It Happened Here -- The Battle of Valcour Island

Part 1, The Generals' Fleets

Rte. 9, S.Plattsburgh

From a distance, Valcour island looks much as it did in 1776. Heavily forested, it lies a few hundred yards off the western shore of Lake Champlain.  Even its lighthouse, built in the 19th century appears to be succumbing to the growing forest.  It was here in the little bay at the southern end of this island that Benedict Arnold chose to make his stand against the invading British.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1776 the British and the Americans were in a frantic competition to build fleets. Both sides faced formidable challenges.  General Guy Carleton ordered a gunboat and two schooners the Maria and the Carleton stripped down and dragged overland past the rapids-chocked central section of the Richlieu River that drains Lake Champlain* while a 180 ton, three masted ship, the Inflexible, was taken apart, carted around the rapids and reassembled at St. Jean above the rapids.  At least 12 gunboats were shipped from England in pieces and also assembled at St. Jeans, as were some 30 longboats which would carry the army and their provisions. Finally, a large barge-like scow, a "radeau," was built at the Richlieu River shipyard to carry the heaviest guns to reduce the stone fort Ticonderoga, occupied by the Americans. Their greatest advantage was that the fleet that had come to the relief of Quebec could supply the British expedition with all the naval stores it needed; all the largest and best cannon it could support; and ship carpenters and sailors drawn from the world's greatest and most professional navy.

The Americans, in contrast, started from almost nothing, other than a few carriage-less cannon left at Ticonderoga**. Overnight, Skenesborough (Whitehall) at the head of Lake Champlain became a bustling port and shipbuilding center that Tory Phillip Skene might have dreamed of. 

Main Street, Whitehall

Hermanus Schuyler, son of General Phillip Schuyler, head of the Northern Department oversaw the construction of shipways, sheds and workshops necessary for the creation of a shipbuilding port. Along Adirondack rivers, running down to the lake, axemen and sawyers cut timbers and planks for vessels.  General Schuyler and others begged and cajoled Continental officials for cordage, gunpowder, ship fittings and all manner of things necessary for military vessels. (The massive British occupation of New York harbor frustrated American efforts to build frigates at Poughkeepsie, giving Schuyler an argument for reallocating desperately needed ship stores to his command.)

On Rte 9 south Prospect Ave. exit ramp, Poughkeepsie

 Site of H.Schuyler House
 built in Stillwater on Rte. 32

Rte 22, Essex

    

          



But the biggest obstacle was the recruitment of experienced seamen and ship carpenters. The war had created a privateering bonanza for rebel seamen, and few experienced sailors were willing to exchange the money to be made in preying off British coastal commerce for the dangers, privations, and uncertainty of service on the lakes of upper New York.  Farmers, tradesmen and those with a passing familiarity with watercraft would have to serve as "Arnold's navy". The General was able to recruit about 200 ship carpenters from Connecticut and New Jersey only by offering them wages higher than all other naval personnel, except those of Continental Navy commander Esek Hopkins.

Lake Shore Rd. Chazy Landing

Beyond knowledge of the approximate number of enemy boats Benedict Arnold had little detailed knowledge of the strength of forces arrayed against him.  But he knew he could expect to be outsailed, outgunned and outfought by the Royal Navy's professionals.  After exploring the lower reaches of the lake and examining several possible anchorages, the Connecticut general and sometimes sea captain found for his little fleet the maritime equivalent of a foxhole!
Valcour Bay at the southern end of Valcour Island was shallow and narrow. With his boats arrayed across it there was no way he could be outflanked, and little chance enemy boats could break through his line. With prevailing winds coming from the north, his enemy would have to sail past his position, up the main part of the lake, then tack back and forth to get to the Americans--a naval equivalent of holding the high ground. Finally, he hoped the shallows would keep the enemy's larger, more heavily armed ships out of range of the smaller American fleet.

It was a bold desperate  plan, but bold desperate plans would become the hallmark of Benedict Arnold--from a predawn amphibious attack on Ticonderoga with Ethan Allen,--to a march through the howling midwinter Maine wilderness,--to the attack on the city fortress of Quebec in a snowstorm,--to a desperate flanking assault on the Breymann Redoubt at Saratoga,--to, after his disillusionment, a plan to hand over West Point to the British.

