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Iâm officially an old timer, since I can give you a first-hand account of the 1977 & â78 blizzards. Technically, the â78 blizzard was more intense because of the record-breaking snowfall and extreme winds. I grew up in Central Ohio, about 30 miles east of Columbus. After a good week or so at home, we ventured out to the grocery store and were shocked that the snow reached power/phone lines.
The weather forecast called for frigid conditions and heavy snowfall, but I tell you, when I saw LIGHTNING and heard THUNDER in the middle of that storm, I thought doomsday had arrived.
Before you dismiss my observation as fanciful, this phenomenon is known as thundersnow. Watch Jim Cantore do the thundersnow dance here!
Okay, if you want to call it a âwinter thunderstorm,â thatâs an acceptable answer for TV Jeopardy contestants, but youâre gonna hafta accept being called a spoil sport or a kill joy by the rest of us. Your choice.
Another thing I recall is that Momâs tropical fish aquarium froze. No, not like a block of ice, more like a slurry of the consistency we got from the old Icee Drink machines at Sears stores. I was pretty sad about the little angelfish and tetras suspended there as if Samantha on Bewitched had put a spell on them, but hereâs the real miracle: those fish survived! No kidding. I think we were out of power for a good week, but once we got it back, the slurry melted and the fish swam around like nothing had happened.
With that, itâs time for January Trivia, focused on the history, pop culture, and earth science behind winter weather in the region. This should be fun!
Note to my fantastic new subscribers:
Monthly trivia is for sport. Itâs not a test of intelligence or character. I couldnât answer these questions without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Oh, and would you share it with someone else?
QUESTIONS
Iâm going for quality over quantity this month using these nine questions. Answers in the footnotes.
* What conditions produce thundersnow? Choose one.
* Exactly the same conditions that produce thunderstorms. Duh! Thatâs to say, when there is moisture, static electricity/instability, and a lifting mechanism in the atmosphere (known as convection).
* Basically the same conditions that produce thunderstorms, with the addition of snowflakes and sleet pellets that collide in the clouds, creating static charges. The static builds up until it's discharged as lightning. The lightning generates intense heat, which causes the air to rapidly expand and produce thunder.
* Where is thundersnow most common in the United States? More than one may apply.
* The Great Lakes region
* Around the Great Salt Lake
* The Northeast during nor'easters
* The entire length of the Ohio River froze during the winter of 1917-1918. What happened as a result? More than one may apply.
* As temperatures dropped, ice flows formed and sharp ice pierced ship hulls or piled on decks, weighing down and sinking 36 boats.
* The Great Ice Gorge of the Ohio River formed and finally broke on February 12, after holding firm for 58 days.
* More than 100 coal barges were lost and coal yards along the river were flooded. The shortage of coal almost shut down the power plant that supplied heat and light to Cincinnati.
* The harbor and the canal at Louisville were kept open by breaking the ice with dynamite because the ice boats werenât up to the task.
* Now itâs time to talk about the blizzard of 1977, which was caused by a strong blocking high over the Arctic Ocean that brought Arctic air into the central and eastern United States. The cold air combined with a build-up of precipitation and wind to create a severe blizzard. Which of the following is true? More than one applies.
* January 18, 1977 the temperature in the Cincinnati area was -25°F, the coldest day in that cityâs history since the National Weather Service began keeping official records in the nineteenth century.
* Louisville saw significant snowfall, compounded by high winds that created drifts several feet deep. Some rural areas nearby were completely cut off. The city opened emergency shelters in schools and other public buildings.
* Indiana farmers lost livestock due to the extreme cold and inability to transport feed.
* Huntington, West Virginia, experienced issues with frozen water mains, leading to water shortages.
* True or false: The Ohio River became a âfrozen highwayâ in 1977 from Huntington, West Virginia, to Evansville, Indiana, because the ice could support the weight of a person and in limited areas, even motor vehicles.
* Letâs compare the â77 and â78 storms. The Blizzard of 1977 was caused by a combination of extreme cold (from Arctic air) and high winds, with snow already on the ground due to prolonged cold weather prior to the storm. The Great Blizzard of 1978 was different in which key ways? More than one is correct.
* The storm was caused by an explosive low-pressure system comparable to a Category 3 hurricane.
* Wind gusts reached up to 70 mph, causing severe drifting and whiteouts.
* Wind chills of -40°F (compared to -60°F in 1977).
* Which of the following were âbreakthroughsâ after these two storms? Choose as many as apply.
* The National Weather Service (NWS) recognized the need for more accurate weather prediction models, including increased reliance on satellite imagery.
* Automobile manufacturers began incorporating features such as heated seats and rear defrosters.
* Cities developed and implemented snow emergency routes and plans to ensure more efficient snow removal and emergency response in future storms.
* The North Face, Columbia Sportswear, and Patagonia intensified their focus on developing high-performance outerwear, incorporating advanced insulation materials to provide better protection against extreme cold.
* Okay, sports fans. Did either blizzard affect the Cincinnati Bengals football schedules?
* In the 1970s, the freezing of the Ohio River was a rare event, but it was not uncommon in the mid-19th century. There are several accounts of enslaved people crossing âice bridgesâ over the river from Kentucky in search of freedom. Their stories, reported in newspapers and fictionalized, made up an important component of the public discourse in advance of the US Civil War. Which of the stories below is based in fact?
* Uncle Tomâs Cabin tells the story of Eliza Harris, who crossed the partially frozen Ohio River with her child to reach freedom in Ohio.
* Beloved embellishes the story of Margaret Garner, who crossed the icy river with her family into Cincinnati, where she killed her daughter, claiming it was better for her go home to God than back to slavery.
* The Price of Freedom tells the story of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue and centers the people of Oberlin, Ohio, who sheltered Kentuckians John and Frank after they rode stolen horses across the frozen river. Found guilty of violating the Fugitive Slave Act, 37 townsmen were sentenced to three months in prison.
ANSWERS
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December 16 marked the anniversary of the 1967 collapse of the bridge that crossed the Ohio River between Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio. The Point Pleasant Bridge is usually called the Silver Bridge, and its collapse is often associated with the Mothman, a creature reportedly sighted in the area leading up to the disaster.
The devastating event took place at rush hour, on a bridge built in 1928 when Model Ts were in use, not the heavier cars that followed. Two cars avoided plunging into the river, but 46 people died, and 9 bodies were never recovered.
My great-grandmother lived on the Ohio side of the bridge and we crossed it several times visiting family before its collapseâyes, Iâm âthatâ old. This month, weâll explore bridge construction techniques, the disaster itself, the folklore and history of the Mothman, and a good bit more within ten questions.
Note to my fantastic new subscribers:
Monthly trivia is for sport. Itâs not a test of intelligence or character. I couldnât answer these questions without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Answers in the footnotes.
QUESTIONS
* The Silver Bridge was named for:
* Beloved local architect John H. Silver, who was born in Point Pleasant, but died one month before the bridge opened in 1928.
* It was the first bridge in the United States to use eyebar chain suspension, a design that relied on a series of metal links (eyebars) to support the structure. Its shiny aluminum paint was innovative for the time, so the locals disregarded its official name.
* Both.
* We often tell our children that the weakest link in a chain determines its fate. This is also true of the Silver bridge collapse becauseâŠ
* A tiny crack developed in the lower part of eyebar 330 due to stress corrosion cracking. When the crack grew, it caused a sudden brittle fracture of the eyebar, leading to the rapid failure of the suspension chain and the subsequent collapse of the entire bridge.
* In 1968, a junior-level bridge inspector noticed the stress on eyebar 330 and reported it to his supervisor. Instead of placing the issue on a list of items to re-inspect, the boss hid the report. Only after the bridge collapsed did the junior inspector come forward, but since he didnât keep his own copy of the report, and the official copy of the file had been âtemporarily misplaced,â the federal inspectors with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) wrote him off as a glory seeker until he was vindicated in 1997 when the file was found.
* Both.
* The eyebar chain system was considered innovative because it used fewer materials compared to traditional suspension cables. Which of the following is true about bridge design? More than one may apply.
* The eyebar design's failure mode is non-redundant, meaning that if one key component fails, the entire structure can collapse.
* Today, bridges typically use cable-stayed or suspension systems with wire cables, which are more robust and offer multiple lines of support.
* Most existing bridges with similar designs to the Silver Bridge have either been retrofitted or replaced to meet modern safety standards.
* A cryptid is an animal or creature that is said to exist but has never been proven to do so. Cryptids are often featured in folklore and other accounts, and the list includes Mothman. What other creatures are considered to be cryptids? More than one may apply.
* Bigfoot/Sasquatch
* The Loch Ness Monster
* The Jackalope
* The Flatwoods Monster aka âBraxieâ
* For a year prior to the collapse of the Silver Bridge, the Mothman was sighted in the area, leading to the hypothesis that Mothman either caused or prophesied the accident. Which of the following characteristics were described by people who claimed to see the Mothman? More than one may apply.
* Height between 6 to 7 feet with a humanoid form.
* Wingspan 10 to 15 feet, resembling those of a bat or bird.
* Large, glowing red eyes said to shine or glow in the dark.
* The creatureâs head seemed small or nonexistent, with the eyes appearing to be set directly into its shoulders or chest area.
* What do skeptics of Mothman believe the sightings misidentified? More than one may apply.
* Barn owls, barred owls and snowy owls.
* Herons, or sandhill cranes.
* An extra-dimensional spirit monster heralding the Age of Aquarius.
* Richard Gere and Laura Linney starred in a 2002 movie about the Silver Bridge collapse. The Mothman Prophesies is a supernatural thriller about a journalist (Gere) whose wife sees the Mothman before she dies in a car accident. Two years later, he finds himself in Point Pleasant. Were any TV shows/episodes based on the Mothman? If so, name the show(s).
* The 2002 movie kicked up interest in the Silver Bridge collapse and all things Mothman. Unveiled a year later, in 2003, Point Pleasant West Virginia, has its own Mothman statue made of stainless steel. How did artist Bob Roach land on the final design?
* Interviewing witnesses.
* Frank Frazetta's 1980 painting (as featured on the cover art for a paperback edition of John A. Keel's book, The Mothman Prophecies, which was used by screenwriters of the movie of that name).
* He modified the original Mothman statue in Fryburg, Germany, where miners saw a headless winged creature with red eyes at the entrance of a mine in 1978. They evacuated immediately. The creature became known as the "Freiburg Shrieker," and had the physique of a body builder with wings.
* What can visitors see at the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant, West Virginia?
* Eyewitness accounts and newspaper clippings about the original Mothman sightings.
* Props and costumes from the 2002 film The Mothman Prophecies.
* Artifacts and exhibits related to the Silver Bridge collapse of 1967.
* A taxidermic Sandhill crane made to look like Mothman.
* True or false? In June 2020, a petition on Change.org was initiated to replace Confederate statues in the United States with statues of Mothman. By July 2020, the petition had garnered over 22,000 signatures.
Intermission
Thereâs a good podcast about the collapse of the Silver Bridge and Mothman here at Ohio Mysteries. Click through for newspaper clips and such, but youâll have to ignore the incorrect pronunciation of Gallipolis. Trust me on thisâI say it like the locals.
A quick search revealed other podcasts, so please let me know if any are worthwhile.
ANSWERS
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Hello, Readers. In an effort to give you something neutral to discuss at Thanksgiving gatherings, I give you River Trivia. Youâll find questions on hydrology, dams, locks, dredging, flood management, plus specific questions about the Ohio River in the aftermath of the Great Flood of 1937. Try them out at âthe kidsâ tableâ too.
Thanks to everyone who reached out about October â24 Trivia. I love knowing that something Iâve written has made you ponder. In case you missed it or would like to share it (please do!) click the link below.
Note to my fabulous new subscribers:
Monthly trivia is for sport. Itâs not a test of intelligence or character. I couldnât answer these questions without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Answers in the footnotes.
QUESTIONS
* What is the term for the total amount of water flowing past a given point in a river over a specified period?a) Water Tableb) Dischargec) Runoff
* What is one primary purpose of constructing a dam on a river?a) To increase sediment transportb) To increase biodiversityc) To generate hydroelectric powerd) To prevent aquatic life migration
* What is the function of a lock in river navigation?a) To stop water from flowing downstreamb) To raise or lower ships between sections of a river with different water levelsc) To prevent fish from migrating upstream
* What is a common purpose of dredging in river management?a) To decrease sedimentation in reservoirsb) To remove sediment and maintain navigation channels
c) To build damsd) To create artificial lakes
* What is a common method used to reduce the impact of river flooding in urban areas?a) Channelizationb) Dredgingc) Levees and floodwallsd) Water diversion tunnels
* In the Ohio River region, certain species have experienced conservation success and are no longer listed as endangered. One notable example was removed from Ohio's endangered species list in 2012 after substantial population recovery efforts. Its resurgence is attributed to habitat protection, environmental regulations like the banning of DDT, and ongoing conservation programs. What species is this?
* Bald eagle
* Longheaded darter fish
* Red-tailed hawk
* Scioto madtom
* The Great Flood of 1937, also known as the Ohio River flood, was a catastrophic flood that occurred in late January and February of 1937. How many people were known to be killed in that cataclysmic event?
* 189
* 248
* 385
* Which of the following cities was 95% submerged during that flood?
* Louisville, Kentucky
* Jeffersonville, Indiana
* Paducah, Kentucky
* Yes or no to each option: did Franklin Delano Roosevelt visit this city in the wake of the flood?
* Cincinnati, Ohio
* Louisville, Kentucky
* Evansville, Indiana
* Paducah, Kentucky
* The Flood Control Act of 1938 authorized extensive federal investments in dams, levees, and other flood control structures. Which of the following is/are true about the Act and its outcomes?
* By constricting rivers with levees, areas on either side of the levees can see higher water levels and more destructive flooding.
