Christian pseudepigrapha preserve various pious legends filling the "gaps" in Christ's youth. Charlesworth (2008) explains this as due to the canonical Gospels having left "a narrative vacuum" that many have attempted to fill.
Jesus's childhood is described in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, and the Syriac Infancy Gospel, among other sources.
Claims of young Jesus in Britain
The story of Jesus visiting Britain as a boy is a late medieval development based on legends connected with Joseph of Arimathea. During the late 12th century, Joseph of Arimathea became connected with the Arthurian cycle, appearing in them as the first keeper of the Holy Grail. This idea first appears in Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie, in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Britain. This theme is elaborated upon in Boron's sequels and in subsequent Arthurian works penned by others.
Some Arthurian legends hold that Jesus travelled to Britain as a boy, lived at Priddy in the Mendips, and built the first wattle cabin at Glastonbury. William Blake's early 19th-century poem "And did those feet in ancient time" was inspired by the story of Jesus travelling to Britain. In some versions, Joseph was supposedly a tin merchant and took Jesus under his care when his mother Mary was widowed. Gordon Strachan wrote Jesus the Master Builder: Druid Mysteries and the Dawn of Christianity (1998), which was the basis of the documentary titled And Did Those Feet (2009). Strachan believed Jesus may have travelled to Britain to study with the Druids.
Claims of young Jesus in India and/or Tibet
Nicolas Notovitch
In 1887, Russian war correspondent Nicolas Notovitch claimed that while at the Hemis Monastery in Ladakh, he had learned of a document called the "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men" – Isa being the Arabic name of Jesus in Islam.[30][31][32] Notovitch's story, with a translated text of the "Life of Saint Issa", was published in French in 1894 as La vie inconnue de Jesus Christ (Unknown Life of Jesus Christ).[7][32]
According to the scrolls, Jesus abandoned Jerusalem at the age of 13 and set out towards Sind, “intending to improve and perfect himself in the divine understanding and to studying the laws of the great Buddha”. He crossed Punjab and reached Puri Jagannath where he studied the Vedas under Brahmin priests. He spent six years in Puri and Rajgirh, near Nalanda, the ancient seat of Hindu learning. Then he went to the Himalayas, and spent time in Tibetan monasteries, studying Buddhism,[30] and through Persia, returned to Jerusalem at the age of 29.
Notovitch's writings were immediately controversial and Max Müller stated that either the monks at the monastery had deceived Notovitch (or played a joke on him), or he had fabricated the evidence.[30][33][34] Müller then wrote to the monastery at Hemis and the head lama replied that there had been no Western visitor at the monastery in the past fifteen years and there were no documents related to Notovitch's story.[35] J. Archibald Douglas then visited Hemis monastery and interviewed the head lama who stated that Notovitch had never been there. Indologist Leopold von Schroeder called Notovitch's story a "big fat lie". Wilhelm Schneemelcher states that Notovich's accounts were soon exposed as fabrications, and that to date no one has even had a glimpse at the manuscripts Notovitch claims to have had.
Notovich responded to claims to defend himself. But once his story had been re-examined by historians – some even questioning his existence – it is claimed that Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence. Bart D. Ehrman states that "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax".However, others deny that Notovich ever accepted the accusations against him – that his account was a forgery, etc. Although he was not impressed with his story, Sir Francis Younghusband recalls meeting Nicolas Notovitch near Skardu, not long before Notovitch had visited Hemis monastery.
In 1922, Swami Abhedananda, the president of the Vedanta Society of New York between 1897 and 1921 and the author of several books, went to the Himalayas on foot and reached Tibet, where he studied Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan Buddhism. He went to the Hemis Monastery, and allegedly found the manuscript translated by Notovitch, which was a Tibetan translation of the original scrolls written in Pali. The lama said that it was a copy and that the original was in a monastery at Marbour near Lhasa. After Abhedananda's death in 1939, one of his disciples inquired about the documents at the Hemis monastery, but was told that they had disappeared.
Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 6744. Photo: Radio Pictures.
Lupe Velez (1908-1944), was one of the first Mexican actresses to succeed in Hollywood. Her nicknames were 'The Mexican Spitfire' and 'Hot Pepper'. She was the leading lady in such silent films as The Gaucho (1927), Lady of the Pavements (1928), and Wolf Song (1929). During the 1930s, her well-known explosive screen persona was exploited in a series of successful films like Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934), and Hollywood Party (1934). In the 1940s, Vélez's popularity peaked after appearing in the Mexican Spitfire films, a series created to capitalise on Vélez's well-documented fiery personality. She had several highly publicised romances and a stormy marriage. In 1944, Vélez died of an intentional overdose of the barbiturate drug Seconal. Her death and the circumstances surrounding it have been the subject of speculation and controversy.
Lupe Vélez was born María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez in 1908 in the city of San Luis Potosí in Mexico. She was the daughter of Jacobo Villalobos Reyes, a colonel in the army of the dictator Porfirio Diaz, and his wife Josefina Vélez, an opera singer according to some sources, or vaudeville singer according to others. She had three sisters: Mercedes, Reina and Josefina, and a brother, Emigdio. The family was financially comfortable and lived in a large home. At the age of 13, her parents sent her to study at Our Lady of the Lake (now Our Lady of the Lake University) in San Antonio, Texas. It was at Our Lady of the Lake that Vélez learned to speak English and began to dance. She later admitted that she liked dance class, but was otherwise a poor student. Denny Jackson at IMDb: "Life was hard for her family, and Lupe returned to Mexico to help them out financially. She worked as a salesgirl for a department store for the princely sum of $4 a week. Every week she would turn most of her salary over to her mother, but kept a little for herself so she could take dancing lessons. By now, she figured, with her mature shape and grand personality, she thought she could make a try at show business." She began her career as a performer in Mexican vaudeville in 1924. She initially performed under her paternal surname, but after her father returned home from the war, he was outraged that his daughter had decided to become a stage performer. She chose her maternal surname, "Vélez", as her stage name and her mother introduced Vélez and her sister Josefina to the popular Spanish Mexican vedette María Conesa, "La Gatita Blanca". Vélez debuted in a show led by Conesa, where she sang 'Oh Charley, My Boy' and danced the shimmy. Aurelio Campos, a young pianist, and friend of the Vélez sisters recommended Lupe to stage producers, Carlos Ortega and Manuel Castro. Ortega and Castro were preparing a season revue at the Regis Theatre and hired Vélez to join the company in March 1925. Later that year, Vélez starred in the revues 'Mexican Rataplan' and '¡No lo tapes!', both parodies of the Bataclan's shows in Paris. Her suggestive singing and provocative dancing was a hit with audiences, and she soon established herself as one of the main stars of vaudeville in Mexico. After a year and a half, Vélez left the revue after the manager refused to give her a raise. She then joined the Teatro Principal but was fired after three months due to her "feisty attitude". Vélez was quickly hired by the Teatro Lirico, where her salary rose to 100 pesos a day. In 1926, Frank A. Woodyard, an American who had seen Vélez perform, recommended her to stage director Richard Bennett, the father of actresses Joan and Constance Bennett. Bennett was looking for an actress to portray a Mexican cantina singer in his upcoming play 'The Dove'. He sent Vélez a telegram inviting her to Los Angeles to appear in the play. Vélez had been planning to go to Cuba to perform, but quickly changed her plans and traveled to Los Angeles. However, upon arrival, she discovered that she had been replaced by another actress.
While in Los Angeles, Lupe Vélez met the comedian Fanny Brice. Brice recommended her to Flo Ziegfeld, who hired her to perform in New York City. While Vélez was preparing to leave Los Angeles, she received a call from MGM producer Harry Rapf, who offered her a screen test. Producer and director Hal Roach saw Vélez's screen test and hired her for a small role in the comic Laurel and Hardy short Sailors, Beware! (Fred Guiol, Hal Yates, 1927). After her debut, Vélez appeared in another Hal Roach short, What Women Did for Me (James Parrott, 1927), opposite Charley Chase. Later that year, she did a screen test for the upcoming Douglas Fairbanks feature The Gaucho (F. Richard Jones, 1927). Fairbanks was impressed by Vélez and hired her to appear in the film with him. The Gaucho was a hit and critics were duly impressed with Vélez's ability to hold her own alongside Fairbanks, who was well known for his spirited acting and impressive stunts. Her second major film was Stand and Deliver (Donald Crisp, 1928), produced by Cecil B. DeMille. That same year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. Then she appeared in Lady of the Pavements (1929), directed by D. W. Griffith, and Where East Is East (Tod Browning, 1929), starring Lon Chaney as an animal trapper in Laos. In the Western The Wolf Song (Victor Fleming, 1929), she appeared alongside Gary Cooper. As she was regularly cast as 'exotic' or 'ethnic' women that were volatile and hot-tempered, gossip columnists took to referring to Vélez as "Mexican Hurricane", "The Mexican Wildcat", "The Mexican Madcap", "Whoopee Lupe" and "The Hot Tamale". Lupe Vélez made the transition to sound films without difficulty. Studio executives had predicted that her accent would likely hamper her ability to make the transition. That idea was dispelled after she appeared in the all-talking Rin Tin Tin vehicle, Tiger Rose (George Fitzmaurice, 1929). The film was a hit and Vélez's sound career was established. Vélez appeared in a series of Pre-Code films like Hell Harbor (Henry King, 1930), The Storm (William Wyler, 1930), and the crime drama East Is West (Monta Bell, 1930) opposite Edward G. Robinson. The next year, she appeared in her second film for Cecil B. DeMille, Squaw Man (Cecil B. DeMille, 1931), opposite Warner Baxter, in Resurrection (Edwin Carewe, 1931), and The Cuban Love Song (W.S. Van Dyke, 1931), with the popular singer Lawrence Tibbett. She had a supporting role in Kongo (William J. Cowen, 1932) with Walter Huston, a sound remake of West of Zanzibar (Tod Browning, 1928) which tries to outdo the Lon Chaney original in morbidity. She also starred in Spanish-language versions of Universal films like Resurrección (Eduardo Arozamena, David Selman, 1931), the Spanish version of Resurrection (1931), and Hombres en mi vida (Eduardo Arozamena, David Selman, 1932), the Spanish version of Men in Her Life (William Beaudine, 1931) in which Lois Moran had starred.
In 1932, Lupe Vélez took a break from her film career and traveled to New York City where she was signed by Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. to take over the role of "Conchita" in the musical revue 'Hot-Cha!'. The show also starred Bert Lahr, Eleanor Powell, and Buddy Rogers. Back in Hollywood, Lupe switched to comedy after playing dramatic roles for five years. Denny Jackson at IMDb: "In 1933 she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933). This film showcased her comedic talents and helped her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful." After Hot Pepper (John G. Blystone, 1933) with Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen, Lupe played beautiful but volatile, characters in a series of successful films like Strictly Dynamite (Elliott Nugent, 1934), Palooka (Benjamin Stoloff, 1934) both opposite Jimmy Durante, and Hollywood Party (Allan Dwan, a.o., 1934) with Laurel and Hardy. Although Vélez was a popular actress, RKO Pictures did not renew her contract in 1934. Over the next few years, Vélez worked for various studios as a freelance actress; she also spent two years in England where she filmed The Morals of Marcus (Miles Mander, 1935) and Gypsy Melody (Edmond T. Gréville, 1936). She returned to Los Angeles the following year where she appeared in the final part of the Wheeler & Woolsey comedy High Flyers (Edward F. Cline, 1937). In 1938, Vélez made her final appearance on Broadway in the musical You Never Know, by Cole Porter. The show received poor reviews from critics but received a large amount of publicity due to the feud between Vélez and fellow cast member Libby Holman. Holman was irritated by the attention Vélez garnered from the show with her impersonations of several actresses including Gloria Swanson, Katharine Hepburn, and Shirley Temple. The feud came to a head during a performance in New Haven, Connecticut after Vélez punched Holman in between curtain calls and gave her a black eye. The feud effectively ended the show. Upon her return to Mexico City in 1938 to star in her first Mexican film, Vélez was greeted by ten thousand fans. The film La Zandunga (Fernando de Fuentes, 1938) co-starring Arturo de Córdova, was a critical and financial success. Vélez was slated to appear in four more Mexican films, but instead, she returned to Los Angeles and went back to work for RKO Pictures. In 1939, Lupe Vélez was cast opposite Leon Errol and Donald Woods in the B-comedy, The Girl from Mexico (Leslie Goodwins, 1939). Despite being a B film, it was a hit with audiences and RKO re-teamed her with Errol and Wood for a sequel, Mexican Spitfire (Leslie Goodwins, 1940). That film was also a success and led to a series of eight Spitfire films. Wikipedia: "In the series, Vélez portrays Carmelita Lindsay, a temperamental yet friendly Mexican singer married to Dennis 'Denny' Lindsay (Woods), an elegant American gentleman. The Spitfire films rejuvenated Vélez's career. Moreover, they were films in which a Latina headlined for eight films straight –a true rarity." In addition to the Spitfire series, she was cast in such films as Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga (John Rawlins, 1941), Playmates (David Butler, 1941) opposite John Barrymore, and Redhead from Manhattan (Lew Landers, 1943). In 1943, the final film in the Spitfire series, Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (Leslie Goodwins, 1943), was released. By that time, the novelty of the series had begun to wane. Velez co-starred with Eddie Albert in the romantic comedy, Ladies' Day (Leslie Goodwins, 1943), about an actress and a baseball player. In 1944, Vélez returned to Mexico to star in an adaptation of Émile Zola's novel Nana (Roberto Gavaldón, Celestino Gorostiza, 1944), which was well-received. It would be her final film. After filming wrapped, Vélez returned to Los Angeles and began preparing for another stage role in New York.
Lupe Vélez's temper and jealousy in her often tempestuous romantic relationships were well documented and became tabloid fodder, often overshadowing her career. Vélez was straightforward with the press and was regularly contacted by gossip columnists for stories about her romantic exploits. Her first long-term relationship was with actor Gary Cooper. Vélez met Cooper while filming The Wolf Song in 1929 and began a two-year affair with him. The relationship was passionate but often stormy. Reportedly Vélez chased Cooper around with a knife during an argument and cut him severely enough to require stitches. By that time, the rocky relationship had taken its toll on Cooper who had lost 45 pounds and was suffering from nervous exhaustion. Paramount Pictures ordered him to take a vacation to recuperate. While he was boarding the train, Vélez showed up at the train station and fired a pistol at him. During her marriage to actor Johnny Weissmuller, stories of their frequent physical fights were regularly reported in the press. Vélez reportedly inflicted scratches, bruises, and love-bites on Weissmuller during their fights and "passionate love-making". In July 1934, after ten months of marriage, Vélez filed for divorce citing cruelty. She withdrew the petition a week later after reconciling with Weissmuller. In January 1935, she filed for divorce a second time and was granted an interlocutory decree that was dismissed when the couple reconciled a month later. In August 1938, Vélez filed for divorce for a third time, again charging Weissmuller with cruelty. Their divorce was finalised in August 1939. After the divorce became final, Vélez began dating actor Guinn "Big Boy" Williams in late 1940. They were reportedly engaged but never married. Vélez was also linked to author Erich Maria Remarque and the boxers Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey. In 1943, Vélez began an affair with her La Zandunga co-star Arturo de Córdova. De Córdova had recently moved to Hollywood after signing with Paramount Pictures. Despite the fact that de Córdova was married to Mexican actress Enna Arana with whom he had four children, Vélez granted an interview to gossip columnist Louella Parsons in September 1943 and announced that the two were engaged. Vélez ended the engagement in early 1944, reportedly after de Córdova's wife refused to give him a divorce. Vélez then met and began dating a struggling young Austrian actor named Harald Maresch (who went by the stage name Harald Ramond). In September 1944, she discovered she was pregnant with Ramond's child. She announced their engagement in late November 1944. On 10 December, four days before her death, Vélez announced she had ended the engagement and kicked Ramond out of her home. On the evening of 13 December 1944, Vélez dined with her two friends, the silent film star Estelle Taylor and Venita Oakie. In the early morning hours of 14 December, Vélez retired to her bedroom, where she consumed 75 Seconal pills and a glass of brandy. Her secretary, Beulah Kinder, found the actress's body on her bed later that morning. A suicide note addressed to Harald Ramond was found nearby. Lupe Vélez was only 36 years old. More than four-thousand people filed past her casket during her funeral. Her body was interred in Mexico City, at Panteón Civil de Dolores Cemetery. Velez' estate, valued at $125,000 and consisting mostly of her Rodeo House home, two cars, jewelry, and personal effects were left to her secretary Beulah Kinder with the remainder in trust for her mother, Mrs. Josephine Velez. Together with Dolores del Rio, Ramon Novarro, and José Mojica, she was one of the few Mexican people who had made history in the early years of Hollywood.
