George Benson - Kouroo Contexture

GEORGE WILLIAM BENSON

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project George W. Benson

mailto:[email protected]?subject=Contribution to Kouroo Contexture

mailto:[email protected] subject=Contribution to Kouroo Contexture

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

GEORGE W. BENSON GEORGE WILLIAM BENSON

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The Reverend James Manning requested to be relieved of his duties as President of the College of Rhode Island. (He would die before a successor would be appointed.)

During this decade the father of George William Benson (1808-1879), George Benson (August 20, 1752-December 11, 1836), a Providence merchant active in the Rhode Island Peace Society who would become a founding member and then the secretary of the Providence Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, was transiting from being a Baptist to becoming a convinced member of the Religious Society of Friends.

1790

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

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


GEORGE WILLIAM BENSON GEORGE W. BENSON

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February 15, Monday: George William Benson was born in Providence, Rhode Island.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

2nd day 15th of 2nd M 1808 / Nothing but barraness thro’ the day In the evening met with the Directors of the African Free School at Wm Pattens for the first time meeting - We agreed to propose an alteration of the Consititution to the Society, of the article respecting binding of the Master to pray with the Schollars daily -& Also of another article which respects their Annually attending some place of publick worship in a sowing capacity, for the purpose of making a collection for the benefit of the institution. Those two articles are now so quallified that I think a Friend might teach the School, [or they attend Friends meeting, crossed out] without being obliged to do anything inconsistent with our religious Principals, & should they request to meet with us there would be some embarrassing circumstances removed — A committee was appointed to carry the school into effect

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

1808

THE BENSON FAMILY

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

George W. Benson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project






https://archive.org/stream/bensonfamilyofne00garr#page/n5/mode/2up


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Catherine Knapp Stetson was born in Massachusetts.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

1809








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In this year we have a physical description of Friend Moses Brown of Rhode Island. In his 85th year he was “a venerable old man, rather short and thick, with a cane in his hand, spectacles on, and on the end of his nose a red wart as large as a small sized cherry.” (It is rather likely that he needed the cane to steady himself on account of vertigo.)

In about this year, at the age of 15, George William Benson persuaded his father George Benson to purchase a farm in Brooklyn, Connecticut, of which he would have the entire management (and subsequently, he would have the management also of the farm of Friend Moses in Providence, journeying back and forth between these two properties).

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

1823

MOSES BROWN



In 1907 Obadiah Brown Hadwen presented the RI Historical Society with a copy of a watercolor done during the 1820s by Joseph Partridge of Providence of Friend Moses Brown without his wart, which was described as the size and color of a small cherry.






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In about this year, at the age of 23, George William Benson became a partner in the wholesale and retail wool and leather firm of Benson & Chace, located at 12 Westminster Street in Providence, Rhode Island.

Amid controversy, the Yearly Meeting School in Providence, Rhode Island hired Friend John Griscom to head up its new academic department (now known as the “Middle School”). One bone of contention was the salary which they had agreed to pay, which at $1,500 per year1 was roughly triple any other teacher’s salary2 — but this extra pay would be made up by private subscription among a number of individual Friends.

1832. The City Government was organized, and Samuel W. Bridghamwas elected Mayor, on the 4th Monday of April, being the firstelection under City Charter. He retained his office, by repeatedelections, to December 1839, when he died, and was succeeded byThomas M. Burgess, the present Mayor. The Asiatic Cholera madeits appearance here in August. It had, for some time, been doingthe work of death in New-York and Philadelphia, and othercities, and its appearance in this city occasioned universaldismay. The Board of Health had a daily session, a new hospitalwas built, and every precaution was adopted by the cityauthorities to prevent its spread. Its ravages, however were notso disastrous or fatal, as was apprehended, and after a few

1832

1. To get a sense of what that amounted to in today’s money, consult <http://www.measuringworth.com/exchange/>





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weeks, it entirely disappeared.

Principals (to 1919).3

2. I believe he had been running a Quaker school in Burlington, New Jersey and had acquired a reputation for great knowledge and competence. In 1824 the New York assembly had favorably considered his proposal for the creation of a New York Water-Works, for a Manhattan water supply. At any rate, he was a well-published author: – The New-York expositor, or, Fifth book: being a collection of the most useful words in the English language / by

Richard Wiggins; to which is added A vocabulary of scientific terms ; by John Griscom ; the whole selected, divided, accentuated and explained, with references to a key for their pronunciation, chiefly on the authorities of Johnson and Walker; for the use of schools. New York: Printed and sold by Samuel Wood, 1811; 1814; 1818; 1825– Considerations relative to an establishment for perfecting the education of young men within the Society of Friends: in a letter from a member of the Society in New-York to several others in Philadelphia. New-York: Printed by Samuel Wood & Sons, 1815– Hints relative to the most eligible method of conducting meteorological observations: read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of New-York on the eight of December 1814 / by John Griscom. New-York: Printed by Van Winkle and Wiley, 1815– Report of a committee on the subject of pauperism (chaired by John Griscom). New York, Printed by Samuel Wood & Sons, 1818

“Among the causes of vicious excitement in our city, none appearto be so powerful in their nature as theatrical amusements.The number of boys and young men who have become determined thieves,in order to procure the means of introduction to the theatres andcircuses, would appall the feelings of every virtuous mind,could the whole truth be laid open before them.”

– Geographical questions: containing, a copious and minute reference to the different parts of the globe: with a table of all the most considerable towns, rivers, mountains, capes, and islands: a table of latitudes and longitudes, and a comparative view of ancient and modern geography / by John Griscom. Edition Rev. and extended / by D. Griscom. New-York: Printed and sold by Samuel Wood & Sons, 1822– A year in Europe: comprising a journal of observations in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Switzerland, the north of Italy, and Holland. In 1818 and 1819. / By John Griscom. New York: Published by Collins & Co. and H.C. Carey & J. Lea; [etc., etc.], 1823– Monitorial instruction. An address, pronounced at the opening of the New-York high-school, with notes and illustrations, by John Griscom. New York, Printed by M. Day, 1825

1832-1835. Griscom, John.

