A file in the online version of the Kouroo Contexture ...of the local militia. Here is that statue,...

DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH

April 20: Daniel Chester French was born in Exeter, New Hampshire. Note that this infant would grow up to be America’s fave sculptor, and would live in Concord and over the years produce rendition after rendition of illustrious Concord residents such as Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and of various gents of the Hoar persuasion (Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, Sherman Hoar, George Frisbie Hoar), as well as of general literary lions such as James Elliot Cabot, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, and James Russell Lowell. –Why then would such a server of society’s legitimated ones never ever attempt even a rough study of Concord’s Henry Thoreau?

Well, one response might be that he had never encountered Henry Thoreau. But then he never had encountered the Reverend John Harvard, either, and a little detail like that did not prevent him from being the sculptor who

1850

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/ActiveIndex.pdf

2 Copyright Austin Meredith

DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH

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would produce the “Three Lies” statue outside Harvard College’s administration building!1

On the previous day, the Boston Daily News reported, “the populations of these towns [Lexington and Concord had] turned out literally en masse, added to which the thousands from the cities of Boston and Lowell, swelled the multitude present to a very numerous gathering,” to commemorate a dustup between local militia units and the regular army which had occurred on April 19, 1774.

February 11: Abraham Lincoln gave a brief farewell to friends and supporters at Springfield, Illinois and boarded a train for Washington DC. He would receive a warning during this trip of a possible attempt at assassination.2

[THOREAU MADE NO ENTRY IN HIS JOURNAL FOR FEBRUARY 11]

1. Although the inscription on this 1884 statue lists the seated figure as the “founder” of Harvard College, actually he had not been. After his death and apparently without his instruction, his widow had made one of the early bequests. Although the inscription asserts that Harvard College was founded in 1638, actually it had been founded in 1636. Daniel Chester French was a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology class of 1871 and student French’s buddy Sherman Hoar, who actually served as the model for this statue, may likewise have been an MIT student.

1861

2. According to Harold S. Schultz’s NATIONALISM AND SECTIONALISM IN SOUTH CAROLINA, 1852-1860 (Durham: Duke UP, 1950, page 226), for instance, a group of South Carolinians had organized themselves as the “Minutemen” with an agenda including but not limited to a march upon Washington DC to prevent installation of the Republican president.

OLD NORTH BRIDGE

PATRIOTS’ DAY

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/T/HDT.pdf

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/explanation.pdf


“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 3


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Daniel Chester French’s 1st commission of any importance was that of “The Minute Man of 1775,” which was cast at the Ames Foundry in Chicopee, Massachusetts using the bronze from 10 obsolete cannon. (He would fabricate the “Minute Man” again in 1889, and again in 1915.)

October: “Fellow citizens, we’ve got this altitude problem.” A decision was reached, to place the “Minute Man” statue of Concord, Massachusetts atop a big cut stone base made of granite from Westford — so that its revolutionary fighter would appear somewhat less minute.3

1874






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March 24: Abby May Alcott, the “artistic” daughter of the Alcott family, had been solicited and had suggested a local young man, Daniel Chester French, she considered to be of promise;

he had produced a minute plaster model on the model of the Apollo Belvedere (with clothes on);4 a bronze statue was in the last stages of being prepared;5 the base and inscription for the new statue of the “Minute Man”

3. You will notice that the comparison statue in Lexington, created by Henry Hudson Kitson and placed on the green in 1900, is not a minuteman, there having been no such persons present when the army troops arrived in that locale — but merely some members of the local militia. Here is that statue, standing above its utilitarian horse-watering trough:

1875

4. The Roman copy known as the Apollo Belvedere, at the Vatican, was termed in 1775 “the consummation of the best that nature, art, and the human mind can produce.” It had been uncovered sometime late in the 15th Century, and dates to the reign of Hadrian. We presume that the original of this had been sculpted about 320BCE by Leochares, an Athenian, at the court of Alexander the Great. Thomas Carlyle dealt with the Apollo Belvedere in “Hudson’s Statue.”






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on the west bank of the Concord River at the Old North Bridge in Concord were complete.

March 29, day: The Daniel Chester French statue of the “Minute Man” arrived from the Ames Manufacturing Company foundry of Chicopee, Massachusetts, was inspected by the Concord committee, and was declared to be acceptable.

April 19, day: For the Centennial year of “The Fight,” an ornate cedarwood bridge had been constructed in replacement of the Old North Bridge, with two rustic half arbors containing seats protruding out over the water more or less in the manner of privy seats. The simplicity of the original oak and stone-pier design was not good enough and had been forsaken.

