Myth #106: They made everything themselves in those days.

(Also see the related Myth #99: Early American women spun and wove their own fabric.)

This week Katie Cannon has agreed to deal with this myth that has pestered her for years. She has more than a dozen years of experience working in history museums as well as a masters in Museum Studies, and she currently works at Mount Vernon. Katie says she is especially fond of living history, having never quite grown out of playing dress-up.

This is something you hear all the time, about different places and times in American history. While I will certainly not dispute our ancestors’ ingenuity and skill, and many people did make a variety of objects for their own use, it is simply not true that anybody made everything— or even most things— that they used. Pre-Industrial Americans were part of a global economy and were consumers as well as producers; you can see this in all three centuries of early American history.¹

The 1600s

When the first English settlers arrived on American shores, they thought they were landing in an untamed wilderness full of savage beasts and “savage” men. (Not true of course, but that’s a topic for another discussion.) This meant they were totally on their own and had to fend for themselves, right?

Wrong.

While they could not purchase the manufactured goods they were used to on this continent, they eagerly awaited regular ships bringing them European goods: cloth, thread, sugar, salt, furniture, paper, etc. etc. That romantic image of Priscilla Mullens industriously spinning wool while John Alden stumbles through wooing her? A bit difficult since there is no record of fiber processing tools in the colony until the late 1630s (and the two were married over a decade earlier).²

Here is an excerpt from a letter by Edward Winslow, 1621. He is writing to a friend and advising him on what to bring to the new colony:

“…bring good store of clothes and bedding with you. Bring every man a musket or fowling-piece…Bring juice of lemons, and take it fasting; it is of good use. … If you bring anything for comfort in the country, butter or sallet oil, or both is very good. …Bring paper and linseed oil for your windows, with cotton yarn for your lamps.”³

 The 1700s

 The 18^th century saw the birth of the United States of America, land of the free, the brave… and the avid consumers. Prior to the Revolution, this country was heavily dependent on British imports; England even forbade the colonies from producing certain goods themselves, ensuring that they would be England’s customers.⁴

 For political reasons around the time of the Revolution there was a push for “homespun” and other goods produced locally.⁵ This did not mean that everyone could be self-sustaining, however. Just think of all the tools and knowledge necessary to make every single item in someone’s home! An encyclopedia published in the 18^th century shows images of craftsmen and their tools; take a look at what was required to make a single pin, necessary for sewing and fastening clothes:⁶

 Image link: http://artflx.uchicago.edu/images/encyclopedie/V21/plate_21_5_2.jpeg

If you look through probate inventories of the time, even for those in the lowest income brackets, you get the sense of all the many trades (needing years of training and specialized tools) that went into making that inventory. Consider this inventory of Patience Gilbert from 1742; she is listed in the lower wealth category of the York County, Virginia, probate inventories.⁷

 Her list of possessions includes:

• 3 kettles, 2 frying pans, 1 copper kettle, 1 brass candlestick, and other metal items that would have been made by various smiths
• Several items of clothing but no loom or spinning wheel so she at least purchased the fabric if not the finished clothes
• Tea that she could not have grown in this climate
• A looking glass which she certainly did not make
• … and so forth.

You will find similar inventories for other years, wealth categories, and locations.

The 1800s

 Ah yes, the self-sufficient pioneers, heading off into the frontier for a fresh start away from any outside assistance! … or not.

 Becky Lauterbach, Senior Facilitator at Conner Prairie Interactive History Park whose specialty of over 20 years is early life in 19^th century Indiana, says, “they were able to get to a store in Indiana, and it probably wasn’t all that difficult. Fur traders… had been in the area for 200 years. Even the Native Americans had become dependent on manufactured goods. St. Louis, MO was the “Gateway to the West” by the 1830’s. People moving on to the “frontier” could stop there to stock up and could no doubt buy anything they needed (and plenty of things they didn’t). Most settlers never intended to be self-sufficient, but were willing to “rough it” for a while to gain the advantage of being first on the scene.”

She also provides this list of just a few items offered at an Indiana store in 1834-35:

 

• Guns and the gunpowder to fire them

• Lead – While balls could be molded easily, you needed the bar lead to start with.
• Salt – so necessary for preservation.
• Glass
• Pottery
• Metal items – tools, at least the heads, cooking pots, cooking utensils, horse shoes, nails, …
• Paper
• Dye stuffs for colors like blue, red, purple
• Cotton – not grown in large quantities around here

 Why does this matter?

 I won’t deny that before the Industrial Revolution all items had to be made by a person, whether it was a person working with hand tools or operating a machine such as a loom. But, no single person was able to make everything they owned, nor did they have to; they could purchase items made locally or shipped from abroad, the same as we do today.

 We honor the self-sufficient aspects of our ancestors quite readily; I think we should also recognize them as active consumers of a global marketplace, lest we do a disservice by diminishing the scope of the world they lived in.