1835. Earle, Pliny.

1836-1838. Lockwood, Moses B.

(School managed for a time by Superintendents, without Principals)

1852-1855. Atherton, Charles, and Whittier, Gertrude E.

1855-1860. Cartland, Joseph and Gertrude W.

1860-1879. Smiley, Albert K.

1860-1868. Smiley, Alfred H., Assoc.

1863-1879. Smiley, Rebecca H.

1879-1904. Jones, Augustine.

1904- Gifford, Seth K. and Mary Amy.





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An attitude expressed in this year toward Quakers in the arts:

“Ungrateful man! to error prone;Why thus thy Maker’s goodness wrong?And deem a Luxury alone,His great and noble gift of song.Hast thou not known, or felt, or heard,How oft the poet’s heav’n-born art,Feeling and thought afresh have stirr’d,To touch, and purify the heart?”

—Bernard Barton

3. “Principal” is here a term of art. It means that the person in charge was running the school on incentive compensation, and entitled to put into his own pocket half of the annual surplus of the school. “Principal” here indicates a person with a conflict of interest, because although formally charged with implementing the plan of the donor, is actually being rewarded not at all in accordance with whether he implements that plan (whatever it was, forget that noise), but solely in accordance with whether he is running the school in whatever manner will generate a maximal annual margin.

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS





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December 10, Tuesday: George William Benson and Catherine Knapp Stetson got married in Waltham, Massachusetts. The couple would produce Anna Elizabeth Benson in 1834 in Providence, Rhode Island, Henry Egbert Benson in 1837 in Brooklyn, Connecticut, George Benson in 1839 in Brooklyn, Eliza Davis Benson in 1841 in Brooklyn (soon to die of scarlet fever), Thomas David Benson in 1842 in Northampton, Massachusetts, and Sarah B. Benson (Stone) in 1846 in Northampton, Massachusetts.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.

LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

1833








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According to Dorothy McCuskey’s BRONSON ALCOTT, TEACHER (NY: Macmillan, 1940), the books in the library of Alcott’s school, upstairs in Boston’s Tremont Temple in this year, included: “Prize: or History of G. Benson.”

March: William Lloyd Garrison went courting, in the Quaker family of George W. Benson on a farm in Brooklyn, Connecticut.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

September 4, Thursday: William Lloyd Garrison got married with Helen Benson at the George W. Benson farm in Brooklyn, Connecticut. The Reverend Samuel Joseph May officiated.

The couple would settle in Roxbury outside Boston, in a home they would name “Freedom’s Cottage.”

1834








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Early in the year John Adolphus Etzler had returned from the West Indies to New-York. Undoubtedly to meet and suitably impress other reformers, he would there attend the Fourier Society of New York’s annual celebration of the French philosopher-utopist Charles Fourier’s birthday. There he would make the acquaintance of a Fourierist socialist and humanitarian, C.F. Stollmeyer, also a recent German immigrant, who was at that time readying Albert Brisbane’s THE SOCIAL DESTINY OF MAN for publication. Stollmeyer was to become not only the publisher of The New World, but also a primary disciple of Etzler. This SOCIAL DESTINY OF MAN, seconded by the writings and lectures of such men as the Reverend Dana McLean Greeley of Concord, the Reverend William Henry Channing, Horace Greeley, and Parke Godwin would stimulate the rise of several Phalansterian Associations, in the middle and western states, chiefest of which would be the “North American Phalanx” on the north shore of New Jersey.

The Reverend Adin Ballou’s “Practical Christians” began to publish a gazette, the Practical Christian, for the “promulgation of Primitive Christianity.” He would write in HISTORY OF THE HOPEDALE COMMUNITY, FROM ITS INCEPTION TO ITS VIRTUAL SUBMERGENCE IN THE HOPEDALE PARISH that this year would initiate “a decade of American history pre-eminently distinguished for the general humanitarian spirit which seemed to pervade it, as manifested in numerous and widely extended efforts to put away existing evils and better the condition of the masses of mankind; and especially for the wave of communal thought which swept over the country, awakening a very profound interest in different directions in the question of the re-organization of society; — an interest which assumed various forms as it contemplated or projected practical results.” There would be, he pointed out, a considerable number of what were known as Transcendentalists in and about Boston, who, under the leadership of the Reverend George Ripley, a Unitarian clergyman of eminence, would plan and put in operation the Roxbury Community, generally known as the “Brook Farm” Association. A company of radical reformers who had come out from the church on account of its alleged complicity with Slavery and other abominations, and hence called Come-Outers, would institute a sort of family Community near Providence, Rhode Island. Other progressives, with George W. Benson at their head, would found the Northampton Community at the present village of Florence, a suburb of Northampton.

One of the debates of the 18th Century was what human naturemight be, under its crust of civilization, under the varnish ofculture and manners. Jean-Jacques Rousseau had an answer. ThomasJefferson had an answer. One of the most intriguing answers wasthat of Charles Fourier, who was born in Besançon two yearsbefore the Shakers arrived in New York. He grew up to writetwelve sturdy volumes designing a New Harmony for mankind, anexperiment in radical sociology that began to run parallel tothat of the Shakers. Fourierism (Horace Greeley founded the New-York Tribune to promote Fourier’s ideas) was Shakerism forintellectuals. Brook Farm was Fourierist, and such place-namesas Phalanx, New Jersey, and New Harmony, Indiana, attest to the

