A Very Ge-hi-Ho-Ho-Ho Christmas

Christmas at Gehio Headquarters

Christmas wasn't always what we think it was. Many folks have a notion that the celebration of this holiday was some scared static thing that degraded in modern times. If there was a War on Christmas, it was really that way from the beginning...by Christians.
The first Christians didn't celebrate Christmas at all and it was about 400 years before we see any evidence that they did. And when they finally did it was mainly to replace the last traces of pagan worship practices in the Holy Roman Empire.

The first Christmas in America at Plymouth on December 25, 1620, went unobserved. "Foolstide" as they called it, was considered by these non-Catholics as sinful, immoral, wasteful and pagan in origin with no Biblical basis and was thus banned. Many Protestant groups in the US and Britain disapproved of any celebration of Christmas which was punishable by fines in those days.
Throughout the 18th century, Christmas was celebrated or not in the US in various ways depending on your ethnic background and geographic location but was still not that big of a deal. Easter was where it was at.
In 1820, the American author Washington Irving published the popular book "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.". It was a collection of essays notable for "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" but also included five Christmas themed stories which depicted long abandoned English festival traditions supposedly dating back to medieval times. Then there was the popular Clement Moore 1823 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" aka "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" which borrowed from Irving and help popularize Santa Claus.

However, the modern notion of "traditional" Christmas took hold in the Victorian era after the English author Charles Dickens published the popular goodwill story "A Christmas Carol" in 1843 and revived some of the same old holiday traditions. Dickens cites Irving's stories as an influence. Americans also adopted some of these practices after having shunned all things English for many years after the American Revolution. Christmas was more or less a second-rate holiday in England prior to Dickens and Dickens' book wasn't in wide circulation in the US until after the American Civil War. Easter was still the main event in the Christian religion at that time. Christmas Day didn't even become a US Federal holiday until 1870. That was about 1,520 years after Rome did.

At the "first" church Christmas Tree sign

So what does this have to do with Ohio history or geocaching? The first Christmas tree displayed in a church in America was allegedly in 1851 by German pastor Henry Schwan in Cleveland OH at Zion Lutheran Church. I saw it on a sign there once when I was geocaching many years ago. I did a bit more research and found that this immigrants tradition was not entirely welcome.

A local newspaper called this Christmas tree "a nonsensical, asinine, moronic absurdity." It editorialized against "these Lutherans . . . worshiping a tree . . . groveling before a shrub" Worse, it recommended that the good Christian citizens of Cleveland ostracize, shun and refuse to do business with anyone "who tolerates such heathenish, idolatrous practices in his church."
"A tree in the chancel?" roared an indignant man. "What kind of a minister are you?". So they basically called for a boycott because they were offended by differing views. Some things never change. keep in mind that this part of the 19th century was an era of violent anti-German sentiment, especially in Ohio.

Obligatory Cleveland Christmas stop

So what's odd is that many of the practices of what people perceive as a traditional Christmas with the food and the trees and the caroling and even the church services themselves came from the Victorian era which was really a throwback to the Middle Ages. Oh, and I have to point out to the "Xmas" haters that the use of X as a symbol for Christ is rooted in Greek from 1000 years ago and most certainly does not "take the Christ out of Christmas". So chill out on that one.

I'm definitely not trying to be a humbug here. Celebrate Christmas how you want. Secular or religious or a combination of both. Say "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas". Sing "Silent Night" or "Jingle Bells". Write Xmas or Christmas (it's the same thing, see above). Go to church on Christmas morning and/or open presents from Santa. Or don't do anything. If you are going to complain about the secularization of modern Christmas, blame Irving and Dickens. Their beloved 19th-century stories not unlike most popular 20th-century Christmas movies such as A Christmas Story or the Grinch aren't anything about the birth of Christ and are more about giving, hope, and redemption...and sometimes ghosts and good food.

The Great Big WHH Presentation!

I broke my "at least one blog post per month" rule for the first time in seven years, but it was for a good cause.
My writing and research energy over the past two months was being used for a presentation I mentioned here before. In May 2018, I was recommended by my friend Mark Fischer to Meg Riestenberg to give a talk to a local nature conservation group Meg belongs to in Lawrenceburg IN called the Oxbow. Mark had given previous talks here on Geocaching and the 2017 Solar Eclipse. I'd never done anything like this before but after some trepidation, I accepted as I felt I was up to the challenge.

