This summer there are several events happening at the Saratoga Battlefield.
On Wednesdays in July, there is a children’s program exploring life in the 18th century for children.
Topics include:
Open Fire Cooking
Toys and Games
English Country Dancing
Laundry and Dress-Up
Call the Visitor Center for information but there is no fee for the program.
Check out their website’s events page for other fun activities.
Continuing this week’s Revolutionary War era theme, all across upstate New York (as well as New York City and Long Island) can be found many historical sites and battlefields. Even the Battle of Bennington (Vermont) was fought across the border in a town of New York.
On a recent drive through the Saratoga/Schuylerville area, my family and I saw an obelisk in the distance. We drove towards it and discovered the Saratoga Monument for the first time. It was under some renovations but we were still allowed in and around it and the family climbed up as far as they could go. For my own bragging rights, I did climb to the second level, which considering my knee and the open stairs that fed my fear of heights was a pretty good feat.
The Hamilton phenomenon is more than breaking records on Broadway and changing the face of the Great White Way, but it’s also reminding history buffs like me that we have a great and storied past to explore, often in our own backyards. As a child and an adult, I’ve been to Gettysburg, Williamsburg, St. Augustine, but I’ve forgotten that we have history from the same time right here in New York. In fact, much of our national Revolutionary War history took place in New York, from the battles to the newly formed government. This is especially true here in the capital region, near where I live.
Hamilton, the musical tells the story of Alexander Hamilton, the country’s first treasury secretary, the first political sex scandal, a man murdered by the Vice President of the United States.
1 of 4 remaining smaller versions of a statue that stood on Wall Street in Manhattan.
Alexander Hamilton, who made New York his adopted home, who was married in Albany and spent summers there with his family, Chief of Staff to George Washington, traveling everywhere with him has made a resurgence in the Albany Capital Region (among other places including cementing his face on the ten dollar bill).
I’m a history buff, living in the heart of it, and I missed all of this in school; or I’d forgotten it. I don’t know which.
Lucky for us, however, sites in the area have jumped on the Hamilbandwagon and have set up special tours and exhibits. I recently went on a new tour at the Schuyler Mansion: “When Alexander Hamilton Called Albany Home.”
The front of the Schuyler Mansion. The porch and vestibule pictured were not there during the Schuylers' time in the house, but was kept during the restoration because of the renown of the architect.
The Schuyler Mansion is the home of Hamilton’s in-laws, Phillip and Catherine Schuyler, Catherine herself a member of the equally impressive Van Rensselaer family. It is also the place where Alexander married his dear Eliza, a small room about the size of my own living room in the magnificent expansive English manor house.
The Room Where it Happened. Alexander wed Elizabeth Schuyler in this room in front of a small group of family and friends.
A smaller room off the second hall served as a study for General Schuyler and was where Hamilton and Aaron Burr pored over legal texts when they worked together on a case. I have to admit, with the colorful green and the writing desk and books and maps, this was probably my favorite room and one I wouldn’t mind spending some time in behind the velvet rope.
Study where Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr looked over General Schuyler's massive book collection for their work as lawyers.
Those are actual books belonging to Phillip Schuyler.
In a recent article in the Albany Times-Union, a trifecta of Hamilton events were highlighted and the ones I’d like to share with you here today.
Put together by the Albany County Convention and Visitors Bureau, it includes information on the tour at the Schuyler Mansion that I mentioned earlier. Reservations are required and can be made by calling 518-434-0834 or visiting their website for more information.
The second part is a Free Walking Tour. Go to their website and download the PDF. This is the next item on my to-do list for this summer.
The third is an exhibit at the Albany Institute of History and Art titled, “Spotlight: Alexander Hamilton. Their information can be found at their website or by telephone at 518-463-4478.
Hamilton isn’t the only history to explore in this area. I hope to bring you a few more as the week progresses.
It’s hard to tell sometimes.
Last week’s planned retreat was extremely satisfying, but not in the way I had thought it would be. Instead of an even smattering of spiritual, travel, and writing events, it turned into more of an historical excursion, beginning with the Hamilton soundtrack and ending on Sunday night with the reading of issue #3 of new publisher, Aftershock’s equally new monthly comic, Rough Riders written by Supernatural fave, Adam Glass.
All in good time I’ll be writing a variety of pieces based on last week’s travels, research, and writing opportunities.
To sum up, it was a great week despite some mishaps that worked out well in the end.
Here is a brief summary (all positives) of things that went especially in my favor:
1. As I mentioned, it wasn’t really a retreat as much as an historical adventure. When I was a kid, we traveled to historic sites often as a family, and I forget how much history is right in my own backyard. This week was a good reminder.
2. I had two solid days of writing and one day of research, all coupled with good food, which spurred another piece of future writing.
3. I went to a new breakfast/lunch restaurant called Jimmy’s Eggs, and had the best waitress. She was talkative without interrupting my writing and it turned out that she waited on my family regularly about ten years ago at another place that had a phenomenal weekly special.
