La Gloire

La Gloire

La Gloire, Ironclad!

History's first ironclad... Oddly, also spelt La Glorie, Ironclad! perhaps a hack? Or an error...

Gardiner's Island Redux

"Since 1639, Gardiner's Island has been known by the name of the family that acquired it. Lion Gardiner purchased it from native Indians, his title being confirmed by James Farret, who three years earlier had been employed by William, Earl of Sterling, `Secretary of the Kingdom of Scotland,' to sell lands for him on the whole of Long Island, although at the time the Dutch were in possession there." p. 337, in "Historic Homes of Eastern America," Elise Lathrop. Tudor Publications, N.Y., 1927. c) Robert M. McBride & Co. Found at the Huntington Free Library, Westchester Square, Bronx, NY, which also until recently contained the written ethnology holdings of the Heye Foundation, that catalog now with the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. As a member of the Suffolk County Archaeological Association and graduate Anthropology student I had the opportunity to hear Robert Gardiner speak on a couple of occasions about Gardiners Island, (he also once owned the Gardiner Manor Mall in Babylon, NY. His book-keeper there at the Mall, Mrs. Washington, now an employee of the Peconic Trust, a land buying preservation society, and I worked in an archaeology company, Greenhouse Consultants, Inc.) One must remember that U.S. Senator Gardiner was killed when a cannon, the NYC's Haddersley Forge contributed "Peacemaker," aboard the U.S.S. Princeton, exploded while being fired in salute to Mount Vernon on the Potomac River. His daughter, below decks with President Tyler, later became the Mrs. Tyler and First Lady, after the first public funeral (Senator Gardiner of New York and two Cabinet members, and there were other victims) held in the Capitol Building. I asked Mr. Gardiner why the treasure of Captain Kidd was dug up in the late 19th century by the British. He said that the USA did not exist then and all properties of convicted felons became property of the Crown. There was a map to it in his vest pocket when he was hung, for what some historians have claimed an accident under mutinous conditions, perhaps he one of the most maligned characters in western history, as his backers in the privateer venture in London never came forward. He was a well to do resident of New York City. A marker is on the island where the treasure, part of an India Princess' dowry (taken in the Indian Ocean), was dug up. It was recently broadcast on PBS that the wealth from it was used in part for a seamen's retirement facility and hospital. Mr. Robert Gardiner also served in WWII aboard the modern U.S. Princeton in Naval Intelligence. Later, on his recounting the story of the former First Lady Julia Tyler's legacy with President Tyler (six children from his former wife four from her) actor Gloria Swanson remarked she would have to be played by someone like Vivian Leigh. Mr. Gardiner attended law school, where he had to hide the precedent setting "contested will" case with his family name ascribed, resulting after the "cease fire" arranged between the North and South in Richmond, VA, where and when the Former President Tyler died and she requested to return through the battlefield to New York City, later bedside by a wealthy Manhattanite. The case was popularized by the press. Robert Gardiner was also instrumental in getting the widespread use of DDT controlled, bringing public attention to it when he noticed that the ospreys, "sea eagle" raptors of the waters that nest on eastern Long Island, Gardiners Island, and elsewhere, were dying out. They migrate to and from northern Brazil every year. They were disappearing, as the DDT weakened their eggshells, causing them to break before hatching. Recent stands there and elsewhere on Long Island have encouraged their comeback from near extinction, perhaps.