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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Reconstruction of bronze Riace Warrior B, 2015–16, bronze cast, copper, stones, silver, gold, and asphalt, 215 x 40 x 72 cm, created by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann (Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Polychromy Research Project, Frankfurt am Main and Soprintendenza Archeologica di Calabria)
Sioux Falls is the most populous city in the U.S. state of South Dakota and the 121st-most populous city in the United States. It is the county seat of Minnehaha County and also extends into northern Lincoln County to the south, which continues up to the Iowa state line. The population was 192,517 at the 2020 census, and in 2022, its estimated population was 202,078. According to city officials, the estimated population had grown to 213,891 as of early 2024. The Sioux Falls metro area accounts for more than 30% of the state's population. Chartered in 1856 on the banks of the Big Sioux River, the city is situated in the rolling hills at the junction of interstates 29 and 90.
Sioux Falls is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Founded in 1856, the city was abandoned, sacked, resettled and later grew to become a city with a 2020 Census population of 192,517 people.
The history of Sioux Falls revolves around the cascades of the Big Sioux River. The falls were created about 14,000 years ago when the last glacial ice sheet redirected the flow of the river into the large looping bends of its present course. Fueled by water from the melting ice, the river exposed the underlying Sioux quartzite bedrock, the hard pinkish stone of the falls. The quartzite itself is about a billion and a half years old. It began as sediments deposited on the bottom of an ancient, shallow sea.
The lure of the falls has been a powerful influence. A prehistoric people who inhabited the region before 500 B.C. left numerous burial mounds on the high bluffs near the river. These people were followed by an agricultural society that built fortified villages on many of the same sites. Tribes of the Lakota and Dakota, widely ranging nomadic bison hunters, arrived sometime around the 18th century. Early maps indicate they used the falls as a place to rendezvous with French fur trappers, considered the first European visitors at the falls.
The falls also drew the attention of early explorers. An August 1804 journal entry of the Lewis and Clark expedition describes the falls of the "Soues River." Famous pathfinder John C. Fremont and French scientist Joseph Nicollet explored the region in 1838 and also wrote a description of the falls. Both are considered second hand accounts rather than evidence of an actual visit.
The first documented visit was by Philander Prescott, an explorer, trader, and trapper who camped overnight at the falls in December 1832. Captain James Allen led a military expedition out of Fort Des Moines in 1844. The early descriptions of the falls were published in The States and Territories of the Great West, an 1856 book by Jacob Ferris which inspired townsite developers to seek out the falls.
The focus of intense land speculation activity in Minnesota and Iowa during the mid-1850s inevitably turned toward the Big Sioux River valley. Sioux Falls was founded by land speculators who hoped to build great wealth by claiming prime townsites before the arrival of railroads and settlers.
Two separate groups, the Dakota Land Company of St. Paul and the Western Town Company of Dubuque, Iowa organized in 1856 to claim the land around the falls, considered a promising townsite for its beauty and water power. The Western Town Company arrived first, and was soon followed by the St. Paul–based company in 1857. Each laid out 320-acre (1.3 km2) claims, but worked together for mutual protection. They built a temporary barricade of turf which they dubbed "Fort Sod," in response to hostilities threatened by native tribes. Seventeen men then spent "the first winter" in Sioux Falls. The following year the population grew to near 40.
Although conflicts in Minnehaha County between Native Americans and white settlers were few, the Dakota War of 1862 engulfed nearby southwestern Minnesota. The town was evacuated in August of that year when two local settlers were killed as a result of the conflict. The settlers and soldiers stationed here traveled to Yankton in late August 1862. The abandoned townsite was pillaged and burned.
Fort Dakota, a military reservation established in present-day downtown, was established in May 1865. Many former settlers gradually returned and a new wave of settlers arrived in the following years. The population grew to 593 by 1873, and a building boom was underway in that year.
The Village of Sioux Falls, consisting of 1,200 acres (4.9 km2), was incorporated in 1876 by the 12th legislative assembly of the Dakota Territory, which convened in the territorial capital of Yankton. The village charter proved to be too restrictive, however, and Sioux Falls petitioned to become a city. The city charter was granted by the Dakota Territorial legislature on March 3, 1883.
The arrival of the railroads ushered in the great Dakota Boom decade of the 1880s. The population of Sioux Falls mushroomed from 2,164 in 1880 to 10,167 at the close of the decade. The growth transformed the city. A severe plague of grasshoppers and a national depression halted the boom by the early 1890s. The city grew by only 89 people from 1890 to 1900.
Beginning in the 1880s, a 90-day residency law and lax oversight on the part of local judges concerning sworn testimony caused word to spread across the United States that a legal divorce was easily obtained in Dakota Territory. As a result, both Sioux Falls and Fargo (in later North Dakota) became known as "divorce capitals". Thousands of people traveled to the towns seeking a divorce, with the resulting divorce rate in Minnehaha County during this period being nearly three times that of the national average. Although many local residents were unhappy with the notoriety, the surge of "tourists" necessitated the construction of a number of new hotels and restaurants, and the situation brought a level of attention uncommon for towns of a similar size. Divorce laws were tightened after statehood, and the phenomenon had ended by the early 1900s.
With the opening of the John Morrell meat-packing plant in 1909, the establishment of an airbase and a military radio and communications training school in 1942, and the completion of the interstate highways in the early 1960s, Sioux Falls grew at a moderate but steady pace in the early and middle years of the 20th century. During this period, the city's economy was largely centered on the stockyards and the meat packing industry. Sioux Falls was home to one of the largest stockyards in the nation at the time, and the John Morrell plant was by far the largest employer in the city.
Beginning in the late 20th century, Sioux Falls began growing at a considerably faster pace than during previous decades. The economy became more service-based, and word began to spread about the relatively low levels of unemployment and crime. Annexations of adjacent land in Minnehaha County became common. The first annexation of land south of 57th Street from Lincoln County was in 1969 for a municipal water tower. The next annexations from Lincoln County occurred in 1978 when a couple of new subdivisions were added.
Several large shopping malls opened during the 1970s, and the retail and dining industry began to exert a growing influence on the city's economy. In 1981, Citibank transferred its credit card operations from New York to Sioux Falls to take advantage of recently relaxed state anti-usury laws. Several other financial companies also moved to Sioux Falls or expanded its existing business in the city, resulting in a large present-day banking and financial presence in the city. A third factor contributing to recent growth is the expansion of the local healthcare industry. The two largest hospitals in the city, Sanford Health and Avera Health, are also the two largest present-day employers in the city.
South Dakota is a landlocked U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota Sioux tribe, which comprises a large portion of the population with nine reservations currently in the state and has historically dominated the territory. South Dakota is the 17th largest by area, but the 5th least populous, and the 5th least densely populated of the 50 United States. Pierre is the state capital, and Sioux Falls, with a population of about 213,900, is South Dakota's most populous city. The state is bisected by the Missouri River, dividing South Dakota into two geographically and socially distinct halves, known to residents as "East River" and "West River". South Dakota is bordered by the states of North Dakota (to the north), Minnesota (to the east), Iowa (to the southeast), Nebraska (to the south), Wyoming (to the west), and Montana (to the northwest).
Humans have inhabited the area for several millennia, with the Sioux becoming dominant by the early 19th century. In the late 19th century, European-American settlement intensified after a gold rush in the Black Hills and the construction of railroads from the east. Encroaching miners and settlers triggered a number of Indian wars, ending with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. As the southern part of the former Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889, simultaneously with North Dakota. They are the 39th and 40th states admitted to the union; President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the statehood papers before signing them so that no one could tell which became a state first.
Key events in the 20th century included the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, increased federal spending during the 1940s and 1950s for agriculture and defense, and an industrialization of agriculture that has reduced family farming. Eastern South Dakota is home to most of the state's population, and the area's fertile soil is used to grow a variety of crops. West of the Missouri River, ranching is the predominant agricultural activity, and the economy is more dependent on tourism and defense spending. Most of the Native American reservations are in West River. The Black Hills, a group of low pine-covered mountains sacred to the Sioux, is in the southwest part of the state. Mount Rushmore, a major tourist destination, is there. South Dakota has a temperate continental climate, with four distinct seasons and precipitation ranging from moderate in the east to semi-arid in the west. The state's ecology features species typical of a North American grassland biome.
While several Democrats have represented South Dakota for multiple terms in both chambers of Congress, the state government is largely controlled by the Republican Party, whose nominees have carried South Dakota in each of the last 14 presidential elections. Historically dominated by an agricultural economy and a rural lifestyle, South Dakota has recently sought to diversify its economy in other areas to both attract and retain residents. South Dakota's history and rural character still strongly influence the state's culture.
The history of South Dakota describes the history of the U.S. state of South Dakota over the course of several millennia, from its first inhabitants to the recent issues facing the state.
Human beings have lived in what is today South Dakota for at least several thousand years. Early hunters are believed to have first entered North America at least 17,000 years ago via the Bering land bridge, which existed during the last ice age and connected Siberia with Alaska. Early settlers in what would become South Dakota were nomadic hunter-gatherers, using primitive Stone Age technology to hunt large prehistoric mammals in the area such as mammoths, sloths, and camels. The Paleolithic culture of these people disappeared around 5000 BC, after the extinction of most of their prey species.
Between AD 500 and 800, much of eastern South Dakota was inhabited by a people known as the 'Mound Builders'. The Mound Builders were hunters who lived in temporary villages and were named for the low earthen burial mounds they constructed, many of which still exist. Their settlement seems to have been concentrated around the watershed of the Big Sioux River and Big Stone Lake, although other sites have been excavated throughout eastern South Dakota. Either assimilation or warfare led to the demise of the Mound Builders by the year 800. Between 1250 and 1400 an agricultural people, likely the ancestors of the modern Mandan of North Dakota, arrived from the east and settled in the central part of the state. In 1325, what has become known as the Crow Creek Massacre occurred near Chamberlain. An archeological excavation of the site has discovered 486 bodies buried in a mass grave within a type of fortification; many of the skeletal remains show evidence of scalping and decapitation.
The Arikara, also known as the Ree, began arriving from the south in the 16th century. They spoke a Caddoan language similar to that of the Pawnee, and probably originated in what is now Kansas and Nebraska. Although they would at times travel to hunt or trade, the Arikara were far less nomadic than many of their neighbors, and lived for the most part in permanent villages. These villages usually consisted of a stockade enclosing a number of circular earthen lodges built on bluffs looking over the rivers. Each village had a semi-autonomous political structure, with the Arikara's various subtribes being connected in a loose alliance. In addition to hunting and growing crops such as corn, beans, pumpkin and other squash, the Arikara were also skilled traders, and would often serve as intermediaries between tribes to the north and south It was probably through their trading connections that Spanish horses first reached the region around 1760. The Arikara reached the height of their power in the 17th century, and may have included as many as 32 villages. Due both to disease as well as pressure from other tribes, the number of Arikara villages would decline to only two by the late 18th century, and the Arikara eventually merged entirely with the Mandan to the north.
The sister tribe of the Arikaras, the Pawnee, may have also had a small amount of land in the state. Both were Caddoan and were among the only known tribes in the continental U.S. to have committed human sacrifice, via a religious ritual that occurred once a year. It is said that the U.S. government worked hard to halt this practice before their homelands came to be heavily settled, for fear that the general public might react harshly or refuse to move there.
The Lakota Oral histories tell of them driving the Algonquian ancestors of the Cheyenne from the Black Hills regions, south of the Platte River, in the 18th century. Before that, the Cheyenne say that they were, in fact, two tribes, which they call the Tsitsistas & Sutaio After their defeat, much of their territory was contained to southeast Wyoming & western Nebraska. While they had been able to hold off the Sioux for quite some time, they were heavily damaged by a smallpox outbreak. They are also responsible for introducing the horse to the Lakota.
The Ioway, or Iowa people, also inhabited the region where the modern states of South Dakota, Minnesota & Iowa meet, north of the Missouri River. They also had a sister nation, known as the Otoe who lived south of them. They were Chiwere speaking, a very old variation of Siouan language said to have originated amongst the ancestors of the Ho-Chunk of Wisconsin. They also would have had a fairly similar culture to that of the Dhegihan Sioux tribes of Nebraska & Kansas.
By the 17th century, the Sioux, who would later come to dominate much of the state, had settled in what is today central and northern Minnesota. The Sioux spoke a language of the Siouan language family, and were divided into two culture groups – the Dakota & Nakota. By the early 18th century the Sioux would begin to move south and then west into the plains. This migration was due to several factors, including greater food availability to the west, as well as the fact that the rival Ojibwe & other related Algonquians had obtained rifles from the French at a time when the Sioux were still using the bow and arrow. Other tribes were also displaced during some sort of poorly understood conflict that occurred between Siouan & Algonquian peoples in the early 18th century.
In moving west into the prairies, the lifestyle of the Sioux would be greatly altered, coming to resemble that of a nomadic northern plains tribe much more so than a largely settled eastern woodlands one. Characteristics of this transformation include a greater dependence on the bison for food, a heavier reliance on the horse for transportation, and the adoption of the tipi for habitation, a dwelling more suited to the frequent movements of a nomadic people than their earlier semi-permanent lodges.
Once on the plains, a schism caused the two subgroups of the Sioux to divide into three separate nations—the Lakota, who migrated south, the Asiniboine who migrated back east to Minnesota & the remaining Sioux. It appears to be around this time that the Dakota people became more prominent over the Nakota & the entirety of the people came to call themselves as such.
The Lakota, who crossed the Missouri around 1760 and reached the Black Hills by 1776, would come to settle largely in western South Dakota, northwestern Nebraska, and southwestern North Dakota. The Yankton primarily settled in southeastern South Dakota, the Yanktonnais settled in northeastern South Dakota and southeastern North Dakota, and the Santee settled primarily in central and southern Minnesota. Due in large part to the Sioux migrations, a number of tribes would be driven from the area. The tribes in and around the Black Hills, most notably the Cheyenne, would be pushed to the west, the Arikara would move further north along the Missouri, and the Omaha would be driven out of southeastern South Dakota and into northeastern Nebraska.
