Remembering Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address, & ties to Utica and Lorenzo here in Madison County!

Horatio Seymour a Utica native and Governor of the State of New York, was one of those privileged to hear in person one of America’s greatest speeches. On November 19, 1863 he sat with 5 other northern state governors in Gettysburg, the speech to be delivered by President Lincoln at the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery.

This November 19th the speech called “The Gettysburg Address” became 147 years old, and starting in April, Gettysburg along with other important sites of the Civil War will start a 150 Anniversary set of programs to commemorate that great turning point in American history.

The battle, which lasted three days, killed over 7,000 men and over 300 horses that lay on the ground decaying in the heat of July. The battle had wounded another 40,000 or so men and the people of Gettysburg - that only numbered 2,400 had the ungodly job of burying the dead and burning the horse carcasses.

It is they, with an attorney David Wills, who petitioned the Governor of Pennsylvania to get federal funding to buy land (17 acres for $2,475) to turn into a final fitting-resting place for the fallen. Throughout the ensuing months bodies were exhumed from the battlefield and buried in the nearby cemetery and November 19th 1863, the day it was to be dedicated.

The main orator was to be the famous Edward Everett delivering an 13,000 plus word oration, followed by music and then the President who delivered only 300 words. Those 300 words however, have lived forever, and to this day are quoted by many school children that have memorized it.

Lincoln’s purpose in the speech was to bring the importance of keeping the Union together and finishing the war as one “Nation” to the people. (Lincoln had become unpopular as over a quarter of a million men died already and debate on the draft was raging) We are still one Union and the Gettysburg Address is indeed one of America's greatest speeches.

*Of interest is that Horatio Seymour was born in Pompey, New York and moved to Utica at 10 years old, his sister Clarissa married Ledyard Lincklaen her second cousin and lived her days out at Lorenzo in Cazenovia.

Missionaries, Madison County History, Emily Chubbuck, and the Old Town of Eaton Museum!

While working on a new book named “The History You Never Knew” the past few days, I came across much information that has actually never come to light in regular history books.  Many of the young folk in Eaton actually tried to become missionaries to exotic lands many were successful.  It seems the lure of Burma and Siam was a firm and large part of the missionary movement here in the early 1800’s.

Everyone remembers stories of Eaton’s Emily Chubbuck, the writer who wrote under the pen name “Fanny Forrester,” who married Adoniram Judson and went off to Burma, but what about Andrew Bigelow Morse???

 Do you know this man?

The Reverend Andrew Bigelow Morse was the son of Ellis Morse and grandson of Joseph Morse. In 1849, at the early age of nineteen, Mr. Morse was graduated from Hamilton College in Clinton, where his ranking as student admitted him into the scholarship roll of Phi Beta Kappa. 

After two years’ experience as principal of a Young Men’s Classical Institute in Albany, N.Y., he entered the Princeton Theological seminary, where he was graduated in 1864.  After another two years, part of which was spent in post-graduate work in New York and a part in the service of the church, he and his young wife, commissioned by the Presbyterian board of foreign missions, started for Siam.  This was the goal of their ardent ambitions and consecrations. 

Once in the field, he threw himself whole-heartedly into the work, but within two years Andrew’s health was shattered and he was ordered home. He continued working for several years on a literary work of permanent value.

 Because of his poor health during the Civil War, he was exempt from military service and debarred from the Christian commission.  So instead, he spent three years at Washington in the Treasury Department, ministering often in hospital and barracks.  In Washington he served in the somewhat famous “Treasury Guard” of which he frequently spoke with a smile. 

It is here he also became acquainted with many men who afterward became famous.  Among these was the one whom he always mentioned with a great admiration and reverence – the distinguished martyr President Lincoln.

Andrew takes his place of honor with the other young men of Eaton who also went to Siam (Burma) and China, Jonathan Wade and William Dean. **Newspaper stories filled with letters sent back to Eaton from Siam still exist in the Old Town of Eaton Museum today.

The week in review, MLK Day, Lincoln, Guns & Gordon Lightfoot

This week has been another week of bitter and mean comments about guns, the president, elderly on social security - labeled as living off the system, families needing food stamps because of job loss or poor paying jobs, fracking, Hurricane Sandy relief, war, choking smog in China, snow in Europe, heatwave in Australia, death in Syria and Mali…. and on an on.  I just could not stand it …so I off’d Facebook comments that bothered me…..and tuned out the news.

Martin Luther King Day and the Inauguration are on the same day… I found that almost ironic.  The hatred and bigotry that he faced is still here today, it has just resurfaced because we have a “black” president. … Humorously he is half white so why not call him a “white president”?

It occurred to me that instead of going after food stamp people who are poor or elderly and need it, perhaps we should check those on programs that can afford to buy multiple guns and ammunition that cost over $1 per round?  I pondered this whole situation…no answers!

I wondered if the biggest haters of the newer gun laws were those who had run-ins with the law and were afraid they wouldn’t pass the background check...motivated by FEAR!!

The movies this week brought Lincoln into view.  The new Lincoln movie has shown a light on Lincoln as a “saint” of sorts and “Great Emancipator”, yet I know he was a racist of sorts…he only wanted to preserve the Union at all cost knowing slavery was the Union’s most divisive problem…and cost it did… almost 600,000 people died in that bloody conflict…

Really... it wasn’t until MLK and the peaceful freedom marches and the desegregation movement took place ... that blacks could finally see a small light at the end of the tunnel.

So I slunk around the house all week chopping wood to relieve the stress by day and took out my old guitar and sung a few songs at night…The one song that kept coming back to me was by my favorite...Gordon Lightfoot...it is called “Too Late for Prayin’”…. and says it all eloquently in a nut shell…..

**Please take the time to view this video and listen to the words…friends, foes, teachers, preachers, poets, workers, haters, and everyone.  There is a message….and some harsh truth for us all to ponder!!