#george seaman

[chaplinlegend]

The Karno Company toured the West coast of the USA in 1911.

The Karno Company touring in Sacramento : Arthur Dandoe, Stanley Jefferson (Stan Laurel), George Seaman, Charles Chaplin, Fred Karno Jr., Albert Austin, Emily Seaman, Amy Reeves, Muriel Palmer, Mike Asher and Fred Palmer.

[get-back-homeward]

The Beatles, Flowers, and Love

A white sport coat and a pink carnation I'm all dressed up for the dance A white sport coat and a pink carnation I'm all alone in romance

Once you told me long ago To the prom with me you'd go Now you've changed your mind it seems Someone else will hold my dreams

—A White Sports Coat (and A Pink Carnation)* (1957)

I send you flowers but you don't care You never seem to see me standing there I often wonder what you're thinking of I hope it's me and love love love

—Hello Little Girl (1957)

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers That grow so incredibly high

—Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds (1967)

Find me in my field of grass Mother Nature's son Swaying daisies, sing a lazy song Beneath the sun

—Mother Nature's Son (1968)

Songs that lingered on my lips excite me now And linger on my mind Leave your flowers at my door I'll leave them for the one who waits behind

—Goodbye (1968)

Some call it magic The search for the grail Love is the answer And you know that for sure Love is a flower You got to let it grow

—Mind Games (1970, 1973)

Sweep through the heather like deer in the glen Carry me back to the days I knew then Nights when we sang like a heavenly choir Of the life and the times of the Mull of Kintyre

—Mull of Kintyre (1977)

All through the summer, I have followed you around Bringing a rose for the winter that's coming Now the snow is on the ground... Love awake to the day When we can make our love awake

—Winter Rose/Love Awake (1978)

You want a love to last forever One that will never fade away I want to help you with your problem Stick around, I say Coming up, coming up, yeah Coming up like a flower Coming up, I say

—Coming Up (1979)

If you'll forgive me my little flower princess Never too late unless you can't forgive

Time is on our side Let's not waste another minute 'Cause I love you my little friend I really love you

Give me just one more chance And I'll show you, take up the dance Where we left off

—Forgive Me (My Little Flower Princess)** (1980)

After hours  Late in the bar  By a darkened corner seat  Faded flowers wait in the jar  Till the evening is complete 

—Take It Away (1981)

She sprinkles flowers in the dirt That's when a thrill becomes a hurt I know I'll never see her face She walks away from my resting place

That day is done, that day is done You know where I've gone I won't be coming back That day is done

—That Day Is Done (1988)

[mypastnow]

[frombehindthepen]

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day #Sailors #Navy #PoetryCommunity #MilitaryConflict #MIA

When I published this poem, “Pearl Harbor, We Remember” on my blog in 2016, commemorating the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, I had no idea that it would be recognized two years later and included in the story “Our View: Sailor comes home” in the Joplin Globe newspaper. This was humbling to me then, as it is now. The news article is about Seaman First Class Clifford George Goodwin who was missing in…

[bossybigeyes]

new James Fitzjames display thing in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich - at least I’d say it’s new because I’ve been several times and never seen it before and it makes reference to his remains having been recently identified!

OBJECT IN FOCUS

An act of 'gallant heroism'

On 1 February 1835 ship's mate James Fitzjames saved the life of James Dickinson, who had fallen into the River Mersey near Liverpool. Fitzjames was on board the ship George Canning when customs officer Dickinson, who was helping to load supplies from a steamer, slipped into the river. In a letter to his uncle, Fitzjames described how he spotted Dickinson - who was unable to swim - 'floundering away like a porpoise'.

Without hesitation, he jumped fully clothed into the fast-moving and freezing cold Mersey.

He managed to keep Dickinson's head above the water until they were picked up by a small boat a considerable distance downriver. Much to Fitzjames's embarrassment, his story made the national newspapers and he received several awards in recognition of his bravery.

Presentation cup

E. Terry & Co., 1830-31

The Corporation of Liverpool presented this silver cup to seaman James Fitzjames at a celebratory dinner in February 1835 after he saved the life of James Dickinson. He later took it back to his ship, where it was filled with mulled port and the whole crew drank to his health. Fitzjames was also granted Freedom of the City of Liverpool, while the Royal Humane Society and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) awarded him silver lifesaving medals (the RNLI medal is also in the National Maritime Museum's collection).

MY CHOICE

'I chose this cup because the person it was awarded to deserves more recognition. James Fitzjames is a true maritime hero who I think history has neglected. After the act of bravery for which he was given the cup, Fitzjames went on to have a distinguished naval career, before losing his life during Sir John Franklin's ill-fated Arctic expedition (1845-48). Using DNA analysis, researchers finally identified his remains, recovered from King William Island, Canada, in September 2024. It was this moment that inspired me to suggest this object for display!

