#my interest in the gazette was at a greater distance

[a9saga]

I'm not good at processing the deaths of public figures. The parasocial barrier is the same to me whether a person is dead or alive. It takes me a long time to really get it. People who are actually in my life are completely different. I've known the Gazette for 12 years, I never thought that I knew them or anything. I didn't even listen to them consistently in the past decade. That may prolong the process of me actually believing it. Reita really should not be dead. I know it's been a few weeks. I don't really believe it yet, even if I already *know* it. Reita, the bassist of the Gazette, should not be dead. It does not make any sense to me in the slightest.

[46ten]

Henry Knox and Lucy Flucker Knox, part 1

Mini-summary of The Revolutionary War Lives and Letters of Lucy and Henry Knox by Phillip Hamilton. 

Historian P. Hamilton has transcribed and published the approx.150 remaining letters between Henry Knox and Lucy Flucker Knox, his wife. Part of the Gilder Lehrman Collection, the letters most extensively cover the period 1776-1778, with a few more from 1779 and 1781. Hamilton notes that alongside the letters between John and Abigail Adams, the Knoxes letters to each other provide one of the few opportunities to observe a written dialogue between spouses during the revolutionary war period.  If one wants to imagine the language in the letters Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton wrote her fiancé/husband, Lucy Flucker Knox's letters are a fantastic resource. There was only a year age difference between the women, and both grew up in established, wealthy families (Albany vs. Boston).  

Henry Knox was born in 1750 in Boston. His father was a financially struggling shipmaster who sailed to the West Indies and died in 1759. With the additional deaths of his two oldest brothers, Henry had to abandon his formal education and support the family at an early age. He got a job as a clerk in a bookstore; with an interest in books on military science and artillery, he joined Boston's Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1768. Hamilton (the author) describes him as, "ambitious, eager to rise above the hardships of his youth, and supremely confident in himself....he always dressed in the most elegant suits he could afford, and he remained fastidious about his appearance throughout his life." Henry lost two fingers on his left hand in a 1773 hunting accident, but concealed this injury throughout his life with a silk handkerchief.  

In 1771, Knox opened his own bookstore, the "London Book-Store," possessing "a large and elegant assortment of the most modern Books in all branches of Literature, Arts and Sciences" according to an advertisement that year in the Boston Gazette.  He regularly engaged his customers with discussions on the topics of the books within; he especially liked to discuss military science and engineering, but he also began to learn other languages and kept himself au courant with the knowledge and ideas of the day.  As one can see, he was largely self-educated. He was also a "gentleman."  After his bookstore was raided and destroyed by British soldiers, he nevertheless made the final 1000 pound payment for a shipment of books from London that he never received, out of his sense of propriety and duty. 

Thomas Flucker Sr was the Royal Secretary for the Massachusetts Colony and a wealthy merchant who married Hannah Waldo, daughter of Brig. Gen Samuel Waldo*, in 1750. Lucy was born on August 2, 1756 (making her only a year and a few days older than Elizabeth Hamilton).  

It's not certain when the teenage Lucy Flucker first laid eyes on Henry Knox - she may have seen him in military demonstrations or at the bookstore, but in 1773 she began spending so much time at his bookstore that a relative commented that it seemed she was courting him.  

As Hamilton writes, "[t]wenty-three-year-old Henry Knox cut an impressive figure - physically large and fit, and officer in the city's elite militia company, and a witty and knowledgeable conversationalist on most subjects. Thus he seemed to be a dashing and attractive catch...Like most young couples in the mid-eighteenth century, love and physical attraction were increasingly important - indeed, vital - to a courtship's success...As [Lucy] most likely realized, the emotional and material quality of a woman's life was largely determined by the decisions she made during courtships. Therefore, beyond her obvious infatuation, Lucy surely considered Knox's ability to support her and any future children they might have together." Henry was industrious, ambitious, intelligent, and a gentleman - qualities that mattered more than being "well-bred." "Nor could [Henry] help but notice her family's lofty social position and considerable wealth..." Henry let Lucy take the lead in getting her father's consent to their marriage:

HK to Lucy Flucker, 7March1774

What news? Have you spoken to your father, or he to you upon the subject? ...I am in a state of anxiety, heretofore unknown. My only consolation is in you, and in order it should be well grounded permit me to beg two things of you with the greatest ardency. Never distrust my affection for you without the most rational and convincing proof. If you do not hear from me in a reasonable time do not lay it to my want of love, but want of opportunity; and do not, in consequence of such distrust, omit writing to me as often as possible. My love is, as it were, in its infancy. It will increase to youth, it will arrive at the most perfect manhood, it will grow with such a steady brightness that if the youth of both sexes do not esteem it their chiefest glory to come and light their tapers at it, want of discernment must be the reason...