1840

ASSOCIATION OF INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION

ONEIDA COMMUNITY

MODERN TIMES

UNITARY HOME

BROOK FARM

HOPEDALE




This is on page 57 of Guy Davenport’s _The Hunter Gracchus and other Papers on Literature and Art_, Washington DC: Counterpoint, 1996. Mr. Davenport’s careful research has established once and for all that Thoreau invented raisin bread.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_McLean_Greeley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_McLean_Greeley


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movement’s history. Except for one detail, Fourier and MotherAnn Lee were of the same mind; they both saw that humankind mustreturn to the tribe or extended family and that it was to existon a farm. Everyone lived in one enormous dormitory. Everyoneshared all work; everyone agreed, although with constantrevisions and refinements, to a disciplined way of life thatwould be most harmonious for them, and lead to the greatesthappiness. But when, of an evening, the Shakers danced or had“a union” (a conversational party), Fourier’s Harmonians had anorgy of eating, dancing, and sexual high jinks, all planned bya Philosopher of the Passions. There is a strange sense in whichthe Shakers’ total abstinence from the flesh and Fourier’s totalindulgence serve the same purpose. Each creates a psychologicalmedium in which frictionless cooperation reaches a maximumpossibility. It is also wonderfully telling that the modernworld has no place for either.





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According to the dissertation of Maurice A. Crane, “A Textual and Critical Edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance” at the University of Illinois in 1953, various scholars have fingered Zenobia as:

• Mrs. Almira Barlow• Margaret Fuller• Fanny Kemble• Mrs. Sophia Willard Dana Ripley• Caroline Sturgis Tappan

while various other scholars have been fingering Mr. Hollingsworth as:

• Bronson Alcott• Albert Brisbane• Elihu Burritt• Charles A. Dana• Waldo Emerson• Horace Mann, Sr.• William Pike• the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, or maybe• the Reverend William Henry Channing, or maybe• the Reverend Theodore Parker

Hawthorne should really have told us more than Zenobia’s nickname, and should really have awarded Hollingsworth a first name more definitive than “Mr.”? Go figure!

Lest we presume that an association of this William Henry Channing with Hollingsworth is utterly void of content, let us listen, as Marianne Dwight did, to the reverend stand and deliver on the topic of “devotedness to the cause; the necessity of entire self-surrender”:1

He compared our work with … that of the crusaders....He compared us too with the Quakers, who see God onlyin the inner light,... with the Methodists, who seekto be in a state of rapture in their sacred meetings,whereas we should maintain in daily life, in everydeed, on all occasions, a feeling of religious fervor;with the perfectionists, who are, he says, the onlysane religious people, as they believe in perfection,and their aim is one with ours. Why should we, how darewe tolerate ourselves or one another in sin?

1. Reed, Amy L., ed. LETTERS FROM BROOK FARM, 1844-1847, BY MARIANNE DWIGHTPoughkeepsie NY, 1928.





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Spring: George William Benson relocated his family to Northampton.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1841








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January 7, Thursday: The startup of local supra-familial communes and social utopias was at this point all the rage. William Lloyd Garrison wrote to George W. Benson asking where he intended to settle his family: “What say you to a little social community among ourselves? Brother Chase is ready for it, and I think we must be pretty bad folks if we cannot live together amicably within gun-shot of each other.”4

January 7: There is a total disinterestedness and self abandoment [sic] in fretfulness and despondency,which few attain to. If there is no personality or selfishness, you may be as fretful as you please. I congratulatemyself on the richness of human nature, which a virtuous and even temper had not wholly exhibited. May it notwhine like a kitten or squeak like a squirrel? Some times the weakness of my fellow discovers a new suppleness,which I had not anticipated.

September 14, Tuesday: The Trustees of the Northampton Silk Company sold their properties for $20,000 in cash to Joseph Conant of Northampton, George W. Benson and William Coe of Brooklyn, Connecticut, and Samuel L. Hill of Windham, Connecticut, and the new owners took a $15,000 mortgage with Charles N. Talbot for operating capital.

Son of a Rhode Island Quaker, Friend Samuel L. Hill leftthe Religious Society of Friends when he married a non-Quaker, becoming a Baptist — and then eventually he left

Communal and Utopian Startups

Period Startups

1841-1845 47

1846-1850 13

1851-1855 14

4. Brother Chase presumably would have been Samuel Chase, the husband of Elizabeth Buffum Chase?

NORTHAMPTON ASSOCIATION OF INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION

ONEIDA COMMUNITY

UNITARY HOME

MODERN TIMES

EAGLESWOOD

BROOK FARM

HOPEDALE

CAT




Whenever and wherever you see this little pencil icon in the pages of this Kouroo Contexture, it is marking an extract from the journal of Henry David Thoreau. OK?


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the church entirely.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MINDYOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF








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April 8, Friday: Frederick Douglass spoke in Milford MA.

Some 41 persons, half of them children, registered as members of the new Association of Industry and Education at its first official meeting at Boughton’s Meadows near Northampton. The Reverend William Adam became Secretary instead of Treasurer as the institution shaped up according to the following schedule:

1842

Northampton Association of Industry and Education

Name Origin Category New Titles Status

Reverend William Adam India abolitionist Secretary Present

George W. Benson Brooklyn CT abolitionist Director of Stock Company Present

Erasmus Darwin Hudson Torringford CT abolitionist ???? Present

Joseph Conant Mansfield CT silkmanufacturer

President, Committeefor Accommodations

Present





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Earl Dwight Swift Mansfield CT silkmanufacturer

Director of Stock Company Present

Theodore Scarborough Brooklyn CT farmer Director of Stock Company Present

Hiram Wells Mansfield CT mechanic Board for Admitting New Members, Committee forAccommodations

Present

Samuel L. Hill Willimantic CT abolitionist Treasurer Absent

Hall Judd Northampton abolitionist Board for AdmittingNew Members

Absent

David Mack Cambridge MA abolitionist Board for AdmittingNew Members

Absent

Samuel Brooks Northampton farmer Board for AdmittingNew Members

Absent

Northampton Association of Industry and Education

Name Origin Category New Titles Status





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Since it seemed that the new association was to be based upon no particular creedal declaration, no mandatory statement of “faith,” the members of this association would be denigrated and derided by the general public as “Nothingarians.”

