In the Letters to the Editor section of our June, 1970, issue we reproduced a daguerreotype of Major John Livingston (who was born in 1755), claimed by Richard M. Ketchum to be “the likeness of a man who was born before any other American of whom we have a photograph.” This has evoked the following counterclaim from Carl Carmer, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, a member of our editorial board:
The person in question is my great-grandfather, Isaac Carmer. He was born in 1750 and died in 1853. The picture was taken when he was in his i oznd year, and it shows him seated in a chair carved out of hickory by himself. I have that chair also in my possession.
Isaac Carmer was born in Sandyston Township, New Jersey, and served six hitches in George Washington’s army. That’s pretty impressive until you find out that each hitch was only for a period of one month. After the war he moved to Dryden, New York, and, so I’m told, spent the remaining years of his life telling his sons, daughters, grandsons, and other relatives that he had personally had a great deal to do with winning the war. He intended, he said, to rest on his laurels while they got down to business and ran the world he had helped to create.
My grandfather was twenty years old when Isaac Carmer died. I once asked him what sort of person his father Isaac was. After a long pause he replied in a creaky old voice, “He was a mighty mean old man.”
A CORRECTION
Through a lack of proper communication between editors, we slipped unhappily in our issue of last August: we failed to credit the institution that owns the two fine pictures, Going to and Returning from the Beach, by George Wright, which adorn the back cover of that issue. This entertaining pair of genre paintings belongs to the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who very kindly allowed us to reproduce them, and to whom we express our regrets. The Gilcrease Institute, founded in 1942, has been supported largely with funds given by Thomas Gilcrease, an oil man of Creek Indian descent who for many years ardently collected art and artifacts having to do with the American Indian. With its scope now expanded to include many other aspects of the American scene, the Gilcrease houses one of the finest collections of Americana in the world.
MORE AMPLE OROTUNDITY
Senatorial oratory will be loud and clear this winter. Each lawmaker’s desk in the Senate chamber is being equipped—at a total cost of about $125,000—with a microphone to put humble mumblers on a par with their more bombastic colleagues. However, the amplification system, the first in the Senate’s 181-year history, will not change any rules of the debating game. Every Senator will be able to talk at once. The president of the Senate will still rely on his gavel.
AND A SAVED ROTUNDA
The rotunda of the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Pittsburgh—one of the doomed landmarks noted in our February, 1970, issue (“A Wrecker’s Dozen”) —is going to be saved instead of destroyed. We owe the good news to Mrs. Alan E. Wohleber, a charter member of both the American Heritage Society and the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which was instrumental in saving the structure. Three of the thirteen landmarks have now been spared.
FIRE-ENGINE LILAC
“Fire-engine red is the only color tolerated” we said in our tribute to the ornate splendor of nineteenth-century fire-engine panels in the June, 1970, issue (“Inflammatory Art”). Not so, wrote a number of buffs, including R. L. Nailen of Hales Corners, Wisconsin, who says:
Red is in the majority, yes. But the decor of American fire engines actually spans the rainbow, particularly in the East. For example: Winchester, Virginia, equipment is deep green in color—has been for years. At least one fire company in Belmar, New Jersey, prefers buff and gold. Blue and even lilac can be found. … Baltimore and Jersey City have always used white. In my village yellow is the rule.
CUSTER’S FIRST CHILD
We find to our embarrassment that we identified the infant in the photograph on pages 24–25 of our June issue (“The Past Springs Out of a Picture”) as the child of General George Armstrong Custer and his wife, Libbie. This immediately drew a number of tongue-in-cheek responses from readers, among them John S. du Mont of Greenfield, Massachusetts, and Michael Harrison of Fair Oaks, California. Mr. du Mont wanted to know the name of the child—“another historical first”—while Mr. Harrison credited us with the “photographic scoop of the century.” On rechecking, we discovered, of course, that the Custers never had any offspring. The baby in the photograph is the child of someone else, and we offer an American Heritage cigar to the first reader to tell us whose.
BEAR WITH US
Gerald V. Niesar, a subscriber from Oakland, California, sent us a letter noting his delight at seeing one of his family’s favorite paintings (C. S. Raleigh’s Chilly Observation 1889) on the back cover of our April, 1970, issue. Mr. Niesar, however, expressed surprise that it was credited as being housed at the National Gallery of Art. The painting of the polar bear, he said, had hung above his wife’s desk while she was a staff lecturer at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We checked and discovered that we had indeed credited the amusing painting to the wrong institution. It is, correctly, a part of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch’s gift to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
UP, UP, AND AWAY!
