Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Susan B. Anthony, voting, and Madison County's Gerrit Smith all rolled into one.....



What do history junkies do for Election Day…what else ...visit historic landmarks attached to elections and Backstreet Barbara and I did just that.  I decided to take a spin to Rochester and visit the Susan B. Anthony House!

Few people are well versed in the reality of Anthony’s struggle for the rights of not only women to vote, but for all the rights of every individual citizen of the United States of America.  Born a Quaker, Anthony used these learned values and hard work to accomplish her goals. 

The Anthony family moved to New York State from Mass. (where Anthony was born) after the failure of her father’s business.  She eventually went into teaching not wanting to marry and become a “drudge or a doll” teaching for years in Canajoharie.... until making a decision that she needed more in her life.  Moving back to her father’s farm near Rochester, she was given the job of running it. 

The farm was a place of some wonder as abolitionists and free thinkers often visited and stirred Anthony with their stories and no doubt brought her to her goal in life... which was rights and equality for all.

Banding with a newfound friend and confidant Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she found the voice to her drive and together the two women set out to change the world, and they did.   From temperance, to women’s married rights, to abolition and then on to voting suffrage, they tirelessly worked to give all citizens regardless of color, race or sex the rights they were supposedly given by the Constitution of the United States.

Sadly, neither lived to see their work on women’s right to vote come to fruition. 

Anthony did vote once after the 14th Amendment gave the right to vote to the citizens of the United States,  was promptly arrested and sent to trial.  When a fair trail could not be held in Monroe County because Anthony had spoken about it in every village and town, the trial was moved to the Ontario County Courthouse in Canandaigua..



So for fun we visited the Ontario County Courthouse that Sunday to see the Celebration for the continual yearly reestablishment of the Treaty of 1794... and the polishing of the “Silver Covenant Chain” between the US Government and the Iroquois Confederacy.    

And during the ceremony…..lo and behold a Quaker speaker spoke on the history of the courthouse, the occasion, and sure enough Susan B. Anthony.  She informed those gathered that this courthouse was the place that Anthony was tried for her crime of voting for President of the United States….

So these cold nights made me interested in reading a bit and as I started research on another project I ran across and interesting fact that led this history story back to old Madison County…In Norm Dann’s book “Practical Dreamer” on Gerrit Smith,  I found that after Anthony was fined $100 for her crime of voting, and Gerrit Smith sent her $100 to cover the fine!  However Anthony vowed that she would never pay one dollar of the fine and didn’t……So now I wonder what happened to the $100 old Gerrit sent????? Hmm……

Here's a Biography Channel clip on Anthony!


 Epilogue............

When another woman activist was not allowed to vote the women’s rights activist sued (and lost) causing the United States to insert the Amendment stating that only male citizens could vote.

It was not until 14 years after Susan B. Anthony’s death that the Constitution was amended giving women the right to vote. (Suffrage)

This year more than any year Susan B. Anthony’s words struck home: “If we once establish the false principal that United States citizenship does not carry with it the right to vote in every state in the Union, there is no end to the petty freaks and cunning devises that will be resorted to to exclude classes of citizens from the right of suffrage (to vote).


Saturday, November 10, 2012

The Edmond Fitzgerald, Yarmouth Castle and the "Witch of November come early!"


History is the recalling of past events, though most of us will remember early November for its many elections and Hurricane Sandy, Maritime history remembers it for disasters at sea and inclement weather which is many times referred to as “The Witch of November”.

The sinking of the Edmond Fitzgerald on November 10th in 1975 is one such event.  The huge iron ore carrier was lost during a storm with 29 hands that all went down with the ship.  The search on Lake Superior went on and on but no survivors were found only some debris after the Captain had wired that water was coming in.

Many feel the ship was sunk by a phenomenon called the “Three Sisters”, something that is said to haunt Superior’s waters.  These are called on the ocean “Rouge Waves”, and they can reach heights of 90 feet or more.  The existence of such waves was folklore until modern times when waves of these proportions were measured not only on the ocean but also from space.  They can occur at any time and even in calm ocean waters.

These waves of monster proportions can also occur on Lakes, especially Lake Superior. The “Three Sisters” is a series of three large waves forms. The first hits the ship followed by a second wave that hits the ship's deck before the first wave clears. The third wave strikes in close succession adding more water to the two wave loads, which suddenly overloads the ship deck with tons of water forcing it under.  This was thought to have contributed to the Edmond Fitzgerald’s sinking.  Gordon Lightfoot immortalized the saga of this sinking in his ballad “Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald”.