* The focus on structural solutions often neglected the natural functions of floodplains, leading to habitat loss and disruption of ecosystems.
* The Act primarily targeted major river basins, leaving smaller communities and tributaries vulnerable to flooding.
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Last summer, after touring the floodwall murals in Covington, Kentucky, I ate at a pizza joint called The Gruff, situated close to the Roebling Bridge. While the bar filled up with Cincinnati Reds fans, I had my first encounter with bacon-apple pizza at the recommendation of my winsome waitress. As we chatted, I learned sheâd just finished high school and was figuring out her next move in life. In time, she asked about my research project, which led me to test a theory about how much Kentuckians remember about their history as a border state.
I asked, âWas Kentucky a Union or Confederate state?â
I could tell by the way her eyebrows shot up that the question surprised her. âLet me think while I run your credit card,â she said.
As I would have done at her age, she got it wrong. Kentucky never seceded from the Union. I just checked the Kentucky Academic Standards and it looks like my waitress would have studied the Civil War in eighth grade, which might explain her leaky memory, but it seems like the kind of thing that would have stuck in the way that you donât need fingers to remember that 2+2=4. Iâm not putting my waitress down or dismissing the quality of her education. In many ways, Kentucky presents itself to the world as a former Confederate state. As an aside, is eighth grade a bit early to study the complexities of the Civil War? Does it do any good to give eighth graders a survey course on something that still divides our country today? Iâd love your thoughts.
This brings me to the subject of this monthâs trivia: Kentucky and the Civil War. The quiz will lean heavily on research and analysis by the scholar Ann E. Marshall in her book, Creating a Confederate Kentucky: The Lost Cause and Civil War Memory in a Border State. Thatâs where I found this 1926 quote from E. Merton Coulter, who observed that Kentuckians ââŠwaited until after the war was over to secede from the Union.â
Dr. Marshall reminds us that Kentuckyâs white population identified as both Union and Confederate before and after the war, and that African-Americans, who identified with and fought for the Union, were eager to draw upon the Union victory to claim what had been promised to âall menâ in the Constitution. That âemancipation narrativeâ never resonated with the majority of white Kentuckians, no matter their partisan affiliation. In the words of historian Patrick Lewis, Ph.D., âKentuckians imagined themselves as the last remaining spokespeople with political power for a defeated South.â
With that, itâs time for the quiz.
Note to my fabulous new subscribers:
Monthly trivia is for sport. Itâs not a test of intelligence or character. I couldnât answer these questions without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Answers in the footnotes.
QUESTIONS
The first four questions will help ground us in Kentuckyâs economics and culture before the Civil War. Then weâll move to the war years, and finally, the aftermath.
* The African slave trade was outlawed by Congress in 1808, consequently raising the price of enslaved workers born into whatâs known as the domestic slave trade. With proximity to the Ohio River, Lexington and Louisville became major slave markets. When the cotton gin created a cotton boom in the deep South, the average value of an enslaved worker sold in New Orleans rose from $500-1800 between 1800-1860. At the peak of the cotton boom (1850-60) how many enslaved people did Kentucky sell into the cotton belt?
* Over 37,000, making it the fourth highest state in the domestic slave trade.
* At least 54,000, making it second only to Virginia.
* The Commonwealth of Kentucky taxed enslaved workers as property, eventually assessing owners 22 cents per $100 of value. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, with 250,000 enslaved workers in residence, what percentage of Kentuckyâs tax revenue was based in human bondage/trafficking?
* 10%
* 20%
* 35%
* During Kentuckyâs constitutional convention of 1849-1850, delegates debated the possibility of gradual, compensated emancipation. Proslavery forces in the state quashed all hopes of that. What did they accomplish instead?
* Section three in the 1850 constitution bill of rights strengthened owners rights, saying, âThe right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction; and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave, and its increase, is the same, and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever.â
* They chartered The Kentucky Colonization Society and allocated money to purchase land for freed slaves to settle in Liberia. The colony was called âKentucky in Africa.â
* They repealed Kentucky's Nonimportation Act of 1833 to remove a significant barrier to a profitable domestic slave trade. The goal was increased tax revenue for the state.
* In the 1860 national election, Abraham Lincoln took 40 percent of the countryâs vote. What percentage of Kentuckyâs presidential vote went to its native son?
* 28%
* 12%
* 1%
* With Kentuckiansâ divided in loyalty between Union and Confederacy, the legislature adopted a policy of neutrality at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. Simultaneously, both sides began to build fortifications along the Ohio River border and rival factions organized militiasâConfederate sympathizers called themselves the State Guards, while Unionists became the Home Guards. Sounds like a powder keg to me. What caused the legislature to break its neutrality policy?
* One month after Governor Magoffin proclaimed neutrality, Kentuckians chose Unionists for nine out 10 of the stateâs congressional seats. Later, on August 5, Unionists also won control of the state legislature and affirmed allegiance to the Union.
* On September 4, Confederate General Polk ordered the occupation of Columbus, Kentucky, a strategic location in the stateâs southwest near Tennessee. The Kentucky legislature appealed for Federal troops to repel the invaders, and General Ulysses Grant answered the call.
* On November 18, when a self-constituted group of Confederate sympathizers and delegates from Kentucky counties passed an Ordinance of Secession and established Confederate Kentucky; the following December it was admitted to the Confederacy as its 13th state.
* Although most white men did not fight for either army, Confederate sympathizers in the eastern part of the state fought âcitizen warfareâ in the form of guerrilla attacks on Union supply and communication lines, and Union sympathizers themselves. African-Americans who attempted to enlist in the Federal army were tortured and killed. By 1862, Kentucky became a police state in the hands of Union generals, who wouldnât allow suspected Confederate partisans to do which of the following activities? More than one applies.
* Hold elected office
* Teach school
* Minister to a church
* Serve as a juror
* Run a newspaper
* By July 4, 1865, the war was over. How did most white Kentuckians celebrate this federal holiday?
* They displayed fireworks, cheered marching bands, and even suffered from heat stroke while listening to orators regale the crowds with patriotic speeches. Black Kentuckians were not permitted to celebrate with them.
* They let the day pass un-marked.
* Between 1865-1885, âKentucky emerged as one of the most lawless states in AmericaâŠ(with) vigilantism, mob violence, and lynching on an unprecedented scale.â (Creating a Confederate Kentucky p 56.) Most experts agree that this lawlessness arose because Kentucky sat outside the âframework of federal Reconstruction.â Why wasnât Kentucky subject to Reconstruction? After all, it was a slave state. All the hints are in the intro and answers to preceding questions.
* In Fairview, Kentucky, roughly 17 miles from the Tennessee state line, lies an historic site maintained by the state park system. The site's focal point is a 351-foot concrete obelisk that commemorates the birthplace of a Confederate leader who was born there in 1808. Construction began in 1917, stopped in 1918 during World War I, and resumed in January 1922. When finished in 1924 at a cost of $200,000, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross from the top of the monument. Kentucky is obviously committed to this site; the state closed the obelisk to the public from 1999 until May 2004 for renovations and construction of a new visitor center. Whose birthplace is commemorated here? Your options are in alphabetical order.
* John C. Breckinridge
* Jefferson Davis
* John Hunt Morgan
* Gustavus Woodson Smith
* What is the legal status of slavery in Kentucky law today?
* The first Kentucky constitution of 1792 protected the right to own slaves. The Kentucky constitution still protects this right âas a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.â
* In 2022, Kentucky joined the states of Alabama, Tennessee, Vermont, and Oregon in passing laws that say "slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited."
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Intermission
Chances are, some of the answers to these questions surprised you. Hereâs a podcast series Iâve listened to twice now, and plan to listen again. âThe Reckoningâ is a public radio and podcast series which traces the history and lasting impact of slavery in America by looking at how the institution unfolded in Kentucky. Hereâs an interview with the producer and lead interviewer, Dan Gediman.
ANSWERS
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Did you know weâre in a bicentennial year? From now until September, 2025, historical sites in the nationâs first 24 states will be commemorating the Marquis de Lafayetteâs Farewell Tour. Planned as a three-month tour, Lafayette was celebrated by all as the âNationâs Guestâ for 13 months. Honestly, it amazes me how Lafayette Fever swept the nation in the 1800s, with crowds thronging to catch a glimpse of the French nobleman who aided the American cause against Great Britain. For comparisonâs sake, 4000 people greeted The Beatles in NYC but 80,000 turned out for Lafayette there!
Iâve come across a few theories to explain this phenomenon, which took place fifty years after the Revolution. One says that Lafayette was the swashbuckling symbol of Franceâs role in securing independence, and Americans were still deeply grateful. Another holds that Lafayette basked in the American reverence for George Washington as his de facto adopted son. (Lafayette even named his son Georges Louis Gilbert Washington de Motier Marquis de Lafayette).
The theory that rings most true for me is that Lafayetteâs farewell tour coincided with the vitriolic presidential election of 1824, in which, for the first time, no founding father was running. Perhaps the country was demonstrating a nostalgia and reverence for the past and nervousness about the future, as author Sarah Vowel stated in an interview.
If youâre like me, Lafayetteâs place in our history is more legendary than factual. The opening paragraph a New Yorker story from 2021 summed up my sketchy understanding:
Lafayette, like Betsy Ross and Johnny Appleseed, is so neatly fixed in the American imagination that it is hard to see him as a human being. Betsy sews stars, Johnny plants trees, Lafayette brings French Ă©lan to the American Revolution. He is, in the collective imagination, little more than a wooden soldier with a white plume on his cocked hat. In the original production of âHamilton,â Daveed Diggs portrayed him affectionately, with a comically heavy French accent and an amorous mannerâa hero, yes, but of the cartoon kind, a near relation of PepĂ© le Pew.
Allison Epstein wrote a most entertaining sketch of the marquis in her hilarious newsletter, Dirtbags Through the Ages. When Allison canât criticize someone, take note.
I must leave you to dig into Lafayetteâs extraordinary international escapades on your own while we focus on his stops along the Ohio River in this monthâs trivia.
Note to my fabulous new subscribers:
Monthly trivia is for sport. Itâs not a test. Only the rare person can answer all ten trivia questions without any prep. I couldnât answer them without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Answers in the footnotes.
QUESTIONS
* When Lafayette visited Old Shawneetown, Illinois, it was simply called Shawneetown. Why do we call it Old Shawneetown today?
* Remember Illinoisâ salt industry from last monthâs trivia? When Congress granted the salines to Illinois, the state ran the operation using the unpaid labor of enslaved workers who lived in what was then-Shawneetown. After the Emancipation Proclamation, these workers fled, making it a ghost town that eventually came to be called Old Shawneetown.
* After a 15-foot flood in 1937, only 20 of Shawneetownâs 400 homes were habitable. Most Shawneetown residents moved three miles inland from the Ohio River, and took the name with them. The remaining section of the original settlement was incorporated as Old Shawneetown in 1956. The town operates several historic sites to this day.
* As weâve discussed before, Marietta, Ohio, was named for Queen Marie Antoinette. Did Lafayette personally know her? Choose the BEST answer.
* Lafayetteâs relationship with the queen was fodder for the French Revolution. The political club known as the Jacobins advocated for the violent overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic. There were two factions of Jacobins, and the The Montagnards were the most radical. Their leader, Maximillian Robespierre, published âproofâ of a long-running affair between Lafayette and the queen in a series of illustrated pamphlets.
* In 1789, revolutionary fever was spreading throughout France. Lafayette was named the commander of the National Guard. On October 5, a hungry Parisian mob descended on the palace of Versailles, demanding bread. As the crowd shouted angrily at the unpopular queen, Lafayette kissed her hand on a balcony. Lafayette's charm may well have saved the king and queen on that day, though they would not, of course, survive the revolution.
* Lafayette named his youngest daughter Marie Antoinette Virginie to honor both the French queen and the state of Virginia. He did so at the behest of Thomas Jefferson.
* Lafayetteâs Farewell Tour included a visit to Marietta on May 8, 1825. Which is true about that visit? More than one may apply.
* It was not on his original itinerary.
* A boat he used on the Ohio River, The Mechanic, was built by John Mitchell on the Little Muskingum River. Lafayette planned the stop in Marietta to thank Mitchell personally for his craftsmanship.
* Wealthy landowner Nahum Ward, who had visited Lafayette in Paris a few years earlier, hosted him in his magnificent Putnam Street home. Long lines of people gathered; Lafayette greeted each personally. A list of Revolutionary War officers who settled at Marietta was read to Lafayette, who responded, âI know them all. I saw them at Brandywine, Yorktown and Rhode Island. They were the bravest of the brave.â
* Perry County, Indiana, has been named in several treasure hunting books and websites with a story about Lafayetteâs lost $8,000 in gold. People are still arguing over the details of the night in May, 1825, when The Mechanic struck either a rock or log in the Ohio River and sank near what is now known as Rock Island. No one disputes that Lafayetteâs carriage, papers, and gold also sank with the ship, along with a snuffbox that contained a portrait of Washington. What became of Lafayetteâs gold?
* A couple of coins were recovered, enough to forge The Washington-Lafayette Cincinnati Medal. This gold medal was given to Lafayette by George Washington's family after Washingtonâs death.
* If anyone recovered any of it, they never went public with the news.
* The Washington-Lafayette Cincinnati Medal is associated with the Cincinnati Society for Revolutionary War officersâ descendants. The Society originated in the dark days of 1783 when a group of American officers contemplated a military coup known as the Newburgh Conspiracy because they were not being paid for their services. The Cincinnati order was formed by Washington and a few officers, including Lafayette, to ensure that the ideals of the Revolution would not die after one generation. What events led to the Newburgh Conspiracy? More than one may apply.
* Without the power to tax under the Articles of Confederation, Congress relied on irregular, voluntary payments from the states known as requisitions to raise revenue. The states' slipshod record of compliance forced Congress to struggle to support the army throughout the war. Officers and soldiers alike were not being paid regularly, and the army was often forced to requisition supplies from citizens.