Suzy Jenvey, Visitor and Sales Assistant

[bestiarium]

Who was Davy Jones? [Nautical folktales]

This is something completely different from my usual posts. The nautical folk character of Davy Jones isn’t really a mythological creature in the same way as Mesopotamian demons, Inuit spirits or medieval European monsters.

In fact, it turns out the exact origin of the name is hard to pin down. ‘Davy Jones’ Locker’ was nautical slang for the bottom of the ocean, a euphemism used in the context of sinking ships and drowned sailors (as in, he went to Davy Jones’ Locker). As far as I can tell, this term for a seaman’s grave predates any reference to Davy Jones as a separate, actual character. Sailors who died at sea were said to ‘be keeping watch with Davy Jones now’.

As for the name, it’s not entirely clear where it came from but there are some theories. ‘Davy’ might be directly derived from ‘devil’, and according to other authors it might have come from ‘Duppy’, a Caribbean term also meaning devil, though this seems to be less supported. ‘Jones’ most likely comes from Jonah, the Biblical character and later nautical slang for a sailor who brings bad luck to the ship he is on.

It's not impossible that Davy Jones was (based on) a real person but it's not likely.

So, who is Davy Jones and what does he look like?

The oldest physical description of Jones as a being comes from ‘The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle’, a mid-18th century fiction novel by Tobias Smollett. I normally don’t use fiction novels as sources, but we don’t have anything else here and Smollett’s description of the creature seems to have become the basis for iterations of Davy Jones in media, so we might as well. In the book, Davy Jones is said to be a horrible fiend presiding over the wicked spirits of the oceanic depths. He is a monster with blue smoke billowing from his nostrils, a tail and a horned head with large saucer-like eyes and three rows of teeth.

And this is the description Davy Jones was stuck with until 2006, when Disney released Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, which featured the antagonist that you thought of when you saw the title of this post. This version of Davy Jones became so cemented in our collective consciousness that it’s hard to imagine him in any other shape or form. And, to be fair, it makes sense, because it was a good movie.

(Although it’s hard to beat the first one.)

Sources:

Norton, L A., 2016, Folklore, Superstitions and the Sea, The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord, 26(1), p. 21-30.

Foster, J., 1969, Varieties of Sea Lore, Western Folklore, 28(4), pp. 260-266.

Archibald, M., 1998, Sixpence for the Wind: a Knot of Nautical Folklore, Dundurn, p. 45, 143 pp.

Smollett, T., 1751, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, London, p.71, 372 pp., text cited via Greensdictofslang.

(image 1: Davy Jones on his locker. Illustrated by John Tenniel for issue 103 of ‘Punch, or the London Charivari’, 1892)

(image 2: a character from ‘The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle’ disguises himself as Davy Jones to scare others, illustration by George Cruikshank in ‘Illustrations of Fieldeing, Smollett and Goldsmith, in a series of forty-one plates’)

[whencyclopedia]

Lewis and Clark Expedition

The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806) was a US military expedition of exploration, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, whose goal was to explore the newly acquired western lands that comprised the Louisiana Purchase and to reach the Pacific Ocean. The journey, which covered about 8,000 miles (13,000 km), was a major step toward the westward expansion of the United States.

Lewis, Clark, and their men – known as the Corps of Discovery – embarked on their journey on 14 May 1804. They moved up the Missouri River, crossed over the Rocky Mountains, and paddled down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. After spending the winter of 1805-06 in present-day Oregon, the expedition began its return journey, arriving back in St. Louis on 23 September 1806, two years and four months after having first set out. The expedition succeeded in exploring the newly acquired western lands and giving the United States a better claim to the Oregon Country. They made around 140 detailed maps, marking out significant mountain ranges, rivers, and plains. The expedition also identified 178 types of plants and 122 animal species and subspecies that had previously been unknown to Euro-Americans.

Additionally, the Corps of Discovery encountered over two dozen Native American nations, some of whom had never encountered White people before. Most of the nations proved hospitable, some of them providing invaluable aid without which the expedition likely never would have succeeded. Sacagawea, a teenage Shoshone woman who had joined the expedition with her husband, acted as an interpreter between the explorers and native peoples they encountered, with her presence helping to assure the Native Americans that the expedition was not a threat. Lewis and Clark learned much about the languages and customs of the Native Americans they met, bringing many artifacts back with them.

Origins & Preparation

President Thomas Jefferson had long been fascinated with the American West. Though he would never travel further west than the Blue Ridge Mountains himself, he had always visualized this region as a land of vast untamed wilderness, where liberty and republicanism could thrive in spite of the corruption in the urbanizing East. Like many Americans before and after him, Jefferson believed the United States was destined to expand westward, to forge a so-called 'empire of liberty' that would one day encompass the entirety of the continent. As the American Revolutionary War was won in 1783, Jefferson was already trying to persuade famed war hero George Rogers Clark to lead a privately funded expedition into the West. Though Clark declined, Jefferson never gave up on his dream of a westward expedition.