Later, the Lakota & Assiniboine returned to the fold, forming a single confederacy known as the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven council fire. This was divided into four cultural groups—the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota & Nagoda-- & seven distinct tribes, each with their own chief—the Nakota Mdewakan (Note—Older attempts at Lakota language show a mistake in writing the sound 'bl' as 'md', such as summer, Bloketu, misprinted as mdoketu. Therefore, this word should be Blewakan.) & Wahpeton, the Dakota Santee & Sisseton, the Nagoda Yankton & Yanktonai & the Lakota Teton. In this form, they were able to secure from the U.S. government a homeland, commonly referred to as Mni-Sota Makoce, or the Lakotah Republic. However, conflicts increased between Sioux & American citizens in the decades leading up the Civil War & a poorly funded & organized Bureau of Indian Affairs had difficulty keeping peace between groups. This eventually resulted in the United States blaming the Sioux for the atrocities & rendering the treaty which recognized the nation of Lakotah null and void. The U.S., however, later recognized their fault in a Supreme Court case in the 1980s after several decades of failed lawsuits by the Sioux, yet little has been done to smooth the issue over to the best interests of both sides.
France was the first European nation to hold any real claim over what would become South Dakota. Its claims covered most of the modern state. However, at most a few French scouting parties may have entered eastern South Dakota. In 1679 Daniel G. Duluth sent explorers west from Lake Mille Lacs, and they may have reached Big Stone Lake and the Coteau des Prairies. Pierre Le Sueur's traders entered the Big Sioux River Valley on multiple occasions. Evidence for these journeys is from a 1701 map by William De L'Isle that shows a trail to below the falls of the Big Sioux River from the Mississippi River.
After 1713, France looked west to sustain its fur trade. The first Europeans to enter South Dakota from the north, the Verendrye brothers, began their expedition in 1743. The expedition started at Fort La Reine on Lake Manitoba, and was attempting to locate an all-water route to the Pacific Ocean. They buried a lead plate inscribed near Ft. Pierre; it was rediscovered by schoolchildren in 1913.
In 1762, France granted Spain all French territory west of the Mississippi River in the Treaty of Fontainebleau. The agreement, which was signed in secret, was motivated by a French desire to convince Spain to come to terms with Britain and accept defeat in the Seven Years' War. In an attempt to secure Spanish claims in the region against possible encroachment from other European powers, Spain adopted a policy for the upper Missouri which emphasized the development of closer trade relations with local tribes as well as greater exploration of the region, a primary focus of which would be a search for a water route to the Pacific Ocean. Although traders such as Jacques D'Eglise and Juan Munier had been active in the region for several years, these men had been operating independently, and a determined effort to reach the Pacific and solidify Spanish control of the region had never been undertaken. In 1793, a group commonly known as the Missouri Company was formed in St. Louis, with the twin goals of trading and exploring on the upper Missouri. The company sponsored several attempts to reach the Pacific Ocean, none of which made it further than the mouth of the Yellowstone. In 1794, Jean Truteau (also spelled Trudeau) built a cabin near the present-day location of Fort Randall, and in 1795 the Mackay-Evans Expedition traveled up the Missouri as far as present-day North Dakota, where they expelled several British traders who had been active in the area. In 1801, a post known as Fort aux Cedres was constructed by Registre Loisel of St. Louis, on Cedar Island on the Missouri about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of the present location of Pierre. This trading post was the major regional post until its destruction by fire in 1810.[30] In 1800, Spain gave Louisiana back to France in the Treaty of San Ildefonso.
In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon for $11,000,000. The territory included most of the western half of the Mississippi watershed and covered nearly all of present-day South Dakota, except for a small portion in the northeast corner of the state. The region was still largely unexplored and unsettled, and President Thomas Jefferson organized a group commonly referred to as the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore the newly acquired region over a period of more than two years. The expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, was tasked with following the route of the Missouri to its source, continuing on to the Pacific Ocean, establishing diplomatic relations with the various tribes in the area, and taking cartographic, geologic, and botanical surveys of the area. The expedition left St. Louis on May 14, 1804, with 45 men and 15 tons of supplies in three boats (one keelboat and two pirogues). The party progressed slowly against the Missouri's current, reaching what is today South Dakota on August 22. Near present-day Vermillion, the party hiked to the Spirit Mound after hearing local legends of the place being inhabited by "little spirits" (or "devils"). Shortly after this, a peaceful meeting took place with the Yankton Sioux, while an encounter with the Lakota Sioux further north was not as uneventful. The Lakota mistook the party as traders, at one point stealing a horse. Weapons were brandished on both sides after it appeared as though the Lakota were going to further delay or even halt the expedition, but they eventually stood down and allowed the party to continue up the river and out of their territory. In north central South Dakota, the expedition acted as mediators between the warring Arikara and Mandan. After leaving the state on October 14, the party wintered with the Mandan in North Dakota before successfully reaching the Pacific Ocean and returning by the same route, safely reaching St. Louis in 1806. On the return trip, the expedition spent only 15 days in South Dakota, traveling more swiftly with the Missouri's current.
Pittsburgh lawyer Henry Marie Brackenridge was South Dakota's first recorded tourist. In 1811 he was hosted by fur trader Manuel Lisa.
In 1817, an American fur trading post was set up at present-day Fort Pierre, beginning continuous American settlement of the area. During the 1830s, fur trading was the dominant economic activity for the few white people who lived in the area. More than one hundred fur-trading posts were in present-day South Dakota in the first half of the 19th century, and Fort Pierre was the center of activity.[citation needed] General William Henry Ashley, Andrew Henry, and Jedediah Smith of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and Manuel Lisa and Joshua Pilcher of the St. Louis Fur Company, trapped in that region. Pierre Chouteau Jr. brought the steamship Yellowstone to Fort Tecumseh on the Missouri River in 1831. In 1832 the fort was replaced by Fort Pierre Chouteau Jr.: today's town of Fort Pierre. Pierre bought the Western Department of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company and renamed it Pratte, Chouteau and Company, and then Pierre Chouteau and Company. It operated in present-day South Dakota from 1834 to 1858. Most trappers and traders left the area after European demand for furs dwindled around 1840.
Main articles: Kansas–Nebraska Act, Nebraska Territory, Organic act § List of organic acts, and Dakota Territory
In 1855, the U.S. Army bought Fort Pierre but abandoned it the following year in favor of Fort Randall to the south. Settlement by Americans and Europeans was by this time increasing rapidly, and in 1858 the Yankton Sioux signed the 1858 "Treaty of Washington", ceding most of present-day eastern South Dakota to the United States.
Land speculators founded two of eastern South Dakota's largest present-day cities: Sioux Falls in 1856 and Yankton in 1859. The Big Sioux River falls was the spot of an 1856 settlement established by a Dubuque, Iowa, company; that town was quickly removed by native residents. But in the following year, May 1857, the town was resettled and named Sioux Falls. That June, St. Paul, Minnesota's Dakota Land Company came to an adjacent 320 acres (130 ha), calling it Sioux Falls City. In June 1857, Flandreau and Medary, South Dakota, were established by the Dakota Land Company. Along with Yankton in 1859, Bon Homme, Elk Point, and Vermillion were among the new communities along the Missouri River or border with Minnesota. Settlers therein numbered about 5,000 in 1860. In 1861, Dakota Territory was established by the United States government (this initially included North Dakota, South Dakota, and parts of Montana and Wyoming). Settlers from Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland, Czechoslovakia[citation needed] and Russia,[citation needed] as well as elsewhere in Europe and from the eastern U.S. states increased from a trickle to a flood, especially after the completion of an eastern railway link to the territorial capital of Yankton in 1872, and the discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874 during a military expedition led by George A. Custer.
The Dakota Territory had significant regional tensions between the northern part and the southern part from the beginning, the southern part always being more populated – in the 1880 United States census, the population of the southern part (98,268) was more than two and a half times of the northern part (36,909), and southern Dakotans saw the northern part as bit of disreputable, "controlled by the wild folks, cattle ranchers, fur traders” and too frequently the site of conflict with the indigenous population. Also, the new railroads built connected the northern and southern parts to different hubs – northern part was closer tied to Minneapolis–Saint Paul area; and southern part to Sioux City and from there to Omaha. The last straw was territorial governor Nehemiah G. Ordway moving the territorial capital from Yankton to Bismarck in modern-day North Dakota. As the Southern part had the necessary population for statehood (60,000), they held a separate convention in September 1883 and drafted a constitution. Various bills to divide the Dakota Territory in half ended up stalling, until in 1887, when the Territorial Legislature submitted the question of division to a popular vote at the November general elections, where it was approved by 37,784 votes over 32,913. A bill for statehood for North Dakota and South Dakota (as well as Montana and Washington) titled the Enabling Act of 1889 was passed on February 22, 1889, during the Administration of Grover Cleveland, dividing Dakota along the seventh standard parallel. It was left to his successor, Benjamin Harrison, to sign proclamations formally admitting North and South Dakota to the Union on November 2, 1889. Harrison directed his Secretary of State James G. Blaine to shuffle the papers and obscure from him which he was signing first and the actual order went unrecorded.
With statehood South Dakota was now in a position to make decisions on the major issues it confronted: prohibition, women's suffrage, the location of the state capital, the opening of the Sioux lands for settlement, and the cyclical issues of drought (severe in 1889) and low wheat prices (1893–1896). In early 1889 a prohibition bill passed the new state legislature, only to be vetoed by Governor Louis Church. Fierce opposition came from the wet German community, with financing from beer and liquor interests. The Yankee women organized to demand suffrage, as well as prohibition. Neither party supported their cause, and the wet element counter-organized to block women's suffrage. Popular interest reached a peak in the debates over locating the state capital. Prestige, real estate values and government jobs were at stake, as well as the question of access in such a large geographical region with limited railroads. Huron was the temporary site, centrally located Pierre was the best organized contender, and three other towns were in the running. Real estate speculators had money to toss around. Pierre, population 3200, made the most generous case to the voters—its promoters truly believed it would be the next Denver and be the railway hub of the Dakotas. The North Western railroad came through but not the others it expected. In 1938 Pierre counted 4000 people and three small hotels.
The national government continued to handle Indian affairs. The Army's 1874 Custer expedition took place despite the fact that the western half of present-day South Dakota had been granted to the Sioux by the Treaty of Fort Laramie as part of the Great Sioux Reservation. The Sioux declined to grant mining rights or land in the Black Hills, and the Great Sioux War of 1876 broke out after the U.S. failed to stop white miners and settlers from entering the region. The Sioux were eventually defeated and settled on reservations within South Dakota and North Dakota.
In 1889 Harrison sent general George Crook with a commission to persuade the Sioux to sell half their reservation land to the government. It was believed that the state would not be viable unless more land was made available to settlers. Crook used a number of dubious methods to secure agreement and obtain the land.
On December 29, 1890, the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It was the last major armed conflict between the United States and the Sioux Nation, the massacre resulted in the deaths of 300 Sioux, many of them women and children. In addition 25 U.S. soldiers were also killed in the episode.
Railroads played a central role in South Dakota transportation from the late 19th century until the 1930s, when they were surpassed by highways. The Milwaukee Road and the Chicago & North Western were the state's largest railroads, and the Milwaukee's east–west transcontinental line traversed the northern tier of the state. About 4,420 miles (7,110 km) of railroad track were built in South Dakota during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though only 1,839 miles (2,960 km) were active in 2007.
The railroads sold land to prospective farmers at very low rates, expecting to make a profit by shipping farm products out and home goods in. They also set up small towns that would serve as shipping points and commercial centers, and attract businessmen and more farmers. The Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway (M&StL) in 1905, under the leadership of vice president and general manager L. F. Day, added lines from Watertown to LeBeau and from Conde through Aberdeen to Leola. It developed town sites along the new lines and by 1910, the new lines served 35 small communities.
Not all of the new towns survived. The M&StL situated LeBeau along the Missouri River on the eastern edge of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. The new town was a hub for the cattle and grain industries. Livestock valued at one million dollars were shipped out in 1908, and the rail company planned a bridge across the Missouri River. Allotment of the Cheyenne River Reservation in 1909 promised further growth. By the early 1920s, however, troubles multiplied, with the murder of a local rancher, a fire that destroyed the business district, and drought that ruined ranchers and farmers alike. LeBeau became a ghost town.
Most of the traffic was freight, but the main lines also offered passenger service. After the European immigrants settled, there never were many people moving about inside the state. Profits were slim. Automobiles and busses were much more popular, but there was an increase during World War II when gasoline was scarce. All passenger service was ended in the state by 1969.
In the rural areas farmers and ranchers depended on local general stores that had a limited stock and slow turnover; they made enough profit to stay in operation by selling at high prices. Prices were not marked on each item; instead the customer negotiated a price. Men did most of the shopping, since the main criterion was credit rather than quality of goods. Indeed, most customers shopped on credit, paying off the bill when crops or cattle were later sold; the owner's ability to judge credit worthiness was vital to his success.
In the cities consumers had much more choice, and bought their dry goods and supplies at locally owned department stores. They had a much wider selection of goods than in the country general stores and price tags that gave the actual selling price. The department stores provided a very limited credit, and set up attractive displays and, after 1900, window displays as well. Their clerks—usually men before the 1940s—were experienced salesmen whose knowledge of the products appealed to the better educated middle-class housewives who did most of the shopping. The keys to success were a large variety of high-quality brand-name merchandise, high turnover, reasonable prices, and frequent special sales. The larger stores sent their buyers to Denver, Minneapolis, and Chicago once or twice a year to evaluate the newest trends in merchandising and stock up on the latest fashions. By the 1920s and 1930s, large mail-order houses such as Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery Ward provided serious competition, making the department stores rely even more on salesmanship and close integration with the community.
Many entrepreneurs built stores, shops, and offices along Main Street. The most handsome ones used pre-formed, sheet iron facades, especially those manufactured by the Mesker Brothers of St. Louis. These neoclassical, stylized facades added sophistication to brick or wood-frame buildings throughout the state.
During the 1930s, several economic and climatic conditions combined with disastrous results for South Dakota. A lack of rainfall, extremely high temperatures and over-cultivation of farmland produced what was known as the Dust Bowl in South Dakota and several other plains states. Fertile topsoil was blown away in massive dust storms, and several harvests were completely ruined. The experiences of the Dust Bowl, coupled with local bank foreclosures and the general economic effects of the Great Depression resulted in many South Dakotans leaving the state. The population of South Dakota declined by more than seven percent between 1930 and 1940.
Prosperity returned with the U.S. entry into World War II in 1941, when demand for the state's agricultural and industrial products grew as the nation mobilized for war. Over 68,000 South Dakotans served in the armed forces during the war, of which over 2,200 were killed.
In 1944, the Pick-Sloan Plan was passed as part of the Flood Control Act of 1944 by the U.S. Congress, resulting in the construction of six large dams on the Missouri River, four of which are at least partially located in South Dakota.[83] Flood control, hydroelectricity and recreational opportunities such as boating and fishing are provided by the dams and their reservoirs.
On the night of June 9–10, 1972, heavy rainfall in the eastern Black Hills caused the Canyon Lake Dam on Rapid Creek to fail. The failure of the dam, combined with heavy runoff from the storm, turned the usually small creek into a massive torrent that washed through central Rapid City. The flood resulted in 238 deaths and destroyed 1,335 homes and around 5,000 automobiles.[84] Damage from the flood totaled $160 million (the equivalent of $664 million today).
On April 19, 1993, Governor George S. Mickelson was killed in a plane crash in Iowa while returning from a business meeting in Cincinnati. Several other state officials were also killed in the crash. Mickelson, who was in the middle of his second term as governor, was succeeded by Walter Dale Miller.
In recent decades, South Dakota has transformed from a state dominated by agriculture to one with a more diversified economy. The tourism industry has grown considerably since the completion of the interstate system in the 1960s, with the Black Hills being especially impacted. The financial service industry began to grow in the state as well, with Citibank moving its credit card operations from New York to Sioux Falls in 1981, a move that has since been followed by several other financial companies. In 2007, the site of the recently closed Homestake gold mine near Lead was chosen as the location of a new underground research facility. Despite a growing state population and recent economic development, many rural areas have been struggling over the past 50 years with locally declining populations and the emigration of educated young adults to larger South Dakota cities, such as Rapid City or Sioux Falls, or to other states. The Cattleman's Blizzard of October 2013 killed tens of thousands of livestock in western South Dakota, and was one of the worst blizzards in the state's history.