 

Notes

1 I will be focusing on American history starting with European colonization. Pre-European contact also involved extensive trade networks, but this is meant to be a short article, not a doctoral thesis!

2 Jill Hall. “The Truth About Priscilla, Spinning in Early Plymouth Colony,” Spin Off. Winter 2010. Available online at http://www.sail1620.org/history/articles/220-truth-about-priscilla-spinning-in-early-plymouth-colony.html

3 Dwight Heath, ed., Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth (Bedford: Applewood Books, 1963), p. 86. Many thanks to Elizabeth Rolando of Plimoth Plantation for providing the quote.

4 Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun (New York: Vintage books), pp. 84, 159.

5 Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. The Age of Homespun (New York: Vintage books), p. 176.

6 The Encyclopedia of Diderot, 1751-1777. Available online at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/

7 York County Probate Inventories, provided by Colonial Williamsburg’s digital library. http://research.history.org/DigitalLibrary/BrowseProbates.cfm accessed January 19, 2013.

More Thanksgiving Myths

Last year I tackled the main Thanksgiving myth (see #69) about the first Thanksgiving and also the one about popcorn and Pilgrims (see #70). This year I’ll send you to another site where Eric Thompson of Texas has tackled several Thanksgiving myths. I learned something from his site–I hadn’t known of a First Thanksgiving claim of 1541 from Texas. Really, many states point to an early feast and prayer event and claim it was the earliest Thanksgiving, but the truth is, our holiday began when Lincoln made it a holiday during the Civil War. 

http://www.officespaceforrent.org/blog/6-myths-about-thanksgiving-revealed/

MYTH #96: Because trans-Atlantic communication was so slow, the Battle Of New Orleans occurred after the War of 1812 had ended.

Eshelman’s new book on the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake

Thanks go to Ralph Eshelman, a historian who specializes in the War of 1812 and who busts this common myth, below. It’s one we find in many history books. I confess, when I was teaching, I presented this to my students as fact. Sorry kids . . .

This commonly held myth is based on the fact that the American and Great Britain peace commissions did agree to terms of a treaty on December 24, 1814.  But the British were fearful of the US Congress failing to agree to the recommendations of their own peace commission such as occurred with the Jay Treaty. So the British demanded that all hostiles would cease only after the treaty had been ratified and exchanged by both countries. 

This is very clear in the wordage of the treaty as found in the first sentence of Article 2: “Immediately after the ratifications of this treaty by both parties, as hereinafter mentioned, orders shall be sent to the armies, squadrons, officers, subjects and citizens of the two Powers to cease from all hostilities.”

Great Britain ratified the treaty on December 30.  The treaty did not reach Washington City until February 14, 1815 and was not ratified by congress until February 16.  The United States and Great Britain exchanged ratifications of the treaty on February 17. At this time the treaty became binding.  The Battle of New Orleans took place on January 8, 1815, forty days before the war was officially over and hostilities were to cease.

 

First, Best, and Only — the Cousins of Myths

Historian Glenn E. Campbell of Historic Annapolis gave a short talk at a recent conference that warned against overdoing superlatives. The most dangerous words we use are  ”best example of,” “first,” “oldest,” “only,” largest,” and so forth. For example, while researching my upcoming book about Virginia’s Governor’s Mansion (October 11 launch date), I’ve had to modify statements that docents have made for years: that the 1813 house was “the oldest continuously occupied governor’s mansion in America.” But at least one governor (and probably others) did not live there, so we need to drop “continuously,” and the governor’s residence in Puerto Rico dates to the 1500s–Puerto Rico is in America too. Are there statements that your docents make that over-reach? Do you hear such statements when you visit historic sites and museums? Share examples!!

Glenn kindly allowed me to post his short and enjoyable presentation , which he titled, Firsts, Bests, and Onlys:  Quick Thoughts and Cautions Regarding Historical Superlatives

A superlative recognizes and calls attention to some quality or accomplishment that is not merely noteworthy or even outstanding.  Superlatives are reserved for the truly exceptional and unique.  Besides “firsts, bests, and onlys,” there are many other superlatives that we like to use when practicing public history:  greatest, biggest, most, tallest, richest, etc.

 The historical superlative is a cousin of the historical myth.  It’s easy to understand the appeal and usefulness of superlatives.  They’re a kind of shortcut to the attention centers of our audiences’ brains.  By their nature, they demand that people prick up their ears and really take notice of what we’re saying.

 On the counter-intuitive downside, a superlative statement actually can divert attention away from the very trait or achievement worthy of recognition and toward the seemingly more impressive “fact” that so-and-so was the first, best, or only to do or be such-and-such.  Ask a tour group to look at the fine carving on your site’s parlor mantle, and you’re likely to get a mixed response at best.  Tell them it’s the only surviving mantle created by famed colonial craftsman What’s-his-Name, and suddenly people are pushing up close to see.  The “fact” that it’s the only such mantel in existence anywhere is more important than the exceptional quality of the carving.