Because of the bad blood between the two towns Lexington and Concord and their rival claims to fame, elaborate rival celebrations of the beginning of the Revolutionary War were staged.6 There were cannonades at dawn and at dusk. Conditions were miserable as the temperature was 22 (Fahrenheit) but in each town the parade approached a couple of miles in length, as something like 50,000 visitors arrived in each of the competing towns. Only those who got to the Boston train station well in advance, such as John Muir, were able to secure seats on the train out to the festivities, and Mark Twain and William Dean Howells, not arriving at the station betimes, would entirely miss this celebration.

5. The plan had been, originally, for a marble statue, but young Daniel the sculptor had preferred bronze and Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar had persuaded the US Congress to make available 10 condemned Civil War brass cannon.

OLD NORTH BRIDGE

PATRIOTS’ DAY






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The honorable speakers of the day in Concord were Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, and George William Curtis, and the 1,250-pound Daniel Chester French statue of “The Minuteman” was unveiled at the site of the Old North Bridge as President Ulysses S. Grant approached in his carriage.

The cord releasing the flags which draped the statue was pulled by the current “William Emerson” namesake

6. Phinney, Elias. HISTORY OF THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON, ON THE MORNING OF THE 19TH OF APRIL 1775.Boston MA: Phelps and Farnham, 1825Ezra Ripley, D.D. A HISTORY OF THE FIGHT AT CONCORD ON THE 19TH OF APRIL 1775. Concord MA: Allen and Atwill, 1827Little, David B. “’Twas the Nineteenth of April in (18)75 – and the Centennial was coming unstuck,” American Heritage XXIII (April 1972): 18-25






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of the Reverend William Emerson who had served as a chaplain during the hostilities.

On the Common of the other town, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. was acting as if he knew something about something and proclaiming that “beyond doubt” it had been on Lexington’s green rather than on Concord’s that the “first shots fired back by our troops at theirs” had been fired. The Boston News reported that Lexington people were saying that their Minuteman was worth “sixty of him” — and we may presume in context that the “him” spoken of was the 1,250-pound statue of “The Minuteman” on its pedestal, rather than President General Ulysses S. Grant in his carriage.

Daniel Chester French, who had grown up on a large farm on the Sudbury Road from 1867 to 1874, would be 25 years of age on the following day, and although his current address was Firenzi, Italy, and although he had declined the town’s mailed invitation to attend, he was indeed in the crowd. He had made the first, three-foot model of this statue out on that farm, before, needing more space, he had moved it to a room on the 3rd floor of the Studio Building in Boston at the corner of Tremont and Bromfield. The plaster casting of the statue had






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been done in the family’s barn.






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Daniel Chester French sculpted two busts and a head of Waldo Emerson. (In 1911 he would sculpt the seated figure of Emerson that is in the Concord Free Public Library.)

During this year and the following one, Daniel Chester French did two busts of James Elliot Cabot.

Daniel Chester French did two busts of Bronson Alcott (he would do a third in 1890).

Daniel Chester French did the Reverend John Harvard up brown:7

1879

1880

1882

1884

7. It appears that the model for the body of this statue, Sherman Hoar in a 17th-Century costume, may have been another MIT student.

DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH






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Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar and Reuben Rice bought the Wright Tavern to turn it over to the “First Parish Society” on condition that the building, a part of Concord history, not be demolished. You can inspect it in the

background of the famous painting by Doolittle and Earle, of the redcoats standing in Concord Square — or if you are thirsty you should stop by and wet your whistle. This is as good a place as any to peruse a public-domain copy of WALDEN:

1886






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Daniel Chester French sculpted Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar. He would sculpt Sherman Hoar (1860-1898) in 1899 and George Frisbie Hoar, for the Senator Hoar Memorial, in 1908.

Daniel Chester French did a bust of President John Adams. Yet again he did the ever popular “Minute Man”.

Daniel Chester French did a statue of the horse Cincinnati, for Philadelphia.

Presumably, had the horse in question been named Philadelphia, the statue might have been placed in Cincinnati (but what do I know?).

1889

1897






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French also cast the 1st pair of a set of three pairs of bronze doors for the new Boston Public Library structure which had gone up in 1895: “Music and Poetry.” Don’t ask me which of the three pairs this is:

Daniel Chester French did two busts of Sherman Hoar (who had just died in Concord of typhoid fever), after having sculpted Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar in 1886. He would sculpt George Frisbie Hoar, for the Senator Hoar Memorial, in 1908.

