Blog | Digging History

Oh, The Stories I Find: In a Dead Woman’s Eye

by Sharon Hall | Jul 25, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers

As a genealogist and writer, I absolutely LOVE researching newspaper archives. I’m finding new resources for historic newspaper archives all the time, but my favorite sites include Newspapers.com, GenealogyBank and Newspaper Archive. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across some of the most unusual headlines. Sometimes, I’m inspired to do a little extra digging and write an article. This is one of those articles. Read on.

This intriguing headline appeared in The Sun (New York) on December 27, 1894, followed by an even more intriguing subtitle:

THE SUPPOSED IMAGE OF HER MURDERER SEEN IN THE RETINA ¹

First of all, was this even possible? In the late nineteenth century the idea wasn’t as far-fetched as one might think. The possibilities had intrigued scientists for some time, especially since photography was invented in the 1840s, although amazingly the idea had been around since the 17th century when a Jesuit priest, Christoph Scheiner (also a physicist and astronomer), claimed to have noted an image on the retina of a frog he was dissecting. Was the faint image he observed perhaps the last thing the frog saw upon death? Nevertheless, the idea had been introduced and would eventually play a role in the evolution of photography.

It wasn’t much of a leap to realize the concepts of photography and the inner workings of the human eye were related. In May 1863 Mr. Warner, a London photographer, wrote a letter to the Photographic News (later reprinted in other newspapers) after reading an account of a young woman’s murder. He had immediately written a letter to the detective in charge of investigating the crime, informing him “that if the eye of a murdered person be photographed within a certain time after death, upon the retina will be found depicted the last thing that appeared before them, and that in the present case the features of the murderer would most probably be found thereon.”²

Warner was sure it was possible, since four years earlier (for reasons unclear) he had taken a photograph of the eye of a calf not long after its death. Upon placing the negative under a microscope he found what he believed to be an image, imprinted on the animal’s retina, of pavement lines on the slaughterhouse floor, which he assumed must have been the last scene
viewed by the animal prior to death. Unfortunately, the negative had since been broken and the pieces lost. With the permission of detective James F. Thompson he proceeded to share his photographic discovery with colleagues.

Warner considered “the subject is of too great importance and interest to be passed heedlessly by, because if the fact were known through the length and breadth of the land, it would, in my estimation, tend materially to decrease that most horrible of all crimes – murder.” Thompson agreed the possibilities were of the “greatest importance”. However, in the case of Emma Jackson’s murder it was “unavailing in this instance” since he had first seen her body forty hours after the crime and her eyes had already been closed. A post mortem examination had been made and she had already been buried earlier that week.

Thompson had been informed by an “eminent oculist some four years ago” that a decedent’s eyes must be photographed within twenty-four hours of death. Otherwise, whatever object might have been imprinted would have vanished “in the same manner as an undeveloped negative photograph exposed to light.”³ French journalists picked up the story which eventually made its way to the United States, at the time embroiled in the Civil War.

In September stories began appearing in United States newspapers about a reported attempt to solve a horrific crime near Evansville, Indiana by examining the retinas of a murdered German family.

Horrible Homicide! A Father and Three Children Murdered! ⁴

On August 29 a German man named Henry Herke and some of his children were brutally murdered. Herke’s wife, Louise, was away at the time, having gone to market earlier in the day. When she returned home around 11:00 a.m. a horrific, bloody scene awaited.

All victims had been brutally murdered – first reports indicating they had been struck by an axe, their heads nearly severed from their shoulders. Neither the cause nor the identity of the perpetrator(s) was known to authorities, although neighbors had observed two men exiting the home earlier that morning around daylight, headed toward a nearby swamp. The house had been ransacked.

The sheriff and several deputies, plus a group of citizens who formed a posse comitatus, were soon scouring the area in search of the murderers. The following day two soldiers were arrested at a nearby hospital, one named Crow and the other H.C. Roberts.

Justice was, of course, swifter in those days. A preliminary trial commenced on the morning of September 2. Louise Herke was the prosecution’s first witness. She had gone to market that day with her oldest son and left five children with Henry, one of them her niece. When she arrived home she found the gate open, although the house door was closed.

Upon entering the house her two youngest daughters ran to her and told Louise how two men had cut them with an axe.

I then discovered the oldest girl, daughter of my sister, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. I picked up the girl, who died in my arms; the boy lived till evening, but neither of them spoke. My little girl told me that two men, one big one and one little one, had come to the house; the little one stayed outside, and the big one went into the house and turned everything over. They then went out around the corner and returned. The big one staid [sic] outside, and the little one picked up the axe and “chopped them down.” I saw the axe on the porch. It was bloody and had hair on it. My little boy showed me the axe as the one he was killed with [apparently before he died]. . . My neighbor, Carl Hines, came by the fence, and discovered my husband’s body. I went and saw him, all bloody, and the axe by him on the fence.⁵

The newspaper account of the first day’s proceedings made special note of the defendants’ heights – Crow being about 5 feet, 4 inches tall and Roberts about 5 feet, 8 inches tall with a mustache. In addition, other details following their arrest certainly seemed to incriminate the two soldiers.

Tracks leading away from the house had been discovered and upon arresting the two the sheriff had taken them to the tracks and “found that the shoes fitted exactly in the prints; they were army shoes.”⁶ Additional tracks suggested the perpetrators had been running away, and in one track they found the imprint of three nails which corresponded with the nails in their shoes.

The following day a photographer named Joseph Adams testified that a photograph of Henry Herke had been taken by his father [unclear if Adams’ or Herke’s father] from which Adams produced a magnified picture. Adams claimed (and presented it as evidence) that it showed “the figure of a man in the eye of the victim. He testified:

The outlines are dim; moustache blacker and heavier from effects of chemicals used in magnifying; looks to me as much like one man as another; you can observe high cheek bones, a moustache; think the chin had no beard on; looks to me like a crazy, wild or drunken man; seems to me no sane man in a state of excitement could look that way; in my mind, picture should not convict any man, it is too indistinct; bears no resemblance to prisoner, Roberts, except the ears and high cheek bones.⁷

Despite Adams’ admission that the supposed image was too indistinct to serve as proof, and the favorable testimony of several witnesses for the defense, Crow and Roberts were bound over for trial. However, in late October the two were released, “the Grand Jury having failed to find bills against them.”⁸

Nevertheless, Joseph Adams had caused quite a stir and continued to investigate and experiment, although some thought his claims quite incredulous. Still, one noted member of the medical profession, Dr. J.P. DeBrueler, who was also a member of the medical faculty at the Medical College of Evansville, took a painstakingly close look for himself and saw a human face.

Subsequent newspaper accounts provided additional details of Adams’ experiment:

He had taken an ambrotype picture of the eye of the deceased, and then rubbing out everything but a single object apparently in the centre of the eye, this was placed under an ordinary magnifying glass. At the first glance the object appeared blurred and indistinct, but, getting the proper focus, the outlines of a human face were at once distinguishable. The image was apparently the face of a man with unusually prominent cheek bones, long nose, and rather broad forehead. A black moustache was plainly seen, and also the direction of the eyes, which seemed to be looking at some object sidewise. One of the eyes was as clearly seen as the eyes in a common ambrotype or fenotype.⁹

Perhaps dead men did tell tales. Still, it wasn’t C.S.I., Victorian-style. In the 1870s the idea was pursued once again by two German physiologists, Franz Christian Boll and Wilhelm Kühne. Boll discovered rhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein retinal receptor which facilitates absorption of green-blue light. He found the pigment in the rods of the retina and when exposed to light would “bleach”, yet could be restored in the dark even following death.

Kühne saw potential in Boll’s research and believed it “could be used to preserve images in the eye from the moment of death, as the images would remain etched into the pigment unless exposed to light.” If a process could be developed whereby the last retinal image could be preserved, then much like the image projected on a photographic plate, it could be analyzed.

The process was called optography and Kühne continued to pursue the possibilities of advancing forensic science by finding a way “to pry these last images from the eyes of the dead and develop them, just like a photograph.”¹⁰ He truly believed it possible to develop a method whereby heinous crimes could be solved using his research.

His first experiments were with animals – and, of course, the animal had to be killed, decapitated and its eyes removed, the quicker the better. His most promising result occurred in 1878 when the removal and dissection of a rabbit’s retina yielded an image of a barred window. Kühne had purposely turned the rabbit so it would be staring at the window. Further experimentation proved inconclusive and images were often indistinct and blurry. The goal, of course, was to produce an image from a human retina and Kühne got his chance when a man was executed by guillotine on November 16, 1880 for drowning his young children.

Following the decapitation Kühne was allowed to immediately retrieve the man’s left eye to begin dissection of the retina. While he observed what he thought to be the blade, his findings were later disputed – the man had been blindfolded at the time, so perhaps the last image was the steps leading to the executioner’s blade. Inconclusive results did not deter Kühne, nor other researchers.

Families and some members of law enforcement continued to hope it would somehow be able to solve violent crimes via optography, although more than a few medical experts cast aspersions. In early 1880 one Manchester, England doctor came forward immediately and threw cold water on a reported theory: “The theory expressed in this morning’s paper is quite erroneous. It is quite impossible to form any judgment from a photograph so taken.” Although complimentary of Kühne’s research, it had yet to be proven possible for a human retina to produce an image. Still, the doctor was hopeful more research would bring optography “to a much more perfect state.”¹¹

The topic would come up from time to time over the years, although one wonders what was to be gained in the case of the Brown murders which occurred in September 1879 in West Winchester, Ontario. Clark Brown, the oldest son, had been found guilty of brutally murdering his father and sister. Clark Brown was hanged for the deed, but in January 1880 the bodies were exhumed so that photographs of their eyes might be taken to determine if someone else had committed the murders. The father’s eyes showed nothing and surmised that he had been killed in the dark. However, experts claimed to have observed images on the little girl’s retina.