 Another drawback of the superlative is that it can be a very difficult thing to verify.  To prove a superlative statement, you must be prepared to fend off challenges from every possible rival for the claim.

 For example:  a few months ago, a board member sent an e-mail asking me to confirm a statement he wanted to include in a pitch to potential donors.  Could he say that Annapolis had the greatest collection of 18^th-century architecture in the country?  Another board member had questioned that assertion, and he wanted a definitive ruling.  I checked a few books in my office, did some Googling, and sent e-mails to Jean Russo and Jane McWilliams, two colleagues who are my “go-to” authorities when it comes to Annapolis history.  The three of us asked ourselves what other cities might be in the running for that honor.

 I read in a new book about Philadelphia the claim that it “has more surviving early American buildings than any other city in the nation.”  Williamsburg is justly proud of its “88 original buildings.”  (The sharp-eared will pick up on the vague descriptors “early” and “original”— neither one is the same as “18^th-century.”)  What about Boston, Charleston, Newport, or Providence—how many old buildings do they each have? 

 For that matter, we asked, exactly how many does Annapolis have?  It seems like that should be an easy question to answer, but pinning down a firm number is tougher than you’d expect.  Jean Russo drafted a list of 42 structures in 1993.  Architecture in Annapolis:  A Field Guide, which was a product of the 1998 Vernacular Architecture Forum, came up with 45.  The city’s National Register description says there are 120, but we agreed that figure probably reflects an optimistic overestimation from the 1965 nomination form, which was submitted before the systematic lot histories project done by Jane McWilliams and Dr. Ed Papenfuse.

 After two days of firing e-mails back and forth, I sent our board member this “history police”- approved, more cautious superlative statement:  “Among small American cities, Annapolis has the greatest collection of surviving 18^th-century brick buildings, including several of the nation’s finest Georgian mansions.”  Can you hear all of the limiting, hedging, “weasel” words?  That’s another thing about superlative statements—if you qualify them enough, almost anything can be made into a “first, best, or only.”  When I mentioned this little exercise at a department meeting, a colleague told me his favorite formulation about the city:  “Annapolis has the most intact, above-ground, 18^th-century structures in continuous use within a one-third square-mile area in the nation.”

 If you deal in superlatives, don’t get so committed to and invested in a particular statement formulation to the extent that your world comes crashing down if it’s shown to be not entirely accurate.  If your favorite superlative statement is disproven, challenged, or superseded in some way, does that diminish or negate the noteworthy quality or accomplishment that you really want to recognize?  Does altering or qualifying the superlative formulation take away from your subject’s significance?  If the little house museum ten miles down the road proudly announces to the world that it, too, has a mantel carved by What’s-his-Name, does that take away from the craftsmanship of the formerly “only” one at your site?  To use an Olympic reference, did Mark Spitz become a worse swimmer when Michael Phelps earned his 8^th gold medal in Beijing?

 Keep the attention on the noteworthy trait or achievement itself.  Going back to our board member’s question, what he really wanted to do was call a potential donor’s attention to the fact that Annapolis has an impressive collection of well-preserved 18^th-century buildings, largely thanks to the efforts of Historic Annapolis—that’s the underlying message that the different superlative statements tried to convey but somehow got obscured in the process of trying to get the specific formulation correct.

 To conclude, I’ll leave you with these suggestions.  When dealing in superlatives, try very hard to get them right.  But don’t hesitate to abandon or alter them if they’re disproven or put in serious doubt.  And don’t let them divert attention from the qualities or accomplishments that you really want to recognize.

Myth # 94: Hair receivers were dressing table accessories meant for gathering hair with which to make hair art.

Thanks to Ashley Rogers who sent this question: “I work in a historic home where I wrangle a corps of 30 volunteers, and keeping their wandering myths in line is a full-time job. I’ve gone through your site, and to my knowledge, I haven’t found anything about hair receivers. This is a contentious collection piece in my museum, because just like at most historic homes, many of my docents tell visitors that hair receivers were for gathering hair with which to make hair art. Bunk, I say! And here’s why: the hair that came off of a brush would be too tangled and broken to make fine hair art with. Also, hair art is so often associated with Victorian mourning practices that very often these pieces were made from locks from the deceased. Where do you weigh in on this issue?  I’d love to see it covered, if the mid-to-late Victorian Era is not too far past your preferred time period.”

     You’ve answered your own question so nicely, Ashley, that I consider this a “guest blog.” I can only add to your conclusion something that I located in the library, something you may well have seen: THE ART OF HAIR WORK (1989), which reprints Mark Campbell’s 1875 book plus excerpts from Godey’s Lady’s Magazine. These pages show how to make numerous braid patterns and jewelry, specifically rings, necklaces, and bracelets, from hair. But all the hair is to be purchased from suppliers or, less commonly, cut from the head of a loved one, living or deceased. A nice thick, long strand is required, not broken, short, single strands collected from from a brush or comb. Those could not be gathered into a hank of hair suitable for jewelry-making.

