Size Matters
What is the height of the Minuteman statue?
Sara R, New York, NY
The Concord Free Public Library finds a measurement of 213.3 cm. in a book on D.C. French's work by Michael Richman; the pedestal
height of 7 feet is stated in the Town of Concord's official report on its 1875 celebration.
Ice Skating Transcendentalists?
Years ago, I began a manuscript looking at the American amateur sport movement which began in America c. 1868-70. The early professional ice-shows began c. 1861 and faded c. 1873 when the stars moved to Europe. Concord's Carrie Augusta Moore [1840-1892] was one of the early ice-show professionals whose father[?] John B. may have had a strawberry farm surveyed by Thoreau c. 1860 and c. 1850's.
Since I have not yet fully pursued the Concord Free Library collections, I am assuming the influence of Margaret Fuller's feminist thinking in Concord may have caused Carrie to break out on her own. She is known to have communicated with Emerson in 1873, but I have not yet looked for further letter evidence.
While Carrie was the first "Skatorial Queen" and skated on Broadway and in ice "shows" 60 years before ice dancing became an Olympic "sport" she was more pantomime artist than she was athlete, although she was athletic too for theatrical reasons. She performed with acrobat Tony Denier & panto great G.L. Fox & PT Barnum. Her educated acrobat dog act was another show she performed for many years til just before she died in 1892.
One of Margaret Fuller's male cousins, William H. Fuller toured Europe and Asia on ice & roller-skates from 1865-1870 with the PT Barnum of Australia, George Coppin. He disappeared shortly thereafter, and no other records exist.
Paul de Loca, Greensboro, NC
Our Confusing Monument
When was the Monument at the North Bridge erected?
Anne E.
Leslie Wilson, Curator of our Library's Special Collections says:
There has been a lot of confusion about the date of the dedication of the Battle Monument in Concord. The date was incorrectly published as 1836 in posthumous collections of Emerson's work, and has since been wrongly disseminated over and over again in books, by historic interpreters, and so on. But there is no doubt that it was dedicated in 1837. The printed handbill with the words to the "Concord Hymn" distributed at the event, an Emerson letter written right about the time of its occurrence, and the 1837 newspaper account all make that perfectly clear.
Coins on Graves Get Stranger and Stranger
I have been researching this myself after my own experience. I recently visited Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, GA. I came across a beautiful grave monument of Anna Marie somebody Died 1798. Her tombstone is a small obelisk about 4 feet in height and beautifully carved with a ledge all around. The marker is inscribed with a beautiful haunting message thanking all visitors who have been brought to her graveside to visit her... it goes on to explain the peacefulness of her death and wishes the same peaceful ending to the reader. On top of her tomb were a multitude of pennies, all left head side up. Some of the pennies were newer and some were very old. I did not want to disturb them. So to follow what I felt was a tradition, I left my own penny headside up to let her know that I was there.
I am perplexed by the custom. I am aware of money left at graveside for voodoo rituals which invoke the dead person and the money is a 'payment' to them. No native in Savannah that I inquired of regarding the graveside money knew its meaning. So now I am also on a small mission.
Cristal Gummesson, Atlanta, GA
I don't know WHY, but there are constantly pennies left in the driveway, just under or outside the gate, of Buffalo's Forest Lawn cemetery. I see them almost every time I walk there (several times a week) and they seem to be always where they'd have been tossed out of a departing car's window. 22 pennies & 2 dimes, today. There were more pennies, but I didn't feel like going out of my way to count them. Very odd!
Dan Kjeldgaard, Buffalo NY
Blue over Bluing
I live on some acreage in the beautiful Texas Hill Country outside Austin, Texas. I recently found an old glass bottle partially buried that is embossed with the words:
Mrs. Stewart's Bluing.
Do you know how old this bottle might be or any information on this, including how it might have come to be on property that was not developed until the 1980's?
Toni Gallucci, Wimberley, Texas
Our editor, Deborah Bier, answers:
Toni, I am no expert on this matter. However, I do have a suggestion: people had to dump/bury their un-burnable trash somewhere. It may be you have found just such a location.
I had a new vegetable garden turned over about 20 years ago. In one corner were several old damaged glass bottles and about a zillion coal clinkers (the partly-burnt leavings you clean out of a coal furnace). Apparently, I had turned over the household ash dump, which included other trash like the bottles. Whatever else had been included had long since turned to earth. Hope this helps.
Photos: Art Today.
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