*A bit of geography--Lake Champlain empties into the Richlieu River, which empties into the St.Lawrence; so the southern end of the lake is "above" the northern end; to go "up lake" is to go south; "down lake" is north. 
**In 1775 Henry Knox had stripped the fort of its best cannon, making an epic journey to Cambridge Massachusetts to force the British evacuation of Boston. (see NYSHMs: It Happened Here 4/21/13.)


Next time, Part 2 --A Fierce but Unequal Contest.


Marker of the Week-- A couple of years ago  the 8/2/15  issue of "NYSHMs:  It Happened Here" featured Newport, New York's Linus Yale, lock inventor and octagonal house builder.  Discussed in this edition was Orson Squire Fowler the builder/promoter of concrete octagonal houses. Recently in Redhook, NY a beautiful example of one of Fowler houses was recognized  by a Pomeroy Foundation's Roadside Marker. Here it is.

It Happened Here -- Making the Pledge

1891 had been a good year for the editor of The Youth's Companion,  a weekly periodical that began its life as a moralistic tract for children, 64 years before. Though no longer exclusively dedicated to encouraging youth "virtue and piety" and warnings against the "ways of transgressions," TYC had maintained its wholesome image while beginning to successfully transform itself into a family magazine with stories and poetry written by the likes of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson and Jack London, and was riding high on a wave of popularity of reading-for-entertainment.  Decades before radio and television would become evening focal points for families, mothers and fathers could get together with their children to read to each other and share stories and poems.

1738 Helderberg Trail, Berne (Albany Co.)

Another reason for TYC's success--(in 1891 it had 500,000 subscribers)--was its marketing program.  Premiums were awarded to boys and girls and adults who sold subscriptions. The more subscriptions, the better the "prize".  Stationery, hair brushes, watches, air rifles, sewing machines and even a piano could be earned.  But the most successful promotion was a cotton United States flag, marketed to teachers. For most of the 19th century, before school centralization, every neighborhood, every town had one or more one-room schools and if teachers could be encouraged to seek a flag for their schools, platoons of eager young subscription salespeople would be unleashed on local communities. By the beginning of 1892, 26,000 schools were flying American flags from TYC.

Main St. at Erie, Mount Morris

A third reason for editor David Sharp Ford's sanguinary outlook was the people he had hired for his sales/promotions department.  One was a relative, James B. Uphams; the other was Ford's pastor, or more accurately--former pastor, Francis Bellamy.

 Bellamy had been born in Mount Morris, New York, in the Genesee Valley, educated at the University of Rochester, and become a Baptist minister. After a short ministry at the Baptist church in Little Falls, New York, his eloquence and personality recommended him for a much larger church, the Dearborn Street Church in Boston, where he became acquainted with Ford.  But there had been a problem. Bellamy's reading of the gospels had led him to a belief in Christian Socialism.  In this belief he was supported/inspired by his cousin, Edward Bellamy who had written a best selling book, Looking  Backwards: 2000 to 1887, imagining a utopian socialist society at the beginning of the 21st century.  It probably didn't take too many sermons about "Christ, the Socialist" before the elders of his church (merchants, businessmen, and good capitalists) inevitably decided he and their congregation was not a good fit.

The Bellamy Home,  Mt.Morris

 Socialist Bellamy might also have seemed a poor choice to organize a campaign to sell more periodicals, too, except that he enthusiastically embraced an idea that Uphams had thought up.  1892 was the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas.  Arguably, Columbus' discovery might be considered the first act of what transpired in the settlement of North America, the development of Democracy, the divorce from the Old World, and the creation of a new American Civilization.  Developers had planned a grand extravaganza of patriotism, the Columbian Exposition for Chicago, beginning on the anniversary.  Uphams suggested the idea of a nationwide public American flag ceremony in which students in schools across the country would pledge their allegiance to the American flag and the nation which it represented, on the opening day of the Columbian Exposition.  And, of course, the foremost purveyor of American flags to schools through periodical subscriptions would benefit immensely.