Kite flying is now legal in the nation’s capital. The approval of both houses of Congress was necessary to drop the prohibition, which dated back to the early 1890’s, when kites began getting entangled in the ever-spreading wires along the streets. It is still forbidden to play football, bandy (an old form of tennis), shindy (a schoolboy’s version of hockey), and other games in Washington’s streets.
POSTMARKED 1841
An old but fascinating letter was recently brought to our attention by Mrs. Robert A. Dahl, of North Haven, Connecticut. It was written nearly one hundred and thirty years ago to former President John Quincy Adams by Ka-le, one of forty-four tribesmen from Mendi, south of Sierra Leone in Africa, who were imprisoned in Connecticut after seizing control of the slave ship Amistad. The Africans had been kidnapped by slave traders and taken to Havana, where they were sold to two Spaniards, José Ruiz and Pedro Montez. As the new owners were shipping them to another coastal port in Cuba, the Africans, led by Cinqué, broke their chains. They killed the ship’s captain, who had had two of their number severely flogged for stealing water, and also slew the cook, who had threatened to cut them up and eat them. Both Ruiz and Montez were spared, apparently to help in navigating the ship back to Africa. By day a native named Ceci steered the ship eastward, guided by the sun; at night the Spaniards set the course. After two months at sea the Amistad foundered off Long Island. The Africans went ashore for provisions and were assured they were in a free land. Within a day, however, they were arrested and, after a hearing in New London, Connecticut, were imprisoned. Although the Connecticut courts decided they were free men, the Spanish government appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court, insisting that the blacks were Cuban residents and subject to slavery. While awaiting trial the Africans were imprisoned for seventeen months, first in an old jail on New Haven’s green, then in a new prison in the Westville part of the city. Curiosity seekers paid a shilling each to see them. The money was used by the jailor, Pendleton, to supply them with additional comforts. Their plight also attracted students from the Yale Theological Seminary, who taught them how to read and write. Ka-le wrote from the Westville prison on January 4, 1841, to Adams, who was to plead their case before the “Great Court.” His touching letter is reprinted here with the kind permission of The Adams Papers and the Massachusetts Historical Society:
Dear Friend Mr. Adams
I want to write a letter to you because you love Mendi people and you talk to the Great Court we want to tell you one thing Jose Ruiz say we born in Havanna he tell lie We stay in havanna ten days and ten nights we stay no more we all born in Mendi we no understand Spanish language Mendi people been in American 17 moons we talk America language a little no very good. We write every day we write plenty letters. We read most all time we read all Matthew Mark Luke and plenty of little books. We love books very much. We want you to ask the Court what we have done wrong what for Americans keep us in prison. Some people say Mendi people crazy dolts because we no talk American language Americans no talk Mendi. American people crazy dolts? They tell bad things about Mendi people and we no understand. Some men say Mendi people happy because they laugh and have plenty to eat. Mr. Pendleton come and Mendi people all look sorry because they think about Mendi land and friends we no see now. Mr. Pendleton say we feel anger and white men afraid of us then we no look sorry again. That’s why we laugh. But Mendi feel bad O we can’t tell how bad. Every day and night we think about our country. Bad men say Mendi people have no souls. Why we feel bad we have no souls We want to be free very much. Dear Friend Mr. Adams you have children and friends. You love them you feel very sorry if Mendi people come and take all to Africa. We feel bad for our friends and our friends feel very bad for us. Americans not take us in ship we were on shore and Americans tell us slave ship catch us. They say we make you free if they make us free they tell truth if they not make us free they tell lie If America give us free we glad—if they no give us free we sorry—we sorry for Mendi people little—we sorry for America people great deal because God punish liars. We want you to tell Court that Mendi people no want to go back to Havanna we not want to be killed Dear friend we want you to know how we feel … Mendi people have got souls. We think we know God punish if we tell lie we never tell lie we speak truth. What for Mendi people afraid because they have got souls Cook say he kill he eat Mendi people we afraid we kill Cook then Captain kill one man with knife and cut Mendi people plenty we never kill Captain if he no kill us If Court ask who bring Mendi people we bring ourselves Ceci hold the rudder. All we want is make us free not send us to Havanna Send us home Give us Missionary We tell Mendi people Americans spake truth we give them good tidings we tell them there is one God you must worship him make us free and we will bless you and all Mendi people will bless you …
Your friend Ka-le
On March 9,1841, the Supreme Court decided in favor of the Africans, pronouncing them free men and entitled to return to their homeland. A public subscription raised enough money to charter a ship to sail to Mendi. Eight had died during two cruel winters spent in New Haven. Except for a cabin boy, the other thirty-five chose to return home.
