Promotion

I have, as a volunteer, been indexing records for FamilySearch.org an arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. One might disagree with the premise under which the LDS Church is so concerned with genealogy. The benefit to all of us who are into genealogy and family history makes this an incredible gift.

When I saw the appeal for persons to help indexing the images that the Family History Library in Salt Lake City held, I felt compelled to help. Making the links to these images is so important to family historians. I joined late last year and indexed many records yet not as many as I had hoped.

Earlier this week I received an email message inviting me to be an arbitrator. I was a bit reluctant because I felt that I could make a more significant contribution as an indexer. I decided to try the role of arbitrator. This has been an interesting experience.

The images are not made available via search until any differences between the two indexers of the image are reconciled by an arbitrator.

Some notes regarding Haym Salomon and the Great Seal of the United States

Last night after I posted my blog, I realized that there was more that I needed to say about the one dollar bill, the Great Seal of the United States and Haym Salomon. Today, I revisited yesterday's blog and updated it.

Last night I could not insert the picture where I wanted it. With a little searching, I learned how to place pictures in the blog. If you go back to my blog of yesterday, the picture is positioned next to the text that relates to it.

The post is a bit longer now. I included a link to a PDF file of a pamphlet published by the Federal Government on the history of the Great Seal.

Haym Salomon, American Patriot, the Second Half

This is a continuation of thoughts concerning Haym Salomon.

It continues to upset me that there is a fear of so many people concerning immigrants coming to the United States. I saw it happening at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. But it is happening again in the early 21st century.

But more than that, I am greatly concerned now of the intolerance to those people who practice religions other than some evangelical protestant religion. President William Howard Taft in 1911 made a speech at the 8th Street Temple in Washington, DC regarding Haym Salomon. He presented a lengthy talk about Mr. Salomon, but his address touched on the freedom of religion.

He said:

"One of the privileges of the President of the United States is to attend, and to feel at home at, the religious services of every denomination that is fostered under the flag, no matter what his own church.

"It is the duty of the President of the United States, in so far as he may, to testify to his interest in every religion in order that it may be understood of all men that the absence from the Constitution of the United States of any recognition of a state church gives no right to any man to infer that the government is against churches. On the contrary, the government is for all the churches, and it eliminates a state church in order that it may embrace all and support all and protect all without guiding or restricting any."

I guess that we have not come that far in accepting the differences in people whether it be race, creed or ethnicity.

Haym Salomon, American Patriot

My cousin regularly sends me messages with religious undertones. A recent message had to do with the number 13, a lucky or unlucky number. It focused on the backside of the US dollar bill and the number of items in which there are 13, such as, 13 steps on the pyramid, 13 arrows, etc.

She forwarded a message from Dr. Martin Weissman (whom I believe to be Martin J. Weissman, a urologist in Orange, California) that claimed that the 13 stars in the seal on the right side of the dollar were configured in the shape of the Star of David. The message stated that this was ordered by George Washington at the request of Hayim Solomon (sic), a wealthy Philadelphia Jew.

The message from Dr. Martin Weissman included a link that I assumed had something to do with the source of his information. When I clicked on the link the site was all about Australian sheep dogs. There are lots of pictures of cute dogs but nothing about Haym Salomon and the one dollar bill. In spite of this small diversion, I was still intrigued about Haym Salomon.

This man actually existed. I found several articles about him and his financing of the American Revolution. His son filed a claim with the US Senate to recover $353,729.43 that his father financed plus interest. Bill S. 263 was introduced in 1860. However, the family was never successful at recovering any money.

Index to the Reports of the Committees of the Senate of the United States for the First Session of the Thirty-sixth Congress) includes a 10-page report of March 9, 1860 by Mr. Durkee to accompany the bill under Rep. Com. No. 127 Part of the evidence (on page 7) includes a letter, dated September 21, 1848 from J. Hockley, Cashier of the Bank of North America, that showed payments to Robert Morris from Mr. Salomon's account of at least $76,000. The report shows that he financed another $100,000 payable to representatives of the French crown. My sleuthing revealed that he died in January of 1785 leaving his wife and 4 young children financially ruined.

Haym Salomon was born in 1740 in what is now Poland. He came to the British colonies in North America shortly before the beginning of the revolution.

I was suspicious of the part of Dr. Weissman's message that claims George Washington ordered 13 stars be arranged in the form of the Star of David because Haym Salomon asked that he wanted something for his people. I just didn't believe it. I found an image of the first US Great Seal approved by Congress of the Confederation in 1782. The star pattern seems to be random. A pamphlet about the Great Seal of the United States printed by the US Department of State indicates these stars are a constellation surrounded by clouds.

This seal was designed by Charles Thompson. Robert Scot is believed to be the engraver who created the brass die. The constellation and the clouds in the final seal take the shape that we all recognize. As the die became too worn, another was created. Over time several dies were made and in several instances the engraver took the liberty to modify the seal. In 1841, the eagle held six arrows and not 13 as in the original. In 1885, the positions of the arrows and olive branch were switched.

I doubt that Haym Salomon and George Washington had a conversation about the Great Seal. The seal was under the province of the Second Continental Congress in 1776. George Washington was not a member of that congress nor was he a member of the Congress of the Confederation that ultimately approved the design of the seal in 1782. George Washington was busy fighting a war.

The Great Seal has two sides, obverse with the eagle and reverse with the pyramid and eye of Providence. The first time that the two sides appeared on the one dollar bill was in 1935. There were some paper currencies printed during the Revolutionary War. I found one such paper of1776 in which the front side included "Mind your business" and the back side stated "We are one."