This was more of a nature interest group but Meg said they enjoy hearing about local history too. A captive audience! The idea I came up with for them was "Tippecanoe and Trivia Too!". This would be a talk about the local ties that William Henry Harrison had to the Ohio Valley. I also decided to bust some of the myths that surround his life. To keep folks engaged, I added in a mini trivia night similar to the ones that are popular in many bars nowadays. I decided that the winning team would get the theme appropriate gift of a six-pack of Cincinnati made Hard Cider from March First Brewing.

one of the team bookmarks

I volunteered Mark to help out with the logistics of the trivia. He came up with a clever and time efficient way to divide up teams. The added bonus was a way to plug my blog and have a takeaway souvenir that could be used as a bookmark.

On the evening of the presentation on October 9th, we arrived a bit early and found no one there yet. What are two geocachers going to do to kill time? Hmmm. Once we grabbed a couple of caches, one with a spectacular view of the Ohio River I must say, we headed back to the Lawrenceburg conference room and I got all set up. After some Oxbow updates by Jon Seymour and Meg Riestenberg and an introduction by Mark, I gave my presentation.

A 1960s reproduction of a 19th booze bottle with
the WHH Pez and the trivia team/bookmarks by Mark.
Presenter selfie with a couple of candid shots from the evening.

There were about 40 people in attendance (a full house!) for my one-hour presentation which was only 45 minutes short of Harrison's speech. On trivia nights they usually play a song while the teams ponder their answer. I had one technical glitch in that I had no audio for the first two trivia question songs. That was a pretty major component of the entertainment factor so that was a bit distressing. Three songs were renditions of 1840 era campaign songs by a man named Oscar Brand. Another was a W.H. Harrison inspired song by a band called The Executive Branch, and the fifth was a version of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" by They Might Be Giants. I finally got the sound figured out and I was pretty pleased with how it all went after that. The audience seemed receptive and engaged. They even laughed at my jokes. One where I said I was going to now read the two-hour speech but was told I didn't have time. My "parley animal" joke went over pretty well too. They even had a few of their own. For example, when it got misconstrued that the trivia answers would be based on something I said, similar to a quiz, I corrected this by saying they would be mainly multiple choice or true/false questions on something I hadn't covered yet. Someone then shouted, "so we really don't have to pay attention then??". That got a good chuckle from everyone including myself.

NWA inspired graphic 

I have to add that this might be the only public WHH discussion where NWA gets mentioned! Although I am pretty positive only one person got that reference.

I had thought of recording my presentation but decided against it so I have no video to show you here. My PowerPoint isn't really suitable for sharing either as it is mostly image based and I relied on my notes vs having so much text on the screen. I can share a few highlights though!

Several of the big myths I busted are written about on this very blog. The circumstances and cause of his death, the confusion surrounding the first photo of a President, and the popularizing of the word booze. I added a bit about the alleged death curse on US Presidents starting with Harrison sometimes attributed to Tecumseh and other times to his brother The Prophet. For local history, I highlighted the two homes in North Bend and talked about his time as a public servant in Ohio and Indiana and of course his military history in the vicinity during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

It turns out that my trivia questions were harder than I anticipated. This was my fault due to some red herrings I added since I thought the questions might be too easy. Here is a sample of the questions...Do you know the answers? No Googling!

To wrap things up I ended with the very amusing spoof of the Hamilton musical by Off The Top.

Afterward, several folks stuck around to chit chat with me. I learned of a few other local Harrison tidbits from a couple of attendees that I'll likely explore further. This was a pretty great experience for someone like me with almost no experience at public speaking. I have to highly recommend the book that helped me out a great deal in preparing for this called, Speak Easy by Maggie Eyre.

Huzzah!...as Harrison might say.

Yo! Pigman!

I was out geocaching in rural Indiana with my frequent geocaching partner when we ran across a strange surname of "Pigman". Mark and I thought that was funny and we kept thinking of the "pig man" episode on Seinfeld where Kramer was convinced he has seen a half-man/half pig which was the result of a government genetic experiment to produce an army of pig warriors. I am a grown man and I laugh at Uranus jokes too.

"They're probably creating a whole army of pig-warriors!"
- Cosmo Kramer, in Seinfeld: "The Bris"

After the obligatory Seinfeld references were made, I snapped a pic of Jesse Pigman's grave marker because I noted he was a very young Revolutionary War veteran and thought I'd look up this Pigman warrior later. Incidentally, we were on our way to Connersville Indiana when we stopped at the Mount Garrison cemetery for a geocache find. We would later learn that this nearby community has a gigantic drug problem, mainly methamphetamine and heroin. So, I found it interesting that when I was researching, I kept getting hits on Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad. Hmmm.