Source: Wikipedia...
Mary Pinchot Meyer (October 14 1920, - October 12, 1964), was a Washington DC socialite, painter, former wife of CIA official Cord Meyer and close friend of US president John F. Kennedy who was noted for her great beauty and social skills.
Meyer's murder two days before her 44th birthday in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington D.C. during the fall of 1964 would later stir speculation relating to Kennedy's presidency and assassination. Nina Burleigh in her 1998 biography wrote, "Mary Meyer was an enigmatic woman in life, and in death her real personality lurks just out of view."
Mary Pinchot was the daughter of Amos Pinchot, a wealthy lawyer and a founder of the Progressive party who had helped fund the socialist magazine "The Masses". Her mother was Pinchot's second wife Ruth, a journalist who worked for magazines such as "The Nation" and "The New Republic". Mary was raised at the family's Grey Towers home in Milford, Pennsylvania where as a child she met left-wing intellectuals such as Mabel Dodge, Louis Brandeis, Robert M. La Follette, Sr. and Harold L. Ickes. Mary attended Brearley School and Vassar College, where she became interested in communism. She dated William Attwood in 1938 and while with him at a dance held at Choate Rosemary Hall she first met John F. Kennedy.
She left Vassar and became a journalist, writing for the United Press and Mademoiselle. As a pacifist and member of the American Labor Party she came under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Marriage with Cord Meyer
Mary met Cord Meyer in 1944 when he was a US Marine Corps lieutenant who had lost his left eye because of shrapnel injuries received in combat. The two had similar pacifist views and beliefs in world government and married on 19 April 1945. That spring they both attended the UN Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, during which the United Nations was founded, Cord as an aide of Harold Stassen and Mary as a reporter for a newspaper syndication service. She later worked for a time as an editor for Atlantic Monthly. Their eldest child Quentin was born in late 1945, followed by Michael in 1947, after which Mary became a housewife although she attended classes at the Art Students League of New York.
Cord Meyer became president of the United World Federalists in May 1947 and its membership doubled. Albert Einstein was an enthusiastic supporter and fundraiser. Mary Meyer wrote for the organization's journal. In 1950 their third child Mark was born and they moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Meanwhile her husband began to re-evaluate his notions of world government as members of the American Communist Party infiltrated the international organizations he had founded. It is unknown when he first began secretly working with the Central Intelligence Agency but in 1951 Allen Dulles approached Cord Meyer, he became an employee of the CIA and was soon a "principal operative" of Operation Mockingbird, a covert operation meant to sway the print and broadcast media. Mary may also have done some work for the CIA during this time but her tendency towards spur-of-the-moment love affairs reportedly made the agency wary of her.
With her husband's CIA appointment they moved to Washington D.C. and became highly visible members of Georgetown society. Their friends and acquaintances included Joseph Alsop, Katharine Graham, Clark Clifford and Washington Post reporter James Truitt along with his wife, noted artist Anne Truitt. Their social circle also included CIA-affiliated people such as Richard M. Bissell, Jr., high ranking counter-intelligence official James Angleton and Mary and Frank Wisner, Meyer's boss at CIA. In 1953 Senator Joseph McCarthy publicly accused Cord Meyer of being a communist and the FBI was reported to have looked into Mary's political past. Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner aggressively defended Meyer and he remained with the CIA. However, by early 1954 Mary's husband became unhappy with his CIA career and used contacts from his covert operations in Operation Mockingbird to approach several New York publishers for a job but was rebuffed. During the summer of 1954 John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie Kennedy bought a house not far from where the Meyers lived, Mary and Jackie became friends and "they went on walks together." By the end of 1954 Cord Meyer was still with the CIA and often in Europe, running Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and managing millions of dollars of US government funds worldwide to support progressive-seeming foundations and organizations.
One of Mary's close friends and classmates from Vassar was Cicely d'Autremont, who married James Angleton. In 1955 Meyer's sister Antoinette (Tony) married Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post. On 18 December 1956 the Meyers' middle son Michael was hit by a car near their house and killed at the age of nine. Although this tragedy brought Mary and Cord closer together for a time, Mary filed for divorce in 1958. Her divorce petition alleged "extreme cruelty, mental in nature, which seriously injured her health, destroyed her happiness, rendered further cohabitation unendurable and compelled the parties to separate."
Friendship with JFK
Mary and her two surviving sons remained in the family home. She began painting again in a converted garage studio at the home of her sister Tony and her husband Ben Bradlee. She also started a close relationship with abstract-minimalist painter Kenneth Noland and grew a friendship with Robert Kennedy who had moved into his brother's house after John and Jackie Kennedy left in 1960. Nina Burleigh in her book "A Very Private Woman" writes that after the divorce Meyer became "a well-bred ingenue out looking for fun and getting in trouble along the way." "Mary was bad," a friend recalled.
Burleigh claims James Angleton tapped Mary Meyer's telephone after she left her husband. Meanwhile Angleton often visited the family home and took her sons on fishing outings. Mary visited John F. Kennedy at the White House in October 1961 and their relationship became intimate. Mary told Ann and James Truitt she was keeping a diary.
In 1983 former Harvard University psychology professor Timothy Leary claimed that in the spring of 1962 Meyer, who according to her biographer Burleigh "wore manners and charm like a second skin", told him she was taking part in a plan to avert worldwide nuclear war by convincing powerful male members of the Washington establishment to take mind-altering drugs, which would presumably lead them to conclude the Cold War was meaningless. Meyer said she had shared in this plan with at least seven other Washington socialite friends who held similar political views and were trying to supply LSD to a small circle of high ranking government officials (however, Leary's account is disputed by several writers, who point out that he wrote many other autobiographical books between 1962 and 1983 without ever mentioning her).
Mary Meyer and John F Kennedy reportedly had "about 30 trysts" and at least one author has claimed she brought marijuana or LSD to almost all of these meetings. In January 1963 Philip Graham disclosed the Kennedy-Meyer affair to a meeting of newspaper editors but his claim was not reported by the news media. Leary later claimed Mary influenced Kennedy's "views on nuclear disarmament and rapprochement with Cuba." In an interview with Nina Burleigh, Kennedy aide Meyer Feldman said, "I think he might have thought more of her than some of the other women and discussed things that were on his mind, not just social gossip." Burleigh wrote, "Mary might actually have been a force for peace during some of the most frightening years of the cold war..."
In his biography Flashbacks Leary claimed he had a call from Mary soon after the Kennedy assassination during which she sobbed and said, "They couldn't control him any more. He was changing too fast. He was learning too much... They'll cover everything up. I gotta come see you. I'm scared. I'm afraid." During the summer of 1964 Meyer reportedly told friends she thought someone had gotten into her house while she was not there and later told a friend from Vasser, historian Elizabeth Eisenstein, "she thought she had seen somebody leaving as she walked in."
Murder
On 12 October 1964, eleven months after John F. Kennedy's assassination and two weeks after the Warren Commission report was made public, Mary finished a painting and went for a walk along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath in Georgetown. Mechanic Henry Wiggins was trying to fix a car on Canal Road and heard a woman cry out, "Someone help me, someone help me." Wiggins heard two gunshots and ran to a low wall looking upon the path where he saw "a black man in a light jacket, dark slacks, and a dark cap standing over the body of a white woman."
Meyer's body had two bullet wounds, one at the back of the head and another in her heart. An FBI forensics expert later said “dark haloes on the skin around both entry wounds suggested they had been fired at close-range, possibly point-blank”.
Minutes later a disheveled, soaking wet African-American man named Raymond Crump was arrested near the murder scene. No gun was ever found and Crump was never linked to any gun of the type used to murder Mary Meyer. Newspaper reports described her former husband only as either an author or government official and did not mention Kennedy, although many journalists apparently were aware of Meyer's past marriage to a high ranking CIA official and her friendship with Kennedy.
When Crump came to trial, judge Howard Corcoran ruled Mary Meyer's private life could not be disclosed in the courtroom. Corcoran had recently been appointed by president Lyndon Baines Johnson. Mary’s background was also kept from Dovey Roundtree, Crump's lawyer, who later recalled she could find out almost nothing about the murder victim: "It was as if she existed only on the towpath on the day she was murdered." Crump was acquitted of all charges on 29 July 1965 and the murder remains unsolved (Crump went on to what has been described as a "horrific" life of crime).
Diary
In March 1976 James Truitt told the National Enquirer Meyer was having an affair with Kennedy when he was assassinated. Truitt said Meyer had told his wife Ann she was keeping a diary (which some sources have described as a sketchbook with some written text) and had asked her to retrieve it "if anything ever happened" to her. Ann Truitt, who was living in Tokyo when Meyer was murdered, called both James Angleton and Mary's brother in law Ben Bradlee at home and asked him if he had found the diary. Bradley later said, "We didn't start looking until the next morning, when Tony [Mary's sister] and I walked around the corner a few blocks to Mary's house. It was locked, as we had expected, but when we got inside, we found Jim Angleton, and to our complete surprise he told us he, too, was looking for Mary's diary."
Angleton said he knew about Mary's intimate friendship with Kennedy and was looking for the diary and anything else which might have information about the affair. Later at Mary's art studio by the Bradlee home Ben and Antoinette again found Angleton, trying to pick a padlock. After he left, Antoinette found the diary and many letters in a metal box. These were given to Angleton, who later claimed he burned the diary, in which he said Mary Meyer wrote she and Kennedy had taken LSD before "they made love." However, Bradlee wrote they later learned Angleton had not burned the diary: Bradlee's wife Tony got it back from Angleton and burned the document herself while Ann Truitt watched. Those who did read the diary reportedly said it confirmed Meyer's intimate friendship with Kennedy but gave no suggestion it contained any information about his assassination.
Cord Meyer's later statements about the murder
Cord Meyer left the CIA in 1977. In his autobiography Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA he wrote, "I was satisfied by the conclusions of the police investigation that Mary had been the victim of a sexually motivated assault by a single individual and that she had been killed in her struggle to escape." However his former personal assistant Carol Delaney later claimed, "Mr. Meyer didn't for a minute think that Ray Crump had murdered his wife or that it had been an attempted rape. But, being an Agency man, he couldn't very well accuse the CIA of the crime, although the murder had all the markings of an in-house rubout."
In February 2001 writer C. David Heymann asked Cord Meyer about Mary Pinchot Meyer's murder and he replied, "My father died of a heart attack the same year Mary was killed. It was a bad time." When asked who had murdered Mary Pinchot Meyer the retired CIA official, six weeks before his own death from lymphoma, reportedly "hissed" back, "The same sons of bitches that killed John F. Kennedy."
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C & O Canal from Chain Bridge at the base of the Palisades
French postcard by Europe, no. 650. Photo: Paramount. Lupe Velez in The Wolf Song (Victor Fleming, 1929).
Lupe Velez (1908-1944), was one of the first Mexican actresses to succeed in Hollywood. Her nicknames were 'The Mexican Spitfire' and 'Hot Pepper'. She was the leading lady in such silent films as The Gaucho (1927), Lady of the Pavements (1928), and Wolf Song (1929). During the 1930s, her well-known explosive screen persona was exploited in a series of successful films like Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934), and Hollywood Party (1934). In the 1940s, Vélez's popularity peaked after appearing in the Mexican Spitfire films, a series created to capitalise on Vélez's well-documented fiery personality. She had several highly publicised romances and a stormy marriage. In 1944, Vélez died of an intentional overdose of the barbiturate drug Seconal. Her death and the circumstances surrounding it have been the subject of speculation and controversy.
Lupe Vélez was born María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez in 1908 in the city of San Luis Potosí in Mexico. She was the daughter of Jacobo Villalobos Reyes, a colonel in the army of the dictator Porfirio Diaz, and his wife Josefina Vélez, an opera singer according to some sources, or vaudeville singer according to others. She had three sisters: Mercedes, Reina and Josefina, and a brother, Emigdio. The family was financially comfortable and lived in a large home. At the age of 13, her parents sent her to study at Our Lady of the Lake (now Our Lady of the Lake University) in San Antonio, Texas. It was at Our Lady of the Lake that Vélez learned to speak English and began to dance. She later admitted that she liked dance class, but was otherwise a poor student. Denny Jackson at IMDb: "Life was hard for her family, and Lupe returned to Mexico to help them out financially. She worked as a salesgirl for a department store for the princely sum of $4 a week. Every week she would turn most of her salary over to her mother, but kept a little for herself so she could take dancing lessons. By now, she figured, with her mature shape and grand personality, she thought she could make a try at show business." She began her career as a performer in Mexican vaudeville in 1924. She initially performed under her paternal surname, but after her father returned home from the war, he was outraged that his daughter had decided to become a stage performer. She chose her maternal surname, "Vélez", as her stage name and her mother introduced Vélez and her sister Josefina to the popular Spanish Mexican vedette María Conesa, "La Gatita Blanca". Vélez debuted in a show led by Conesa, where she sang 'Oh Charley, My Boy' and danced the shimmy. Aurelio Campos, a young pianist, and friend of the Vélez sisters recommended Lupe to stage producers, Carlos Ortega and Manuel Castro. Ortega and Castro were preparing a season revue at the Regis Theatre and hired Vélez to join the company in March 1925. Later that year, Vélez starred in the revues 'Mexican Rataplan' and '¡No lo tapes!', both parodies of the Bataclan's shows in Paris. Her suggestive singing and provocative dancing was a hit with audiences, and she soon established herself as one of the main stars of vaudeville in Mexico. After a year and a half, Vélez left the revue after the manager refused to give her a raise. She then joined the Teatro Principal but was fired after three months due to her "feisty attitude". Vélez was quickly hired by the Teatro Lirico, where her salary rose to 100 pesos a day. In 1926, Frank A. Woodyard, an American who had seen Vélez perform, recommended her to stage director Richard Bennett, the father of actresses Joan and Constance Bennett. Bennett was looking for an actress to portray a Mexican cantina singer in his upcoming play 'The Dove'. He sent Vélez a telegram inviting her to Los Angeles to appear in the play. Vélez had been planning to go to Cuba to perform, but quickly changed her plans and traveled to Los Angeles. However, upon arrival, she discovered that she had been replaced by another actress.
