PRINTER FRIENDLY | EMAIL THIS PAGE TO A FRIEND!

History Unwrapped – September 2005

Browse The Archives

On a summer day in 1948, a Swiss amateur-mountaineer and inventor took his dog with him on a hike. Georges de Mestral and his dog both returned home covered with burrs. The round seed pods with a prickly surface clung to the hiker’s clothing and his dog’s fur. Neglecting his matted dog, the man ran to his microscope and inspected one of the many burrs stuck to his pants. He noticed the numerous hooks that enabled the burr to cling to the tiny loops in the fabric of his pants. This observation caused the inventor to smile as a new invention began to take shape in his mind. He would design a unique, two-sided fastener, one side with stiff hooks like the burrs and the other side would have soft loops like the fabric of his pants. He would call his invention “velcro,” a combination of the words “velour” and “crochet.” Mestral was certain that his invention would rival the zipper.

His idea was met with resistance and laughter, but the inventor, who received his first patent at age 12 for designing a toy plane, persevered. With the help of a weaver from a textile plant in France, Mestral perfected his hook and loop fastener. Velcro was patented in 1955 and has become a multi-million dollar industry. The inventor’s critics have been silenced.

English preacher and author John Bunyan’s famous allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress is second only to the Bible in number of copies sold through the ages and throughout the world. Though the life of his family was a severe struggle with poverty, Bunyan's parents were able to send him to school. In his own words, "It pleased God to put it into their hearts to put me to school, to learn me both to read and write." 

Many of Bunyan's books were written during his twelve years in prison. In spite of promises of toleration by the king, old laws against Nonconformists were revived.  Bunyan had been convicted of not attending the Church of England and for holding unlawful meetings. During his imprisonment, his jailers permitted Bunyan to leave jail to preach and he often preached to 40 or 50 inside the jail. The shift in the political winds allowed Bunyan to preach when he was released from prison, only to find himself arrested once again when those winds changed direction. It was during this later imprisonment that Bunyan probably wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress. It was published in 1678 and immediately became a very popular book. Bunyan enjoyed immense influence and became the most well-known Nonconformist in England.

Benedict Arnold’s treasonous acts against America during the War of Independence should not be viewed any less harshly, but his second wife, Peggy, probably was not the innocent woman she claimed to be. Peggy Arnold may have been providing secrets to the British even before her husband decided to become a turncoat. Socialite Peggy Shippen was 18 and from a wealthy Philadelphia family when she married Benedict, a widower of 37. Marrying into the Shippen family gave Benedict Arnold the social status he seemed to so desperately need. Arnold also was continually in debt from living beyond his means. He and Peggy enjoyed the good life and spent more money than Arnold made. Arnold’s motives were personal not political when he made the decision to work with the British. His greedy desire for more money and his wife’s encouragement were behind a decision Arnold probably later regretted. His resentment with Congress, who slighted Arnold and promoted men of lesser rank, added to his discontentment. New evidence suggests that Peggy Arnold always hated the American cause and actively promoted her husband’s plan to switch allegiance. The Arnold’s went into exile in England, where they were generally scorned and unrewarded.

Sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington was the eldest of 12 children of Henry Ludington, a noted New York militia officer and later an aide to General George Washington. On April 26, 1777, a messenger reached the Ludington house with news that the British were burning the town of Danbury, Connecticut, where the munitions and stores for the militia of the entire region were stored. The messenger and his horse being exhausted, Sybil volunteered to bear the order for muster and to rouse the countryside. Through the dark night, the young girl rode her horse nearly 40 miles on unfamiliar and unmarked roads spreading the alarm. She rode alone with only a stick to prod her horse and to knock on doors spreading the alert in time. The men who responded to Sybil’s alarm arrived just in time to drive the British back to their ships in Long Island Sound. One can only imagine what it was like for young Sybil aiding the rebellion. She was within such a short distance from the fighting and was alone with no one for protection. Sybil Ludington was a true American hero.