After his election to the presidency in 1801, Jefferson finally had the opportunity to realize this ambition. By 1802, he had begun to plan the venture and appointed his private secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead it. Lewis was a 28-year-old Virginian, who had served in the militia during the suppression of the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion. He was just as enthusiastic as Jefferson about the West, and although Lewis lacked much formal education, Jefferson was confident in his abilities, writing that "Capt. Lewis is brave, prudent, habituated to the woods & familiar with Indian manners & customs" (Wood, 377). To better prepare the young man for leadership, Jefferson sent Lewis off to Philadelphia to study astronomy, medicine, cartography, ethnology, botany, lunar navigation, and other relevant subjects under the tutelage of some of the most renowned scientific experts in the country. While in Pennsylvania, Lewis purchased a Newfoundland dog named Seaman, who would remain his constant companion for the expedition.

Meriwether Lewis

Charles Willson Peale (Public Domain)

Initially, Jefferson presented the expedition as a merely scientific endeavor, to avoid arousing the suspicions of France, Spain, and Britain, who controlled the western lands that the president hoped to explore. This would change after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, when France sold the entirety of the Louisiana Territory – some 828,000 square miles (2,145,000 km²) – to the United States. Now, Jefferson could be more open about his exploratory intentions, instructing Lewis to detail and map out as much of the newly acquired western lands as possible, and establish a viable route of travel across the continent. Still, the president hoped the expedition could continue across the Louisiana Territory to the Pacific Northwest, thereby establishing an American presence in the region before the European nations could settle it in earnest. Jefferson also hoped that they could find the fabled Northwest Passage, that was supposed to cut across the continent and link to the Pacific. The expedition still had scientific and anthropological purposes, of course, but the goal of laying claim to the entire northwest came first and foremost.

In the months leading up to the expedition, Lewis decided that he needed a co-commander, someone more experienced with military leadership. In July 1803, he invited William Clark, a 33-year-old army veteran and the younger brother of George Rogers Clark, to share the command. The US secretary of war denied Lewis' request to elevate Clark to the rank of captain and instead commissioned him as a lieutenant, since the concept of joint leadership violated the army's ideas of chain of command. Lewis nevertheless treated Clark as his equal during the expedition, and always referred to him as 'captain' to keep his lower rank a secret from the men. This proved to be a prudent decision. As historian Gordon Wood describes their joint command:

Lewis and Clark seem never to have quarreled and only rarely disagreed with one another. They complimented each other beautifully. Clark had been a company commander and had explored the Mississippi. He knew how to handle enlisted men and was a better surveyor, map-maker, and waterman than Lewis. Where Lewis was apt to be moody and sometimes wander off alone, Clark was always tough, steady, and reliable. Best of all, the two captains were writers: they wrote continually, describing in often vivid and sharp prose much of what they encountered – plants, animals, people, weather, geography, and unusual experiences.

(378)

So, with Clark onboard, Lewis went to the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, to procure weapons while Clark went to Kentucky to enlist men for the expedition, which was now referred to as the Corps of Discovery. By December, the Corps consisted of 45 men, including officers, enlisted men, civilian volunteers, and York, an enslaved African American man owned by Clark. The Corps established Camp Dubois at the mouth of the Missouri River, 18 miles (29 km) away from St. Louis, where they spent the winter gathering supplies and training.

William Clark

Charles Willson Peale (Public Domain)

Continue reading...

[statecryptids]

ROSWELL ALIENS- NEW MEXICO

Finally finished all 50 State Cryptids! Time to start putting them together into a book!

I always have a bit of a quandary whenever I showcase an alien as a “State Cryptid”. For many people the term “cryptid” typically refers to unknown Earthly animals. But over time this blog has evolved into more of an overall tour of speculative creatures in American pop culture and folklore where the lines between “natural animal”, “supernatural entity”, and “extraterrestrial” become very blurry. I’m also much more interested in the history behind these sightings than the classification of each creature, or even whether it plausibly exists at all. Plus I’ve already featured several extraterrestrials already such as the Pascagoula creatures, the North Dakota Meccano-Mummy, and the Grays that allegedly abducted Barney and Betty Hill.

June 14, 1947- Rancher W.W. “Mac” Brazel and his son were driving on their property 80 miles outside of Roswell, New Mexico when they came upon “a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, and rather tough paper, and sticks.” What was it? They had no idea.

 Initially unsure about what to do with the strange find, Brazel collected some of the debris a few days later and drove it into Roswell to give to Sheriff George Wilcox. The sheriff, equally perplexed, contacted the nearby Roswell Army Airfield’s 509th Composite Group. They sent a team out to the desert to collect the remaining debris and ascertain what it was. A few days later Major Jesse Marcel made a statement to the local paper about the incident. Though he didn’t explain exactly what the object was, headlines claimed the army had captured a “flying saucer”.