While in Los Angeles, Lupe Vélez met the comedian Fanny Brice. Brice recommended her to Flo Ziegfeld, who hired her to perform in New York City. While Vélez was preparing to leave Los Angeles, she received a call from MGM producer Harry Rapf, who offered her a screen test. Producer and director Hal Roach saw Vélez's screen test and hired her for a small role in the comic Laurel and Hardy short Sailors, Beware! (Fred Guiol, Hal Yates, 1927). After her debut, Vélez appeared in another Hal Roach short, What Women Did for Me (James Parrott, 1927), opposite Charley Chase. Later that year, she did a screen test for the upcoming Douglas Fairbanks feature The Gaucho (F. Richard Jones, 1927). Fairbanks was impressed by Vélez and hired her to appear in the film with him. The Gaucho was a hit and critics were duly impressed with Vélez's ability to hold her own alongside Fairbanks, who was well known for his spirited acting and impressive stunts. Her second major film was Stand and Deliver (Donald Crisp, 1928), produced by Cecil B. DeMille. That same year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. Then she appeared in Lady of the Pavements (1929), directed by D. W. Griffith, and Where East Is East (Tod Browning, 1929), starring Lon Chaney as an animal trapper in Laos. In the Western The Wolf Song (Victor Fleming, 1929), she appeared alongside Gary Cooper. As she was regularly cast as 'exotic' or 'ethnic' women that were volatile and hot-tempered, gossip columnists took to referring to Vélez as "Mexican Hurricane", "The Mexican Wildcat", "The Mexican Madcap", "Whoopee Lupe" and "The Hot Tamale". Lupe Vélez made the transition to sound films without difficulty. Studio executives had predicted that her accent would likely hamper her ability to make the transition. That idea was dispelled after she appeared in the all-talking Rin Tin Tin vehicle, Tiger Rose (George Fitzmaurice, 1929). The film was a hit and Vélez's sound career was established. Vélez appeared in a series of Pre-Code films like Hell Harbor (Henry King, 1930), The Storm (William Wyler, 1930), and the crime drama East Is West (Monta Bell, 1930) opposite Edward G. Robinson. The next year, she appeared in her second film for Cecil B. DeMille, Squaw Man (Cecil B. DeMille, 1931), opposite Warner Baxter, in Resurrection (Edwin Carewe, 1931), and The Cuban Love Song (W.S. Van Dyke, 1931), with the popular singer Lawrence Tibbett. She had a supporting role in Kongo (William J. Cowen, 1932) with Walter Huston, a sound remake of West of Zanzibar (Tod Browning, 1928) which tries to outdo the Lon Chaney original in morbidity. She also starred in Spanish-language versions of Universal films like Resurrección (Eduardo Arozamena, David Selman, 1931), the Spanish version of Resurrection (1931), and Hombres en mi vida (Eduardo Arozamena, David Selman, 1932), the Spanish version of Men in Her Life (William Beaudine, 1931) in which Lois Moran had starred.
In 1932, Lupe Vélez took a break from her film career and traveled to New York City where she was signed by Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. to take over the role of "Conchita" in the musical revue 'Hot-Cha!'. The show also starred Bert Lahr, Eleanor Powell, and Buddy Rogers. Back in Hollywood, Lupe switched to comedy after playing dramatic roles for five years. Denny Jackson at IMDb: "In 1933 she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933). This film showcased her comedic talents and helped her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful." After Hot Pepper (John G. Blystone, 1933) with Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen, Lupe played beautiful but volatile, characters in a series of successful films like Strictly Dynamite (Elliott Nugent, 1934), Palooka (Benjamin Stoloff, 1934) both opposite Jimmy Durante, and Hollywood Party (Allan Dwan, a.o., 1934) with Laurel and Hardy. Although Vélez was a popular actress, RKO Pictures did not renew her contract in 1934. Over the next few years, Vélez worked for various studios as a freelance actress; she also spent two years in England where she filmed The Morals of Marcus (Miles Mander, 1935) and Gypsy Melody (Edmond T. Gréville, 1936). She returned to Los Angeles the following year where she appeared in the final part of the Wheeler & Woolsey comedy High Flyers (Edward F. Cline, 1937). In 1938, Vélez made her final appearance on Broadway in the musical You Never Know, by Cole Porter. The show received poor reviews from critics but received a large amount of publicity due to the feud between Vélez and fellow cast member Libby Holman. Holman was irritated by the attention Vélez garnered from the show with her impersonations of several actresses including Gloria Swanson, Katharine Hepburn, and Shirley Temple. The feud came to a head during a performance in New Haven, Connecticut after Vélez punched Holman in between curtain calls and gave her a black eye. The feud effectively ended the show. Upon her return to Mexico City in 1938 to star in her first Mexican film, Vélez was greeted by ten thousand fans. The film La Zandunga (Fernando de Fuentes, 1938) co-starring Arturo de Córdova, was a critical and financial success. Vélez was slated to appear in four more Mexican films, but instead, she returned to Los Angeles and went back to work for RKO Pictures. In 1939, Lupe Vélez was cast opposite Leon Errol and Donald Woods in the B-comedy, The Girl from Mexico (Leslie Goodwins, 1939). Despite being a B film, it was a hit with audiences and RKO re-teamed her with Errol and Wood for a sequel, Mexican Spitfire (Leslie Goodwins, 1940). That film was also a success and led to a series of eight Spitfire films. Wikipedia: "In the series, Vélez portrays Carmelita Lindsay, a temperamental yet friendly Mexican singer married to Dennis 'Denny' Lindsay (Woods), an elegant American gentleman. The Spitfire films rejuvenated Vélez's career. Moreover, they were films in which a Latina headlined for eight films straight –a true rarity." In addition to the Spitfire series, she was cast in such films as Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga (John Rawlins, 1941), Playmates (David Butler, 1941) opposite John Barrymore, and Redhead from Manhattan (Lew Landers, 1943). In 1943, the final film in the Spitfire series, Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (Leslie Goodwins, 1943), was released. By that time, the novelty of the series had begun to wane. Velez co-starred with Eddie Albert in the romantic comedy, Ladies' Day (Leslie Goodwins, 1943), about an actress and a baseball player. In 1944, Vélez returned to Mexico to star in an adaptation of Émile Zola's novel Nana (Roberto Gavaldón, Celestino Gorostiza, 1944), which was well-received. It would be her final film. After filming wrapped, Vélez returned to Los Angeles and began preparing for another stage role in New York.
Lupe Vélez's temper and jealousy in her often tempestuous romantic relationships were well documented and became tabloid fodder, often overshadowing her career. Vélez was straightforward with the press and was regularly contacted by gossip columnists for stories about her romantic exploits. Her first long-term relationship was with actor Gary Cooper. Vélez met Cooper while filming The Wolf Song in 1929 and began a two-year affair with him. The relationship was passionate but often stormy. Reportedly Vélez chased Cooper around with a knife during an argument and cut him severely enough to require stitches. By that time, the rocky relationship had taken its toll on Cooper who had lost 45 pounds and was suffering from nervous exhaustion. Paramount Pictures ordered him to take a vacation to recuperate. While he was boarding the train, Vélez showed up at the train station and fired a pistol at him. During her marriage to actor Johnny Weissmuller, stories of their frequent physical fights were regularly reported in the press. Vélez reportedly inflicted scratches, bruises, and love-bites on Weissmuller during their fights and "passionate love-making". In July 1934, after ten months of marriage, Vélez filed for divorce citing cruelty. She withdrew the petition a week later after reconciling with Weissmuller. In January 1935, she filed for divorce a second time and was granted an interlocutory decree that was dismissed when the couple reconciled a month later. In August 1938, Vélez filed for divorce for a third time, again charging Weissmuller with cruelty. Their divorce was finalised in August 1939. After the divorce became final, Vélez began dating actor Guinn "Big Boy" Williams in late 1940. They were reportedly engaged but never married. Vélez was also linked to author Erich Maria Remarque and the boxers Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey. In 1943, Vélez began an affair with her La Zandunga co-star Arturo de Córdova. De Córdova had recently moved to Hollywood after signing with Paramount Pictures. Despite the fact that de Córdova was married to Mexican actress Enna Arana with whom he had four children, Vélez granted an interview to gossip columnist Louella Parsons in September 1943 and announced that the two were engaged. Vélez ended the engagement in early 1944, reportedly after de Córdova's wife refused to give him a divorce. Vélez then met and began dating a struggling young Austrian actor named Harald Maresch (who went by the stage name Harald Ramond). In September 1944, she discovered she was pregnant with Ramond's child. She announced their engagement in late November 1944. On 10 December, four days before her death, Vélez announced she had ended the engagement and kicked Ramond out of her home. On the evening of 13 December 1944, Vélez dined with her two friends, the silent film star Estelle Taylor and Venita Oakie. In the early morning hours of 14 December, Vélez retired to her bedroom, where she consumed 75 Seconal pills and a glass of brandy. Her secretary, Beulah Kinder, found the actress's body on her bed later that morning. A suicide note addressed to Harald Ramond was found nearby. Lupe Vélez was only 36 years old. More than four-thousand people filed past her casket during her funeral. Her body was interred in Mexico City, at Panteón Civil de Dolores Cemetery. Velez' estate, valued at $125,000 and consisting mostly of her Rodeo House home, two cars, jewelry, and personal effects were left to her secretary Beulah Kinder with the remainder in trust for her mother, Mrs. Josephine Velez. Together with Dolores del Rio, Ramon Novarro, and José Mojica, she was one of the few Mexican people who had made history in the early years of Hollywood.
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
There is speculation that this 18th Century vest belonged to John Jay. In an era of ever advancing research and technology, the Jay Heritage Center hopes to learn more about the provenance of this fascinating historic garment.
Jay Heritage Center
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A National Historic Landmark since 1993
Member of the African American Heritage Trail of Westchester County since 2004
Member of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area since 2009
On NY State's Path Through History (2013)
Rumours that they would be performing this dance with Dolly, the cloned sheep (see photo below), the giant silverfish, and Chickenman at the opening of ChaCha's 2024 Spring Collection have been dismissed as sensationalist speculation.
Joyce referenced this dance in 'Finnegans Wake':
"reeling more to the right than he lurched to the left....like a prance of findingos, with a shillto shallto slipny stripny, in he skittled." P.186
For further reference to the same spider dance see quote and link below.
"Another source in Zurich describes how Joyce would interrupt a weekend walk or someone correctly guessing the title of his new novel and do a kind of ‘spider dance’, and the spectacle was given an edge of comedy by his angular features and tight clothing. His long legs also gave a surreal touch to the improvised dancing. At the British consulate, after one raucous party, Budgen performed a belly dance on a safe as Joyce recreated his spider dance. According to sources, neither knew how they got home after."
irishsliceofmadrid.wordpress.com/2021/09/06/the-incredibl...
Joyce mentions the 'spider' twice in 'Ulysses'
and
'Dance' and 'Dancing' 36 times.
"— A cataleptic mithyphallic ! Was this Totem Fulcrum Est
Ancestor yu hald in Dies Eirae where no spider webbeth or
Anno Mundi ere bawds plied in SkifFstrait? Be fair, Chris! "
'Finnegans Wake'
"Mr Hunker you're too dada for me to dance (so off she
goes !) and that's how half the gels in town has got their bottom drars while grumpapar he's trying to hitch his braces on to his trars."
A 'Finnegans Wake' reference to 'dada' and 'dance'.
Spandex suits, and support trusses, by Lanech.
Photographed by ChaCha in the Lahinch Head-Office.
Credits, also mentioned in 'Finnegans Wake' (p. 220):
"Creations tastefully designed by Madame Berthe Dela-
mode. Dances arranged by Harley Quinn and Coollimbeina.
Jests, jokes, jigs and jorums for the Wake lent from the properties
of the late cemented Mr T. M. Finnegan R.I.C. Lipmasks and
hairwigs by Ouida Nooikke. Limes and Floods by Crooker and Toll."
Edward Hopper
1927
There are many speculations about the girl in this painting. Is she waiting for a friend? Did she just finish her shift at work? Since she has one glove on, is she still warming up? Or in a hurry to get somewhere? Her legs are very bright under the table, and are maybe meant to make her an object of desire. A recurring theme in his paintings, Hopper positions the viewer so that we feel like we are intruding on her deep thoughts.
My favorite local coffee shop, Mugwalls, is the one place you can usually find me, if I’m not at home or on campus. With an eclectic arrangement of random chairs and tables, you feel like you’re sitting in your own living room, especially if you’re fortunate enough to score one of the seats with an ottoman. When I decided to do this painting, there was no hesitation that this was the perfect setting for the scene. Aside from moving the round table about a foot, I didn’t move any of the furniture. I managed to arrive an hour before closing on a friday night, so I had a very small audience. Please note the infamous yellow “DTR chair” in the left of the photo. Probably the most spectacular chair ever invented, it’s perfect for catching up with a friend, lounging down by yourself, or “determining the relationship” with a love interest.
I had been on the lookout for the perfect hat, and thankfully, my friend Rachel collects vintage hats, a detail about her that I did not know. The one I chose to wore was her grandmother’s. While in her room looking at her collection, I spotted a coat rack in the corner with a little piece of fur sticking out. “What is that??” ”Oh, this is a coat a friend gave me.” How perfect is it??
Special thanks to Jose, for being a great assistant, and to Rachel, for the perfect wardrobe.
Strathalbyn.
A Special Survey of 4,000 acres was taken out along the Angas River in 1839 for George Hall (secretary to Governor Gawler) and William Mein and others. Land was surveyed from the mouth of the Angas along the river to about where Macclesfield is now situated. Other contributors to the Mouth of the Angas Special Survey were Strathalbyn settlers including: 806 acres purchased by Dr John Rankine, Blackwood Park; 166 acres purchased by William Rankine, Glenbarr; 410 acres purchased by Donald McLean; 81 acres purchased by Edward and Charles Stirling of Hampton and later the Lodge. William and Nicol Mein kept 728 acres for themselves but George Hall (who kept about 930 acres) was a Colonial Office employee with an eye on speculation. He also paid £4,000 for the Great Bend Special Survey along the River Murray from Morgan to Blanchetown but it was claimed this was taken for Governor Gawler but in Hall’s name to avoid scandal! But the land was not worth £1 per acre! The Meins were graziers and also took out Occupational Licenses for leasehold land in 1843. They were Scots so they donated £600 for the building fund for the Presbyterian Church in Adelaide in 1840. But in 1843 they dissolved a business partnership in Adelaide and they appear to have left the colony perhaps to join their relatives in NSW. Meins did not stay on to become Strathalbyn pioneers unlike the Rankines, McLeans and Stirlings. The other prominent early founder was William Dawson- hence the creek flowing in front of Glen Barr is the Dawson Creek which enters the Angas River in Strathalbyn. Dawson Banks is another of the grand old properties in Strathalbyn.
Stirlings chose their land to the north of the town and built Hampden and the Lodge; John Rankine chose his land to the north of the town and built Blackwood Park whilst brother William Rankine chose land to the south on Dawson Creek and built Glenbarr house. The first public building in the fledgling town of Strathalbyn was the Strathalbyn Hotel erected in 1840 and the second was probably St. Andrews Presbyterian Church which opened in 1844 with additions in 1869. As most of the settlers were Scottish the name chosen for the town was Scottish and the first church was Presbyterian. The first farmer to produce a crop was David Gollan. His interest in wheat led him to open the first flour mill in 1850 in the centre of the town. Mill Bridge adjacent to the flourmill bridged the Angas River. As the town progressed quickly a local council was formed in 1854 with the Stirlings, Rankines and Archibald McLean (investor in Langhorne Creek) being among the first councillors. The Stirlings were especially important to Strathalbyn. Edward Stirling (the father) joined into a partnership with (Sir) Thomas Elder and Robert Barr Smith in 1855. Stirling stayed with the company as it funded the Moonta and Wallaroo copper mines in 1861 then he withdrew but remained as an investor in the mines. The company went on to become Elder Smith and Co the most successful SA 19th century company. Edward Stirling had two sons, (Sir) Edward Stirling a famed surgeon who lived at St. Vigeans at Stirling and (Sir) Lancelot Stirling, local Member of Parliament for the Strathalbyn district, sheep and cattle breeder and company director. The Stirlings lived in the family home Hampden until it burnt down around 1870. Then they moved into the Lodge which was extended and remained the family home for Sir Lancelot Stirling after his father Edward died in 1873. Lancelot lived there until he died in 1932. The Stirlings of Strathalbyn also owned and operated Nalpa Station on Lake Albert. The Lodge is now the centre of a new suburban development at Strathalbyn.