Helen Louisa Thoreau’s advertisement appeared in the local gazette:

Membership

April 1842 41

May 1842 65

End of 1842 83

June 1843 113

Winter 1844 120

Spring 1845 120

COMMUNITARIANISM





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Early summer: Early in the summer, Erasmus Darwin Hudson led a movement of equal treatment for all at the Association of Industry and Education which would eventually lead to disregarding the fact that different individuals had made differing levels of financial investment in the supporting assets of this community at Florence on the mill stream outside Northampton. He was supported in this by Hall Judd and opposed by George W. Benson. The Reverend William Adam initially supported this but then joined with Benson. At some point during this debate the members voted by majority rule to reduce their working hours from 12 per day to 11.

August 24, Wednesday: In this period it was rather difficult to get employees in Massachusetts, as so many people were departing for prospects farther to the west in this developing nation of ours, and regarded as more attractive. After a protest against the 12-hour workday, the Association of Industry and Education outside Northampton was formally transferred into the hands of George W. Benson and David Mack.

COMMUNITARIANISM

COMMUNITARIANISM





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August: The trusteeship of the Association of Industry and Education outside Northampton was transferred to George W. Benson and David Mack with a balance due of $9,564.28 on the various 2d mortgages — plus, since only about $20,000.00 of investment had been subscribed, a considerable liability on the originally agreed purchase price, approaching $30,000.00, to the previous owners of the facilities.

1843





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Late in the year: While traveling and testifying through southern New England, Sojourner Truth had met the abolitionist George W. Benson of the Association of Industry and Education, who had introduced her to

William Lloyd Garrison of the antislavery movement. After a period of itinerant preaching she was near Springfield MA and, after considering spending the winter months at the intentional community of the Shakers at Enfield and the intentional community of Fruitlands at Harvard, Massachusetts, at the suggestion of some Second Adventists friends in Springfield she turned up one day at the Association.

During this winter, not only in the fields of the Association at Northampton but across New England, many of the recently introduced and carefully nurtured mulberry trees were dying. During this winter, also, and into this fatal spring in which the mulberries were refusing to come into leaf, James Boyle of the Association was preparing his book SOCIAL REFORM, heavily informed not only by Fourierism but also by perfectionism and nonresistance. For this new “Divine Order of society” he was, guess what, using the name “Association.”

The Association consisted of “Friends of a Reorganization of Society that shall Substitute Fraternal Co-operation for Antagonistic Selfishness; a Religious Consecration of Life and Labor, Soul and Body, Time and Eternity, in Harmony with the Laws of God and of Life, instead of Fragmentary, Spasmodic Piety.”5

5. The FRSSFCASRCLLSBTEHLGLFSP (don’t try to pronounce this at home).

COMMUNITARIANISM

FOURIERISM

FOURIERISM





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It would probably be early in 1844 when Truth would reach there. Unfortunately, due to the excessive wage demands and the voting restrictions placed upon capitalists and the problems with the mulberry seedlings, the financial prospects of the association would already have collapsed well prior to her arrival, so the only phase in which she would be able to participate would be the mopping-up phase.

December: At a Fourierist convention in Worcester held for the purpose of “reorganizing” humans into groupings “in which all may have a common interest,” George W. Benson of the Association of Industry and Education at Northampton and 14 others founded a new society to be designated “the Friends of Social Reform.” Then there was a week-long series of lectures on “associationism.”

FOURIERISM

FOURIERISM

COMMUNITARIANISM





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From this year into 1846 Sojourner Truth would be a member of the utopian Association of Industry and Education there in Northampton. Upon the breakup she would become a housekeeper “in the role of guest” in the home of George W. Benson there.

1844





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January 15, Monday: The Reverend William Henry Channing reported to The Present that there had been a Fourierist convention in Boston’s Amory Hall, the Convention for the Reorganization of Society called by David Mack, Henry C. Wright, and others, which had created a new “Friends of Social Reform” society and had chosen William Bassett of Lynn as its president, and as its vice-presidents the Association of Industry and Education in Northampton’s George W. Benson, Brook Farm’s Reverend George Ripley, Hopedale’s Reverend Adin Ballou, and James N. Buffum of Lynn:

“It is a pleasure to express gratitude to Charles Fourier,for having opened a whole new world of study, hope and action.”

In consequence of this rethinking, Brook Farm would be changing its name from the “Brook-Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education” to the “Brook-Farm Association, for Industry and Education.”

The local evangelist for this sort of Fourierism would be Charles A. Dana, who was being referred to at Brook Farm as “The Professor.” It would be he who would lead them down the primrose path, of constructing a magnificent central “phalanstère” edifice in order to achieve the true Fourierist economy of scale, a massive structure which could therefore be destroyed by one disastrous fire accident on one unfortunate night — the primrosy path which would lead to their group’s utter collapse and dissolution.

One of the debates of the 18th Century was what human naturemight be, under its crust of civilization, under the varnish ofculture and manners. Jean-Jacques Rousseau had an answer. ThomasJefferson had an answer. One of the most intriguing answers wasthat of Charles Fourier, who was born in Besançon two yearsbefore the Shakers arrived in New York. He grew up to writetwelve sturdy volumes designing a New Harmony for mankind, anexperiment in radical sociology that began to run parallel tothat of the Shakers. Fourierism (Horace Greeley founded the New-York Tribune to promote Fourier’s ideas) was Shakerism forintellectuals. Brook Farm was Fourierist, and such place-namesas Phalanx, New Jersey, and New Harmony, Indiana, attest to themovement’s history. Except for one detail, Fourier and MotherAnn Lee were of the same mind; they both saw that humankind mustreturn to the tribe or extended family and that it was to existon a farm. Everyone lived in one enormous dormitory. Everyoneshared all work; everyone agreed, although with constant

COMMUNITARIANISM




A painting done in this year by Josiah Wolcott.