George B. Cortelyou

Posted today (Polpot overthrown) Talk:George B. Cortelyou From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. My family tells me he was once married to my great aunt Rosalie Myers. Once looking into it I discovered he was once Chairman of the Republican Party and more recently read this: The U.S. National Archives published an article on "White House Press Secretaries" and stated that because of the assassination of President McKinley (at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY [1901] where Mr. Cortelyou is seen in a photo standing next to the President here online) the press was invited into the White House where Mr. Cortelyou spoke to them. Oddly, when the article was written Ms. Dee Dee Myers was in service in that capacity, but was not within the article referred to, though she served in that capacity for three years, I think. Other men that followed Cortelyou were. I am also under the impression that historians consider George Bruce MacDonald Cortelyou, overlooked in American History and his papers should be reviewed and reported about, such an important chapter in history, the Spanish-American War, the beginnings of conservation, included. I wonder if many of his records are in shorthand, which he taught in school in New York City. He is listed as living at 4 Irving Place where he was an early CEO of Con Edison in NYC, near Elihu Root's surviving landmark place (former Secretary of War) also on Irving Place. The Con Edison Museum, around the corner on 14th Street, has him listed among it's many executives with names posted on an exhibit wall. And: "...live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. "Victorian Homes" magazine recently featured their home as a "living museum" and "A trip back in time." Built in 1901, the three-story, red brick Victorian mansion once belonged to George Bruce Cortelyou, ("...married to Lilly Hinds" - Daniel W. Mattausch) who held various positions in the administrations of Presidents McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt. Nancy works for the Navy Program Office in Crystal City, Virginia. Dan has a master's degree and doctorate in American government and spends most of his energies researching the history and lost technological knowledge connected with gas lighting." http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/Sum97/fn/news.html George B. Cortelyou also later lived at the "Harbor Lights" estate in Huntington, NY, where he was a member of the Huntington Yacht Club. He is listed in the local history section of the newspaper "Newsday" with Harry Chapin, as the other former famous resident of Huntington, Long Island, NY. Some other resources: Further: Picture at "Find A Grave Cemetery Records" http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6850514&pt=George%20Cortelyou http://www.findagrave.com/php/famous.php?page=cem&FScemeteryid=641128" Check out the other notables in the Memorial Cemetery of St. John in Cold Spring Harbor, Suffolk County, New York. CBS founder and others.

Red Ink and Rewrites?

This blog's name refers to a publication created from prose and poetry back in high school at Newfield H.S. on Marshall Drive in Selden, NY (incidently the automobile is covered under a number of patents referred to as the "Selden patents" so beware imitators!) back when the Marines came to the school, back when the first Earth Day festivities began 1970. The school newspaper "Quadrangle" was supplemented with a yearly publication which people submitted works to. The Marine Corps JROTC there was the first I think in the country, (one Army in CT, the Navy and Air Force on the West Coast according to my research). I tried to get one student paper more frequently published by pamphleteering the school, with the help of the Smithaven Ministries, with "Freedom" in which I stated, behind the cover of an outline of the Statue of Liberty, to publish just about anything. Only one issue got distributed to the arriving buses behind the high chain link fence at the "dead end" of Marshall Drive that Newfield High School is on. One of my helpful friends reported being beaten up by a janitor for it. Prior, a former student, Ariel Marino, died in Vietnam, in a demolition unit. A somewhat recent "Defense Monitor" on PBS (maybe its last transmission) stated that there are now 20,000 JROTC in mostly poor schools around the country at a yearly cost of $1 billion. They asked if this in the age of "volunteer service" which Newfield H.S. helped usher in, is necessary? I wonder if its legal, it seems discriminatory and perhaps sexist, let alone relegated to only one branch of the Armed Services. Towards the end of the draft, I (in the class of 1970) was given a number and thereafter watched the official ending of the Selective Service's draft. I stayed "1A", though attending the local community college, (thereby elligble for a "student deferment") in "Marine Technology" the scientific study of the marine environment, which I left after I was told there would be no jobs in it on Long Island as the environment was dying. What a dilemma! I was at my Aunt Margaret Murray's wake (nee Myers, oldest of eleven children, my Dad, a US Army 81mm mortar WWII veteran who served in Italy, was the youngest) yesterday, she passed away at 101, a few days ago in Huntington, NY. Her son, once an Army Captain in Korea, directed "Huntley and Brinkley" and produced "NBC Nightly News From New York" and lastly, both Democratic and Republican Convention coverages for CBS in 1976. His eulogy, he died in Mexico City where his wife, an Avon executive worked, was read at the UN Chapel by television journalist and author Edwin Newman, who read aloud a letter he wrote that apologized for the cancellation of the report to his crew there, a report on the "common soldiers view" of the Vietnam Conflict, cancelled by "higher ups". I wasn't in either places, that the NBC network was sued for 100 million over its allegations of "body count" manipulations by General Westmoreland had nothing to do with it. ("Video: “The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception� [1982] - a shot of General Westmoreland; TV documentary blames the general for misleading the people; attacks the Pentagon and the military; General Westmoreland sues the network for $100 million- this was settled;" http://www.lorenam.com/vianello%20notes.htm). Quite a few years later I read a local history in the Middle Country School District #11 (which I also worked for as a substitute teacher and a night janitor) library that Selden, NY was named after the judge, Henry Rogers Selden, (http://winningthevote.org/HRSelden.html) who testified on behalf of Susan B. Anthony in Upstate Rochester, NY. Ms. Anthony had posed as a man to vote (women were not allowed then) and he, though it was and still is unwritten law that judges do not testify in court for other people, he did testify as to her character and sincerity, before the passage of the Twentieth Amendment, which is, "An amendment to the Constitution of the United States adopted in 1920; guarantees that no state can deny the right to vote on the basis of sex" - Word Web 3.02. Wish I had known all that then.

