Neddy's Palaver

Fly your flags this week, September 16th through 23rd, in tribute to the United States Constitution. This coming week is Constitution Week.

“The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution encourages you to celebrate Constitution Week, September 17 through 23. This year commemorates the two hundred twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of the United States of America. In 1955, the DAR began the tradition of celebrating Constitution Week by successfully petitioning Congress to set aside this week annually to officially observe the oldest document still in active use that outlines the self-government of a people.” ( www.dar.org, September 2007)

This photograph is from “My Picasa Albums.” It is of Constitution Hall, Washington, DC, which was built in the 1920s by the Daughters of the American Revolution as a tribute to the U.S. Constitution. In 1928, the Daughters of the American Revolution began work on a building as a memorial to the United States Constitution. They commissioned John Russell Pope, architect of the Jefferson Memorial, to design a concert hall. DAR Constitution Hall is the only structure erected as a memorial to the Constitution of the United States of America. DAR is the largest women’s patriotic organization in the world, with over 165,000 members in all fifty states and eleven foreign countries.

• Honoring the Constitution
• Constitution Week 2005
• Constitution Week II

The image, Constitution Hall, was originally uploaded to the Internet by barneykin. It was posted here by Neddy of .

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“On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive, Who remembers that famous day and year….” ~~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.”

In honor of this day and the many American patriots who fought for freedom during the years of the American Revolution, I have created a slideshow of some of those patriots’ graves: Patriots of ‘76.

If you would like to listen to appropriate music while viewing the Patriots’ Graves slideshow, click this little arrow to hear America’s Liberation Song, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, and then open the slideshow in a new tab or page. It is music that expresses the spirit that once motivated America, “a giant filled with a terrible resolve, unleashed against tyrants and oppressors.” It was performed at the funerals of Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, and at the memorials for the victims of September 11th in Washington, New York and London. This version is sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the language style of the Old Testament of the Holy Bible.

Come Again No More
Life in America’s early days was not quite as easy as it is today.

“There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears,
Oh, Hard times come again no more.“

Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) was one of America’s most prolific and best songwriters, leaving behind more than 300 songs of many varieties. As he aged, Foster focused on writing nostalgia songs with feelings of lost youth, home, family, and friends. Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More” (published 1855) falls into that category. The basis for the melody was a tune that Stephen Foster had heard as a small child in an Negro church in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania.

Foster was writing of the “hard times” in America, prior to the Civil War. He sang this particular song quite often in his latter days, which proved tragically prophetic for Foster as when he died on January 13, 1864, at the age of 37, he had only 38 cents to his name.

Hard Times, Come Again No More” has always been one of my favorites, bringing tears to my eyes as I think of the “hard times” endured by my family who trod this Virginia soil during the era after the War Between the States. This song is performed by vocalist Thomas Hampson and instrumentalist Craig Rutenberg. It is from the Library of Congress, courtesy of the Van Cliburn Foundation, Cliburn Concerts and the Bass Performance Hall, Fort Worth, Texas.

Thank you WaPo for remembering our greatest American, George Washington.

Fleshing Out a Founding Father - washingtonpost.com

Mount Vernon Additions Provide New Entree to George Washington’s World

By Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 24, 2006; Page A01

A decade ago, the people who run Mount Vernon noticed many of their visitors knew little more about George Washington than that he was the country’s first president.

Beginning Friday, visitors there will be able to learn much more about him in two new buildings. On their way to the historic mansion, they’ll pass through an orientation center where they will get history about Washington and his home (one short film is narrated by game show host Pat Sajak). And on their way out, they will pass through an extensive museum and education center.

During wartime, some give all, some give some, and some are left to tell their tales. Lola was blessed to return home from World War Two and her tale is now published on the Internet: “Lola Was a Soldier”.

Lola was one of those courageous young American women who signed on for volunteer service as a soldier during World War II. She participated in the European and North African theaters of the war. Amazing young women like Lola served and sacrificed for freedom. Younger generations need to be reminded of the incredible wartime contributions of the people who went before them. Lola’s name is entered at the Woman In Military Service For America Memorial where she is a charter member.