This is on page 57 of Guy Davenport’s _The Hunter Gracchus and other Papers on Literature and Art_, Washington DC: Counterpoint, 1996. Mr. Davenport’s careful research has established once and for all that Thoreau invented raisin bread.


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revisions and refinements, to a disciplined way of life thatwould be most harmonious for them, and lead to the greatesthappiness. But when, of an evening, the Shakers danced or had“a union” (a conversational party), Fourier’s Harmonians had anorgy of eating, dancing, and sexual high jinks, all planned bya Philosopher of the Passions. There is a strange sense in whichthe Shakers’ total abstinence from the flesh and Fourier’s totalindulgence serve the same purpose. Each creates a psychologicalmedium in which frictionless cooperation reaches a maximumpossibility. It is also wonderfully telling that the modernworld has no place for either.





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April 28, Sunday: At an evening antislavery meeting in the Northampton town hall, the fugitive from justice Frederick Douglass spoke for all of three hours. (Presumably it was during one of the lectures on or about this date, that the stone was hurled at him which is now in the possession of the Stetson family of Northampton.) There were performances by the Hutchinson Family Singers. (Possibly also this was what caused the Boston Atlas to

report that during the visit by the Hutchinson family to this community made up of “all colors, from jet black





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to pure white,” the young singer Abby Hutchinson “was gallanted to her hotel by one of its members, and he

a huge black man!”) During this month, however, Samuel L. Hill, David Mack, Hall Judd, and Hiram Wells were coming dangerously close to declaring their Association of Industry and Education a hopeless failure, and perhaps were restrained only by an optimistic report from George W. Benson that not only was he attracting additional “pledges” of financing but also that in fact 17 new families were due to arrive within the next few months.

COMMUNITARIANISM





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June: In Northampton, George W. Benson made a kind offer to buy out the Association of Industry and Education and convert its facilities into a private manufacturing corporation — but 26 members, a large majority, would decline this salvation.

COMMUNITARIANISM





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October 1, Wednesday: At the Association of Industry and Education near Northampton, George William Benson withdrew in order to organize, with additional outside funding, a Bensonville Manufacturing Company that would use the use the NAIE’s 4-story factory to loom not innocent silk but slavery-produced cotton.

1845





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June 29, Monday: The Bensonville Manufacturing Company of George W. Benson purchase the eastern side of the Association of Industry and Education properties for about $30,500, thus liquidating a significant portion of that association’s debt.

Brevet Major General Zachary Taylor was anointed “general of the line.”

1846

NORTHAMPTON MA





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The last of the properties of the Association of Industry and Education, namely the old oil mill, the 4-story brick factory structure, its associated machine shops, and the establishment store, were disposed of for the round sum of $10,000 by Joseph C. Martin and Hall Judd to the last treasurer of the Association, Friend Samuel L. Hill. George W. Benson would be a particular friend to two of the forlorn black people who had been thus cut loose in a white-dominated rural society, Sojourner Truth and Basil Dorsey. He would help Truth obtain housing for herself, and would enable Dorsey to take over the “teaming,” which is to say, the driving of draft animals, for his surviving cotton factory.

Nell Painter’s photos of the silk mill in Florence, and of the house on one of Sojourner Truth’s two lots there, do not have the appearance, to my eye, of period Daguerreotypes. Having been quite unable to find either in the local Northampton libraries or the college libraries any images contemporary with Truth’s sojourn in Florence during that very early period of Daguerreotypy (I did come across a very rough sketch of the original oil mill that stood at that dam on the Mill River), I had driven past these addresses but had refrained from snapping present photos — it appeared to me that the structure now on that south lot of hers must be of later construction or at the very least quite extensively renovated, and I don’t know that those outbuildings surrounding the core factory structure were in place before it was shifted from silk to cotton processing.

1848





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October 23, Wednesday: According to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, speaking retrospectively in 1870,“The movement in England, as in America, may be dated from the first National Convention, held at Worcester, Mass., October, 1850.”

Although Angelina Emily Grimké Weld was elected to be a member for this vital convention, it would turn out that she would be unable to attend.

Why was it that Stanton, and also Susan B. Anthony, Friend Lucretia Mott, and other pioneers regarded this 1850 Convention in Worcester as the beginning of the crusade for woman’s equality? Why had it not been the 1848 meeting at Seneca Falls for which Stanton had drafted the celebrated Declaration of Sentiments and in which Mott had played such a leading role?

• The gathering at Seneca Falls had been largely a local affair as would be several others that followed, whereas by way of radical contrast this Worcester convention had attracted delegates from most of the northern states.

• Seneca Falls had sparked discussion but it was not clear in its aftermath that there was a national constituency ready to take up the cause. The attendance in response to this Worcester meeting’s Call of those who wanted to see a woman’s rights movement, and the positive reaction to its published proceedings both here and in Europe, showed that a sufficient number of women, and some men, were indeed ready.

• This 1850 convention eventuated in a set of standing committees which marked the beginnings of organized work for woman’s rights.

FEMINISM





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The records of the convention may be studied at:

http://www.wwhp.org/Resources/WomensRights/proceedings.html

Waldo Emerson declined to address this convention, and continued to decline such invitations until the 1855convention in Boston, saying “I do not think it yet appears that women wish this equal share in public affairs,” meaning of course “I do not think it yet appears that we wish to grant women this equal share in public affairs.”