A letter from John Witt Randall sent to Francis Ellingwood Abbott on January 9, 1857 about Henry Thoreau was included in POEMS OF NATURE AND LIFE (Boston: George H. Ellis, page 109):

I hope you will find Mr. Thoreau a pleasant companion. I have met him at Mr. Hoar’s, and was pleased with the accuracy of his botanical observations. He seemed to know what he knew — by no means, I think, the most common of characteristics.

1899






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Daniel Chester French did the 2d pair of a set of three pairs of bronze doors for the Boston Public Library, “Knowledge and Wisdom.” Don’t ask me which pair this is:

When a bust of Henry Thoreau would be produced in this year, it would be produced, significantly, not by this Concord sculptor, who clearly couldn’t be bothered, but by Walton Ricketson.

1898






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When asked to nominate the “Americans most deserving representation” for inclusion in a hall of fame that was being planned in Massachusetts, the Honorable George Frisbie Hoar had to exclude his world-class heros William Ewart Gladstone, John Milton, the Marquis de Lafayette, General Simon Bolivar, Giuseppe Mazzini, Lajos Kossuth, and Miss Florence Nightingale because they were not Americans (well, in addition to being disqualified as a mere Brit, Miss Florence was not even a man — and not even yet dead), and he excused Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne because to be great a man must possess “more than the quality of a great artist,” and he banished Benjamin Franklin to the outer darkness for having been “without idealism, without lofty principle, and, on one side of his character, gross and immoral,” and, finally, aware that he could not get away with submitting his own name since he wasn’t dead yet (and besides that would be utterly immodest), he submitted the following dozen dead white American malenesses:

1900






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• President George Washington (the most “noble” on the list, representing “the prime meridian of pure, exalted, human character”)

• President Thomas Jefferson (the most “influential” on the list, because of his alleged authorship of the Declaration of Independence,a document endorsed by the Honorable George Frisbie Hoar’s grandfatherRoger Sherman)

• President Abraham Lincoln• The Reverend Jonathan Edwards• President John Adams• Sam Adams• Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton• Senator Daniel Webster• Chief Justice John Marshall• Senator Charles Sumner• Waldo Emerson• Friend John Greenleaf Whittier






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Daniel Chester French did an equestrian statue of George Washington, for Paris.

(This isn’t it — bronze horses are so easily mistaken for one another.)






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Oh, all right. How can I keep it from you?

The general had of course ridden various horses at various times. At least two of his mounts had been killed in combat. “Old Nelson,” “Roger Leo,” “Ellen Edenberg,” and “Blueskin” were among the survivors. We seem to have lost track of which of these the sculptor was here attempting to render immortal in bronze — perhaps he was merely immortalizing the spirit of horseness.






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Daniel Chester French did the 3d pair of a set of three pairs of bronze doors for the Boston Public Library, “Truth and Romance.” Don’t ask me which pair this is:

Henry Cabot Lodge wrote on the history of Boston:

1902

READ LODGE’S TEXT

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/19/00DECADE/02/1902_Boston.pdf






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A momentous event, the publication of a Standard Library Edition of the complete works of James Russell Lowell by Houghton, Mifflin of Boston and New York in 13 volumes Octavo, in dark brown morocco with

marbled boards, raised bands, and gilt trim lettering, with the final two volumes bearing small ornaments in their spine compartments. The 1919 edition of BARTLETT’S FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS would contain 99 quotes by this most famous and profound author!

Let not a drool be lost for posterity!

He had become so famous, in fact, that in this year Daniel Chester French did not one but two busts of him (we note, by way of contrast, that this famous Concord sculptor never bothered to craft a bust of low-rent Concord local Henry David Thoreau).

1905






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When Daniel Chester French’s “Progress of the State” was installed at the Minnesota State Capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota, my God were the local tractor jockeys impressed!

In New-York, motor buses were replacing the last horse-drawn public transportation. Metered taxicabs were appearing on the city’s streets. In lower Manhattan, Cass Gilbert’s Customs House was opening, featuring appropriately grandiose sculptures by Daniel Chester French and Adolph Weinman and murals by Reginald Marsh.