Lola Anderson was but a young woman during wartime when she observed the poster of Uncle Sam pointing his finger directly at her, saying “I want you for the U.S. Army”. She signed up, and she says that in those days in the Army, there was NO “hurry up and wait”, as she was quickly trained and sent out to do her duty, as her patriotic forebears had done in earlier times. Lola is Lola (Anderson) Peach, a member of Fairfax County Chapter, NSDAR, of Vienna, Virginia.

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The image, World War Two Soldier, was originally uploaded to the Internet by barneykin. It was posted here by Neddy of .

On 8 June 1783, General George Washington, upon his disbanding of the Continental Army, addressed a missive to the governors of the thirteen orginal states. Here is what the “Father of His Country” wrote:

“Now I make it my earnest prayer that God would have you and the State over which you preside, in His holy protection, that He would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens and the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field, and finally, that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. I have the honor to be, with much esteem and respect, Sir, your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble servant. George Washington.”

The words quoted above are said to be inscribed on a bronze tablet adjoining the Washington pew in Saint Paul’s chapel in New York City. Someone please, remind me again about the debate over “separation of church and state”.

Cross posted at “Blogging the Revolution”.

Overture of 1776 ~ is a great piece of modern music (18mb MP3), written for the United States Military Academy, by composer Thomas C. Duffy of Yale University. LISTEN while perusing this site. Overture 1776 was composed in honor of West Point’s bicentennial and was premiered there on 25 August 2002. The composer created a work of American music to replace Tchaikovsky’s Overture of 1812, as he believed it time that a great nation had its own music to celebrate American Independence, rather than music depicting the Russians versus the French. Using the Overture of 1812 as his model, he created a piece depicting the struggle between the British and the American colonials, including fireworks and cannons. The old tune God Save the King, now known to Americans as My Country ‘Tis of Thee, is countered by Chester, the anthem of the American Revolution, and the country’s unofficial national anthem until 1931. He includes other contemporary tunes such as Yankee Doodle, The White Cockcaid (played by the Acton, Massachusetts Militia as they marched to the Concord Bridge on April 19, 1775), and the World Turned Upside Down (played by the British as they surrendered to George Washington). This is true American music, celebrating and honoring the music of the Revolutionary period and of those patriots who secured our liberties and who built our country so long ago.

Eleanor Parke Custis was the adopted grand-daughter of George Washington. “Nelly” was one of four children of Martha Washington’s son “Jackey” Custis who died young. Nelly was born March 31, 1779, at Abingdon Plantation, Virginia, present site of Ronald Reagan National Airport. She was part of the Washington household, appearing in the famous Edward Savage painting of the family. Her grandpapa Washington provided Nelly with a very good schooling.

When Nelly married Lawrence Lewis on Feburary 22, 1799, it represented the joining of the Washington family and the Dandridge/Custis family, as Lawrence was the son of George Washington’s sister Betty (Washington) Lewis. They lived at Woodlawn Plantation; see the previous post for a picture of their home from the side.

The illustration is from “Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington by his Adopted Son George Washington Parke Custis,” New York, 1860.

The Wayfaring Stranger
James Mont­gom­e­ry (1771-1854) wrote the poem “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief” which was set to music by George Coles (1792-1858) and became a beloved Methodist hymn.

A poor wayfaring Man of grief
Hath often crossed me on my way,
Who sued so humbly for relief
That I could never answer nay.
I had not power to ask his name,
Whereto he went, or whence he came;
Yet there was something in his eye
That won my love; I knew not why.

Once, when my scanty meal was spread,
He entered; not a word he spake,
Just perishing for want of bread.
I gave him all; he blessed it, brake,
And ate, but gave me part again.
Mine was an angel’s portion then,
For while I fed with eager haste,
The crust was manna to my taste.

(The Rest of the Words and Music)

James Montgomery was known as The Christian Poet of the nineteenth century, possibly because of a book he wrote by that name. A few years after his death he was celebrated in a leading Methodist journal: “His poetry has stood the test of searching criticism and he has left some strains which will not soon be allowed to die in silence.”