* In 1780, Congress passed a resolution providing half-pay for retired soldiers. However, as of 1783 the states had yet to comply with Congressâs request for the needed funds. The following year a group of nationalists supported an amendment to the Articles of Confederation that would allow Congress to raise revenue through taxes to support the army and pay its foreign loans. However, the state legislatures rejected the impost amendment.
* The Continental Congress sold land to the Ohio Company of Associates, a group of former Revolutionary War soldiers and officers, in several transactions over many years. The land was intended for veterans to either sell or live on, but the funds never met the true needs of the veterans.
* In 2007, the The Washington-Lafayette Cincinnati Medal sold for $5.3 million to which entity?
* George Washingtonâs Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens in Virginia.
* The American Numismatic Society in Manhattan.
* The Fondation JosĂ©e et RenĂ© de Chambrun at the ChĂąteau La Grange, Lafayetteâs historic home 60 miles east of Paris.
* When The Mechanic sank en route to Louisville, Lafayetteâs itinerary was delayed by three days. He would nevertheless visit Louisville, Shelbyville, Frankfort, Lexington, Georgetown, Covington, and Maysville. While in Lexington, on May 16, 1825, Lafayette bowed to Lewis Hayden. What is the significance of this gesture?
* Hayden was an enslaved boy who would later travel the Underground Railroad to find his freedom in Boston, and eventually become an abolitionist who helped others achieve freedom.
* Hayden was the first graduate of Transylvania University in Lexington and stood beside President Horace Holley on the dais as he conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws to Lafayette.
* Which former or future president did Lafayette meet during his visit to Cincinnati?
* William Henry Harrison
* Martin Van Buren
* Andrew Jackson
* At least two oil portraits were painted while Lafayette was on his farewell tour, one by Matthew Harris Jouett, and another by Samuel Morse. Which one was paid for by The Kentucky General Assembly and is now on display in the old Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort?
*
b
* After a two-day visit in Pittsburgh, Lafayette traveled roughly 35 miles to Butler, Pennsylvania, on the regular stagecoach route between Pittsburgh and Erie, escorted by the Pittsburgh City Light Troop of Cavalry. After a meal in the small town of 500, he walked among the wide-eyed and shook hands with not fewer than 400, including speaking to many men who had fought during the Revolution and the Battle of Brandywine. He recognized some of their faces as the old soldiers stood in review, conversing in detail about the events of the battle, which had nearly taken his life. Fast forward 99 years, what has Butler become infamous for? Yes, this is an essay question.
Please share this with someone you think would enjoy it.
Intermission
Iâve recommended The Road To Now podcast several times, and these two episodes are in keeping with our theme. First, an interview with a Frenchman who established The Lafayette Trailâmapping each of Lafayetteâs stops. Check out his videos following in the footsteps of the Frenchman.
Second, meet a Franco-American historical interpreter of both Lafayette and Napoleon Bonaparte. A short child with a prominent nose, Mark Schneiderâs wise mother told him he was born to portray European nobility, and heâs been doing so for 25 years. He seems to know everything about Lafayette.
ANSWERS
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I hope youâve already read my last newsletter about Illinoisâ Little Egypt, because this one builds upon it. Weâre going to explore the regionâs history with legalized slavery. As a reminder, Illinois and Indiana were once called the Illinois Country when first settled by the French, and it was the French who brought the first enslaved African workers there in 1720. The Illinois Country became part of the Northwest Territory in 1787, which meant it was bound by Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance: There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. But slaveholders in the old Illinois Country (Illinois and Indiana) were exempted from the new law. Grandfathered, if you will.
Through the next ten questions, weâll explore the history of slavery north of the Ohio River in whatâs now Illinois and Indiana.
Note to my fabulous new subscribers:
Itâs the rare person who can answer all ten trivia questions without any prep. I couldnât answer them without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Answers in the footnotes.
QUESTIONS
* The French brought the first enslaved Africans to the Midwest around 1720 to work the mines along the Mississippi. The Illinois Country east of the Mississippi River became part of the Northwest Territory sixty-seven years later. Why didnât Article VI end the practice of human bondage in the Illinois Country? In other words, on what grounds were the French enslavers granted an exemption from Article VI? More than one may apply.
* Slavery was never defined in Article VI.
* Article VI didnât contain an enforcement clause.
* Article VI didnât specify how to unwind slavery in places where it had taken root before the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
* The French enslavers cut a deal with Congress that they would phase out slavery within two generations using a plan modeled after Pennsylvaniaâs 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.
* In 1800, the Indiana Territory (which included Illinois) received its second territorial governor, William Henry Harrison. He had served as secretary of the Northwest Territory and was elected a territorial delegate to Congress, which means he knew that Article VI banned slavery. What action(s) did Harrison take in contradiction of Article VI? More than one may apply.
* He brought seven of his enslaved workers with him from Virginia to build his residence and gubernatorial office in Vincennes.
* He enslaved Shawnee women to help run his household.
* He purchased enslaved workers from French owners who had been in the territory. They built his residence and gubernatorial office in Vincennes.
* After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 (which involved land west of the Mississippi River), French slaveholders living in Illinois asked Congress to separate Illinois from the Indiana Territory and attach it to Louisiana, where they would have greater protection for their practice of human bondage. The French did not prevail. That same year, the Indiana Territory invented the loophole for prospective enslavers to bring their human property into the state using a practice known as chattel servitude. Instead of calling their human property âslavesâ they called them âindentured workers.â Which of these is true about the âindentured servitudeâcontracts used in the Indiana Territory? More than one may apply.
* Indentured contracts could last for 90 years.
* Holders of indenture contracts could sell the service contract, along with the worker, to another holder.
* Children of indentured mothers were also considered indentured.
* Enslaved workers who didnât sign an indenture contract would be sold into bondage in slave states.
* In 1803, âA Law concerning Servants,â in the Northwest Territory established some minimal requirements of masters toward their servants and formed the basis for regulating all slavery and involuntary servitude in the territory. Territorial Governor Harrison and the other white settlers conveniently assumed that all Black people entering the territory were voluntarily indentured before they arrived. This means they assumed that the states from whence the Black workers came had properly supervised these indenture contracts. Ha. How did Harrison et al justify the institution of slavery when appealing to Congress to override Article VI and allow outright slavery in the Territory? More than one may apply.
* Slavery would benefit the territoryâs economy by stimulating settlement and increasing land values.
* Allowing slavery in the Indiana Territory would keep slaveowners living in the Territory from moving west of the Mississippi River, where slavery was permitted by the French and Spanish.
* Spreading the practice of enslaved labor throughout the West would benefit the captives themselves as well as the nation's white population, a belief known as diffusion.
* A new theory that compared free labor, as practiced among workers in the American North and Great Britain, with slavery. This new theory claimed that because enslavers owned their workers, they took better care of them than the capitalists who merely rented theirs.
* The Indiana Territory, which included Illinois, became a âsecond gradeâ territory in 1804. This meant Harrison governed with an elected territorial legislature (constituted of slavery proponents and slaveholders). Before the legislature had served a full month, the territory adopted âAn Act concerning the introduction of Negroes and Mulattos into this Territory.â Is the following true or false?
* Under this law, a servant refusing an indenture contract (which could last 40-90 years) was cause for banishment into a slave state. With Kentucky on the other side of the Ohio River, the threat was easily executed.
* One of the first major industries in southern Illinois was making salt from springs along the Saline River in Gallatin County. Located near the border of Kentucky, in the area known as Little Egypt, the salt operation profited from the labor of enslaved people sent into Illinois from southern states where enslavement was legal. In 1818, the salines became the property of Illinois. What happened to the institution of slavery when Illinois took over? More than one may apply.
* It went full steam ahead. After all, the saline business contributed a third of the state's revenue.
* Illinois law only allowed enslaved Africans to be imported to the Saline River region until 1825, but enslavement persisted in the form of so-called indentured servitude.
* In a major precedent, Illinois compensated the enslavers willing to sell their workers to the state, then put the workers on the state payroll as freedmen, but paid them less than workers of European descent.
* In February of 1809, the Illinois Territory separated Indiana and Illinois, allowing the two entities to decide how to treat enslaved workers in a democratic manner. The two Indiana counties with the greatest support for slavery (Randolph and St. Clair) went with Illinois. What did the newly constituted Indiana legislature do regarding slavery and indentured servants? Choose wisely:
* Indiana repealed some of the territoryâs proslavery legislation and prohibited the introduction of any new slaves or indentured servants.
* Indiana chartered The Indiana Colonization Society. Based in Indianapolis, it advocated for the relocation of free people of color and emancipated slaves in Indiana to settlements in Liberia, Africa. The ICS was an auxiliary of the American Colonization Society, located in Washington, D.C.
* Illinois Territory Legislation in 1813 prevented free Black people from immigrating there. As a result, free African Americans already living in Illinois had to register with the county clerk. The following March, the First Illinois General Assembly enacted a system of âBlack Lawsâ limiting the rights of free people of color. What specific rights were limited by these Black Laws?
* They were required to register with the county clerk and provide a âCertificate of Freedom.â
* Those who could not present a Certificate of Freedom were arrestedâa kind of citizenâs arrestâtaken to a justice of the peace, tried, and advertised as a runaway. If claimed, the white person who âarrestedâ them would receive a reward. If not claimed, they would be sold to into labor without pay (slavery) for up to one year. With this system of oppression, Illinois practiced a form of slavery until the Civil War.
* Black people were prevented from offering testimony against a white person in a court of law.
* The 1848 Constitution of Illinois did not permit slavery, but five years later, its approach to racial progress started to backslide. In 1853, the state legislature outlawed Black settlers in the criminal code. What was the penalty for Black people who remained in Illinois beyond ten days? Choose one:
* They could be arrested and fined. If they couldnât pay the fines, they were auctioned off.
* Men were sent to work in the salt mines for up to one year. Women and children were auctioned off.
* Illinoisâ Black Laws were repealed in 1865. What event with national import led to this? Yes, this is an essay question.
Intermission
If you havenât seen MANHUNT yet, grab some Apple TV credentials and watch it! The acting is superb and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.
Manhunt is a conspiracy thriller about one of the best known but least understood crimes in history, the astonishing story of the hunt for John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of Abraham Lincolnâs assassination.
I was surprised to learn the role of Ohioâs Edwin W. Stanton in Civil War History. Born in Steubenville, he served as Lincolnâs Secretary of War (and the brains behind the hunt for John Wilkes Booth). He died four days after his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Ulysses S. Grant. Manhunt is really his movie, and Tobias Menzies nailed every scene. The British actor has famously starred in Outlander, Game of Thrones, and The Crown as Prince Philip (in seasons three and four).
For the fuller picture, consider buying the book from The New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning nonfiction book from author James L. Swanson.
If there are any topics youâd like to see me cover in the coming months, please let me know.
ANSWERS
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Southern Illinois is where we find Egyptian city names like Carmi, Cairo, Thebes, Karnak, Goshen, and Dongola. Why? Because llinoisans call the lower 16-17 counties âLittle Egyptâ (see map below).
Americans have been very creative in naming places, but Iâm certain that no one who claimed Southern Illinois resembled Egypt had ever been to North Africa beforehand. I went in search of plausible answers for how the region got this unusual name and what made it stick.
Checking with official sources in Illinois, including Southern Illinois University Carbondale and Southeastern Illinois College, there seems to be a consensus that the Mississippi River called to mind the Nile, while the expansive Native American mounds at Cahokia were (kinda) like some of Egyptâs (lesser) pyramids. I can accept that today, but how would settlers scratching out a living in the old Illinois Country have known to compare the Mississippi to the Nile, and the Cahokia mounds to the pyramids?
We can probably thank Napoleon Bonaparte, whose invasion of Egypt in 1798 spurred news coverage all the way to North America. According to the Illinois Periodicals Online (IPO) Project:
Although newspapers were scarce in the Illinois Country, the Kentucky papers covered the leading events of the day, including Napoleon's invasion of old Egypt the previous yearâŠEven at that early day many Americans would have noted the two best-known features of Egypt, the Nile River and the pyramids, particularly those at Giza.
The IPO Project claims that a Baptist missionary, John Badgley, dubbed the area Little Egypt while riding along the bluffs that overlooked the American Bottoms. From there, he would have easily seen the Mississippi River and Cahokia Mounds, maybe recalled a newspaper picture of Napoleon in Egypt, and thought, âAha!â
This gets even more interesting when you compare Southern Illinois to the Nile Delta in agricultural legacy, which brings us to a Bible story we know today as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. As a refresher, it tells us how Josephâs brothers sold him into Egyptian slavery. After many years, Joseph rose from enslavement to becoming Egyptâs governor and, foreseeing a famine, wisely rationed the country's produce for seven years in preparation. When the famine took hold, Josephâs estranged family came to Egypt desperate for food. In time, all was forgiven and they were united in that land. (Longer version in Genesis 37, 39-45). To bring it all home, residents in Northern Illinois traveled south to buy grain after a series of dreadful winters and droughts. In light of that, doesnât âLittle Egyptâ make sense now?
Baptist missionary Badgley would have known the story of Joseph and the famine, so I can see why he chose the name Little Egypt from high atop the bluffs of the American Bottoms.
Enslavement in Little Egypt
As longtime readers are aware, Iâm writing a book on the racial legacy of the Ohio River as the countryâs longest slavery border. Of the six states along the Ohio River, Illinois has the most complicated history with legal slavery, and Little Egypt was where most of it took place. You might be thinking, âWhat? Slavery in the Land of Lincoln?â Yep. If youâre the product of Illinois public schools, please tell me if this was part of your history curriculum.