“Yo! What good is being an outlaw when you have responsibilities?”
- Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad: "Kafkaesque"

We saw several other Pigman's that day. Twenty are buried in the same cemetery with Jesse. I was getting confused in my online searches because there are two Jesse Pigman's. It turns out they were father and son but there aren't many online records for either. I did, however, uncover some interesting things.

The almost great state of Westylvania

Both Jesse's along with other Pigman's are listed on the petition for the proposed 14th state of Westsylvania right after the war. If successful, this state would have been carved mostly out of Virginia and Pennsylvania essentially where West Virginia is now. This would have been the first US state after the original 13 colonies. Take that Vermont! Their chief complaint? The distant government was too far removed to protect them and understand their needs. The Westsylvanian dream was short lived as the newly formed US Congress never even voted on it. A prominent Federalist named Hugh Brackenridge got the Pennsylvania Assembly to squash the idea by declaring such independence talk treasonous and punishable by death. Didn't we just finish a war over something similar?
A little more background to the proposed state. Prior to the big war of independence against Britain, the settlers along with the help of Ben Franklin tried to have that area become the 14th colony called Vandalia but it was rejected by the British Crown. The irony gets thicker. Two attempts at separation. But wait, there's more!
A third and final attempt at secession occurred in 1863 when its pro-Union residents separated successfully from Virginia to form West Virginia during the Civil War. Yo, they really seem to have secession fever in their blood!

Back to Jesse Pinkman, er Pigman. He was married at least one time to Luren Newland and had six children. Lurene died in 1805 I am assuming in or after the birth of Rachael who was born that year. We are reminded again of how hard life was back then. With Jesse being only 40 years old and having several young children to care for, I would expect that he married again but I found no record of a second marriage.

He wrote about his military service in his pension application in 1844 at the age of 79.  There is a Q&A section along with witness testimony. From this, I learned he mostly fought Indians in the Wheeling area under his father Captain Jesse Pigman beginning in March 1780 when he was drafted as a 15 year old Private. After 6 months he served as an Ensign in a "spy company" under a Captian Joseph Van Meter for just over a year until November 1781 after which he was discharged following Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown.  The Ensign rank, by the way, was discontinued in the Army in 1815 but was equivalent to a Second Lieutenant. He states in this document that he received a commision but the paperwork was lost. He admits he was illiterate at the time but recollects it was signed by Governor Patrick Henry. Yes, that one. Per the Pension Act of 1832 veterans who served less than two years could apply for pensions at half their pay. He applied for his pension in 1834 but it was rejected for insufficient information. I wasn't able to determine if his 1844 application was successful but he died eight years later in 1852. Ensigns earned about $10 per month in the war so he would have been applying for half that which is roughly $80 today. We seem to have a history of taking veterans for granted.

Other notable burials at Mount Garrison Cemetery include English born Reverend Robert Worster (1729-1830), a Methodist Episcopal minister who allegedly preached the first sermon west of the Alleghenies and lived to 101 years old. Quite an accomplishment then and even now.
Other veterans include Revolutionary War soldiers, Amos Milner (1759-1851), Harrod Newland (1766-1848), War of 1812 veteran, Adam Pigman (1789-1876) and Civil War veterans James W Nuxum and Francis Marion.

Oh by the way. Do you know how we learned Connersville Indiana has a big drug problem? When Mark and I were geocaching, at one stop we were visited by three police cruisers. After the officer snatched up the geocache from its hiding spot and inspected it, we explained, "It's ok we are geocachers!" He had heard of geocaching so after he ran our IDs, he rolled up the log and put it back, we had a short congenial chat and we were on our way. All good. That afternoon, we were also visited by a concerned citizen who also mentioned the drug problem. Then we are positive we were photographed at another location. Jesse Pinkman wouldn't have lasted a day in this town.

- Jesse Pigman listing on the Roster of Soldiers and Patriots of the American Revolution Buried in Indiana, page 292

Fine Young Cannibals

no mention of the cannibalism

I scooped up a random book last month called The First Frontier by Scott Weidensaul. It promised “The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, and Endurance in Early America”. That sounded like something for me to chew on! It turned out to be a marinade of forgotten American history through the mid-1700s. It contained all sorts of interesting morsels I didn’t know about. This post is about one of the more savory ingredients.