But sales was not foremost in the mind of the preacher from Mt. Morris.  Francis Bellamy worried about the divisions and diversity in American society that threatened to pull it apart. Civil War reconstruction had been brought to a sudden end only a dozen years ago. Could the children of Confederate veterans, raised on romantic hopes that "the South will rise again!" be trusted to become good American Citizens, especially since they were no longer under the watchful eyes of federal troops?  And more ominously--What about the flood of immigrants, in recent decades?--People from southern and eastern Europe were so different from the earlier immigrants from northern and western Europe--many totally unfamiliar with notions of democracy, exhibiting strange beliefs, customs and values.  A common pledge of allegiance was no guarantee of acceptance of American democratic norms and values but if taught and practiced in American schools Bellamy believed it could be an important tool in assimilation and training in American citizenship.

This belief drove Bellamy to proceed with missionary fervor.  Bellamy talked to teachers and to state conferences of school superintendents. He got the National Education Association to recognize The Youth's Companion as a sponsor of the Columbus day observances. He spoke with President Benjamin Harrison to proclaim October 12th, the opening day of the Columbian Exposition, "Columbus Day" and he lobbied Congress for a resolution recognizing the day as the "National Public School Celebration of Columbus Day" with a flag ceremony being a central part of the day.

The support had been lined up, and initial preparations made,  but a pledge and a ceremony had still not been written.  David Sharp Ford asked Francis Bellamy to do it because 'you have a knack with words.' Bellamy created a short, dignified, statement that took about 15 seconds to recite. " I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all."*

 Over the years several changes were made.  Bellamy, himself, added a second "to" in the second phrase "to the republic" for better balance.  In 1923 an American flag conference replaced "my flag" with "the flag of the United States" for greater clarity. The following year they added "of America".  A big change came in 1954 when "one nation, indivisible" became "one nation, under God, indivisible"**, as the result of extensive lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's group. Their efforts were supported by people concerned about Communist infiltration in society. They reasoned that Communists, being atheists would be reluctant to recite the pledge with the words "under God" in it!

There have been many court challenges to the pledge.  Jehovah Witnesses and some other Christian groups have objected to having to swear fealty to a "graven Image" (the flag.); Atheists have objected to the "under God" clause; Conservatives and Libertarians have objected to the compulsory aspect of having to submit to a pledge of allegiance or an implication of subordination of the individual to the state***; even some members of polytheistic religions have raised objections to the phrase "under God", not "Gods."

Like many elements of our complex society the Pledge of Allegiance will continue to be subject to reinterpretation and reevaluation.

Main St. at Lackawana Av., Mount Morris

*Bellamy also created a flag salute which began with the participants holding their right arm, palm down in front of their chest. As they recited the Pledge they would straighten their arm and raise it palm down, to about a 60 degree angle where at the end of the salute they would rotate their wrist to a palm up position. By the early 1940's it became apparent that this salute was distressingly similar to the German Nazi salute. Congress changed this salute in 1942 in favor of the hand-over-the-heart salute used to this day.
 
**Bellamy spoke publicly advocating the separation of church and state. He would not have supported this change.

***Gene Healy, senior editor of the Cato Institute, a  conservative "think tank" spoke out against the Pledge in 2003 calling it "a ceremony of subordination to the government" and a ritual that "smacks of promoting a quasi-religious genuflection to the state."


Marker of the Week--Do you suppose Duchess Meghan appreciates how much harder it used to be to be a British Royal?

U.S. Rte 4, N. of Rte 149, Ft. Ann

      I'll bet she never gets sent to the colonies to dig wells :)

 

It Happened Here-- Troy's Samuel Wilson/America's Uncle Sam


Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Years are known as the "Holiday Season".  We are now deep in what could be described as the Patriotic Holiday Season, beginning with Armed Forces Day, proceeding to Memorial Day, Flag Day, Juneteenth, and 4th of July. In keeping with the season I  planned to write a couple posts on the development of a national consciousness. 

Uncle Sam Statue, 3d St and River St.

