The state of New York State historic markers in Greenwich

You've seen the blue & yellow roadside markers around the area. Greenwich even has a few brown & white ones. But we don't have very many.

The state started the historic marker program in 1926 to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Declaration of Independence. The program continued, with state funding, through 1939. This explains why so many of the markers relate to the American Revolution, like the 2 below.

Located on Dix Bridge Rd in Clarks Mills

 

 

There are other historical markers around the town, but they were not put up by the state. State funding was removed from the program, but it was not abandoned. The state just decided that the municipalities should foot the bill for these expensive roadside sentinels. 

At the corner of Woodlawn Ave & Fisher St near the school

The Washington County Historical Society put up some markers, like the 2 below.

Near Dix Bridge at Hudson's Crossing in Clarks Mills

George Washington marker on US Rte 4 just before County Rte 77

Then we have some other markers. Like the plaque in Battneville put up by the Ondawa-Cambridge chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). It is inserted into a stone wall & is nearly impossible to read from the road. The sign is easier to see, but it is still not a historic marker. Susan B. Anthony & her family need a proper marker at their former home.

"EARLY HOME OF A GREAT WOMAN" the plaque reads

Sign outside the house on Route 29 in the hamlet of Battenville

& what about those brown & white markers? Aside from being ugly, they are harder to read than the blue & yellow ones. Who put these up, & when?

Not a very descriptive marker- along US Rte 4 near the Washington marker

Located at the intersection of County Rte 77 & Lick Springs Rd

The long & short of it is that we could erect some more historic markers in the town without shelling out our hard earned cash. The William G. Pomeroy Foundation has an historic roadside marker grant program. Starting on August 1, 2013 the grant application will be available for our region (APHNYS Region 5). If we choose a site or 2, & provide all of the necessary paperwork, we could receive the funding.

Any ideas? I was thinking the Anthony home in Battenville, the Main St. former site of the Free Church, founded in 1937 by Hiram Corliss, or the site of Union Village Academy.

 

FDR and the SBA stamp

Many people don't realize that New York State is the only state in the union with a law that states that every municipality (village, town, city, borough, county) within the state must have an officially appointed public historian. It has been this way since 1919.*

I, myself, have been the officially appointed town historian for Greenwich since April 24, 2003 It was my 29th birthday, so it makes it pretty easy to remember the date.

One of the most famous public historians of the last 92 years was FDR. Yes, before he was our 32nd president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the appointed public historian for the town of Hyde Park, just north of Poughkeepsie, on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Mr. Roosevelt was appointed in 1926, and remained until he was elected president in 1932.^

The following presidential election year, FDR decided to revise the stamp design of a prominent former resident of Greenwich... Susan B. Anthony. The 1936, 50 cent, purple stamp with "Aunt Susan" in profile was originally designed without the dark purple oval.**
Click here http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/services/historian/srvfdr.html to see his sketch.

1936 USPS stamp honoring Susan B. Anthony

I think I might start collecting stamps... Here are a few more.

1848 was the year of the Seneca Falls Convention where Stanton demanded the right to vote



The leader of the American Woman Suffrage Association


* www.aphnys.org
^ http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/services/historian/srvfdr.html
** http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/deliveringhope/object_0_209045_15.html

Tuesday, November 8, 2011 is Election Day

Some of you may be familiar with a children's rhyme titled "The Lady With the Alligator Purse". What you may not realize is that the lady was Susan B. Anthony.

Here are the original lyrics to the rhyme/song...

Miss Lulu had a baby, she called him tiny Tim.
She put him in the bathtub, to see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water! He ate up all the soap!
He tried to swallow the bathtub, but it wouldn't go down his throat!!

Call for the doctor!
Call for the nurse!
Call for the lady with the alligator purse!

"Mumps!" said the doctor. 
"Measles!" said the nurse.
"VOTE!" said the lady with the alligator purse!

 75 years before Virginia Woolf called for a "Room of One's Own," Susan B. Anthony wrote "that there is no true freedom for woman without the possession of all her property rights." No freedom without a "purse of her own." 

For those of you who don't know, I carry various metal lunchboxes. They are my purses. My freedom.

My favorite "purse of my own"

I know it's local elections this year, but in many ways the local politicians are more important than the national ones. Make Susan, Mary, Elizabeth, Amelia, Sojourner, Mary Eliza, Lucretia, Lucy, Carrie, Alice, & Mathilda proud.

VOTE!

http://susanbanthonyhouse.org/index.php

http://mith.umd.edu/WomensStudies/ReadingRoom/History/Vote/75-suffragists.html

 

Susan B. will come home to Battenville for one night only...

I was going to write about something completely different tonight, but my love of all things Susan B. Anthony will usurp just about anything. (& I am completely bummed that I can't go!)