1906

1907






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George Frisbie Hoar, four years deceased, was busted (so to speak) by Daniel Chester French, who had already sculpted Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar and Sherman Hoar (1860-1898), for the Senator Hoar Memorial:

1908






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At some point during this year, “Blind Tom” had a stroke and died. We don’t know in what month or on what day of this year he died, and cannot now find out, as nobody had been paying that much attention to him since he had begun in indignation to refuse to perform. He left no estate, all the money from all his performances always having been appropriated in its entirety by his white owners and white custodians. His black body would be disposed of and forgotten in an unmarked pauper plot across the new bridge, in Brooklyn.

In Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Daniel Chester French’s “Mourning Victory” was dedicated to the three Melvin brothers who had died in the Civil War:8

(These three brothers had died, of course, to set Blind Tom free.)

1909

8. “The Melvin Memorial” (Cambridge: Privately Printed, 1910) includes information on the dedication of the memorial and the text of the diary of Samuel Melvin, who had succumbed at the infamous Andersonville prisoner-of-war camp.






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Daniel Chester French sculpted the seated figure of Waldo Emerson that is in the Concord Free Public Library. (He had done a clay model from life, of this friend of his father Henry Flagg French, and from this clay model in 1879 had already created two busts and a head. We may note that although as a young sculptor he had done portrait work of local people he knew personally –among them Simon Brown who was married to Henry Flagg French’s sister Ann, and Elizabeth Rockwood Hoar– since he had been only twelve when Henry Thoreau had died, he had never had a chance to get to know him.)

Allen French’s THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.

Daniel Chester French did a couple of busts of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Daniel Chester French again, as in 1874 and in 1889, produced a depiction of the “Minute Man.” He also in this year sculpted Wendell Phillips (who had been dead for lo these many years).

Daniel Chester French sculpted the Marquis de Lafayette, (In 1921 he would prepare a Lafayette Memorial Statue.)

1911

1914

1915

1917

VIEW THE PAGE IMAGES

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/19/10DECADE/11/1911_SiegeOfBoston.pdf






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Daniel Chester French sculpted Washington Irving.

Daniel Chester French sculpted a Lafayette Memorial Statue (on a following screen).

Electric vacuum cleaners were used in the White House for the 1st time.

President Warren G. Harding has a radio set installed in a bookcase in his study on the 2d floor of the White House.9

Daniel Chester French’s seated Abraham Lincoln was dedicated at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. (In addition it was French who sculpted the standing Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebraska.)

In this year the Concord sculptor was doing a bust of Edgar Allan Poe.

1920

1921

1922

9. Warren Gamaliel Harding was in part of black ancestry, both on his father’s side of the family and on his mother’s. He was evidently one of those whose “passing for white” required them to mentally suppress all suspicions, although admittedly, from a white political perspective, he did take remarkably liberal positions in regard to racial fairness. During his period of service as President, however, 183 black Americans were lynched.






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In this year Daniel Chester French did a bust of inventor/tycoon George Westinghouse, Jr., who had died in 1914.

Mrs. Daniel Chester French’s MEMORIES OF A SCULPTOR’S WIFE (Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin):

Pages 96-97: On stormy days his familiar step was wont to beheard on our doorstep. He knew that if the weather was bad farmduties must be suspended and that Grandfather would probably beat leisure.The children hailed his coming with delight. It was better thanany fairy tale to listen to his stories of the woods or theriver. To hear him talk they would gather around as still asmice. What marvelous ways the birds and squirrels had which noone else had discovered. Who but Mr. Thoreau could tame thefishes in the pond, feed the little mice from his fingers, keepup a whistling fire of conversation with the birds till theyalighted on his head and shoulders, wondering what friend couldbe so very familiar with bird language. Who else received callsfrom the moles, — and how the children’s eyes would brighten ashe told them of the tamed partridge so proud of her family thatshe brought them all to show him and how in return for herkindness he shared his breakfast with the brood. He knew everyspot were the wild flowers grew, every sheltered nook where themaiden-hair or climbing fern hid their treasures ofgracefulness. One day he came in with a rare nettle which hecould not place. Aunt Abby was immediately sent for the botany.Nothing could be said till the nettle problem was settled.He liked to read to the children from the CANTERBURY TALES. Oftenhe would stop and think about a line, saying, “You can sometimescatch the sense better by listening than by reading.”In later life when my Aunt Jane became a teacher and read thesesame tales to her pupils, she said she could distinctly recallthat melodious voice and the wonderful sense of rhythm he couldimpart as he read.Unlike Emerson, Thoreau was a natural musician, He played theflute well and had a musical voice for singing. His ears wereso keenly attuned to the various melodies of nature that soundsunheard by others were easily distinguished by him. It was thismusical sense that enabled him to discern so accurately thenotes of birds and the calls of other animals.He had fitted a lyre in one of his windows and he noticed thatin a deep cut in the woods certain trees formed a natural aeolianlyre when the wind blew through them. Aunt Eliza, when a smallgirl, tried to make an aeolian lyre and was quite disconsolatebecause it wouldn’t work as the one at the Thoreau home did.