Henry was 24 and Lucy was 17 at the time of their marriage on 23 June 1774, at Henry's house. Although her father had eventually consented (after encouragement from her other relatives), neither of her parents attended. Lucy and Henry fled Boston in April 1775; Henry joined the militia army, and the rest is history. (Or rather, if one is interested in Henry Knox's participation in military campaigns during the AmRev, wikipedia is a start.  One note though: Knox's famed artillery train from Ticonderoga occurred when Knox was a mere 25 years old - certainly such feats were in AH's head when he was approaching 25 and had no comparable glorious accomplishment.) Lucy's family fled to Britain shortly afterwards and cut off all contact with her. 

Henry wrote that Lucy made him, "the happiest of mortals" (to his friend, Henry Jackson, following his wedding to Lucy).  Lucy was also, "the animating object of my life." Besides being "My dearest Lucy," she's also addressed as: “My dearest hope, My dearest friend, My dearest tender friend, my dearest love, my lovely love, my best beloved, My dear dear wife, my dearest blessing of heaven, my charmer,” though once he writes, "I leave [off] the usual address at the head of my Letter because I can fix upon none the thousandth part strong enough to convey the Idea of the strength of my attachment & love to you,” HK to LFK, 6Apr 1777.

To Lucy, Henry was, "My only love, my only friend, My Ever Dear Harry, My dearest friend, My all."  

One of the themes P. Hamilton presents is that the challenges that spouses faced during the AmRev, especially wives with long-absent husbands, led to a sense of greater equality between men and women.  Lucy was left in charge of financial management of what she could obtain of her family's affairs - and manages without Henry.  At one point, Lucy decided on a course of action that Henry disagreed with (so much for the stupid thought that wives were absolutely obedient to their husbands); Henry pleads with her to follow his advice instead as, "your Best Friend, your Lover, and blessed by Heaven to be your Husband..."  They are certainly an example of the companionate marriage ideal: marriage as a partnership between best friends, strengthened by their attraction and physical intimacy. 

There's a lot of great information in their letters about American Rev activity, patriotism and American grievances re. Britain, smallpox inoculations, the ins and outs of other generals and their wives (Caty Greene is mentioned frequently), and eventually their children's education and Lucy's concerns about their financial stability. Henry shared a great deal of information with Lucy not only about his day-to-day life, but about military plans and ambitions (as was prudent - many letters mention the fear of miscarry and falling into enemy hands). There are more surviving letters from Henry to Lucy than the other way round  - Lucy's letters were likely lost by Henry as he traveled with the army. 

The below quote from Lucy summarizes as well as anything I've read why EH likely destroyed her own letters to her husband:  

29 or 30 April 1776. L to H

 I should long before this have indulged myself in the pleasure of writing to him who is allways in my thoughts, whose image is deeply imprinted on my heart and whom I love too much for my peace, but the fear that the language of a tender wife might appear ridiculous to an impartial reader (should it miscarry) has restrain'd me. Is my Harry well. Is he happy. No, that cannot be when he reflected how wretched he has left me. I doubt not, but the please of his little girl, as he used fondly to call me, must sometimes draw a thought from him tho surrounded with gaiety and scenes of high life. The remembrance of his tender infant must also greatly affect him when he considers it as so great a distance from its Father, its natural guardian in a place exposed to an enraged enemy and almost defenceless.  

2 May 1776. H to L 

I sigh for my love. I think of her night & day & I wish her here, but dread the fatigues of the Journey. I am extremely chagrin'd that I received no letters from her by the last post. What can be the reason? But my love did not know I am being at New York, she must have thought me on the road. 

28 Aug 1776 H to L 

Dear Girl, how much I love you. War will bring peace and bye & bye we will live together, enjoying the felicity & happiness of each other's society 'till time walk us to immortal happiness.  Kiss my babe for me & Believe me to possess a sincere affection for you as it is possible for a mortal to do.

In his letters, Henry also asks for, “intelligence concerning the dear pledge of our mutual affections,” [little Lucy Knox], and later refers to their children as, "dear little images.”