Actor, director, writer, and educator Sally Matson, will portray Susan B. Anthony at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at the Stoopes Hotel. The Stoopes Hotel is the old red building to the east of Susan B. Anthony's Childhood Home on Route 29 in Battenville. It is a great old building, recently restored. (Parking can be a problem so you may want to carpool & get there early.) The program is sponsored by the Washington County Historical Society and the NorthStar Historical Project.

I hope Claudia Blackler doesn't mind, but I am going to quote a bit from her article in The Greenwich Journal and Salem Press this week...

[Susan B. Anthony] used innovative methods to promote her message: the new platen jobber printer, the telegram, the typewriter, and her own newspaper. She and her colleagues worked to advance women. She put up the last necessary $2,000 from her own life insurance policy to be sure that women were admitted into the University of Rochester; she imagined what women could be. In 1905 she said, "I firmly believe that some day a woman will be elected President of the United States."^

Not in 2012 Susan. Sarah Palin just announced she will not run for president in 2012, and Michele Bachmann is currently tied for 5th place with Newt Gingrich.* Now back to Claudia...

Miss Anthony was an agent for the New York State Anti-Slavery Society and she worked in Kansas during the fight for abolition. As the foremost leader of the women's rights movement in the late 19th Century, she canvassed New York state petitioning for women's property rights and wage reform.

On behalf of woman suffrage, she spoke in one hundred cities a year, year after year, arranging all details by letter and telegram.^

I wanna go! Can someone record the performance for me? (I guess I'll stop whining now.)


^  Blackler, Claudia. "Susan B. Anthony- the Invincible: Famous Activist Will 'Come to Life' October 19." Greenwich Journal and Salem Press [Greenwich, NY] 6 October 2011, 1st edition: 1.

* http://www.mnstatenews.com/capitol-headlines/1-capitol/246-romney-leads-latest-poll-bachmann-falls-to-fifth.html



Song cycle of Susan B. to be performed

A few years ago, a local musician named Bob Warren was commissioned to write some music to commemorate one of Greenwich's most famous former residents... Susan B. Anthony. What Mr. Warren came up with was & is a beautiful, unpretentious song cycle that weaves Ms. Anthony's own words, her life & melodic phrasing into a wonderful tapestry. I have seen & heard it performed twice. I would have to say my favorite was the first time, along the Battenkill at the Greenwich Town Beach, a mile or two from where the Anthony family lived when they moved from North Adams, MA to Battenville in 1826.

c. 1979- Battenville home was built by Daniel Anthony in 1833

I am happy to announce that the song cycle Only the Message Mattered will be performed again this summer on the eastern shores of Lake George. The performance will take place on Thursday, August 4, 2011 from 6:00 to 8:30 pm at the Wiawaka Holiday House. There is a fee which includes dinner & the performance. The three signers will be Brittany Rivers, Barbara Skiff and Rebecca Rogers. Monica Roach will accompany on cello, and Warren will play piano.

For more information on this event visit http://www.wiawaka.org/

or call 877-468-8128.

To purchase songs from Only the Message Mattered visit Bob Warren's artist page on itunes

http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/bob-warren/id1499949

Susan B. On Trial

While I was sitting here re-reading a little article in NAHO published in the Spring of 1984, I realized that last week was the 138th anniversary of Susan B. Anthony's trial for illegal voting.

Susan B. (who lived with her family in Battenville & Center Falls here in the Town of Greenwich before becoming a teacher) decided to test the waters of the newly ratified 14th Amendment by voting in the interim elections of 1872. The 14th Amendment contains a citizenship clause that essentially overturned the Dred Scott decision of 1857 (which stated that slaves or decedents of slaves were not, nor could ever be citizens on the US). The citizenship clause says "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States." This amendment laid the groundwork for the 15th Amendment that states the right to vote cannot be denied based on race.

Nothing in the 14th or 15th Amendment said anything about sex. So, Anthony & some like-minded ladies of the suffrage movement decided to take a chance. They wanted to vote because they were citizens of the US. They were able to cast their ballots in the interim election of 1872, but were arrested. Would their votes be valid? A court would decide.

Susan B. Anthony in 1877

On June 17, 1873, after 2 days, Judge Ward Hunt instructed the jury to find Miss Anthony guilty. Judge Hunt's interpretation of the citizenship clause was that the right to vote was a State Constitutional issue & since NY did not allow women to vote, she could not vote. He fined her $100 which she refused to pay,  saying "May it please your Honor, I will never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty."

It would take another 44 years for New York (male) voters to grant equal suffrage to women. The nation would follow suit with the passage & ratification of the 19th Amendment (nicknamed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment) in 1920.


Little known fact- The last state to ratify the 19th Amendment was Mississippi in 1984!

Books to check out:
The Trial of Susan B. Anthony with an Introduction by Lynn Sherr- 9781591020998
An account of the proceedings on the trial of Susan B. Anthony at the Presidential election
in Nov. 1872- 9781425518288