Shockingly, the two objects were believed to be Clark and his mother. In late 1879 another witness had come forward who implicated the mother, alleging she had conspired with another woman to kill her husband. The plot thickened!

Authorities were hopeful of finding proof and arrested the mother, the supposition being Clark and his mother had killed the father and the little girl had seen the crime before she was killed. Clearly, “the whole case reads like one of Edgar Allen Poe’s romances of crime and mystery”, one newspaper opined.¹²

The topic came up yet again in conjunction with the infamous “Jack the Ripper” crimes after a British newspaper suggested the possibility of an incriminating image imprinted on the retina of victim Annie Chapman.

PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

Commenting on the fact that Dr. Bagster Phillips, the police-surgeon who was called as a witness in reference to the murder of Annie Chapman, was asked as to the possibility of obtaining a clue to the murderer by photographing the eyes of the dead woman, and that he gave no hopes of any useful result, the Photographic News says – Although we may pretty confidently say that photographs of the eyes of the murdered woman would have been useless, there can be no doubt whatever that a series of photographs of the body and of the mutilations ought to have been taken, and in the face of these it would have been difficult to conceal essential facts. It is to be hoped that even now the camera will be brought into requisition, especially as there are several experienced anatomists who are also competent photographers.¹³

The possibility of solving crimes with optography came up more than once in ensuing years as references were woven into works of fiction. Rudyard Kipling inserted the idea of taking an optogram of a dead man’s eye “with a Kodak camera”¹⁴ in his short story entitled, “At the End of the Passage” (1891). Jules Verne and James Joyce would also utilize the concept in early twentieth century writings.

So prevalent was the lingering hope that one day someone might discover a way to extract an incriminating image from a victim’s retina, it became common practice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to photograph the eyes. Police weren’t taking any chances and perhaps criminals didn’t either, at least as long as the hope for breakthrough persisted.

In 1927 Constable P.C. Gutteridge was shot and killed in the East End of London. After discovering shots had been fired through each eye, Scotland Yard investigators wondered whether the murderer had done it out of superstition to ensure the man’s retina would not reveal incriminating evidence to police.

Thus, in 1894 the headline “In a Dead Woman’s Eye” wasn’t at all unusual. Jamestown photographer Fred Marsh took credit for the idea of examining Mrs. Shearman’s eyes. Subsequent reports indicated with the assistance of a powerful microscope “an apparently big man [was] presented, with bushy whiskers, and wearing a long overcoat. The trousers appear[ed] to be badly wrinkled.” Unfortunately, no distinct, identifiable features were observed – “no impression was discoverable”.¹⁵

Optography was eventually debunked as nothing more than pseudo-science at best, despite renewed attempts in 1975 to once again explore the possibilities. Today, it’s merely discussed as an obscure oddity.

Thanks for stopping by! For more stories like this one, consider subscribing to Digging History Magazine. Purchasing a subscription entitles you to subscriber benefits (20% off all services, including custom-designed family history charts) AND a chance to win your very own custom-designed family history chart! Details here (or click the ad below).

Footnotes:

When Red Meant Radical: Oklahoma Red Dirt Socialism

by Sharon Hall | Jul 18, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers

While historians are more likely to refer to this radical part of American history as “Agrarian Socialism”, I like to call the Oklahoma version “Red Dirt Socialism”. Red is, after all, associated with Socialism and Communism (the Cold War term “red menace” comes to mind) – and there is lots of red dirt in the Sooner State!

I had never paid much attention to this piece of Oklahoma’s past, except discovering while researching for a friend that her great grandfather had been an Oklahoma Socialist and avowed atheist. However, not long afterwards I discovered my great grandfather had campaigned as a Socialist in Okfuskee County for the office of Constable, and then my interest was personal. A simple political ad started my research:

I have to tell you I was a bit startled to see this ad in the August 5, 1910 edition of The Weleetka Democrat. Noah Seborn Young was born in Alabama and migrated to Indian Territory with his family in the 1880s. Noah married Telitha Pugh in 1898 and had two children, one of them my grandfather, Roosevelt “Bud” Young, before Telitha died in 1904.

Noah died in 1936 in Littlefield, Texas, about a year and half after my mother’s birth. All I had ever heard about him was he had been a farmer and sometimes Holiness Church (lay) preacher. After seeing the ad I’ll admit to checking the Okfuskee County census records for 1910 more than once to make sure there was no one else in the county who could have possessed those same initials. I found no one else except him.

Another surprising aspect of discovering my great grandfather once ran for political office as a Socialist was the fact that today, politically speaking, Oklahoma is the most reliably “red state” (meaning conservative). How could a state with such a radical past turn out to be one of the most reliably conservative?

Oklahoma wasn’t yet a state when the nineteenth century rolled over into the twentieth. The Victorian Era, as defined by the reign of Queen Victoria of England, came to an end when the monarch died on January 22, 1901. Some might argue it had ended sooner since in later years the Queen was seen less frequently in public, her son and future king Edward more visible and capable of influencing society, much as his mother’s reign had done for over six decades.

In America the rise of Progressivism, the idea that social reform can bring about the betterment of society, began around 1890 and was advocated strongly until around 1920. Woodrow Wilson, America’s most progressive president, shepherded the country through a tumultuous period of economic, political and geopolitical change.

Socialistic thought, some historians would point out, began prominently appearing in America early in the nineteenth century with various Utopian societies like Oneida in New York or Amana in Iowa. It wasn’t until 1901, however, until the Socialist Party of America was established.

Before that, labor activism and anarchy had been on the rise since the mid-nineteenth century. The socialist and labor movements seemed destined to collide as working classes were impacted by a “mini-Era” near the end of the Victorian – the so-called Gilded Age. Industrialists like Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay Gould – derisively referred to as “robber barons” – employed unscrupulous methods to obtain and maintain their massive wealth.

Many in the working classes, feeling left behind, turned to socialism in an attempt to achieve some measure of economic equality. In today’s parlance you might say they were “woke” to the unscrupulous, monopolistic business practices which threatened to shut out the common, everyday working man or woman. Socialism made many promises, but could it really deliver the solution? Was it destined to change Oklahoma, or for that matter any other state of the Union?

Today, some historians cast aspersions on Oklahoma’s brand of socialism as a less-than-legitimate form of radical ideology which permeated larger urban areas in the eastern United States. Perhaps it seemed less legitimate since the Oklahoma Socialist Party was dominated by farmers, hence the term “agrarian socialism”.

Farmers who became Socialists weren’t necessarily “hicks from the sticks”, however. Some had been members of nineteenth century movements like the Farmers Alliance, which by the 1890s had morphed into the People’s Party (“Populists”), or the Farmers’ Union established in 1902. The Farmers’ Union began in Pilot, Texas and spread to Oklahoma, established and dedicated “to improving farm incomes through cooperative action.”⁶

Around the time of Oklahoma statehood in 1907 some farmers migrated to the Socialist Party, according to Jim Bissett’s Agrarian Socialism in America. Those who defected were some of the most skilled social activists and seen as a boon to the Oklahoma movement. Plus, these activists knew whereof they spoke – been there, done that, so to speak. They knew what reforms had been attempted and were well aware of what had succeeded and what still required reform (in their estimation).

As Bissett points out, another key element to Oklahoma Socialist Party successes was rooted in “genuine dialogue between the leadership and the rank and file. . . . In the process, participants in the Oklahoma socialist movement attempted to create a kind of working democracy, where organizational authority was exercised according to the demands of the membership.”¹⁶ Where other American political movements fell short of such ideals, the Oklahoma Socialist Party excelled.

Want to learn more about Oklahoma’s flirtation with socialism? This article is excerpted from the September 2018 issue of Digging History Magazine, available for purchase here at a discounted price.

Footnotes:

Digging History Magazine – Illinois: The Prairie State

by Sharon Hall | Jul 11, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers

The third issue of 2026 features articles on Illinois, “The Prairie State”. Digging History Magazine is a bi-monthly digital publication which combines the disciplines of history and genealogy, our philosophy being that in order to be adept at one discipline (genealogy) one must be well-versed in the other (history). The latest issue is available by individual purchase here or by subscription (three options). Subscribers are entitled to 20% off all services, including custom-designed family history charts.

This issue, like all issues in this continuing series, features the state’s history, including how to find great historical and genealogical records and more:

● Mining Genealogical Gold: Finding Historical Illinois Records (and the stories behind them). Nature has bounteously spread her gifts before the sons of men in the “country of the Illinois.” The location of the land as well as its fertility has shaped its destiny. The territory of the state touches the watershed of the Great Lakes on the north, is washed on the west by the Mississippi river, and extends to the Ohio on the south. Resting in the heart of the Mississippi valley, the Illinois country has been shaken by every great force stirring the continent; the north and the south, the east and the west have exercised formative influences on its destiny. . . . the history of Illinois in a very real sense typifies the development of the American west.

● Citizen Soldiers: The Prairie State’s Legacy of Service . Illinois, the “Prairie State”, has a long and distinguished legacy of sending its citizen soldiers into conflicts near and far. This article discusses the state’s involvement in four nineteenth century conflicts, beginning with the War of 1812 through the Civil War.

● New Discovery vs. Deepening Mystery: A Tale of Two Illinois Civil War Pensions. I’ve recently had the opportunity to review two sets of Civil War pension files for Illinois veterans, one yielding new discoveries and the other a deepening mystery. It seemed a great opportunity to highlight what I found (and what I didn’t find) and turn it into a feature article for this issue.