From the beginning Strathalbyn prospered because of its access to water from the Angas River, its reliable rainfall, its genial climate for cropping and from the patronage of its wealthy founders. The town was laid out in 1840 and blocks sold at that time. The discovery of silver, lead and zinc at nearby Wheal Ellen mine in 1857 further boosted the growing town. The mine closed a short time later but re-opened in 1869 and operated until closure in 1888. It briefly re-opened from 1910-14 for the last phase. Until recently Strathalbyn had another zinc mine conducted by Terramin Mining which started operations in 2007. The zinc from here was sent to Nyrstar refinery at Port Pirie for smelting. The mining occurred 360 metres below the ground surface. The mine had a life of five years and closed in late 2013 ending the jobs of 115 local people. But Strathalbyn has always had a range of local industry. A foundry operated in the town from the mid 1850s as well as the usual businesses of blacksmith, saddlery etc, and the town handled coach services to Wellington via Langhorne Creek from around 1854. It was also one of the first towns in SA to have its own gas works started by David Trenouth in 1868. By 1870 the small urban centre of Strathalbyn had gas street lights! The gas works operated until 1917 when an electrical service took over power provision. From an early date Strathalbyn also had its own newspaper and printing press the Southern Argus housed in Argus House which was built 1867/68. The Southern Argus which is still published, is SA’s oldest country newspaper. In 1912 it established an offshoot - the Victor Harbor Times. In terms of transportation and the transport of goods Strathalbyn prospered as it was the terminus of the horse drawn tram service from Port Elliott and Goolwa in 1869. That is why the Terminus Hotel is so named. In 1884 that line was converted to a broad gauge rail line for steam engines and linked at Mt Barker with the line to Adelaide. Strathalbyn had a flour mill from 1850 as noted above and in the 1860s the town had its own brewery. The heyday of business boom for Strathalbyn was in the 1860s and 1870 when so many of the fine town buildings were erected. Heritage buildings are shown on map above and they include:
Commercial Street/Dawson Street.
•At the northern end of Commercial Street on the corner with North Parade is the Doctor’s Residence. 26 North Parade. Dr Herbert built a grand 8 roomed residence here in 1858. Dr Ferguson purchased it in 1869 and added and altered the verandas. Dr Shone bought it in 1897. Dr Formby took it over in 1907 and kept it until he sold it to Dr Fairley in 1979! Note the double chimneys and the ogee(S shaped) gutters above the bay windows and the 1850s French windows.
•On the northern end of Commercial Street is the Wesleyan Methodist Church which was built in 1874. It replaced the demolished Methodist church built in 1854. Built of random stone, semi rounded windows etc. It became the only Methodist church at the time of Methodist amalgamations in 1900 .It closed around the time of amalgamation with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in 1977. The Hall was added in 1939.
•Blackwell House, 18 Commercial Street. A two storey bluestone structure from the 1860s. It was much altered in 1912 when the parapet along the roof was removed, the slate replaced with iron and the upper balcony added.
•The former Power House 1917 –when gas works closed. Became Council Chamber 1939 when ETSA arrived.
•Coleman Mill store. Fine stone building with few windows. Built 1864. Coleman bought the mill from Gollan.
•1850 flour mill which was sold to Laucke’s in 1938. Commercial Rd and Mill Street an imposing four storey structure. Note the four storeys, purple sandstone, and little windows.
•Beside the mill is Water Villa house. The earliest part dates from 1849 and the Italianate bay window sections are 1879. David Gollan the owner of the 1850 flour mill built this as his residence. It is a mixture of stones. Note the French doors in the old original part of the house onto the veranda.
•Argus House, 1868. 33 Commercial Street. It was a print works and residence and shop.
•Post Office 1911. 37 Commercial Street.
•Savings Banks of South Australia. A fine two storey structure for the bank and manager’s residence. Built in 1930. It has rough stone, prominent gables, repeating arches, wooden doors, and terra cotta tiles.
•Church of Christ. Opened in 1873.Limestone walls, arched windows.
•Masonic Hall built in 1896 but Lodge established 1866.Additons 1912 and 1957.
Rankine Street/Albyn Terrace.
•Strathalbyn Police Station (1855) and Court House (1865) now the National Trust Museum.
•National Bank 2 Albyn Terrace. Squared stone blocks, two storeys and a dominant building. Elaborate porch and balcony and decorative window surrounds etc. Erected in 1869. Nearby Norfolk Island pine was planted in 1895.
•Tucker & Sons solicitors at 8 Albyn Terrace. Have a look at all the shops along Albyn Terrace a great 19th century streetscape still largely intact. It was used in the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”
High Street.
•London House general store at 7 High Street 1867. Now an antiques shop. Cobb and Co used to use the stables at the rear for the daily coaching service to Adelaide. London House had the first telephone in Strathalbyn in 1883.
•Robin Hood hotel erected in 1855 and still standing. 18 High Street.
•The Strathalbyn library 9 High Street. Opened 1922 with a classical façade with good symmetry.
•The Town Hall at 11 High Street. 1874 opened as a two storey stone structure with fancy parapet as an institute building. The parapet is supported by paired brackets.
Other locations- Chapel Street, East Terrace and South Terrace.
•St. Andrews Uniting Church (formerly Presbyterian) 1844 for main church with transept added 1857. Manse erected 1854. 1869 tower completed, bell donated by Edward Stirling. Clock installed 1895. Church hall on the opposite corner was built in 1911.
•Former Primitive Methodist Church 1861 was sold to the Anglican Church as a church hall in 1901 following the Methodist amalgamation. It was sold to the Foresters Lodge in 1912(when Anglicans purchased the former Catholic Church) and much later it as sold to the Scouts.
•St. Barnabas Catholic Church 2 Chapel Street. This was a late addition to Strathalbyn being erected in 1913. But Catholic services began in 1881 when a Catholic church was consecrated in Rowe St. The first priest arrived in 1906. A presbytery as built 1911 in East Tce and then church two years later. The 1881 church was sold in 1913 as Anglican parish hall called St. Barnabas. It is on the corner of Rowe and Murray street.
•Christ Church Anglican Church 7 East Terrace. The tower on Christ Church was erected from donations on the death of Sir Lancelot Stirling in 1932. The tower opened in 1933 but the church was built in 1871.
•Railway Station on South Terrace erected 1883 in time for opening of broad gauge line to Adelaide and start of branch line trains to Milang from Sandergrove siding.
•Two storey residence attached to Rowe’s foundry in South Terrace. Britannia House as it is known was built in 1855.
Original Caption: Shoreline of area near Kamuela which has been rezoned for urban use in the most recent and most controversial land speculation case, November 1973
U.S. National Archives’ Local Identifier: 412-DA-11719
Photographer: O'Rear, Charles, 1941-
Subjects:
Hilo (Hawaii)
Environmental Protection Agency
Project DOCUMERICA
Persistent URL: research.archives.gov/description/554171
Repository: Still Picture Records Section, Special Media Archives Services Division (NWCS-S), National Archives at College Park, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD, 20740-6001.
For information about ordering reproductions of photographs held by the Still Picture Unit, visit: www.archives.gov/research/order/still-pictures.html
Reproductions may be ordered via an independent vendor. NARA maintains a list of vendors at www.archives.gov/research/order/vendors-photos-maps-dc.html
Access Restrictions: Unrestricted
Use Restrictions: Unrestricted
Strathalbyn.
A Special Survey of 4,000 acres was taken out along the Angas River in 1839 for George Hall (secretary to Governor Gawler) and William Mein and others. Land was surveyed from the mouth of the Angas along the river to about where Macclesfield is now situated. Other contributors to the Mouth of the Angas Special Survey were Strathalbyn settlers including: 806 acres purchased by Dr John Rankine, Blackwood Park; 166 acres purchased by William Rankine, Glenbarr; 410 acres purchased by Donald McLean; 81 acres purchased by Edward and Charles Stirling of Hampton and later the Lodge. William and Nicol Mein kept 728 acres for themselves but George Hall (who kept about 930 acres) was a Colonial Office employee with an eye on speculation. He also paid £4,000 for the Great Bend Special Survey along the River Murray from Morgan to Blanchetown but it was claimed this was taken for Governor Gawler but in Hall’s name to avoid scandal! But the land was not worth £1 per acre! The Meins were graziers and also took out Occupational Licenses for leasehold land in 1843. They were Scots so they donated £600 for the building fund for the Presbyterian Church in Adelaide in 1840. But in 1843 they dissolved a business partnership in Adelaide and they appear to have left the colony perhaps to join their relatives in NSW. Meins did not stay on to become Strathalbyn pioneers unlike the Rankines, McLeans and Stirlings. The other prominent early founder was William Dawson- hence the creek flowing in front of Glen Barr is the Dawson Creek which enters the Angas River in Strathalbyn. Dawson Banks is another of the grand old properties in Strathalbyn.
Stirlings chose their land to the north of the town and built Hampden and the Lodge; John Rankine chose his land to the north of the town and built Blackwood Park whilst brother William Rankine chose land to the south on Dawson Creek and built Glenbarr house. The first public building in the fledgling town of Strathalbyn was the Strathalbyn Hotel erected in 1840 and the second was probably St. Andrews Presbyterian Church which opened in 1844 with additions in 1869. As most of the settlers were Scottish the name chosen for the town was Scottish and the first church was Presbyterian. The first farmer to produce a crop was David Gollan. His interest in wheat led him to open the first flour mill in 1850 in the centre of the town. Mill Bridge adjacent to the flourmill bridged the Angas River. As the town progressed quickly a local council was formed in 1854 with the Stirlings, Rankines and Archibald McLean (investor in Langhorne Creek) being among the first councillors. The Stirlings were especially important to Strathalbyn. Edward Stirling (the father) joined into a partnership with (Sir) Thomas Elder and Robert Barr Smith in 1855. Stirling stayed with the company as it funded the Moonta and Wallaroo copper mines in 1861 then he withdrew but remained as an investor in the mines. The company went on to become Elder Smith and Co the most successful SA 19th century company. Edward Stirling had two sons, (Sir) Edward Stirling a famed surgeon who lived at St. Vigeans at Stirling and (Sir) Lancelot Stirling, local Member of Parliament for the Strathalbyn district, sheep and cattle breeder and company director. The Stirlings lived in the family home Hampden until it burnt down around 1870. Then they moved into the Lodge which was extended and remained the family home for Sir Lancelot Stirling after his father Edward died in 1873. Lancelot lived there until he died in 1932. The Stirlings of Strathalbyn also owned and operated Nalpa Station on Lake Albert. The Lodge is now the centre of a new suburban development at Strathalbyn.
From the beginning Strathalbyn prospered because of its access to water from the Angas River, its reliable rainfall, its genial climate for cropping and from the patronage of its wealthy founders. The town was laid out in 1840 and blocks sold at that time. The discovery of silver, lead and zinc at nearby Wheal Ellen mine in 1857 further boosted the growing town. The mine closed a short time later but re-opened in 1869 and operated until closure in 1888. It briefly re-opened from 1910-14 for the last phase. Until recently Strathalbyn had another zinc mine conducted by Terramin Mining which started operations in 2007. The zinc from here was sent to Nyrstar refinery at Port Pirie for smelting. The mining occurred 360 metres below the ground surface. The mine had a life of five years and closed in late 2013 ending the jobs of 115 local people. But Strathalbyn has always had a range of local industry. A foundry operated in the town from the mid 1850s as well as the usual businesses of blacksmith, saddlery etc, and the town handled coach services to Wellington via Langhorne Creek from around 1854. It was also one of the first towns in SA to have its own gas works started by David Trenouth in 1868. By 1870 the small urban centre of Strathalbyn had gas street lights! The gas works operated until 1917 when an electrical service took over power provision. From an early date Strathalbyn also had its own newspaper and printing press the Southern Argus housed in Argus House which was built 1867/68. The Southern Argus which is still published, is SA’s oldest country newspaper. In 1912 it established an offshoot - the Victor Harbor Times. In terms of transportation and the transport of goods Strathalbyn prospered as it was the terminus of the horse drawn tram service from Port Elliott and Goolwa in 1869. That is why the Terminus Hotel is so named. In 1884 that line was converted to a broad gauge rail line for steam engines and linked at Mt Barker with the line to Adelaide. Strathalbyn had a flour mill from 1850 as noted above and in the 1860s the town had its own brewery. The heyday of business boom for Strathalbyn was in the 1860s and 1870 when so many of the fine town buildings were erected. Heritage buildings are shown on map above and they include:
Commercial Street/Dawson Street.
•At the northern end of Commercial Street on the corner with North Parade is the Doctor’s Residence. 26 North Parade. Dr Herbert built a grand 8 roomed residence here in 1858. Dr Ferguson purchased it in 1869 and added and altered the verandas. Dr Shone bought it in 1897. Dr Formby took it over in 1907 and kept it until he sold it to Dr Fairley in 1979! Note the double chimneys and the ogee(S shaped) gutters above the bay windows and the 1850s French windows.
•On the northern end of Commercial Street is the Wesleyan Methodist Church which was built in 1874. It replaced the demolished Methodist church built in 1854. Built of random stone, semi rounded windows etc. It became the only Methodist church at the time of Methodist amalgamations in 1900 .It closed around the time of amalgamation with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in 1977. The Hall was added in 1939.
•Blackwell House, 18 Commercial Street. A two storey bluestone structure from the 1860s. It was much altered in 1912 when the parapet along the roof was removed, the slate replaced with iron and the upper balcony added.
•The former Power House 1917 –when gas works closed. Became Council Chamber 1939 when ETSA arrived.
•Coleman Mill store. Fine stone building with few windows. Built 1864. Coleman bought the mill from Gollan.
•1850 flour mill which was sold to Laucke’s in 1938. Commercial Rd and Mill Street an imposing four storey structure. Note the four storeys, purple sandstone, and little windows.
•Beside the mill is Water Villa house. The earliest part dates from 1849 and the Italianate bay window sections are 1879. David Gollan the owner of the 1850 flour mill built this as his residence. It is a mixture of stones. Note the French doors in the old original part of the house onto the veranda.
•Argus House, 1868. 33 Commercial Street. It was a print works and residence and shop.
•Post Office 1911. 37 Commercial Street.
•Savings Banks of South Australia. A fine two storey structure for the bank and manager’s residence. Built in 1930. It has rough stone, prominent gables, repeating arches, wooden doors, and terra cotta tiles.
•Church of Christ. Opened in 1873.Limestone walls, arched windows.
•Masonic Hall built in 1896 but Lodge established 1866.Additons 1912 and 1957.
Rankine Street/Albyn Terrace.
•Strathalbyn Police Station (1855) and Court House (1865) now the National Trust Museum.
•National Bank 2 Albyn Terrace. Squared stone blocks, two storeys and a dominant building. Elaborate porch and balcony and decorative window surrounds etc. Erected in 1869. Nearby Norfolk Island pine was planted in 1895.
•Tucker & Sons solicitors at 8 Albyn Terrace. Have a look at all the shops along Albyn Terrace a great 19th century streetscape still largely intact. It was used in the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”
High Street.
•London House general store at 7 High Street 1867. Now an antiques shop. Cobb and Co used to use the stables at the rear for the daily coaching service to Adelaide. London House had the first telephone in Strathalbyn in 1883.
•Robin Hood hotel erected in 1855 and still standing. 18 High Street.
•The Strathalbyn library 9 High Street. Opened 1922 with a classical façade with good symmetry.
•The Town Hall at 11 High Street. 1874 opened as a two storey stone structure with fancy parapet as an institute building. The parapet is supported by paired brackets.
Other locations- Chapel Street, East Terrace and South Terrace.
•St. Andrews Uniting Church (formerly Presbyterian) 1844 for main church with transept added 1857. Manse erected 1854. 1869 tower completed, bell donated by Edward Stirling. Clock installed 1895. Church hall on the opposite corner was built in 1911.