Flying saucers were in the news a lot that year. On June 24th, 1947 amateur pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing an airborne, disk-shaped vehicle near Mt. Rainier in Washington. Later, Navy seaman Harold Dahl claimed he had seen a whole group of the strange objects on June 21st near Puget Sound. Soon people were sighting flying saucers everywhere. Much of this hysteria was fueled by fears of the growing power of the Soviet Union and worries about what secret experiments they might be conducting. Paranoia about unknown Russian flying vehicles soon turned upwards beyond the boundaries of Earth as people began to speculate that flying saucers actually came from other worlds. These mysterious objects were labeled UFOs- Unidentified Flying Objects- by the US military and the term quickly caught on in popular culture. Though UFO originally just meant an unknown aerial object, with no indication of origin, it became synonymous with extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Eventually the army explained that the debris found near Roswell had come from a downed weather balloon. But such a prosaic explanation did not stick with the public. The idea that creatures from outer space had crashed on Earth had firmly taken hold, and a good number of people believed that this “weather balloon” story was just a flimsy cover-up. It certainly didn’t help that the government was tight-lipped about many of its programs out of fear that the Soviets might get wind of them.

 It turns out, though, that the weather balloon story was actually close to the truth. In the late 1940s the government began Project MOGUL, in which massive balloons equipped with sensitive detection instrument were launched high into the ionosphere to look for signs that Russia was testing nuclear weapons. One of these balloons had fallen out of the sky, crashed on Brazel’s ranch. Not wanting to reveal their secret project, military officials had felt it was better to let the “alien spacecraft” idea percolate in the popular imagination instead.

A decade later In the 1950s rumors cropped up that people had seen government agents collecting alien bodies in the New Mexico desert. These stories were soon conflated with the Roswell crash legend, leading to conspiracy theories about frozen alien corpses preserved in secret government hangers. For many years any secretive government sight was rumored to have “aliens in the freezers”. Eventually accusations settled on Area 51, a classified military base in the Nevada desert.

 These reports too had a more down-to-Earth explanation, though. Investigations revealed that the “alien bodies” had actually been special crash dummies fitted with sensors and dropped from airplanes by the Airforce to test the effects of high-altitude parachute drops. Like Project MOGUL, these tests had been hidden behind a thick veil of secrecy which did little to dispel the rumors.

As for Area 51, though the government denied its existence for decades despite clear evidence that it existed, it was officially confirmed in 2013 as a base for testing experimental aircraft such as the U2 spy plane, the Archangel-12, the SR-71 Blackbird, and others. No word on frozen alien corpses, though. By the way, the name “Area 51” is more of a pop culture term. The base is typically just called “Groom Lake”, “Homey Airport”, or simply the “Nevada Test and training Range” by the CIA.

The Roswell Aliens story gained a major surge in popularity in the 90s with shows like “The X-Files” and “Dark Skies”, movies like “The Arrival” and “Independence Day”, and comic books like “Roswell, Little Green Man” by Bill Morrison. There was even a 1995 psuedo-documentary called “Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction” produced by the Fox Network and hosted by Star Trek actor Jonathon Frakes. It allegedly showed vintage footage of the dissection of an alien corpse from the Roswell crash.  This video was eventually revealed to be a hoax, with the corpse actually a rubber dummy stuffed with jam and animal organs from a butcher.

For my depiction of the Roswell aliens, I wanted to get away from the typical images of corpses lying on dissection tables or floating in preservative-filled tubes. I also wanted to avoid the trope of aliens as malicious, terrifying invaders like in Independence Day or any number of B horror movies.

Instead, I chose to portray them as normal beings adapting to a new life on Earth.   Here we see one of the aliens recovered from their crash with the help of a wheelchair and prosthetics. I’ve imagined them setting up a new life for themselves in New Mexico, just trying to keep to themselves. They’ve taken a keen interest in their new home, evident in their collection of local plants like ocotillo and yucca. They’ve also made friends with many locals, including Indigenous communities, evident here in the “Singing Mother” figure on the table. These figures were first created in 1964 by artist Helen Cordero of the Pueblo de Cochiti, a community of the Keres Pueblo peoples.

As immigrants themselves, the Roswell Aliens also feel a kinship with the many other people that have moved to New Mexico from other countries. This is reflected in the alebrije they got from a Oaxacan-born artist.

REFERENCES

The Roswell UFO Festival!

A Smithsonian article on the crashed MOGUL balloon

An article from History.com about the Roswell incident

An article from the Chicago tribune about the high-altitude dummies that were mistaken for alien bodies.

A Space.com article about Area 51

An article about the infamous "Alien Autopsy" pseudo-documentary

Another article about the "Alien Autopsy" film

[detroitlib]

From our stacks: Illustration "Member of the Children's staff of the Library." From David Copperfield's Library. By John Brett Langstaff. With Prologue by Sir Owen Seaman and Epilogue by Alfred Noyes. Illustrated by Raven Hill, Frank Reynolds, H. M. Bateman, Arthur Norris, and Hanslip Fletcher. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1924.