Present day visitors to Putnam County New York can trace Sybil Ludington’s  path on that midnight ride and view a statue of her erected on the route. There is a smaller copy of the statue located in Washington, D.C. in Constitution Memorial Hall.

Women were not recognized by the government as Revolutionaries or spies during the War of Independence, and they certainly were not admitted to the armed forces as soldiers. The only way for them to join the service was to disguise themselves as men.

Deborah Sampson of Massachusetts had been an indentured servant for ten years, helping with housework and working in the fields. During the winter, when her work slowed down, she was able to attend school. When her servitude ended, she was hired as a teacher. In 1782 at the age of 21, Sampson enlisted in the Continental Army as a man. She was tall for a woman and performed her duties well, so she raised no suspicions. Rumors circulated back home about Sampson’s military activities, and she was excommunicated from the Baptist church because of a strong suspicion that she was “dressing in man’s clothes and enlisting as a soldier in the army.”

When Sampson was wounded in the leg in a battle near Tarrytown, she tended her own wounds so that her gender would not be discovered. As a result, her leg never healed properly. However, when she was later hospitalized for fever in Philadelphia, the physician attending her discovered that she was a woman and made discreet arrangements that ended her military career. After being honorably discharged from the army, Sampson gave lecture tours in which she wore her uniform and told of her experiences. When Sampson died, her husband was granted a military pension for her services.

During the War for Independence, both the British and Americans had spies who gathered information from the enemy. We are familiar with Benedict Arnold who betrayed his country and worked for the British and Nathan Hale who was captured and hung. But we are not as familiar with Benjamin Tallmadge, George Washington’s spymaster, who was able to create a strong and successful chain of spies throughout the New York area, beginning the secret service in America. These agents gathered countless amounts of information for Washington, which greatly aided in winning the war. Tallmadge was a Yale graduate and began a teaching career and soon became the headmaster of a school in Wethersfield, CT. When war broke out, Tallmadge decided to join the army. He rose up the ladder to become captain of a dragoon regiment, which was assigned to Washington’s intelligence chief in the summer of 1778. Tallmadge's new job was to recruit intelligence sources throughout the Connecticut and New York area. He contacted old friends from Long Island and New York City, gradually forming the “Culper Gang.” Benjamin Tallmadge is now remembered as one of the founders of the first organized espionage operations in America.

John Jay, considered by many to be one of our country’s Founding Fathers, was first opposed to American independence. Jay was from a wealthy New York Huguenot family and had a successful law practice, which was cut short by escalation of hostilities with England. Jay was elected to the First Continental Congress and initially opposed the use of strong measures against England due, in part, to his family’s wealth and Tory connections. However, he did write Address to the People of Great Britain, which accused Parliament of “establishing a system of slavery” by denying Americans the same rights as Englishmen. During the Second Continental Congress, Jay opposed all discussion of independence. He was concerned that mob rule would prevail. Though he was absent during the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Jay became a strong supporter of the cause once independence was declared and served as president of Congress in 1778. He was appointed to write a peace treaty with England after the war and was given the role again in 1794, which resulted in the famous “Jay Treaty.” John Jay became the first chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. His long political career reflected his motto “Nothing is useful except what is honorable.”

The role of espionage was crucial during the War of Independence. Spying was made even more irresistible with both sides speaking the same language. When spy Nathan Hale was captured and hung by the British, George Washington was highly motivated to centralize intelligence operations. An American commander, Benjamin Tallmadge, became Washington’s chief of intelligence. Tallmadge ran a network of spies using cipher codes, invisible ink, double agents, and disinformation. Major Tallmadge’s network included men who operated inside enemy-held New York. Ordinary men, farmers, merchants, a newspaper editor, a tailor, and even women were involved in spying. A Quaker mid-wife and undertaker, Lydia Darragh, was one of the most successful of the women spies. She placed paper scraps of information into large buttons and sewed them onto her son’s clothing. The fourteen-year-old met his brother, a lieutenant in the Continental Army, who snipped off the buttons. Soon the British war plans were in Washington’s hands. Many years later, Benjamin Tallmadge wrote that the war had been won through the intervention of divine providence.