      So what happened to the hair in hair receivers? This tangled mess of hair could be saved until there was enough to stuff in a tiny pillow for use as a pin cushion or into a hairnet to make a ratt, a ball of hair that could add height or fullness to one’s hairdo.  ”While some say that hair saved in receivers was also used for hair jewelry, love tokens, and mourning mementos, Lori Verge, curator of the Surratt House Museum in Clinton, Maryland, states those items required straight, not tangled hair. She believes that women used cut hair (rather than combed out hair) for those purposes. Ms. Verge also reports that her grandmother used a hair receiver as late as the 1950s.” (www.go-star.com/antiquing/hairreceivers.htm)  Also see http://www.hairwork.com/remember.htm (the official Victorian Hairwork Society website) for an article by Susan and Jim Harran for Antique Week, Dec. 1997. 

Reading about The Use of Myth in History

I’m not the only person writing about history myths. Check out this article by Gil Klein in the current issue of Colonial Williamsburg’s magazine about some of the history myths we most revere.

The Use of Myth in History

The crowd waited expectantly as Adrian Grantz, portraying Patrick Henry, rose to reenact the culmination of the debate of the Second Virginia Convention of March 1775. A couple hundred people from all over the country packed into Richmond’s St. John’s Church, the site of the original speech, as they do nearly every Sunday. The words tripped out of Grantz’s mouth as the hushed audience waited for the famous concluding lines. ”Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace—but there is no peace,” Grantz said, his voice rising for the finale. “The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?”

Then, in a gesture that has been repeated by generations of schoolchildren, he raised his arms as though breaking the chains.”Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Cheers and applause. People stood in ovation.

Henry’s “Liberty or Death” became a slogan useful in situations where action is summoned to defeat perceived tyranny. But the historical fact is that though Henry did speak forcefully on that March day to spur the convention to action, we have no reliable record of what exactly he said.

To continue, click here:  http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/summer12/myths.cfm

Top Myths About the Fourth of July

This was written by Valerie Strauss for the Washington Post, July 3, 2011. I saved it for 2012.

Back by popular demand (well, I like them), here are the top five myths about Independence Day, adapted from George Mason University’s History News Network:

1. Independence was declared on the Fourth of July.

America’s independence from Great Britain was actually declared by the Continental Congress on July 2, 1776. That’s why John Adams thought July 2 was going to be the day future Americans celebrated.

On the night of July 2nd, the Pennsylvania Evening Post published the statement: “This day the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies Free and Independent States.”

So what happened on the Glorious Fourth?

The document justifying the act of Congress — you know it as Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence — was adopted on the Fourth, as is indicated on the document itself, which is, one supposes, the cause for all the confusion. As one scholar has observed, what has happened is that the document announcing the event has overshadowed the event itself.

When did Americans first celebrate independence? Congress waited until July 8, when Philadelphia threw a big party, including a parade and the firing of guns. The army under George Washington, then camped near New York City, heard the news July 9 and celebrated then. Georgia got the word Aug. 10. And when did the British in London finally get wind of the declaration? Aug. 30.

John Adams, writing a letter home to his beloved wife Abigail on July 3, predicted that from then on:

“the Second of July, 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.”

A scholar coming across this document in the 19th century quietly “corrected” the document, with Adams predicting the festival would take place not on the second but the fourth.

 

2. The Declaration of Independence was signed July 4.

Hanging in the grand Rotunda of the Capitol of the United States is a vast canvas painting by John Trumbull depicting the signing of the Declaration.

Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams wrote, years afterward, that the signing ceremony took place on July 4. When someone challenged Jefferson’s memory in the early 1800’s, Jefferson insisted he was right.

Really? As David McCullough remarks in his biography of John Adams, “No such scene, with all the delegates present, ever occurred at Philadelphia.”

So when was it signed?

Most delegates signed the document on Aug. 2, when a clean copy was finally produced by Timothy Matlack, assistant to the secretary of Congress; some waited even later to sign, and the names on the docment were made public only in January 1777.

Years later Jefferson offered details of the event — even “remembering” flies circling above the signers — but, since he was wrong about the date, he probably was about the flies, too.

The truth about the signing was established in 1884 when historian Mellon Chamberlain, researching the manuscript minutes of the journal of Congress, came upon the entry for Aug. 2 noting a signing ceremony.

As for Benjamin Franklin’s statement, “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall hang separately” … well, there’s no proof he ever made it.

 

3. The Liberty Bell rang in American Independence.

The story goes like this: A boy with blond hair and blue eyes was posted next to Independence Hall to give a signal to an old man in the bell tower when independence was declared. When the signal was given, the Liberty Bell was rung.