● The Dash: Mary Ann Bickerdyke (1817-1901). General William Tecumseh Sherman declared at one point during the Civil War that she outranked him. She was not a push-over and wasn’t about to be pushed aside by Army regulations either. The Union soldiers she tended called her “Mother Bickerdyke” and they cheered her presence as they would their commanding generals.

Give Me That Old Time Socialism

by Sharon Hall | Jul 11, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers

Socialism has once again made its way into the national conversation of late (Has it really ever left? After all, the Pilgrims gave it a try and it didn’t go so well.). Today, Oklahoma is often cited as the nation’s “reddest” (most conservative) state based on its voting patterns. Who would guess that once upon a time Oklahoma turned “red” in another way.

It wasn’t that adherents believed in socialism as a religion. In fact, many who trekked out in the Oklahoma woods in the early 1900s likely participated in religious “camp meetings” or “brush arbor meetings”. These meetings were common in the summertime:

Sometime in the summer, usually in July after the crops had been “laid by,” the plain folk would often gather to sing, preach, and pray together in great “protracted meeting” with the worshipers, of necessity, camping on the meeting grounds.¹⁷

The concept was appropriated by Populists for political purposes in the late nineteenth century. These Populists would target Baptists, Methodists, and some of the Holiness sects, and actively recruited preachers from these religious traditions to participate in their Populist gatherings. By the early 1900s the concept had been likewise appropriated by the Socialist Party as a means to further its political agenda.

These meetings consisted of a fair amount of indoctrination, but not unlike the strictly religious versions, also included preaching and singing – to go along with all the propaganda. It brings to mind the old song, “Give Me That Old Time Religion” doesn’t it – except for these meetings maybe it was more like “Give Me That Old Time Socialism”! In 1904 this announcement appeared in The Labor Signal, a weekly Oklahoma City journal devoted to the interest of organized labor:

There will be a Socialist Encampment and Picnic at Crutcho Park, six and a half miles South East of Oklahoma City on August 11th to 14th inclusive. Good Speakers and Ministers will be in attendance, and one day will be set apart for the discussion of politics by inviting Democratic, Republican, and Populist Speakers to take an hour each in showing up the good points in their political beliefs. Let everybody attend. Conveyance will be in waiting at all trains to carry passengers to the park, where ample facilities will be provided for food and sleeping accommodations.¹⁸

Farmers seemed to be the primary focus of the Oklahoma Socialist Party, and these meetings were geared not only to issues of concern to this particular constituency, but ensured these protracted meetings were conveniently scheduled so as not to disrupt farm operations and concerns:

SOCIALIST ENCAMPMENT
Will Be Held in Lincoln County – Chance for Candidates to be Heard

Arrangements are being made to hold a socialist encampment in Lincoln county late in July or early in August as may be found most convenient for the farmers . . .Good speakers will be in attendance to entertain the people and a chance will be given candidates of all tickets to engage in joint debate with the socialist speakers.

Everything for the comfort of those in attendance will be carefully looked after and the indications are that many people will avail themselves of this opportunity for recreation after the hard work of summer on the farm and to hear live issues discussed.¹⁹

In conjunction with the Oklahoma Socialist Party convention in August 1906, an encampment would again be assembled at Crutcho Park. While the 1904 encampment and picnic had promised all political persuasions would be given a platform, this one would feature prominent Socialists like Eugene V. Debs and “Mother” Jones. This encampment may have been a “barn burner” for fervent Socialists. Members of the Western Federation of Miners, a radical labor union active in the West and parts of Canada, had been arrested and charged with murdering Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg on December 30, 1905 – or rather William “Big Bill” Haywood, Charles Moyer and George Pettibone were being tried for paying someone to murder the governor.

The prosecution would rely heavily on the investigative skills of James McParland, a Pinkerton Agency detective, and whether or not they could prove Harry Orchard had been paid by the three prominent union members to plant a bomb on a side gate at Steunenberg’s home in Caldwell. The union would bring in bigger guns in the form of renowned attorney Clarence Darrow. All three men escaped prosecution. Darrow had at one time represented Eugene Debs.

Oklahoma Socialists were none too happy either as the upcoming statehood bill was moving forward. The bill did not recognize their party, and in order to be placed on ballots of future elections they would need to secure it by petition.²⁰

Still, for the most part all political persuasions were welcome at the encampments. However, socialist encamp-ments were not at all unique to Oklahoma. According to a Kansas left-wing (later Socialist) newspaper, the first such meeting had been held at Grand Saline, Texas in 1904. For the uninitiated the newspaper provided background:

The term encampment is applied to this annual event from the fact that hundreds of families who come in covered wagons, and a per cent of those who come by rail as well, camp right on the grounds for the entire week to hear the message of industrial liberty. The encampment idea originated at Grand Saline. The first Socialist encampment on record was held by the Socialists of that town in 1904. It is a unique example of constructive Socialism and the best self-sustaining propaganda institution yet devised; and one that will in time be adopted by the Socialists throughout the United States. It is a means of carrying on agitation and organization for Socialism at the expense of the general public, and without cost to the Socialist organization that controls and directs the meeting.²¹

How clever it was that these meetings were held “at the expense of the general public”! (In actuality, it was good old-fashioned capitalism!) To be sure, attendees could expect enough propaganda to last them until the next year’s encampment with nationally-known Socialists like William “Big Bill” Haywood or the man himself, Eugene V. Debs.

In 1908, Reverend Reddin Andrews was a featured speaker. In 1910 the former president of Baylor University ran for governor on the Socialist ticket. A number of speakers were slated, and although the list was incomplete, attendees could expect to hear “fresh” speeches daily as no speaker would appear more than once. In a spirit of fairness, “a division of time will be accorded any endorsed representative of capitalism.”²²

Organizers were expecting at least ten thousand attendees on average per day, having recorded between four and nine thousand the year before. People would pour in from Texas and surrounding states.

Thousands [would] come for the speaking and other thousands merely for fun and enjoyment, but even the pleasure-bent crowd take in a little Socialism by absorption, for the atmosphere is surcharged with revolutionary sentiment.²³

Family-oriented entertainment for the thousands or pleasure seekers included shows, drink stands, restaurants and various other attractions. This is where the “general public” paid for these encampments since those who ran the entertainment attractions paid for the privilege of entertaining the masses.

The Grand Saline encampment was held in Richardson Park ‘where there are pearly springs and flowing wells of limpid water for every purpose. This large, well shaded location, fanned by refreshing breezes, admirably provides comfort for the thousands who will attend. No admission is charged. There is a spacious camp ground wood and water free and open for everybody. Take a vacation, bring your family and enjoy camp life for a week.“²⁴

East Texas, and especially Van Zandt County, seemed to be the hotbed for Texas Socialist fervor, although as time went on encampments were held elsewhere in the state. In 1910 Yoakum, located in both Lavaca and DeWitt counties, was expecting a “monster encampment.”²⁵ In 1910 the Socialist vote was “Growing to Some Proportions in Milam County.”²⁶

Indeed, by the 1910s “Southwestern Socialists had perfected such gatherings throughout Oklahoma and Texas. The largest such gathering in East Texas boasted an attendance of 50,000 during a week’s worth of preaching, singing, and propagandizing. For those not religiously or politically inclined, the East Texas Socialists promised a hamburger stand, a Socialist rodeo, and a Ferris wheel.”²⁷

While the Socialist Party had grown to become the nation’s third major political party, their support was strongest in the American Southwest – Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. In 1912 Eugene Debs ran for President, and these four states gave him about ten percent (over 80,000) of the total votes he received throughout the nation.²⁸ However, “Socialists did not manage to win any statewide elections anywhere in the country in 1912” – although one congressman, Victor Berger, was elected in Wisconsin.²⁹

If a Socialist managed to win an election in 1912 or 1914, it was most likely to fill local positions such as justice of the peace, constable, and perhaps mayor and county judge (Texas and Arkansas). In 1914, however, Oklahoma elected six Socialists to the state’s legislature – five representatives and one state senator.³⁰

Annual socialist encampments would eventually fade away. By the late 1910s fewer notices were appearing in newspapers. World War I was a contributing factor with crackdowns on radical groups, most notably, anarchists. In 1919 several newspapers carried a story of how a few hundred former Socialists of Eastland County had been “converted” away from “their Socialist faith”. As it turned out, a good dose of old-fashioned capitalism changed their fortunes:

SOCIALISTS GIVE UP THEIR FAITH IN SHORT ORDER
Interesting Story of How Texans Were Converted From Their Socialist Faith

For many years the hotbed of Socialism in Texas was in Eastland County, with Hog Town now called Desdemona, as the storm center of agitators who preached the doctrine of equal distribution of wealth among all the people. Now these very same men, who cast their votes for Eugene Debs for President, and prior to becoming Socialists, were pioneer members of the Populist party, are simply reeking with wealth – not imaginary prosperity but real coin – oodles of it. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that not one of them is saying a word about dividing up his fortune with the “downtrodden poor.”³¹

What caused this sudden transformation? In a word, oil – “black gold, Texas tea” as the old Beverly Hillbillies theme song goes. An annual encampment had been held in Ellison Springs for several years and many of the county’s cotton and corn farmers no doubt were in faithful attendance.

Between 1910 and 1916 cotton production had declined precipitously as boll weevils devastated crops. In 1917 a major oil discovery at Ranger changed everything. In 1919 twenty-two million barrels of oil were produced in Eastland County.³² By 1922 production had dropped, about the same time agricultural interests were improving.

While newspaper accounts were estimating more than one hundred men, who just a year ago had been “preaching Socialism and struggling to make both ends meet”, were multi-millionaires ($10 to 25 million), most weren’t that wealthy. Referring to them as “Socialist millionaires” was a bit of a stretch in some cases. Still, the money was good while the oil flowed.