Coins of gold and silver were the accepted currency of the period following the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The next time that paper money appeared was in 1861 during the Civil War. Since that time, we have accepted paper. The words "In God we trust" did not appear until 1955-56.

Black Diphtheria

My grandmother's grandparents and their children were founders of Glen Cary Lutheran Church. My aunt had given me the names of my grandmother's cousins. I found most of my grandmother's family are buried in the cemetery by the church but not all.

Several years ago, I purchased a book published in 1977 by the Anoka County Historical Society entitled "Silent Cities: A Survey of Anoka County Minnesota Cemeteries." I had hoped to locate the burial sites of those not buried at Glen Cary. In particular, I was hoping to find the burial site of some of my relatives who died as children. It didn't seem to me to be very likely that these children were buried outside of Anoka County.

A distant cousin sent me copies of pages from a booklet commemorating the centennial of the founding of Glen Cary Lutheran Church. It included a comment concerning the deaths of four children of my grandmother's aunt. The year in which my grandmother was born, her father's sister lost four of her children within one week. They all died of black diphtheria according to the Glen Cary Lutheran Church booklet.

As a child I had vaccinations against diphtheria. It was not called black diphtheria so I wondered if black diphtheria was another disease. A bit of sleuthing later, I learned that people contracted diphtheria. Some survived and others died. It seems that people died of black diphtheria while others survived diphtheria.

JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), Vol. 79, No. 16, October 14, 1922, included an article by Malcolm Graham, MD and E. H. Golaz, BS entitled " Milk-Borne Diphtheria." I found a description of an advanced case of diphtheria in which the mucous membranes of the throat had changed from the normal red to a dirty, black appearance.

So now I think I have an idea why my family and others would say that a family member died of black diphtheria. But that still left me wondering where these four children were buried. I found several accounts of people recollecting that normal burials were not permitted as families were being quarantined.

One story I found talked about the quarantined family burying the dead in the middle of the night when other's in the community were asleep. Another story indicated that the undertaker dropped off a coffin and the family placed the body in the coffin. The undertaker removed the coffin. Whether the family knew what happened to their loved one or not I cannot say.

I wonder if my grandmother's cousins were buried somewhere on the family farm or secretly in the Glen Cary Cemetery. I probably won't find out the answer. But more importantly, I am not likely to ever know how my grandmother's aunt and uncle dealt with such a tremendous loss.

As a side note: I visited the cemetery with my father before we moved to California in 1960. I remember the cemetery surrounding the church. I was distinctly impressed with the graves that were outlined with stones or bricks because a number of the graves outlined were very small. Most of these graves were very near the church building.

I made a trip to the cemetery a few years ago with my sister. The church building was gone as a new much larger, more modern building was built nearby. I could not find those graves of the small children that I saw over forty years ago.

Blog Undergroing Maintenance

A friend was having a hard time finding my blog as she had forgotten the URL. She tried to find it through search on Google. After I got home, I tried to find my blog. Not having much success, I added words in my blog that would be unique, such as Luke Stoutenburg, Canada and my name. At last it appeared on the list of possible hits.

I posted a blog entry on March 1 and spent some time seeing if I could figure out how to make my blog more visible. Within a few days, I had talked with some people who know how to get the most out of social media like blogs.

Since that meeting, I have been making changes that hopefully will improve my visibility. I was advised to add a "my favorite links" area. I spent the next evening adding links to website that I frequently visit when I am doing my family history research.

That being mostly accomplished, I next tackled the next item suggested. Over the last several days, I have added labels to each of the entries in my blog. Then I added some clickable links within some entries. I will be monitoring to see if my blog becomes more visible soon.

I took this opportunity to make the font size consistent across all the entries so far. Now with a little tidying up left to do on my LinkedIn profile, I will be back with a new post by Monday evening.

Hooky and the Dutch Connection Part 2

I mentioned in Part 1 that I had found an article, "The Dutch Origin of Play Hookey" by John Ralph Sinnema printed in 1970 in the American Speech magazine. Unfortunately at the time I posted Part 1, I could only view the first page of the article. In order to view the remaining pages, I had to pay a fee.

I found that I could access the article at one of two Universities that were nearby. Since I had some other items I wanted to study at the Stanford University, I made a trip to Palo Alto. The delay in being able to post part 2 was worth it. I found the entire article to be most interesting.

Dr. Sinnema passed away in 1999. He was a professor and chairman of the German department at Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio. Although, Dr. Sinnema seems to have been well regarded, I checked on a few of his source citations before proceeding with part 2 of my blog on the word "hooky."

He makes a reference to the Anthology of New Netherland by Henry Cruse published in 1865 regarding a complaint in 1656 by Nicasius de Sille, attorney, concerning the boys playing hoeckje in the streets. I found confirmation of this on Page 286 of Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York: One Hundred and Forty-First Session, Vol. XXIX, No. 62 (Albany, NY: J. B. Lyon Company, 1918).

Hoeckje seems to be a diminutive of Hoeck or Hoek. Hoek was a geographical term, meaning a small cape, that the Dutch used and was Anglicized to Hook. It also meant corner. The boys playing hoeckje in 17th century New Amsterdam were playing a game like hide-and -seek. The difference from hide-and-seek being an object was hidden while the players (seekers) were awaiting around the corner rather than players hiding and one or more seekers trying to find them all.

Dr. Sinnema's article goes into detail about the how a hoekje spelen evolved from a game of hide-and-seek into play hooky.