Many of our readers will recall a recent article by Dr. Fawn M. Br’f6die presenting an impressive array of evidence suggesting that Thomas Jefferson had a long-standing liaison with his quadroon slave, Sally Hemings (“The Great Jefferson Taboo,” June, 1972). This episode in the life of our third President is an important part of a new biography by Dr. Brodie: Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History, to be published by W. W. Norton & Company in April—a Book-of-theMonth Club selection.
CATTELL’S RUN
Inspired by the article on fox hunting by Caroline Jones in our October, 1973, issue, Charles Crabbe Thomas of Camden, New Jersey, has sent us the following extraordinary story of the unsung Jonas Cattell.
No article about fox hunting in the colonies is complete without mention of the Gloucester County Fox Hunting Society, which was mentioned in your article. But you missed Jonas Cattell.
Jonas Cattell was a member of the Gloucester County Fox Hunting Socjety just after the Revolution. However, he did not ride to hounds, he ran to hounds. He was a great runner and followed the dogs on foot. We are informed that he was in on the kill about 50 per cent of the time—a very good record. This is explained by the fact that he could get through the underbrush of old Gloucester County more readily than those riding horses.
Jonas Cattell was a notable runner. He lived in Deptford—his house still stands—and he once ran from Deptford to Cape May and back, 187 miles, in three days. His most famous exploit, however, was his run from Haddonfield to Fort Mercer.
He was a boy of eighteen and working in a blacksmith shop in Haddonfield when the Hessians under Colonel von Donop passed through on their way to attack Fort Mercer in 1777. Cattell slipped away and ran the 9-7 miles to Fort Mercer to notify Colonel Christopher Greene that the redcoats were coming. His trip contrasts with Paul Revere’s in three ways: (i) he ran instead of riding, (2) he was not captured but stayed to help repel the assault, and (3) unfortunately he had no Longfellow to immortalize him. (1 tried to celebrate his achievement in poetry but could get no further than “Who the hell was Jonas Cattell?”)
We like to brag that he arrived in time so that Colonel Greene could move his cannon from where they were covering the Delaware to the land side to help repel the attack. Unfortunately, it appears that others besides )onas kept pouring in on Colonel Greene with the warning that the British were coining, to the point where the good colonel began to get worried that something had happened to them and sent out a scouting party to find them. The scouts did find the Hessians, and the Hessians stormed the fort and were driven off with terrific loss.
It remained for Cornwallis to capture Fort Mercer a few weeks later, after the fall of nearby Fort Mifflin. However, we of the Deptford Kiwanis celebrate Jonas Cattell by holding a yearly run from Haddonfield to Fort Mercer, and some of the runners no doubt better Jonas’ time.
For a publishable Longfellow parody going further than Mr. Thomas on the exploit of Jonas Cattell, one dollar old tenor (i.e., real silver), a complete set of Hansard’s House of Lords Debates for 1955, and The American Heritage Book of the Revolution. The editors enjoy absolute powers in deciding what, if anything, to publish.
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON OLD BET
Our article about P. T. Barnum’s Jumbo in the August, 1973, issue has elicited this scholarly response from Clifford L. Snyder, president of the Somers Historical Society of Somers, New York, which makes its headquarters, appropriately, in the Elephant Hotel there:
I was especially pleased that you elected to give additional information about other elephants, and particularly that you quoted Mr. James Agee’s last letter, in which he told about Old Bet [page 68].
Mr. Agee unfortunately displayed more emotion than knowledge, but he can easily be forgiven. Those of us who share his feelings for the great beasts appreciate the fact that a man of such recognized literary talent would be concerned with elephant lore.
It is not an established fact that Old Bet was the first elephant to arrive in America, and quite possibly she was second. An April, 1796, publication, Greenleaf’s New York, mentions an elephant journeying to our shores aboard the ship America. A few days later an elephant was exhibited around Beaver Street and Broadway, according to an advertisement in The Argus, April 23, 1796. This area was the location of the Bull’s Head Tavern, a place frequented by ships’ captains, drovers, and a variety of businessmen. Hachaliah Bailey of Somers, New York, regularly stayed at the Bull’s Head when he took his cattle to the abattoir, which was located nearby.
The newspaper reports that the first elephant was sold to a “Mister Owen.” Unfortunately, they gave no other information about the man, nor did they tell what he did with the elephant he bought, but Hachaliah Bailey’s business partner and brother-in-law was named Owen.