Were I in a sarcastic mood, I would characterize this attitude by inventing a news clipping something like the following:

At the beginning of the meeting a Quaker male, Friend Joseph C. Hathaway of Farmington, New York, was appointed President pro tem. As the meeting was getting itself properly organized, however, Paulina Wright Davis was selected as President, with Friend Joseph sitting down instead as Secretary for the meeting. At least three New York Quakers were on the body’s Central Committee — Hathaway, Friend Pliny Sexton and Friend Sarah H. Hallock, and we immediately note that although this Central Committee was by and large female, two of the three Quakes in this committee were male.

During the course of this convention Friend Lucretia Mott had occasion to straighten out Wendell Phillips, and he later commented that “she put, as she well knows how, the silken snapper on her whiplash,” that it had been “beautifully done, so the victim himself could enjoy the artistic perfection of his punishment.”

His Excellency, Hon. Ralph W. Emerson, Representativeof the Human Race, treated with the woman, Mrs. JamesMott, for purposes of pacification and common decency.




http://www.wwhp.org/Resources/WomensRights/proceedings.html


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Now here is a news clipping from this period, equally legitimately offensive, which I didn’t make up:6

The list of the “members” of this Convention is of interest in that it includes Sophia Foord of Dedham MA, Sojourner Truth of Northampton, Elizabeth Oakes Smith the lyceum lecturer, etc. The newspaper report described Truth’s appearance as dark and “uncomely.” Friend Lucretia Mott, a leader at the convention, described Truth more charitably as “the poor woman who had grown up under the curse of Slavery.” Those on the list, those who officially registered as “members” of the Convention, some 267 in all, were only a fraction of the thousands who attended one or more of the sessions. As J.G. Forman reported in the New-York Daily Tribune for October 24, 1850, “it was voted that all present be invited to take part in the discussions of the Convention, but that only those who signed the roll of membership be allowed to vote.” The process of signing probably meant that people who arrived together or sat together would have adjacent numbers in the sequence that appears in the Proceedings. This would explain the clustering of people by region and by family name:

• 1 Hannah M. Darlington Kennett Square, Pennsylvania• 2 T.B. Elliot Boston• 3 Antoinette L. Brown Henrietta NY• 4 Sarah Pillsbury Concord NH• 5 Eliza J. Kenney Salem MA• 6 M.S. Firth Leicester MA• 7 Oliver Dennett Portland ME• 8 Julia A. McIntyre Charlton MA• 9 Emily Sanford Oxford MA• 10 H.M. Sanford Oxford MA• 11 C.D.M. Lane Worcester• 12 Elizabeth Firth Leicester MA• 13 S.C. Sargent Boston• 14 C.A.K. Ball Worcester• 15 M.A. Thompson Worcester• 16 Lucinda Safford Worcester• 17 S.E. Hall Worcester• 18 S.D. Holmes Kingston MA• 19 Z.W. Harlow Plymouth MA• 20 N.B. Spooner Plymouth MA• 21 Ignatius Sargent Boston• 22 A.B. Humphrey Hopedale• 23 M.R. Hadwen Worcester• 24 J.H. Shaw Nantucket Island• 25 Diana W. Ballou Cumberland RI• 26 Olive Darling Millville MA• 27 M.A. Walden Hopedale• 28 C.M. Collins Brooklyn CT• 29 A.H. Metcalf Worcester• 30 P.B. Cogswell Concord NH

6. From the Dakota Tawaxitku Kin, or The Dakota Friend, St. Paul, Minnesota, November 1850. This word “Sioux,” incidentally, is a hopelessly offensive and alienating term, for it is short for the Ojibwa term “nadouessioux” or “enemy.” A better term would be “Dakota,” which in the Dakota language means “union” or “ally.” It tells you a lot about the patronizing attitude of these missionaries, that they would be willing to use an offputting term like “Sioux” in this newspaper.

His Excellency, Gov. Ramsey and Hon. Richard W.Thompson, have been appointed Commissioners, to treatwith the Sioux for the lands west of the Mississippi.




From the Dakota Tawaxitku Kin, or The Dakota Friend, St. Paul, Minnesota, November 1850.


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• 31 Sarah Tyndale Philadelphia• 32 A.P.B. Rawson Worcester• 33 Nathaniel Barney Nantucket Island• 34 Sarah H. Earle Worcester MA• 35 Parker Pillsbury Concord NH• 36 Lewis Ford Abington MA• 37 J.T. Everett Princeton MA• 38 Loring Moody Harwich MA• 39 Sojourner Truth Northampton• 40 Friend Pliny Sexton Palmyra NY• 41 Rev. J.G. Forman W. Bridgewater MA• 42 Andrew Stone M.D. Worcester• 43 Samuel May, Jr. Leicester MA• 44 Sarah R. May Leicester MA• 45 Frederick Douglass Rochester NY• 46 Charles Bigham Feltonville MA• 47 J.T. Partridge Worcester• 48 Eliza C. Clapp Leicester MA• 49 Daniel Steward East Line MA• 50 E.B. Chase Valley Falls MA• 51 Sophia Foord Dedham MA• 52 E.A. Clark Worcester• 53 E.H. Taft Dedham MA• 54 Olive W. Hastings Lancaster, Pennsylvania• 55 Rebecca Plumly Philadelphia• 56 S.L. Hastings Lancaster, Pennsylvania• 57 Sophia Taft • 58 Anna E. Ruggles Worcester• 59 Mrs. A.E. Brown Brattleboro VT• 60 Janette Jackson Philadelphia• 61 Anna R. Cox Philadelphia• 62 Cynthia P. Bliss Pawtucket, Rhode Island• 63 R.M.C. Capron Providence• 64 M.H. Mowry Providence• 65 Mary Eddy Providence• 66 Mary Abbott Hopedale• 67 Anna E. Fish Hopedale• 68 C.G. Munyan Hopedale• 69 Maria L. Southwick Worcester• 70 Anna Cornell Plainfield CT• 71 S. Monroe Plainfield CT• 72 Anna E. Price Plainfield CT• 73 M.C. Monroe Plainfield CT• 74 F.C. Johnson Sturbridge MA• 75 Thomas Hill Webster MA• 76 Elizabeth Frail Hopkinton MA• 77 Eli Belknap Hopkinton MA• 78 M.M. Frail Hopkinton MA• 79 Valentine Belknap Hopkinton MA• 80 Phebe Goodwin West Chester, Pennsylvania• 81 Edgar Hicks Brooklyn NY• 82 Ira Foster Canterbury NH