Heads up: if you want to get a leg up on this monthâs trivia quiz, hereâs the book that opened my eyes (and made me want to pour bleach into them). Bondage in Egypt: Slavery in Southern Illinois may only be available in your area via ebook. Next time I travel to Little Egypt Iâm going to try to find a physical copy. Author Darrel Dexter has a new book out about the KKK in Southern Illinois, too.
I look forward to August Trivia in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, would you share this with someone who might enjoy it?
Bonus video: The Cahokia Mounds
I was in Cahokia this year with the Filson Society. Cahokia was the largest city north of Mexico in its heyday.
Bonus video: Napoleon in Egypt
Hereâs an engaging presentation on Napoleonâs Egyptian campaign from Dr. William B. Ashworth, Jr., Associate Professor of History at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
See you next time for August Trivia!
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This month, at the half-year mark, Iâm re-asking quiz questions youâve already seen. You should nail these! If youâre one of my new subscribers, I welcome you, and donât be hard on yourself if you donât get a perfect score. Weâre here to have fun!
Ready? Answers are in the footnotes.
QUESTIONS
* On February 13, 1861, delegates representing all counties in Virginia met to decide how the state would respond to South Carolina's secession and other events. They voted to remain in the Union and hoped that they could reach a compromise to defuse the situation. Two months later, the same men passed The Virginia Ordinance of Secession, dated April 17, 1861, which declared that ââŠthe bond between Virginia and the United States of America, under the U.S. Constitution, is dissolved.â Delegates at the Virginia Convention of 1861 voted 88â55 to approve the ordinance on April 17 and a statewide referendum confirmed secession on May 23. This meant the northwestern counties needed to act quickly in order to remain part of the Union. What percentage of white men in the northwestern counties voted to stay in the Union?
* 52%
* 67%
* 75%
* Within three days of the vote to remain in the Union, General George B. McClellanâs army occupied the region, notably Wheeling, Morgantown, Parkersburg, and Clarksburg. Pouring oil on troubled waters, McClellan said, âI have ordered troops to cross the river. They come as your friends and brothers (and) as enemies only to the armed rebels who are preying upon you. Your homes, your families, and your property are safe under our protection. All your rights shall be religiously respected,â (which included the right to own slaves). The capital had to be moved from Richmond. Where was the first capital in (what would eventually become) West Virginia?
* Charleston
* Morgantown
* Parkersburg
* Wheeling
* Napoleon Bonaparte sold the Louisiana Territory to fund:
* A wedding dowry for his step-daughter Hortense EugĂ©nie CĂ©cile Bonaparte so she could become Queen of Holland by marrying NapolĂ©onâs brother, Louis Bonaparte
* A war with the British
* Both
* Louisville, Kentucky took its name from King Louis XVI of France in appreciation for his help during the Revolutionary War. The city was founded by the brother of either Meriweather Lewis or William Clark, leaders of the Lewis & Clark Expedition of 1804â1806. Was the founder of Louisville a Lewis or a Clark?
* This Pittsburgh native graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1962 and attended Pittâs Graduate School of Child Development before going on to be a broadcaster in children's television. This TV personality is recognized by more than forty honorary degrees and several awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 1997 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002. Who is this native Pittsburgher?
* This Indiana college was established in 1801 by William Henry Harrison (the ninth U.S. President) while he served as governor of the Indiana Territory. It is now a university. Name that university.
* DePauw University
* Valparaiso University
* Vincennes University
* In 2004, four college students set out to steal several volumes of some of the worldâs rarest books from the first educational institution west of the Alleghenies. This institution was established in 1780 by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and its rare books were valued at more than $5.7 million. Name the university.
* Spalding University
* Transylvania University
* Tusculum University
* We talk a lot about the Northwest Territory. What is the importance of the Southwest Territory? Choose as many as apply.
* Itâs formal name is the Territory South of the River Ohio, and was created from lands of the Washington District that had been ceded to the U.S. federal government by North Carolina.
* The new territory was essentially governed under the same provisions as the Northwest Ordinance, but the Article outlawing slavery was not applied to the Southwest Territory.
* Kentucky and Tennessee were carved out of this Territory.
* There is a small district of land in the central part of Ohio known as the French Grant because it was settled by French fleeing the Revolution in their home country. Why were French entitled to American land? More than one may apply
* They were descendants of French families who had aided the American Revolution, including the extended family of Americaâs favorite Frenchman, Lafayette (Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette).
* They had been defrauded by The Scioto Company which had collected some monies from the French without first purchasing the land from the Ohio Company. When the settlers arrived their deeds were worthless. It was five more years before Pres. Washington stepped in and granted them free land in the French Grant, but they had to live on the land for five years in order to own it.
* There was a dispute between Michigan and Ohio over who owned the land in the farthest northwest corner of Ohio. When was the dispute finally settled? Fun fact: Those 468 square miles are also called the âToledo Strip.â ONLY ONE is correct.
* During the War of 1812, but ground survey was not completed until 1817.
* In 1836, when the Michigan Territory gave up the âToledo Stripâ and received the large majority of the Upper Peninsula and Michigan.
* When Michigan became the 26th State on January 26, 1837.
* When the 48th Legislature of Michigan passed Act 84 of the Public Acts of 1915 providing for âa joint re-location and permanent monumenting of the line between Ohio and Michiganâ.
* In 1915 when the 81st General Assembly of Ohio passed the Michigan Act of 1915 (in answer d) under House Bill 701.
Intermission Message
Podcast recommendations!
First, from Ohio v. The World, a two-part series about the Rise and Fall of Pete Rose.
Second, also from Ohio v. The World, a long episode about âCancelled Ohioansâ thatâs well worth extending your drive time to finish. Meet Jimmy the Greek, Arthur St. Clair, Senator and Governor William Allen, Congressman Wayne Hays, and Congressman William Breckenridge. Oh, the scandals!
Third, from The Reckoning, a nine-part series about Kentuckyâs history with slavery and how that history connects to issues we face today. Loads of experts and thoughtful topics.
Never miss a thing!
ANSWERS
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WELCOME NEW SUBSCRIBERS!
Last summer I spent a couple of days in Louisville at the Filson Historical Society doing archival research on Cave Hill Cemetery. I have never done this kind of research before and the Filson staff patiently taught me the ins and outs of choosing boxes from its vast collection that might have artifacts that would shed light on burial regulations from the cemeteryâs earliest days (1848-1900). This was of course the heart of the Victorian Era, and those Victorians had, ahem, âinterestingâ ideas about death. They were obsessed with elaborate mourning rituals, and creepy hair jewelry and hair art, as pictured below.
Americans at this time were also very particular about whose mouldering bones could lie in proximity underground. The cemeteryâs 1879 rules, regulations and bylaws, which the Filson stored, specified that Cave Hill was established "for the white race exclusively" and provided that "colored persons, when admitted, must be accompanied by a lot-holder, or some member of the family of the lot-holder, or may be admitted by the written permit of a Manager..."
Interestingly, women were not allowed to enter the grounds unaccompanied because, hey, when youâve got your foot on the neck of an entire race of people, why not put the other on women? They probably couched this rule in terms of female safety, or perhaps the feminine propensity to faint at the thought of death, or some other patriarchal subterfuge. Iâm happy to report that a lot has changed since then. I have freely perambulated the grounds without an escort, and native son Muhammad Ali is buried there, along people of all ethnicities, religious affiliations, professions, and persuasions. I count this as progress.
One thing that hasnât changed since its founding is the cemeteryâs fondness for swans, which was also a Victorian obsession. It still features one in its logo today. This sent me digging around to figure out why. In this Smithsonian article, I learned that beginning in 1482 only English landowners of a certain income could keep them, and any bird found without a âswan markâ on its beak to denote its owner, was automatically the property of the crown. You could think of a swan mark like a cattle brand, but carved into the beak. According to the Smithsonian:
The prestige of swan ownership went far beyond their appeal as a delicacy. They were impressive enough as the centerpiece of a feast, but a swan in itself was not particularly expensive. The real desirability came from the right to own swans at all, because purchasing a swan mark was so expensive. To have a âgameâ of swans elegantly sculling around the lake of your stately pile required funds and status.
The rules relating to swans prevented ordinary people from interacting with them at all, beyond being able to see them on the river. If you werenât an officially recognized swan keeper it was forbidden to sell swans, to drive them away from your land, to mark them or even to hunt with dogs or lay nets and traps on the river at certain times of year in case swans were injured.
Side note: here we have an economic lesson in how to drive up the price of something that doesnât cost much at all.
Swan prestige traveled across the Atlantic like Victorian Christmas tree traditions. The Victorian influence on American culture likely canât be overstated.
So, there I was in the Filsonâs reading room, perusing a file of correspondence from the 1890s to and from Mr. J. G. A Boyd, who managed cemetery operations and was Secretary-Treasurer of the company. Among invoices and mundane requests for maintenance and landscaping, I continued to see letters from the W.A. Conklin Company of New York City, which, according to its fancy letterhead, traded in wild animals, managed zoological gardens, and supplied private menageries. Iâve since learned that William Conklin of the W.A. Conklin Company was Superintendent of the Central Park Menagerie from the 1860s through the 1880s.
Apparently, Boyd had written to Conklin about something befalling the Cave Hill swans, to which Conklin replied in his spidery hand: âVery sorry to hear of your misfortune with the swans. They were certainly a very nice lot. If you care to try again, will have some more while over this month, but am right out of the blackâŠâ He then went on to mention his current inventory of a white goose, a Brent goose, and a Rosybill duck, and claimed, âthey will breed with any of the ordinary waterfowl.â Other letters discussed which swans would interbreedâit wasnât often. Before going any further, check out Conklinâs letterhead!
Conklinâs swan inventory and sales price updates continued throughout 1893 and into â94. I was itching for resolution on this obviously important matter! What had happened to the swans! Were they replaced? If so, did the replacements survive?
Then, I came upon correspondence from Littleton Cook, District Attorney for Kentucky for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Law Department that put the pieces together. It reads (emphasis mine):
In looking over the General Statutes of Kentucky, in respect to crimes and punishments, I find not one section which covers the case of the killing of the swans about which you in formed me, to-wit, in section 7, article 28, chapter 29, of the General Statutes, it is provided as followsâŠ(see the picture below if this legal detail interests you).
I am inclined to think that the slayer of the swans can and should be successfully prosecuted under this Statute. And as one of the Lot Owners in Cave Hill Cemetery, I am exceedingly anxious that this should be done, not only to punish the wanton and brutal conduct of this man, but to deter others who might be hereafter guilty of any similar outrage against law and decency.
However, as Judge Barr, and Judge Humphrey are members of the Board of Trustees of the Cemetery Company, and as the matter will doubtless be brought before them, they are probably the ones to advise in respect to the steps to be taken in regard to the matter.
I donât know if you read Cookeâs last paragraph as I do, but it would appear that Judges Barr and Humphrey should recuse themselves from any business coming before them from Cave Hill Cemetery. When it comes to judicial recusals, apparently some things never change right to the present day.
But wait! Thereâs more!
No sooner had I solved the mystery of the misfortunate swans did I come across another series of correspondence about stocking the cemeteryâs ponds with black bass or crappie. Post haste! See pictured below two selected letters, first from Congressman Asher G. Caruth, who tried to intervene with the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries to get Cave Hill a satisfactory delivery date for black bass and crappie. Iâm cracking up just thinking about all these mustachioed men with their quill pens taking care of waterfowl and fish business.
On a more serious note, Cave Hill was one of the first rural cemeteries established in such a way that would protect it from being repurposed over time. In the words of Cave Hillâs dedication speaker in 1848:
It must be guarded from the rapacity of the buyers and sellers of another generation. If this complete security cannot be gained, nothing is accomplished and we must abide, as best we may, the mockery and dishonor attached to a spot which is the cemetery today, and which may be the shambles to-morrow.
âŠWe adhere to the maxim, that the earth belongs to the living. That spot especially, to which we entrust the remains of our dead, belongs to us and to our children. It must not be given away; it must not be sold; it must not be taken from usâŠâ
I hope youâll take three minutes to enjoy this PBS affiliate video about Cave Hill. More than a final resting place, now itâs a community center and arboretum for the livingâmany a walker, jogger, and bird watcher enjoy its lovely grounds every day in addition to those who come to remember a loved one. The current management team has big plans for creating a dossier on everyone interred there, which, when the cemetery is filled, will be about 150,000 people.
I bet there are some fascinating Cave Hill stories in my readership. Please, dish!
It would make my day if you shared this story with someone who might enjoy it. Thanks in advance.
Iâll be back in a couple of weeks with July Trivia.
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When people hear the word âreparationsâ today, itâs usually in a context of compensating African-Americans or Indians for damages they suffered, including forced and unpaid work, or for theft of their land and livelihoods among other harms. As a reminder, Japanese-Americans received reparations after they were deprived of their liberty (internment) and for property that was confiscated from them during WWII.
Today, we broaden that lens and look at the instances when Ohio was carved up as a form of reparations to Revolutionary War veterans and other classes of people who Congress wanted to ârestore to good condition,â before Ohio became a state.
Before we go to this monthâs trivia, letâs get clear on the definition of the word reparation(s). I lifted this directly from Dictionary.com
Reparation: noun
* the making of amends for wrong or injury done:
In reparation for the injustice, the king made him head of the agricultural department.
* something done or given to make amends:
The prosecutor has requested a reparation of $32 million to victims of the crime.
Synonyms: compensation, satisfaction, atonement, indemnification
* Usually reparations.
* compensation in money, material, labor, etc., payable by a defeated country to another country or to an individual for loss suffered during or as a result of war:
The U.S. government eventually disbursed reparations to Japanese Americans who had been interned during World War II.
* monetary or other compensation payable by a country to an individual for a historical wrong:
The article is about reparations to Black people for the enslavement of their ancestors.
* restoration to good condition.
Synonyms: repair, renovate, renewal
REMINDER: Itâs the rare person who can answer all ten trivia questions without any prep. I couldnât answer them without a significant amount of research, either!
Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Answers in the footnotes.
QUESTIONS
All questions refer to this district map. For this quiz, try thinking of Ohio as a clock face. The districts in question start at the 12:00 position with the district labeled âThe Fire Lands 1792.â Weâll move clockwise from there.
All answers are in the footnotes.
* Moving to the 1:00 position on the map, we find The Connecticut Western Reserve 1786. When King Charles II granted Connecticutâs 1662 Charter, he defined it broadly and ambiguously. Settlers in the newly-chartered colony seized upon the ambiguities to make the largest claims possible, which stretched from the East Coast through Ohio all the way to the Pacific (which is also what Virginia did earlier). They refused to concede this little patch in The Ohio Country after a series of concessions to other colonies and countries for their western lands until forced to do so by Congress in 1786. Which of the following is true about the Connecticut Western Reserve? More than one may apply.
* Connecticut yielded claims to the region to Congress in 1786 so that Congress could establish the Northwest Territory.
* Connecticut drove a hard bargain when yielding its claims in 1786. When the Continental Congress created the Northwest Territory the year after the Connecticut cession, it was assumed that Connecticut, not the territory, was empowered to exercise political jurisdiction over the Reserve. The ambiguity lasted until the Constitutional Congress approved the "Quieting Act" in 1800, whereby Connecticut surrendered all governing authority.
* The Fire Lands (at 12:00) were carved out of the Connecticut Western Reserve in 1792, and the rest was sold to the Connecticut Land Company in 1795 to fund public education. If this is true, the only lands from the Connecticut Western Reserve that were given in reparation were The Fire Lands.
* How did the Fire Lands 1792 district get its name? More than one may apply.
* Itâs the shortened version of Fire Suffersâ Lands.
* It was set aside for anyone who owned Connecticut property that had been burned by the British during the Revolutionary War.
* Working for the British, Benedict Arnold raided and burned 140-plus buildings in New London, Connecticut, along with ships docked in the port. Those who suffered in this attack were eligible for land in Ohio as reparation.
* The Seven Ranges (at about 3:00), is sometimes referred to as the Old Seven Ranges, and was established the same year as the Connecticut Western Reserve (1786). The Continental Congress needed a survey system for a systematic expansion into Ohio, so the Seven Ranges was a demonstration project of sorts. The ranges were surveyed in what became the Public Land Survey System, still in use today (discussed in May â24 Trivia). After the survey was complete, the Secretary of War was to choose (by lot) one seventh of the land to compensate veterans of the Continental army. The rest of the lots were to be sold at auction in New York. Which of these lands were excepted from the New York auction? More than one may apply.
* A wealthy merchant, Arnold Henry Dohrman, aided the Revolutionary War effort at great expense while living in Portugal. Unable to fully compensate him monetarily, Congress granted him township 13 of range 7.
* After the Revolutionary War, Capt. Ephraim Kimberly, (Company of the 2nd Connecticut) squatted on some of the lands. Congress eventually granted Kimberly 300 acres for his services.
* Four sections in every township were reserved for future sale by the federal government in hopes they would bring higher prices because of developed land around them. So if this answer is correct, the federal government did land speculating there.
* Youâll have to squint to see this rectangular parcel on the Ohio River between The Seven Ranges at 3:00 and The Ohio Company First Purchase at about 5:00. Itâs called the Donation Tract and consists of only 100,000 acres. It was created after the Big Bottom Massacre of 1791 as a buffer zone that would shelter Ohio Company lands from further Indian incursions. To this end, a 100-acre lot would be given to any male, eighteen or older, who would settle on the land at the time the deed was conveyed (no land speculating here). More than one of the following is true about the Donation Tract.
* In 1818, lands not conveyed reverted to the federal government and were sold at the Marietta Land Office.
* This marked the first time that federal land was given without charge to specified settlers, predating the more famous Homestead Act of 1862 by seventy years.
* We canât determine whether the land really served as an Indian buffer zone for the Ohio Company lands.
* My favorite of all the âreparations landsâ in Ohio is the Old Military District because I grew up there. Look for it west of the Seven Ranges (covered in Q3) and south of the Congress Lands of 1799-1804. Contrary to what the name implies, many veterans did not settle there. Instead, they used their warrants to speculate. Which of the options listed below were located in the Old Military District and not available to Revolutionary War veterans? More than one may apply.
* Moravian Indian Grants.
* The villages of Schoenbrunn, Gnaddenhutten, and Salem, which were granted for the sole use of the Christian Indians.
* Land to build a road, between Wheeling to whatâs today called Maysville, Kentucky. This road became known as Zaneâs Trace, and Ebenezer Zane got the concession to establish ferries along the road to cross the Muskingum, Hocking, and Scioto rivers, along with several other land grants in the District.
* Starting at the southern border of Ohio at about 7:00, we have the sprawling Virginia Military District (1784). Why is it such an irregular shape, as compared to the others in the state?
* It is not surveyed into townships of any regular form. Any individual holding a Virginia military land warrant took land in whatever shape he pleased, provided no one else had claimed it.
* It was surveyed using the old English system of âmetes and bounds.â
* Since it was established before all the other Districts (1784), the others had to be surveyed around it.
* Squint your eyes for a little rectangle of land east of the Virginia Military District (1784) and south of the U.S. Military District (1796). It is called the Refugee Tract. How did Canadians and Nova Scotians qualify for land in this District?
* Look closely at the map around 8:00 to see the Symmes Purchase, named for Judge John Cleves Symmes of New Jersey in 1788 from the Continental Congress. It was one of the first areas settled in Ohio. Whatâs true about this area? More than one of these four may apply.
* Known as the Miami Country, it sits between the Great and Little Miami rivers.
* Symmes' men committed many errors while performing the survey, including using magnetic north rather than correcting for true north.
* Symmes sold land that he did not own, some as far north as Dayton, meaning that some early settlers found themselves squatters on the public domain.
* Not only did Symmes sell some land that he didnât own, but he did it more than once.
* Squint your eyes again as you find a tiny rectangle at about 6:00 within the Congress Lands 1798-1802. This is known as the French Grant because it was settled by French fleeing the Revolution in their home country. Why were French entitled to American land?
* They were descendants of French families who had aided the American Revolution, including the extended family of Americaâs favorite Frenchman, Lafayette (Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette).
* They had been defrauded by The Scioto Company which had collected some monies from the French without purchasing the land from the Ohio Company. When the settlers arrived their deeds were worthless. It was five more years before Pres. Washington stepped in and granted them free land in the French Grant, but they had to live on the land for five years in order to own it.
* There was a dispute between Michigan and Ohio over who owned the land identified in the area labeled âMichigan Survey 1836.â When was it finally settled? Fun fact: Those 468 square miles are also called the âToledo Strip.â
* During the War of 1812, but ground survey was not completed until 1817.
* In 1836, when the Michigan Territory gave up the âToledo Stripâ and received the large majority of the Upper Peninsula and Michigan.
* When Michigan became the 26th State on January 26, 1837.
* When the 48th Legislature of Michigan passed Act 84 of the Public Acts of 1915 providing for âa joint re-location and permanent monumenting of the line between Ohio and Michiganâ.
* In 1915 when the 81st General Assembly of Ohio passed the Michigan Act of 1915 (in answer d) under House Bill 701.
Intermission
This month, hereâs a podcast about Mad Anthony Wayne and the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Wayne National Forest in Athens County, Ohio, bears his name.
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When I visited Evansville, Indiana, on a bright summer day in 2021, its revived waterfront and fabulous murals captivated me. Since then, I delved into Timothy Eganâs book about the Midwestern Klan, where I discovered that Evansville was a hotbed for KKK activity in the 1920s. Unlike the Klan that terrorized the South during Reconstruction, its second wave looked beyond Blacks to hate and harass. It was nativist, focused on driving out Catholics and first-generation immigrants, as well as Jewsâtogether with Blacks theyâd always targeted, they manufactured a much wider target for hate.
Itâs important to note that Blacks had been unwelcome in Indiana since its first Constitution specified, âNo negro or mulatto shall come into, or settle in the State, after the adoption of this Constitution.â Intrigued by Indianaâs history of trying to maintain a WASP state (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), I decided the Evansville African American Museum would be a vital stop.
The museum sits in a neighborhood thatâs been called Baptisttown since the 1800s, in a building dating back to Franklin Delano Rooseveltâs New Deal Era. Constructed in 1938, it narrowly avoided demolition in the 1990s and opened as a cultural institution in 2007. Its story as compelling as those it narrates.
Evansville in the New Deal Era
By the turn of the (last) century, 54 percent of Evansvilleâs Black citizens lived in Baptisstown, and by WWI, the neighborhood became overcrowded to where a third of its residents had no access to sewage systems. Think for one second how miserable that must have been on a hot summerâs day (any day for that matter).
Racial segregation in Evansville was of course rooted in Indianaâs Constitutional âBlack Lawsâ but it was later exacerbated by racial restrictive covenants known as âdeed restrictionsâ banning Blacks from living or owning property in most parts of the city. The use of deed restrictions were widespread throughout the country, with more cities adopting them than not. Although the Supreme Court ruled the covenants unenforceable in 1948, it took the Fair Housing Act of 1968 to outlaw them.
But Indianaâs segregation predated deed restrictions. By the time the federal Home Ownersâ Loan Corporation (HOLC) analyzed Evansville neighborhoods in 1937, segregation was well-entrenched: 90% of Evansville's Black population lived in one of four neighborhoods. The HOLC outlined those four neighborhoods in red on the maps that they provided to lenders and insurance companies to use in deciding whether to do business in an area. Most companies avoided âredlinedâ neighborhoods, but if they did business there, it would be at a higher interest rate or insurance premium than offered elsewhere.
As I hinted earlier, FDRâs Public Works Administration (PWA) tried to ameliorate the nationâs Depression-induced housing crisis by building 51 projects in 31 cities (seven were in Ohio River cities, including Evansville). The PWA was not focused on desegregation. It followed a âneighborhood composition rule,â meaning PWA housing projects should reflect the previous racial composition of their neighborhoods. Legal scholars note that this violated African Americansâ constitutional rights, but that was a battle for another day. To Evansvilleâs credit, local leaders resisted efforts to place the housing project outside the city limits, or to use the PWA to clear the neighborhood for white residents, as had happened in PWA communities elsewhere, despite the guidelines.
Evansville is in the heart of Lincoln Country, so the communityâs name, Lincoln Gardens, resonated. For about $1m, Lincoln Gardens housed roughly 500 residents in 16 buildings of 182 low-cost apartments. It was the second PWA community to be built in the country.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt brought a touch of celebrity to Lincoln Gardens when she visited Baptisttown in November, 1937. Hereâs an excerpt from her âMy Dayâ newspaper column:
First we went to lay a wreath on the tomb of Private Gresham, who was the first solider killed overseas during the World War. Then to look at the slum clearance project in the colored section of the City, which is evidently a matter of great pride to the Mayor. He is very happy that this undesirable section from the point of view of housing, has been wiped out. He told me that the new houses would rent at approximately the same amount per room as the old ones which had been extremely high considering what they were. That is one point in any slum clearance project which has to be watched, for there is no use in providing new housing at a cost beyond the incomes of the former residents of the neighborhood.
As much as I love Eleanor, her fusty descriptions are cringy.
Visiting the Museum
On a balmy late-April morning, Ms. Janice Hale took me for a personal tour of the museum. She had lived in Lincoln Gardens with her mother and sister in the sixties, so her memories and reflections resonated deeply. She went on to a career in the Evansville Housing Authority at Lincoln Gardens, and has volunteered at the museum since her retirement more than a decade ago. Every community organization should be so blessed with the institutional and cultural memory that she brings to her work in Evansville.
The museum retains its shape as a brick apartment building, but with the addition of a semi-circular portico held up by columns shaped to resemble the baobab tree, native to Africa. Ms. Hale emphasized the tree's African mythology that says the ancestors' spirits are stored in its trunks, giving it the nickname, âthe tree of life.â This picture of the building from the architectâs website is better than mine.
Stepping inside the two-story gallery space, it was easy to figure out the original placement of the first- and second-floor apartment units. The museum preserved a one-bedroom apartment on the first floor using period furnishings. In the bedroom pictured below, the curators placed a marriage certificate on the wall above the rocking chair because cohabitation by unmarried couples in Lincoln Gardens was forbidden (that prohibition is illegal today). Its kitchen includes a gas-powered refrigerator that was standard issue for each original apartment (pictured bottom-right below and manufactured in Evansville by the Servel company). Imagine how it must have felt to go from a dilapidated home without sewage service to one with a bedroom or two, a private bathroom, a coal/wood-burning stove, and a refrigerator.
I tour a lot of community history museums that are little more than a final resting place for items cleared out of ancestral homesâcovered in dust and lacking curatorial vision. This one is not one of them. It places Evansville's Black history into three historical periods illustrated by displays and interactive featuresâincluding a Lego studio for kids.
A full history of Black life in Evansville is outside the limits of my newsletter, but The Indiana Historian, (available in full online) offers a tight summary. Dear to my heart is the fact that Evansville was home to the first free public library built north of the Ohio River exclusively for African Americans.
Perhaps youâre a person who might shy away from an African-American history museums and cultural centers, with concerns that it might be too painful or that the programs might produce feelings of shame. I felt two ways about the Black history I learned in Evansville. First, was admiration for people who persevered and even thrived under the American caste system.
Second, I honestly found it painful to look at some exhibits, most notably a childrenâs counting book. Look closely at whatâs inside and note the exaggerated features of the illustrated Black people and the profligate use of the N-word.
I am capable of feeling a lot of things simultaneously, including admiration and pain, as I felt in Evansville. There is a current debate about whether and how to teach Black history to schoolchildren and whether it might induce feelings of shame or result in outright psychological damage. I have been on a mission to educate myself on aspects of history that I wasnât taught in school, and Iâve learned a lot of disturbing stories. I have never felt personally responsible for things I didnât do, but I am responsible for holding myself and America to the standards we profess to ourselves and the rest of the world.
