M&M
Midmorning coffee with two do-si-dos, favorite Girl Scout cookies.
Now, two more cookies and second mug of black.
Maine in mind because of "this day in history". We all have lots of ancestors, and though I'd have 32 GrtGrtGrtGreatGrandfathers, I most identify with mine who, according to Whitaker & Horlacher's book Broad Bay Pioneers - 18th Century German-Speaking Settlers of Present-Day Waldoboro, Maine, (1998, Picton Press, Rockfort, Maine) arrived October 1752 from Germany aboard sailing ship St Andrew: Andreas Wäller, the German, often remembered here, most recently:
http://plusmoretime.blogspot.com/2017/05/me-only.html
Andreas Wäller 30 and Anna Maria (Fröhlich) Wäller 31 arrived in Broad Bay, Massachusetts from Oppertzau near Fürten (Hamm) with daughters Catharina Elizabetha 5 and Maria Catharina 3. Evidently mindful of Genesis 1:28, "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth", Anna Maria and Andreas had at least six more children, including, for me, Gina, Walt and our heirs forever, son George b. 1758 in Broad Bay, now Waldoboro, Maine.
Maine in mind because of "This Day in History"
- 1820
- March 15
In 1604, French explorer Samuel de Champlain visited the coast of Maine and claimed it as part of the French province of Acadia. However, French attempts to settle Maine were thwarted when British forces under Sir Samuel Argall destroyed a colony on Mount Desert Island in 1613. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a leading figure in the Plymouth Company, initiated British settlement in Maine after receiving a grant and royal charter, and upon Gorges’ death in 1647 the Massachusetts Bay Colony claimed jurisdiction. Gorges’ heirs disputed this claim until 1677, when Massachusetts agreed to purchase Gorges’ original proprietary rights.
As part of Massachusetts, Maine developed early fishing, lumbering and shipbuilding industries and in 1820 was granted statehood. In the 19th century, the promise of jobs in the timber industry lured many French Canadians to Maine from the Canadian province of Quebec, which borders the state to the west. With 90 percent of Maine still covered by forests, Maine is known as the “Pine Tree State” and is the most sparsely populated state east of the Mississippi River.
More, different source:
In an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states, the Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Furthermore, with the exception of Missouri, this law prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36° 30´ latitude line. In 1854, the Missouri Compromise was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Three years later the Missouri Compromise was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Congress did not have the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories.
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Having just expounded re Freedom and Justice as "some great Cause, God's new Messiah" along with James Russell Lowell, I'm proud of Maine as my heritage state but not proud of my later Southern heritage in which Maine, a province of Massachusetts, is allowed to come in as a free state provided Missouri is admitted as a slave state.
Mindful that Thomas Jefferson and even George Washington are currently in danger of being disowned as having been slave-owners (Washington could lose his six-star rank?), as to all my 32 4GrtGrandfathers, I do not know whether any of my Weller or other ancestors owned slaves or not. I could hope not, but if I'm wrong, shall I shoot myself in the 21st century for their not being currently morally and politically correct? Shall we torch all Episcopal Church (South) parish buildings that date from slave days or have "General Lee sat here" pew-markers? I remember turmoil in the Episcopal Church during the Civil Rights Movement, including reading the Rector of Trinity, St Augustine was locked out by his Vestry because he favored integration and they were not about to allow Blacks to worship there.
In dearly-beloved Trinity Church of beloved Apalachicola there is what was the slave balcony where were 1x6 slat bench pews for owned-humans and any whites who could not afford to purchase a pew on the main floor downstairs. When I first went up there to investigate summer 1984, no one had been up there in years, since the tracker organ was moved back downstairs, and it was primarily the habitation of large spiders.
Tearing down statues and renaming military bases and high schools: it's necessary to examine ourselves, who and what we have been that makes us what we Still Are, but just how wide and deep America's current cultural rehabilitation, re-education and correction needs to go, I'm not sure. Is it possible to overcorrect, erase and forget what, with the Holocaust et al, should never be forgotten? There will always be XNRT Untermenschen carrying Flaggen des dritten Reiches in their parades, floating Confederate battle flags from pickups and screaming "heritage" even if they don't know how to spell it and don't care that it's offensive and hurts people. Mind, I'm not with Jonathan Turley's views on total freedom of speech; when speech stirs violent action it needs to be put down; but who decides what and when is the danger.
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This isn't what I was going to blog today. Whatever that was, maybe tomorrow.
alphabet & PTL
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image: there are dozens of different images regarding the Missouri Compromise, from different perspectives. I just picked one that shows the most. If you'd rather see a car, here's one
