Reading History Again; this time Memoirs...one of Major Robert Rogers (remember him from "Turn")

I read a dry sounding title, "Narratives of Colonial America - 1704-1765" Edited by Howard H. Peckham; published in 1971 as one of "The Lakeside Classics" by R.R. Donnelly & Sons.

The little volumes were published each Christmas from 1903 until 2015?

Anyway, they are sweet little books; I've found a couple in my local library (we live in the Great Lakes region).

In 1704, Sarah Knight, a widow and business women working as a sort of financial advocate for a young woman who needed help collecting the estate of her late husband, traveled alone through the wilderness between Boston and New Haven to convince his family to part with the assets.  She extended the trip to include a sojourn in New York. Then she needed to return to Boston.
All this travel was done on horse back (probably riding side saddle); she accompanied the post rider, who made trips regularly.    She was terrified of water and could not swim; the post riders did not have time to coddle her as they swam their horses to cross rivers, so she was afraid and soaked to the skin (in Autumn) frequently.  The inns were most often horrible with bad food she could not eat; on occasion, strange men were bedded in her room!! The round trip lasted 5 months (she stayed in comfort with relatives much of the time). She accomplished her mission.

About 50 years later, Major Robert Rogers, (a tall, young, capable officer in the French and Indian War rather than the fiend portrayed in the AMC Series "Turn") journaled about a stealth attack he arranged with his Queen's Rangers troop of about 100 men on a Tribal village in retaliation for their savage treatment of English captives and for generally supporting the French.  It was a long trek to the village and a longer route back. A serious logistic failure by another officer nearly got them all killed.

6 other interesting memoirs accompanied the ones mentioned above.  The book made me feel as if these 8 people, gone for hundreds of years, were each writing me a letter about their experiences.

Grandmother's Birth Anniversary was Yesterday...

My Father's Mother had an unusual first name: Aeleta (later spelled Aleta); it seems to be an ancient first name that makes the rounds every few centuries. The name means "Gift of God": and I can understand why my great-grand parents chose that name. Born in 1890 in either Kittaning or Bradford PA, she was a very late, last or near last baby in a family; older sister was 20 when she was born.

In the photo above, she is a young Mom (about 30, since my Dad is about 1- likely it's Spring or Summer, 1920.) The location would likely be either Chicago where they lived or maybe Kittaning PA where they visited her family. It's nearly 100 years ago.

Her upbringing in Kittaning was rather idyllic: family reasonably well off, she had a pony and spent a lot of time in the horse barn with the "hostler"--man hired to see to the horses and buggies. Dad said she terrorized the town as a little girl by riding too fast in her little buggy with her pony on the streets.

She moved to Chicago about 1913 to seek her future (as many people did in those day; Chicago was the place to be). Between the wars and the depression, life could have been easier for her, I guess. Much as it was for many in those days.  My Grandfather was born in Sicily; came to Chicago as a baby. He was a conductor on the Chicago "L" and he was really handsome; I guess I can understand what happened there.

I wonder whose shadow we see in the lower right.

Aelita's actual birthday was February 22. So she always got a day off school for her birthday (if it fell on a weekday) because in those days, GW birthday was celebrated on the actual day. The joke was, instead of George Washington's Birthday, they called it "George Birthington's Wash Day". She said that all the time. She's been gone a long time, passed away suddenly on Easter Day in 1961--she had just turned 71. 

"Wilderness at Dawn - The Settling of the North American Continent" by Ted Morgan

Lately, instead of eclectic patterns of selecting (usually fiction) books, I focused on works of American-centered history.

"Wilderness at Dawn" refers to the early settlement of  North America. Strange, we think "that Columbus discovered America": no, he was trying to find a short way to China, didn't know where he was. He never set foot on mainland America, landing on Hispaniola, etc.

The European name of the continents came from another voyager, an Italian trader, Amerigo Vespucci. Though he may have fabricated reports of some voyages, he realized he was not in China or anywhere near it; he called the new lands Mundus Novus, New World.  I am nearly 70 and I never knew that. (Maybe I didn't pay attention that day.)

The book does justice to the First Immigrants, which is how we might consider The Tribes. This book was published in 1993; the theory is that a group of people of Asian origin became trapped on the Bering Land Bridge (more than 30,000 years ago) when one of the many Climate Changes (how could this happen? Where were their SUV's?) caused rapid melting of glaciers; the people could not go back to Asia, so they followed their game animals east into (what we call) Alaska. Then, successive generations over the many thousands of years, filtered south over NA and SA.

In North America, sadly, with all the skills these people had and learned, the author says they never figured out metal smelting, coal burning and harnessing water and wind power. (Gold? Silver?) Their great civilization,  the Mound Builders, was based on the Many slaving to acquire Grave Goods for the privileged few; they buried their wealth; human sacrifice, polygamy for the rich and cannibalism were part of the scene. 

The Tribes were not equipped to succeed against the European infiltration of Spanish soldier-explorers and priests after wealth and souls; then the French came with priests and hunters seeking trade in the North. Finally, the British came. They needed a foothold in NA along with other Powers; they too wanted wealth--and they needed a place to dump all their "younger sons" of Nobles, jail birds and whores. Those amounted to settlers, many settlers. And there was So Much Land!

All the Europeans brought disease germs! The author mentions that the only disease Europe may have gotten in return: Syphilis--somehow the early Americans had that.

The book does not "know" about the Jamestown Re Discovery, my current obsession. But describes each major settlement and events leading up to the American Revolution.

Interesting, he covers the laws, plans and surveying procedures used to distribute newly opened lands to military veterans and many others. We never learn about the Surveyors as we learn about Explorers, War Heroes, Cowboys, etc. The Surveyors were many and led hard lives; the nerds and geeks of their day.

I have not scratched the surface of all the interesting material and "fun-facts" in this companionable book. (had fun writing the review, however.)

Never Saw a Cloud Like this Before...

Found in Southern Mississippi one fine Spring Morning in 2017

I read about the Luna Moth in one of Barbara Kingsolver's novels; couldn't picture it in my mind.

I looked up the Google Image; I'm glad I did. I was able to quickly recognize a living example of the  breed when I saw it in a state park in Mississippi last year.

It looks like a plastic or paper toy? A work of art? I did not see it fly. It was not in the mood so we left it completely alone.