I have heretofore
hesitated to write an article on Troy's Samuel Wilson/ America's Uncle Sam because "everyone" knows the story of the Troy meat packer who during the war of 1812 packed his barrels of beef and pork destined for U.S. troops marking them with the initials U.S. which the troops who received them declared came from "Uncle Sam." But then I have come across a few interesting details that perhaps not everyone knows; I have collected pictures of some NYSHMs and other markers and monuments perhaps not everyone has seen; and (hell!) a good story always bears repeating.

Between on and off ramps of Congress St.Bridge, Troy

                   

                                                             



                        Uncle Sam 
                        Nickname of Samuel Wilson                                              of Troy which was given near
                       here to United States from
                       marking of US on military 
                        supplies in War of 1812 
                       State Education Department 1962


History brushed into Samuel Wilson early in his life, when on an April night in 1775 he and his family sleeping in their home in Menotomy  (later Arlington) Massachusetts were awakened by one Paul Revere thundering past warning that the British were coming.  Samuel's father, an active member of the Committee of Safety, and a minuteman and two of his older sons took up arms and fought in the battle of Lexington and the running battle that surged through Menotomy later that day. One source reports that Samuel (age 8!) with others participated in the capture of British supply wagons from the retreating Regulars. Two months later Samuel's father was wounded at the battle of Bunker Hill.  In 1780 the family moved to Mason, New Hampshire and the following year Samuel enlisted in the army.  With the war far away and drawing to a close, young Wilson was employed guarding and shepherding livestock and assisting butchers in slaughtering animals and preparing the meat for shipment to the troops. After his service, Wilson assisted his older brother Ebenezer and learned the trade of brick making. 

Site of Wilson Farm, Prospect Park

Ferry Street, Mt. Ida is in the background

In 1789 the two set off for Vanderheyden, N.Y., a growing town with new construction and an increasing demand for bricks.  When they arrived they discovered the citizens had changed the town's name to Troy! Finding an excellent source of fine clay on the outskirts of the town, on a large hill called Mount Ida, they bought the property and by later that year E and S Wilson, brick-makers was in business. In a few years many large houses and public building in Troy would be constructed with bricks from E and S Wilson.

  

82nd Third Street, Troy

Oxcarts and freight wagons might be adequate for delivery of bricks locally, but for customers in other towns, river transport was the only practicable mode of delivery.  Hudson River sloops, and flatboats propelled by oars or sail, plied the river regularly. In 1793 the Wilsons leased the river side of what would become 43 Ferry Street, and built a wharf.  This same year E. and S. Wilson took a new direction becoming meat processors and packers.  The wharf from which bricks could be shipped could also receive livestock from farms up and down the Hudson, and send off barrels of processed meat. By 1812 the Wilsons' packing business had eclipsed their brick making enterprise, employing 100 people and processing 1000 head of cattle weekly. Their large slaughterhouse operation occupied several blocks from Congress street to Jefferson, along the waterfront.

Despite the size of their workforce the brothers Ebenezer and Samuel apparently maintained a friendly paternalistic attitude to their workers, being called "Uncle Eben" and "Uncle Sam" by some of them.*

The war of 1812  brought new opportunities.  In October 1813 Elbert Anderson, of New York City won a contract to supply the federal troops of New York and New Jersey with provisions. To help him fill his contract, Anderson advertised in the newspapers for a slaughterhouse.  E and S Wilson answered the ad and were contracted to supply 2000 barrels of pork and 3000 barrels of beef.

Undoubtedly, the proximity of the Wilson's meat packing operation to Army headquarters at Greenbush (later Rensselaer) aided their selection.  Soon E and S Wilson were producing large numbers of barrels of meat stamped or  branded EA--US for Elbert Anderson--United States.