•Former Primitive Methodist Church 1861 was sold to the Anglican Church as a church hall in 1901 following the Methodist amalgamation. It was sold to the Foresters Lodge in 1912(when Anglicans purchased the former Catholic Church) and much later it as sold to the Scouts.
•St. Barnabas Catholic Church 2 Chapel Street. This was a late addition to Strathalbyn being erected in 1913. But Catholic services began in 1881 when a Catholic church was consecrated in Rowe St. The first priest arrived in 1906. A presbytery as built 1911 in East Tce and then church two years later. The 1881 church was sold in 1913 as Anglican parish hall called St. Barnabas. It is on the corner of Rowe and Murray street.
•Christ Church Anglican Church 7 East Terrace. The tower on Christ Church was erected from donations on the death of Sir Lancelot Stirling in 1932. The tower opened in 1933 but the church was built in 1871.
•Railway Station on South Terrace erected 1883 in time for opening of broad gauge line to Adelaide and start of branch line trains to Milang from Sandergrove siding.
•Two storey residence attached to Rowe’s foundry in South Terrace. Britannia House as it is known was built in 1855.
3D red/cyan anaglyph from the glass plate negatives at the Library of Congress, with missing sections restored from the left side of a stereo card version posted online by the Getty Museum.
Link to the Library of Congress negatives, “James River, Va. Sailors relaxing on deck of U.S.S. Monitor,” at: www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/civwar/item/2018666819/
Link to the Getty Museum stereo card, “Crew of the Original "Monitor" on her Deck,” at: www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/1079B2
Stereograph Date: July 9, 1862
Photographer: James F. Gibson (1828 - )
Notes: A stereoscopic portrait of 24 sailors, out of a total crew (including officers) of about 65, posing on the deck of “The Monitor,” while at anchor at Harrison's Landing on the James River. The Monitor was providing protection for the Union army which had retreated to the James, after Lee drove McClellan away from Richmond. This is the original monitor, as improved versions continued to be built during the Civil War, and although these later boats had specific ship names, they were also referred to as “monitors.”
This historic stereograph, and a handful of others, were all taken on the same day, July 9, 1862, by photographer James F. Gibson, and are the only known photographs ever taken of this most famous and very first monitor vessel.
The ironclad Monitor was revolutionary in design, built in just a little over 3 months, and after battling the Merrimac to a standstill at Hampton Roads in March 1862, the ship and crew were hailed as the saviors of the Union. The crew was an all volunteer crew, and although they were fairly safe inside it during battle, environmental conditions while serving on board could be atrocious, and worst of all, the ship was not sea-worthy. Six months after this photo was taken, the Monitor sank in a gale off Cape Hatteras, taking sixteen crew members with it to the bottom.
Some of the lost crew are perhaps pictured here, and after finding the skeletal remains of two sailors within the turret in 2002, there was some research and informed speculation as to exactly which two seamen in this photograph they might be. The tall sailor with his arms crossed at the extreme right was one candidate (Robert Williams), and the other (William Bryan) was thought to possibly be the man facing the camera, in a crouch, with his right arm stretched forth towards the checker board nearest the center. This research to identify the two sailors was found to be inconclusive, although it was determined that they were not officers. The two recovered sailors were from the crew - two of "The Monitor Boys," the moniker the crew (non-officers) gave to themselves.
The excerpts and links below provide some additional background information on the recruitment of the crew, the environmental conditions the crew had to endure, the battle with the Merrimac, the Monitor's sinking, and the possible identity of the two sailors, whose remains were found in 2002.
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Below are excerpts from an article by Commander Samuel Dana Greene, which appeared in an 1885 edition of Century Magazine. The editor makes note of Greene’s recent death – Commander Greene had committed suicide the previous December, at age 44. There was speculation that it was either temporary insanity or that he was upset at some perceived criticisms of his role in the famous battle with the Merrimac. In fact, Greene was really one of the Union heroes in the battle, manning and firing the Monitor’s 11 inch guns (which fired 180-pound shot) and taking over for Captain Worden after he was blinded by a direct hit on the pilot house.
It's a wonder that the men in the Monitor’s turret were able to withstand the tremendous noise and force of these huge guns being fired while in that restricted space - and in Greene's case, perhaps he didn’t fare too well. The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) suggests that long term mental health issues can stem from concussions caused by "chronic exposure to low-level blast waves," from the firing of "heavy caliber weapons." If interested, here’s the link: www.dvidshub.net/news/270814/chronic-exposure-low-level-b...
In a letter written shortly after the battle, Greene summed up his condition: "My men and myself were perfectly black with smoke and powder. All my underclothes were perfectly black, and my person was in the same condition.... I had been up so long, and been under such a state of excitement, that my nervous system was completely run down. . . . My nerves and muscles twitched as though electric shocks were continually passing through them.... I lay down and tried to sleep - I might as well have tried to fly.”
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Century Magazine 1885 Vol. 7
In the “Monitor” Turret
By Commander S. Dana Greene
"The keel of the most famous vessel of modern times, Captain Ericsson’s first iron-clad, was laid in the shipyard of Thomas F. Rowland, at Greenpoint, Brooklyn, in October, 1861, and on the 30th of January, 1862, the novel craft was launched. On the 25th of February she was commissioned and turned over to the Government, and nine days later left New York for Hampton Roads, where, on the 9th of March, occurred the memorable contest with the Merrimac. On her next venture on the open sea she foundered off Cape Hatteras in a gale of wind (December 29). During her career of less than a year, she had no fewer than five different commanders; but it was the fortune of the writer to serve as her only executive officer, standing upon her deck when she was launched, and leaving it but a few minutes before she sank.
So hurried was the preparation of the Monitor that the mechanics worked upon her night and day up to the hour of her departure, and little opportunity was offered to drill the crew at the guns, to work the turret, and to become familiar with the other unusual features of the vessel. The crew was, in fact, composed of volunteers. Lieutenant Worden, having been authorized by the Navy Department to select his men from any ship-of-war in New York harbor, addressed the crews of the North Carolina and Sabine., stating fully to them the probable dangers of the passage to Hampton Roads and the certainty of having important service to perform after arriving. The sailors responded enthusiastically, many more volunteering than were required. Of the crew selected, Captain Worden said, in his official report of the engagement, '' A better one no naval commander ever had the honor to command.”
We left New York in tow of the tug-boat Seth Low at 11 a. m. of Thursday, the 6th of March. On the following day a moderate breeze was encountered, and it was at once evident that the Monitor was unfit for a sea-going craft. Nothing but the subsidence of the wind prevented her from being shipwrecked before she reached Hampton Roads. The berth-deck hatch leaked in spite of all we could do, and the water came down under the turret like a waterfall. It would strike the pilot-house and go over the turret in beautiful curves, and it came through the narrow eye-holes in the pilot-house with such force as to knock the helmsman completely round from the wheel.
The waves also broke over the blower-pipes, and the water came down through them in such quantities that the belts of the blower-engines slipped, and the engines consequently stopped for lack of artificial draught, without which, in such a confined place, the fires could not get air for combustion. Newton and Stimers, followed by the engineer’s force, gallantly rushed into the engine-room and fire- room to remedy the evil, but they were unable to check the inflowing water, and were nearly suffocated with escaping gas. They were dragged out more dead than alive, and carried to the top of the turret, where the fresh air gradually revived them. The water continued to pour through the hawser-hole, and over and down the smoke-stacks and blower-pipes, in such quantities that there was imminent danger that the ship would founder. The steam-pumps could not be operated because the fires had been nearly extinguished, and the engine-room was uninhabitable on account of the suffocating gas with which it was filled.
The hand-pumps were then rigged and worked, but they had not enough force to throw the water out through the top of the turret,—the only opening,— and it was useless to bail, as we had to pass the buckets up through the turret, which made it a very long operation. Fortunately, towards evening the wind and sea subsided, and, being again in smooth water, the engine was put in operation. But at midnight, in passing over a shoal, rough water was again encountered, and our troubles were renewed, complicated this time with the jamming of the wheel-ropes, so that the safety of the ship depended entirely on the strength of the hawser which connected her with the tug-boat. The hawser, being new, held fast; but during the greater part of the night we were constantly engaged in fighting the leaks, until we reached smooth water again, just before daylight.
It was at the close of this dispiriting trial trip, in which all hands had been exhausted in their efforts to keep the novel craft afloat, that the Monitor' passed Cape Henry at 4 p. m. on Saturday, March 8th. At this point was heard the distant booming of heavy guns, which our captain rightly judged to be an engagement with the Merrimac twenty miles away. He at once ordered the vessel stripped of her sea-rig, the turret keyed up, and every preparation made for battle. As we approached Hampton Roads we could see the fine old Congress burning brightly, and soon a pilot came on board and told of the arrival of the Merrimac the disaster to the Cumberland and the Congress, and the dismay of the Union forces.
The Monitor was pushed with all haste, and reached the Roanoke (Captain Marston), anchored in the Roads, at 9 p. m. Worden immediately reported his arrival to Captain Marston, who suggested that he should go to the assistance of the Minnesota, then aground off Newport News. As no pilot was available, Captain Worden accepted the volunteer services of Acting Master Samuel Howard, who earnestly sought the duty. An atmosphere of gloom pervaded the fleet, and the pygmy aspect of the new-comer did not inspire confidence among those who had witnessed the destruction of the day before.
Skillfully piloted by Howard, we proceeded on our way, our path illumined by the blaze of the Congress. Reaching the Minnesota, hard and fast aground, near midnight, we anchored, and Worden reported to Captain Van Brunt. Between 1 and 2 a. m. the Congress blew up, not instantaneously, but successively; her powder-tanks seemed to explode, each shower of sparks rivaling the other in its height, until they appeared to reach the zenith — a grand but mournful sight. Near us, too, lay the Cumberland at the bottom of the river, with her silent crew of brave men, who died while fighting their guns to the water’s edge, and whose colors were still flying at the peak.
The dreary night dragged slowly on; the officers and crew were up and alert, to be ready for any emergency. At daylight on Sunday the Merrimac and her consorts were discovered at anchor near Sewall’s Point. At about half-past seven o’clock the enemy’s vessels got under way and steered in the direction of the Minnesota. At the same time the Monitor got under way, and her officers and crew took their stations for battle. Captain Van Brunt officially reports, “I made signal to the Monitor to attack the enemy,” but the signal was not seen by us; other work was in hand, and Worden required no signal.....
Worden took his station in the pilot-house, and by his side were Howard, the pilot, and Peter Williams, quartermaster, who steered the vessel throughout the engagement. My place was in the turret, to work and fight the guns; with me were Stodder and Stimers and sixteen brawny men, eight to each gun. John Stocking, boatswain’s mate, and Thomas Lochrane, seaman, were gun-captains. Newton and his assistants were in the engine and fire rooms, to manipulate the boilers and engines, and most admirably did they perform this important service from the beginning to the close of the action. Webber had charge of the powder division on the berth-deck, and Joseph Crown, gunner’s mate, rendered valuable service in connection with this duty.
The physical condition of the officers and men of the two ships at this time was in striking contrast. The Merrimac had passed the night quietly near Sewall’s Point, her people enjoying rest and sleep, elated by thoughts of the victory they had achieved that day, and cheered by the prospects of another easy victory on the morrow. The Monitor had barely escaped shipwreck twice within the last thirty-six hours, and since Friday morning, forty-eight hours before, few if any of those on board had closed their eyes in sleep or had anything to eat but hard bread, as cooking was impossible; she was surrounded by wrecks and disaster, and her efficiency in action had yet to be proved.
Worden lost no time in bringing it to test. Getting his ship under way, he steered direct for the enemy’s vessels, in order to meet and engage them as far as possible from the Minnesota. As he approached, the wooden vessels quickly turned and left. Our captain, to the ‘‘ astonishment” of Captain Van Brunt (as he states in his official report), made straight for the Merrimac which had already commenced firing; and when he came within short range, he changed his course so as to come alongside of her, stopped the engine, and gave the order, Commence firing! ” I triced up the port, ran out the gun, and, taking deliberate aim, pulled the lockstring. The Merrimac was quick to reply, returning a rattling broadside (for she had ten guns to our two), and the battle fairly began. The turret and other parts of the ship were heavily struck, but the shots did not penetrate; the tower was intact, and it continued to revolve. A look of confidence passed over the men’s faces, and we believed the Merrimac would not repeat the work she had accomplished the day before.
The fight continued with the exchange of broadsides as fast as the guns could be served and at very short range, the distance between the vessels frequently being not more than a few yards. Worden skillfully maneuvered his quick-turning vessel, trying to find some vulnerable point in his adversary. Once he made a dash at her stern, hoping to disable her screw, which he thinks he missed by not more than two feet. Our shots ripped the iron of the Merrimac, while the reverberation of her shots against the tower caused anything but a pleasant sensation. While Stodder, who was stationed at the machine which controlled the revolving motion of the turret, was incautiously leaning against the side of the tower, a large shot struck in the vicinity and disabled him. He left the turret and went below, and Stimers, who had assisted him, continued to do the work.
The drawbacks to the position of the pilot-house were soon realized. We could not fire ahead nor within several points of the bow, since the blast from our own guns would have injured the people in the pilot-house, only a few yards off. Keeler and Toffey passed the captain’s orders and messages to me, and my inquiries and answers to him, the speaking-tube from the pilot-house to the turret having been broken early in the action. They performed their work with zeal and alacrity, but, both being landsmen, our technical communications sometimes miscarried. The situation was novel: a vessel of war was engaged in desperate combat with a powerful foe; the captain, commanding and guiding all, was inclosed in one place, and the executive officer, working and fighting the guns, was shut up in another, and communication between them was difficult and uncertain.....
As the engagement continued, the working of the turret was not altogether satisfactory. It was difficult to start it revolving, or, when once started, to stop it, on account of the imperfections of the novel machinery, which was now undergoing its first trial. Stimers was an active, muscular man, and did his utmost to control the motion of the turret; but, in spite of his efforts, it was difficult if not impossible to secure accurate firing. The conditions were very different from those of an ordinary broadside gun, under which we had been trained on wooden ships. My only view of the world outside of the tower was over the muzzles of the guns, which cleared the ports by a few inches only.....
The effect upon one shut up in a revolving drum is perplexing, and it is not a simple matter to keep the bearings. White marks had been placed upon the stationary deck immediately below the turret to indicate the direction of the starboard and port sides, and the bow and stern; but these marks were obliterated early in the action. I would continually ask the captain, How does the Merrimac bear ? ” He replied, “ On the starboard-beam,” or on the port-quarter,” as the case might be. Then the difficulty was to determine the direction of the starboard-beam, or port-quarter, or any other bearing. It finally resulted, that when a gun was ready for firing, the turret would be started on its revolving journey in search of the target, and when found it was taken on the fly,” because the turret could not be accurately controlled.
Once the Merrimac tried to ram us; but Worden avoided the direct impact by the skillful use of the helm, and she struck a glancing blow, which did no damage. At the instant of collision I planted a solid one-hundred-and-eighty-pound shot fair and square upon the forward part of her casemate. Had the gun been loaded with thirty pounds of powder, which was the charge subsequently used with similar guns, it is probable that this shot would have penetrated her armor; but the charge being limited to fifteen pounds, in accordance with peremptory orders to that effect from the Navy Department, the shot rebounded without doing any more damage than possibly to start some of the beams of her armor-backing....