4. When I arrived at the Schuyler Mansion, I discovered that they do not take credit cards. While I was trying to figure out how to still go on the Alexander Hamilton tour, one of the other guests paid my way. Random acts are a wonderful and generous thing.
5. I was in the room where it happened – the room in the Schuyler Mansion where Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth “Eliza” Schuyler were married.
6. Toured Grant Cottage, where President Grant wrote his memoirs and died. This was the best historic place tour I’ve been on. I can’t wait to tell you about it.
7. While there I was inspired to write a fictional novel or novella. I’ve already begun the research for this.
8. I bought and received (in time to use for the weekend) a new travel tumbler for my tea as well as an infuser. If you love tea, you understand.
9. We rented a compact car for two days to travel to my nephew’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor out of state, but when we got to the rental company they had no more compact cars so they upgraded us to a Jeep Compass with 340 miles on it and satellite radio. It even had that new car smell. It was a fantastic car and fantastic luck on our part!
10. We saw our family – sister & brother-in-law, nephews, niece. It was a nice mini-reunion.
BONUS #11. On Monday (June 6th) I took my daughter late to school so she could visit the Vietnam War Memorial Moving Wall. At breakfast, the number on my receipt was 337, which is a favorite number of mine. I’ve written about it and I’m sure I will again, but for such a small thing, it made me smile.
Thanks for sharing these snippets of my adventures. I look forward to sharing more details as the days (probably weeks) go by.
Remembering D-Day by visiting the Vietnam War Memorial Moving Wall with my daughter.
Yes, she had school but went in late.
1959 pic: first casualty
1975 pic: last casualty
The bikes were waiting to participate in the closing ceremony.
The names of the fallen are read continuously while the wall is open to the public.
Go to The Moving Wall to find out when it will be in your area.
Never make plans. They never work out. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I planned a mini-retreat for this week. Take some time for myself to get my head on straight and my spirit centered before the kids are home for the summer. I planned for the part of the week after Memorial Day since there was only one appointment on my calendar and no school obligations after everyone went back to school and work after the Memorial Day holiday. Our house has been pretty clutter-free for the past couple of weeks, so I enjoy being there again. I mentioned to my husband last week while I was sitting in my corner office that I didn’t want to leave the house. I really liked being there. But let’s be real, if I stay home to write, I’d end up watching Supernatural or The Walking Dead reruns on Netflix. I have the rest of the month for that.
I started thinking about what I wanted to do this week and separately what I wanted to accomplish. I’d attend Mass on Tuesday and Wednesday. I’ve been missing the daily masses both by not attending and also missing them deeply. I’d start my day with G-d, leaving the house at 8:30 and planning to return by 3 when the kids came home from school. It sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it?
What do those words mean? In early childhood, it was friendship and fairness. Elementary grades it was fairness and equality. Middle school showed us right and wrong, common sense, and equality. High school and higher was comparative culture and religion; it was discerning prejudices and overcoming them. Now, it is also recognizing privilege, whatever it is: white, male, Christian, straight, non-disabled/abled. It is thinking in a new and different way, but it is also a common sense to think this way.
In the 70s and 80s, it was tolerance.
Now, it is (and should be) acceptance. Acceptance is not approval. Don’t say that to anyone though. It’s condescending. It’s different for a religious pastor to accept, in the case of lgbt+, but not to approve in the context of dogma or doctrine, but it shouldn’t be that much different if we are all the same on the inside.
We divide where we should be bringing together.
We are stronger together.
We fear the unknown.
So get to know some of those things that scare you.
Diversity has to be more than adding a person of color to your favorite television show. Representation is incredibly important, and it matters, but it can’t be the only thing. It has to be more than Black History month in February or Women’s in March; Native American History in November and LGBT+ in October. It should be every day in every classroom. Diversity is inclusion. It’s about American history including these marginalized groups from the outset, not as a sidebar or a footnote.
It’s the food and the fabric and appreciation; the stories and music and taking chances. It’s the phenomenon that is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton on Broadway.
It’s my church music director including an African American spiritual (Wade in the Water) to our Mass of the Lord’s Baptism despite most of the congregation never hearing it before.
It’s Laverne Cox and Jamie Clayton.
It’s David Bowie using his privilege and calling out MTV on its very white lineup in 1983. 1983!
It’s my daughter calling a classmate her brown friend because she has brown hair and not seeing the difference between herself and her two best friends – one Scandinavian blonde and one African American all wearing their own braids, the two friends’ done by their moms in the morning and hers done on her own because I couldn’t do a proper braid without witchcraft involved.
It’s listening to the people who live this everyday and not talking over them. It’s eliminating the word and the thoughts of tolerance from our vocabulary. We, who are the privileged shouldn’t “tolerate” other people. We accept them for who they are and learn from what they can teach us, and stop saying ‘they’ and ‘them’ but instead ‘we’ and ‘us’.