One of the more interesting “Socialist millionaires” (he wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination) was Thomas Aloysius “Red Tom” Hickey, described as a “socialist journalist, lecturer and West Texas oilman.”³³ Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1869, Hickey immigrated to America in 1892 and joined the Socialist Party in 1893. He would be one of the regular speakers on the Socialist encampment circuit.

In 1907 he moved to Texas and in 1911 launched The Rebel, a Hallettsville newspaper which would eventually be considered the state’s official Socialist newspaper. After World War I put the quietus on many Socialist publications, Hickey was about to revive publication of The Rebel in Dallas when news of the oil strike in Eastland County became headline news. In a roundabout, capitalistic way Hickey would come into a bit of cash himself:

A number of socialist farmers lived in the area and sponsored a yearly encampment at Ellison Springs, where Hickey was the featured orator. The Desdemona socialists also had a baseball club, which played on a field owned by S.E. Snodgrass, a leading local Democrat and avid antisocialist. When Snodgrass banned the socialists from his land and demanded the exorbitant sum of fifty dollars for the 1½ acre ballpark, they raised the purchase price of fifty dollars by popular subscription. When oil was discovered, the baseball field suddenly became worth $40,000 to its socialist owners. It was soon surrounded by producing oil wells also owned by the socialists.³⁴

Apparently, Hickey had chipped in on the price of the ball field and now was part-owner, although he would by no means become a “Socialist millionaire”. Instead, he doubled as advertising manager for the Desdemona Oil News and correspondent for several other newspapers. He died of throat cancer on May 7, 1925.

The “Socialist millionaire” article ended by announcing the end of encampments at Ellison Springs:

As a result of this wealth, or perhaps because they are too busy piling up more, there will no Socialist encampment at Ellison Springs this year. If by any chance these men should get together, it would be a convention of more millionaires than ever before assembled at one time in Texas.³⁵

Socialism was by no means dead, but many so-called agrarian Socialists had moved on by the 1920s, with annual encampments remembered only as passé in “50 Years Ago” articles of the 1950s and ‘60s.

Footnotes:

July 4, 1876: It Was (Literally) a Blast!

by Sharon Hall | Jul 4, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers

July 4, 1876 – The United States was celebrating its centennial, eleven years following the end of the Civil War. In Philadelphia, soldiers from the North and South, “the Blue and the Gray”, marched together. There were lively and soul-stirring festivities held throughout the country, speeches galore, fireworks – or “Gunpowder and Glory”²²

As cannons were fired and firecrackers lit, explosions and costly fires marred the festivities for some. In Philadelphia one
headline read “A Salute That Cost Several Hundred Thousand Dollars.”²³ Around one o’clock on the afternoon of the Fourth, some boys fired off a cannon salute which ignited a pile of chips behind a flour mill. Within fifteen minutes the entire block was
engulfed in flames.

“A Dynamite Horror” occurred around the same time elsewhere in Philadelphia. A druggist, Dr. H.H. Bucher, was apparently
experimenting with explosives in an attempt to create his own pyrotechnics:

The doctor, who was a man of scientific mind, had accumulated in the cellar of the house a considerable quantity of dynamite, the properties of which, with sulphuric acid and other combustible chemicals, he had for some time been endeavoring to unite, to effect a pyrotechnic result. It was his ambition to complete his experimenting yesterday, that the people of the lower section of the city might be treated to a grand display of fireworks.²⁴

Around noon, the doctor believing he had achieved just the right mix, sent word for his next-door neighbor to come see the
result. Meanwhile, the doctor’s brother came downstairs from their living quarters and two other gentlemen happened to enter the drug store at about the same time. Dr. Bucher held a can of dynamite which exploded and killed the four men instantly.
The result was catastrophic, as evidenced by the newspaper’s account:

The arms of Edward Bucher and Bernard Klosti were blown entirely from their bodies; Young’s body was cut almost in two, and Bucher himself was burned to a crisp. The only one whose features could be recognized a moment after the explosion was Young. The fire did not approach him. The doctor’s identity was established by a heavy seal ring, bearing the mark of the thirty-second degree of Masonry, the Scottish rite. The other two bodies were recognized by the clothes they wore only.²⁵

Dr. Bucher’s wife was sitting near a window in their second story residence when the explosion occurred. She narrowly escaped death herself – an eight by ten foot hole was blown in the floor – but a neighbor rushed into the burning building and rescued her. One can only wonder, what was Dr. Bucher thinking by playing around with dynamite?!?

Elsewhere in Philadelphia, suffragists were conducting a lively meeting – touting “The New Declaration of Independence.” Their speeches, including those of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, harangued “the national government and society in general for the deaf ear they have turned to the clamorers of universal suffrage.²⁶

Mrs. Stanton read “The Woman’s Declaration of Rights and Articles of Impeachment against the Government of the United States”. In contrast to the 1776 Declaration of Independence the suffragists were making their own declaration. While the latter spoke of colonists determined to “throw off the yoke of tyranny”, the former demanded “the equal determination of the female portion of this great republic to resist the hard-heeled oppression of the then oppressed but now oppressors.”

Their declaration impeached the federal government for its insertion of the word “male” in the Constitution. If these “incongruities” were not remedied they believed it would “result in the total dissolution of the social fabric of the nation.”

One of the attendees, a Washington, D.C. lawyer named Mrs. Belva Lockwood, defended the cause from a constitutional standpoint. She was hopeful, however, that the following century, unlike the first which had been “governed by brute force”, would usher in the age of reason and the names of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony would be rewarded for their efforts on behalf of “suffering women” – and indeed, they eventually were, albeit not until the next century.

Fireworks
DESTRUCTION: What the Centennial Cost Brooklyn

Clearly, the doctors of Brooklyn were kept busy on the 4th, as was the fire department. The reported incidents included:

Fourteen year-old Patrick Malley decided to have a little fun with a bottle of powder. He placed the bottle on the sidewalk, lit a match – his hands and feet were badly burned.

Struck By a Sky Rocket – A boy standing on a hill observing the fireworks display was struck on his right side by a mis-fired sky rocket, fracturing two of his ribs.

Explosion of a Cannon – In two separate incidences, two boys were badly burned by an exploding cannon fired in the yard of their residences.

Shot in the Thigh – A sixteen year-old boy fired a one-barrel Smith & Wesson pistol from the rooftop of his parents’ home, accidentally shooting himself quite seriously in the thigh.

Shot in the Eye – A man was shot in the eye while standing on his front stoop. The bullet lodged behind his eye and a doctor quickly arrived to perform “an exceedingly painful and dangerous operation, in which he was successful. He removed the optic and extracted the ball, and then replaced the eye in its natural position.”²⁹

A Child Shot – A one year-old boy was shot while being carried in his mother’s arms outside their home. The bullet grazed his temple, causing a severe wound.

Shot in the Forehead – A fifty year-old night watchman was shot in the forehead by an unknown person.

Bursting a Barrel – Two boys, aged sixteen and twelve, sustained injuries “of a painful nature” after using firecrackers to explode an empty barrel.

Many of the fires which occurred throughout the city were due to a combination of fireworks and carelessness, including: firecrackers thrown into a cellar, firecrackers thrown onto a roof, firecrackers thrown on a wooden awning, firecrackers thrown into a basement, a burning sky rocket setting fire to the roof of Catholic orphanage, firecrackers thrown through a bedroom window, firecrackers thrown down a coal chute, a barrel of firecrackers in a wood shed ignited and more. The fire department had a busy night as well.

I Gave Him a Match

The most shocking of all the accidents stemming from perhaps an “over-celebration” of the “Glorious Fourth” occurred about eight o’clock that evening on Smith Street. Frederick Somerville owned a store on the ground floor of a three-story building, selling cigars and stationery. With the upcoming Centennial celebration he had decided to increase traffic to his store by adding a “large stock of flags, firecrackers, rockets, and all the other combustibles used in the celebration of the day.”

Somerville had also purchased a large quantity of powder, thinking he would place it in small packages and sell it to the neighborhood boys. By the Monday before the Fourth business was so brisk he needed to hire some help. A young man by the name of Francis Lent was recommended to him “for honesty and smartness.” Frank arrived soon afterwards and worked until six o’clock that evening when he left for dinner at his nearby home.

Francis returned around seven o’clock and continued to stand outside the store selling flags and fireworks. Mr. Somerville returned after stepping away for a few minutes and told Frank it was dark enough to light the lamps. Frank replied, “Yes, sir” and went into the store while Somerville took over the stand.

Frank went behind the counter, climbed onto a chair, filled a lamp with oil and lit it. While attempting to climb the chair again, he carelessly threw the match to one side. KABOOM!! “In the twinkling of an eye the store was lighted with the brightness of a furnace, followed by a noise of the explosion of powder, and a rumbling sound, as though the walls of the building were giving way.” Mr. Somerville, “at first stunned and stupefied” recovered consciousness to discover his store was in flames.

Within minutes a crowd of over two thousand people arrived at the scene. Firemen were called and while frantically attempting to extinguish the fire someone realized that Francis had not been seen – “Where’s Lent?” Firemen rushed into the store, groped around in the flames and nearly suffocated, but found no sign of the young man. They concluded he must have escaped unnoticed – that is until one of the firemen stumbled over something resembling a “rotten log of wood.” Upon touching it, a sickening odor was emitted. “My God!” he exclaimed, “I guess this is Lent.”

Other officers rushed to examine the body but were unable to distinguish it from a roll of black cloth or a human frame. They removed his body on a stretcher and took it to the police station. Most of the crowd forgot about the conflagration and rushed to the station house, crowding around the stretcher. The Lent family, frantic and overcome with grief, arrived. Mr. Lent could not identify his son.