[herprivateswe]

HM King George V visiting a naval hospital and talking to Able Seaman Douglas Grey, wounded during the naval raids on Zeebrugge and Ostend in 1918.

[harrisonarchive]

“George was the first Beatle who started taking photos, and he was still doing it when he died. I know I turned him on to photography, and he did some lovely work. Plus he had a huge collection of photographic books.” - Astrid Kirchherr, The Beatles: Classic, Rare & Unseen

“George really was interested in visual — and he used a camera, video camera too, from early days. Also, his father was a merchant seaman, and there’s lots of photographs of Australia, around the world […]. And maybe he picked that up from his father.” - Olivia Harrison, WNYC, November 4, 2011

You can find some of George’s photographs in The Beatles Anthology and Living In The Material World. (x)

[mareislandfoundation]

Raw Courage

Christmas Day 1941 Seaman First Class Donald Stratton arrived at the Mare Island Hospital with life threating burns over much of his body. A little over two weeks before he was trapped with six shipmates high above the main deck on the sky control platform of the battleship USS Arizona (BB-39). A surprise attack by aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy had turned the battleship into a burning hell on earth from which there could be no escape. As he told the story "A bomb blew up the forward magazine of the USS Arizona and the ship was engulfed in flames. I and five others were located on the anti-aircraft gun director’s platform above the bridge when the forward powder magazine blew. All of us were badly burned. I was burned over 80% of my body. At that point, the only possibility to evacuate the ship was to dive in the water, which was 80 feet below and was fully engulfed in flame. That was not an option for survival.”

The United States was at peace as earlier when General Quarters sounded aboard the USS Arizona while moored at the huge naval base at Pearl Harbor.   Japanese planes had just been sighted bombing nearby Ford Island. Hearing the alarm, Seaman Stratton rushed to his battle station as a sight setter in the Port Anti-Aircraft fire director. Within minutes of his arrival at his battle station a Japanese high-altitude bomber dropped an armor piercing bomb that tore through the deck of the ship and ignited a million pounds of explosive, and thousands of gallons of aviation gas and fuel oil. The massive explosion completely enveloped Stratton’s battle station as the ship settled to the bottom of the harbor, her back broken and her sides blown out. Trapped above the flaming wreckage Stratton and six others were saved when another sailor, Joe George, aboard the repair ship USS Vestal that was moored alongside the Arizona acted. Despite direct orders Joe George threw the men a line and refused to cut it until the men made it to safety. Stratton and five other survivors from the sky control platform managed to make it over the flaming seas surrounding the burning hulk of the Arizona to the deck of the Vestal by climbing hand over hand down the line as the Japanese continued to attack.

The burns on Stratton’s arms were so bad that his skin sloughed off as he worked his way down the line to the Vestal. With burns over much of his body he was taken to the Naval Hospital at Pearl which was overwhelmed with patients. The decision was made to evacuate some of the patients to the mainland thus Seaman Stratton and 196 other seriously wounded sailors and Marines were transported on the blacked-out transport USS Scott arriving at the Mare Island Hospital on Christmas Day 1941. Seaman Stratton was successfully treated at Mare Island with what were then innovative burn treatments for several months until he was transferred to Corona, California for a convalescence. Due to the severity of the damage to his arm and leg he was medically discharged in September 1942. Unbelievably, when his injuries allowed, Donald Stratton re-enlisted in the Navy and went aboard the destroyer USS Stack at Naval Station Treasure Island in 1944. Aboard the Stack Seaman Stratton turned the tables on the enemy as he and the Stack participated in the invasions of New Guinea, Halmahera, Leyte, Luzon and Okinawa.

After the war Stratton took up the cause to secure a posthumous medal for Joe George, the sailor from the Vestal who helped rescue the six men from the sky control platform. Joe George was never recognized for his role in saving the men because he disobeyed a direct order in not cutting the line to the Arizona until Seaman Stratton and five others had made it across. Lest you think the Navy was being too cold-hearted in denying recognition for Joe George, the Vestal was at risk from the ongoing explosions and fires from USS Arizona as well as the ongoing attack. Vestal had been hit with two bombs and was sinking when Joe George was ordered to cut the line. The fact is, Vestal could likely have pulled away snapping the line, but the site of those desperate men likely influenced more than just Joe George on that awful day. Despite the circumstances, in 2017 the US Navy acceded to Donald Stratton’s persistence and posthumously awarded Joe George the Bronze Medal for Valor.