During the months following this first arrival elephants were reportedly shown in Philadelphia, Baltimore, York, Pennsylvania, and Asheboro, North Carolina.
The first documented proof of Old Bet’s existence is a bill of sale drawn up in Somers, New York, dated August 13, 1808. That document, on file at the Somers Historical Society Museum, details the sale by Hachaliah Bailey “for $1200, equal two-thirds use of an elephant for one year.” Mr. Owen witnessed the bill of sale, which was made out to Andrew Brown and Benjamin Lent, Somers men who went on to circus fame along with Bailey.
After 1808 we have reasonably good documentation of Old Bet’s activities, which ended with her tragic death in Alfred, Maine, on July 26, 1816—an event documented by newspaper accounts and court records. The farmer who shot and killed her was convicted of the crime.
Mr. Agee stated that Old Bet arrived in America in 1824, a date well after her death. By 1824 several show elephants were in the United States, one named Columbus, another confusingly called Little Bet. Bailey’s Old Bet was buried in Alfred, Maine, where she died, not Somers, New York, the home of her owner. A statue was erected in her memory in Somers in front of the Elephant Hotel, built by Hachaliah Bailey, 1820-25.
P. T. Barnum, not often cited for his honesty, nevertheless made an accurate statement when he called Hach Bailey “the father of the American circus.” As a boy Barnum had worked as a ticket seller for the Somers drover turned showman. Old Bet was the first circus elephant in America whose existence is documented by name. We of the Somers Historical Society would like to believe that she was the same elephant that arrived in 1796, but we would prefer to have an accurate record of the facts reported than to hold an unverified claim to being “first known.”
ATHENS AND AMERICA
In “Postscripts to History” for August, 1973, we reprinted some observations by Professor Gerald F. Else, director of the University of Michigan Center for Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies. Professor Else drew what we saw as “gloomy conclusions” from a comparison of contemporary America and the republic of Athens between 480 and 380 B.C. Professor Else has written to supply us with the rest of his remarks on the subject, which paint a brighter picture. On that particular analogy, I would say that [one] need not believe that America will share the fate of Athens; / don’t think it will either. In any analogy, the details are not the same; thus it would be unreasonable to assert that such constructs have predictive power. Similarly, it would be absurd to think that we can find the solutions to our current problems in the history books, ancient or modern. However, in this paralleling of Athens and America, I think our troubles are similar or analogous enough, as Thucydides puts it, to allow the experiences of the Athenians and Peloponnesians to be used as one means—one important means—of working our way toward a better understanding of our situation. As I said, we Americans suffer from cultural and historical myopia, and much of the responsibility for that must rest with the scholars and teachers in our colleges and universities. Under present conditions, nothing better is likely to happen unless outstanding people in both ancient and modern studies join in some productive, collaborative enterprises.
As an example of the benefits of such studies and the necessity for them, Professor Else mentions the histories of Thucydides, the Athenian aristocrat and general who for political reasons was condemned to sit out the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides, in exile, decided to study and write about the conflict.
His education, his experience, his situation, allowed him to record the fall of the Athenian empire—the campaigns, the victories and defeats, the treaties, the alliances, the deals both sides made with the uncommitted states, as well as the progressive moral deterioration of the Greek world at war. …
The work itself points up an important aspect of the relationship between theory and practice. Its purpose is practical. Thucydides meant it to be practical—not in the sense that future statesmen and rulers could just read it and learn what to do or not to do in certain situations; that’s too simple. … The value of reading Thucydides lies much more in encountering the questions the Greeks asked themselves, and debated, and put to the “ThirdWorld” nations, before they decided on a course of action. The quality, the probity, of their questions has not been surpassed in the course of human affairs over the last 2,500 years. … I would say that Thucydides can show anyone how aware the Greeks were of themselves, of their culture, of the issues they faced, of the real interests held by the uncommitted and less developed powers the two sides were competing for. You see, ignorance of history seduces too many Americans into thinking that emerging nations today would be all right if they just learned to do things the way we do. Such myopia would be pardonable in a small, remote, agricultural country; in a world power it is an extremely serious error.
YOUNG BRADY?
The pioneer American photographer Mathew Brady took an enormous number of portraits but sat for relatively few. The best known of those that have survived appears below to the right. So far no portraits of the young Brady have come to light. Recently, however, the owners of America Hurrah, a New York City antiques shop that specializes in photographica, showed us the daguerreotype at the lower left. We—and the Library of Congress—suspect that the agreeable-looking young subject is Mathew Brady, peering out from his earliest known portrait.