Diversity is inspiration and acknowledgment and looking ahead at better things.
One week ago, Supernatural (Episode 11.5) took the brothers to the site of the grisly 19th century murders of Andrew and Abby Borden, father and step-mother of Lizzie Borden. There is much controversy as to who murdered them in their home, the popular nursery rhyme sing-songing one theory:
Lizzie Borden took an axe
and gave her mother forty whacks,
when the job was finally done
gave her father forty one
Amazing what lurks in the childhood memories and recesses of our minds. It comes unbeckoned as if I were still jumping rope in the grassy courtyard where I grew up far, far away from the murder of her parents. Lizzie was put on trial and acquitted. She died of pneumonia in 1927. Her sister died nine days later. Despite having not seen each other in many years, they are buried side by side. There is a monument that marks Lizzie’s final resting place.
In her will, Lizzie left money to pay for the perpetual care of her father’s cemetery plot.
Lizzie Borden
In viewing the previews for this episode, titled Thin Lizzie, they mention the family home in Fall River, Massachusetts, not all that far from where I live. I thought the Bed & Breakfast mentioned was a joke – was there really a place? One Google search and there it was. And before anyone asks, no, I have no desire or intention of visiting, no matter how close it is.
Borden Family Home that is now a Bed & Breakfast & Tourist Attraction
Some things should be left, and this is one of them.
On the morning after the episode aired, the Washington Post had an article, Would you buy a murder house? I personally don’t know, and I hope I don’t find out. I certainly do believe that houses can have spiritual remnants of previous owners, not to mention other places where spirits dwell. I’ve had my own encounters, the most visceral being in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, both on the battlefield and in the Jennie Wade House, one of the places that is always on my to see list. I had gone as a child, and again while on vacation with my husband, and then went again while on vacation with my three children. There is something compelling about Jennie’s house and her story that calls to me. I’ve been searching for the last week to find the photos that I’ve taken at the house, both in the 70s with my family and again in 2008, I believe with my children. I have a memory in a darkened stone masoned cellar that you had to climb down into from the outside. I’m not sure why that flashed through my head as I’m writing this.
The house where Jennie Wade was killed
The Jennie Wade House is located on a major road in Gettysburg; one that is extremely busy with traffic. It is in a tourist area, and directly across from a Rita’s Italian Ices Shop. My kids sat on the benches eating ices, and I watched the house, seemingly waiting for something to happen. Her death created the name of the landmark, although it is not actually Jennie’s house; it is her sister’s. Her sister had just had a baby, and Jennie and their mother came to help her. Jennie was baking bread, kneading the dough in the kitchen that adjoined the street. A stray bullet came through the front door, lodging in Jennie’s back, severing her spine and killing her.
She is the only civilian casualty in the city during the Battle of Gettysburg.
Jennie Wade
Ever since I was a little girl, I have always felt a presence in this house. Despite the obvious, poor special effects in the kitchen that give the soldier mannequin his face as he narrates the story of that fateful day, there is still something powerful in the “talking walls”. His projected face scared me beyond belief as an adolescent, and I still had that creepy vibe when I went there as an adult. I know much of the sounds and creaks were theatrics, but you couldn’t help but feel something in this house and that some of those “theatrics” weren’t all faked.
In the preview and then last week’s episode, Supernatural showed some artifacts from the house. I don’t know if they were really artifacts of the Borden murders or props made to look like the actual items, but the photo of Lizzie reminded me both of Jennie Wade and Laura Ingalls; possibly because of the camera techniques of the 19th century, the black and white, head and shoulders, the pose, the lace collars and pinned hair. It led me down a rabbit hole of googling and reading various accounts from both times of both of their lives, Lizzie and Jennie. They couldn’t have been more different, and I wondered at what point childhood me decided to devote so much of my time to Jennie rather than the nursery rhyme. Maybe I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of killing my parents. For a variety of reasons, I would never, but still why was I compelled to ignore her? I almost skipped the episode because the subject matter bothered me. I still wonder why I was never interested in Lizzie’s story – did I think she was guilty? I don’t know. I was much more compelled to the story of poor Jennie, baking bread for the soldiers. Her fiance was killed hours before she was. Neither of them knew the fate of the other.
I do love a good mystery, but I think I might need to not only have compelling characters, but also ones that are easier to feel compassion for, to put myself in their shoes, and I suppose, no, as I’ve said, I know that I could much more easily do that with Jennie Wade.
Apollo 11 landed on the moon today in 1969.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon with Michael Collins supporting their mission from the capsule.
My parents tell me I watched it on television, and I have vivid memories of visiting the Kennedy Space Center as a child. Space has always played an important role in my reading and television watching life from Star Trek to NASA to the Challenger to Pluto’s return as a planet with amazing photos.
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 