American history has shaped my worldview, character, and opportunities Iâve taken for granted. I regret that the history I learned in classrooms was incomplete. Evansville has opened my eyes a bit more widely to why we are the people we have become. I will make a point to visit Black history museums and cultural centers wherever I travel.
I invite you to share your experiences in Evansville, including visits to and memories of Baptisttown and Lincoln Gardens. If you know someone who might enjoy this, please pass it along.
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The more I learn about the Ohio Riverâs regional history and culture, the more I feel like Iâm taking a Virginia history class. Youâll see why when you take this monthâs trivia quiz! If you want a leg up, check out this prior newsletter concerning Virginiaâs land claims.
Note to my fabulous new subscribers:
Itâs the rare person who can answer all ten trivia questions without any prep. I couldnât answer them without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Answers in the footnotes.
QUESTIONS
All answers are in the footnotes.
The first two questions refer to this map.
* How did this huge swath of land (above in green) come to be named Virginia? Check all that apply.
* When Sir Walter Raleighâs self-funded settlement on Roanoke Island failed, he needed to curry favor with Elizabeth (the Virgin Queen) to finance another attempt. Part of his pitch was that the new country would be called âVirginia.â
* One word: hubris.
* Four words: The Doctrine of Discovery.
* In what order was Virginia subdivided into colonies? I have alphabetized the answers, so put them in order.
* Colony of Carolina.
* Colony of Maryland.
* Colony of Pennsylvania.
* Colony of Plymouth (Plymouth Colony).
* Refer to the map below. Virginia was still a huge state in 1783, even after it had been subdivided into the colonies in Q2. Which Virginia founding father, himself trained as a surveyor, authored a plan for ceding Virginiaâs northwestern lands to the Confederation Congress in 1784?
* Letâs talk about the Virginia Military District in Ohio. In return for ceding its land claims to the Confederation Congress in 1784, Congress granted Virginia roughly 4.2 million acres to provide military bounty land grants as payment (in lieu of cash) for its veterans of the American Revolutionary War. When was the remaining land no longer eligible to be granted to these Virginia veterans? Only one of these is correct:
* When the Northwest Territory was established in 1787.
* When Ohio became a state in 1803.
* On February 18, 1871, when any unsurveyed and unsold District land was ceded to the state of Ohio.
* In 1872, when the Ohio legislature gave this land to the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College (now The Ohio State University).
* The Northwest Territory was established in 1787 by the Confederation Congress. When did the Territory cease to exist?
* When Ohio became a state in 1803.
* When the Indiana Territory was finally settled into the states of Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois (1809).
* The Northwest Ordinance that established the Territory specifically prohibited slavery. I wrote about that here. Which of these is true of the history of slavery in this region? More than one may apply.
* Slavery was introduced to Illinois in 1719 by Philip Francois Renault who brought 500 slaves with him from San Domingo via the Mississippi River.
* While the Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery, this did not apply to any slaves already in the Territory when it was established (1787).
* Enslavers continued the practice by using contracts of indenture that allowed indentured workers to be bought, sold, and inherited.
* What is the importance of the Southwest Territory? Choose as many as apply.
* Itâs formal name is the Territory South of the River Ohio, and was created from lands of the Washington District that had been ceded to the U.S. federal government by North Carolina (which had once been Virginia).
* The new territory was essentially governed under the same provisions as the Northwest Ordinance, but the Article outlawing slavery was not applied to the Southwest Territory.
* Kentucky and Tennessee were carved out of this Territory.
* Virginia produced a lot of presidents and governors. Which Virginia-born governors in the six Ohio River states were slaveholders? More than one choice may apply.
* Ohio Governors Thomas Worthington and Allen Trimble
* Indiana Governors William Henry Harrison and Thomas Posey
* Illinois Governor Edward Coles
* Kentucky Governors George Madison and Christopher Greenup
* In a departure from the âVirginia Methodâ of surveying land, The Northwest Territory used the Rectangular Survey System (RSS). This system can be thought of as a grid that covers the U.S. What was the difference between it and the Virginia Method? More than one may be correct:
* The Virginia Method used chains and compasses to mark lines from a starting point, typically a natural feature such as a large white oak tree.
* Surveying in Virginia was not based on the metric system.
* Virginian surveyors were directed to define polygons that enclosed high-quality land for farming and to exclude areas with poor soil.
* Beginning with the Seven Ranges in present-day Ohio, the Rectangular Survey System has been used as the primary survey method in the United States. Which states do NOT use this method exclusively?
* Ohio
* California
* Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming
* Wisconsin
And thatâs a wrap for May. Do you have an interesting factoid to offer about Virginiaâs role in the 981 Project? Iâm all ears.
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ANSWERS
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Every class I took on the American Revolution focused on the thirteen colonies. In my limited knowledge of the war, the French and Spanish were doing their own things west of the Mississippi, leaving the British-owned but lightly settled Illinois Country in between that saw no real action. I had no idea that the southern part of the old Northwest Territory had been a theater of war until I got a postcard advertising the Filson Historical Societyâs Northwest & Indigenous Revolution Tour. It was time to expand my world view from where Iâd left it in high school.
Our main tour stops were Fort de Chartres, St. Genevieve, The St. Charles Heritage Museum, The Lewis & Clark Boat House Museum, Cahokia Mounds, George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, and its neighboring site Grouseland on the campus of Vincennes University.
France and Spain in the Revolution
The Bourbon kings of France and Spain were cousins. I would have had to know this to say that I forgot it. The two kingdoms were allied against the British during the Seven Years War, 1756â1763, (we call it the French and Indian War). France was badly beaten by the British during that war, and longed for vengeance. From the Seven Years War to the Revolution, the land west of the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, called Louisiana, went back and forth between France and Spain and involved a secret treaty.
Hereâs a video to explain how and when it happened. You might have to watch it a couple of timesâI did! The way these monarchs played with colonies reminds me of third-graders learning chess moves.
Anyhow, the upshot of all this is that through 1777, France covertly supported the Revolution with guns, weapons, and cash through a shell company (thanks, Ben Franklin!). French volunteers poured into the continent, chief among them Lafayette. After a decisive American win at Saratoga, France formally declared war on England in 1778. Spain joined France as an ally in 1779 without declaring war on England itself. As had happened in the Seven Years War, the clash of empires began spreading across the globe, heavily in the Caribbean, and the British cut their losses in North America.
Speaking of Franklin, Iâm enjoying the AppleTV series of that name starring Michael Douglas in the title role.
George Rogers Clark Takes Center Stage
Born near Charlottesville, Virginia, the founder of Louisville, Kentucky, George Rogers Clark played a key role in this story. We talked about him at nearly every stop on our Filson Society tour.
To set the stage for the Illinois theater of war, remember that the Seven Years War included the France relinquishing its Illinois territorial claims to England. At the start of the Revolution, the British relied heavily on native tribes to attack backcountry farms and settlements using guns and ammunition they provided. These attacks had the greatest threats to Virginians in Kentucky County (south of the Ohio River), which the Virginia General Assembly had created 1776. Yes, Kentucky was a Virginia county before it became a state.
At the age of 26, Clark requested and was granted public orders from the governor of Virginia to proceed against the British in the Illinois frontier. He also got a secret commission to launch an attack west into British-held territory. His goal was to seize Detroit, but he started easier targets (see the map above) which had few British forces to defend them.
In his most successful moments he (Clark) crossed over and acted as an Indian war chief: he used their tactics, employed their methods to create group cohesion, shared their sense of honor and justice, terrorized his opponents into believing in his savagery, and even committed what Europeans regarded as atrocities. At the same time, he could put on a uniform and transform himself into a Virginia gentleman. ~National Park Service
With Clarkâs victories in hand, after Franceâs recognition of the new American Republic, the Virginia legislature created the county of Illinois in 1778, comprising all the lands lying west of the Ohio River to which Virginia had any claim.
Clarkâs Legacy: In 1783, the Revolutionary War officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, and Clark returned to private life. Of importance to The 981 Project was Clarkâs role in allotting lands across the Ohio River from Louisville to men who had taken part in his campaigns. He also was appointed a commissioner to make treaties with tribes north of the Ohio River who were continuing their raids into Kentucky.
Fast forward to President Franklin Delano Rooseveltâs dedication of the Clark memorial June 14, 1936. Hereâs part of his address:
George Rogers Clark did battle against the tomahawk and the rifle. He saved for us the fair land that lay between the mountains and the Father of Waters. His task is not done. Though we fight with weapons unknown to him, it is still our duty to continue the saving of this fair land.
Now, letâs look at Clark in the present moment. An editorial for the campus newspaper, UVA Today, stands in counterpoint to the hero worship formerly bestowed upon Clark:
Clarkâs approach to Indian people was Jeffersonian. Jefferson had a scientific fascination with Indian people. But he shared the common view that Indians were a barrier to civilization. During the Revolutionary War, JeffersonâŠwrote (to Clark) that the best way to deal with Native people was âtotal suppression of Savage Insolence and Cruelties.â
Clark followed Jeffersonâs advice frequently following attacks on Shawnee villages, for instance, with the destruction of their houses and crops. His dealings with the Shawnees at the negotiations over the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785âwhich the Shawnee rejectedâfurther inflamed American relations with Native people and prolonged military conflict. No conquering occurred.
~Christian McMillen, UVA associate dean for the social sciences and professor of history
Indeed, Clarkâs star has tarnished, mostly because our country is reckoning with the legacy of âwhite men as conquerors and empire builders.â His monument on the campus of UVA calls him the âConqueror of the Northwestâ and it features Indian people braced for violenceâpossibly murder. It has been removed with the approval of the Board of Visitors.
Guy Lopez, a co-founder of the Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) at UVA, described seeing photos of the statue come down as âbittersweet.â Lopez had long advocated for its removal, but he also wishes the $400,000 bill to remove the monument could have been used to fund NAIS programs. His final point landed pretty hard with me: the Clark statue was the only public, large-scale depiction of Native Americans at UVA.
Iâve tried to give a broad view of history here, and to acknowledge our current struggle to interpret, celebrate, and sometimes shun historical figures. As always, I welcome all civil comments and invite you to share this with someone who might find it interesting.
Iâll be back with May Trivia mid-month.
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Welcome new subscribers! One monthly newsletter is devoted to Ohio River trivia, and always includes ten questions. Itâs the rare person who can answer all ten correctly without a deep dive into each topic. Do your best and have fun while learning something new.
Before delving into the trivia questions, Iâll prime you for this monthâs topic with historical background on higher education in the Ohio Valley.
* The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided for settlement and government of the territory and stated that ââŠschools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.â I talked about this when reviewing David McCulloughâs book, The Pioneers.
* Before the Northwest Ordinance was approved by the Confederation Congress, a group of Revolutionary War veterans became land speculators by forming the Ohio Company of Associates. They used their Certificate of Indebtedness (an IOU for unpaid service during the war), to buy half a million acres of Ohio land near the mouth of the Muskingum River.
* âThe appeal of this idea was that it offered to provide (a) a source of funds for the newly formed nation, (b) an opportunity for veterans of the Revolutionary War to get some value from the depreciated scrip in which they had been paid, (c) a scheme for orderly settlement of a frontier area, and (d) an opportunity for financial gain by the initial investors.â Source.
* âProvisions of the contract with the Confederation Congress included setting aside two townships in the center of the purchase for a university. These two townships were called âCollege Lands.â" Ohio University was established on them in 1808. Source.
QUESTIONS
Answers are in the footnotes.
* In 1828, Ohio University conferred an A.B. degree on John Newton Templeton. What is Mr. Templetonâs historical significance ?
* He is the namesake of the Templeton Prize, which honors people whose works âaffirm life's spiritual dimensionsâ with an award of over one million dollars. Past winners include Mother Teresa, physicist Freeman Dyson, and ethologist, conservationist, and activist Jane Goodall
* He was the first Black graduate of OU and the fourth Black man to graduate from a college in the U.S.
* Both
* In 1873, Margaret Boyd received her B.A. degree and became the first woman to graduate from Ohio University. Soon after, the institution graduated its first international alumnus from which country?
* France
* Turkey
* Japan
* This Indiana college was established in 1801 by William Henry Harrison (the ninth U.S. President) while he served as governor of the Indiana Territory. It is now a university. Name that university.
* DePauw University
* Valparaiso University
* Vincennes University
* In 2004, four college students set out to steal several volumes of some of the worldâs rarest books from the first educational institution west of the Alleghenies. This institution was established in 1780 by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and its rare books were valued at more than $5.7 million. Name the university.
* Spalding University
* Transylvania University
* Tusculum University
* Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act on July 2, 1862. The Act committed the federal government to grant each state at least 90,000 acres of public land (30,000 acres for every senator and representative in the state). States could sell these lands to benefit higher education by building new institutions or improving existing ones. Which Ohio River Valley institutions are recipients of the 1862 Morrill grants? (choose as many as apply).
* Ohio University
* The Ohio State University
* University of Kentucky
* West Virginia University
* âWhoâ were land-grant institutions designed to serve? (Choose all that apply)
* âSons and daughters of toilâ
* Residents of states where training in agriculture, mechanical arts, and military science were largely unavailable
* Future farmers, teachers, and engineers
* On Aug. 30, 1890, Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd President of the United States, signed the Second Morrill Act of 1890 into law. This Act required states to either establish separate Land-grant Institutions for Black students or show that admission to a 1862 land-grant institution was not restricted by race. Which Ohio River Valley institutions received these funds? (choose as many as apply).
* Kentucky State University
* West Virginia State University
* Lincoln University Missouri
* Land-grant institutions were intended to emphasize pragmatic disciplines such as agriculture, science, and engineering without excluding classical studies. Riddle me this: if a land-grant university cuts majors or reduces faculty in foreign languages, public health, community planning, educational administration, and its math doctoral program (the only one in the state), is the university still aligned with the intent of the land-grant act? (choose as many as apply).