The author mentions a Miami chieftain named Memeskia who had a village near modern Piqua OH called Pickawillany. I’ve been there before and if you can get past the 20th-century scramble of strip malls there is a lot of palatable history there. In the early part of the 18th century, the Miami aligned themselves with the French who were battling the British for control of these new (to them) lands. Memeskia was known to the French as La Demoiselle, which translates literally to “young lady”. It is believed that this was a grandiloquent translation of his Indian name which meant "dragonfly", both meaning impulsive and unpredictable.

Over the years the native people had become on reliant French and British traders for goods and allied themselves with one or the other. The Native Americans provided animal skins and furs in return for a thriving European market. These arrangements were often choppy. Memeskia broke with the informal Miami/French coalition believing he and his new village could gain more power and prestige by serving the British. Now essential British trade items such as weapons, cloth, food, and metal cooking items were now being produced in the Colonies to the East and thus becoming better and cheaper than imported French goods. This change in alliances earned the chieftain the new name of Old Briton.

Needless to say, this steamed the French who feared the idea would boil over into bands of other Miami and they would slowly lose control of New France to the British. Tensions were simmering to a boil. Eventually, a full course attack was ordered on Old Briton's village. On June 21st, 1752 the village was attacked by a blended force of pro-French Ottawa, French Canadians, and Ojibwa led by Charles Langlade, a French/Ottawa fur trader. Cheddar-heads may know this name from local history class as "The Father of Wisconsin".

photos courtesy of remarkableohio.com
because mine are terrible

This story sounded familiar to me since I had been to Piqua a few times. There is an Ohio historical marker there for this battle as it was a flashpoint to the French and Indian War. The marker states rather blandly that after Langlade and his men destroyed the village, “Memeskia was executed”. 
That's it.
They left out the spicy part.
As it turns out, Old Briton was ritually cannibalized in front of the survivors. Yep. They boiled him in a pot and gobbled him up. No mention of a side dish.
Unfortunately, I was unable to drum up any more bits about this post-battle dinner party because the primary source does not offer any. As it turns out two of the six English that were taken prisoner, Thomas Burney and Andrew McBryer, two English traders who were hidden during the attack told what happened at Pickawillany to Captain William Trent (the founder of Trenton NJ). He, in turn, wrote to Governor Dinwiddie of colonial Virginia on July 6th, 1752:
"They killed one Englishman and took six prisoners, one Mingoe and one Shawanees killed, and three Twightwees (an alternate term used then for the Miami); one of them, the old Pianguisha (Memeskia's Miami band) king, called by the English Old Britain, who, for his attachment to the English, they boiled, and eat him all up. "
There is also an August 1752 letter from the Miami that formerly resided at Pickawillany delivered by Burney to the Governor of Pennsylvania, still asserting their allegiance to the English. It said in part, "Brother Onas*...we saw our great Piankashaw King taken, killed, and eaten within a hundred yards of the fort before our faces".

1592 depiction of Indian cannibalism

Historians have speculated it's possible that this act was a way to literally absorb Memeskia back into the pro-French body while also providing a simply gruesome warning to the others to not trifle with the French alliance. Memeskia's people did move back to French-controlled Indiana so I suppose they got the message loud and clear.

You may have noticed that Burney is connected with the only two written records of this account. In fact, most of what we know about the battle was from Burney.

Keep in mind that nearly all Indians were illiterate and many whites were at that time too, so we rely on literate white men for these written accounts. It's possible the cannibalism never occurred at all and was invented by Burney to drum up revenge against the dreaded French and their "savage" Indian allies. Military leaders were also known to inflate the size of the enemy in their reports. While Burney surely met with the Miami for the letter that was delivered later, he may have added on the gruesome story there as well. As an English trader with his livelihood at stake, this would surely be a motive. There are no written records from the only other white survivor, Andrew McBryer who died later in 1752. I have also found no specific recollections by any surviving Miami told to anyone else either way.

As far as plausibility, I'd heard of Indians consuming the hearts of freshly killed enemies to ingest the courage of the victim, in fact, this supposedly did happen to one of the other English traders here. But as far as I know, full on cannibalism was fairly uncommon and taboo among most American Indians. It did supposedly occur among the Iroquois and some Ojibwa bands. There were definitely Ojibwa in Langlade's force.
Food for thought.
Oof. You've noticed all the other culinary references in this post too right?