Except for this: It never happened.

The story was concocted in the middle of the 19th century by writer George Lippard in a book intended for children. The book was aptly titled, “Legends of the American Revolution.” There was no pretense that the story was genuine.

The bell was not even named in honor of American independence. It received the moniker in the early 19th century when abolitionists used it as a symbol of the antislavery movement.

The famous crack? The bell cracked because it was badly designed.

The Liberty Bell can be viewed in all of its glory in Philadelphia, where it is displayed in a glass chamber in the appropriately named Liberty Bell Center on Market Street. Available are a video presentation and exhibits about the bell, “focusing on its origins and its modern day role as an international icon of freedom,” as the Web site about the center says.

 

4. Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag.

The story goes like this: George Washington himself asked Betsy to stitch the first flag. He wanted six point stars; Betsy told him that five point stars were easier to cut and stitch. The general relented.

Except that it is bogus

A few blocks away from the Liberty Bell is the Betsy Ross House. And every year crowds still come to gawk: behind a wall of Plexiglas, a Betsy Ross mannequin sits in a chair sewing the first flag.

But there is no proof Betsy lived here, as the Joint State Government Commission of Pennsylvania concluded in a study in 1949. And the flag story was made up in the 19th century by Betsy’s descendants.

The real Betsy Ross was an unheralded seamstress. Her bones, which had lain in a colonial graveyard for 150 years, were dug up so she could be buried again beneath a huge sarcophagus located on the grounds of the house she was never fortunate enough to have lived in.

Who sewed the first flag? No one knows. But we do know who designed it. It was Frances Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration.

Records show that in May 1780 he sent a bill to the Board of Admiralty for designing the “flag of the United States.” A small group of descendants works hard to keep his name alive.

Just down the street from Betsy’s house is Christ Church Burial Ground, where Benjamin Franklin is buried and Hopkinson is too, along with three other Declaration signers: Dr. Benjamin Rush, Joseph Hewes and George Ross.

 

5. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the Fourth of July.

Okay, so this really happened. But the well-known story isn’t all true.

On July 4, 1826, Adams, the second president, and Jefferson, the third president, both died, exactly 50 years after the adoption of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. The country took it as a sign of American divinity.

But there is no proof to the long-told story that Adams, dying, uttered, “Jefferson survives,” which was said to be especially poignant, as Jefferson had died just hours before without Adams knowing it. Mark that as just another story we wished so hard were true we convinced ourselves it is.

By the way, James Monroe, our fifth president, died on July 4, 1831. And Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president, was born on July 4, 1872.

Myth # 88: John Hanson was the real first president of the United States.

John Hanson

This resilient myth has been around for more than one hundred years, as his descendants have sought to plump up his reputation. In 1959, the director of research at Colonial Williamsburg tried to stamp it out–obviously, he was unsuccessful–by writing about whether Peyton Randolph or John Hanson was the first president of the Continental Congress. “The apparent confusion on this point arises form the fact that the Continental Congress existed first as a revolutionary body and then after the formal ratification of the Articles of Confederation on March 1, 1781 as the congress of the Confederation Government. Most historians, however, refer to this body as the Continental Congress during the entire period of its existence from 1774 until 1788.” He concludes that Hanson was not the first president of the Continental Congress, although he was one of several presidents, none of whom were “president” of the United States. “[Hanson] has sometimes been called the first president of the nation. However, he was in no sense a true executive officer, as were the presidents elected under the Federal Constitution.”

But let’s let Deborah Brower of Maryland, this week’s guest blogger, share her research and set the story straight. Hang on . . . it’s complicated! Or skip to the summary at the bottom, or check out Jon Stewart’s hilarious take on the Hanson claim at www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-december-5-2001/hail-to-the-thief .

Most people have never heard of John Hanson. If you know him at all, you probably live in Maryland and are familiar with the highway that bears his name.  It’s also possible you may have read about the recent effort to replace his statue in the U. S. Capitol with one of Harriet Tubman.  (Not a bad idea, interjects Mary) You might have encountered him as a featured article in one of those pocket books on the Constitution.  It is amazing that someone so obscure has such a wealth of misinformation attached to him. Of course maybe that’s why, the more obscure the subject more likely it is to be taken at face value.

We do know John Hanson was born in April of 1721 near Port Tobacco, Maryland.  His family origins are obscure, but by the time of his birth they were established members of the planter class. By the 1770s he’d moved to Frederick, Maryland and was serving as the chief officer of the County’s Committee of Safety, a Revolutionary Era alternative to the British Colonial government of Frederick County.  He kept the County and it’s resources firmly in the control of Maryland’s revolutionaries; he was a master at putting them to the best use.  Hanson is an excellent example of the sort of men who worked to fulfill the obligations of their colonies to the Continental Congress and the army.  These men don’t often get credit because they are in the shadows behind the new state government, Congress and the Military.  Although important, their roles just don’t get much attention.  John Hanson’s obligations kept him in mostly in Frederick until 1779 when he was elected as one of Maryland’s delegates to the Continental Congress.  In late 1780 he was elected to preside over Congress under the ratified Articles of Confederation.