The stage was set for the creation of a legend.  In one version a traveler arriving by boat at the Ferry street dock saw large numbers of barrels stamped EA--US on them and inquired about them.  An army guard,  guarding the shipment, or dockworker employees of Wilson responded that the initials stood for the contractor and "Uncle Sam," who has the best beef, owns everything around here, and is feeding the whole army.  Another version has it that a sizeable number of Army trainees at the Greenbush Cantonment had enlisted from Troy, and some had been former Wilson employees.  Knowing about Wilson and where the meat had come from, they referred to it as "Uncle Sam's." From there, the notion that government provisions and supplies were "Uncle Sam's" spread rapidly.  By 1815 several newspapers (mostly critical of the Federal government) had referred to provisions, property or regulations as "Uncle Sam's." The meme had been established.

In 1817 Samuel Wilson moved to Catskill, with his family, to help his younger brother Nathaniel and his family set up a brick-making and meat processing operation there. The two families moved into a large attractive house that ten years before had been the scene of the wedding of Martin Van Buren, an Albany politician who would become president in 1837. With the clay from the Catskill creek and the wharf they built along it they hoped to replicate the success E and S Wilson had in Troy. 

West Main St., Catskill

Bridge over the Catskill Creek named for Samuel Wilson

With brother Nathaniel's business launched, Samuel Wilson bought a house in Troy in 1821 and returned there in 1822. He lived there the rest of his life, dying in 1854.  He was buried in the nearby Mt. Ida cemetery. His remains were removed to a family plot at the Oakwood Cemetery a few years later

              

Oakwood Ave., Rte. 40, Troy

Monument at S.Wilson's grave site

Original stones

There are few truly original ideas, verbal associations, memes, etc. Most  have antecedents. The association that {"Uncle Sam" = the U.S. government} may have begun to enter the American political vernacular before Samuel Wilson's meat packing contract with Anderson and the Army. An article in the December 23, 1812 Bennington Newsletter has been cited; as was a March 23, 1810 journal entry of a young midshipman, Issac Mayo bemoaning his first experience with sea sickness.  He writes, that could he have gotten ashore " I swear that Uncle Sam, as they call him, would certainly forever lost the services of at least one sailor." Over the years, there were enough challenges that the citizens of Troy went to the trouble of waging a successful campaign before Congress in 1961 to get Samuel Wilson declared "the progenitor of America's national symbol of Uncle Sam." Whatever the first genesis of "Uncle Sam" before many years the Uncle Sam metaphor was being widely used in the press and appearing in political cartoons, sometimes merging with, sometimes differentiating himself from "Brother Jonathan" a Yankee figure that came to represent the American people.  By the end of the Civil War, Uncle Sam had eclipsed Brother Jonathan. After the War, Uncle Sam began to appear in cartoons more as he is represented today. Cartoonist Thomas Nast (who shaped our modern image of Santa Claus, and created the elephant and jack-ass symbols of the two major parties,) began to draw Uncle Sam with a lean, bearded Lincoln-like visage, and dress him in red and white striped pants, blue coat with tails and top hat with stars around the brim.  A last major reworking of Sam would be done by James  Montgomery Flagg.  Flagg would take a powerful British recruiting poster featuring Lord Kitchener pointing at the reader declaring "(Lord Kitchener) wants You" (to join the Army).  Using his own image, he would rework it with Uncle Sam: "I WANT YOU FOR THE U.S. ARMY, Nearest Recruiting Station. With nearly 4 million posters produced for World War I and almost as many for World War II his image of Uncle Sam was firmly established in American culture.

From the Gazebo display at Prospect Park, Mt. Ida, Troy

*Skeptics have pointed to the fact that in the several newspaper obituaries of Samuel Wilson none of them mention that Wilson was ever referred to  as "Uncle" by his workers or that he was the origin of the Uncle Sam meme. It is equally possible that newspapers were reluctant to relate undignified facts and stories about a man who had become such a wealthy, and respected pillar of the community.

Marker of the Week--a question from last time--

What New York town/city gets its name from the Algonquin phrase--
"Uppuqui-ipis-ing" "Reed covered lodge by the watering place"?

Rte 9, near Sharon Drive/Holiday Inn Express, Poughkeepsie

 

It Happened Here--A Royal Sketch

Besides immigrants and refugees in the late 18th and early 19th centuries America attracted quite a few tourists--Europeans curious to see for themselves the "frontier," Indians, and the most intriguing experiment, American Democracy.  Most notable would be Alexis de Toqueville, who would write the classic Democracy In America.   Preceding him would be a trio of brothers, the eldest of whom would become the last King of France*.