Humanitarian Demining

Vulcan 3-D Laser Measurement System RFP for US Humanitarian Demining back in 2002. I wonder how it worked out? I've worked indirectly (good idea in HAZMAT) in 3D survey on archaeology sites (proton and cesium magnetometers, ground-penetrating radar, magnetic inductance and resistivity surveys, Rollei close-range photogrammetry used on a couple of sites and infrared transit used on many, for Joel Grossman, "Dr. Gadget"). We once found two Parrott shells in the West Point Foundry next to the "prototype" of the "Swamp Angel" R.P. Parrott's Gun Platform. I was first briefed by EOD before we did the initial archaeology survey of Fort Drum, NY, which has been used for target practice for years by tanks and more, lately A-10 "tank-killers" before they were moved out west from Syracuse, NY and the US Army 10th Mountain Division was moved from Camp Hale, CO to NY. I was at West Point Academy the day anthrax showed up from the Post Office, to do archaeology survey in the "tree throws" (from "Debert Site", a paleo-site in Nova Scotia, an arms range) of Hurricane Floyd. With Panamerican Consultants too I worked at Picatinney Arsenal, NJ next to an old rocket assembly plant, long small multiple joined "sheds" with a forest of lightning rods sprouting out of their roofs up on a hill. Steam service runs above ground and everywhere there is large square "U" expansion sections in them. Last I heard they were going to use thermal twilight imaging for landmines from a helicopter (unit about 120 lbs) as mines absorb and radiate heat differently than the soils around them. Wonder how that went?

Wooden "shiplap" on the water

Why "Edge-rabbeting of bottom planking" called in New World "shiplap"? (sub-arch Underwater Archaeology forum) The "shiplap" I know was used in a church in Centereach/Lake Grove, NY now a Town of Brookhaven Landmark, near the "Good Steer" restaurant. Once known as "New Village" it was settled by shipbuilders et al of nearby Setauket, NY. The floors are "shiplap" constructed, and some of the wallpaper removal revealed some of the early carpenter's pencil markings. In Setauket about 25,000 tons of wooden ships were made and in the adjoining harbor, Port Jefferson (once also known as "Drowned Meadow") about 45,000 tons were made as the focus shifted apparently in the 19th century. Liverpool mail "packets" (sailing ships mostly started and run by Quakers there and in New York City) put in there every two weeks in the 19th century and the port of New York. The "infamous" luxury yacht "Wanderer" was built there, bought by a Louisiana cotton merchant, and conducted slave trade between Africa and Jekyll Island, Georgia after being thought harmless by British blockaders of Africa for slavery (1858 Wikipedia). The National Parks Service (?) plaque at Jekyll Island was placed around 1963, next to a large iron pot, where the survivors were first fed. A written argument went on about its place of building, wrongly attributed to Port Jefferson at first, actually bult by Captain Brewster Hawkins in Setauket, and a historic site I've partly investigated archaeologically (written correspondence available in the collections of the Emma Clark Library, Setauket, NY). An ascendant (or indirect descendant) proved it to the historians. The confusion was over the construction and concealment of large water tanks placed behind the luxury accommodations in Port Jefferson, NY by metalworkers there. Maybe it was used in old church construction first? Often churches look like inverted ships. George Myers "I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way, did not become still more complicated." Poul Anderson

The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious

George J. Myers, Jr., BA.
Bronx, NY
718-792-5772

June 5, 2004

Institute for Long Island Archaeology/Anthropology David J. Bernstein, Director IUA

RE: Research REF#: WC-R-1482-03-09-C2 Technician I - Archaeology

Hello. I had field school in Long Island Archaeology taught by R.M. Gramly, Ph.D., of Harvard University (and other classes) in 1977, assisted by Margaret Gwynne, Ph.D., since a Stony Brook faculty member and Sherene Baugher, Ph.D., whose doctoral defense at Stony Brook I attended, who later became the first NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission Archaeologist, now at Cornell University. Since, I have been employed assisting and working with archaeologists in private, public and even in gainful employ.