He sank into a chair and Mrs. Lent fainted. The crowd, as well as the officers, were visibly affected. All the clothing had been burned from his body – all flesh burned to a crisp and black as jet. Meanwhile, the fire was still raging.

The rear of the store had been blown away and apparently Frank was the only casualty although dozens of others were injured. The following day the fire marshal began an investigation. Somerville gave him the details:

My young man, Frank Lent, a clerk, asked for a light and I gave him a match and saw him trying to put out a fire in a torpedo box; I said, “leave that for God sake, think for your life.” I dragged him to the door between the back room and the front store; then the explosion took place and I did not see him any more; I rushed upstairs to save the child and the explosions kept going on all the time. I had about $300 work of fireworks on the premises. I did not attempt to make a light, I gave Lent the match and he attempted to light the kerosene lamp suspended from the ceiling in the back room. The powder was in a keg near the back window. I had no license to sell powder or fireworks.³⁰

The Fires of Patriotism

On July 6, the Brooklyn Eagle praised the heroic efforts of the city’s fire department. During the period from nine o’clock on Monday the 3rd, until nine o’clock Tuesday the 4th, thirty houses had been set on fire by firecrackers. Damage estimates weren’t complete yet, but the Eagle was questioning “whether the damage is not greater than anything rational in the celebration justified?”³³ Was the destruction of property, the injuries and deaths cause for the discontinuation of the firecracker business?

Hereafter we trust there be an abundance of decoration and a rational indulgence of social and generous impulses, but unless we desire to go down to posterity as lunatics at large, let the firecrackers be discontinued. The disposition which finds pleasure in noise is childish at the best, but when to be gratified it involves the spreading of tun and personal suffering, common sense is bound to suppress it.³⁴

Maybe the editorial rant made its point – the following year there were no such incidences reported during the Fourth of July celebration. From the headlines, it appears the one hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence was indeed “a blast”.

Today fireworks are still potentially dangerous – but not THAT dangerous. As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation’s independence, remember we have much to be thankful for – be safe and GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Footnotes:

Celebrating America 250: The First Men of the Revolution

by Sharon Hall | Jun 27, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers

These men died on April 19, 1775, more than a year prior to the day we are about to celebrate, commemorating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. They were the first to give their lives for our freedoms.

It was a lop-sided skirmish that lit the fuse – about 700 British against 77 militiamen assembled on the Common. A British officer yelled, “Throw down your arms! Ye villains, ye rebels.”²⁴ Shots were fired. The British claimed they were fired upon; however, militia Captain John Parker later testified he ordered dispersion of his troops. Fifty years later he recanted; shots had been fired by his troops, but the British had still fired upon his men.

The Redcoats suffered one injury while eight militiamen died and nine were wounded. Most of the eight casualties have since been immortalized, their names attached to various Lexington public buildings. Briefly, their biographies (some briefer than others):

Samuel Hadley

Samuel Hadley was born on July 9, 1746 to parents Benjamin Thomas and Ruth (Lawrence) Hadley, one of twelve children. Four of their six sons served in the Revolutionary War, including Samuel who died on April 19, 1775.

In 2009 a Lexington public building was dedicated to the memory of Samuel Hadley. It was noted the Hadleys were farmers and pioneers who raised livestock for wool and crops such as flax which they wove into fabric. They were active members in community life, were prominent in local religious activities and served in a variety of military groups.³⁰

Two hundred years later historians noted that Samuel Hadley and John Brown were “killed before they could clear the green.”³⁴

Caleb Harrington

Caleb Harrington was born on October 27, 1751 to parents Moses and Sarah (Foster) Harrington. Though his family was poor and not prominent in the community, Caleb managed to acquire a piece of property to rent in 1771, perhaps the result of an indenture agreement entered into as a teenager.³⁵

On that fateful day in 1775 Moses Harrington was on the green with his youngest son, as well as other family members (nephews and cousins). As Caleb and two other men went to the meetinghouse for more powder they were approached by a group of British officers on horseback.

In danger of being cut off, the three men decided to flee. One escaped harm, another was hit but survived. Caleb, a member of Captain Parker’s company, was shot and killed near the west end of the meeting house.

Jonathan Harrington, Jr.

He was one of three men named Jonathan Harrington present that day.³⁶ Jonathan Harrington, Jr. was born in 1745 to parents Henry and Sarah (Laugthon) Harrington. He later married Ruth Fiske. Apparently their home was not far from the common green, as various legends claim that Jonathan, mortally wounded, crawled to his home and died at Ruth’s feet.

However, several years later John Munroe,son of Robert Munroe, testified that Harrington, along with his father, was killed on the Common.³⁷ Orator Edward Everett gave a different account several years later, one which mirrored the legend:

Harrington’s was cruel fate. He fell in front of his own house, on the north of the common. His wife, at the window, saw him fall, and then start up, the blood gushing from his breast. He stretched out his hands towards her, as if for assistance, and fell again. Rising once more on his hands and knees, he crawled across the road toward his dwelling. She ran to meet him at the door, but it was to see him expire at her feet.³⁸

An early twentieth century account would state Harrington fell near his barn, yet nine years later the same historian embellished the story thusly:

He is mortally wounded on the northerly end of the Common. Across the road is his home. He struggles to reach it, falls, but with renewed effort rises and staggers to his own door-stone. His wife meets him there, and he dies in her arms.³⁹

Dramatically so or not, there is no doubt Jonathan Harrington, Jr. was a casualty that day.

Robert Munroe

As was the case with the Harrington family there were various members of the Munroe family on the common that day as well – and related by marriage or blood to the Harringtons.⁴⁰

Ensign Robert Munroe appears to have been the oldest man killed that day, he having been born in 1712 to parents George and Sarah Munroe, and descended from Scottish immigrant William Munroe. He was also the first man killed:

The first man killed was Ensign Robert Munroe, sixty-four years old and a veteran of the French war. He had been a British color bearer in 1745. He had two sons, two sons-in-law and seven other relatives in the Lexington fight.⁴¹

Isaac Muzzy

Isaac Muzzy was a distant cousin to members of the Munroe family present that day⁴² and born to parents John and Rebecca (Reed) Muzzy on December 16, 1744. He was descended from immigrant Abraham Mussey who arrived in Massachusetts in 1633.⁴³

Several buildings and landmarks in Lexington are named for this family.

Asahel Porter

As one source notes the parentage of Asahel Porter is unclear, but perhaps the son of William Porter.⁴⁴ It is known, however, that Porter was a farmer from Woburn who, you might say, was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

On the morning of April 19 he and Josiah Richardson were on the road to Boston to sell their goods when they were accosted and arrested by British soldiers. Forced to march amongst the ranks heading to Lexington, Asahel Porter appears to have been attempting escape as they neared the Common. One historic account recorded:

They [Porter and Richardson] started for Boston and their route lay through West Cambridge. They were mounted on horses with their market stuff in panniers. Near West Cambridge they were halted by the advancing column of the British. In spite of their assertion that they were peaceable citizens, they were made prisoners and made to accompany the troops to Lexington. Here the British set them at liberty on condition they should go peaceably about their business. Richardson, walked off slowly, but Porter, after walking a few steps, started to run, when he was shot by soldiers.⁴⁵

Felled near a wall, Asahel Porter was immortalized with a marble stone on April 21, 1875, one hundred years following his burial.⁴⁶

Jonas Parker, Sr.

Jonas Parker was born on February 6, 1721, along with twin sister Sarah, to parents John and Sarah (Whitney) Parker. He and Sarah were the oldest children of twelve. Jonas became united with the Munroe family in 1745 when he married Lucy Munroe. John Parker, captain of the militia, was his cousin.

Jonas, while not as wealthy as his kin, is assumed to have been employed as some sort of woodworker or perhaps a wheelwright as noted by the inventory of his estate. He was also of strong character and unafraid:

Jonas Parker, the strongest and best wrestler in Lexington, had promised never to run from British troops and he kept his vow. A wound brought him to his knees. Having discharged his gun, he was prepared to load it again, when as sound a heart as ever throbbed for freedom was stifled by a bayonet!⁴⁷

Jonas, Jr. was also present on the Common and is said to have witnessed his father’s death.

John Brown

Unfortunately, little seems to have been written about John Brown. While he may have had relatives present on the common that day, he was not related to the Munroe family.⁴⁸ According to Massachusetts birth records, John Brown was born on August 12, 1751 to parents Daniel and Ann (Bright) Brown in Lexington.⁴⁹

These were the first men of the Revolution to sacrifice their lives for the cause of liberty. Many like them died on future battlefields of the Revolutionary War, while some lived long enough to become pensioners. Some outlived them all. More on these war veterans and their amazingly long lives in a series which begins in the weeks following July 4, entitled “Celebrating America 250: The Last Men of the Revolution”.

Footnotes:

Women of the Revolution: Patience Wright

by Sharon Hall | Jun 20, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers

History is filled with stories of “feisty females”. Many lived their lives skirting societal norms to carve out their own piece of history. It seems so much more has been written about the brave men who served during the Revolutionary War, yet women served in various (and important) capacities as well, even on the battlefield. One of the more interesting characters, however, was thought to have assisted in the years leading up to the war by passing information to Benjamin Franklin in a purportedly unique way.

Patience Wright

Patience Wright (née Lovell) was born in 1725 in Oyster Bay (Long Island), New York. Her parents were Quakers who moved to Bordentown, New Jersey when Patience was four years old. Her parents insisted that she and her sisters dress in white, symbolic of their purity, and the family followed a strict vegetarian diet.