Pages 98-99: On a Sunday afternoon the children loved to go to

1925

1928






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the Walden shack. Thoreau sat at his desk, Grandfather was givena chair, while they arranged themselves along the edge of thecot bed, the youngest child still remembering that her feetcouldn’t quite reach the floor. If the conversation grew tooabstruse or they were tired of sitting still, one by one theyslipped out to amuse themselves in the woods. They might berewarded later by a glimpse of friendly animals, or Mr. Thoreauwould give them a row on the pond.To take a walk with Thoreau, one must rigidly adhere to themanners of the woods. He could lead one to the ripest berries,the hidden nest, the rarest flowers, but no plant life could becarelessly destroyed, no mother bird lose her eggs.First he would give a curious whistle and a woodchuck wouldappear — a different whistle and two squirrels would run to him.A different note yet and birds would fly and even so shy a birdas a crow would alight on his shoulder. The children must bemute and very motionless till each pet was fed from his pocketand-had departed. Thus the children were introduced to hisfamily, as he called them.When boating, he could name all the lilies of the pond or thewood lilies, and he could delight them with stories of theIndians who once lived around Walden.

Pages 99-100: Sometimes the owner of that familiar grey homespunsuit, made by his aunt to suit the needs of a perennial tramper,would appear at the farm late in the afternoon. That meant asimple supper with the ten children and a long evening for talk.Aunt Jane said that Thoreau and her father discussedScandinavian mythology so much that she became an adept in thoselegends. Such a deep impression was made on her mind that inlater life she was compelled to translate Greek and Roman mythsback into her early models of Thor, Woden, and Igdrasil.Grandmother told me that sometimes the two men would get into alively discussion over some vital question. Neither would givein, each could well sustain his own side of the argument, timewould pass unheeded and the hour of midnight strike before theyrealized it. If however Thoreau departed unconvinced orunconvincing and could think during the following day of a freshargument wherewith to overwhelm Grandfather’s point of view, hewould come back and they would go at it again the next night.After the trips to Maine or Canada there were fascinatingevenings when no child wanted to go to bed, so interesting werethe new experiences in forest lore and the stories about theIndians.

Page 101: The children all loved Mr. Thoreau and had no fear ofhim. Doubtless no liberties were taken, for “seen and not heard”was Grandfather’s motto for them. Thoreau himself resented toogreat familiarity.

Page 103: One forenoon Thoreau and a companion [Edward Hoar]went by boat to explore the sources of the Sudbury river. Incooking their lunch on the bank in some way the dry grass goton fire and in spite of their efforts spread so fast that ahundred cords of wood belonging to a Mr. Wheeler were burned. Afew years ago the latter’s daughter was calling at our house andin the course of the conversation Thoreau’s name was mentioned.“Don’t talk to me about Henry Thoreau,” she said. “Didn’t I all






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that winter have to go to school with a smootched apron or dressbecause I had to pitch in and help fill the wood box with partlycharred wood.”

Pages 105-106: The afternoon before he died, as one of my auntswas passing the house, Sophia called her in. “Mr. B_____” shesaid, “has offered to sit up with my brother tonight, but Henrywants your father.” So after supper Grandfather walked over tospend the night with him.The next day he passed on, trustfully expectant of renewedvision when Grandfather said, “I heard the robins sing as I camealong,” Thoreau answered, “This is a beautiful world, but soonI shall see one that is fairer,” and again he said to him, “Ihave so loved nature.”When Grandfather started to go home in the morning Thoreaucalled Sophia and asked her to give him a copy of one of hisfirst editions.