I have worked on the objectives of archaeology in "cultural resource management" and the possibilities for creative scientific research, though often being relegated to the repetitive manual labor of "tasks completed" instead of research identified and corroborated and/or proposed. I think the safety of work has been overlooked where information about sites is not thoroughly researched along the lines of a "title search" in property records to determine the past uses of a property. An employees' "right to know" should extend into the past workplaces from workplace rules. Whether a site was or is full of lead paint (Chicago Bridge and Steel Co., in the 19th c. West Point Foundry, Cold Spring, NY) or contains "depleted uranium" (from ammo on the A-10 target range at Fort Drum, NY) we should want to know, and the serendipitous finding of illegal dumping should also be treated in a safe manner.

Conversely, it is important that archaeology provide the ecology of a place which may include the recognition of endangered resources that may not be archaeological found in the course of research. For example, next to a National Register nominated schoolhouse site in Farmingville, a nesting pair of hawks were reported to an agency by one crew member, not directly to the owner. That event cannot be regulated, coming from the resident of a place, though may be attributed to archaeologists, who may be from outside a locality, as many of the jobs are done today.

I would like to express that the monitoring of excavations needs to be implemented as often construction plans are changed or finalized and impacts may have unintended consequence and are then in different locations. I feel that would cover the law, where trenches and excavations are concerned, as archaeological testing often only reaches shallow depths, as do other tests, ("percolation tests" for drainage whose formula leads to the excavation of recharge basins or "sumps") and should perhaps be integrated into the planning process.

Sincerely,
George J. Myers, Jr

Elephant jokes

An elephant and an crocodile are walking along in a swamp when they come upon a turtle. The elephant grabs the turtle with his trunk and heaves him way into the jungle. The alligator asks, "Why did you do that?" The elephant says, "That's the turtle that bit me 50 years ago." The crocodile says, "Wow, you have some memory!" The elephant says, "Yes, I have turtle recall." - heard on Cyberbuddy. This guy is hunting in Africa. And he sees an elephant with a thorn in its foot, lying on the ground. He takes aim. And then he thinks, "hmm... maybe I should save it. It would be cruel to shoot a wounded animal." So he walks slowly over, and pulls out the thorn. The elephant starts to limp away, and then it turns and stares at him, locking eyes for a full minute. It then walks away into the jungle. The guy thinks "wow, I wonder if that elephant will remember me. I wonder if I'll ever see it again." So, twenty years later he's at a circus in the US. And he sees a circus elephant looking at him. It's older, but it's a similar looking elephant. Anyway, so this elephant keeps looking at him, and making eye contact "could this be it?" he thinks. "could this be the same elephant, and does it remember me?" So he sits there looking at the elephant perform, and the elephant keeps giving him these knowing looks. Finally, the circus is over, and he goes down to where the elephant is. The elephant looks deep into his eyes, and he thinks "wow, this could really be the same elephant!" so he walks slowly up to the elephant, looking in its eyes. And the elephant reaches out with its trunk and slowly picks the man up... and then it throws him to the concrete floor and tramples him to death. You see, it turns out it wasn't the same elephant. (from #notmath on efnet) posted at neowin.net A future DJ told me this one (he was once on 3 AM Sunday mornings after "Lesbian Hour" at Buffalo University in New York, Mark Henning from the "rust belt") Teacher: "Can anyone tell me who wrote the "Critique of Pure Reason"? No one answers. "How about you Johnny?" "I can't," says Johnny, "You're right!" says the teacher. (ca. 1974 when demos came on 45's (33 rpm) One labeled "Guess Who?" became... Get it...)

Posted to Historical Archaeology

Quonset Huts Also, it solves a paradox for me, somewhat meeting a carpenter who built Quonset huts in Alaska. We had one in Centereach where the VFW and other groups met (Boy Scouts of America, etc.) next to the two room schoolhouse. It seemed the logical structure for the problem. I miss it sometimes. Parades ended there for corn-on-the-cob. Eh...VFW is Veterans of Foreign Wars in the United States an organization which is being filled perhaps sadly by many National Guard troops in Afghanistan and Iraq ("Hundreds of Guard members from New Hampshire spent 2004 at war" - 12/31/04 - Portsmouth Herald, where John Paul Jones was once wanted for "rape" and Strawberry Bancke is the historic now dryland seaport). The quonset went after the paint stored in it combusted and the schoolhouse (the second the first once a one room is still sort of there across the street at home) was burned in a volunteer fire squad practice it's said. Another structure, where First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited, the "Old Tea Room" (a place of consolation and emergency charity) also burned, next to the former small brick courthouse made from dug clay from across the Middle Country Road in Coram, NY. My brother and friends once lived there. During the American Revolution a large stockpile of hay gathered by the British Army burned there.