Patience, spirited and headstrong, managed to escape her home and head to Philadelphia where in 1748 she married an older man, Joseph Wright, a barrel maker. The age difference came to be an issue as she would later remark to a friend “that [he had] nothing but Age and Money to recommend himself to her favour.”³⁷

When Joseph died in 1769, she found herself in need of income. At a young age, Patience and her sister Rachel sculpted small figures out of bread dough to amuse themselves. She, along with her sister Rachel, also a widow, began to produce wax sculptures to sell. They soon became well known for their amazing life-like sculptures.

Patience had a unique method of “birthing” her art pieces. This method would become as well known as the sculptures themselves. Wax must be kept warm in order to be pliable. She would work the wax in her lap and under her skirts, and then reveal fully formed heads and torsos as if they were being birthed. She then gave special attention to minute details of her sculptures, adding lip and cheek colors and eyelashes.

The two sisters opened two businesses, one in Philadelphia and one in New York, in 1770. Their shop in New York was located on Queen Street, but in 1771 the entire block was destroyed by fire, leaving Patience financially devastated.

Patience met Jane Franklin Mecom, Benjamin Franklin’s youngest sister, and through Jane she was able to obtain an introduction from Franklin to London high society. After her move to London, his letter opened doors of opportunity and her work was soon in demand. To the lords and ladies of England she was thought to be eccentric, most notably because she wore wooden shoes and kissed both male and female on the cheek, regardless of their class. Some were accepting of her eccentricities while others expressed disdain.

Wright’s informal manner was something of a shock to the courtly set, and yet not entirely unwelcome. Her base language and friendly liberties, coupled with her work in a medium distinct from any art yet seen, made Wright something of a novelty – wholly American. Rough-hewn but strong, coarse but honest, she was the New World made flesh.³⁸

Not everyone was enthralled with her, however. Abigail Adams remarked to her sister after meeting Patience at a London party: “Her person and countenance resemble an old maiden in your Neighbourhood Nelly Penniman, except that one is neat, the other the Queen of sluts.”³⁹

In 1775 The London Magazine called her a “Promethean modeler” and described her work:

In her very infancy she discovered a striking genius, and began with making faces with new bread and putty, to such excellence that she was advised to try her skill in wax. . . Her natural abilities are surpassing, and had a liberal and extension education been added to her innate qualities, she had been a prodigy.⁴⁸

Patience cheekily referred to King George III and his wife as “George” and “Charlotte” and they were devoted patrons, at least until she became more outspoken in her criticism of his handling of colonial matters. Even though she lived and worked in London, she was still very much an American patriot.

She corresponded with Benjamin Franklin and is said to have relayed information she overheard in her sculpting sessions regarding members of Parliament and their views on possible war with the colonies (verbatim as written originally):

to say the parlement will not meett untill more explicit acount comes from Ld. How, by a vesel sent for that purpose to bring Inteligens &c. This deception has gave meney of the wise English membrs to go on ther pleasures some one way some to ther Contry seats, that by thir means only about 50 membrs will attend at the cokpitt nor be ready at the House to apose the renewil of the aCursed act that keeps poor Platt confind in Newgate with others of our Contry men.⁵⁰

After Patience’s death, Rachel would claim her sister passed letters to America in wax heads and busts: “how did she make her Cuntry [sic] her whole attention, her Letters gave us ye first alarm…she sent Letters in buttons & pictures heads to me, ye first in Congress attended Constantly to me for them in that perilous hour.”⁵¹

Her work as a “spy” was later impacted when the war began and she fell out of favor with her loyal patrons because of her strident patriotic sentiments. She wrote many letters to Franklin while he was in Paris, but apparently she had fallen out of favor with him as well (or had at least wearied him):

This is the 5th lettr I have wrot to Dr. Frankling and meny other to mr. Scayrs [Sayre], Bankcroft &c. none of which I have Recd. any answr. Mrs. Wright most respectful Complnts to dr. Frankling and hopes he is well, and most humbly begs some direction how to proced.⁵²

She even suggested at one point that Franklin encourage a rebellion in England as well. She never received a response. In 1780 she moved to Paris, seeking to open a wax works there. Her attempts at establishing a patronage were largely rebuffed, for after all France at the time was on the brink of its own revolution. The French were also not as enthralled with Patience Wright and her unique talents as were her English patrons. She returned to London in 1782.

In an apparent attempt to “drum up some business” she wrote letters to both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson:

I most sincerely wish not only to make the likeness of Washington, but of those five gentlemen, who assisted at the signing the treaty of peace, that put an end to so bloody and dreadful a war. The more public the honours bestowed on such men by their country, the better. To shame the English king, I would go to any trouble and expense to add my mite in the stock of honour due to Adams, Jefferson, and others, to send to America.⁵³

She never received a response from either man. A Smithsonian web site article entitled “The Madame Tussaud of the American Colonies Was a Founding Fathers Stalker”, tongue-in-cheek implies Patience was a stalker.

Patience Wright died in London in 1785 at the age of sixty. According to the Smithsonian article, Rachel wrote to Benjamin Franklin asking for funds to bury her sister, but no record exists of a response. Patience was buried somewhere in London and much of her unique work forgotten by history. Wax is not a particularly enduring substance, although some like those sculpted by Madame Tussaud have been preserved. Patience Wright’s only remaining wax figure is of William Pitt, a.k.a. Lord Chatham, on display in Westminster Abbey.

P.S. Here are two more articles featuring other “feisty females” of the American Revolutionary War: Mercy Otis Warren and Nancy Morgan Hart.

Footnotes:

The Other Side of the American Revolution: Finding Your Loyalist Ancestors

by Sharon Hall | Jun 17, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers

One of the first things which compels many of us to begin our quest to learn more about our genealogical roots is the desire to find ancestors who had “fire in their bellies” during the volatile American era known as The Revolutionary War – the rebels and patriots. To be sure, it’s a matter of great pride and joy to find such an ancestor – or many ancestors if you are so fortunate – who either served on the front lines or provided aid and comfort to their fellow patriots. But, what about those ancestors who didn’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with their rabble-rousing friends and family, desiring instead to remain loyal to the British Crown? Even today some consider them traitors to the “American cause”, but shouldn’t we be curious to know their reasons? These days there are numerous resources available to discover more about our Revolutionary War patriot ancestors, but how do we uncover those on the “other side”? As it turns out, there are also vast resources for finding loyalists ancestors.

They called themselves “Loyalists”. The patriots – the rebels – called them “Tories”. To be considered a Tory meant you unwaveringly supported royal authority. On the other hand, patriots, such as the group who called themselves “Sons of Liberty”, had a decidedly different view. In the summer of 1765, the onerous Stamp Act spurred the formation of the organization known as Sons of Liberty. Ironically, the name was taken from a speech delivered in the British Parliament earlier that year when Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Barré, a British army officer and politician, referred to colonists resisting royal authority as “sons of liberty”.

Resistance had been on the rise for some time, and if the British government didn’t quite yet “get it”, Benjamin Franklin plainly informed them so in early 1766 as he testified before Parliament:

Q. What was the temper of America toward Great Britain before the year 1763?

A. The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the government of the crown, and paid, in their courts, obedience to the acts of Parliament. Numerous as the people are in the several old provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons, or armies, to keep them in subjection. They were governed by this country at the expense only of a little pen, ink, and paper; they were led by a thread. They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great Britain; for its laws, its customs and manners, and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an Old-England man was of itself a character of some respect, and gave a kind
of rank among us.

Q. And what is their temper now?

A. O, very much altered.

– Colonial agent Benjamin Franklin, before Parliament, February 1766 ³⁸

Even as he plainly spoke those words, Franklin himself yet remained loyal to the British government, this despite being fully aware of the growing resentment in colonial America. He was very proud of his British heritage and his goal had always been to ensure “that a consolidating Union, by a fair and equal Representation of all the Parts of this Empire in Parliament, is the only firm Basis on which its political Grandeur and Stability can be founded.” ³⁹

Benjamin Franklin would, of course, eventually part ways with “the Empire”, but by this time he had made a career out of taking various royal government positions, most notably and recently as head of the American postal system. He himself would have likely been considered a “Loyalist” at the time, and later regarded with a great deal of suspicion even after he took his seat as Pennsylvania’s newest delegate to the Second Continental Congress in 1775.

In 1775 disdain for anyone calling himself(or herself) a loyalist was evident at a Philadelphia meeting attended by several men from Paxtang (Dauphin County):

In 1775 several Paxtang men were in Philadelphia. One of them, who belonged to that vilified class of ten years previous, the “Paxton Boys,” [vigilantes] denounced, in the presence of Mr. [Joseph] Galloway and other gentlemen whose loyalist sympathies were pronounced, those opposed to resistance to English oppressions as Tories: One of the latter asked, “Pray, sir, what is a Tory?” “A Tory,” promptly replied the patriot, “is a thing whose head is in England and its body in America and its neck ought to be stretched.” ⁵¹

And it wasn’t just the gentlemen – the ladies apparently had their own disdain of loyalists. One newspaper called it a “droll affair” which occurred in Kinderhook, New York:

The following droll affair lately happened at Kinderhook, New York. A young fellow, an enemy to the liberties of America, going to a quilting frolic, where a number of young women were collected, and he the only man in company, began his aspersions on Congress, as usual, and held forth some time on the subject, till the girls, exasperated at his impudence, laid hold of him, stripped him naked to the waist, and instead of tar, covered him with molasses, and for feathers took the down tops of flags, which grow in the meadows, and coated him well and then let him go.⁵²

This incident occurred in the early fall of 1775, a few months after the first shots of the war were fired on Boston Commons on the 19th of April. Tensions had been escalating over the past decade since the onerous Stamp Act was imposed on colonial America, and patriot mobs tarring and feathering Loyalists wasn’t uncommon. Estimates vary as to just how many colonists remained loyal to the British Crown. Families divided over the question of loyalty.