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• 83 Effingham L. Capron Worcester• 84 Frances H. Drake Leominster MA• 85 Calvin Fairbanks Leominster MA• 86 E.M. Dodge Worcester• 87 Eliza Barney Nantucket Island• 88 Lydia Barney Nantucket Island• 89 Alice Jackson Avondale, Pennsylvania• 90 G.D. Williams Leicester MA• 91 Marian Blackwell Cincinnati OH• 92 Elizabeth Earle Worcester• 93 Friend Joseph C. Hathaway Farmington NY• 94 E. Jane Alden Lowell MA• 95 Elizabeth Dayton Lowell MA• 96 Lima H. Ober Boston• 97 Mrs. Lucy N. Colman Saratoga Springs NY• 98 Dorothy Whiting Clintonville MA• 99 Emily Whiting Clintonville MA• 100 Abigail Morgan Clinton MA• 101 Julia Worcester Milton NH• 102 Mary R. Metcalf Worcester• 103 R.H. Ober Boston• 104 D.A. Mundy Hopedale• 105 Dr. S. Rogers Worcester• 106 Jacob Pierce PA• 107 Mrs. E.J. Henshaw W. Brookfield MA• 108 Edward Southwick Worcester• 109 E.A. Merrick Princeton MA• 110 Mrs. C. Merrick Princeton MA• 111 Lewis E. Capen PA• 112 Joseph Carpenter New-York• 113 Martha Smith Plainfield CT• 114 Lucius Holmes Thompson CT• 115 Benj. Segur Thompson CT• 116 C.S. Dow Worcester• 117 S.L. Miller PA• 118 Isaac L. Miller PA• 119 Buel Picket Sherman CT• 120 Josiah Henshaw W. Brookfield MA• 121 Andrew Wellington Lexington MA• 122 Louisa Gleason Worcester• 123 Paulina Gerry Stoneham MA• 124 Lucy Stone West Brookfield MA• 125 Ellen Blackwell Cincinnati OH• 126 Mrs. Chickery Worcester• 127 Mrs. F.A. Pierce Worcester• 128 C.M. Trenor Worcester• 129 R.C. Capron Worcester• 130 Wm. Lloyd Garrison Boston• 131 Emily Loveland Worcester• 132 Mrs. S. Worcester Worcester• 133 Phebe Worcester Worcester• 134 Adeline Worcester Worcester





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• 135 Joanna R. Ballou MA• 136 Abby H. Price Hopedale• 137 B. Willard MA• 138 T. Poole Abington MA• 139 M.B. Kent Boston• 140 D.H. Knowlton • 141 E.H. Knowlton Grafton MA• 142 G. Valentine MA• 143 A. Prince Worcester• 144 Lydia Wilmarth Worcester• 145 J.G. Warren Worcester• 146 Mrs. E.A. Stowell Worcester• 147 Martin Stowell Worcester• 148 Mrs. E. Stamp Worcester• 149 C. M. Barbour Worcester• 150 Daniel Mitchell Pawtucket, Rhode Island• 151 Alice H. Easton • 152 Anna Q.T. Parsons Boston• 153 C.D. McLane Worcester• 154 W.H. Channing Boston• 155 Wendell Phillips Boston• 156 Abby K. Foster Worcester• 157 S. S. Foster Worcester• 158 Paulina Wright Davis Providence• 159 Wm. D. Cady Warren MA• 160 Ernestine L. Rose New-York• 161 Mrs. J. G. Hodgden Roxbury MA• 162 C.M. Shaw Boston• 163 Ophilia D. Hill Worcester• 164 Mrs. P. Allen Millbury MA• 165 Lucy C. Dike Thompson CT• 166 E. Goddard Worcester• 167 M.F. Gilbert West Brookfield MA• 168 G. Davis Providence• 169 A.H. Johnson Worcester• 170 W.H. Harrington Worcester• 171 E.B. Briggs Worcester• 172 A.C. Lackey Upton MA• 173 Ora Ober Worcester• 174 A. Barnes Princeton RI• 175 Thomas Provan Hopedale• 176 Rebecca Provan Hopedale• 177 A.W. Thayer Worcester• 178 M.M. Munyan Millbury MA• 179 W.H. Johnson Worcester• 180 Dr. S. Mowry Chepachet RI• 181 George W. Benson Northampton• 182 Mrs. C.M. Carter Worcester• 183 H.S. Brigham Bolton MA• 184 E.A. Welsh Feltonville MA• 185 Mrs. J.H. Moore Charlton MA• 186 Margaret S. Merrit Charlton MA