Pages 94-95: I loved to hear the farmers talk about him. One ofthem used to say: “Henry D. Thoreau — Henry D. Thoreau,” jerkingout the words with withering contempt. “His name ain’t no moreHenry D. Thoreau than my name is Henry D. Thoreau. And everybodyknows it, and he knows it. His name’s Da-a-vid Henry and it ain’tnever been nothing but Da-a-vid Henry. And he knows that! Why,one morning I went out in my field across there to the river,and there, beside that little old mud pond, was standing Da-a-via Henry, and he wasn’t doin’ nothin’ but just standin’ there— lookin’ at that pond, and when I came back at noon, there hewas standin’ with his hands behind him just lookin’ down intothat pond, and after dinner when I come back again if there wan’tDa-a-vid standin’ there just like as if he had been there allday, gazin’ down into that pond, and I stopped and looked at himand I says, ‘Da-a-vid Henry, what air you a-doin’?’ And he didn’tturn his head and he didn’t look at me. He kept on lookin’ downat that pond, and he said, as if he was thinkin’ about the starsin the heavens, ‘Mr. Murray, I’m a-studyin’ — the habits — ofthe bullfrog!’ And there that darned fool had been standin’ —the livelong day — a-studyin’ — the habits — of the bull-frog!”






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Daniel Chester French did a bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

October 7, day: Daniel Chester French died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Just before he died the sculptor had done a couple of busts of Daniel Webster.

1929

1931






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September 16, Monday: The Daniel Chester French postage stamp was issued.

The United States military conscription bill, the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, was signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, creating this country’s initial peacetime draft and formally establishing a Selective Service System as an independent Federal agency.10

All males 21-36 were required to register for the draft. The FBI became responsible for locating draft evaders

1940

WORLD WAR II






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and deserters. Conscientious objectors were allegedly to be exempted on the basis of training and belief.

For the first time they would be required to serve their country doing “work of national importance under civilian direction.” This was to be the case regardless of whether the person in question was a citizen of the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and as such protected from all such conscription ever since the 17th Century by Rhode Island’s charter of religious liberty of conscience, a charter that had never before been gainsaid.

Roland Wells Robbins began research on “The Minuteman” statue.

10. Don’t you feel so much safer? What if they gave a war and nobody came?

Please notice that there’s an important difference, in these files, for the period of the 1930s and 1940s. The important difference is that, during the lengthy regime of President FDR, there’s absolutely no mention at the national level of the Southern Democrat practice of the lynching of black Americans. During the FDR regime, these lynchings would be going on entirely uninterrupted, and the federal executive branch would be sponsoring zero zip nada niente anti-lynching legislation. Roosevelt was a Democrat, and it was an uneasy alliance between “liberal” Northern Democrats and “conservative” Southern Democrats that, election after election, was keeping him in power. For him to have supported anti-lynching legislation would have been for him to have split his support base, which was made up in roughly equal parts of white Northerners who did not much care what was happening to black Americans down south, and white Southerners who cared not at all that bad things would occasionally happen to the “uppity” among their black neighbors. (How do we know this? –We know this because FDR himself clearly explained his situation to the NAACP’s Walter White: saving the lives of these black men would cost him more, in terms of support, than their lives were worth to him.)

1943

OHNE MICH!

MILITARY CONSCRIPTION






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Roland Wells Robbins published THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMAN.

1945






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During the mid-1950s, hurricanes hitting the New England coast decimated many of the vacant, decaying, flimsily constructed military structures on various of the islands of Boston harbor, such as the POW barracks of the World War II detainment camp for Italians at Fort Andrews on Peddocks Island.

During this year “Hurricane Diane” so badly damaged the ugly and inappropriate concrete bridge over the Concord River on the site of the Old North Bridge, joining the Battle Monument on the east bank to the Daniel Chester French statue of “The Minuteman” on the west bank, that the sturdy structure would need to be

1955






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demolished. In the following year a replica of the original bridge would be erected, based upon the Amos Doolittle engraving of the 1775 battle.

There is further indication of the wrath of “Diane” near the present Causeway Bridge, just below the Ox-Bow of the Sudbury River, where you can still see the remains of a stone bridge. The western end of this “Stone’s Bridge” (erected in 1857 and discussed by Thoreau in 1859 as a new bridge) was taken out, though the ox-bow upstream endured through this flood still intact.

As the waters surged down the Blackstone River they took out all its bridges except one — the stone bridge anchored in bedrock that can be seen just below the dam.

The above has to do only with the hurricanes that came ashore in New England. There were other damaging hurricanes. For instance, in this year hurricane Janet destroyed 75% of the nutmeg trees of Grenada. This






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represented, at the time, 40% of the world’s nutmeg supply.