Contrary to the general impression, not everyone thought the Revolution would result in a single nation.  Most thought when the war was over the colonies would go on as separate sovereign nations.  All that was needed was a “league of friendship” to deal with a limited number of common interests. The Articles of Confederation were a statement of how the Continental Congress had been operating thus far.   They enumerated the very minimal powers relinquished by the states.  Any power granted by the document was placed solely in the control of Congress.  There was no executive branch, judicial branch or senate only a single body, the Congress.  The difference between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution are best stated by the documents themselves: The Articles of Confederation, “…, we the undersigned Delegates of the States…”; and the Constitution, “We the People of the United States”.

By June of 1780 when John Hanson finally took his seat in Congress, Maryland was the only colony left who had not agreed to the Articles of Confederation. The competing claims of the Colonies and various land speculation companies to the western territories was at issue.  Some colonies had their boundaries set by charters; others had no set boundaries and claimed they extended all the way to the Pacific Coast. Maryland was the only landless state still holding out.  On the surface Maryland argued all that undeveloped territory would make the landed states too powerful.  In reality Maryland’s motivation was the self interests of some of its leading citizens who were among the investors in land companies that purchased directly from the Indians.  The land in question was within the projected boundaries of landed colonies (mostly Virginia and New York). It was not so much Maryland trying to get the landed states to agree to a set border as it was to get the claims of the land companies recognized.  To make it even more complicated there were some Marylanders that had invested in Virginia based companies.  It is fascinating to follow the dance of Maryland legislators over their competing land claims.   George Mason’s letters referring to Maryland and her “twisted sister” Delaware make it clear that people were aware of what was going on behind the scenes.  The way things played out in Virginia, Maryland and Congress rival any back room dealings going on today.

While the other delegates were back in Maryland intriguing, John Hanson sat in Philadelphia, often the only Marylander there.  To break this impasse,  elements in Congress suggested the land claims might have more success in a ratified Congress.  Meanwhile British ships were manacling the Chesapeake and Maryland appealed to the French for protection. The French minister insinuated they were reluctant to place ships in the Chesapeake to shield Maryland because the Articles were not ratified.  If Maryland could see her way to finally sign, the French would be in a better position to help. So Maryland relented, still holding a faint hope for the land claims in a Confederation Congress; which was better than the possibility of being turned into a cinder by the British. We may never know for sure, but it would come as no surprise that John Hanson’s election as president was part of the deal.  On March 1, 1781, the signatures of Maryland’s delegates were added to the Articles of Confederation.  Now the Articles were ratified and took effect with great celebration.

On to the Myths

Beginning the last quarter of the 19th century a series of John Hanson descendants and some others began to slowly reinvent him.  One slight exaggeration was piled on top of another with the result of burying the real John Hanson.

1. John Hanson is NOT Swedish.

Since the publication of an article by genealogist George Ely Russell titled “John Hanson of Maryland, a Swedish Heritage Disproven”, It has been accepted that John Hanson is not Swedish or from the royal Vasa line.  The work of Russell was so compelling that a John Hanson memorial bust and plaque were removed from Gloria Dei (Old Swedes) Church in Philadelphia. The myth was started in the 19th century by George Adolphus Hanson who was trying link his family line to John Hanson.

2. John Hanson is NOT Black. 

3. John Hanson is NOT the first Black President of the United States.

George Russell discovered an indentured servant who came to Maryland by way of Barbados named John Henson/Hanson.  This Hanson might have been the grandfather of John Hanson. For some reason in the 1990s, comedian Dick Gregory took this to mean John Hanson was black.  His proof was a daguerrotype of a John Hanson!  Put aside the fact that photography was invented a long time after Hanson died. The man in the photograph named John Hanson was a senator in Liberia, Africa, during the mid 19th century. On the back of the two dollar is an engraving of the signing of the Declaration of Independence purportedly showing a Black John Hanson. Hanson did not sign the Declaration and was not even in Congress until 1780.

4. John Hanson was NOT a mentor or longtime friend of George Washington.

In spite of claims to the contrary, according to researchers at Mount Vernon there is no evidence of a relationship between George Washington and John Hanson before 1781. There is only one reference in Washington’s journal of a “Mr. Hanson” visiting Mount Vernon in 1772, but it is not John Hanson, according to the editors.

5. John Hanson did NOT solve the Western Land question.

According to Ralph Levering who wrote the most extensive analysis of John Hanson’s political career in his “John Hanson: Public Servant”, there is no record of John Hanson’s stand on the Western land question, let alone documentation that he was responsible for the solution. There is no evidence that anything called “the Hanson Plan” ever existed.