Louis Philippe had spent several years wandering in Switzerland, Scandinavia, and Germany. Originally he had supported the French Revolution and served in the Armies of France, but being a member of the aristocracy and a cousin to the king he was always distrusted by the succession of french revolutionary governments. During the Reign of Terror his father was guillotined, his young teenage brothers imprisoned in Marseilles, and he had fled France. Eventually, his mother succeeded in getting the boys released by the more moderate French Directory with a promise that the three would exile themselves in America.

Falls at Letchworth State Park

In October 1796 Louis Philippe  arrived in Philadelphia and was joined by his siblings, the  Duke de Monpensier  and the Comte de Beaujolais a few months later. Determined to see the American frontier the trio, plus Baudoin, Louis Philippe's longtime servant from his earlier exiles, and a dog, whose name has been lost to history, who had shared the younger brothers imprisonment set off. Louis Philippe documented their travels in a journal**.  First they visited the capital city, attending John Adams' inauguration, then they visited Mount Vernon. The newly retired President Washington graciously entertained them and suggested a route, producing a map, marking it out in red ink. Their adventure took them through rural Maryland, backwoods Tennessee and Kentucky, Ohio and western Pennsylvania, before following Lake Erie into New York. A planned highlight of their journey was to be Niagara Falls.  Montpensier produced a sketch and later a painting of the falls. A talented artist, the middle brother might have secured a place for himself in French art history were not most of his works destroyed in the Revolution of 1848. On their way to Rochester the young aristocrats crossed the Genessee river. Beujolais took his older brother's challenge and produced a sketch of the falls on the Genesee that would later be the centerpiece of Letchworth State Park.

Washington St. between Pultney &Main Sts., Geneva

Then on to Geneva, New York, where they stayed at a new three story hotel in the wilderness, built by the incredible Charles Williamson. Williamson, developer/promoter of the vast Poultney landing holdings, would found towns, and build roads, a race track and an opera house to try to attract wealthy farmers, southern planters and investors.** Taking a boat down the length of Seneca Lake, the future king and his brothers landed at Watkins Glen where they explored the glen before continuing south.
They continued on to Mill's Landing, on the site of Catherinestown, home of the powerful Seneca woman Catherine Montour at the beginning of the American Revolution. In the early 19th century the town would become known as Montour Falls. There, Louis Philippe would take his hand at sketching "She-Qua-Ga," "The Tumbling Waters"  The sketch and later painting would survive the Revolution of 1848 to eventually be housed at the Louvre, Paris.

              

End of Genesee St., Montour Falls****

"She-Qua-Ga"

Louis  Philippe would become King after his uncle, Charles X abdicated.  Ironically another sketch (more accurately, a caricature) would contribute to his downfall. It would show a jowly middle aged man, Louis Philippe, gradually devolving into a pear! Other sketches from the pen of Charles Phillipon would also make fun of the King or criticize his actions.  At one point Phillipon was jailed for 6 months, on the charge of "contempt of the king's person". When released, Phillipon continued his stream of caricatures as political support for the king eroded. A better known, more widely circulated version of the pear caricature was produced by artist Honore Daumier. Following its publication the pear became something of a symbol of the rebels, appearing on walls and buildings all over Paris, and eventually France. By 1848, after riots and protests became widespread, Louis Philippe abdicated and fled to England.

*To emphasize his popular support his supporters would call him "King of the French" (the people), not the traditional "King of France" (the territory)
**A short readable account of this trip is available on line.  See Morris Bishop, "Louis Philippe in America," American Heritage, 1969 /www.americanheritage.com/content/louis-philippe-america
***The expansive-thinking Mr Wilkinson will doubtless be the subject of a future post.
 ****The actual date of the sketch was 1796.



Marker of the Week--a question for next time--

What New York town/city gets its name from the Algonquin phrase--
"Uppuqui-ipis-ing" "Reed covered lodge by the watering place"?