September 29: Another bridge (the present one) was dedicated across the Concord River joining the Battle Monument on the east bank to the Daniel Chester French statue of “The Minuteman” on the west bank. The design of this new wooden bridge, as a wood post-and-beam structure with a plank surface and wood railings, between stone and mortar abutments on the river shores, was based upon the depiction of the Old North Bridge in the Amos Doolittle engraving of the 1775 battle. It doesn’t go anywhere and doesn’t carry any traffic — it’s a superpatriotic stage prop. Governor Herter orated that this bridge would be a “symbol throughout the world of man’s eternal fight for freedom,” and a visitor noted that at least it was not, like the previous structure on the site, a “concrete anachronism” that jarred “sensibilities.”

Anticipating that the United States of America would soon be invaded by communist forces, and claiming to have been inspired by a speech of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in which the president had called for a “nation of minutemen” ready to take up arms in their country’s defense, Robert DePugh created a heavily armed group of trained guerrilla fighters named the “Minutemen.” The Air National Guard began to use an image of Concord’s Daniel Chester French statue of “The Minuteman” in their logo.

1956

1960

SPICE

OLD NORTH BRIDGE






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November 29: Disengagement talks between Egypt and Israel on the Cairo-Suez road broke down in failure.

Anniversary Fanfare for brass and percussion by William Walton was performed for the initial time, in Royal Festival Hall, London, in a concert celebrating the 75th anniversary of EMI.

A student of the Bedford High School called the police about a bag with ticking noises coming out of it, that was resting against the base of the Daniel Chester French statue of “The Minuteman” in Concord. Inside the bag were discovered to be four sticks of dynamite, and a clock set for 11:00 AM. –The result of this was that a mould would be taken of the statue, so that it could be recast were it ever to be destroyed.

In her book CONCORD: STORIES TO BE TOLD (Beverly MA, Commonwealth Editions, 2002), Liz Nelson would explain the patriotic fervor that followed:

A Threatened Minuteman Statue“Here once the embattled farmers stood; and fired the shot heard’round the world.” At approximately 10 AM, a Bedford High Schoolstudent read the final lines of the inscription on the MinuteMan memorial, and his eyes dropped to the brown paper bag at thestatue’s base. Curious, he picked up the bag and began to walkaway while his hand unfolded the top. Suddenly, he stood as stillas the statue behind him. The bag was ticking! Horrified, theyoung man dropped it, ran to his car, and headed for the policestation. Cruisers screamed to the North Bridge, where policecordoned off the area. At the same time, others called for astate police bomb expert. As luck would have it, he was nearby,and at 10:45 he appeared on the scene. Ten minutes later he hadthe bag’s contents scattered on the ground: a box out of whichtumbled four sticks of dynamite, a detonator, and a clock. Ithad been set to explode at 11 AM. To this date, the crime remainsunsolved. In the early 1970s, tensions over the Vietnam Warcontinued to increase, while faith in government eroded. As thebicentennial celebration of the events of April 19, 1775approached, town officials worried about demonstrations andpotential violence. With the 1973 bomb incident fresh in theirmemories, the selectmen voted to have the statue removed forminor repairs, but most importantly to make a plaster duplicateso that in the event of damage to the original, an exactreplacement could be cast. On the morning of January 16, 1975,amidst complete secrecy, Daniel Chester French’s Minute Manswung off his base and came to rest in a truck before beginningthe trip to Boston. For the first time in a century, visitorsto North Bridge were greeted by an empty granite block. On March29 the statue returned, greeted by fanfare. Girl Scouts placeda time capsule in the base, and a crowd applauded as the bronzestatue settled back where he belonged. April 19, 1975 did drawprotestors. Approximately forty thousand people, celebratingthe People’s Bicentennial, camped on National Park grounds.Though they objected vocally to segments of the speeches,