* According to West Virginia Universityâs President, Gordon Gee, it is.
* Perhaps it aligns, but it doesnât pass the sniff test.
* How did the federal government acquire the land used to finance land-grant universities?
* Native American tribes, as ceded through treaties and agreements
* Native American tribes, through seizure
* Both a. and b.
* Ohio State University (OSU) Professor Stephen Gavazzi has written two books on land-grant universities. Soon after publishing the 2021 book, he learned that 600,000 acres from 108 different Indian tribes and bands lands were taken and sold to fund OSU. Which of these states did this land come from? (choose all that apply)
* Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin
* Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska
* Florida, Mississippi
* California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington
The answers are in the footnotes. Good luck!
Intermission Message
Iâm on a research trip with the Filson Historical Societyâs Northwest & Indigenous Revolution Tour. Iâll meet local experts, architectural historians, artisans, and curators at the conjunction of the Ohio River Valley at the Mississippi River Valley. Follow my daily highlights on Instagram.
ANSWERS
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I heard from lots of folks about the last newsletter, âWhen Virginia Claimed Pittsburgh,â who were shocked by the power and rivalry of colonial governors. Heads up: to succeed in this monthâs Ohio River Trivia quiz, you need to read it first. This monthâs trivia is focused on Pittsburgh with a little Philly and Pennsylvania sprinkled in for flavor.
Okay, as a reminder, the answers are in the footnotes. Good luck!
QUESTIONS
* Which of these nicknames is/has been used for Pittsburgh?
* City of Bridges
* The âBurgh
* The Paris of Appalachia
* All the above
* Only a. and b.
* âHell with the Lid Offâ refers to:
* A book of that title exploring the ferocious five-year battle between Pittsburgh and Oakland for NFL supremacy during the turbulent seventies
* Pittsburghâs thick smog (coal smoke plus fog)
* After a decade as a republic under Oliver Cromwell, England ârestoredâ the monarchy under King Charles II in 1660. The restored king settled a large loan with William Penn's father (also named William) by granting him a ârestoration colonyâ of roughly 40,000 square miles of land west and south of New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Which two of the following are also restoration colonies?
* New York
* New Jersey
* The âLower Countiesâ of Delaware (New Castle, Sussex, and Kent)
* South Carolina
* The British colony of Virginia fought Lord Dunmoreâs War on two fronts. First was against the Shawnee and Mingo people of the Ohio Valley. Second was with another colony. Name that colony.
* In what year was Pittsburgh finally established as being in Pennsylvania, not Virginia?
* 1768, when the Mason-Dixon survey was completed
* 1779, when Pennsylvania and Virginia agreed to extend the original Mason-Dixon line westward to a point five degrees from the Delaware river
* In 1783, when Britain formally recognized the independence of the United States in the Treaties of Paris
* When Pennsylvaniaâs Act for Gradual Abolition of Slavery was signed in 1780, were there more enslaved workers in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh?
* One of the most-photographed scenes in Pittsburgh is the Duquesne Incline on Mt. Washington. The first Pittsburgh funicular was the Ormsby Mine Gravity Plane, built in 1844. In the course of The âBurghâs industrial history, how many inclines were in service?
* 11
* 22
* 23
* Which of these foodie stories about Pittsburgh is true?
* The Big Mac was invented there in 1967 by a McDonaldâs franchisee
* The Klondike Bar was invented there in 1929
* To make any salad a âPittsburgh Salad,â simply add french fries on top
* Chipped ham was invented by the same restaurant that invented the Klondike Bar
* All the above
* Which of these is NOT a Pittsburgh first?
* First PBS station
* First Ferris Wheel
* First Ice Capades
* First nighttime World Series Game
* First American hospital
* This Pittsburgh native graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1962 and attended Pittâs Graduate School of Child Development before going on to be a broadcaster in children's television. This TV personality is recognized by more than forty honorary degrees and several awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 1997 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002. Who is this native Pittsburgher?
Intermission Message
I always put a little intermission between the questions and answers to keep you from inadvertently seeing the answers before youâre ready. With vacation season straight ahead, Iâve included two posts from my other newsletter. I hope youâll enjoy them.
The April 8 solar eclipse will be visible throughout most of the Ohio River Valley. NASA will livestream it. Hereâs the official website with cool details and interactive features.
ANSWERS
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The more I learn about the European kings who colonized the world, the more they blow my mind. For example, I was just in Barbados and picked up a book about its founding. Essentially, one of King Jamesâs buddies fell into debt with some London merchants and figured the best way out was to start a colony in the Eastern Caribbean, as one does. He asked his king if he could have one, and the sovereign basically said, âSure, take âem all.â
Itâs always who you know.
Something not dissimilar happened when that same King James claimed North America from sea to shining sea and called it Virginia, after his cousin, Elizabeth I. Never did James mind the French and Spanish who had been there long before Jamestown failed, or the native people whoâd been there for thousands of years before that. Colonizing kings were like toddlers, claiming everything as mine, mine, mine!
Weâre on a roll here, so letâs talk about how William Penn got that huge land grant for the colony of Pennsylvania. Once again, debt was a factor. King Charles II of England (grandson to James I) had a large loan with Penn's father (also named William). When Penn pere died, the king settled the debt by granting Penn fils about 40,000 square miles west and south of New Jersey. Penn called it the âsylvaniaâ (Latin for âwoodsâ). Penn + sylvania = Pennsylvania.
Now, to the promised story about Virginia and Pittsburgh. This map will help. As you can see, there were boundary disputes aplenty, including the one in the southwest corner thatâs of interest to us.
To set the stage, the French and Indian Wars, which ended in 1763 with The Treaty of Paris, included a proclamation from King George III that forbade all settlements west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. The Ohio Country was delineated as an Indian Reserve.
Surprise, surprise, white settlers kept exploring and moving into these western lands, leading to a series of conflicts, mostly with Shawnee people, who had historical hunting rights south of the river, from which they launched cross-river attacks.
Enter Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of the colony of Virginia. In early 1774, he directed the Virginia militia to seize Fort Pitt and rename it Fort Dunmore to prepare for marching into war with the Shawnee. Dunmore used shrewd logic to justify this power play against Pennsylvania. He admitted that the land once belonged to Pennsylvania, but claimed that they lost the claim during the long French and Indian War, and the crown naturally absorbed title. Bottom line: Dunmore said Pittsburgh belonged to Virginia as a crown colony (Pennsylvania was a ârestorationâ colony). As the kids would say, what a baller.
Dunmore/Virginia/Britain prevailed against the Shawnee Chief Cornstalk at the Battle of Point Pleasant in October, 1774. Before all of his troops arrived home, the Revolutionary War had kicked off with battles at Lexington and Concord. Dunmore, a British loyalist, was now in trouble.
I canât tell you Dunmoreâs story any better than the The Baltzer Meyer Historical Society Library and Museum:
Dunmoreâs British Royal Governorship made him loyal to the crown. As a result, he became an adversary of the colonists. The day after the beginning of the Revolutionary War in April 1775, Dunmore ordered the seizure of weapons and gunpowder from the colonial magazine in Williamsburg, Virginia and had them transferred to a British ship. His deceptive reasoning for this action was his concern that rebellious slaves might get their hands on the arms. Furthermore, on November 7, 1775 Dunmore issued a proclamation offering freedom to all slaves if they became members of the British military and declared their loyalty to the British resistance. Because slavery was the dominant form of colonial labor in Virginia, Dunmore concluded that the fear of emancipation and the arming of slaves would quash colonial insurrection. These contradictory measures, indicating his British allegiance, put him in the crosshairs of colonial revolutionaries.
Further angering the rebellious colonists was Dunmoreâs engagement in biological warfare by inoculating slaves with smallpox and sending them into the Virginia mainland. This measure backfired because most of his enlisted slaves died from the disease. Despite his villainous attempts at sabotage, the gunpowder incident and Dunmoreâs Proclamation, Fort Dunmore was regained and renamed Fort Pitt during the colonists fight for independence,
But wait, how did Pennsylvania reclaim Pittsburgh?
Dunmoreâs ill-fated attempts at securing British power and increasing colonial hostilities led him to seek exile. His asylum took the form of boarding the British warship Fowey off the coast of Yorktown. With Dunmore out of the picture, the boundary line controversy was finally settled during the Revolutionary War when it was agreed to extend the Mason Dixon Line, which had been halted during Pontiacâs Rebellion of 1763.
West Virginia Encyclopedia finishes the tale:
Dunmore was one of the most unpopular figures of his day, accused of deliberately delaying his troops while the Indians attacked Lewis at Point Pleasant and despised for emptying the powder magazine at Williamsburg at the start of the Revolution. Most places in Virginia named in his honor were later renamed.
Stay tuned for March TriviaâŠsome of the facts covered here will help you win!
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Hello, beautiful people. Itâs trivia time again!
Those who read my last newsletter reviewing David McCulloughâs book about settling the Ohio Territory will remember that the first white settlement on the Ohio River was named Marietta. In a prior quiz, we revealed that Marietta was named for Queen Marie Antoinette, whom Revolutionary veterans thought had done more than anyone else (even Ben Franklin) to convince King Louis XVI to support their effort. So letâs explore more of the French influence in the Ohio River Valley this month, shall we?
QUESTIONS
* Whatâs the name of the county where Marietta, Ohio, is the county seat:
* Lafayette
* Washington
* Orleans
* The French named the state of Illinois after:
* An Indian name for warriors plus the French adjective ending âoisâ
* An Indian name for the Devilâs Kitchen Lake
* Itâs a combination of ILLegitimate and the French adjective ending âois.â Together, referring to an illegitimate claim on the area by Spain
* Terre Haute, Indiana, got its name from the French phrase terre haute meaning âhigh land.â French-Canadian explorers and fur trappers named it in the early 18th century to describe the unique location above the Wabash River. At the time of its founding, the area was claimed by both the French and British, making it the border between:
* Canada and Louisiana
* Illinois and Indiana
* France and Spain
* Napoleon Bonaparte sold the Louisiana Territory to fund:
* A wedding dowry for his step-daughter Hortense EugĂ©nie CĂ©cile Bonaparte so she could become Queen of Holland by marrying NapolĂ©onâs brother, Louis Bonaparte
* A war with the British
* Both
* In the 1740s, French officials in Canada were concerned over British encroachment into the Ohio Country, which they claimed to be part of New France. They built a series of forts in the 1750s to create a permanent French presence. Their fort, built in whatâs now Pittsburgh, was named for the governor general of Canada. What was the name of that fort?
* Name the French marquis who fought in the Continental Army against the British in the Revolutionary War. If youâve seen the musical Hamilton, you already have the answer. The same man became the first foreign citizen to address the U.S. House of Representatives on December 10, 1824. Citizens named dozens of cities across the country in his honor.
* Which American helped Lafayette write the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen for the French? It inspired the French Revolution.
* The French were famous for building their North American empire on the fur trade. Traders bartered marten, fox, otter, and mink, but beaver became the main staple of the fur trade. The silk hat replaced the beaver hat after a certain member of the British royal family began wearing one in the mid-1800s. Name this man.
* Which city is home to the first Catholic university in the Northwest Territory? Hint: Founders named it for the âfirst and greatest Jesuit missionary.â
* Louisville, Kentucky took its name from King Louis XVI of France in appreciation for his help during the Revolutionary War. The city was founded by the brother of either Meriweather Lewis or William Clark, leaders of the Lewis & Clark Expedition of 1804â1806. Was the founder of Louisville a Lewis or a Clark
Intermission Suggestions
Last year I wrote about Tecumseh and the outdoor drama that tells his story in Chillicothe, Ohio. Hereâs a podcast about the Ohio-born Shawnee chief from âOhio Mysteries,â written and narrated by Paula Schleis. Enjoy!
You might enjoy this article I wrote about the transformative power of travel.
ANSWERS
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The other night, my spouse and I were scrolling through the channels and came upon the 1972 pilot of M*A*S*H. Matt and I had watched the CBS reruns on a black-and-white TV every night as we pulled a meal together in his tiny college apartment. We loved the showâs zany characters and its stick-it-to-the-man pacifism and didnât notice (much less mind) the laugh track. So we curled up on the couch to relive the experience. Hereâs the pilotâs plot line: The Swampâs Korean houseboy, Ho-Jon, gets accepted to study at Hawkeyeâs alma mater, but he has to pay to get himself there. The camp raises money by raffling a weekend in Tokyo with a nurse, much to the chagrin of Hot Lips and Burns.
Wow. How did we overlook this in the eighties?
It didnât end there. The original cast featured a third doctor in the Swamp with Hawkeye and Trapper John named âSpearchuckerâ Jones. Yep, he was Black. Our heads swiveled from the TV to each other fast enough to warrant a chiropractic visit. Spearchucker? That was a bridge too far. M*A*S*H will just have to remain a fond college memory in chez Rich.
Why did I lead with this little âwokeâ anecdote when the headline promised a book review? Because the taste and experience of any reviewer grounds their review, and tastes change over time. David McCulloughâs approach to his subjects is of a style that no longer appeals to me. He was one of Americaâs most decorated historians and that alone is reason to read The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West. To his credit, the title clearly tells us he will center WASP men in telling the history of settling the Northwest Territory. I could have chosen not to read it, but Iâm not narrow minded. After a lifetime of reading history books that do the same thingânot noticing the bias any more than I noticed âSpearchuckerâ in M*A*S*H forty years agoâI see it everywhere now and have recalibrated the bar for historians writing today.