According to a blog article at Ancestry, approximately one-third of all colonists remained loyal to the Crown, an estimated half-million. Who were these Loyalists? You could count on those who depended on a favorable relation with Britain to be Loyalists – businessmen, wealthy landowners and those employed in the service of the colonial government. Another element was the clergy of the Established Church.

These are the people patriots like Samuel Adams and John Adams had to contend with as they attempted to turn hearts and minds toward revolution. By then loyalty to the British Crown had been ingrained in American culture and the mindset of the citizenry. Why rock the boat?

Might you have ancestors who chose to “rock the boat”? For tips and resources to assist you in finding them, you’ll find them in this issue of Digging History Magazine, featuring Massachusetts and is long and storied history.

**FYI, purchase a subscription to Digging History Magazine and you’ll receive this issue as part of the current promotion (see link below)!**

Footnotes:

Celebrating America 250: Radical Presbyterianism (Seeds of Revolution?)

by Sharon Hall | Jun 13, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers

Note: This article is part of a series of articles commemorating America’s 250th birthday. You might want to read this two-part article before reading this one for continuity: Part 1 and Part 2.

Just who were those men who gathered for debate in the Mecklenburg county courthouse in May of 1775? Was there something else contributing to the particularly fiery brand of radicalism in Mecklenburg County? In 1765 the Stamp Act imposed a tax on all printed materials throughout the colonies. It was an affront to free speech.

In North Carolina, Mecklenburg County in particular, paying taxes to the Anglican Church was an affront – their version of the onerous Stamp Act. The Marriage and Vestry Acts were particularly onerous to Presbyterian firebrand Alexander Craighead and his followers. It was illegal for marriages to be performed other than by ministers of the Anglican faith. If settlers
in the back woods of North Carolina wished to legally marry they needed to travel many miles to do so.

As Scott Syfert points out in his book,The First American Declaration of Independence?, if a woman was pregnant it might take months before she was able to travel to make the union legal. Meanwhile, the child would be born out of wedlock. In 1769 Presbyterians of Mecklenburg County had sent a petition directly to William Tryon, Governor of North Carolina. Their petition for redress was filed on behalf of approximately one thousand freemen of the church of Scotland.

Petitioners pointed out the King had expressly “instructed the Lords Proprietors to grant other and greater religious privileges to dissenters.”⁵³ Scottish Presbyterians known as Covenanters had been persecuted by the Church of England following the rise of what was considered to be a rather radical movement, led by Richard Cameron.

In June of 1680 Cameron and his followers (“Cameronians”) sought independence from the English, proclaiming them enemies of Christ and His covenants.

Their “revolution” was rather short-lived and resulted in the death of Cameron, his head and hands lopped off and presented to the authorities. Most of the 1680s were known as the “Killing Time” in Scotland – beheadings, dismemberment, hangings, imprisonment and torture were hallmarks of this decade. In 1685 two women, Margaret Lauchlane and Margaret Wilson, were tied to stakes situated in Wigtown’s tidal flats.

Margaret Lauchlane, in her sixties, was tied to a stake “a good way in beyond the other, and she was first despatched [sic], in order to terrify the other to a compliance with such oaths and conditions as they required.” However, young Margaret Wilson remained steadfast, singing the 25th Psalm “from verse 7th, downward a good way, and read the 8th Chapter to the Romans with a great deal of cheerfulness, and then prayed.” Just as she was about to go under someone pulled her up and asked if she would pray for the King, adjuring her to say “God save the King”. She replied, “God save him, if he will, for it is his salvation I desire.” She refused, however, to renounce her faith, whereupon she was thrown back into the water and drowned.⁵⁴

In response to persecution many of the so-called Covenanters fled their homeland to find refuge in Ireland. By the mid 1700s many would participate in a great Scots-Irish immigration to America in search of religious freedom. In 1715 the Craighead family, Irish Presbyterians led by patriarch and minister Thomas Craighead, arrived in America. Craighead’s charismatic and animated sermons moved audiences to tears, yet in turn, his radical views were offensive to many. Thomas passed his hard-line views down to his son Alexander who began his public ministry in 1735 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Alexander’s entrance into public ministry coincided with the period in America known as the “Great Awakening” when preachers like George Whitefield traveled across the land proclaiming the Gospel. Whitefield, a so-called “New Light”, engendered controversy of his own.

New Light preachers tended to be charismatic and of either the Presbyterian or Congregational faith, preaching to crowds of thousands. Some of them would shun cities where the Episcopal Church held sway and head to the back country, not only to preach, but to settle. Their particular religious fervor, an affront to more traditional and staid faiths, was labeled seditious – “innovators, disturbers of the peace of the church, sowers of heresies and sedition”.⁵⁵

Indeed, the Carolina (South and North) backwoods were a perfect fit for these “radicals”, be they followers of Whitefield or later of Alexander Craighead. In 1741 London’s Society of the Propagation of the Gospel sent Reverend Richard Locke (Anglican Church) as a missionary among the German settlers of Pennsylvania. He would later travel throughout the region and report his findings to officials in London, expressing a special disdain for Whitefield and his followers. The area was overrun with them!

A great many Papists, but the Country is so much covered with woods & some hundred miles round tis impossible to know, but it is very much over spread with New Lights Whitefield’s Followers; Covenanters who receive their Sacrament with a gun charg’d and drawn sword; & profess they’l fight for Christ against civil Magistrates.⁵⁶

The Presbyterian Church of Scotland, founded by John Knox in 1560 (the year Scotland freed itself from Catholicism), set the tone for adherents, both present and future:

The first Confession of Faith prepared by Knox and his associates, asserted explicitly the right and duty of the people to resist the tyranny of their rulers. This was the result of the reformation being carried on by the people.⁵⁷

This was, of course, two centuries before the American revolutionary era. In the sixteenth century, before the Reformation of 1560, government and religion were enmeshed, and corruptly so. As such, Scotland’s Parliament wasn’t representing the people; thus, the church arose and “became their great organ for resisting oppression and withstanding the encroachments
of their sovereigns.”⁵⁸

Alexander Craighead appears to have taken those founding principles to heart (and then some!). As Scott Syfert points out, “[T]he ramifications of Knox’s political views were fundamental to New Lights such as Craighead. The English kings, Craighead believed, were usurpers who had lost their legitimacy to rule as a result of their having abandoned true Protestantism in favor of satanic Anglicanism.”⁵⁹

Craighead led his congregation in 1743 “with uplifted swords, their separation from the Crown which had so impiously violated Covenant engagements on both sides of the Atlantic.”⁶⁰ On that day the congregation adopted their own “declaration” (in part):

We do also testify against James, duke of York, his having any legal right to rule over this realm, by reason of his Popishprinciples . . . We do likewise enter our testimony against George the I. his having any legal right to rule over this realm,because he being an outlandish Lutheran;and likewise against George the II., for their being sworn prelatics, the heads of malignants, and protectors of sectarian heretics . . . and for their being established head of the Church by the laws of England.⁶¹

Outside his circle of followers, Craighead made few friends and, no doubt, many enemies. While the Quakers didn’t seem to mind that he spoke his mind, His Majesty’s representatives thought Craighead’s pamphlets and sermons to be seditious, treasonous and a distraction.

Alexander Craighead left for Virginia sometime between 1749 and 1752 and then made his way to Mecklenburg County, settling on the Rocky River. There he found a people living far removed from civil authority who much preferred to govern themselves.

Craighead had a captive audience of like-minded Scots-Irish brethren and he freely “poured forth his principles of civil and religious government, undisturbed by the jealousy of those in authority”.⁶² The people he led endured hardships of the backwoods pioneer which included, by necessity, confrontations with native Indians. He organized several churches in the region.

The representatives who met in Charlotte in May of 1775 were members of these congregations. Four years before meeting at Charlotte they had fought together at Alamance against the royal governor’s troops. As one historian wrote:

Under the teachings of Craighead, it is not strange that these people should be among the first to conceive the idea of Independence, to announce it to the world in their convention held in May, 1775, and with their fortunes and lives to sustain that idea through the trying scenes of the Revolution.⁶³

Juxtapose the Reformation of 1560 with the Mecklenburg Declaration and one wonders if history was repeating itself two centuries later. It would seem to be possible.

Footnotes:

Celebrating America 250: Declaring Independence (May 20, 1775 or July 4, 1776?) – Part 2

by Sharon Hall | Jun 6, 2026 | Digging History, Digging History Magazine, Services, Special Offers

If you missed it, here’s Part 1 of this thought-provoking article, part of a series leading up to the celebration of America’s 250th birthday.

By the time of John McKnitt Alexander’s death in 1817 historians were busy ensuring New England and the middle colonies received prominence when documenting Revolutionary War history. As Syfert pointed out:

. . . the American Revolution began at the battle of Lexington; major battles were then fought in Boston, New York and Philadelphia; the winter at Valley Forge; and then . . . Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. Various other incidents might have occurred, and, oh yes, there was the Battle at Saratoga, but they weren’t worthy of particular attention. In short, if General Washington wasn’t there, it just didn’t matter.⁵⁸

Was it regional prejudice as Syfert suggests? Perhaps so since, after all, the South was far less developed than northern cities and states for that matter. About the time of John McKnitt Alexander’s death, controversy was already brewing and Alexander’s record of the Mecklenburg proceedings (and subsequent declaration) were about to explode into a controversy which would grab headlines for decades (and decades) to come.

Southerners, and North Carolinians in particular, were galled by Northern claims of American historical superiority. Congressman William Davidson of Mecklenburg began to investigate how best to set the record straight and ensure the proper place in history his constituency deserved. The opening shots, you might say, were fired when Dr. Alexander published his article in 1819.