One wonders why the Ohio Historical Connection would leave out one of the most intriguing and sensational aspects of this battle on the sign? Maybe they felt there was not enough evidence to warrant its mention. But again Burney's account is the only one. Maybe Memeskia was simply killed during the battle versus "executed". No wonder many find history dull and boring. I think it's worth a mention as "alleged" or plausible. To think! Ritualized cannibalism right here in Ohio (possibly)! Wow! Teach that in a history class (or a sign) and folks might actually pay attention.

*a friendly term originally used by the Iroquois for William Penn extended to the current Governor. Onas means feather or quill.

additional reading and references: 
American Indian Leaders: Studies in Diversity by R. David Edmunds
The Miami Indians of Indiana: A Persistent People, 1654-1994 by Stewart Rafert
Journal of Captain William Trent from Logstown to Pickawillany, A.D. 1752

Clarks, Corblys, Suttons, and Cold Plagues

Clough Cemetery in 2011, Gerard is the tall one

 There is a plant nursery near my office that I've passed many times called Greenfield Plant Farm. It sits at the corner of Clough (pronounced like "tough") and Hunley roads in Anderson Township close to the 1796 Miller-Leuser Log House. Their sign mentions that it's the site of the "James Clark Homestead". I never looked into that much, just a quick Google search but with such a common name, I didn't come up with much or think much more of it at the time.

I'd been aware of a nearby graveyard known as the Clough Baptist Cemetery (AKA Newton Cemetery and Wagon Train Cemetery) for a while thanks to geocaching. It's quite hidden away on quiet Bridges Road and nearly in someone's yard. The bulletin board at the front notes that several Revolutionary War Veterans are buried here and lists their names. That sort of thing always gets my attention.

Sutton's 1795 Log Home in 2011
(but not his SUV or DirectTV dish)

One resident is Jonathan Gerard who I had always assumed was the same John Garard (there are multiple spellings of this surname) who built the 1790 fortified station near the mouth of the Little Miami River now on Este Rd. It turns out he was a relative that came later.

Another is Stephen Sutton, one of the founders of Mt Washington in 1795. Sutton Road would be familiar to anyone in this area. Sutton's log house is still standing. But it's not like the aforementioned historic looking Miller-Leuser Log House. This is a private residence in the middle of a neighborhood with additions and siding added to it over the years making it a 3 bedroom home. Fortunately, in recent years an attempt has been made to make it look more...historic.

Then there is James Clark. It is believed he was a drummer boy at the 1781 Battle of Yorktown at age 16. I hadn't given this much thought until I tried to dig up more info on this guy. No pun intended. I ended up stumbling across a document buried in the website of...the Greenfield Plant Farm.
I'm sure you guessed it by now.

1802 Clark Stone House in 2009 - source

It's the same James Clark mentioned at the nursery and his 1802 stone house is still alive and well on the property. The article goes on to say it is likely the oldest standing stone house in the state of Ohio. It's sitting "right there" not far from the main road. Even a history nerd like me never saw it. Hidden in plain sight... like many geocaches. You can read the whole article here along with several photos of the house over the years. I unearthed a couple of other interesting tidbits.  Members of the Leuser Family (whose ancestors built the Miller-Leueser Log House) purchased this stone house in 1854 from the Clarks. It operated as a greenhouse and plant farm then just as it does today. Also, Hunley Rd was called Leuser Rd until at least 1926. I'd like to see proof of the drummer boy claim. I haven't been able to come up with any solid evidence though.

The Baptist church that once stood adjacent to these folks final resting place was founded by Rev. John Corbly Jr, another name local residents will be familiar with due to Corbly Road. In fact, as Hunley (formerly Leuser) crosses Clough it becomes Corbly. As Corbly Road runs West it bends south and becomes Sutton Road toward the Ohio River. Rev. Corbly died in 1814 at age 46 of what was called cold plague, a new strain of influenza ravaging the US during the War of 1812 and characterized by severe shivering. They say you rapidly froze to death, hence the name. He and other members of the Corbly family are also interred here. The church was unused by 1905. The walls and roof collapsed in the 1930s. Most of the remaining stones were used to build a Methodist church on Kellogg Road in the 1950s.

As for the cemetery itself. Most of the stones are illegible, falling over or buried now. Anderson Township does it's best to keep it looking nice. I tried to get some updated photos for this post but Cincinnati weather in March was not cooperating.