After rising to the position of Major Gen., Knox resigned his commission in 1784 and became Secretary of War in 1785, continuing in this position in Washington’s cabinet. Most of his duties revolved around "Indian Affairs."  At some point, he also comes to weigh over 290 pounds (Lucy reached around 250 pounds.) Tied up with his various business ventures (x, x), he did not participate in the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion; AH became acting Secty of War in Knox's place.  [HK and AH were good friends - well, besides that matter of their rank in 1798. Their wives likely were also, or at least shared the same social circle. The Knox and Hamilton children shared tutors at times. HK is the author of the letter informing AH of EH’s likely miscarriage in 1794.] Knox retired the position in Jan 1795 and he and Lucy settled in the Maine frontier and were hated by most of their neighbors, to the point of armed conflict. (Maine settlers found Knox to be aristocratic - Henry Knox is the inspiration for Hawthorne's Col Pyncheon in The House of the Seven Gables. It's a useful reminder, in this age of Founders Chic, how rapidly the vision of the Founders was rejected by the American people.)  Henry choked on a chicken bone, developed an infection, and died in 1806.  Only three of their 13 children survived to adulthood, and Lucy lived alone in their home until her own death in 1824. 

To be cont’d

*Henry and Lucy eventually became landowners of part of her grandfather’s large patent of land, once called the Waldo patent, in what would become Maine. They later sold it to William Bingham.

[readbookywooks]

`So I came back. For a long time I must have been insensible upon the machine. The blinking succession of the days and nights was resumed, the sun got golden again, the sky blue. I breathed with greater freedom. The fluctuating contours of the land ebbed and flowed. The hands spun backward upon the dials. At last I saw again the dim shadows of houses, the evidences of decadent humanity. These, too, changed and passed, and others came. Presently, when the million dial was at zero, I slackened speed. I began to recognize our own petty and familiar architecture, the thousands hand ran back to the starting-point, the night and day flapped slower and slower. Then the old walls of the laboratory came round me. Very gently, now, I slowed the mechanism down.

`I saw one little thing that seemed odd to me. I think I have told you that when I set out, before my velocity became very high, Mrs. Watchett had walked across the room, travelling, as it seemed to me, like a rocket. As I returned, I passed again across that minute when she traversed the laboratory. But now her every motion appeared to be the exact inversion of her previous ones. The door at the lower end opened, and she glided quietly up the laboratory, back foremost, and disappeared behind the door by which she had previously entered. Just before that I seemed to see Hillyer for a moment; but he passed like a flash.

`Then I stopped the machine, and saw about me again the old familiar laboratory, my tools, my appliances just as I had left them. I got off the thing very shaky, and sat down upon my bench. For several minutes I trembled violently. Then I became calmer. Around me was my old workshop again, exactly as it had been. I might have slept there, and the whole thing have been a dream.

`And yet, not exactly! The thing had started from the south-east corner of the laboratory. It had come to rest again in the north-west, against the wall where you saw it. That gives you the exact distance from my little lawn to the pedestal of the White Sphinx, into which the Morlocks had carried my machine.

`For a time my brain went stagnant. Presently I got up and came through the passage here, limping, because my heel was still painful, and feeling sorely begrimed. I saw the PALL MALL GAZETTE on the table by the door. I found the date was indeed to-day, and looking at the timepiece, saw the hour was almost eight o'clock. I heard your voices and the clatter of plates. I hesitated--I felt so sick and weak. Then I sniffed good wholesome meat, and opened the door on you. You know the rest. I washed, and dined, and now I am telling you the story.

`I know,' he said, after a pause, `that all this will be absolutely incredible to you. To me the one incredible thing is that I am here to-night in this old familiar room looking into your friendly faces and telling you these strange adventures.'

He looked at the Medical Man. `No. I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as a lie--or a prophecy. Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon the destinies of our race until I have hatched this fiction. Treat my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance its interest. And taking it as a story, what do you think of it?'

He took up his pipe, and began, in his old accustomed manner, to tap with it nervously upon the bars of the grate. There was a momentary stillness. Then chairs began to creak and shoes to scrape upon the carpet. I took my eyes off the Time Traveller's face, and looked round at his audience. They were in the dark, and little spots of colour swam before them. The Medical Man seemed absorbed in the contemplation of our host. The Editor was looking hard at the end of his cigar--the sixth. The Journalist fumbled for his watch. The others, as far as I remember, were motionless.

The Editor stood up with a sigh. `What a pity it is you're not a writer of stories!' he said, putting his hand on the Time Traveller's shoulder.

`You don't believe it?'

`Well----'

`I thought not.'

The Time Traveller turned to us. `Where are the matches?' he said. He lit one and spoke over his pipe, puffing. `To tell you the truth . . . I hardly believe it myself. . . . And yet . . .'

His eye fell with a mute inquiry upon the withered white flowers upon the little table. Then he turned over the hand holding his pipe, and I saw he was looking at some half-healed scars on his knuckles.