We often hear today that Christians should not impose their religion on others. “Practice your faith in the church and in your home, but don’t force it on anyone else.” This thinking is so far from the Founding Fathers’ intentions. Many supporters of the War for Independence were not Christians; they were rationalists. With Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in leadership roles, rationalist influence was very much present in the Continental Congress. At the same time, traditional Christians were represented as well. The Continental Congress attempted to model the kind of cooperation between Christians and rationalists that it hoped would be practiced across the colonies. The Declaration of Independence refers to God four times: “Nature’s God,” “Creator,” “Supreme judge of the World,” and “Divine Providence.” These were rationalist terms that Christian congressman agreed to because they did not deny Christian truth. Interestingly, during the eight-year War of Independence, the annual Thanksgiving and fast-day proclamations issued by Congress and observed throughout the colonies were written with the knowledge that the majority of religious Americans were Christians. The proclamations regularly invoked the name of Jesus Christ and asked for His blessings upon the war effort.

On a cold December night just before Christmas 1947, a Princeton Seminary student and several of his friends were caroling in a neighborhood near the campus. As the young men advanced up the street toward the seminary, they  paused in front of Professor Albert Einstein’s home. They decided to move on since the Einstein’s were Jewish. But one of the students reminded the others that Professor Einstein often attended chapel services. The students chuckled as they recalled the seminary president saying at the close of worship, “We will wait here until Professor Einstein passes out.” As they tried to decide on an appropriate song, another fellow suggested “Jingle Bells,” which they all agreed was ecumenical. They finally settled on singing “Silent Night” in German.  The students moved up the steps to ring the doorbell. When the professor appeared, the carolers began singing the song in German rather poorly, Professor Einstein opened the door and invited the group into his home. After offering candy, Einstein took his violin from the hall closet and gave the students a gift of his own—“Silent Night.”

The most famous scientist of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, was born in Germany in 1879. Einstein didn’t talk until he was three, but the precocious boy taught himself Euclidean geometry at twelve. He detested dull education and often cut classes to study physics or play his violin. His professors turned him down for a teaching position. Instead he worked as tutor, substitute teacher, and an examiner in the Swiss patent office. Einstein earned a doctorate and published three theoretical papers that would change the way scientists regarded light and motion. Like Sir Isaac Newton, Einstein believed in a universe ordered by God. When Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933, Einstein accepted a position at Princeton University. At Princeton, Einstein became a beloved and familiar figure who was often seen taking walks and checking out the kitchen gadgets at Woolworth’s.  His rumpled appearance and finger-in-the-light-socket hair often caused visitors to the university to mistake him for a bum. Always approachable, Einstein, whose brilliance rocked the scientific community, was not above helping a young neighbor with his math homework.

Many of the 29,000 involuntary volunteers hired out to the British by German princes and sent to America to fight in the War of Independence were described as spendthrifts, loose livers, drunkards, arguers, restless people, political troublemakers, not more than sixty years old and of fair health and stature. Students on their way to university and young men plowing the fields were abducted and forced to serve as well. One young man, a theological student, was “recruited” amid his many protestations while on his way to Paris. The mixed rabble and honest young men were forced to serve in a far off country whose citizens viewed them as soldiers who fought only for money. No one was safe from the grip of the seller of souls. The troops were called Hessians due to the treaty made between Britain and the mercenary German princes, one of them being from Hesse. The Hessians pay went to the German princes. Thousands of the soldiers stayed in America after the war and became, in the end, citizens of the country they were sent to destroy.