6. John Hanson was NOT elected unanimously.

All the entry for Nov 4th in the Journals of the Confederation Congress records about the election of a presiding officer is that it occurred and John Hanson was elected. Nothing about a vote count.  Representatives for two states, New York and Delaware were not even present that day.

7. Hanson was NOT elected over Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Hamilton or Hancock.

The Nov. 4th entry does not say who (or if) anyone ran against Hanson. Recently it has been asserted that John Hanson was elected over Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and Hancock.  None of them were eligible to be president of Congress Assembled.  According to the Articles (#9) you had to be a member of Congress to be president and none of them were.  In fact Hanson only accepted on the condition that Maryland guarantee his return to Congress following state elections in a few weeks.  If he had not been returned he would not have been eligible to serve.  The entry for the day in the Journal does not say who (or if) anyone ran against Hanson.

8.  John Hanson is NOT the first president of the United States of America or the first president of the Confederation Congress.

When the articles of Confederation were ratified on March 4th things did not change, Samuel Huntington continued as president, making him the first Confederation president of Congress.  In July he resigned; there was an election and the next man elected refused to serve.  Another election was held and Thomas McKeon was chosen to finish Huntington’s term.  McKeon is the second president of the Confederation Congress and the first elected, but did not serve a one year term.  On November 4, 1781, John Hanson was elected president of Congress.  This made him the third president of Congress and the second elected, but the first to serve a one year term. 

9. John Hanson did NOT establish the first Thanksgiving or set a precedent for future days of thanksgiving and prayer to be held on the last Thursday of November.

Congress issued proclamations for a day of Thanksgiving every year since 1777.  Most often they chose a day in December. During the first Confederation Congress  a committee (not including Hanson) chose a day in November. In the draft the words “ the last”  written before Thursday are crossed.  They were not trying to establish a precedent for future days of thanksgiving.  They were following a practice already in place. The next year they went back to a date in December. It was not the holiday we think of as “Thanksgiving”.  The day was meant to be spent in church in prayer.

Summary:

While John Hanson was president, he voted in Congress as a delegate of Maryland just like every other  delegate in Congress..  This is an indicator that his real role was closer to the modern Speaker of the House. It is telling that even though he died shortly after he left Congress there is no mention of his being the president of anything but Congress and nothing about “first.”  When John Hanson died in 1783, his obituary in the Maryland Gazette stated, “This gentleman has long been a servant to his country, in a variety of employments, the last of which was that of president of Congress.”  By the time John Hanson’s wife died about thirty years later she was remembered only as the widow of a delegate to the “…old Revolutionary Congress”, not the wife of a President.

John Hanson should be remembered for his contributions to Maryland’s Revolutionary War efforts which took place primarily in Frederick County.  His service in Congress was a post script to his career.  He outlined his misgivings in letters to his family.  He told them it was his duty to stay because if he left there would not be enough attending delegates to do business.  There weren’t even enough to hold another election.  The fact that he was willing continue when he had good reasons to excuse himself, is to his credit.

The continuing efforts to turn John Hanson into something he is not does him a great disservice and corrupts the public perception of history.  I would urge anyone whose curiosity has been peaked to do some searches, you will be appalled.

Sources

Jensen, Merrill, “The Articles of Confederation”, University of Wisconsin Press, 1970

Jensen, Merrill, “The New Nation”, Vintage Books, 1951

Levering, Ralph B. “John Hanson, Public Servant”. Maryland Historical Magazine 71             (Summer 1976): 113–33.

Russel, George Ely. “John Hanson of Maryland: A Swedish Heritage Disproved”. The             American Genealogist 63, no. 4 (October 1988)

John Hanson (1721-1783), Archives of Maryland (Biographical Series)

            http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/000500/000587/html/587sources.html

Journals of the Continental Congress 1774-1779

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwjc.html

Hoffman, Ronald, “A Spirit of Dissension: Economics, Politics, and the Revolution in Maryland”, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973

Myth # 86: Paul Revere rode through the countryside shouting, “The British Are Coming!”

Thanks to guest blogger Ceci Flinn for busting this week’s myth. Ceci recently received her PhD in history and has been giving tours of Boston for twenty years, so if anyone knows the truth about Paul Revere, she will! And how appropriate–this week is the 237th anniversary of that famous ride.

Standing at a library counter at a university in Canada, I explained what I had been looking for when the e-catalog failed. I gave the person working the front desk increasingly specific information – U.S. History, Early American History, Revolutionary War/War of Independence – until I reached my final description: Paul Revere’s ride. “Oh!” he said, “The British are coming!” When I told the retired history professor I was visiting about this, she said: “That’s all we know about it.” (“We” referring to ordinary Canadians, of course, not herself.) Americans are often the same. It is an amazing example of the strength of historic myth, that this simple phrase could be so prevalent and so . . . wrong. 
 