Dennis Kelly

[bumblekastclips]

KYLE CROUSE: Here's one from N'Oni! "Stole this question from Rabbithaver: Which would you rather have as a pet for the BumbleKompound: a Chao with an unsettlingly realistic human face that likes to stare at you ominously, a Wisp with tiny and deeply unnerving human hands that must be moisturized daily, or a Koco with fleshy hyper-realistic human feet that really likes to run on hardwood?" [audibly trying not to laugh]

IAN FLYNN: The Wisp, without hesitation. KYLE: Really?! IAN: I will- I will buy the Wisp all the hand lotion it needs. It has perfectly capable hands, it can moisturize its own hands. They're smart! They're dexterous! It can handle itself. The Koco? That would just be annoying. A little unsettling, but annoying. The Chao? We were talkin' about Sega IPs earlier, all I'm imagining is a Seaman version of Chao. KYLE: [wheeze] That's what I said when N'Oni was drawing this! Because this has art! IAN: [unintelligible] Just kinda jump back at this Chao looks up at you and goes, [deep Seaman voice not unlike George Takei] "Hellew." KYLE: [laughing] Yeah, yeah. IAN: [continuing in Seaman voice] "You have been away from the BumbleOffices for three days." KYLE: I'm going... IAN: [continuing in Seaman voice] "Please, feed me a Chao Nut." Eugh, no! No no no no. KYLE: I'm going to show you this horrifying image, and it's probably also going to be this episode's thumbnail. Just so you know. IAN: [sigh that isn't as worried as it should be] Okay. Is this going to be in the chat or in the DMs? KYLE: I'm sending it to you as a DM. It's in the chat, but it'll get lost in there, so... or it's- yeah, it's already getting lost. So... check your DMs. IAN: [seeing the image] Oh, yeah, I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. That- the wisp is worse than I imagined. KYLE: Yeah. IAN: But I stand by my decision, 'cause it can moisturize its own hands. I don't have to deal with it. KYLE: [laughs] I feel like the Koco is the least cursed-looking one. IAN: That almost looks like... Kirby. KYLE: Kinda. IAN: Like, if Kirby took his shoes off. That's... that's gross, but not bad. But no, Chao Takei? Not- not handling it. KYLE: [laughing] The Chao is terrifying. Oh, boy. IAN: [in Seaman voice] "Welcome back." KYLE: [laughs] IAN: [in Seaman voice] "I require more trees for my Chao Garden. Thank you." KYLE: I- I- yes, thank... you... N'Oni... thank... you? I'm not sure if we should be thanking you or not. [laughs] Oh, terrifying.

--- TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Please remember that nothing that is said on BumbleKast is canon! It's just some guys and their opinions occasionally spitballing ideas. If you don't like an answer, you don't have to take it as Word of God or anything like that. It's all just for fun! ----- Do you want a specific question transcribed and posted? Send the question and the episode date to my ask box! Or if you just want questions about a certain character, send me their name and I will see what I can do!

[dailyanarchistposts]

The Society of Masterless Men

When I began thinking about outlaws and outlaw history I realized that if outlaw just means one who breaks the law, then I could write about the lives of nearly every citizen. So I define outlaw as one who not only breaks the law, but who survives by breaking the law or essentially lives outside of it. And the more I delve into Canadas past, the more outlaws I discover, and many of them are worthy of our attention. As an introduction to Canadian outlaw history, here is the story of a group of Newfoundland rebels who survived without masters for half a century.

The story of the Society of Masterless Men, which included women and children, begins in the 18th-century settlement of Ferryland, in Newfoundland. In order to colonize Newfoundland, The British Empire created plantations. These were settlements of primarily Irish indentured servants, many of them very young, (thus their name: the Irish Youngsters), abducted from Ireland either by force or guile and brought to the South Shore of Newfoundland where they were literally sold to fishing masters. Their price: $50 a head.

These village plantations were primarily set up by consortiums and cabals of wealthy merchants in England. The fishing masters were essentially the Lords and Ladies of the villages, living in luxury and security while surrounded by dozens, even hundreds, of indentured servants who fished and labored in the camps processing the fishing catch. British frigates were stationed in the harbors and marines patrolled the town. Because there wasn’t a local police force, the Navy helped reinforce the authority of the local fishing masters.

The workers in these fishing villages were barely a step up from slaves. Corporal punishment was routinely used and everyday life was harsh and brutal. In the small settlement of Ferryland, for instance, there were a gallows and three whipping posts, in separate regions of the town. When a man was sentenced to be flogged for stealing a jug of rum or refusing to work for one of the fishing masters, he was taken to all three posts and whipped so the whole town would have an opportunity to witness the punishment as a warning.

The settlement of Ferryland was founded by Sir George Calvert around 1620, and was partly intended as a “refuge for ...Catholics.” It’s not clear ifthere were any “free” Catholics, or only Catholic servants. This was a time of penal law and repression of Catholicism in Britain and at least some Irish Catholics voluntarily came to the New World to escape persecution. Unfortunately, the laws in Newfoundland were the same as in the Old World. The orders given to the governor from 1729 to 1776 were: “You are to permit a liberty of conscience to all, except Papists, so they be contented with a quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the same, not giving offense or scandal to the government.”