The battle continued at close quarters without apparent damage to either side......Soon after noon a shell from the enemy’s gun, the muzzle not ten yards distant, struck the forward side of the pilot-house directly in the sight-hole, or slit, and exploded,. cracking the second iron log and partly lifting the top, leaving an opening. Worden was standing immediately behind this spot, and received in his face the force of the blow, which partly stunned him, and, filling his eyes with powder, utterly blinded him. The injury was known only to those in the pilot-house and its immediate vicinity. The flood of light rushing through the top of the pilot-house, now partly open, caused Worden, blind as he was, to believe that the pilot-house was seriously injured, if not destroyed; he therefore gave orders to put the helm to starboard and “sheer off.” Thus the Monitor retired temporarily from the action, in order to ascertain the extent of the injuries she had received. At the same time Worden sent for me, and leaving Stimers the only officer in the turret, I went forward at once, and found him standing at the foot of the ladder leading to the pilot-house.
He was a ghastly sight, with his eyes closed and the blood apparently rushing from every pore in the upper part of his face. He told me that he was seriously wounded, and directed me to take command. I assisted in leading him to a sofa in his cabin, where he was tenderly cared for by Doctor Logue, and then I assumed command. Blind and suffering as he was, Worden’s fortitude never forsook him; he frequently asked from his bed of pain of the progress of affairs, and when told that the Minnesota was saved, he said, "Then I can die happy.”
......During this time the Merrimac, which was leaking badly, had started in the direction of the Elizabeth River; and, on taking my station in the pilot-house and turning the vessel’s head in the direction of the Merrimac, I saw that she was already in retreat. A few shots were fired at the retiring vessel and she continued on to Norfolk. I returned with the Monitor to the side of the Minnesota where preparations were being made to abandon the ship, which was still aground. Shortly afterward Worden was transferred to a tug, and that night he was carried to Washington.
The fight was over. We of the Monitor thought, and still think, that we had gained a great victory. This the Confederates have denied. But it has never been denied that the object of the Merrimac on the 9th of March was to complete the destruction of the Union fleet in Hampton Roads, and that in this she was completely foiled and driven off by the Monitor; nor has it been denied that at the close of the engagement the Merrimac retreated to Norfolk, leaving the Monitor in possession of the field.
.....For the next two months we lay at Hampton Roads. Twice the Merrimac came out of the Elizabeth River, but did not attack. We, on our side, had received positive orders not to attack in the comparatively shoal waters above Hampton Roads, where the Union fleet could not manoeuvre. The Merrimac protected the James River, and the Monitor protected the Chesapeake. Neither side had an iron-clad in reserve, and neither wished to bring on an engagement which might disable its only armored naval defense in those waters.
With the evacuation of Norfolk and the destruction of the Merrimac, the Monitor moved up the James River with the squadron under the command of Commander John Rodgers, in connection with McClellan’s advance upon Richmond by the Peninsula. We were engaged for four hours at Fort Darling, but were unable to silence the guns or destroy the earthworks.
Probably no ship was ever devised which was so uncomfortable for her crew, and certainly no sailor ever led a more disagreeable life than we did on the James River, suffocated with heat and bad air if we remained below, and a target for sharp-shooters if we came on deck.
With the withdrawal of McClellan’s army, we returned to Hampton Roads, and in the autumn were ordered to Washington, where the vessel was repaired. We returned to Hampton Roads in November, and sailed thence (December 29) in tow of the steamer Rhode Island, bound for Beaufort, N.C. Between 11 p. M. and midnight on the following night the Monitor went down in a gale, a few miles south of Cape Hatteras,. Four officers and twelve men were drowned, fortynine people being saved by the boats of the steamer. It was impossible to keep the vessel free of water, and we presumed that the upper and lower hulls thumped themselves apart.
No ship in the world’s history has a more imperishable place in naval annals than the Monitor. Not only by her providential arrival at the right moment did she secure the safety of Hampton Roads and all that depended on it, but the ideas which she embodied revolutionized the system of naval warfare which had existed from the earliest recorded history. The name of the Monitor became generic, representing a new type; and, crude and defective as was her construction in some of its details, she yet contained the idea of the turret, which is to-day the central idea of the most powerful armored vessels."
S. D. Greene,
Commander U. S. Navy
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Findagrave link for Samuel Dana Greene: www.findagrave.com/memorial/6017440/samuel-dana-greene
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Link to CNN article and video pertaining to the two sailors whose remains were found in the turret in 2002. Towards the end of the video possible names and faces are matched up. This received a lot of publicity at the time, but note that official sources connected to the recovery and effort to identify the two men seemed to have completely backed away from the possible ID's.
CNN Link: www.cnn.com/2013/03/08/us/monitor-sailors-buried/index.html
Link to a second article pointing to the two men: www.huffpost.com/entry/uss-monitor-anniversary_b_2372051
The two sailors were eventually buried with full military honors as "two unidentified crew members" at Arlington National Cemetery, see link: www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Blog/Post/10995/The-Monitor-Is-...
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Red/Cyan (not red/blue) glasses of the proper density must be used to view 3D effect without ghosting. Anaglyph prepared using red cyan glasses from The Center For Civil War Photography / American Battlefield Trust. CCWP Link: www.civilwarphotography.org/
Strathalbyn.
A Special Survey of 4,000 acres was taken out along the Angas River in 1839 for George Hall (secretary to Governor Gawler) and William Mein and others. Land was surveyed from the mouth of the Angas along the river to about where Macclesfield is now situated. Other contributors to the Mouth of the Angas Special Survey were Strathalbyn settlers including: 806 acres purchased by Dr John Rankine, Blackwood Park; 166 acres purchased by William Rankine, Glenbarr; 410 acres purchased by Donald McLean; 81 acres purchased by Edward and Charles Stirling of Hampton and later the Lodge. William and Nicol Mein kept 728 acres for themselves but George Hall (who kept about 930 acres) was a Colonial Office employee with an eye on speculation. He also paid £4,000 for the Great Bend Special Survey along the River Murray from Morgan to Blanchetown but it was claimed this was taken for Governor Gawler but in Hall’s name to avoid scandal! But the land was not worth £1 per acre! The Meins were graziers and also took out Occupational Licenses for leasehold land in 1843. They were Scots so they donated £600 for the building fund for the Presbyterian Church in Adelaide in 1840. But in 1843 they dissolved a business partnership in Adelaide and they appear to have left the colony perhaps to join their relatives in NSW. Meins did not stay on to become Strathalbyn pioneers unlike the Rankines, McLeans and Stirlings. The other prominent early founder was William Dawson- hence the creek flowing in front of Glen Barr is the Dawson Creek which enters the Angas River in Strathalbyn. Dawson Banks is another of the grand old properties in Strathalbyn.
Stirlings chose their land to the north of the town and built Hampden and the Lodge; John Rankine chose his land to the north of the town and built Blackwood Park whilst brother William Rankine chose land to the south on Dawson Creek and built Glenbarr house. The first public building in the fledgling town of Strathalbyn was the Strathalbyn Hotel erected in 1840 and the second was probably St. Andrews Presbyterian Church which opened in 1844 with additions in 1869. As most of the settlers were Scottish the name chosen for the town was Scottish and the first church was Presbyterian. The first farmer to produce a crop was David Gollan. His interest in wheat led him to open the first flour mill in 1850 in the centre of the town. Mill Bridge adjacent to the flourmill bridged the Angas River. As the town progressed quickly a local council was formed in 1854 with the Stirlings, Rankines and Archibald McLean (investor in Langhorne Creek) being among the first councillors. The Stirlings were especially important to Strathalbyn. Edward Stirling (the father) joined into a partnership with (Sir) Thomas Elder and Robert Barr Smith in 1855. Stirling stayed with the company as it funded the Moonta and Wallaroo copper mines in 1861 then he withdrew but remained as an investor in the mines. The company went on to become Elder Smith and Co the most successful SA 19th century company. Edward Stirling had two sons, (Sir) Edward Stirling a famed surgeon who lived at St. Vigeans at Stirling and (Sir) Lancelot Stirling, local Member of Parliament for the Strathalbyn district, sheep and cattle breeder and company director. The Stirlings lived in the family home Hampden until it burnt down around 1870. Then they moved into the Lodge which was extended and remained the family home for Sir Lancelot Stirling after his father Edward died in 1873. Lancelot lived there until he died in 1932. The Stirlings of Strathalbyn also owned and operated Nalpa Station on Lake Albert. The Lodge is now the centre of a new suburban development at Strathalbyn.
From the beginning Strathalbyn prospered because of its access to water from the Angas River, its reliable rainfall, its genial climate for cropping and from the patronage of its wealthy founders. The town was laid out in 1840 and blocks sold at that time. The discovery of silver, lead and zinc at nearby Wheal Ellen mine in 1857 further boosted the growing town. The mine closed a short time later but re-opened in 1869 and operated until closure in 1888. It briefly re-opened from 1910-14 for the last phase. Until recently Strathalbyn had another zinc mine conducted by Terramin Mining which started operations in 2007. The zinc from here was sent to Nyrstar refinery at Port Pirie for smelting. The mining occurred 360 metres below the ground surface. The mine had a life of five years and closed in late 2013 ending the jobs of 115 local people. But Strathalbyn has always had a range of local industry. A foundry operated in the town from the mid 1850s as well as the usual businesses of blacksmith, saddlery etc, and the town handled coach services to Wellington via Langhorne Creek from around 1854. It was also one of the first towns in SA to have its own gas works started by David Trenouth in 1868. By 1870 the small urban centre of Strathalbyn had gas street lights! The gas works operated until 1917 when an electrical service took over power provision. From an early date Strathalbyn also had its own newspaper and printing press the Southern Argus housed in Argus House which was built 1867/68. The Southern Argus which is still published, is SA’s oldest country newspaper. In 1912 it established an offshoot - the Victor Harbor Times. In terms of transportation and the transport of goods Strathalbyn prospered as it was the terminus of the horse drawn tram service from Port Elliott and Goolwa in 1869. That is why the Terminus Hotel is so named. In 1884 that line was converted to a broad gauge rail line for steam engines and linked at Mt Barker with the line to Adelaide. Strathalbyn had a flour mill from 1850 as noted above and in the 1860s the town had its own brewery. The heyday of business boom for Strathalbyn was in the 1860s and 1870 when so many of the fine town buildings were erected. Heritage buildings are shown on map above and they include:
Commercial Street/Dawson Street.
•At the northern end of Commercial Street on the corner with North Parade is the Doctor’s Residence. 26 North Parade. Dr Herbert built a grand 8 roomed residence here in 1858. Dr Ferguson purchased it in 1869 and added and altered the verandas. Dr Shone bought it in 1897. Dr Formby took it over in 1907 and kept it until he sold it to Dr Fairley in 1979! Note the double chimneys and the ogee(S shaped) gutters above the bay windows and the 1850s French windows.
•On the northern end of Commercial Street is the Wesleyan Methodist Church which was built in 1874. It replaced the demolished Methodist church built in 1854. Built of random stone, semi rounded windows etc. It became the only Methodist church at the time of Methodist amalgamations in 1900 .It closed around the time of amalgamation with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in 1977. The Hall was added in 1939.
•Blackwell House, 18 Commercial Street. A two storey bluestone structure from the 1860s. It was much altered in 1912 when the parapet along the roof was removed, the slate replaced with iron and the upper balcony added.
•The former Power House 1917 –when gas works closed. Became Council Chamber 1939 when ETSA arrived.
•Coleman Mill store. Fine stone building with few windows. Built 1864. Coleman bought the mill from Gollan.
•1850 flour mill which was sold to Laucke’s in 1938. Commercial Rd and Mill Street an imposing four storey structure. Note the four storeys, purple sandstone, and little windows.
•Beside the mill is Water Villa house. The earliest part dates from 1849 and the Italianate bay window sections are 1879. David Gollan the owner of the 1850 flour mill built this as his residence. It is a mixture of stones. Note the French doors in the old original part of the house onto the veranda.
•Argus House, 1868. 33 Commercial Street. It was a print works and residence and shop.
•Post Office 1911. 37 Commercial Street.
•Savings Banks of South Australia. A fine two storey structure for the bank and manager’s residence. Built in 1930. It has rough stone, prominent gables, repeating arches, wooden doors, and terra cotta tiles.
•Church of Christ. Opened in 1873.Limestone walls, arched windows.
•Masonic Hall built in 1896 but Lodge established 1866.Additons 1912 and 1957.
Rankine Street/Albyn Terrace.
•Strathalbyn Police Station (1855) and Court House (1865) now the National Trust Museum.
•National Bank 2 Albyn Terrace. Squared stone blocks, two storeys and a dominant building. Elaborate porch and balcony and decorative window surrounds etc. Erected in 1869. Nearby Norfolk Island pine was planted in 1895.
•Tucker & Sons solicitors at 8 Albyn Terrace. Have a look at all the shops along Albyn Terrace a great 19th century streetscape still largely intact. It was used in the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”
High Street.
•London House general store at 7 High Street 1867. Now an antiques shop. Cobb and Co used to use the stables at the rear for the daily coaching service to Adelaide. London House had the first telephone in Strathalbyn in 1883.
•Robin Hood hotel erected in 1855 and still standing. 18 High Street.
•The Strathalbyn library 9 High Street. Opened 1922 with a classical façade with good symmetry.
•The Town Hall at 11 High Street. 1874 opened as a two storey stone structure with fancy parapet as an institute building. The parapet is supported by paired brackets.
Other locations- Chapel Street, East Terrace and South Terrace.
•St. Andrews Uniting Church (formerly Presbyterian) 1844 for main church with transept added 1857. Manse erected 1854. 1869 tower completed, bell donated by Edward Stirling. Clock installed 1895. Church hall on the opposite corner was built in 1911.
•Former Primitive Methodist Church 1861 was sold to the Anglican Church as a church hall in 1901 following the Methodist amalgamation. It was sold to the Foresters Lodge in 1912(when Anglicans purchased the former Catholic Church) and much later it as sold to the Scouts.
•St. Barnabas Catholic Church 2 Chapel Street. This was a late addition to Strathalbyn being erected in 1913. But Catholic services began in 1881 when a Catholic church was consecrated in Rowe St. The first priest arrived in 1906. A presbytery as built 1911 in East Tce and then church two years later. The 1881 church was sold in 1913 as Anglican parish hall called St. Barnabas. It is on the corner of Rowe and Murray street.
•Christ Church Anglican Church 7 East Terrace. The tower on Christ Church was erected from donations on the death of Sir Lancelot Stirling in 1932. The tower opened in 1933 but the church was built in 1871.
•Railway Station on South Terrace erected 1883 in time for opening of broad gauge line to Adelaide and start of branch line trains to Milang from Sandergrove siding.
•Two storey residence attached to Rowe’s foundry in South Terrace. Britannia House as it is known was built in 1855.
Around 8pm, on the 21st April 2011 police shut Gloucester Road, in Stokes Croft. Based on speculation and rumor from Tesco that lodgers of the squat across the road were making petrol bombs, the property was raided by the police. Allegedly they didn't arrest anyone. Before the police had time to pull out, word was out that the police were evicting the residents! Riots broke out. Main action was pushed back to Picton street and City Road by Riot police. Dogs were used, Fires were lit... eventually the police pulled back and the new Tesco store vandalized. Things fizzled out by about 5am.
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22.04.2011
Reconstruction of the Terme Ruler, 2018, bronze cast, 280 x 93 x 80 cm, recostruction created by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann (Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Frankfurt am Main, Sammlung Stäelisches Kunstinstitut)
Rusting Roman numerals denote the draught of former Mersey Ferry Royal Daffodil which is currently laid up in Birkenhead Docks awaiting its fate.
Merseytravel have plans in place for a new Mersey Ferry, although nothing of this has been made public as yet, but I imagine this will use the name so the current Daffodil may be renamed to release the title for the new-build.
Speculation on my part, entirely.