Yet according to Michael Hicks of BYU Studies:

“Montgomery himself had been more sober minded and pragmatic in estimating the worth of his own verse. When asked by an attorney which of his poems would survive, he replied, ‘none sir’ then added ‘unless it be a few of my hymns’. It would have certainly surprised this Moravian bard to see the fate of one of his more obscure devotional poems, one he probably never meant to be sung. His small work beginning ‘A poor wayfaring man of grief’ travelled to America, was set to a Methodist Episcopal tune, altered in the frontier folk hymn tradition and finally immortalized by its performance at the Carthage, Illinois jail. Because of the events surrounding that performance, Latter-Day Saints will doubtless preserve and enshrine this poem in song long after Montgomery’s other works have faded.” (from “‘Strains Which Will Not Soon Be Allowed to Die’…: ‘The Stranger’ and Carthage Jail”)

In December 1826, when the Scottish born writer first began the poem entitled “The Stranger and His Friend”, he, himself, had been twice imprisoned for his politics. The poem’s first verse was composed in morning darkness as Montgomery rode by coach from Sheffield to York. The remaider of the composition was written with pencil on a scrap of blank paper found in his pocket while travelling alone in a chaise from Whitby to Scarborough, amid clouds and storms on a wild and melancholy December day.

Eighteen years later on the American frontier, Mormon leader, Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, and others were languishing in the summer heat of a Carthage, Illinois jail. John Taylor, one of those imprisoned, wrote of that day:

All of us felt. . .a remarkable depression of spirits. In consonance with those feelings I sang a song, that had lately been introduced into Nauvoo, entitled A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief . . . . After a lapse of some time, Brother Hyrum requested me again to sing that song. I replied, “Brother Hyrum, I do not feel like singing;” when he remarked, “Oh, never mind; commence singing, and you will get the spirit of it.” At his request I did so.

Shortly thereafter, a murderous mob stormed the Carthage jail and shot the Prophet Joseph and his brother dead. Joseph’s body was placed in a “rough pine casket” and carried back to Nauvoo and this, his last hymn, has been beloved by his followers forever since. (An Eyewitness Account)

A Poor Way Faring Man of Grief sung by Rob Gardner.

Our Founding Father’s Fathers

The father of John Washington was a fifth son who became a clergyman and was later expelled from his parish as a royalist during the English Civil War. Taking note of his prospects in his home country, the parson’s son emigrated to colonial Virginia and there he was able to procure a landed estate of 6,000 acres, an achievement nigh impossible to someone of his station in the motherland.

Captain Lawrence Washington, a son of Colonel John, continued the family tradition of supporting the Crown by serving in high government positions in Virginia. He married Mildred Warner, granddaughter of a former acting governor of Virginia and a descendant of the medieval Lords Kyme. According to English peerage law her direct descendants were potential heirs to the Kyme title, which had fallen into disuse since 1381. George Washington was undoubtedly not aware of his access to a title of nobility.

When Captain Lawrence Washington died his son Augustine, future father of the first American president, was only three years old. Augustine’s mother, Mildred, as was customary in those times, promptly remarried, and with her new husband, returned the Washington children to England. Mildred soon died in childbirth and the guardianship of the three Washington orphans fell to their stepfather. This arrangement was contested in court and a cousin of the deceased Captain Lawrence Washington, John Washington, took over and returned to Virginia with the children.

When young George Washington was but eleven, his own father died. Augustine’s widow and children lived with various relatives, spending much time at the Mount Vernon estate that had been passed to George’s elder half-brother, Lawrence Washington, oldest son of Augustine. Lawrence was a worthy father figure for George, having been educated in England and possessed of graceful bearing. He had married a cousin of the Lords Fairfax family and his father-in-law Colonel William Fairfax was quite influential on the young George Washington. It was from links with the Fairfax family that George Washington was tasked as a surveyor of their lands in Virginia.

At the death of Lawrence the landed estate he had inherited from his father totaled more than 10,000 acres. After the deaths of Lawrence’s heirs, Mount Vernon eventually passed to the younger half-brother George Washington. In colonial Virginia the English system of entail was in effect which allowed estates to be kept whole by passing to a single heir. This system was abolished after the Revolution at the insistence of Thomas Jefferson.

Young Washington was ambitious and could have won appointment as a British naval officer through his contacts with nobleman Lord Fairfax, but his mother would have none of it. She was highly possessive of her son and her distress at his leaving her for abroad made English schooling and a hoped for naval career impossible for young George.

And the rest is history, as they say. The Washington Legacy Lives.