Ironically, Lightfoot had years earlier written another ballad, this story was about a ship’s sinking that changed the safety rules which apply to cruise ships today.  It is called the “Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle” a ship which sank on November 13th, 1964.

The Yarmouth Castle was an old boat built in 1927 named the Evangiline that ran passengers from Boston to Nova Scotia.  The boat actually had a number of names and incarnations since in World War II it had become a troop carrier.

The ship changed hands a number of times eventually being purchased by the Chadade Steamship Company, it is at this point that her name was changed to Yarmouth Castle.  The Castle offered service from New York City to the Bahamas for Caribbean Cruise Lines, which had quickly repainted her.

A fire started at 1 am in a room full of mattresses stack to the ceiling touching a light bulb with no sprinkler system. The number of violations the ship had were enormous including no working sprinkler system, only one radio operator instead of two, a fire alarm that did not work, and thick paint covering portholes and ropes to lower life boats plus much more. The most damning thing was however when the fire broke out the crew and the Captain for the most part left the passengers and ship.  Since the top part of the boat was wooden and painted over innumerable times the fire became an instant inferno and none would have been saved except for two other boats that were close by and saw the inferno and wired for the ship mayday!

The first ship on the scene was Finnpulp who picked up the few lifeboats that could be launched only to find them filled with the Captain and crew.  The most famous rescue ship was the heroic Bahama Stars whose Captain and crew who started taking people from the water.  At one time the Bahama Star actually pulled next to the fire-engulfed ship to pull people off.  The ship eventually had to retreat when the paint on its funnels started to blister.  Though many were saved, 90 people went down on the ship or died from injuries, many were unable to get the painted portholes open so they could escape.

After this tragedy new rules were put in place banning wooden topped ships that carry more than 50 passengers, rules for fire drills, safety inspections and more! These new rules were the only saving grace to come from such a tragedy.

Lightfoot’s songs tell the story better than a history book, listen and enjoy!!


For more history stories visit my website at www.historystarproductions.com



Sunday, November 4, 2012

The HMS Bounty, Tall Ships and whaling remembered!


Well what a terrible week for so many in the coastal area of the United States.  I of course, am a tall ship junkie and so the sinking of the HMS Bounty replica captured my attention.  The comments on the story story were in part humorous, as every one put their two cents in as to how the Captain (who went down with the ship) screwed up. Most failing to understand how fickle “Mother Nature” is.

The Bounty was a throwback to the past, a past that littered the ocean floor with wooden ship laden with people, goods, and those that went in search of the whale.

Many of these ships were lost working the Greenland waters, some of the most dangerous waters that were fraught with storms and ice that could crush a wooden ship to splinters.  There are stories of men living on the ice under pieces of the ships that they once sailed on…trying to stay alive.

The quest of these men was the Humpback Whale, baleen-eating whales that inhabited these waters and who were hunted almost to extinction until a ban was put in place in the 1960 – 70’s.  As a matter of fact one of my favorite songs from Gordon Lightfoot was the song “Ode to Big Blue”, a Humpback.  His small group of three musicians was able to capture the sound of the whale jumping and landing and the ocean around it while telling its sad tale in words. Here's a great video with the song..



In the early years they were in search of the whale for a commodity that we are still in search of today…oil.  Whale oil lamps graced many homes and lit the dark night in history. 

Sailors on these ship carved gifts out of the whales bones and teeth and today anyone owning a piece or a tooth has a prize possession.  Less remembered however, are the songs sung by these sailors… so Gavin Greig, a well-known song collector of the early 1900s, started collecting whaling songs.  Many of the songs were written down with lines removed because of their crude language yet others remained intact and from these can the favorite…”Farewell to Tarwathie”!

A common miller in Scotland who went to sea in the 1850’s in search of money...and possibly excitement… wrote this song!  The song was picked up in modern times by many folk artists including Judy Collins who did something special to it, Judy sang the song ocapela with the sounds of the humpback whales behind her….an awesome cut.

Today we go on whale hunts, record the whale’s songs and many of us still wonder at life on the sea in those early times...it seems that today we are still in search of the things that drove these men to the sea…excitement, the search for wealth and …..oil!! 

Here's Judy Collins....listen to the enchanting sounds...