This order wasn’t always strictly followed and around the mid 1700’s there was a crackdown on Catholicism. In 1743, the governor of the time, Smith, wrote to the magistrate in Ferryland, John Benger, instructing him to be mindful of the “Irish papists” in the area. William Keen, the chief magistrate of the city of St. John’s was killed by a group of Irishmen in 1752. Following this assassination, penal laws were strictly enforced for the next thirty or forty years.

Life wasn’t much better for those in the British Navy patrolling the area. The Navy wielded its authority over its seamen with zero compassion and nothing but discipline enforced by abuse and violence.

Food rations were slim and flogging was common. For instance keelhauling - dragging a seaman on ropes under the keel of a ship, thereby shredding his flesh on the sharp edged barnacles- was still a legal punishment even though it frequently resulted in death.

Some refer to the Society of Masterless Men as lore or a traditionally told story, one for which there is little documentary evidence. But there is a fair amount of facts that are known about the Masterless Men. And, as a matter of context, we know a lot about the injustice of the British Empire and of the cruelty of many of its managers and henchmen. We know that indentured servants were brought to Newfoundland and treated with brutality, as were the seamen in the Royal Navy. We also know that one Irish-born Peter Kerrivan was among those young indentured servants and abused seamen. It is largely believed that he was a reluctant seaman, having been pressed into service.

Some time in 1750, while Kerrivan’s ship was docked in Ferryland, he escaped (historians usually choose to say “deserted”). Together with two or three escaped indentured fishermen, he helped establish a lookout and base in the Butter Pot Barrens, a wild area of the Avalon Peninsula, for outlaws. This was the beginning of the Masterless Men.

Hunted by the authorities, the Masterless Men soon learned a way of life based on subsistence and sharing. They came into contact with Newfoundland’s aboriginal peoples, the Mi’qmaq and the Beothuk, who taught the rebels survival skills. They learned how to hunt for food based on the caribou herd on the Peninsula.

At the time, one could be hanged for running away. Nevertheless many young men escaped from the plantations and tookuplives as outlaws. In 1774, for instance, a petition written by Bonavista merchants, justices of the peace, and others, was sent to Governor Shuldham to complain of a number of “masterless” Irishmen who had gone to live in a secluded cove and “were there building fishing rooms.” But Kerrivan’s band of young companions were among the luckiest and best organized.

Word of the well organized free men spread and fresh runaways from coastal settlements came to join them. Eventually their numbers swelled to between 20 and 50 men. There were also women, but their numbers are unknown. The literature I found mention the women simply as “wives,” although I imagine them as strong, rebellious women sickened by the misery and cruelty that surrounded them who also yearned for a freer and better way oflife and whojoined their outlaw husbands voluntarily.

After a while, the group of comrades began trading caribou meat and hides with allies in the remote villages, receiving supplies such as flour, tea, and bullets. They also organized stealth raids against the fishery plantations.

By this time the British authorities, without a police or militia of their own, were beginning to fear that this group of anarchic rebels would inspire too many others to desertion and ordered the Navy to track the freedom-loving band down and make examples of them. Some years passed before the first expedition against the Masterless Men was organized and, by then, the rebels had become skilled wilderness inhabitants. Anticipating the attack or somehow being forewarned, Kerrivan and his comrades cut a series of blind trails which confounded their pursuers. The party of marines sent to capture them often found themselves lost and dumbly led into bogs and impenetrable thick bush.

Eventually the Navy did manage to close in on the rebels’ camp near their lookout, but they found the log cabins deserted, “with every rag and chattel removed”. Taking advantage of their pursuers’ confusion, Kerrivan and his friends had moved off towards the north and west. The navy set fire to their little village but had to return to their base without any prisoners. The Masterless group rebuilt their cabins and the Navy burned them down again. Over time the Navy burned down their cabins three times and each time they were rebuilt.

Two of the rebels were captured and hanged, but the state never did succeed in destroying the Society. In fact, the captured young runaways had joined the band only a few weeks earlier and had been taken by surprise away from the main body of the rebels. They were hanged with great dispatch from the yard-arm of the English frigate in Ferryland. No other Masterless Men were ever captured after this incident, presumably because this only made the outlaws more cautious. Some of the tracks that had been carved partly to support their wilderness ways and partly as subterfuge became Newfoundland’s first inland roads. In fact, their road system eventually connected most of the small settlements of the Avalon Peninsula.

For more than a generation the Masterless Men roamed free over the barrens! Over time, perhaps as military rule began to relax or for reasons unknown to this author, their ranks began to dwindle. In 1789, 39 years after escaping, four men gave themselves up on condition that their only punishment would be deportation to Ireland, which was agreed upon. Many of the other rebels settled in remote parts of Newfoundland’s coast and survived as independent fishermen. Kerrivan, who was never captured, is said to have had a partner, four sons and several daughters and is believed to have remained on the barrens well into old age, never returning to civilization.