Born in New York City in 1902, Marian Anderson was the first American of African descent to perform with New York’s Metropolitan Opera. For many years, she performed mostly for European audiences because the larger American venues prohibited blacks from appearing in them, even one as musically gifted as Miss Anderson. She never complained and endured the snubs with great dignity. The elegant singer’s most trying incident went very public when Howard University in Washington D.C. invited her to perform in 1939. The university needed a place large enough to accommodate the expected crowds and chose Constitution Hall, owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). The DAR refused date after date submitted to them, and it was discovered that the dates really were available, only not to Negroes. The music world was shocked and spoke up in support of Miss Anderson. Eleanor Roosevelt revoked her DAR membership. Other prominent women did likewise. The U.S. Department of the Interior offered the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday for an outdoor concert instead. Miss Anderson performed before 75,000 people whose wild applause at the concert’s end overwhelmed her. Four years later, in 1943, a mural of that concert was unveiled at the Department of the Interior, and the following day, Marian Anderson sang at Constitution Hall at the request of the DAR.

The town of Leadville, Colorado was in the doldrums. Its glory days as a silver-mining center were ending. In an effort to keep their city alive, the citizens decided to stage a winter carnival. Workmen worked day and night using 5,000 tons of ice to build an ice palace for the carnival. On New Year’s Day, 1896, the town turned out for the grand opening. The huge ice palace covering three acres had been completed costing more than $40,000. The towers that flanked the entrance were 90 feet high. The inside contained a 16,000-square-foot ice rink, dance floor, curling rink, restaurant, gaming room and other activity areas. It was illuminated with a dazzling array of electric lights and adorned with gleaming search lights with wonderful prismatic colors illuminating the walls of ice outside.

One woman viewing the fireworks reflecting off the palace walls looked away saying that it was “too unearthly a vision” to gaze upon. By the end of March, the vision was melting away. The thousands of visitors coming from far and wide had spent very little money, but the townspeople felt it had all been worthwhile.

In 1900 there were no weather satellites and no Doppler radar. However, warnings were issued by the U.S. Weather Bureau.  People were advised to seek higher ground. Many didn't heed the warnings preferring instead to watch the huge waves. On September 8, the hurricane slammed into Galveston, Texas almost head on. Waves were higher than 15 feet and winds howled at 130 miles per hour. By the time the storm passed, more than 8,000 people were dead, countless were injured and half of the island's homes had been swept away. The Great Storm reigns today as the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. But while the storm was phenomenal, so was the response of the people who survived it.

"Sunday morning, the day after the disaster, began with the sound of bells from the ruined Ursuline Convent calling people to worship," wrote historian David G. McComb. It was a fitting beginning. Despite the unimaginable devastation and what must have been a hard realization that it could happen again, the city immediately began pulling itself out of the mud.

Building a bridge across Niagara Falls was a challenge that taxed both the skill and imagination of the best engineers. Two bridge companies, one from Canada and one from New York, commissioned Charles Ellet Jr. to construct the engineering marvel—a suspension bridge over the Niagara River. The first obstacle was stretching the first cable between the shores. A boat would be swept over the falls if it tried to cross.  It occurred to someone that flying a kite might be the answer to the dilemma. A contest was held with a five dollar prize being offered to the person who could fly a kite across the Niagara Gorge. A young American boy, Homan Walsh, won the contest on the second day of competition. The string of his kite was fastened to a tree on the American shoreline and the building of the new bridge began. On July 26, 1848, the first Niagara Suspension Bridge was completed, and Charles Ellet Jr. was the first to ride across in a horse and carriage. It was officially opened to the public on August 1. Soon after its completion, Charles Ellet Jr. and his brother began charging pedestrians and carriage traffic a fare for crossing the bridge in each direction without permission of the Bridge Directors. The brothers kept the money generated by the fares. The dispute over the fares had to finally be resolved in court.

John Colter and John Potts, both veterans of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, turned to trapping beaver deep in Blackfoot Indian territory. One day while inspecting traps, the men were attacked by the Blackfeet. Potts was killed, but Colter was captured and became sport for the Indians. He was stripped of clothing and shoes and given a head start before several hundred braves gave pursuit. Colter was a good runner and outdistanced all but one of the braves. With his feet cut, bloody, and full of thorns, Colter turned to face his relentless pursuer. Colter killed the brave and then dove into the freezing river, where he hid until it was safe to go ashore. Colter, without a stitch of clothing, traveled for 11 days to the nearest fort. His astonishing journey has made him one of America’s frontier heroes.