The Medical Man rose, came to the lamp, and examined the flowers. `The gynaeceum's odd,' he said. The Psychologist leant forward to see, holding out his hand for a specimen.

`I'm hanged if it isn't a quarter to one,' said the Journalist. `How shall we get home?'

`Plenty of cabs at the station,' said the Psychologist.

`It's a curious thing,' said the Medical Man; `but I certainly don't know the natural order of these flowers. May I have them?'

The Time Traveller hesitated. Then suddenly: `Certainly not.'

`Where did you really get them?' said the Medical Man.

The Time Traveller put his hand to his head. He spoke like one who was trying to keep hold of an idea that eluded him. 'They were put into my pocket by Weena, when I travelled into Time.' He stared round the room. `I'm damned if it isn't all going. This room and you and the atmosphere of every day is too much for my memory. Did I ever make a Time Machine, or a model of a Time Machine? Or is it all only a dream? They say life is a dream, a precious poor dream at times--but I can't stand another that won't fit. It's madness. And where did the dream come from? . . . I must look at that machine. If there is one!'

He caught up the lamp swiftly, and carried it, flaring red, through the door into the corridor. We followed him. There in the flickering light of the lamp was the machine sure enough, squat, ugly, and askew; a thing of brass, ebony, ivory, and translucent glimmering quartz. Solid to the touch--for I put out my hand and felt the rail of it--and with brown spots and smears upon the ivory, and bits of grass and moss upon the lower parts, and one rail bent awry.

The Time Traveller put the lamp down on the bench, and ran his hand along the damaged rail. `It's all right now,' he said. 'The story I told you was true. I'm sorry to have brought you out here in the cold.' He took up the lamp, and, in an absolute silence, we returned to the smoking-room.

He came into the hall with us and helped the Editor on with his coat. The Medical Man looked into his face and, with a certain hesitation, told him he was suffering from overwork, at which he laughed hugely. I remember him standing in the open doorway, bawling good night.

I shared a cab with the Editor. He thought the tale a `gaudy lie.' For my own part I was unable to come to a conclusion. The story was so fantastic and incredible, the telling so credible and sober. I lay awake most of the night thinking about it. I determined to go next day and see the Time Traveller again. I was told he was in the laboratory, and being on easy terms in the house, I went up to him. The laboratory, however, was empty. I stared for a minute at the Time Machine and put out my hand and touched the lever. At that the squat substantial-looking mass swayed like a bough shaken by the wind. Its instability startled me extremely, and I had a queer reminiscence of the childish days when I used to be forbidden to meddle. I came back through the corridor. The Time Traveller met me in the smoking-room. He was coming from the house. He had a small camera under one arm and a knapsack under the other. He laughed when he saw me, and gave me an elbow to shake. `I'm frightfully busy,' said he, `with that thing in there.'

`But is it not some hoax?' I said. `Do you really travel through time?'

`Really and truly I do.' And he looked frankly into my eyes. He hesitated. His eye wandered about the room. `I only want half an hour,' he said. `I know why you came, and it's awfully good of you. There's some magazines here. If you'll stop to lunch I'll prove you this time travelling up to the hilt, specimen and all. If you'll forgive my leaving you now?'

I consented, hardly comprehending then the full import of his words, and he nodded and went on down the corridor. I heard the door of the laboratory slam, seated myself in a chair, and took up a daily paper. What was he going to do before lunch-time? Then suddenly I was reminded by an advertisement that I had promised to meet Richardson, the publisher, at two. I looked at my watch, and saw that I could barely save that engagement. I got up and went down the passage to tell the Time Traveller.

As I took hold of the handle of the door I heard an exclamation, oddly truncated at the end, and a click and a thud. A gust of air whirled round me as I opened the door, and from within came the sound of broken glass falling on the floor. The Time Traveller was not there. I seemed to see a ghostly, indistinct figure sitting in a whirling mass of black and brass for a moment--a figure so transparent that the bench behind with its sheets of drawings was absolutely distinct; but this phantasm vanished as I rubbed my eyes. The Time Machine had gone. Save for a subsiding stir of dust, the further end of the laboratory was empty. A pane of the skylight had, apparently, just been blown in.

I felt an unreasonable amazement. I knew that something strange had happened, and for the moment could not distinguish what the strange thing might be. As I stood staring, the door into the garden opened, and the man-servant appeared.

We looked at each other. Then ideas began to come. `Has Mr. ---- gone out that way?' said I.

`No, sir. No one has come out this way. I was expecting to find him here.'

At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed on, waiting for the Time Traveller; waiting for the second, perhaps still stranger story, and the specimens and photographs he would bring with him. But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime. The Time Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows now, he has never returned.