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• 187 Martha Willard Charlton MA• 188 A.N. Lamb Charlton MA• 189 Mrs. Chaplin Worcester• 190 Caroline Farnum • 191 N.B. Hill Blackstone MA• 192 K. Parsons Worcester• 193 Jillson Worcester• 194 E.W.K. Thompson • 195 L. Wait Boston• 196 Mrs. Mary G. Wright CA• 197 F.H. Underwood Webster MA• 198 Asa Cutler CT• 199 J.B. Willard Westford MA• 200 Perry Joslin Worcester• 201 Friend Sarah H. Hallock Milton NY• 202 Elizabeth Johnson Worcester• 203 Seneth Smith Oxford MA• 204 Marian Hill Webster MA• 205 Wm. Coe Worcester• 206 E.T. Smith Leominster MA• 207 Mary R. Hubbard • 208 S. Aldrich Hopkinton MA• 209 M.A. Maynard Feltonville MA• 210 S.P.R. Feltonville MA• 211 Anna R. Blake Monmouth ME• 212 Ellen M. Prescott Monmouth ME• 213 J.M. Cummings Worcester• 214 Nancy Fay Upton MA• 215 M. Jane Davis Worcester• 216 D.R. Crandell Worcester• 217 E.M. Burleigh Oxford MA• 218 Sarah Chafee Leominster MA• 219 Adeline Perry Worcester• 220 Lydia E. Chase Worcester• 221 J.A. Fuller Worcester• 222 Sarah Prentice Worcester• 223 Emily Prentice Worcester• 224 H.N. Fairbanks Worcester• 225 Mrs. A. Crowl Worcester• 226 Dwight Tracy Worcester• 227 J.S. Perry Worcester• 228 Isaac Norcross Worcester• 229 M.A.W. Johnson Salem OH• 230 Mrs. C.I.H. Nichols Brattleboro VT• 231 Charles Calistus Burleigh Plainfield CT• 232 E.A. Parrington Worcester• 233 Mrs. Parrington Worcester• 234 Harriet F. Hunt Boston• 235 Chas F. Hovey Boston• 236 Friend Lucretia Mott Philadelphia• 237 Susan Fuller Worcester• 238 Thomas Earle Worcester





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• 239 Alice Earle Worcester• 240 Martha B. Earle Worcester• 241 Anne H. Southwick Worcester• 242 Joseph A. Howland Worcester• 243 Adeline H. Howland Worcester• 244 O.T. Harris Worcester• 245 Julia T. Harris Worcester• 246 John M. Spear Boston• 247 E.J. Alden • 248 E.D. Draper Hopedale• 249 D.R.P. Hewitt Salem MA• 250 L.G. Wilkins Salem MA• 251 J.H. Binney Worcester• 252 Mary Adams Worcester• 253 Anna T. Draper • 254 Josephine Reglar • 255 Anna Goulding Worcester• 256 Adeline S. Greene • 257 Silence Bigelow • 258 A. Wyman • 259 L.H. Ober • 260 Betsey F. Lawton Chepachet RI• 261 Emma Parker Philadelphia• 262 Olive W. Hastings Lancaster MA (error?)• 263 Silas Smith IO• 264 Asenath Fuller • 265 Denney M.F. Walker • 266 Eunice D.F. Pierce • 267 Elijah Houghton





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Fall: The family of George William Benson relocated from Northampton, Massachusetts to Williamsburgh on Long Island, where the father would go into the laundry business.

1850





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Castle Garden, at the foot of Manhattan Island, was leased by the New York State Immigration Commission to deal with the 400,000 immigrants that would arrive this year alone.

At this point more than half the population of the city of New-York had been born in some other nation.

From this year into 1891, Charles Lewis Reason would be serving as a public school teacher and as a principal in New-York.

The publisher P.F. Harris released an anonymous spoof on Phineas Taylor Barnum’s 1854 THE LIFE OF P.T. BARNUM, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF, titled THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PETITE BUNKUM....

Common council member Charles Haskell was given a demonstration, by the Philadelphia Fire Department, of a steam fire engine, but when he recommended that New-York acquire them, entrenched interests defeated the suggestion.

The family of George William Benson relocated from Williamsburgh on Long Island to New-York (which of course in this timeframe means Manhattan Island), where the father would work as a commission broker.

1855





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Spring: On account of problems in George William Benson’s throat, the Benson family relocated from New-York to just outside Lawrence, Kansas.

1860





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George William Benson was chosen to represent District No. 136 (Wakarusa Township) of Kansas.

1869





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In January, Representative George William Benson participated in the session of the Kansas Legislature in Kansas City. During the decades of the 1870s and 1880s, homesteaders would be flocking to Kansas. There would be a great influx of domestic and foreign immigrants, bemused by the rain-follows-the-plow mythology of Eastern making-it-up-as-they-go-alongers such as Horace Greeley. The rapid settlement of central Kansas after our Civil War would increase the state population to 364,499. The Kansas Pacific railroad would complete its track to Denver. A town named “Silkville” would be founded in Franklin county for the development of an American silk industry (the pipe dream that had already failed in several other venues such as Northampton, Massachusetts).

Alfred Russel Wallace became President of the Entomological Society of London (he would continue in this capacity until early 1872). He estimated the age of the earth in part on the basis of inferences drawn from land surface erosion rates, and for this would receive a medal of the Société de Geographie. When a flat-earther issued a £500 challenge that he “prove” the earth to be other than flat, he took the time to create a winning and persuasive proof but of course this fellow reneged, initiating a barrage of harassment that would be dragging on drearily for a full decade.

November: Julian Hawthorne got married with May Amelung in New-York.

Representative George William Benson was again chosen to represent Wakarusa Township at the Kansas Legislature.

1870




On the high prairie, what follows the plow is a cloud of dust. A cloud of dust that stretches to the heavens producing darkness at noon, and driving farmers’ wives insane. I know, I was there.

This was more mythology, because silk thread is so labor-intensive that labor is the most significant cost and so light that transportation costs anywhere in the world are but a small portion of its wholesale production-and-delivery cost -- and what this means is that under capitalism, the winner is going to be, duh, the locale with the very cheapest of labor costs. If you must pay a living wage, then you lose.

Mem: Never try "reason" on anyone who has less to do than you do. They can outlast you. OK?


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August: Continuation of serial publication of Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevski’s THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV in The Russian Herald: Book XI, 6-10 (Alesha was voicing Ivan’s dilemma, of whether to testify or remain silent).

George William Benson died in Douglas County, Kansas of measles of the bowel at the age of 71.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

1880








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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 2014. 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 4, 2014

“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, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.





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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology —but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary“writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

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




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George Benson - Kouroo Contexture

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