Most of the original controversy arose when Dr. Alexander didn’t adequately explain exactly how he had obtained a “true copy” (of what?). What had been passed into his hands were his father’s “rough notes” and a full page document, legible, but unsigned and undated. This is apparently the copy he used to send to William Davidson and the Register. He would note it was a copy in “an unknown hand”.

The papers had been found by Dr. Alexander in his father’s home along with a roll of pamphlets from the bygone Revolutionary era. No one has ever been able to definitively identify who produced the copy. As was the custom of the times, the April 30 story was picked up and printed in other newspapers, including the Essex Register (Salem, Massachusetts). Former President John Adams read the story and the crux of the decades-to-come controversy was formed.

Why would John Adams be so intensely interested in the Mecklenburg Declaration? After reading it, he was struck by the fact it sounded so similar in tone to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence as to make him wonder if Jefferson had plagiarized the Mecklenburg Declaration. If you have seen HBO’s John Adams series you know how the two men drifted apart, especially following their bitter rivalry which climaxed with Jefferson’s narrow defeat of John Adams in 1800.

Yet, in later years when both were ensconced in retirement, they began to exchange correspondence in early 1812. Adams had once concluded Jefferson to be a fraud, a “shadow man”.⁶¹ The two men never agreed on much, if at all. They simply were polar opposites, both in politics and temperament.

Over the years of their renewed “friendship” they exchanged over 150 letters, although the vast majority were written by Adams. After reading the Mecklenburg account in his local newspaper he wrote to Jefferson wondering why he had never heard of this document. His missive implied, even if subtly so, that had Jefferson known of it he had deliberately concealed it. If he, John Adams, had been made aware of it he would have championed it all the way to July 4, 1776 himself. Perhaps his logic was, as Syfert wrote:

The subtext was unmistakable: You knew about this, and suppressed it. If you had not kept the Mecklenburg Declaration secret, I would have used it to lead a movement toward independence, not you. I would now have the credit for American Independence, not you. And now I have found you out.⁶³

Surely now Adams had proof of what he had suspected all along – Thomas Jefferson was a fraud, perhaps a plagiarist. One sentence of his June 1819 letter to Jefferson said it all, referring to his new awareness of the Mecklenburg Declaration:

The genuine sense of America at that moment was never expressed as well before, nor since.⁶⁴

Many of Adams’ letters were lengthy; this one was, by contrast, rather short – only 229 words. Yet, he managed to denigrate Thomas Paine and his Common Sense pamphlet, as well as point out more than once that the Mecklenburg Declaration was produced a year before Jefferson’s. Indeed, some passages of the 1776 document were strikingly similar in tone and wording. Could Jefferson really have been guilty of plagiarism? Adams certainly thought so, for it was evident to him Jefferson had “copied the spirit, the sense, and the expressions of it verbatim”⁶⁵ as he had written to another correspondent, William Bentley, on July 5.

He and Bentley continued to correspond and it becomes more evident that Adams was convinced Jefferson was both a fraud and a plagiarist. What did Thomas Jefferson make of all this? Adams had enclosed a copy of the article in his June 22 letter. After reading the article and Adams’ letter he did indeed have an opinion.

Quite simply he wrote back, “I believe it spurious”, although he did backtrack a bit before closing the letter of July 9. He declined to outright proclaim the whole Mecklenburg document a fabrication, but instead decided to count it as fact until proven otherwise. Still, he ended the letter saying, “For the present, I must be an unbeliever in the apocryphal gospel.”⁶⁶

Jefferson may have been attempting to appear diplomatic and even-handed in his response, but human nature would tend to assume he was “hot under the collar”. Adams, however, continued to “investigate” and correspond with Bentley. He simply would not let it pass and became increasingly concerned with the question of which came first, the Mecklenburg Declaration or the one he himself signed in 1776. Was Jefferson a plagiarist who had lifted passages from MecDec or was MecDec a fabrication which utilized passages of the Declaration of Independence in an attempt to discredit Jefferson and this vital piece of American history? Let the national debates begin!

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day, July 4, 1826, appropriately enough, on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Fate often takes strange twists. Their years-long correspondence was discovered in 1829 and published excerpts became available. North Carolinians in particular were provoked after Joseph Seawell Jones wrote “A Defense of the Revolutionary History of the State of North Carolina from the Aspersions of Mr. Jefferson” in 1834.

To North Carolinians the Mecklenburg committee members were worth of glory and a hallowed place in history, not aspersion. Thomas Jefferson, not so much. Southerners rose together and defended the much-maligned Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. The Southern Literary Messenger proclaimed “The Question Settled”⁶⁷ in June 1839 since a man by the name of Peter Force had uncovered a 1775 newspaper which had published something referred to as “resolutions”. This would add a new layer of complexity to the controversy.

Were there two separate documents, one a declaration of independence and the other a set of resolutions, which by contrast were rather bland? To ardent and unwavering Jefferson supporters it was a stick worth chasing – and chase (and bash) they did for years to come. It would later appear Jeffersonians won out after all when William Henry Hoyt published a scathing book in 1907. The title said it all and set the tone for debate for years to come:

The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence: A Study of Evidence Showing that the Alleged Early Declaration of Independence by Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on May 20th, 1775, is Spurious

Blow by blow, Hoyt attempted to make mincemeat of MecDec, although he claimed to have at first attempted to write a defense of it. However, he would come to the conclusion that the “declaration” dated May 20 was really the “resolves” dated May 31, 1775 which Peter Force had discovered years earlier. Hoyt’s arguments were presented at length and included an extensive appendix of documents to support his conclusions.

In actuality his claims proved little, yet they were impressive enough to introduce widespread doubt as to the veracity of the whole Mecklenburg Declaration historical narrative. His approach, “death by a thousand cuts” as Syfert referred to it, was largely successful, however.

Through the years various witnesses to the events of May 20, 1775 had been interviewed and provided sworn testimony. After Hoyt’s claims became widely published others would be emboldened to challenge MecDec even more vigorously, sometimes viciously. A.S. Salley, Jr., a member of the South Carolina Historical Commission would hammer the historic claims of neighbor North Carolina. Salley was sure whatever testimony had been provided was either
coerced or coached.

On and on it went. North Carolinians continued to celebrate May 20 as a hallowed day in their history, while detractors continued to argue otherwise. Even after an important document, a diary entry written by a Moravian who happened to take note of Captain Jack’s passage through his neck of the woods during the period of time in question, the debate continued to slant toward disbelief.

In 1906 a supporter of MecDec produced a copy with “signatures”. While there had been earlier attempts to fraudulently produce the document, this one was merely meant to be commemorative in nature. Still, it engendered more controversy and derision. MecDec deniers simply would not relent.

Over the years massive amounts of ink have been spilled in defense or detraction of the Mecklenburg Declaration. At times it seemed impossible to prove beyond doubt what actually occurred.

After reading Scott Syfert’s book, this writer tends to agree with his even-handed presentation and conclusions. He used the premise of Occam’s razor which is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a scientific andphilosophical rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities.”

In other words, to use modern vernacular, “KISS – Keep It Simple (some add “Stupid”). The discovery of the Moravian diary would seem to provide adequate evidence and affirmation of the events of May and June 1775 in regards to the citizenry of Mecklenburg County. Syfert certainly believes it as his concluding views reveal. Yes, the Mecklenburg committee met on May 19 and on the 20th produced their version of a declaration of independence.

These men were a small group, yet given our knowledge now of what was brewing across the colonies, their views were largely representative of the masses. It was their fiery and patriotic sentiments which were not likely to have been necessarily meant for widespread publication, as happened later with the Declaration of Independence.

While not all historians supportive or otherwise may ever agree on whether any validity should be ascribed to John McKnitt Alexander’s “rough notes”, there is still the Moravian diary entry which also included a corroborative mention of a certain phrase from MecDec – “free and independent”. The phrase was not used in the so-called “Mecklenburg Resolves” of May 31.

Did North Carolinians make more of the events than was warranted? Perhaps, but one shouldn’t cast too much aspersion for their brand of patriotic pride. Many of their opinions and the state’s historical records were cast in stone long before corroborative evidence was uncovered.

While there are still plenty of detractors, it’s interesting to note some views swinging back in favor of MecDec. Commemorations in the form of murals, statues and plaques have appeared in Charlotte in recent years. As historian and author Andrew Roberts commented on the occasion of the 236th anniversary of MecDec in 2011: “if twenty-six North Carolinians say that something took place, my inclination as a historian is to believe them.”⁶⁸

No matter. Historians love to quibble and query – it’s what they do, right?

Next up: Radical Presbyterianism (Seeds of Revolution?). Was there something else contributing to the particularly fiery brand of radicalism in Mecklenburg County?

Footnotes:

« Older Entries

Subscribe to the blog:

Join 987 other subscribers

Shopping Cart

View Cart (0)

View Cart

SUBTOTAL $0.00

CHECKOUT

PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

Fireworks DESTRUCTION: What the Centennial Cost Brooklyn

I Gave Him a Match

The Fires of Patriotism

Samuel Hadley

Caleb Harrington

Jonathan Harrington, Jr.

Robert Munroe

Isaac Muzzy

Asahel Porter

Jonas Parker, Sr.

John Brown

Patience Wright

FYI, purchase a subscription to Digging History Magazine and you’ll receive this issue as part of the current promotion (see link below)!

Subscribe to the blog:

Categories

Shopping Cart

Share this:

Fireworks
DESTRUCTION: What the Centennial Cost Brooklyn

**FYI, purchase a subscription to Digging History Magazine and you’ll receive this issue as part of the current promotion (see link below)!**