When Paul Revere, William Dawes, Dr. Samuel Prescott, and others, rode to warn rebel leaders in Lexington and Concord that soldiers were heading their way, looking mainly for the stores of ammunition that were being stockpiled by rebel colonists and an excuse to arrest the leaders, they would never have shouted “The British are coming!” because, simply put, they were all still British. Imagine someone running down a road in Concord, MA today shouting “The Americans are coming!” and you’ve got the idea. 
 
In April of 1775, there was plenty of agitation, and many historians argue that the first shots of the revolution had already been fired in New Hampshire the previous December. But one thing had not yet changed: the colonies were still British. They were still overseen by a faraway king and his parliament, and the composition of the “Declaration of Independence” was over a year in the future. So, what did Revere and his compatriots actually say? In their depositions they stated that they had warned residents “the Regulars are out.” British soldiers, such as those stationed in Boston under General Gage, were referred to as “Regulars,” or colloquially as “Redcoats” or “the King’s men”, or even derogatorily as “Lobsterbacks.” But they were certainly not called “the British.” Nor were colonists yet referred to generally as “Americans,” more often terms like “Yankees” or “provincials” were used.
 
It is easy to see why the myth came about since in hindsight, we refer to the parties involved in the Revolution that created a new country as “British” and “American” to identify the two sides. The expression was apparently used as early as the 1820s. For example, a man called Elias Phinney published a book in 1825 about the events of April 1775, and in his descriptive text he used the term “British.” Yet looking further to his appendices, where he reprints the depositions of colonists, the text quite clearly says “Regulars.” These depositions are available today on the Massachusetts Historical Society’s website. Still, the myth is persistent,and not even the respected historian David McCullough did enough to prevent further perpetuation: in the HBO mini-series dramatizing his book John Adams, a messenger rides up to Adams, working outdoors at his farm, and shouts “The British are marching on Lexington!” Another history “fail”, though admittedly, for clarification’s sake, perhaps an understandable failure.
 
 
References:
David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 1994 (p 56, 109)
Elias Phinney, History of the Battle of Lexington, 1825 (p 15, 33)
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=gZch0tpbLtMC&redir_esc=y
Massachusetts Historic Society:  http://www.masshist.org/revolution/lexington.php
Revere’s deposition:
http://www.masshist.org/revolution/image-viewer.php?item_id=98&img_step=1&tpc=&mode=transcript&tpc=#page1

Myth # 84: The tune “The World Turned Upside Down” was played as the British surrendered in Yorktown.

(Thanks to this week’s guest blogger, Deborah Brower, who wrote to debunk one of her favorite myths.)

In case you missed it, the story goes like this: when the British surrendered at Yorktown, they played a tune called “The World Turned Upside Down.”  

The problem is no one who was present at Yorktown said that at the time. It’s not until an 1828 memoir by a man named Alexander Garden that it appears in print.  Only one other veteran agreed but he was in his 80s by the time it came up.  He was speaking years after the memoir had been published and by then it had already entered the public imagination.  Also problematic is the fact that there are several melodies that are associated with that title.  Even if it were true, which one would it be?  In the end there is no reliable evidence that it happened.

I play historic music with a group called Tasker’s Chance.  When we were first putting music sets together, one of my band mates said, “We just have to play ‘World Turned Upside Down.’ It’s the tune they played at Yorktown and everyone asks for it.” It became a regular part of our performances. Then came an excellent article in the Williamsburg Journal (Oct/Nov 1999) by Dennis Montgomery: “If ponies rode man and grass ate the cows?”: Just What Tune was un the Air when The World Turned Upside Down? With a heavy heart, I shared it with the group.  We all liked the tune and were reluctant to toss it out.  All that was left was to make lemonade out of the lemons.

From the article I learned that the roots of the tune we play go back to the first part of the 17th century and a truly cataclysmic event in British history, the English Civil Wars.  The tune is catchy and was used with different sets of words.  Two sets of lyrics really appealed to me.  “When the King Enjoys His Own Again” is a hopeful vision of the return of Charles I to the English throne.  The other is a complaint about the banning of Christmas customs by the Puritans also titled the “World Turned Upside Down.”  The last line of the first verse of the song is “…old Christmas is kickt out of town.” Who could resist that?

Several years later I had a conversation with some musicians who were indignantly complaining their group NEVER plays the tune. If anyone asks about it, they set them straight in short order.  That’s a valid approach, but I look at it differently, especially since I like the tune.  I play it, but I also explain its story. I think it interesting that the story endures.  Maybe it’s because it sums up prevailing emotions in a single phrase anyone can understand. Perhaps it’s because the English Civil War and American Revolution have something in common, both fundamentally caused the British to rethink who they were.  In both cases, their world really was turned upside down.

 For more detail, read the article by Dennis Montgomery, editor of Colonial Williamsburg’s Journal, at http://www.americanrevolution.org/upside.html