1973

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President Gerald Ford’s in particular, their demonstrations wereentirely peaceful. The existence of a plaster duplicate of thestate had unexpected consequences. The Minute Man has long beenthe symbol of the National Guard. In 1992, the Army NationalGuard’s top brass wrote to the Concord selectmen seekingapproval for their plan to use the plaster-of-Paris cast madein 1975 to create a duplicate statue, which they would place attheir headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. They followed thisup with a letter suggesting that the selectmen “will be pleasedto know” that the Guard’s lawyers advised them that “a localvote or permission of the Town” was not needed. They invited theboard to make “suggestions” and “provide assistance.” Havinggone through this before, Concordians reacted with articulateoutrage when, in 1984 the Air National Guard wanted to do thesame thing. “Aesthetically and historically [the Minute Manstatue] is a singular piece, a national treasure entrusted toConcord for safekeeping,” wrote former selectman Anna Manion.“Placing a copy of the Minute man anywhere else would weaken thehistoric bond.” “If the National Guard wishes to put up a statueof a minuteman, more power to them. But let them commission asculptor to create one for them,” insisted historian DavidLittle. Ultimately, law prevailed. In the 1963 cooperativeagreement between the National Park Service and Concord, thetown retained “ownership of historic structures, objects andgrounds in the Battleground area.” No duplicate of the MinuteMan statue has been made, nor, as far as Concordians areconcerned, will ever be!

In this year the Air National Guard requested permission to place a replica of “The Minuteman” by Daniel Chester French in front of its administration building at Andrews Air Force Base. Although the Air National Guard had been using an image of the statue in their logo since 1960, the Concord selectmen wisely voted to grant no such permission.

In 1973, because of an attempt made on the statue with four sticks of dynamite, Concord had had a mold made of “The Minuteman” statue in case it was ever destroyed by an act of vandalism or terrorism. The National Guard had in 1982 requested permission to use this mold to create a duplicate to be placed outside its headquarters, but no such permission had ever been granted. That issue, in fictionalized form, served as a minor background theme in a number of the books of the mystery series by Philip Luber ([email protected]) that he has situated in a Concord context, beginning in this year with DELIVER US FROM EVIL. The author’s first-person protagonist muses:

He was referring to the statue of the Minuteman that stood nearNorth Bridge. It was sculpted by Daniel Chester French, a

1982

1997

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Concord resident better known for his statue of Lincoln at theLincoln Memorial. A few years earlier the National Guard askedthe town for permission to make a copy of the statue; they wantedto place it outside their national headquarters. At a raucoustown meeting, a few residents –myself among them– argued infavor of the proposal. But most townsfolk were loath to sharethe statue. They spoke piously about preserving the town’shistory by ensuring its uniqueness, but I thought it was justYankee parochialism at its most base. In any event, their pointof view prevailed.

In a later mystery, PRAY FOR US SINNERS, this author’s fictional pastor of St. Bernard’s church would have more to say about the controversy:

I find that very curious — the notion that the value of somethingintangible would somehow be diminished by letting others sharein it.

In a later mystery, HAVE MERCY ON US, this author’s fictional police chief who had been in the National Guard would reflect:

A long time ago the town made a cast of the Minuteman just incase they ever needed to repair it. Then about ten years ago,the National Guard asked to use the cast to make a copy of thestatue for their headquarters. The town put it to a vote, andthey turned the Guard down.”“Why?”“Some crap about protecting the town’s heritage by keeping itsuniqueness. A bunch of bullshit about how special Concord is,and how it would lose some of its specialness if it started tolend pieces of itself to other places. But the way I see it,Concord is exactly like every other town. Because in every town,even Concord, you can find nice guys and assholes on everycorner. The only thing different about Concord is how differentthey think they are.”

You can see sample chapters of these mystery novels at: http://www.ultranet.com/~luber/






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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2013. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at <[email protected]>.

Prepared: April 25, 2013

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

mailto:[email protected]

Well, tomorrow is such and such a date and so it began on that date in like 8000BC? Why 8000BC, because it was the beginning of the current interglacial -- or what?

Bearing in mind that this is America, "where everything belongs," the primary intent of such a notice is to prevent some person or corporate entity from misappropriating the materials and sequestering them as property for censorship or for profit.






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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, upon someone’s request wehave pulled it out of the hat of a pirate that has grown out ofthe shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (depicted above). Whatthese chronological lists are: they are research reportscompiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of data moduleswhich we term the Kouroo Contexture. This is data mining.To respond to such a request for information, we merely push abutton.






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Commonly, the first output of the program has obviousdeficiencies and so we need to go back into the data modulesstored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, andthen we need to punch that button again and do a recompile ofthe chronology — but there is nothing here that remotelyresembles the ordinary “writerly” process which you know andlove. As the contents of this originating contexture improve,and as the programming improves, and as funding becomesavailable (to date no funding whatever has been needed in thecreation of this facility, the entire operation being run outof pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweakingand recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation ofa generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward andupward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place your requests with <[email protected]>.Arrgh.

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Transcript of A file in the online version of the Kouroo Contexture ...of the local militia. Here is that statue,...