Happy 234th!

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Now for Some History: 1927

I was recently in the Washington County municipal center and hanging on the wall in the county clerk’s office was a picture of the Washington County Board of Supervisors from 1926-1927.

Arthur Wyatt, who was the owner of the Huletts Hotel, was also Town Supervisor of Dresden during that time. So I took a quick snapshot. Mr. Wyatt is in the second row (behind those sitting) second from the right.

Click on the image above to see a full scale view.

Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha


A marble statute of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha in the the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.

June 22, 1980 was the day that Kateri Tekakwitha was beatified by Pope John Paul II, and as such she is referred to as Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha within the Roman Catholic Church.

Who was Kateri Tekakwitha and what is her historical significance? Here is a condensed version from online sources.

Kateri Tekakwitha was the daughter of a Mohawk chief, Kenneronkwa, and a Catholic Algonquin woman, Kahenta, and was born in the Mohawk fortress of Ossernenon near present-day Auriesville, NY. Her mother was baptized and educated by the French like many of the Abenaki but was captured there at the start of a war with the Iroquois and taken to Kenneronkwa’s homeland. When Kateri was four, smallpox swept through the tribe, and Tekakwitha was left with unsightly scars on her face and poor eyesight. This outbreak took the lives of both her parents, Kahenta (Flower of the Prairie) and Kenneronkwa (Beloved) and her brother. She was then adopted by her uncle, who was a chief of the Turtle Clan. As the adopted daughter of the chief, many young men sought her hand in marriage, in spite of her disfigured face. But she realized that this was only for political purposes and was disgusted by the idea of marriage. However, during this time she began taking an interest in Christianity. Her mother was Christian and had given Kateri a rosary but her uncle had taken it away and encouraged her not to become Christian. She was headstrong and decided that since she was cast away from Mohawk society, she would join another.

In 1666 Kateri’s clan settled on the north side of the Mohawk River, near what is now Fonda, NY. While living here, at the age of 20, Tekakwitha was baptized on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1676 by a Jesuit priest. At her baptism, she took the name “Kateri,” a Mohawk pronunciation of the French name “Catherine”. Tekakwitha literally means “she moves things.”

Unable to understand her zeal, members of the tribe often chastised her, which she took as a testament to her faith. Kateri exercised physical mortification as a route to sanctity. She would occasionally put thorns upon her mat and lie on them, all the while praying for the conversion and forgiveness of her kinsmen. Piercing the body to draw blood was a traditional practice of the Hurons, Iroquois as well as the Mohawks. Kateri believed that offering her blood was in imitation of Christ’s crucifixion. In this, Kateri was just continuing traditional tribal ways. She changed this practice to stepping on burning coals when her close friend, Marie Therese, and her confessor expressed their disapproval. Because she was persecuted by her Native American kin, which included threats to her life, she fled to an established community of Native American Christians in Kahnawake, Quebec, where she lived a life dedicated to prayer, penance, and care for the sick and aged. In 1679, she took a vow of chastity, as in the Catholic expression of consecrated virginity. A year later, on April 17, 1680, Kateri died at the age of 24. Her last words are said to be, “Jesus, I love You!”

Tradition holds Kateri’s scars vanished at the time of her death revealing a woman of immense beauty. It has been claimed that at her funeral many of the ill who attended were healed on that day. It is also held that she appeared to two different individuals in the weeks following her death.

The process for her canonization began in 1884. The first miracle attributed to her intercession was a case where bad facial ring worms were miraculously cured. She was declared Venerable by Pope Pius XII on January 3, 1943. She is the first Native American to be so honored in the Roman Catholic Church, and as such she holds a special place of devotion among the aborigines of North America. Devotion to Blessed Kateri is clearly manifest in at least three national shrines in the United States alone, including the National Kateri Shrine in Fonda, New York, the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York, and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

Bits of Everything

Ticonderoga Searching for Another Grocery Store

Denton Publications says Ti wants more than Wal-Mart.

Slew Of New Motor Vehicle Fees

WCBSTV tells us that NY is asking for more $ for just about everything.

Supernova Any Day Now?

I came across this interesting post which seems fascinating. Looks like a relatively nearby star is going to blow.

Man Drowns in Lake George

The Post Star reports on a Lake George drowning.

Every Wonder Where Our Alphabet Came From?

This is a neat graphic which shows how our alphabet came to be.

Now for Some History: 1900

This postcard was sent to me by Sue Foster Ives who found it had been saved all these years by Frances E. Hebert, daughter of Royden Barber. I’ve actually never seen this particular one before.

The house on the lower left appears to be Lazy Day cottage (formerly Stark’s). If you’re unfamiliar with this house, as you come out the front doors of the Casino, it would be the second house straight ahead on the right.

The pictures in the lower center and right seem familiar enough but I just can’t place them. If you think you know which houses these are, drop me a comment and I’ll post your thoughts.

Click on the postcard to see a larger view.

New Book About Local Archaeology


Dr. David Starbuck, has authored a new book, Excavating the Sutlers’ House: Artifacts of the British Armies in Fort Edward and Lake George.

University Press of New England has just published a new book which details the excavations of Dr. David Starbuck and his associates and colleagues.

It focuses on Rogers Island in Fort Edward, and Fort William Henry and the Lake George Battlefield Park in Lake George. It’s a great local history, which is very well done.