If McCullough were submitting this manuscript to his publisher in 2024, Iâd like to think he would have used his prodigious skills and massive platform to tell a more fulsome version of history. For example, The Pioneers could have included philosophical and religious differences in how native people and white settlers viewed the land. And if he didnât want to go that broad, Iâd have appreciated a good grounding in the scriptural interpretations of New Englanders who âsettledâ the âuntamed wilderness.â Surely, the author came upon transcripts of sermons justifying the murder of fellow human beings in the process of establishing the first white settlement in the Territory, Marietta, Ohio, as a âCity upon the Hill.â
You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
~Matthew 5:14
Criticism aside, I learned a great deal from reading The Pioneers. McCullough emphasized throughout the book how these early settlers worked tirelessly to establish the Northwest Ordinanceâs three âremarkable conditionsâ into their new communities:
* Freedom of religion
* Free universal education
* The prohibition of slavery.
I should say that these are New England values, not those of Virginia, which claimed much of the Territory before the Revolution and whose land and government bordered the southern shores of the Ohio River after the Northwest Ordinance. New Englanders settled southeastern Ohio first, but the Virginians entered soon after and started flexing.
Meet the five pioneers of McCulloughâs title:
* Manasseh Cutler was a Yale-educated New England minister and a leader of the Ohio Company of Associates. This land company bought a large tract in what is now southeast Ohio from the United States after the British ceded it at the end of the Revolutionary War. He vigorously pushed for the Northwest Territory to be slavery free.
* General Rufus Putnam also a founder the Ohio Company of Associates and led the first group of settlers in founding Marietta, Ohio. Later, he served as a judge and a member of the Ohio state constitutional convention.
* Ephraim Cutler, the eldest son of Manasseh, was not as well-educated as his father had been, yet, he led the charge in establishing a common school system and the Territoryâs first university, Ohio University, where he served as a trustee for 29 years.
* Samuel Hildreth, a physician, naturalist, and historian who became a member of the Ohio Legislature. With the help of Ephraim Cutler and others, he published Pioneer History in 1848, followed by Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio in 1852.
* Joseph Barkerâs path to prominence was his important skills as a carpenter, architect, and shipbuilder. Some of the many ships he built at his farm were used for that scoundrel Aaron Burrâs expedition, which I must write about soon. Barker reached the rank of colonel of the militia during the Northwest Indian War, was named a justice of the peace in 1799, and elected to serve as the judge of Washington County's common pleas court from 1830 to 1842.
Hereâs a picture I took of Aaron Burrâs plaster death mask at the Blennerhassett Island Museum in Parkersburg, West Virginia. The placard on the left explains this custom.
Slavery in Ohio
I want to zero in on the third âremarkable conditionâ of the Territoryâthe abolition of slavery. General Putnam and Ephraim Cutler were delegates to the Territory convention in 1802. Both were shocked when delegates of the Jeffersonian persuasion tried to find a way around the anti-slavery provision of the Northwest Ordinance. Among the ex-Virginians in the delegation was speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Edward Tiffin, who had manumitted his slaves before moving to the Territory in 1798 and evidently longed for the lifestyle of his birthright.
He and the other wily Virginians figured they could get away with it if they simply redefined the meaning of slavery. Hereâs what they proposed: âNo person shall be held in slavery, if a male, after he is thirty-five years of age, or a female, after twenty-five years of age.â
New Englanders Cutler and Putnam were very much opposed to slavery, but Cutler carried a special zeal for the issue that his father had championed before the Continental Congress when he negotiated the land deal. Before the vote came to the floor, Cutler fell ill. On the day of the vote, one account held that Putnam and another man carried Cutler to the convention on a stretcher to be sure he had done his part to vote the measure down, which they did.
But wait, thereâs more! Tiffin didnât get his way in allowing slavery, but he cast a tie-breaking vote to deny the voting franchise to the new state's 337 African-American residents. Hereâs an interesting article on how Ohio Blacks eventually prevailed many years later. Iâll definitely be writing about this in a future newsletter.
Iâm pretty sure I never learned most of this in Ohio History or American History. Did you? Did any of this surprise you?
Thatâs all for me this month. Iâll be back in February with The 981 Projectâs Trivia Quiz. Thanks for reading and sharing!
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Hello, friends. I hope your December was better than mineâI came down with Covid and basically napped my way through the last two weeks of 2023. I managed to listen to a couple of good books and catch up on my podcasts, some of which Iâll list in the intermission between questions and answers for this monthâs quiz. Oh, and I knitted this scarf.
If you come down with something this year, my best advice is to BE SICK. Donât half-ass your respite, as it will only prolong your misery. Be sick, then be well. Of course, this advice applies to those who arenât a brief illness away from homelessness, of which there are too many in this country.
This month weâll focus on the interesting history of Americaâs 35th state, West Virginia. Before we begin, ask yourself what you may have been taught (or picked up) about the reasons West Virginia split from Virginia. I knew it had something to do with slavery since it happened when Virginia seceded, but was slavery the point? I was a blank slate before starting The 981 Project. It never occurred to me that the Northwest Territoryâs slavery boundary north of the Ohio River played an oversized role in the drama.
Iâve taken several of this monthâs quiz questions and answers from this new book, The Fifth Border State: Slavery, Emancipation, and the formation of West Virginia , 1829â1872, by Scott A. MacKenzie.The author argues that West Virginians experienced the Civil War in the same ways as the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. These states were both pro-Union and pro-slavery. With that hint of whatâs ahead, letâs go to the quiz.
QUESTIONS
* Which was the largest slaveholding state before the Civil War?
* Before the Civil War, which then-Virginian city on the Ohio River did a brisk business in slaves that were headed for New Orleans, the countryâs largest market?
* Virginiaâs first constitution (1776) limited suffrage to (white male) property holders (slaves were definitely considered property). This tilted representation to slaveholders of the Tidewater and Piedmont regions. With planters setting the stateâs legislative agenda and tax policy, the rest of the population felt it got short shrift in government services while paying disproportionately high taxes. By 1850, white European immigrants were entering the region in droves, notably the Irish and Germans, and the percentage of enslaved residents, while never high, was trending downward. What percentage of the population in the three largest northwestern counties of Virginia were enslaved in 1850?
* 6.2%
* 4.9%
* 2.0%
* Lincoln was elected in November, 1860. On New Yearâs Day 1861, the white citizens of Parkersburg met to discuss secession after considering a move taken by South Carolina. Name that South Carolina event.
* The Commonwealth of Virginia called a Constitutional Convention for February 4, 1861. The districts in northwestern Virginia sent thirty-two delegates to the convention of 135 in total. Was the predominating mindset of these northwestern delegates?
* Fast-ultimatumists who insisted on demanding Lincoln acquiesce to southern demands or else face secession.
* Anti-coercionists who sought compromises with the North until they became untenable.
* Unconditional Unionists who opposed secession at all costs.
* Tax reform became part of the secession debate. The northwesterners argued that if they were going to fight the Union to protect slavery, the slaveholders should bear that cost. In 1859, the Commonwealthâs tax on slaves amounted to $326,487.60. If the northwestern delegationâs proposed tax reform passed, how much would that tax revenue increase to in the following years?
* $750,500 (more than 2x the existing)
* $1,000,000 (more than 3x the existing)
* $1,750,500 (nearly 6x the existing)
* The tax reform proposal got a majority pledge of support on April 11, 1861. What national event prevented bringing it up for a floor vote the following day?
* Secessionistsâ attack on Fort Sumpter, South Carolina.
* President Abraham Lincolnâs proclamation calling forth the state militias, to the sum of 75,000 troops, in order to suppress the Southern rebellion.
* On February 13, 1861, delegates representing all counties in Virginia met to decide how the state would respond to recent events, especially Abraham Lincoln's election and South Carolina's secession. They voted to remain in the Union and hoped that they could reach a compromise to defuse the situation. Two months later, the same men passed The Virginia Ordinance of Secession, dated April 17, 1861, which declared that ââŠthe bond between Virginia and the United States of America, under the U.S. Constitution, is dissolved.â Delegates at the Virginia Convention of 1861 voted 88â55 to approve the ordinance on April 17 and a statewide referendum confirmed secession on May 23. This meant the northwestern counties needed to act quickly in order to remain part of the Union. What percentage of white men in the northwestern counties voted to stay in the Union?
* 52%
* 67%
* 75%
* Within three days of the vote to remain in the Union, General George B. McClellanâs army occupied the region, notably Wheeling, Morgantown, Parkersburg, and Clarksburg. Pouring oil on troubled waters, McClellan said, âI have ordered troops to cross the river. They come as your friends and brothers (and) as enemies only to the armed rebels who are preying upon you. Your homes, your families, and your property are safe under our protection. All your rights shall be religiously respected,â (which included the right to own slaves). The capital had to be moved from Richmond. Where was the first capital in (what would eventually become) West Virginia?
* Charleston
* Morgantown
* Parkersburg
* Wheeling
* Technically, the part of Virginia that stayed with the Union was still Virginia. Rejecting secession required a reorganization of the state, which it did on June 13 in the âDeclaration of the People of Virginia Represented in Convention at Wheeling.â The first governorâs inaugural address did not mention slavery, rather, emphasized loyalty to the Union. The June 13 declaration authorized Governor Pierpont to vacate disloyal state- and county-level officers, but he couldnât find their replacements. Many prewar elites rejected the thought of submitting to the Lincoln-aligned regime. With all this in mind, and considering the esteem in which the Union-loyal citizens held Virginia, they named their new state West Virginia. Kanawah was a strong contender for the state name. What were the others? Choose three.
* Allegheny
* Appalachia
* Vandalia
* Western Virginia
Quiz Intermission Message
Here are the podcast and book recommendations I promised earlier.
With the Napolean movie out (to lackluster reviews), you might enjoy this series on the emperor from real historians at The Rest Is History podcast. I was fascinated.
* Part One: Young Napoleon: Teenage Revolutionary
* Part Two: Young Napoleon: The Shadow of the Guillotine
* Part Three: Napoleon in Egypt
Harvardâs in the news a good bit right now. Hereâs a memoir of a privileged white girl growing up in segregated Virginia who became active in the civil rights, student, and antiwar movements, and eventually became a historian of the very conflicts that helped to shape the world she grew up in. The author, Drew Gilpin Faust, became the first female president of Harvard. I listened to the audiobook, which she narrated.
Answers
If I were a presidential candidate and someone asked me what made West Virginia choose the Union over secession, I would confidently say that it was slavery, but not on a moral opposition to the institution. When the enslavers used their legislative power to extract disproportionate taxes from those in the northwest while demanding them to provide free protection against the Federal Army, they forced their fellow Virginians to remain in the Union. Most West Virginians approved of slavery and actually expected the Union to preserve the institution, as did residents of the other four border states: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri.
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The Ohio River was Americaâs longest slavery border. It shaped the culture and institutions of the entire region before the Civil War, and into the present day. As I continue expanding my body of work here, Iâll show you what I mean.
First, a note about slave borders. We usually think of the Mason-Dixon as the dividing line between slave- and free-states, but it wasnât intended for that use when it was surveyed to settle a colonial land dispute. The original was only 233 miles long and didnât even cover the entire southern border of Pennsylvania because parts of it werenât involved in the land dispute. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 made use of the old survey in defining free states.
The Ohio River (981 miles) is significantly longer, and the 1787 Northwest Ordinance banned slavery on its north side.
The map Iâve inserted below illustrates the Ohio River as an extension of the Mason-Dixon for political purposes related to slavery. This newsletter will not conflate the two borders. Iâm a purist in this matter.
Why ban slavery in the Northwest Territory?
Growing up in Ohio, my childish mind assumed a moral superiority of ancestors who nobly rejected chattel slavery. It never occurred to me that Southern states actually insisted on the prohibition when the Northwest Ordinance was drafted.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for the Study of the American Constitution has the clearest explanation for how this went down (bold words my emphasis):
The sixth article of the Ordinance prohibited slavery and indentured servitude in the territory. When Congress considered the Ordinance in July 1787, Massachusetts delegate Nathan Dane, the author of the Ordinance, removed article six because a majority of the states attending Congress were from the South. Southern delegates, however, encouraged Dane to restore the prohibition because Southerners did not want a competing slave economy north of the Ohio River. It was also expected that most immigrants to the territory would come from Northern States and thus would probably oppose slavery. Furthermore, by overtly prohibiting slavery north of the Ohio, Congress tacitly would be allowing slavery in the Southwest Territory. With freedom just across the Ohio River, a fugitive slave clause was added to the sixth article. The Articles of Confederation had an extradition clause aimed at runaway criminals but no fugitive slave clause. When the delegates to the Constitutional Convention then meeting in Philadelphia saw the fugitive slave clause in the Northwest Ordinance they without much debate inserted a similar clause into the draft Constitution. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 proved to be somewhat inconsequential in returning runaway slaves, but the much harsher Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was one of the important steps leading to the Civil War.
Truth being stranger than fictionâŠ
Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder, signed the Northwest Ordinance. By that time, he was fathering children on the enslaved Sally Hemings. Their relationship is repugnant to my modern sensibilities, but not on racial grounds. Jefferson started exploiting her when she was 14 or 15. His eldest daughter was just a year older than Sally. In a bizarre twist, Sally was half-sister to Jeffersonâs deceased wife Martha. Her father, John Wayles, took Sallyâs mother as his âconcubineâ and fathered her five children.
My mind reels at the mental and moral gymnastics required of everyone in slave cultures. As a white woman, I suppose itâs natural that I cogitate the white wives of planters. How did they cope with the billy goats theyâd married and their enslaved progeny?
Family values sure do shift over time. Letâs keep that in mind during the ongoing culture wars.
Thank you for reading The 981 Project.
Invitation to Winter Burrow
Come to Eastern Kentucky for Winter Burrow, where Iâm speaking on the racial history of the Ohio River Valley. Iâll start my session with a quiz, and faithful readers will have a leg up on the rest of the audience. The conference is December 15-17 at the Hindman Settlement School.
Thereâs always someone in the audience who adds to my understanding of this topic. Maybe that will be you.
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