In 1916, two German companies merged and formed what became known as the new Bavarian Motor Works, BMW.  The BMW logo represents a white propeller blade, against a blue sky. It reflects the origins of the manufacturer as a maker of military aircraft engines during the first World War, and is still used today on all BMW automobiles and motorcycles. BMW’s plane manufacturing was brought to a halt with the end of WWI and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty banned Germany from manufacturing airplanes, and BMW reluctantly turned to motorcycle and automobile design to sustain the company. It quickly designed the legendary opposing flat twin cylinder engine known today as the “boxer” engine. The R32 model debuted in September 23, 1923 at the German Motor Show in Berlin and was lauded for its unique technical concept and aesthetic appeal. BMW was able to turn swords into plowshares.

September 6, 2005 – George Washington’s Lasting Gift to Jews

In most of colonial New England, it would have been about as difficult to find a Jewish family as a palm tree. But when George Washington visited Newport, Rhode Island, in August 1790, he found a Hebrew congregation with its own synagogue. Several days later, Washington penned a letter, assuring the members of the Jewish community that they could enjoy full citizenship—welcome news to a community whose ancestors had fled the Spanish Inquisition.

In August of each year, Washington’s letter is still read and reflected on by the Newport congregation. “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of,” Washington wrote, “as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.” He also declared that the government gave “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

Thousands of Jews fled Spain and Portugal’s Inquisitions during the 1500s. When the king of Portugal forced the Jews to “convert” to Catholicism, they practiced their Jewish faith in secret. Many fled to Brazil seeking refuge. In 1654, Portugal recaptured Brazil and expelled its Jewish settlers. Most returned to Holland or moved to Protestant-ruled colonies in the Caribbean. A group of twenty-three Jewish refugees, including women and children, arrived in New Amsterdam (New York City) hoping to settle and build a new home for themselves. In the years that followed, the growing Jewish community pressed the authorities to extend to them rights offered to other settlers, including the right to trade and travel, to stand guard, to own property, to establish a cemetery, to erect a house of worship, and to participate fully in the political process. Governor Peter Stuyvesant protested against this settlement but was instructed by the Dutch West India Company to permit the Jewish refugees to live and trade in the colony.

September 2, 2005 – Was Joshua a Mugwump?

The Massachusetts Indian tribe for whom the missionary to the Indians John Eliot translated the Bible died out long ago, and there are now only a few Indians or scholars alive who can read the book. One word in Eliot’s Bible, however, has become a part of the American language. The word the Algonquians used for “a great chief’ is “mukxuomp” or “mugwump.” This is the word that Eliot used in his translation to describe the Bible’s great leaders, like Joshua or Gideon. However, in 1884, the word was applied to independent Republicans who refused to support their party’s candidate. That is why today the word “mugwump” is used to describe a political maverick, someone who refuses to conform to his group.

John Eliot wrote a little book called The Christian Commonwealth which stirred up a major controversy with royalists back in England. The book describes an ideal Christian commonwealth guided in all matters by God’s law. According to Eliot, all earthly authorities must bow before Christ as the King of kings and acknowledge that the Bible alone reveals the law of God. “Much is spoken of the rightful Heir of the Crown of England,” he stated, “and of the injustice of casting out the right Heir, but Christ is the only right Heir of the Crown of England. The leaders of Massachusetts Bay Colony feared that King Charles II—who saw himself, not Christ, as the supreme ruler of England—would view The Christian Commonwealth as a seditious attack on his throne, so they ordered the book to be suppressed. In addition to writing The Christian Commonwealth, Eliot is credited with publishing the first Bible printed in America. It was done in the native Algonquin Indian Language 1663, nearly 120 years before the first English language Bible was printed in America by Robert Aitken in 1782. Eliot’s devotion to ministering to native Americans earned him the title “Apostle to the Indians."