In 1996, on the East bank of the Hudson River, Starbuck’s team discovered the remarkable remains of a sutlers’ (or merchants’) house which had supplied goods to the British armies throughout the late 1750’s.

It retails for $24.95 and can be purchased from University of New England Press.

Bits of Everything

Police, Feds Raid Whitehall Business

The Post Star has an interesting story about a local store.

Bald Eagle Now Healthy, Takes Flight

The Adirondack Journal has a heartwarming story here.

Time Travel Possible Says Famed Astrophysicist

Keep you eyes out for time travelers but to understand the theory read here.

NY Giants to Return to Albany? Maybe

The NY Giants issued a press release regarding their summer camp in Albany and then quickly amended it. Train-a-Thought Blog explores it.

Lake George Shipwrecks Documentary Released

Pepe Productions, a Glens Falls, NY-based multi-media firm, and Bateaux Below, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation that studies Lake George, NY shipwrecks, have released their new DVD documentary: “Wooden Bones: The Sunken Fleet of 1758.” The 58 min. long DVD is the team’s second full-length documentary. The partnership’s first documentary, “The Lost Radeau: North America’s Oldest Intact Warship,” released in 2005, won three national awards for documentary and video excellence.

“Wooden Bones” examines the historical event at Lake George known as “The Sunken Fleet of 1758.” It was the autumn of 1758, three years into the French & Indian War (1755-1763). With winter approaching and no fort to protect their fleet, Fort William Henry had been destroyed the previous year, British forces at Lake George made a fateful decision. They deliberately sank much of their flotilla, over 260 warships, to protect their wooden vessels from their enemy, the French. The British put their watercraft into “cold storage” intending to raise them the following year. Many of these sunken vessels, however, were not retrieved in 1759 and today they offer unparalleled opportunities for scientific study.

“Wooden Bones: The Sunken Fleet of 1758” tells the story of this historical event and the modern-day investigation of these shipwrecks by Bateaux Below underwater archaeologists to better understand why the British decision to deliberately sink their Lake George squadron helped them win the French & Indian War.

Among the stories featured in the documentary are the archaeological study of the dozens of bateau wrecks found in Lake George, the strange story of a 1960 research submarine built to help photograph French & Indian War shipwrecks that was stolen and was mysteriously sunk in the lake, and an underwater archaeology project that mapped a submerged 1758-built military wharf, one of the best-preserved waterfront structures from the colonial era.

“Wooden Bones” examines interpretive programs that help tell the story of Lake George’s “Sunken Fleet of 1758″—school-conducted replica archaeology programs that built bateau watercraft, an underwater state park where scuba enthusiasts “Dive Into History,” and a cutting-edge endeavor where a science illustrator, a cell biologist, and an underwater archaeology team collaborated to create startling art that interpreted the micro-world of fauna inhabiting historic shipwrecks.

“Wooden Bones” is directed by Peter Pepe (Pepe Productions) and is written by underwater archaeologist Joseph W. Zarzynski (Bateaux Below, Inc.). John Whitesel created the animation and Kip Grant did the narration.

“Wooden Bones: The Sunken Fleet of 1758” DVD documentary is priced at $24.95. Part of the proceeds from its sale will go to Bateaux Below to support future underwater archaeology projects at Lake George. For more information including viewing the documentary trailer and how to order the DVD, consult the web site: www.woodenbones.com

Here’s the trailer:

Did You Know…

That Brigham Young and nine of his twenty-one wives visited the Trout Pavilion, the oldest hotel on Lake George. He signed the register on September 11, 1877 as “Brigham Young – Salt Lake City and “1st, Mrs.” “2nd, Mrs.” “3rd, Mrs.”, etc.

Here for the Last Time


The cottage “Adirondack”, one of the oldest cottages in Huletts, as seen the day before it was demolished last week.

Seen below as it stood in 1900, it existed before many other houses in Huletts were built.

The Civil War Ended There: Today

Today is April 9th, which is the anniversary of the surrender of the Confederate Army under Robert E. Lee to Union commander Ulysses S. Grant in 1865, effectively ending the Civil War. It is one of the most significant events in the history of our nation.

The Appomattox Court House National Historical Park is famous for containing the house of Wilmer McLean, where the surrender took place.

Huletts Current reader, Sam Knaus, recently visited the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park and forwarded me these pictures. Sam emailed me and said; “My boys and I had a great time looking around and taking pictures, so I thought I’d pass them along.”

So this is a perfect opportunity to make the first test of our new embedded slideshow feature. So without further delay, here are some beautiful pictures of of the McLean House at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. Thanks Sam!

[album: http://www.hulettscurrent.com/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/dm-albums.php?currdir=/wp-content/uploads/dm-albums/Appomattox/]

One of the nice things about Huletts is that we have many people who spend their “off-season” in many areas of the country. If you have pictures of unique places near where you spend your winter, please consider sharing them here.

Now for Some Baseball: 1889

Because today is Major League baseball’s opening day, I thought I would present the hand recorded score card from August 23, 1889 which shows Bolton and Sagamore losing to Pearl Point and Hundred Island in Lake George.

It looks like the final score was 8-7 and Bolton and Sagamore played with only 8 players. (They had no center fielder.)

The entire card is quite readable and demonstrates just how far back our national pastime truly goes.