The children of the Masterless Men gradually drifted out to the coast and settled down in small coves never visited by the navy. They married the children of other outlaws who had settled there generations earlier and together they raised families.

The story of The Society of the Masterless Men is inspiring because they succeeded. A group of people voluntarily joined together in common cause and broke free from their masters, most never to be captured or to return to their work prisons.

Sources:

Alexina Reid from The Newfoundland and Labrador Archives Newfoundland by Harold Horwood

SecretMasses at Midnight: The Legend of the Grotto in Renews, Newfoundland by Tammy Lawlor

The Canadian Encyclopedia Hurtig Publishers

“The Unshackled Society” by Paul Butler, originally published in Saltscapes Magazine

[gogandmagog]

The Allahakbarries was an amateur cricket team founded by author J. M. Barrie, and was active from 1890 to 1913. The team's name was a portmanteau of Barrie's name and the mistaken belief that 'Allah akbar' meant 'Heaven help us' in Arabic (rather than its true meaning: 'God is great'). Notable figures to have featured for the side included Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, A. A. Milne, E. W. Hornung, Henry Justice Ford, A. E. W. Mason, Walter Raleigh, E. V. Lucas, Maurice Hewlett, Owen Seaman, George Cecil Ives, and George Llewelyn Davies, as well as the son of Alfred Tennyson.

Barrie's enthusiasm for the game eclipsed his talent for it; asked to describe his bowling, he replied that after delivering the ball he would go and sit on the turf at mid-off and wait for it to reach the other end which "it sometimes did". The team played for the love of the game, rather than the results it achieved, and Barrie was generous in his praise for his teammates and opposition alike. He praised one teammate's performance by observing that "You scored a good single in the first innings but were not so successful in the second" while he lauded the opposition's effort by pointing out how "You ran up a fine total of 14, and very nearly won". He instructed Bernard Partridge, an illustrator from Punch magazine who was afflicted with a lazy eye, to "Keep your eye on square leg" while bowling, and told square leg, "when Partridge is bowling, keep your eye on him." He forbade his team to practise on an opponent's ground before a match because "this can only give them confidence".

— Wikipedia

[ltwilliammowett]

Evading Impressment

Escaping from a pressgang was not an easy thing to do. You might manage to escape a crimper and not take his shilling. And maybe you were even exempt from pressment, which meant that you had a letter from the admiralty (rather from the sick and hurt board) exempting you from service because of a serious health problem. However, this was dissolved in 1803 because there were simply too few men and so those who were considered unfit were allowed to be forced back into service. This process was called Hot Press.

The Neglected Tar, c. 1800, evokes the effects of impressment on a seaman's family and home. (x) 

But now we come to how you could actively escape a pressgang and you had to be very creative, because the men could not be tricked so easily. As in this case from Cork, where a desperate man tried to fake his own escape to avoid being caught by the active pressgang of a local warship. However, the poor soul had not reckoned with the Lieutenant on duty. He had gone so far as to go into the church and, surrounded by all the mourners, open the coffin and pull the not-so-dead man out of it and take him with him. Bell, an already experienced sailor from Newcastle, was caught in 1813 and briefly stored in a room of a government building while the press gang went on with their business. Bell almost ended up back in the Navy if it weren't for his sister. She had managed to gain access to him and was there with him to tase the clothes. Now a rather tall and much stronger woman than before left the building and disappeared. A little later it came out what had happened and since women were not allowed to be pressed, she was released.

The liberty of the subject, by James Gillray, 1779 (x)  

 Thanks to a jack trick, a young sailor who had just been discharged from the navy escaped a press gang in 1815. They picked him up in London and just as they were about to take him away, he slipped out of his jacket and ran away. Of course, the press gang ran after him and right into the arms of a group of workers who had placed themselves protectively in front of the fleeing man. Eventually, a big brawl broke out and both groups parted badly battered. The victim himself managed to escape and was not seen again.

 The Pressgang, by George Morland, 1790 (x) 

Another type of rescue was the fictitious arrest. The pressed one was accused by his friends of having committed a minor crime or another minor offense against them, which required a trial and thus took him out of the press gang. It quickly turned out that there was no evidence against him and so he was released, hoping that the press gang had already moved on. But of course they were not stupid and some lieutenants were so smart and just waited in front of the prison to collect the seemingly lost loot. Out of about 10 fictitious arrests, about 5 were recaptured.

The press gang seizing a waterman of Tower Hill on the morning of his marriage day. Illustration from The Comprehensive History of England (Gresham Publishing, 1902) (x) 

Another method was to sign in as a fisherman. There were agents and lawyers who drew up these papers and were in contact with fishermen who earned some money with each new crew member, even if the member never showed up for duty. But this way the men were protected from serving in the Navy.