With a Little Help from my Friends
I’m been asking my readers to send in photos of interesting signs and plaques and statues that they would like to share with the rest of us. Here is my first newsletter devoted to my friends’ contributions.
The first sign is from one of my friends at the Mahopac Writers’ Group, Bob Lee. At the end of 684 and the beginning of rte. 22, there is this sign –
A quick bit of research reveals that they misspelled his name. His middle name was Nash so his initial is “N” not “M.” After finishing his early education in Putnam County, he graduated from West Point in 1846. He saw action in the Mexican-American War, the War with the Seminoles in Florida, and the Civil War. He rose to the rank of two star general. During the Civil War, generals were as ubiquitous as vice-presidents in banks. There were 400 Confederate and 580 Union generals. One in ten would die.
An interesting note about General Couch, he was also a naturalist. The Smithsonian Institute recruited him for a scientific expedition to northern Mexico. While there, he had two reptiles, a frog, and a bird named after him. For biologists among my readers they were: The repitles – Sceloporus couchii and Thamnophis couchii; the frog – Scaphiopus couchii; the bird – Tyrannus couchii
or Couch’s Kingbird.
My second contribution comes from my oldest son, Brian, a hiker. After ascending a steep trail in Bear Mountain State Park -
He came upon this plaque encased in a stone. Who is this guy and why is he up here?
The answers seem to be that he is Harold Scutt, architect of this hill climb. Apparently, the name of this region is Pyngyp, a mountain without a verb. What else can I find out about him.
Harold Scutt’s life ended tragically on April 23rd, 1930 in a plane crash. This native of Long Island was piloting a plane whose diesel engine was designed by the passenger in his plane, Captain Lionel W. Woolson. On a trip from Detroit to New York, Harold was blinded by a sudden snow storm over Attica, NY causing him to crash into a mountain nearby.
Here’s a video about a crew clearing the trail and coming across the plaque
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Harold+Scutt&view=detail&mid=908604A3FFCF36AB70F3908604A3FFCF36AB70F3&FORM=VIRE
After watching the video, I know I will be attempting this hike – NEVER!
My high school and college classmate, John Pane, sent in this Historic sign that he took on one of his treks around his home state of Vermont.
It seems that in 1849 railroad workers in Charlotte, Vermont found a skeleton that they were sure was deposited by Noah’s flood. An interesting speculation since the nearest ocean was 200 miles away. But it was understandable because Darwin had yet to publish his Origin of the Species and generate a new theory about evolution.
Zadock Thomas was the one who preserved the bones by slathering them with horse glue. It has kept it preserved but has thwarted Carbon 14 dating. A guess from circumstantial evidence suggests it’s 11,500 years old.
Eventually Thomas identified erratic glacial activity in the mountains, and piles of sorted and unsorted sediment throughout the state. According to a Vermont Public Radio article, “He’d located beach line, ancient beach lines that contained shell fossils from animals that were very similar to those living in the North Atlantic at the time.”
So, the whale died around 9,500 BC; and when the ice age hit, its body was stored frozen in a glacier that migrated down to Vermont. At least that’s how I interpret what happened. Sorry, Noah.
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My long time friend and fellow Defense Language Institute Instructor who I served with in Vietnam, Make Jankowski, sent in these two plaques from The City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia.
This plaque heralds the action of John Jacob Mickley who in 1777 escorted the Liberty Bell to safety so that the British could not melt it down for ammunition. It wasn’t just the Liberty Bell that was hustled out of the city after Washington’s defeat at Brandywine, but a caravan of 700 wagons that raced to Allentown to make the metal bells disappear.
There is another stone marker in Pennsylvania that remembers John Jacob Mickley.
This marker notes that in 1763 two of his twelve children plus other neighbors were killed in the last Indian massacre in Lehigh County. It’s events like this that underscore why in 1791 the Bill of Rights included the Second Amendment.
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My Fordham Prep High School classmate, Chuck Slivinski, has a fascination with Jesuits. His recent trip to Cartagena, Columbia inspired him to send me these photos of Father Peter Claver S.J.
Father Peter Claver was a Spanish Jesuit priest who in 1610 arrived in Cartagena, Venezuela to begin his spiritual mission to help the African slaves. In forty years of ministering to these African slaves, it is reported that he baptized over 300,000.
Cartagena was a slave trading hub where 10,000 slaves arrived from Africa each year to work in the gold and silver mines or to be sold across the continent. Slavery was a profitable business. A slave purchased in Africa for 4 gold crowns could be sold for 200 gold crowns at the end of the sea journey.
Peter Claver was canonized in 1888 by Pope Leo XIII, He is the Patron Saint of Slaves, the Republic of Columbia, and Seafarers. Columbia has set aside September 9th as Human Rights Day in his honor.
Among the many parishes dedicated to St. Peter Claver are those in Lexington, Kentucky, West Hartford, Connecticut, Macon, Georgia, New Orleans, Louisiana, Simi Valley, California, St. Paul, Minnesota, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Montclair, New Jersey, Baltimore, Maryland, Huntington, West Virginia, and Nairobi, Kenya.
Among the many schools dedicated to St. Peter Claver are those in Decatur, Georgia, and Pimville, South Africa. The oldest African American school in the Diocese of St. Petersburg, and the oldest African American school still functioning in the State of Florida, is the St. Peter Claver Catholic School.
Here is a photo I found on the website for the St Peter Claver Catholic School in Tampa founded in 1893.
I hope you enjoyed our trip through Norteamérica. We started in Putnam County, New York; crossed the Bear Mountain Bridge to climb up Mt. Pyngyp; travel up 91 to Vermont; Down 95 to Philly; and across the Caribbean to Columbia. I hope you enjoyed the trip.
As more photos come in from my newsletter friends, I will add them to what I still have in storage and produce another “With a Little Help from my Friends” later.